As is custom, when this "holiday" comes around, schools get the day off. Serra was no different and most of the editors staffed to the paper at the time referenced this scholastic absence as their most enjoyable part. Very similar to now, I had a moderately large mouth in high school and was much more akin to taking the side of the opposition or saying something different to get a rise out of people. All in all, I can't remember exactly what I said, but it was something along the lines of, "I actually don't like Columbus...The guy stumbles upon a habited land and calls it his own? Get less original."
I know, I know. Not exactly the opposing statement that raises pitch forks and torches, but most people skip out on stirring the proverbial pot and say they enjoy Columbus Day and I enjoyed taking the extra 30 seconds and speaking up for something else, whether or not I truly had a horse in the race. However, as time went on and more experiences were mentally encapsulated, I started to realize there was actually some weight to my statement.
This weight was evidenced by way of a few very important instances and (dare I say) a slight bit of maturation. Let's be honest and talk about the Christopher Columbus that teachers, family members, and friends don't want to talk about or, even worse, don't know anything about.
Yes, Columbus did travel to The Americas in 1492 and it is true that he went to spread the good word of Christianity. The Nina, The Pinta, and the Santa Maria hung their Spanish flags high and sailed across the crushingly great seas of the world. Oh, people love telling you how silly it was that he and his other voyagers mistook The Americas for India and dubbed the natives "Indians." It's all very cute because a lot of the natives knew very little about this religion known as Christianity and I know I was taught Columbus was so good to them because he took the wonderful time out of his day to teach them English. According to Social Studies classes and ignorant pride, Christopher Columbus was a great dude. We should have a holiday in his name. We should be so very happy he accidentally graced our lands some 500 years ago.
In all actuality, Columbus would be what modern day activists and politicians would refer to as a "tyrant." In four voyages to the "West Indies," Columbus was accused of forced labor, slavery, food deprivation, and, in one account,
Columbus once punished a man found guilty of stealing corn by having his ears and nose cut off and then selling him into slavery. Testimony recorded in the report claims that Columbus congratulated his brother Bartolomé on "defending the family" when the latter ordered a woman paraded naked through the streets and then had her tongue cut out for suggesting that Columbus was of lowly birth (Giles Tremlett (7 August 2006). "Lost document reveals Columbus as tyrant of the C. The Guardian (UK). Retrieved 16 May 2013.)
This is the guy we have a "holiday" for? I am not here to say the Americas never would have been found and people would not have been unjustifiably pillaged, raped, and murdered if Columbus never showed to the party. Unfortunately, Colonization proved these disgusting endeavors to be "the way of the Pilgrim" and to think these types of actions have not happened elsewhere and won't happen again would just be naive. It happened with Vikings, Romans, and damn near every modern day society. We live in a world where domination comes by way of fear and power. It is sad.
What is more sad, though, is that we have dedicated a holiday to this tyrannical suck bag. That does not need to happen. Do we have historians who look back on this 10 year beginning of Native American destruction and cry genocide? I am sure there are, but even priests along for the voyage looked back on his "Divine Right" of taking the Americas and surrounding islands:
"Endless testimonies...prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives... But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then... The admiral (Columbus), it is true, was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians (de las Casas, Bartolome (1971). History of the Indies. New York: Harper & Row.)
So, I hope I have not given you too much. I hope I do not appear to be sitting on some high chair of reason and everyone else is below me and the others who feel the same way I do. All I hope for is you can look past the day off or funny stories and look at what history truly gives you. Think of the Native American people and how they feel on this day. Because to Native Americans, this is not just another "holiday." Christopher Columbus was a dick-head...and there is no better way to say it. He sucks.
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