Screw Columbus Day

Look, some things are just ridiculous, and Columbus Day is right up there at the top. Columbus Day is a celebration of a guy that "discovered" two continents that were home to millions of people who already lived there, and had been there for about 14,000 years. That's bad enough, but of course there's more. The image above shows a glimpse into how the Spaniards under Columbus, under direction from Spain and the Catholic Church, treated the Indians where the Spaniards visited.

When Columbus got to the "new world," he first ran into the Arawak "Indians," who had no steel, greeted them with kindness and trade, and welcomed them to the new land. Columbus wrote in his log:

They...brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things...they willingly traded everything they owned...They do not bear arms, and do not know them. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane...They would make fine servants...With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

As soon as I arrived in the Indies...I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.

I guess it was too much trouble to, you know, ASK. Columbus needed financing for his voyages, and reported back to Spain exaggerated reports and promises of gold, and Spain was driven to get more gold at the time, in conjunction with the Catholic Church. So Spain equipped him with 13 ships, 1200 men, with the aim of acquiring slaves and gold. On this, Columbus wrote, "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold." Most of the slaves died in captivity. In Haiti, in a span of 2 years, half of the 250,000 native peoples there were dead from slavery, mutilation, murder, or suicide, as many killed their children to keep them from the Spaniards. The Indians tried to defend themselves, but they were no match militarily for the Spaniards, and they were hunted down with dogs and killed. Many records were kept by a young priest named Bartolome de las Casas, of the slaves put to work in mountain-high gold mines in Cuba:

Husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides...they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7,000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation...In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from a lack of milk...and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile...was depopulated...my eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write...

Neato. What a guy to celebrate every October, eh? As Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States writes, "When we read the history books given to children in the United States, it all starts with heroic adventure - there is no bloodshed - and Columbus Day is a celebration."

Well I for one am going to work my ass off on Columbus Day. He was a good nautical navigator and sailor - but that's pretty much it. F*ck Christopher Columbus. I'm tired of celebrating ignorance and rewritten history, and giving honor to low-life genocidal jackasses who committed mass crimes against humanity.

What holiday could we replace Columbus Day with? I have some ideas. I think we should replace Columbus Day with Hero's Day - A day where each person around the world picks a person they are inspired by, whether it be their parent, or a scientist, or a person they know in town, or someone famous, or Carl Sagan, Senator John Lewis, Einstein, Gandhi, a 9/11 firefighter, Jack Lambert, Eleanor Roosevelt, Chesty Puller, or whoever you're into. Then celebrate that and tell your friends and family why you like that person, share ideas, and keep us talking so we don't go back to butchering one another in 10, 20, or 30 years.