Columbus Day for most people means a day off of school.
No mail service, humming the words to remember when Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and receiving snippy comments from people correcting you saying, “You know Christopher Columbus did not first find the Americas, right?"
The United States and several Latin American countries celebrate Columbus Day to recognize Christopher Columbus striking land in the Americas and the mixing of European and Native American Cultures. We think of Columbus Day as a heroic and triumphant day ever since 1970, when the holiday was legally made a national holiday.
But are we celebrating this national holiday for all the right reasons?
Columbus may not have even been the first to set foot on the Americas. Historians believe the Vikings were the first to step foot in America, specifically North America, led by Leif Eriksson. Besides possibly not being the first to see America, Columbus was not such a great person after all. Many accounts describe Columbus as a slave owner, rapist, murderer, and an exploiter.
In Columbus' diary, he wrote, "They should be good servants... I, our Lord being pleased, will take hence, at the time of my departure, six natives for your Highnesses."
Columbus would send Native Americans to Spain to make money since he only received a ten percent cut from the entirety of his discoveries on this new land. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella even told Columbus to stop sending slaves to Spain. They told Columbus to treat the locals with care. Columbus dismissed their orders and continued on anyway.
Once captured, Columbus converted all the Native Americans to Catholicism. After the King and Queen gave the Jews an ultimatum in 1492 to convert or leave, Columbus took it upon himself to continue the spread of his religion to this new region of the world. He tormented villages and communities, enforcing a new religion on the indigenous people, whom he called, “Indians."
The “Indians" never thought there was anything but their way of living until now. Pope Alexander VI declared the New World to be Spain's property, and with that, the Spanish explorers adopted The Requirement, which forced the natives to convert to Catholicism or be taken into slavery.
Columbus did not stop at enslavement and spreading beliefs, he made it his purpose to show his dominance and exploit the new people and new land of the region. Countless diary writings and stories explain Columbus killing natives and murdering entire villages. He would leave the deceased bodies in the villages, to make sure natives did not show anger or think of rising against him.
Columbus and his crew are said to have cut off the head of a native, after he had survived a previous attack, making sure their job was finished. Another depicts Columbus and his crew cutting off the hands of natives and tying them around their neck, sending them back to their villages.
Christopher Columbus and his crew were sent back and detained after 1500 when many people petitioned for his arrest after hearing of all the crimes and inhumane torture he had brought about to the natives.
So why do we still celebrate and commend Columbus for his doings? Seventeen states have opted to not observe Columbus Day as a national holiday. Arkansas, Hawaii, Florida, Wyoming, and California are just to name a few. For one, I believe celebrating this day is a thing of the past. We have the textual evidence to prove Columbus did in fact, rape, enslave and convert countless natives.
It is time to get rid of Columbus Day. No, not entirely, but to change the significance of the day to the remembrance of the indigenous people of that time. Columbus does not deserve a day for himself, the natives he murdered and tortured deserve the respect and recognition for what had happened.
