Around two in the morning on October 12, 1492 -- 515 years ago today -- Rodrigo de Triana, a sailor on the Pinta, sighted land in the distance. The three ships that left Spain about 70 days earlier arrived in what is now the Bahamas, and the name of the voyage's leader -- Cristoforo Colombo in Italian -- became engraved in history.Italian-Americans have long held Christopher Columbus to be a hero, and Americans celebrate Columbus Day -- though now on a Monday to preserve the three-day weekend -- but should we celebrate it at all? The arrival of the famous navigator in the "New World" led to the subjugation of the indigenous peoples, to the spread of deadly diseases, and to the violent conquest of many advanced cultures.
Glenn Spagnuolo, the director of a group called Progressive Italians Transforming the Columbus Day Holiday, has said, "The Italians ... didn't want it to be used as a tool to bring tourism to [Genoa, Italy -- Columbus's birthplace], so they shut down the town. So, in Italy, he's viewed as the scoundrel that he is. And then, being raised as a Catholic and looking at Christian ethics, there's nothing that Columbus did when he came here that supported any kind of Christian moral background. I mean, he stole. He murdered. He was greedy; he raped people. I mean, it was ridiculous. So, to see them now say that this is a celebration of Italian pride or of Christian ethics, it's a false assertion, and it's really used to support, like I said, colonialism, the exploitation of this country from its indigenous population, and to continue the view of white privilege that exists here in the United States."
Columbus himself wrote of the Taino people, who were in the Bahamas when he arrived: "It appears to me that the people are ingenious and would be good servants, and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion." He also noted: "I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."
5 comments:
He also noted: "I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."
That sound like some governments are doing now in some countries.
Jimbo:
Where would you be living now if Colombus didn't come here?
Jenni
Well, it's likely that someone else would have led the European imperial powers here. However, asking a question like that ignores the issues I raised in my post. Of course, 515 years of hindsight changes things a great deal. Still, shouldn't we continually reexamine such things?
Columbus Day in California is a calendar holiday, like Arbor Day - at least in LA and Sacramento. We don't celebrate it the way it is celebrated here. No one gets the day off, except maybe the post office. I was a bank teller and I don't remember having the day off (but my memory might be faulty on that one). I didn't even know that it was a real holiday until we moved here to Boston.
Columbus' brutality is well documented. It even shocked some of his contemporaries. Unfortunately, his techniques of subjugation and oppression were copied by many imperialist European powers, particularly the British, when they set out to conquer the rest of Latin America as well as Africa. The technique of cutting off people's arms and hands seen in recent civil wars in Africa was learned from European colonial powers who, in turn, learned that from Columbus' book on how to terrorize people in the pursuit of gold and glory.
I think there is a good argument for celebrating Columbus Day. The systematic genocide perpetrated by the Spanish, British, and other European powers should be remembered for what it was and for what it did to millions of indigenous people who, to this day, are some of the most impoverished people on the planet. Such a holiday could be used to reinforce our commitment to human rights and dignity. Perhaps we should change the celebration from Columbus' arrival to an observance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
If Colombus was so bad, then why are there groups of folks in Italy, Spain, Portugal and North Africa laying claim to his origins?
If Colombus didn't arrive on these shores, where would n. starluna spread her liberal nonsense?
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