As Columbus day passes through another year, many people continue to wonder: why do we continue to celebrate Columbus?
If you are not up to date, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue to the United States in 1492 from Spain. But despite what you may have learned in third grade, Columbus did not discover the Americas. With over 10 million indigenous people in the Americas already, the infamous navigator was not the first person to step foot in America.
Columbus then traveled to modern-day Haiti where he arrogantly coined the indigenous people “Indians” because he thought he had found the western passage to India. Following his pompous voyage, he returned to Spain with the exciting news. King Ferdinand then supplied him with enough money for three more journeys.
When Columbus first arrived in Haiti, there were over five million members of the Taino tribe. A mere two years later, there were only two million. By the time he left 20 years later, there were only 100,000. By 1542, due to Columbus’s cohorts, there remained only 200 members of the Taino. Although, not all of the removed were murdered; over a million were taken as slaves and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean.
Columbus’s excursion became much worse than anticipated for the king. He directly disobeyed Ferdinand’s orders to “abstain from doing the inhabitants injury” by committing mass genocide of over half of the native indigenous peoples. Over 1,600 men and women were taken as sex slaves.
Even after Columbus’s death in 1506, his followers and other Spanish explorers continued to raid the Americas.
By 1900, only 5.2 million indigenous people remained in the United States.
Columbus’s atrocities also evidently led to a delay of civil rights for the indigenous people. They were not given the option for dual citizenship between their native tribes and the United States until 1924 in the Indian Citizen Act. They did not gain voting rights until 1965 — 94 years after African Americans and 45 years after women. And not until 1968 was the Indian Civil Rights Act enacted, giving them the right to free speech, a jury and protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
Columbus should not be celebrated, let alone given a day. For if we celebrate Columbus, we are celebrating a racist genocide, massive land robbery, barbaric slavery, serial rape and systemic torture.
Although many people have adopted Columbus day as “Indigenous People’s Day,” many people will not agree that we should also have a holiday off of work and school. Instead, we should all take a day off in November. Specifically, Election Day, the first Tuesday after Nov. 1.
Voter turnout is imperative to our democracy. Elected officials are reflections of who the United States people elect, and with voter turnout almost always under 45%, our elections do not reflect our democracy in the way that we intended.
By making Election Day a national holiday, eligible voters will feel more encouraged to vote, making our democracy a closer reflection of what our country truly believes.
We should stop celebrating the brute who dominated the indigenous people. Rather we should celebrate our democracy and the fact that each of us has the right to improve our country together.
By Matt Villanueva, Opinion Editor
villanjv18@bonaventure.edu
