Most people have heard the story of Christopher Columbus, the brilliant explorer who sailed the ocean blue, discovered the Americas, and became a hero to all. That story, among others, has been layered with lies in an attempt to cover up a historical blemish. Christopher Columbus did not find America first, but when he did step foot in America, he caused harm. The U.S. should eliminate Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day once and for all, because Columbus’ actions shouldn’t continue to be recognized as worth honoring.
School children have been fed the narrative that Columbus discovered America, completely disregarding the existence of Natives in America before him. Generations of Indigenous people lived in the Americas far before recorded American history. In fact, Columbus never touched America’s coastline. He arrived in the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and smaller islands instead. After a failed attempt to establish settlement in Hispaniola, modern day Haiti and the Dominican Republic, he decided to retry with more of his crew and hundreds of enslaved indigenous people, according to History. Under Columbus’ power, indigenous people, or “Indians” as he called them, faced brutal torture and treatment. Vox also states how he put them to work in mines, sent slaves on ships across sea, forced conversion to Christianity, sold children to sexual slavery, and much more.
In addition to the enslavement of indigenous people and the adversity they faced at the hands of him and his men, Christopher Columbus nearly wiped out the Native American population by spreading new diseases to the New World. During the Columbian Exchange, which can’t be deemed as completely negative, various diseases such as measles, flu, and smallpox, traveled with imported goods. Since the indigenous people didn’t have immunity to the plagues, the plagues had widespread effects, according to The Washington Post.
While Christopher Columbus did help bridge the gap between the Old and New Worlds, the negative effects of his exploration proved to be far too devastating to ignore. Instead of celebrating him, the U.S should make Indigenous Peoples Day an official national holiday in memory of their suffering, and to instill hope in indigenous generations to come.
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