Racial Genocide: Why Columbus Day Should not Be Celebrated

For years Americans have been celebrating Columbus Day. I grew up thinking he was a hero for discovering America. I was confused as to why instead of Columbus Day others celebrate indiginous people’s day. When I moved to out closer to the Morongo Indian rezervation I have became more knowledgable in the fact that as Americans we are not celibrating a hero but a man responsible for rasict genocide. So I did some research as to why we have a national holiday for a man who tortured, raped, murdered then robbed Native Americans of there home land. I wanted to find out the real Christopher Columbus. Why are we being taught songs glorifying this man and not being told the truth?

I for one agree with the indeginous people because I think Columbus is a fraud. He first came to Latin America in to find a new way to get to India and failed. He then landed in Latin America and knew it,and fooled his ship mates into thinking that they were in India.He would have a disaster on his hands, and he would most likely end up dead! Then went to the Native Americans who have already been living there and took their everything, their land, and then made them slaves! Unfortunately, being a slave was not the only horror that Native Americans had to deal with at the because of Columbus and his ship crew. Disease brought to the “new world” by Europeans killed many of the natives, lowering their numbers drastically.” He then elected himself ‘governor’ of the settlement their in which he did not respect or give any power to the monarchs in Spain. He put inhuman rules in place which ended up with him killing his own settlers. Queen Isabella, were so disgusted with Columbus that they Sent in a replacement for him and he came back to Spain in chains.

Giving this man a holiday is a joke! What did he do that was so heroic? Absolutely Nothing. Nothing worth applauding. We should save national holidays for people who actually deserve them. Christopher Columbus did actually navigate across the Atlantic Ocean, but he never made it to North America. You also can not discover a land where people have lived there for centuries, and he also murdered and made them slaves. Yes Columbus opened the world, connecting East and West forever, but the human suffering has real and lasting consequences for those he “discovered.” Are his achievements enough to justify having a national holiday in his honor, no. If Christopher Columbus was alive today, he would be put on trial for crimes against humanity. 

Works Cited

1. Delaney, R. (2005). Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem. Free Press.
2. Diamond, J. (1999). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W. W. Norton & Company.
3. Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States. Beacon Press.
4. Loewen, J. W. (1996). Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. The New Press.
5. Minnich, E. K. (1992). Transforming Knowledge. Temple University Press.
6. Morison, S. E. (1955). Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus. Little, Brown and Company.
7. Phillips, M. J. (2017). Truth of a Hopi: Stories Relating to the Origin, Myths, and Clan Histories of the Hopi. University of New Mexico Press.
8. Sale, K. (1991). The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy. Plume.
9. Stannard, D. E. (1993). American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. Oxford University Press.
10. Zinn, H. (1980). A People's History of the United States. HarperCollins.