Columbus Day (1892- ) is a US holiday that celebrates October 12th 1492, the day Columbus landed in the Americas. Since 1937 it has been observed on the second Monday in October.
In the late 1700s, Columbus became a hero in the US when it won its independence from Britain. That was when it became common to name streets and towns after him. It was part of feeling American instead of British or English.
In 1892, it was first observed by US schoolchildren, on the 400th anniversary. That was the very same day they first said the Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag.
In 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt made it a US government holiday from coast to coast. Columbus was a huge hero to Italian Americans, part of his voter base.
In the late 1900s, when I went to US public schools, the three great heroes were Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves, George Washington, who freed the nation, and Christopher Columbus, who, we were informed, discovered America and proved the Earth was round. Each hero had his own holiday.
The myth: America and the roundness of the Earth were known long before Columbus, of course, but that was part of the myth, to make him seem greater than he was.
The man: Our teachers failed to inform us about the Taino genocide and how Columbus set in motion the enslavement of Africans and the destruction of the Americans, who not only lost nearly all their land, culture, and people, but even their English name: by the 1800s “Americans” no longer meant the indigenous people of the Americas but the White people of the US.
If you want to celebrate the discovery of the Americas, then you should celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day. It is on the same day and is already observed by some US cities. Palaeo-Indians, not Columbus, discovered America.
If you want to celebrate it as a great day in history, then consider what that day means:
Rigoberta Menchú, a Quiche Maya and Nobel Peace Prize winner:
“The celebration of Columbus is for us an insult. … Who would celebrate their own colonization?”
Russell Means, a Lakota Sioux activist:
“To indigenous people of this hemisphere, the celebration is the ultimate affirmation that since 1492, Western society has regarded us as expendable.”
Jimmie Durham, a Cherokee poet:
“Greenrock Woman was the name
Of that old lady who walked right up
And spat in Columbus’ face. We
Must remember that, and remember
Laughing Otter the Taino who tried to stop
Columbus and was taken away as a slave.
We never saw him again.“In school I learned of heroic discoveries
Made by liars and crooks. The courage
Of millions of sweet and true people
Was not commemorated.”
Joe Feagin, a White sociologist:
“Commemorative ceremonies on holidays, such as July 4th or Columbus day, honoring our history celebrate and sanitize a horrific past, thereby shaping contemporary communal memories by accenting the continuity of the present racial status quo with a positively portrayed racial past.”
Translation: it is a racist holiday! Worse than Hitler Day.
– Abagond, 2018.
See also:
- Columbus
- other holidays from White mythology:
- North America: a brief history
- Joe Feagin – White racial frame
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History is remembered by special events. Those events do not have to be earth shaking, really meaningful to later life or any of the many different reasons people give for such an event.
The Civil War was fought for many different reasons; however, the main thing to remember it was the beginning of a change of major social events. Very little changed shortly after the war ended.
It may be true about Columbus. He may not have been the first “White” person to discover America. The special thing about him is he convinced the leaders to pay for the ships and cost of a movement to sail west. His landing in the Americas started the mass movement that resulted in today.
That cannot be said by any of the many other individuals that followed.
Columbus may have been the cruelest individual that existed on the face of the earth; however, he did have the determination to seek the finances and the guts to try to sail into what was unknown waters. All that happened after that is so much minor history.
Why do we celebrate any individual is the question?
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No reasonable person will argue about the cruelty of individuals. All humans are equal opportunity creatures at brutality. A study of world history reveals such a sad history that unless one has their head in the sand it is impossible to pick one cruelty that is worse than another.
The horrible conditions of Slavery in the Americas for the 400 years is an example to hold up until one studies the history of all of the nations and Europe for sure. Tribal wars in Africa could be very bad, except there is no written history. China and Russia can produce a history of terror and death. World War II and it approximately 72 million deaths and untold misery is an example to review.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
World War II fatality statistics vary, with estimates of total deaths ranging from 50 million to more than 80 million. The higher figure of over 80 million includes deaths from war-related disease and famine. Civilians killed totalled 50 to 55 million, including 19 to 28 million from war-related disease and famine.
The strong will control the weak. Those with intelligence will control those with less intelligence. The strong will control the intelligent when the circumstances are correct. Someone is always controlling someone!
It is time to join and look to the future, the past is just too dark!
By the way, I have read of human sacrifices to the Gods, which were conducted by Native Americans and a large number of wars fought between the tribes. No written history!
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Many Italians are still big fans of Columbus Day; they even have parades. To honor both Italians and Natives, as well as everyone else, we could have an E Pluribus Unum Day.
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Hate to be that guy, but atrocities in the context of conquest are pretty normal. It’s a relatively new idea to dismiss someone as successful conqueror on the grounds that they committed atrocities in the act of Conquest. It used to be that you ONLY considered their success as a conqueror without much thought given to any atrocities that may have been committed in the process. Not sure when the shift happened, but if we’re honest about it all, he’s no different from the majority of History’s successful. Doesn’t excuse the heinous acts morally speaking, but it does offer a bit of context.
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Notice how Columbus became exonerated only after the United States won the war and making a tyrant a hero as American History does time and time again..
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Reblogged this on League of Bloggers For a Better World.
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No self-respecting, patriotic American would celebrate “Indigenous People’s Day”. They fought against this nation and lost. It would be like celebrating “Confederate Day”, “British Empire Day”, or “Central Powers Day”.
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We should cancel this day and scrub it off the calendar. The history books and teachers lied to school kind kids.
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Typo: School books and teachers lied to school kids.
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@Allen Shaw
“The Civil War was fought for many different reasons”
I’m curious, can you name three that are not directly related to slavery?
“…and the guts to try to sail into what was unknown waters”
Yeah, not so much. He was totally following in the path of others.
“By the way, I have read of human sacrifices to the Gods, which were conducted by Native Americans and a large number of wars fought between the tribes.”
I’ll keep that in mind if I ever need to argue against a national holiday celebrating proponents of human sacrifice.
No, but you and @louiejacuzzi are right about one thing, the World has been a more ignorant and cruel place than it is today. It’s unlikely that we would choose to “discover” and colonize Canada in today’s age. Unless, of course we choose to forget our history and decide to repeat it. I just don’t see why we can change our values but must hold on to the holidays, statues, school names, and everything else that honors the things that made sense to a more cruel and ignorant society. I think we should teach real history instead of mythology and give honors, like named holidays, to modern people that make sense to modern society. That way, we can work to educate the ignorant regarding the past and be inspired by those we honor.
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“Hate to be that guy, but atrocities in the context of conquest are pretty normal. It’s a relatively new idea to dismiss someone as successful conqueror on the grounds that they committed atrocities in the act of Conquest.” – louiejacuzzi
Apologist much! Question for you: Why do you feel as if a weaker group of people in terms of weaponry, should be conquered by another group of people that have manufactured superior weapons of war merely to conquest? Why should people be conquered at all?
Placed in an alternate context: Do you also feel as if its’ right for an Amerikan billionaire to grab a woman by her pu**y, simply because he is a white man and in all likelihood law enforcement will not bring charges against him? Think tRump!
Do you think it appears as if justice has been served when Bill Cosby, even though I’m not a fan of him, went to jail and a plethora of white men who have had the same type of accusation levied against them continue to walk the streets of Amerika?
Nope! “It’s not a relatively new idea to dismiss someone as successful conqueror.” Here is what Bartolome De Las Casas stated during the time of the atrocities: “What we committed in the Indies stands out among the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind and this trade [in Indian slaves] as one of the most unjust, evil, and cruel among them.”
https://www.azquotes.com/author/30091-Bartolome_de_las_Casas
Oh well, …I guess you are “that guy”, as you so studiously put it in your first sentence!
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“No reasonable person will argue about the cruelty of individuals. All humans are equal opportunity creatures at brutality.” – Allen Shaw
Where are the links to substantiate your claims?
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I’m curious to the reality that Arawaks made it up to the coast to where Pocahontas was. In many films it depicts John Smith encountering 1st nation populations that tried to communicate via Spanish at first ‘the New World’. In another film, ‘Last of the Mohicans’, the warrior tribe spoke French.
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I think Allen Shaw has a point. But to support the legacy of grief there are many reminders of the colonial past based on their own current experiences and barriers.
I think tribes of the Americas had multiple defections. With individual and or group migrations to where ever they tried to settle.
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@ Benjamin O
“No self-respecting, patriotic American would celebrate “Indigenous People’s Day”. They fought against this nation and lost. It would be like celebrating “Confederate Day”, “British Empire Day”, or “Central Powers Day”.”
There is a crucial difference, which is that the indigenous people of the Americas by and large only took up arms after they were ill-treated.
The truth is that many Native Americans first greeted the white Europeans peacefully. We have Columbus’s own words to tell us how kind, open, and generous the Taino were to him and his crew. It is also well known that the Pilgrims would not have survived their first winter in Massachusetts without the help of their Native neighbors.
The only reason “they fought against this nation and lost” is because instead of working in a spirit of cooperation and friendship, we lied to them, we stole their land, we enslaved them, we committed atrocities against them, we murdered them.
It is quite possible for a self-respecting, patriotic American to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day. For one thing, “American” and “indigenous person” are not mutually exclusive terms. Someone can be a self-respecting, patriotic American and also be Native. Many are military veterans.
But it is also possible for non-indigenous Americans to be self-respecting and patriotic and yet be honest with themselves about the history of this nation, to acknowledge wrong where it was done, and to honor the people who first came to this land.
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@ Allen Shaw
@ louiejacuzzi
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@ Open Minded Observer
“Yeah, not so much. He was totally following in the path of others.”
There’s scholarly speculation that at least some of the Native peoples in South America came over the ocean rather than the northern land bridge, in similar fashion as the Native Hawaiians did.
Seems a lot braver to me if someone travels over unknown waters with all of their family in that small boat taking the same risks.
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How could I have missed it all these years? Columbus’s name in Spanish is Colon. Colonization is derived from Columbus.
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Regardless of how you feel holidays aren’t always celebrations but records of history. There are holidays in foreign cultures and nation’s based on observance of this accordance. And no matter how or who both can be attributed together.
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Colony, Columbony, Colonies, Columbonies. I guess the Italian/Genoan way doesn’t have a good ring to it.
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@TeddyBearDaddy
“Regardless of how you feel holidays aren’t always celebrations but records of history. There are holidays in foreign cultures and nation’s based on observance of this accordance.”
I’ll admit ignorance, but are there holidays named after individuals that are intended to be solemn remembrances of a cruel and ignorant past? I know of memorial holidays for remembering the dead and victims of atrocities, etc… but to my knowledge, holidays named for people are intended to honor the named person. I still think it better to teach accurate history in schools and leave the honor of a named holiday to individuals more fitting in our time.
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I think there is a major difference between Warring over property disputes and so forth and slaughtering people that were kind to you.
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I do not believe there was any mass movement of white European or Asian people to the Americas until after Columbus. Please advise me of such a movement.
I cannot speak about slavery, because to me slavery did not end until 1955 or the Civil Right Bill. People living on the property of rich white people were controlled the same as if they were slaves, they just were not bought and sold. I suggest people study the Jim Crow period.
When Columbus sailed from Europe he followed the currents of the ocean. He had sufficient supplies to succeed. It may be true that he had heard of others who had gone to the Americas; however the only history available today and then are the Vikings who arrived in some northern portion of Canada or one of the Northern Islands. No mass movement followed. Columbus knew how to follow the currents back to Europe (The great circle)
It is probable that he realized he had not reached China because he studied the sky and would have realized where he was. The story of the treatment of Native American was not just Columbus. He made three trips each trip different and with different results. As I should have said, I do not really know when they decided to create Columbus Day, but the people thought it was appropriate. As history unfolds new days will replace the old to satisfy those who are living.
The point is not why do we do, but what are we going to do. I have not seen any movement yet that has succeeded in changing that name. So far the statues are still up!
We do not see much about Roman Empire anymore and soon the history of old Europe and Asia will be reduced to a few pages. Like Africa, which did not record their history, time gets reduced.
I would like to see the history of the native Americans that sailed from Africa. The problem, if they arrived, they did not return. Therefore they met Columbus and did not tell him they were from Africa if they even had such an idea. I believe you are speaking about the story of the great King who sailed away from Africa with many people. Because of the currents it is possible for many of those that sailed to have arrived; but no mass movement of “White Europeans” people occurred.
Since I was young I have been exposed to the “White Mans Burden” and other “statements” that white people were in charge. That period of time is passing away; however, only a foolish person will plant their head in the sand and try to say that period did not exist. People today say what they would not do, only because of those that came before them.
Think of the gun and gun powder! Who had them?
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@Abagond
I wanted to suggest a link to this:https://abagond.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/james-w-loewen-lies-my-teacher-told-me/
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The only good thing about Columbus Day is I can buy household goods on sale.
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@Solitaire – who cares why they fought us? We shouldn’t be celebrating a group of people that fought tooth and nail to prevent our nation’s expansion.
Human history is a story of competition for land and resources. Our ancestors were better at it than theirs. I feel no more sympathy for Amerindians than I do for the various German barbarians who got steamrolled by the Roman Empire.
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@ Ben O
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Today is Indigenous People Day. How do you discover something when there are already people dwelling there?
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Why do liberals always try to guilt trip white ppl over the ‘genocide’ of indigenous people? The Indigenous people of the Americas were basically wild animals. They would murder, cannibalize and torture random people for no reason at all. Especially the Iroquois and the Comanche who would torture prisoners for no reason. Don’t get me started on the aztecs.
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@ Andy
“They would murder, cannibalize and torture random people for no reason at all… torture prisoners for no reason.”
And how, exactly, is that behavior is different from the Spanish, English, Dutch and Portuguese invaders to the Americas?
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@ Andy
White people already had a continent of their own: Europe. They did not need three more. Especially when taking those continents required mass murder. The savagery of Comanches, Iroquois and Aztecs does not begin to match the savagery of White people. The Aztecs sacrificed maybe a million people. The Germans killed five times as many defenceless Jews. So if savagery is a disqualification, Whites should not even have Europe.
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Andy’s language and talking points are so ignorant and radical, right-wing. Tells you a lot about him. Shaking my head.
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@ Andy
“They would murder, cannibalize and torture random people for no reason at all. Especially the Iroquois and the Comanche who would torture prisoners for no reason. Don’t get me started on the aztecs.”
They actually did have reasons, based in their religious beliefs. That doesn’t make what they did okay, but perhaps you should read about what the Spanish church was doing with the Inquisition around the same time that the Spainards invaded the Americas.
Priests would torture prisoners for days on end, trying to get them to confess to spiritual crimes they had been accused of. They kept transcripts of the torture sessions. Some have been translated into English and published in anthologies. You could actually get one of those books and see for yourself what a torture session was like, how the prisoners would beg and scream.
Most prisoners ended up being burned alive at the stake, a very painful way to die. A few were given a mercy killing of being garroted before the fire was lit. All of them were killed for “crimes” against God, such as lighting candles on Friday evening or eating horsemeat or throwing a piece of dough into the fire when they made bread.
This was being done in the name of a savior who preached forgiveness, mercy, and loving thy enemy.
The atrocities that Christians committed during the Inquisition are inconsistent with the teachings of Christ, whereas the Aztec sacrifices at least made logical sense within their own religion.
That’s just the Spanish Inquisition. I’m not going to even get into the Inquisition in other countries, or the Protestant witchcraft trials which copied the torture techniques of the Inquisitors, or the long and bloody wars the Catholics and Protestants fought over religion — again, a religion that is supposed to be all about peace.
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@ Solitaire
Those are excellent points about the horrors of the Inquisition. Your point about ” a religion that is supposed to be all about peace” is well taken. The most agressive action recorded about the founder is overturning the tables of the money-changers in front of the Temple in Jerusalem.
To me, Andy’s error is in describing the indigenous people of the Americas as “basically wild animals”. To Andy and his fellow bigots, genocide against First Nations people was justified on those spurious grounds or at least no big deal.
His comment brings to mind how a sizeable minority of European captives of the French and Indian War (1756 to 1763) were adopted into the tribes. They were treated so well that many chose to stay with their adopted Indigenous families after the war ended rather than return to colonial Euro-American life.
So much for life among the “wild animals”.
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@ Andy
“Why do liberals always try to guilt trip white ppl over the ‘genocide’ of indigenous people? The Indigenous people of the Americas were basically wild animals. They would murder, cannibalize and torture random people for no reason at all. Especially the Iroquois and the Comanche who would torture prisoners for no reason. Don’t get me started on the aztecs.”
Why do bigots like yourself hide behind “White guilt” excuses instead of owning your vicious history? You guys are masterful at the art of deflection instead of being truthful about the brutal ways in which you’ve treated indigenous populations around the world. History doesn’t lie. Go read some books. I’m so sick of some of these folks who insist on being woefully ignorant when their savagery is well documented.
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@ abagond @ afrofem
You all should be grateful that the Aztecs were wiped out , otherwise you would be literally sacrificed on an altar with your heart torn out for the sun god today.
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@ Andy
Instead, I live in a country where:
◉ Black people are ritually sacrificed in films for the entertainment of White viewers.
◉ Black people are ritually sacrified in video games as training exercises for gun-toting White teenagers like Kyle Rittenhouse
◉ Black people are ritually sacrificed by the police who claim to see “Phantom Negro Weapons”.
Those same cops are given paid vacations, promotions and raises—-but no prison time at all.
◉ Black people are ritually sacrficed in areas that have high levels of air, water and soil pollution, food deserts, poor healthcare and underfunded education. When those same Black people develop chronic diseases and die young, they are blamed for the “bad choices” that led to their own demise.
It is a pretty neat trick to sacrifice people through direct violent means and indirect structural means and then claim they killed themselves. I think the Aztecs were amateurs in the human sacrifice department. European-descent people in the Americas have them beat by a country mile.
At least when Africans set up trading posts on the east coast of Mexico, the Aztecs, Olmecs, or Mayans did not attack them, set dogs on them or kill them for fun. They simply traded with them.
I will take the Aztec sun god any day over the the true god of European invaders: PROFIT.
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@ Andy
So the Navajo are supposed to be “grateful” they were conquered by the US instead of the Aztec Empire?
Also, when Black Lives Matter, even just the phrase, is seen as a threat to the social order, or when the rich successfully oppose proper health care for the poor, I think it is safe to say that the US is built on human sacrifice as much as the Aztec Empire was. Even if they do not literally rip your heart out.
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@ abagond @ afrofem
Have you ever heard the story of St. Jean De brebeuf?
He and a bunch of innocent Jesuits were captured and horrifically tortured to death by the Iroquois for no real reason . Same thing happened to John Ratcliffe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_Br%C3%A9beuf
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@ Dean
Do you know the history of the Yamasee War?
The Yamasee people collaborated with British colonists in South Carolina to raid other coastal tribes and some interior tribes. They traded captives from those raids for rum, cloth, guns and iron implements such as axes and cooking pots.
The people captured in the raids were sold in Charleston slave markets. The enslaved Native people were used on South Carolina plantations or shipped as far away as New England and the Caribbean.
Even acting as “allies” to the British did not keep the Yamasees safe. Many times, the Yamasees lost their own family members to British slavery. Carl Waldman, in his book The Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, describes the process of obtaining Yamasee slaves:
http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/2127
Between 1680 and 1710, British colonists enslaved more than 24,000 Native people. Too late the Yamasee realized the British were “neither good allies nor good trading partners”.
Christina Snyder, in her book Slavery in Indian Country: The Changing Face of Captivity in Early America, writes:
“From the Yamasee perspective, their Carolina allies had become greedy, irresponsible, and violent, thereby destroying the chains of obligation that once bound them as allies.”
One group of Yamasees, the Savannahs, were massacred by South Carolina colonists when they tried to break trade ties and move west of the Allegheny Mountains to escape the colonists.
“No real reason…” Maybe and maybe not. The Iroquois side of the story was not told in that Wikipedia article. For other groups like the Yamasees, Congarees, Santees, Sewees, Peedees, Apalachees and Waxhaws, the reasons were clear.
They’d had enough of European cheating, lying, enslavement and double dealing. Unfortunately they waited too long to act in a coordinated fashion against European invaders—–and paid the ultimate price.
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@ Andy
We do not know if Aztecs sold souvenirs at their human sacrifices, but we do know that White Americans did:
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