Columbus Day
As every good schoolboy and schoolgirl learned, Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492, and today Oct. 13th (the second monday in October), is the day that we celebrate his journey. On that fateful day of his first landing on the island we now call Cuba, he stepped off the boat to be met by savages who gave him crudely tanned animal hides and misshapen beads in exchange for the great gift of civilization. Where would we be today if it weren’t for Columbus’s brave decision to stagger blindly across the ocean driven by stories of riches in India?
The myth of Columbus the Discoverer starts school children off with bad beginnings. You are taught very quickly who to respect (the white man), and who to disregard (the pitiful natives). Why, their presence on the continent was so inconsequential to society that we still use the word ‘discovery’ to describe what Columbus did. How do you discover something that is already inhabited by vast civilizations thousands of years old and supporting millions of people? From the beginning, the natives are stripped of civilization and humanity.
What was spoken of as discovery really amounted to an invasion, and the beginning of the end for the native peoples of the continent. It is not a thing to be celebrated. Fortunately, less and less emphasis has been placed on this holiday as the years go by. The holiday reached a peak in 1992, when the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in Central America. However, a large group of people came forward at the same time to protest the celebrations, pointing to the blatantly racist connotations. Since then, many have realized the error of the holiday, and have backed off celebrations.
Monday 13 Oct 2003 | Sam | Rants, Announcements
Well stated. Around these parts a lot of people celebrate indigenous peoples day. It’s a sort of remembrance of the brutal massacres that marked Columbus’s trek to America. There were speakers at school talking about how the invasion continues to this day with different names but with the same effect.