Why We Shouldn T Celebrate Columbus Day

For the past eighty years, Columbus Day has been a federal holiday celebrated on the second Monday of October. On that day, we celebrate the great and noble explorer, Christopher Columbus, and all of his epic voyages and groundbreaking discoveries. That's the narrative we mostly hear about. But is that really the truth? It appears as though the actual story of Christopher Columbus is far worse than the romanticized versions we often hear. The morality of Columbus' values, actions, and character are questionable. The things he did and his motives for doing so were quite atrocious. His actions, if done in this day and age, would have been totally and completely unacceptable. Columbus should be judged by today’s standards. Therefore, we should not continue to celebrate Columbus Day because of the materialistic motives of Christopher Columbus, the horrendous acts he carried out against the indigenous people, and the legitimacy of his discoveries. (Dobbs, 1997)

Contrary to popular belief, Christopher Columbus’ so-called discoveries were not fueled by motives like a desire to advance knowledge of an unknown part of the world. His motives were far more greedy. In an excerpt from Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies, Bartolome de Las Casas wrote:

Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number

of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim, which is to acquire gold, and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time and thus rise to a high estate disproportionate to their merits. It should be kept in mind that their insatiable greed and ambition, the greatest ever seen in the world, is the cause of their villainies.” (Las Casas, 1542)
In that excerpt, Las Casas discusses the motives behind the atrocities great explorers like Columbus did to the indigenous people they met on the lands they claimed to have discovered. In an article on History.com titled Columbus Controversy, the History.com staff wrote, “Like many European explorers, Columbus encountered many indigenous people throughout his voyages. Singularly focused on his mission to find riches and conquer new lands, Columbus and his teams treated the indigenous groups they came across as obstacles to their greater mission.” (History.com Staff, 2009) This supports the point that explorers, Columbus and several others, went on these voyages with their main goal strictly being to gain personal wealth. With that goal in mind, they wouldn’t let anyone get in their way, which led to the horrible treatment of the indigenous people. In some way, by celebrating Columbus Day, we aren’t just celebrating the supposed discoveries made by Christopher Columbus, we are also celebrating his shallow motives for doing so.

Columbus’ shallow, materialistic motives led to total disregard for the natives.

They weren’t people, but merely hurdles on his path to great fortune. In a letter to Queen Isabella of Spain, Columbus wrote:

I have seen only three sailors lands, without wishing to do harm, and a multitude of Indians fled before them. They have no arms, and are without warlike instincts; they all go naked, and are so timid that a thousand would not stand before three of our men. So that they are good to be ordered about, to work and sow, and do all that may be necessary, and to build towns, and they should be taught to go about clothed and adopt our customs. (Columbus,

1492)
That shows Columbus’ thought about the indigenous people was that they would be easily enslaved. In several of his letters, he blatantly discusses how the people he came into contact with on these islands would be ideal for enslavement. He, of course, ended up taking it upon himself to enslave those people. Columbus invaded the islands, captured large numbers of natives, crammed them on small ships, and took them back to Spain “where they were paraded naked through the streets,” and then they were eventually sold. (Weatherford, Examining the Reputation of Christopher Columbus) In the Caribbean itself, Columbus was the mastermind behind what some considered to be a genocide and mistreatment of the indigenous people on the islands. Columbus and his men were responsible for the death of half of the population (125,000 people), whether it was directly or indirectly, on the islands of the Bahamas in just two short years. They overworked the natives so much that some died from extreme exhaustion and others were pushed to their breaking point and ended up committing suicide. He tortured slaves with cruel punishments like burning a slave alive or sending attack dogs to slowly and painfully dismember those who attempted to escape the terrors of slavery. (Kasum, 2010) The heinous things done by Columbus in the Caribbean alone are enough to justify the argument that Columbus Day should no longer be celebrated.

It is only fair to judge Columbus by today’s standards. The fact that his actions are deplorable when compared to today’s standards of moral conduct means that it shouldn’t be a federal holiday. To have a federal holiday that celebrates someone like Christopher Columbus who has such a shameful record is totally absurd. The things done by Columbus should not be celebrated with a holiday. They are deeply horrifying mistakes from the past that should be frowned upon.

To say that Columbus discovered the West Indies is quite absurd. How could he have discovered all of these places if there were already people there when he found them? Doesn’t that mean that someone else must have legitimately discovered these islands if there were people already there? There were obviously people before Columbus who discovered and inhabited these places long before Columbus’ voyages. Apparently, “...some 145 million people lived in the hemisphere in 1492, with some 18 million of those north of Mexico.” (Dobbs, 1997) Saying that Columbus discovered these places implies that they were uninhabited when he explored them, which is known to be untrue.

In conclusion, Christopher Columbus should be judged by today’s standards. By doing so and looking at the things he has done, it is clear that we should no longer continue to celebrate Columbus Day. Christopher Columbus was a man who carried out horrendous acts against the indigenous people and was driven by shallow, materialistic motives. There is no reason to justify celebrating an explorer with arguably illegitimate discoveries and questionable morals. Today’s standards of moral conduct are important and we should have holidays that reflect and celebrate them.