Why Christopher Columbus Day Should Not Be Celebrated

Many people debate whether Columbus Day should be celebrated as a federal holiday. The main reason for this debate is the manner in which Columbus treated the Natives he met once landing in the New World. From the slave trade to the spread of disease, Columbus managed to kill millions of Natives without lifting a finger. Today, Americans celebrate Columbus’s questionable choices every year without knowing the cruel things he did. My question is why Christopher Columbus day should not be celebrated? In this essay I try to find out arguments against celebration of this holiday. 

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on what is now known as the Bahamas. He took an armed boat with the other ship captains onto the shore. Columbus then placed down two banners and claimed the land for the King and Queen. Due to this commotion, the Natives began to assemble behind trees by the shore. In Columbus’s journal, he is quoted saying, “we might form great friendship, for I knew that they were a people who could be more easily freed and converted to our holy faith by love than by force. The Natives then began to trade with the men, bringing them parrots, cotton, darts, and many other things. In turn, the sailors gave them common objects such as glass beads and small bells. He then began sailing along the coast and landed in different places where he met different tribes. Almost all of the Natives he met ran in fear, but warmed up quickly to them, as they believed them to be gods. In many of these tribes, Columbus saw exactly what he was looking for; gold. It was the greed for gold that started the problems.

He returned to the King and convinced him to finance another expedition. Columbus was once again going to the New World but this time with seventeen ships and over 1,000 men.

On this voyage, he was to convert the Natives in one of his settlements to Christianity. However when the Natives did not comply with these demands, the killing and enslavement began. It was in the settlement of Hispaniola where he created a new system. In this system, all Natives over the age of fourteen were tasked with finding gold. If these slaves could not meet these requirements their hands were cut off and they were left to bleed out. Not only were the Natives used as slaves in Hispaniola, but they were also shipped to Spain. The death rate of the slaves being shipped was an estimated sixty percent, such a horrid event that famous historian Peter Martyr wrote in 1516, “a ship without compass, chart, or guide, but only following the trail of dead Indians who had been thrown from the ships could find its way from the Bahamas to Hispaniola.” Not only were these docile people used as workers in the mines, but young women were sold into sexual slavery. Columbus is quoted as saying, “A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand'. In order to escape many tried to commit suicide. Some women even resorted to abortions, so their children would not have to live through all of their sufferings. During the 15th century, an estimated ninety percent of the native population was killed from famine, disease, and violence.

In 1492, the estimated population of the Natives of Hispaniola was 7,975,000 and by 1542, there were only two hundred left alive. Columbus’s choices wiped out many tribes and brought them close to extinction. The choice that may have changed the outcome of European colonization was the choice to convert them to Christianity. Many of the fights that started between the colonists and the Natives were because the Natives were forced to convert. If there had been a choice, some may have converted and those who didn’t would have continued living their lives. If there had also been a little more understanding between the cultures fewer would have died. The colonists viewed the Natives as new and different, nothing like them, and if they tried to spread their culture without force circumstances could have been different. Another choice that could have been made was to treat them like humans and not animals. Many died of sickness but others died from cruelty. Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Spanish priest sympathetic to the plight of Natives, described the terrible violence against them: “[the Spanish] rode the backs of the Indians as if they were in a hurry,” and they “thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades'. Overall, if the Natives were treated as equals to the colonists, the chance for peace would have been greater.

Before Columbus the Natives lived prosperous lives. The Native Americans showed Columbus's men kindness when first meeting them. In 2021, there are over five million Native Americans left and seventy-eight percent of them live on reservations. Now the Natives who are left have a federal holiday to celebrate the man that killed many of their ancestors. To try to bring attention to Native culture many now use October 11 as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. There are also many petitions to try and remove Columbus Day as a federal holiday. Maybe once and for all the Native Americans will get justice.