By Farrah White Butterfly
Next Monday marks Columbus Day – a day that celebrates the “discovery” of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492. It is celebrated on the second Monday of October, and it’s a federal holiday. But should Columbus Day really be celebrated at all?
This year, we don’t have school on Columbus Day, because it’s during our Fall Break, but some schools don’t have school on Columbus Day in order to celebrate it and honor him. Some schools in South Dakota don’t have school on Columbus Day but celebrate “Native American Day” instead.
Lincoln High Native American students Maria Tello & Marco Ramos think Columbus Day shouldn’t be celebrated. “He didn’t really discover America,” Tello said. He encountered Native Taino people who had been living here for thousands of years. How can you discover a place that already has people living on it?
“It’s against our culture for Natives to celebrate a holiday that was about killing our people,” Ramos said.
There are many reasons for why Columbus Day shouldn’t be celebrated. One reason is because Christopher Columbus didn’t actually discover America. There were millions of people already living in the Americas. But Columbus also tortured, mutilated, and killed the native people. He sold little girls as young as 9 years old into sexual slavery, and he gave the captured Taino women to his men to rape. He mutilated and cut off the native peoples’ hands if they didn’t collect enough gold for him. Are these the qualities of someone who should be celebrated?
The only other holiday we observe that honors an individual person is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We celebrate it because Dr. King stood for peace and justice for all people. Christopher Columbus accidentally “found” America, and then murdered the men, women, and children who welcomed him. We shouldn’t celebrate Columbus at all. Instead, we should be celebrating the people that survived the massacre that happened.
We should celebrate Native American Survival Day instead.
