Cruelties Columbus Day

Cruelties of Columbus Day

As a society, Americans are known for a rather distinct set of beliefs, including freedom, the pursuit of happiness, justice/fairness, individualism, and lastly patriotism. Therefore, it seems obvious that national American holidays, would align with these views. While most holidays do, such as Independence Day, President’s Day, and Veteran’s day, there is one, in particular, that goes against all of these beliefs: Columbus Day. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Americans take the second Monday of October off in celebration of Christopher Columbus and his alleged discovery of the New World. They celebrate what they believe is the birth and discovery story of the Americas. Therefore, many are surprised to learn who Columbus was and the cruelties of his actions and his pursuits. Columbus Day is meant to be a day celebrating our country’s origin, however not only did Christopher Columbus not discover America, but he didn’t provide any new or useful information to European explorers of the time. The one thing he did do, though, was promoting terrorism and genocide, which even to this day has had an impact on Americans. In other words,

The rights of individualism, justice, patriotism, and freedom were stripped from Native Americans, as a result of Christopher Columbus’ atrocities. As a nation the most patriotic we could get would be to accept the failings of our past, but not promote them, to accept that there was an America before there was Europeans on the continent. Rather than glorify the past failings and promote massacres, we could remove Columbus Day as a holiday and simply celebrate our heritage, whether it be good or bad. This would serve as a reminder that genocide can never happen