Ally Action Project Week 17: Indigenous People's Day

This week started off with Columbus Day in the US, though some states and cities have changed to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day instead due to the atrocities that Christopher Columbus inflicted upon the native people he encountered. Columbus was the first European explorer to reach the Caribbean, Central, and South America in the 1490s. On his first day in Hispaniola, Columbus enslaved 6 native Taino people. Over the next 60 years the slave trade he started enslaved and killed all but a few hundred of an estimated 250,000 Taino people. Columbus was governor of what is now the Dominican Republic, where he stopped an uprising against him by ordering his soldiers to kill the natives. He had their dismembered bodies taken through the streets to deter further slave revolts. The Spanish monarchy, Isabella and Ferdinand, had Columbus detained in 1500 and sent back to Spain in chains due to his abuse of the native people in the West Indies. He was freed after 6 weeks, but was stripped of his governorship.

Leif Erikson was actually the first explorer to discover North America in 1001 and Christopher Columbus did have a contribution to opening up the Central and South America for subsequent explorers, but learning of his achievements and the truth about how he treated the natives he encountered is important. Columbus Day became a federal holiday in 1937 after pressure from Roman Catholic Italian Americans who wanted to add Catholic Italians into American history. The special interest groups who have created a mythology about Christopher Columbus did not expose his crimes and those who suffered, but instead lobbied for statues and incorrect learning in our school materials. This mirrors the revisionist history by special interest groups decades and even a century after the Civil War loss to attribute hero status to those that fought to protect slavery.

Rather than celebrate Columbus, we recommend educating yourself, donating, and volunteer with Teaching For Change to celebrate the real history of indigenous people.