Columbus Day

Yes, I'm one of those lucky ones who gets to celebrate the raping and plundering of the Native American Indians also know as Columbus Day by taking the day off of work. I've often wondered why this continues to be an American federal legal holiday. I was taught in primary school that Columbus discovered America. Yet a National Geographic article I read proclaimed that the Vikings were most likely to discover America first. Also, a Geography class of mine held the theory that the Native American Indians came from Asia, migrating using wind currants to Polynesia then to Alaska and then further to continental North America. So didn’t they discover it first? I guess that debate will always continue. I don’t know either since I wasn’t there.

So off I went to do some Googlevesigations and found many articles on Columbus. One article I read by History Professor Thomas C. Tirado had this particularly disturbing information regarding the era of Columbus.

“Looking for “new worlds” was not one of the motivations of the Age of Discovery, but finding new routes to Old World marketplaces was. What a shock it was, therefore, to bump into a hitherto unknown world by accident. Even greater, though, was the shock of finding millions of PEOPLE. By chance the first natives that the Europeans encountered were among some of the most primitive societies in the world. Since all peoples of the world had been accounted for as having descended from the sons of Noah, these natives were considered subhuman. In fact, not until years later did the Vatican under Pope Paul II issued an Papal Encyclical positing that the natives were rational beings with a soul. The 1537 statement explained that the Indians descended from sinful Babylonians who, during the Great Flood, fell off a mountaintop, grabbed onto a tree limb, and floated to the New World.

More than a generation after the initial contact, when the Spaniards encountered the more sophisticated natives of terra firma, such as the Mayas, the Aztecs and the Incas, the earlier image of "barbarian" still persisted in their minds. The Europeans simply could not see the true native societies. Or, perhaps the Europeans did not want to see anything more than primitive societies. The European settlers cared little for the indigenous culture and saw only a labor force in the Indian population. Thus, the native cultures–as well as the native population–began to disappear as the invaders advanced into the hinterland. In what can only be described as one of the greatest Holocausts of all time, disease and other conquest- and invasion-related activities led to the destruction of tens of million of natives. Only today are we realizing the enormity of the loss of people and the inestimable loss of culture.”

Professor Tirado reminds us to place Columbus’s merits into the time in which they were achieved. Still, I have trouble celebrating this as I feel so much sadness for those that were lost and marginalized. I suppose that’s why I read so much about WWII because I feel this need to understand in order to prevent.

Yet also after reading about him, I found him to be an amazing man and I loved reading about his journeys. A privateer ship once burned his ship and he survived by swimming six miles to shore. He fancied in the delights of the most sought after aromatic delectable spices. He landed in the Bahamas surrendering to a soothing warm climate, lush vegetation, new plump juicy fruits, and some of the most beautiful aqua waters found on earth. I have to admit, there’s an explorer in all of us that can relate to that instinctual need to find out more. When I was little, long before “Raiders of the Lost Arc”, I wanted to be an archeologist. I would bury my secret treasures in the back yard and draw maps marking the treasure spot with a big ‘X’. Then I’d follow the map to ‘discover’ the treasure. I love to read books about exploration like ‘The Travels of William Bartram’, “My First Summer in the Sierras” by John Muir, as well as several books I have on climbing expeditions. When hiking I often write journal entries and take a snipit of a plant that I don’t recognize so I can look it up later. I have a box of rocks, bones, and shark’s teeth from my exploits. Even now when I walk in the woods I know I will probably never discover anything new but just knowing it’s new to me is enough. I’ve noticed that even when I walk the exact same trail twice it is never exactly the same.

I also found in my Googlevesigations that many Latin American countries celebrate this day as Dia de la Raza (Day of the Race), celebrating the Spanish heritage of the Latin American peoples. Some Americans celebrate Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day. I came to my own conclusion that the day can be both a celebration of culture and a memorial of loss. Maybe celebrating the heart of an explorer is not such a bad thing and in mind I’ll think of it as just that.