Arguments Against Columbus Day

In America many people are given the day off from work on the second Monday of each October for the national holiday known as Columbus Day. This day is set aside to celebrate a “great” explorer who “discovered” America. The controversy over this particular holiday and whether or not Columbus is someone worth celebrating has intensified in recent years. Our nation should not have a holiday that honors the heinous acts of a man who is responsible for the abuse and annihilation of entire cultures of innocent people. Doing so not only sends a message of acceptance of his actions, but also condones the atrocities he committed. The main opposition against Columbus Day is the way in which the explorer treated the Indigenous People upon his arrival

to the New World by forcing many to work as slaves, creating a reign of terror, and killing their entire civilizations. Columbus left behind a legacy that was filled with death and destruction, achievements that our nation should not showcase by having a holiday in his honor.
School children are taught at an early age that Columbus “discovered” America and created Western Civilization when he sailed the ocean blue in 1492.

Elementary textbooks depict him as a hero with pictures of Columbus looking high and mighty among the Indigenous People. A hero is defined as a person who is admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities, but in reality Columbus was anything but a hero. During Columbus's voyage to the New world, he transferred goods such as animals, technology, and even culture between the New World and Europe, this was known as the Columbian Exchange. In Michael S. Berliner article The Christopher Columbus Controversy he states that Columbus should be honored for bringing Western Culture into the New World and that the Columbian exchange had “brought enormous undreamed of benefits”(Berliner), but one of the biggest exchanges between Eeurope and the Nnew Wworld was slaves. Columbus had never even set foot on North America, he had landed in the Bahamas, the home to millions of natives who had already created a civilization of their own. Upon his arrival, Columbus saw the Indigenous People as tools he could use in order to build his empire and make a profit., Hhe uttered the menacing words “I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men and govern them as I please."(qtd in Loewen). One of the first atrocities that Columbus committed against the Indigenous People was opening the Atlantic Slave Trade, in which hundreds of Indians were

kidnapped, packed into ships and sent off to slavery in Spain. Columbus and his men also took control of entire Indian villages, enslaving the population of men, women and children.
The enslavement of Indians also held a sexual component, where Columbus would reward his men by allowing them to rape countless women and children, with ten year olds being particularly sought after.

The sex slave trade became an important part of business, in 1500 Columbus wrote a friend describing how “ a hundred castellanoes are easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls”(Zinn). In Jack Weatherford’s Examining the Reputation of Christopher Columbus, he describes how Columbus’s “marauding band hunted Indians for sport and profit- beating , raping, torturing, killing and then using the Indian bodies as food for their hunting dogs”(Weatherford, ). This statement highlights the lack of Columbus’ ethics and morals, revealing him as the monster he truly was. This is a man who should not be celebrated but who should be

condemned.
Enslavement was not the only violation the Indigenous people had to endure. Another atrocity attributed to Columbus was the reign of terror he began towards the Indigenous People on every island he set foot upon. In order to keep the natives under his control, Columbus used intimidation and harsh punishment for anyone who resisted his rule. Columbus would order the natives to search for gold, requiring each of them to collect a certain amount. If they failed to bring back what was demanded of them, they received a punishment of having their hands cut off. The cruelties and horrible actions that the native people suffered at the hands of Columbus and his men were so great, that entire villages would panic at the sight of a single Spaniard. In James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me, he describes how Columbus “used punishment by example. When an Indian committed even a minor offense, the Spanish cut off his ear or nose. Disfigured, the person was sent back to his village as living evidence of the brutality the Spaniards were capable of.” ( Loewen, ) This description of Columbus showcases his cruelty and merciless treatment towards a kind and welcoming people.
Not only was Columbus a vicious slave master and terrorizer, he was also a murderer. In Columbus’ quest for power and gold, he rid the world of entire civilizations of people. He showed no respect or mercy for the Indians or their culture, and instead "launched one of the greatest genocides in history" (Weatherford, ). He eradicated the entire population of 8,000,000 Haitians in the 50 years after landing there. Whole civilizations disappeared through his acts of cruelty, forced labor, and murder, people also died by suicide, exhaustion, disease, and infanticide (Loewen). Pedro de Cordoba, a missionary on Hispaniola during Columbus' reign of terror, wrote a letter to King Ferdinand in 1517, describing the horrific things he witnessed, " As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide. Occasionally a hundred have committed suicide. The Women, exhausted by labor, have shunned conception and childbirth.... many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort or have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such an oppressive slavery". History has preserved this eye witness account of Columbus’s malevolent actions and brutal conquests, and because of this, future generations are able to get the true picture of his failures.
Many people believe that Columbus Day should continue to be celebrated because …… (add in counter argument) Christopher Columbus had changed the world when he set out on a voyage in 1492. He brought acts of brutality, hatred, and evil to islands of people who were peaceful, kind, and generous. In many history books Columbus is treated as a “hero”, but heroes do not rape, pillage, and wipe out entire civilizations for greed, profit, and glory. Columbus Day is not a National Holiday that should be celebrated. We are taking a day off to remember a false memory of someone who “discovered” America, masking the true horror of Columbus’ destruction. In the U.S, we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr with a National holiday, honoring him for his morals and great achievements as he “struggled to lift the blinders of racial prejudice and to cut the remaining bonds of slavery in America” (Weatherford). These are the actions of a man worth celebrating, but to honor a man such as Columbus, who committed such acts of barbarism is not the message we should be sending to our schoolchildren. Columbus deserves no accolades, no celebration, no parades. The only history lesson we should all learn from Columbus is how NOT to treat another human being.