This could be done by any number of different religions of the different countries with more radical beliefs. From my perspective, where would we be today if he did not? Most likely the Americas and the islands surrounding it would not have been colonized during the time 1492 and would have likely been colonized later in time, where there would be more advanced weaponry and possibly a harsher rule brought to introduce and enforce the “proper” religion to the land. He was a European who came and discovered the new land. Rather we should celebrate our democracy and the fact that each of us has the right to improve our country together.Columbus should be glorified and the holiday should still be celebrated. We should stop celebrating the brute who dominated the indigenous people. 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.īy 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. Voter turnout is imperative to our democracy. Specifically, Election Day, the first Tuesday after Nov. Instead, we should all take a day off in November. For if we celebrate Columbus, we are celebrating a racist genocide, massive land robbery, barbaric slavery, serial rape and systemic torture.Īlthough 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. 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.Ĭolumbus should not be celebrated, let alone given a day. They did not gain voting rights until 1965 - 94 years after African Americans and 45 years after women. They were not given the option for dual citizenship between their native tribes and the United States until 1924 in the Indian Citizen Act. Over 1,600 men and women were taken as sex slaves.Įven after Columbus’s death in 1506, his followers and other Spanish explorers continued to raid the Americas.īy 1900, only 5.2 million indigenous people remained in the United States.Ĭolumbus’s atrocities also evidently led to a delay of civil rights for the indigenous people. 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. Although, not all of the removed were murdered over a million were taken as slaves and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean.Ĭolumbus’s excursion became much worse than anticipated for the king. By 1542, due to Columbus’s cohorts, there remained only 200 members of the Taino. By the time he left 20 years later, there were only 100,000. A mere two years later, there were only two million. When Columbus first arrived in Haiti, there were over five million members of the Taino tribe. King Ferdinand then supplied him with enough money for three more journeys. Following his pompous voyage, he returned to Spain with the exciting news. With over 10 million indigenous people in the Americas already, the infamous navigator was not the first person to step foot in America.Ĭolumbus 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. But despite what you may have learned in third grade, Columbus did not discover the Americas. If you are not up to date, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue to the United States in 1492 from Spain. As Columbus day passes through another year, many people continue to wonder: why do we continue to celebrate Columbus?
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