So, every year, I’ve been trying to post about this awful fucking day in the hopes that I can educate a few more people about the real Christopher Columbus. Not only should this man not be celebrated for accidentally stumbling into countries already inhabited by millions of people, but he should be scorned for the genocide that he started. The slaughtering of Natives is by far the largest genocide in human history but rarely do we treat it as such. I mean, seriously, look at this list of genocides in recorded human history from Wikipedia (I know, not always the best resource but it’s literally one of the only places that actually lists the murder of possibly 100 million people as an actual genocide. That’s how fucked our history is…):
When your list goes from 100 million down to 6-7 million, which is a horrific number and I’m not comparing mass murder events in any way other than to show context, that shows you just how fucking staggering the number of Natives that were viciously slain truly is. Just think about those numbers for a minute and try to think about how you might think of this shit differently if those were your ancestors. And think about how you were taught about this in school. I highly doubt the word “genocide” was ever mentioned in relation to the “discovery” of America.
So, today I’d like to present a few facts about our somehow still esteemed “discover-er of America;” and also see how many paragraphs I can start with the word “so,” apparently. Avid blog readers may have already seen most of this but since I post some version of this every year and I’m too lazy to find all new terrible Columbus facts, you’ll have to bear with me. It’s psychologically draining; and as I wrote about IN MY LAST POST, I’ve already been dealing with anxiety and panic and combing through the details of such horrific events is not likely to improve my state of mind.
So, for those of you who don’t know, I am half Native American. What tribe, you may ask? And, even if you didn’t, I’m going to tell you. Stockbridge Munsee. They are a tiny little tribe that broke off from the Mahicans, moved West and settled in Wisconsin (of all places) when some of the local tribes there took them in. Yes, get all your “last of the Mohicans” jokes out now. That’s what my wife would be doing right now if she was reading this. She says it never gets old. I might disagree. Though being compared to anything with Daniel Day-Lewis is pretty high praise, so I guess I’ll take it. And here’s where you can tell me that you’re 1/64th Cherokee or Lakota or whatever because that’s what everyone does when I tell them I’m half Native. Does your 1/64th hate the other 63/64ths and blame it for the near extinction of an entire race of people? Does your 1/64th cringe when Disney’s Peter Pan comes on? Do you have no idea what I’m talking about or why that movie is racist as fuck? If you have a second and want to see some good ol’ fashioned family racism, HERE IS A LINK TO THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE. Not that that is the only movie that irks me by casting Natives in a bad light, there’s a great many, but I point to that one because it’s a good example of how we’re casually teaching our kids to be racist towards Natives. Fun stuff…
So, I have a complicated relationship with my heritage. It comes from my dad’s side and I haven’t seen him since I was like 5 or 6 years old. Old enough to remember, not old enough to have known much about him or his past. And, seeing as I was too young to really get to learn about my ancestors on his side, I’m left feeling little connection to it. But it’s there. We never really did anything particularly “Native American” apart from visit a reservation a couple times. My sister and I would get glares because we were half-breeds. Apparently, to some, being half-blooded is worse than being white. But, that was about it. I don’t remember meeting any of his actual family (he was adopted) or ever celebrating any Native holidays. I never really thought much of it until I started learning about the history of America. Until then, it was just the reason my sister and I would get tanner than the other kids every summer. But, once you start to read about how your ancestors are violent savages who needed to be civilized via Christianity or murdered, things change. How would you feel if you were told that your great-great-great grandma had to be raped and murdered for the good of the land? Or that your great-great-great-great grandfather was subhuman and merely a scourge to this burgeoning new country? It makes you rethink things and distrust the telling of this country’s history from a young age. To me, the “violent savages” were the ones invading, murdering indiscriminately and taking the land from the indigenous people. The “scourge” was nearly killing off an entire race of people. It’s funny how people seemingly always like to describe their enemies in terms that would perfectly describe themselves. Because of this, I knew I had to take everything I learned in school with a grain of salt; especially with regards to the “discovery” of America. So, I started learning more about this Columbus fellow everyone seemed so high on and I couldn’t square what I was learning with how he’s regarded. It never made sense.
So (I wonder if I can start every paragraph with “so?”), every year on this day I spend a large portion of said day being aggravated that this is still a holiday. I do appreciate that in the last few years some states have started celebrating Indigenous People’s Day instead. Both my home state of Wisconsin and my newly adopted home state of North Carolina do, which makes me happy. But, to the thirty something states that still celebrate one of the worst explorers and humans in history, fuck you. Why are we still honoring a man who tried to find a faster route to “the Indies,” failed miserably, then ended up “discovering” lands where millions of people already lived and immediately began to murder and enslave those people? If that sounds fucked up, it’s because it is.
So (still going strong so far, though this one’s use is debatable), when Columbus made it to the Americas, his first thought, via his own journal entry, was that these people are some of the kindest, most welcoming people. They immediately took him and his crew in, fed them, helped them fix up their ships and gave them a place to stay. He also wrote that he thought they would be easily conquered, since they had no weapons or knowledge of fighting, and that they would make good slaves. Under his supervision and at his direction, Natives, including children, were kidnapped, beaten, raped, tortured and sold off to the highest bidder. Columbus once sent a “gift” of 500 slaves back to Spain, with hundreds dying during the journey. Spain, hoping for the gold, silver and jewels that Columbus had promised them, got…slaves, which they promptly refused because they thought Columbus was expanding the Spanish empire and creating new Spanish citizens, not new Spanish slaves. They were horrified to learn he was murdering, enslaving and chopping off the limbs of Natives because they weren’t bringing him enough gold (true story. Columbus was promised 10% of all the gold he found, so he pushed the Natives to find more at all costs, including, literally, life and limb). Columbus and his crew would round up girls as young as 9 or 10 and sell them as sex slaves. Columbus was eventually arrested and stripped of his governorship of this new land once they found out how he was running these new “colonies.” Here’s a written account of what one man (Bartolomé de las Casas) witnessed and participated in during his time in Columbus’s Hispaniola (warning: graphic violence):
“They [Spanish explorers] forced their way into native settlements, slaughtering everyone they found there, including small children, old men, pregnant women, and even women who had just given birth. They hacked them to pieces, slicing open their bellies with their swords as though they were so many sheep herded into a pen. They even laid wagers on whether they could slice a man in two at a stroke, or cut an individual’s head from his body, or disembowel him with a single blow of their axes. They grabbed suckling infants by the feet and, ripping them from their mothers’ breasts, dashed them headlong against the rocks. Others, laughing and joking all the while, threw them over their shoulders, shouting, ‘Wriggle, you little perisher.’
That’s the type of shit that he encouraged during his time here. Columbus himself was personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Natives, including the at least 50,000 that chose to kill themselves rather than be subject to his torture and slavery. The total number of Natives murdered in the Americas is hard to pin down, but I’ve seen estimates that range from 20 million up to 100 million with most falling in the 50 or so million range. The first major recordable change in greenhouse gas emissions was in the early 1600’s and SCIENTISTS NOW BELIEVE THIS IS DUE TO THE GENOCIDE OF NATIVE AMERICANS. Apparently all we need to do to address global warming is murder 50 million people. Well, since population levels are so much higher these days, better make it 150-200 million just to be safe. Kidding (kind of), of course, but that’s a staggering fact to think about when we are “celebrating” this day. Obviously, not all those deaths are directly attributable to Columbus, but, as every child argues when they get in trouble, he started it.
So, again, I’ll ask: why do we still celebrate this man in most states? America is, or should be, better than this. Even most history books start with the “discovery” of America and go from there. If you google “worst genocides in history” very rarely is the Native American genocide even listed. Native Americans not only had their ancestors wiped from history but also their history itself. The tale told in many schools isn’t even remotely close to the whole story. But, god forbid we ever tell accurate account of history in this country. That’ll never happen because people, mostly white people, are terrified of it. I get that history is written by the victors, which in this case are the white people, but goddammit, can we at least stop honoring a war criminal who started the largest, by far, genocide in human history; you know, the one that happened right here in America?
So, I ask you to ponder all this for a few minutes while you go about your day. I know most of you aren’t Native because, you know, most of the Natives were brutally murdered hundreds of years ago (and some not so long ago, at least not as long ago as you’d think), and this might not be a day you give much thought to, but I hope this at least gives you a bit of pause. I also hope this encourages some people to look into this country’s history a little bit more honestly and fully. Please take some time to read some articles (not from Facebook, please…) about what really happened and who Columbus truly was. And, if you still feel like celebrating that man afterwards, then I say…what the fuck is wrong with you?
