Columbus Day or rather Indigenous Peoples Day has been celebrated since 1792. Most people look at this yearly event as a day to get out of school.
“It’s an event to get me out of school for a day,” Akram Qasen ‘28 says. This quote is showing how the younger generation knows about this celebration or rather a horrible reminder. People don’t really see what Columbus did on his way for power and fame because as we can look back on past conundrums of other eras too see what other people with power did to get there.
First let’s focus on the tribes he hurt. These were the list of tribes that were hurt: Tainos of the Greater Antilles, the Lucayans of the Bahamas, the Arawaks and Caribs of Trinidad, Tobago, and Barbados, and the Borequinos of Puerto Rico. All of these tribes were amazing at different things and Columbus tore that down.
While we can’t blame everything on Columbus, he opened up the gates for many explorers to come and do the same deeds he did himself. “Columbus opened up the gates for more explorers to come to the americas,” Mrs Culver 7th and 8th grade history teacher says.
Let’s look into how he got to where he was and it is simple Christopher took 3 boats to look for the Silk Road to go to India. So as soon as he saw land he thought it was India but he was indeed very wrong. When he arrived, he probably could tell he was in the wrong place but he had sailed for sixty one days too long to be proven wrong so he declared that the people here were Indians. He enslaved them and forced them to work on farms like we’ve all heard before. “They enslaved them because they saw them as items” Mrs Culver says. The Natives that were hurt and betrayed by him ,rightfully so. But we can’t just focus on how bad the situation was because America wouldn’t have been seen by Europeans for a while longer if Columbus didn’t find it. In fact the “Land Of The Free” wouldn’t be what it is now because George Washington (the person who founded the American government) would be dead in the time it would take people to find it. Of course maybe we could have gone down a different and better path with the indigenous people. Am I agreeing with Columbus? No, I’m horrified by his actions but he did make this economy we live in now the place it is whether good or bad. Because you, who are reading this, just take a moment of everything America founded. because most of that probably wouldn’t exist hamburgers, nope Charlie Nagreen (who ironically has the name green in his name) creating it in the eighteenth century in, you guessed it, America. Now the indigenous people meant much more than food and I wish I could go back and time and change it.
Now that we’ve set down the basics lets just take a moment to take Columbus’s life’s purpose and question that. Now we know that he created the American world but was he the first to discover it, I think not. Let’s start from the beginning. First, when humans were introduced to the world the people spread all across the world including America and when it was first found to our knowledge was at least thirteen thousand years ago (the time when the wooly mammoth was around). So first it was the people who discovered America and thrived there throughout history until Columbus came, well we can even question that. The next group of people to reach the Americas was the Vikings, more specifically Leif Erikson. While we don’t exactly know if he fought with the natives studies have seen that they most likely collided and fought but luckily it was indeed in America but a small group then on the Vikings left or died there. Leading us to Columbus who brang us here. So from all of these studies no era or group has not been aggressive towards the Native Americans including some of our population.
With all of this research, we can see clearly the history of what happened. Now through all of this chaos, the Native Americans have still been able to survive, in fact the nearest ones to Kansas are Kickapoo, Potawatomi, Sac and Fox. These areas are closed off for good reason. In all Columbus was not a good person but we still have to give him credit. America should get rid of Columbus Day and replace it with a more suiting name but now we already have. So most of this information is Columbus was a bully and the Native Americans deserve better.
