RACHAEL DEVINNEY
THE SIGNAL
As I acknowledged Columbus Day earlier this month, it made me wonder, why do we celebrate Columbus Day?
Are we celebrating his discovery of America? We know that “in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” but Columbus was not sailing to discover America; he was sailing to find a faster trade route to the Indies for the Spanish crown.
In fact, Columbus never set foot in North America, which had in fact already been “discovered” by our nomadic ancestors when they crossed the Bering Land Bridge, or Beringa, into North America between 22,000 and 13,000 years ago.
From there, they spread throughout what is now the United States of America, into South America. There is also new evidence that our ancestors spread throughout the Americas faster than we thought by means of coastal southern migration, rather than migrating directly to North America. These are the true Native Americans, the true “discoverers” of the Americas.
So if we are not celebrating Columbus’ discovery of the United States, are we celebrating the man who was Christopher Columbus? I find it hard to believe that we, as a people, choose to celebrate the life of a man who brought the African slave trade to the New World and then forced Native Americans into slavery.
Even the Spanish Crown disapproved of how Columbus treated Native Americans, arresting him after one of his return voyages. Although they would ultimately free him, it was clear that Isabella and Ferdinand did not agree with his brutal treatment of the indigenous peoples of the lands he was invading.
Why would we want to teach our children to celebrate the life of such a man?
It also cannot be denied that Columbus’ “discovery” of the New World led to the decimation of the Native Americans who lived in both North and South America. His discoveries lead to countless others settling in the New World and following the example he set in South America. He brought horrible treatment to the Native Americans, as well as diseases like smallpox and influenza, that wiped out thousands, possibly even millions, of natives.
I am not saying that we should forget about Columbus and pretend that he didn’t exist. We cannot run from our own horrible involvement in the slave trade, nor can we run from the genocide of the Native American Indians that our colonization caused through disease and violence.
We can, however, learn the real history of our great country so we don’t commit the same mistakes. We cannot change what happened, but we can learn from it.
Rather than celebrating Columbus, we can celebrate the lives of the millions who died in order for us to live in the United States of America now. Already there are states, including Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon and South Dakota, which have changed the day’s name from Columbus Day to something honoring those who died.
South Dakota has celebrated the second Monday in October as “Native American Day” since 1989.
Since 2002, Venezuela has celebrated the day as Día de la Resistencia Indígena, or Day of Indigenous Resistance, to celebrate the native people’s resistance to Europeans.
And in the Bahamas, where Columbus actually landed, the day is celebrated as Discovery Day. This, or even Explorer’s Day, would be a wonderful change from Columbus Day. Yes, let’s celebrate Discovery Day and all of the people throughout history who have “discovered” different areas of the world — a list that would include Christopher Columbus.
Columbus’ exploration did lead to more people coming to the Americas, and did contribute to the navigation of the ocean between the two continents. He did provide new information to the field of exploration, but so did many other great men and women.
