What should be done about Columbus Day?

[Gringo]

Poll question: What should be done about Columbus Day?

Considering that Christopher Columbus was pretty much an all-around POS, what should be done about the holiday?*





*"They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and
many other things which they exchanged for the glass beads and
hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned....
They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features....
They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a
sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of
ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane....
They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could
subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."

The Indians, Columbus reported, "are so naive and so free with
their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would
believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say
no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone...." He
concluded his report by asking for a little help from their
Majesties, and in return he would bring them from his next voyage
"as much gold as they need ... and as many slaves as they ask."
He was full of religious talk: "Thus the eternal God, our Lord,
gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent
impossibilities."


Then, on October 12, a sailor called Rodrigo saw the early morning moon shining on white sands, and cried out. It was an island in the Bahamas, the Caribbean sea. The first man to sight land was supposed to get a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis for life, but Rodrigo never got it. Columbus claimed he had seen a light the evening before. He got the reward.


-- Howard Zinn, "A People's History of the United States," from chp1


There's much more fascinating stuff in this book. If you haven't read it, you really should...

[La_Serpiente]

1. We don't celebrate Columbus Day here

We don't celebrate Columbus Day here in Hawaii...I mean, it's on the calendar, but the schools are still open and so are the state offices.

[7th_Sephiroth]

10. get rid of it

postal employees have too manny days off

[greatauntoftriplets]

2. Just another work day.

[JohnKleeb]

3. Its a great book umm what should be done about it

Colmumbus seems to be more like Columb-ASS (joke) (serious) he seems like a terrible guy.

[Terwilliger]

4. Change it into Native American Remembrance day

in fact, make it the Monday, and make the weekend a celebration of Native American values and spiritual traditions.

[LastKnight]

6. in the spirit of political correct-ness

i live in SD(yes, a liberal in SD, quite the rarity)... ok back on subject... here it IS called 'native american day'... so... uh, i dont really have a point... but. yea, i think were the only state that calls it that because of our large-ish native american population

-LK

[Terwilliger]

7. make it national

and Free Leonard!!!

[JohnKleeb]

9. Terwill

Great idea honestly. :thumbsup: honestly thats not a bad idea.

[Jason600]

12. sounds good

Can't honestly say I totally dislike Columbus, since if he did not do what he did, none of us would be alive. But, beyond the basics, mix it as discovery/native american holiday. It probably would be the least all of us foreigners could do. Sounds fun

[Book Lover]

23. Yes!

A national day of celebration of First Peoples' cultures would be wonderful. We Italians can celebrate our heritage in June with Dante's birthday, or in April for Da Vinci's...

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. When is Indian Resistance Day this year? Is it Monday?

Chavez rocks.

If we all send him $20 could he afford enough tanks to invade and help us get regime change?

[Maple]

8. Since Columbus didn't discover America

celebrate Thanksgiving on Monday with us Canucks.

We had Vikings here hundreds of years before Columbus.

And then of course there are the Chinese......

And Celts.....

And it wasn't even lost in the first place!

[Throckmorton]

41. Lets call it Southern European Arrival Day,

during which we over-analyze the motives of a 15th century man and his associates using 21st century ethical and moral metrics.

[MercutioATC]

11. I don't care what you call it, but I get double time on federal holidays..

...call it "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts Day", but federal holidays are gooooood.

[RobinA]

13. Other

Forget it until every problem of greater significance is solved. When we reach that point, we can have a big national referendum. Until then.....

[MercutioATC]

29. I can live with that..

.

[pandatimothy]

14. They got a jump on CD early at the Unaka/Nolichuky RD visitors center

near Davy Crockett Lake.

Seems most Fed employees like it.

[Silverhair]

15. Columbus was a man of his times.

I really don't like this thing of judging past people by the standards of today. Yes, I am well aware of what he did when he got here, but the act of getting here took a lot of smarts and guts for his era. That is what we recgonize him for, not for the other.

I will judge present people by current standards, but people of the past live in completely different circumstances and values and far less knowledge, therefore I will refrain from judgement.

As another poster noted, there are a lot more pressing problems that need attention.

[pandatimothy]

16. I sorta agree

How did he know other folks already lived here?

But you gotta admit he opened the door for a lot of Spanish slavery of the Native Americans.

[Dob Bole]

22. We can't expect people in the past to follow our standards

so I really don't care. I somewhat wish that my people were as free as they once were. But that will never be fully restored, and I'm not going to live my life angry about it.

Most Indian deaths were caused by transmitted illnesses. This was not intentional and it would have happened no matter which European they first came into contact with.

[maggrwaggr]

31. agreed. It's a silly topic and one that right-wingers use against us

and maybe for good reason.

Judging someone from 1492 by today's standards is just silly and hypocritical.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

17. interesting article

and i think Columbus day should be 86'd because it celebrates the subjugation of countless ancient cultures. But I'd just like to remind people that there were plenty of Caribbean natives that Columbus encountered that resisted subjugation. It is now legend that a Taino woman was one of the very first Caribbean indigineous people to kill a Spaniard, and she did this by way of bow and arrow, the arrow (possibly tipped, as was common, with a turtle-shell arrowhead) passing through a Spanish shield.

Both the Taino and Caribs (of the greater and lesser antilles, respectfully) were familiar with warfare. ARchaeological evidence indicates that the Caribs were what you might call the dominant force in the region. The Caribs dominated and enslaved the Taino perhaps centuries before European contact - often after eating the conquered Taino males. The Caribs were renowned as ferocious, chaotic fighters and very much feared in combat. Of course, Spanish technology and disease won the day. Not all of these indigenous people went to their graves in assimilation and subjugation as the initial posted article seems to indicate.

Here's a link elucidating one confrontation in particular:
http://stjohnbeachguide.com/Columbus%20and%20St.%20Croix.htm

[KittyWampus]

18. Scrap It And Celebrate Samhain

America needs a more Naturalistic approach to its Holidays. :)

[Clete]

33. Good idea.

I would be in favor of a heal the earth day too.

[9215]

19. The larger question I ask

is North America better or worse off with Western Civilization.

Before you answer,please think.

[Tuf Tuf]

25. OK

OCTOBER 12th................my birthday.

[newyawker99]

35. Hi Tuf Tuf!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[markses]

26. OK, I've thought about it

And I think the question itself is utter bullshit.

First, there is no objective criterion with which to decide the question. One possibility developed. The other didn't. Now, we can delude ourselves and pretend to judge the one that didn't develop by the standards of the one that did, but that would be a facile exercise in tautology. It's better off because it's better off. One could equally well argue that Europe or even the Jewish people are "better off" for the Holocaust (and what happened in north America was a holocaust of comparable depravity, if not intensity). Or, one could argue the opposite. it's undecidable, because there is no possibility of developing criteria to decide the question.

Moreover, even if we use our current criteria (which, with respect to the peoples eradicated by so-called Western Civilization - and a greater barbarism seldom announced itself in human history - would be an act of imperial conquer in any case), we have some mechanisms for deploring the genocide. But again, if we value automobiles and neon (and the current mockery that passes for "law) over nomadic and non-nomadic social formations, we could argue the other way.

It's a bullshit question. It relies on the tyrrany of the present to forge a common sensical view of the matter. What the question really asks is 1)Would YOU be better off? or 2)Weren't those Injuns really just benighted murdering savages, after all? (Of course, they were violent, but nothing could prepare them for the relentless butchery of the European tribe).

[9215]

30. You ignored my request:

"please think".

There are no objective criteria? Well, how do we often measure the standard of living in countries throughout the world.

I'll let you answer that.

[markses]

40. I've already answered it, but I'll try again

Slower...

1) (Supposing we even accept "standard of living" measures) You have no present point of comparison because one possibility didn't develop. You would have to compare the present standard of living to the past standard of living of people in North America, which would be a false comparison. If you ask "Would it be better off" you are asking after a possibility of the present that is IMPOSSIBLE to judge according to ACTUAL evidence, since that possibility did not develop in ACTUALITY. Second, even supposing that someone were to allow the present-past comparison (which would in no way answer your question) how would you retrieve your data? From Westerners accounts? From the archaeological record?

2) The standard of living measure is itself developed by the invaders, and contains their bias as to social system. It is not objective, even if there was the possibility of comparing, which there isn't. You are like Hegel declaring that the highest form of development in history is the HRE under Frederick II. How nice for Hegel, who lived in that state. Of course, everyone chuckles about Hegel's naivete now. Well, everyone who thinks about the obvious teleological fallacy. Not you. You redeploy the same laughable technique to declare an actuality scientifically better than a dead possibility, even when that science is the conqueror's science, with the conqueror's methods, and the conqueror's values. You babtize it "objective," like a missionary who steals children from the tribe, and enslaves them to your foreign god.

[0rganism]

20. Trade it in for a national holiday on election day

"Democracy Day" anyone?

I think holding elections on a working Tuesday is FUCKING INSANE. Of course, if you want to keep as many working people from voting as possible, it makes perfect sense...

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

39. Ba-Da Bing!

Make Election Day a Holiday! Of course, the Republicans wouldn't go for it because it would encourage working-class folks to vote, and conservatives hate it when those people muck up the democratic process.

[SiobhanClancy]

44. Absolutely correct...

Whether they trade Columbus Day for it or not,Election Day NEEDS to be a national holiday.

[MaryBear]

21. Some thought provoking posts in this thread!

[TankLV]

24. 1st off - I'd have to say "GIVE ME THE FRIGGIN' DAY OFF FOR A CHANGE!"

It has never been an accepted day off in my profession.

On a more serious note - change the name of the damn day and GIVE ME THE FRIGGIN' DAY OFF FOR A CHANGE!

It's known as "discoverer's day" in a lot places.

BUT GIVE ME THE FRIGGIN' DAY OFF FOR A CHANGE!

[TreasonousBastard]

27. Well, first we should certainly...

take it away from the Italians.

Columbus was born in Genoa, but hated the place. They may have chased him out, or he may have left in disgust, but never had anything good to say about it. Actually, there wasn't even an Italy back then anyway. Unification came much later. Things probably would have been a bit better if one of the Italian kingdoms did finance his trip and ran the New World, if anyone had to. They were traders, not conquerors, and probably wouldn't have left the complete mess the Spanish left.

Columbus wasn't the worst of the crew that headed over here. Fairly benign compared to some of them. We could rename it Alexander VI day to celebrate the Line of Demarcation-- the Papal bull that sealed, authorized, and ensured the plundering of the New World.

[onebigbadwulf]

28. Call it...

PROVED THE PSYCHO-FUNDIES WRONG ONCE AGAIN DAY!!!

[ShaneGR]

32. OTHER

Who gives a shit.

[Liberator_Rev]

34. What's this "man of his times" nonsense?

If the behavior of Columbus and his men was "normal" for his times, then the question would have to be answered, what caused this deviant view? These people were all "Christians", who professed to believe in Jesus, one of whose principal teachings was that the whole of the Bible's teaching can be summarized in two commandments: 1) Love God with your whole mind and soul, and 2) Love your neighbor as you do yourself. (See http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/GODvsGreed for more on this.) How could THAT teaching allow those who professed to believe it to act as follows:
As Bartolome de Las Casas, { see "Padre de Las Casas, Defender of the Indians" } the most famous of the accompanying Spanish missionaries from that trip recalled:
"Once the Indians were in the woods, the next step was to form squadrons and pursue them, and whenever the Spaniards found them, they pitilessly slaughtered everyone like sheep in a corral. It was a general rule among Spaniards to be cruel; not just cruel, but extraordinarily cruel so that harsh and bitter treatment would prevent Indians from daring to think of themselves as human beings or having a minute to think at all. So they would cut an Indian's hands and leave them dangling by a shred of skin and they would send him on saying "Go now, spread the news to your chiefs." They would test their swords and their manly strength on captured Indians and place bets on the slicing off of heads or the cutting of bodies in half with one blow. They burned or hanged captured chiefs...

With the same determination Columbus had shown in organizing his troops' previously disorganized and indiscriminate killings, the Admiral then set about the task of systematizing their haphazard enslavement of {p.71} the natives. Gold was all that they were seeking, so every Indian on the island who was not a child was ordered to deliver to the Spanish a certain amount of the precious ore every three months. When the gold was delivered the individual was presented with a token to wear around his neck as proof that the tribute had been paid. Anyone found without the appropriate number of tokens had his hands cut off.

Since Hispaniola's gold supply was far less than what the Spaniards' fantasies suggested, Indians who wished to survive were driven to see their quotas of the ore at the expense of other endeavors, including food production. The famines that had begun earlier, when the Indians tempted to hide from the Spanish murderers, now grew much worse, new diseases that the Spanish carried with them preyed ever more intensely on the malnourished and weakened bodies of the natives. And the soldiers never ceased to take delight in killing just for fun.

Spanish reports of their own murderous sadism during this time are legion. For a lark they "tore babes from their mother's breast by their feet, and dashed their heads against the rocks." The bodies of other infants "they spitted . . . together with their mothers and all who were before them, on their swords." On one famous occasion in Cuba, a troop of a hundred or more Spaniards stopped by the banks of a dry river and sharpened their swords on the whetstones in its bed. Eager to compare the sharpness of their blades, reported an eyewitness to the events, they drew their weapons and "began to rip open the bellies, to cut and kill those lambs -- men, women children, and old folk, all of whom were seated, off guard and frightened, watching the mares and the Spaniards. And within two credos (i.e. the time it takes to recite the "Creed"), not a man of all of them there remained alive. The Spaniards enter the large house nearby, for this was happening at its door, and in the same way, with cuts and stabs, begin to kill as many as they found there, so that a stream of blood was running, as if a great number of cows had perished.. . . To see the wounds which covered the bodies of the dead and dying was a spectacle of horror and dread . This particular slaughter began at the village of Zucayo, where the townsfolk earlier had provided for the conquistadors a feast of cassava fruit and fish. From there it spread. No one knows just how many Indians the Spanish killed in this sadistic spree, but Las Casas put the number a over 20,000 before the soldiers' thirst for horror had been slaked. {p. 71 } . . .
When there were among the prisoners some women who had recently given birth, if the new-born babes happened to cry, they seized them by the legs and hurled them against the rocks, or flung them into the jungle so that they would be certain to die there."
Or, Las Casas again, in another incident he witnessed:
The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties, the more cruel the better, with which to spill human blood. They built a long gibbet, low enough for the toes to touch the ground and prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles. When the Indians were thus still alive and hanging, the Spaniards tested their strength and their blades against them, ripping chests open with one blow and exposing entrails, and there were those who did worse. Then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive. {p. 72}
==================================================================
While I believe the Catholic version of Christianity was (and still is) very defective, and contributed to the criminality of all of these "Catholics", was it defective enough to make these members of their church view this behavior as normal?

[rhite5]

37. You ask an important question, Rev.

I am sure those who cautioned against judging by today's standards had no idea what really went on.

[Character Assassin]

43. It's not clear what you're trying to say

If the behavior of Columbus and his men was "normal" for his times, then the question would have to be answered, what caused this deviant view?

What deviant view? As you just stated, and has also been maintained by others, his view and that of his men were normal for the time, not deviant.

These people were all "Christians", who professed to believe in Jesus, one of whose principal teachings was that the whole of the Bible's teaching can be summarized in two commandments: 1) Love God with your whole mind and soul, and 2) Love your neighbor as you do yourself. (See http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/GODvsGreed for more on this.) How could THAT teaching allow those who professed to believe it to act as follows

Keep in mind that the Catholic Church, at the time of Columbus, had kept the bible exclusively printed in Latin, most common people at the time were illiterate, and they would have had very little direct exposure to the Bible itself. What they understood of Christianity came from priests, and, as such, was far from comprehensive and/or unbiased.

Further, the printing press had not even been around 50 years yet at the date Columbus sailed, and bibles were not readily available to the common person until long after it had been invented. On top of that, a vernacular bible in the late Middle Ages/pre-Reformation era did not necessarily have all 73 books.

Life in Europe at that time was short, brutal and difficult. What we would consider barbarism today was relatively commonplace in everyday life, and the men of Columbus' first voyage were by no means devout simply because everyone was, by default, a Christian.

As Bartolome de Las Casas, { see "Padre de Las Casas, Defender of the Indians" } the most famous of the accompanying Spanish missionaries from that trip recalled:

Bartolome de Las Casas was never on the first Columbus voyage. His father was. There were no priests at all in the first voyage, which might help to partially explain brutal behavior on the part of the Spaniards.

He participated in the third voyage.

[marley]

36. Hey, why

don't we call it Vineland Day since the vikings "discovered" it first, we can celebrate nordic heritage instead !

[Bridget Burke]

38. The Vikings had Irish maps

Oscar Wilde pointed out that the New World had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

[SiobhanClancy]

47. Thanks for pointing that out

I don't know anyone who believes that Columbus was the first European presence in the New World. Some of my Italian-American friends regard Columbus Day as a day to celebrate Italian heritage,more than it is anything else,and naturally they want to keep it a holiday.

[xJlM]

42. A day of mourning for native peoples

It was the beginning of the end for the aboriginal peoples who inhabited these continents. They did teach us how to smoke, though...

[birdman]

45. Somehow I can't see the Indian Resistance day

sale at Sears.

[Liberal Classic]

46. Call it "Smallpox verus Syphilis Day"

The world's first bacteriological war.