When two people start out at opposite ends of the forest and traipse around until the come face-to-face, it is only a matter of perspective as for who discovered whom. Even as Christopher Columbus sailed home to Europe to proclaim his discovery of the New World to Queen Isabella of Spain, the indigenous people whom he met spread the work of their discovery of some really weird people who talked gibberish and wore metal and leather clothes. The chroniclers of the times were far more prolific in the written languages of Europe than were the indigenous peoples who resided on the lands that were summarily claimed by European Crowns.
This is not
a treatise on the voyages of sailing men nor of the facts of exactly where they
landed, but is one of how one group of men treated others groups of men to
reach the conditions of today. One must keep in mind that the Columbus
explorations were entirely economic and he expected to have high position
bestowed on him and be paid profits and royalties for his efforts. Everything
else paled in comparison.
Columbus and
all his successors viewed the resources of this new continent as belonging to
them and their benefactors. Even the people were considered as property of the
Crown to be bought and sold for their ability to provide labor.
The very
idea that Columbus discovered ANYTHING is negated by the fact that he was met
by people who had lived there for hundreds if not thousands of years. Columbus
merely tripped over an island on his way elsewhere. His voyages were Johnny-come-lately
events at best. The ancestors of the indigenous either sailed across the
Atlantic from most likely Africa; or sailed across the Pacific from Asia or any
of the rim regions; or walked up the eastern Asian coast into (now) Russia and
across the Bering Straits, across Alaska and Canada to the American Northwest,
all the way across the continent and then across the Gulf of Mexico, et al, to
(now) Cuba, The Bahamas and Santo Domingo, et al. Whichever route(s) they took,
they did it long before Columbus or his parents and grandparents were born. His
glory is unwarranted and a total historical fabrication from the first American
History textbook published here to honor that man.
His holiday
is a travesty to all the millions of people who were subjugated, tortured,
enslaved and killed by these explorers and their followers. In these recent
days of heightened social awareness we have reconsidered the esteemed
recognition of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Battle Flag
and their place in contemporary public display. The Columbus Day holiday needs
to be deprecated and replaced with something more universal for this nation of
America. Suggestions welcome.
There will be stubbornly defensive support for keeping the holiday just as it is. But there are any number of historical figures who would not be welcome as a hero of the American people. We don't glorify them either.
There will be stubbornly defensive support for keeping the holiday just as it is. But there are any number of historical figures who would not be welcome as a hero of the American people. We don't glorify them either.
