Understanding Columbus’s Legacy and Why It Is Time for a Change

Why does the United States have a holiday for a man who never set foot in what would become the United States of America and did not speak English? This is a question that largely goes unexplored, but it is objectively true. Columbia is a mishmash of Latin and “Columbus,” meaning Land of Columbus. There are multiple cities, including our nation's capital, named after Columbus, and a federal holiday. Columbus’s legacy is intertwined with America’s genocide of the native peoples of the North American continent, yet this country celebrates him.

The systems of oppression in this country, such as the systematic manipulation of history to justify Manifest Destiny, the seizure of land, reducing native people to reservations, and a campaign to paint Columbus as a Founding Father, can be traced back to that fateful day on October 12th, 1492. Christopher Columbus was a sailor from Genoa, Italy, who wanted to find a quicker trade route to Asia and gold. He convinced the Spanish Crown to fund his journey west to obtain fame and fortune.

When Columbus landed on what is today the Bahamas, the Arawak people greeted him with curiosity and gifts. He noticed the little bits of gold they were wearing, and he became convinced that gold was in abundance on the island. Columbus then made a choice. He decided to take the natives as slaves and sailed back to Spain. The journey killed most of the kidnapped Natives. The ones who did make it to Spain died shortly after landfall.

The Spanish Crown was intrigued by Columbus’s exaggerated tales of rivers of gold and funded a second expedition, this time with more ships, more soldiers, and hundreds of colonists. The genocide was now in full swing.

The soldiers enslaved many natives, brought them to Spain, or forced them into slave labor. On the island of Haiti, Columbus and his soldiers rounded up all the men over the age of 14 and forced them to collect gold as tribute. If the natives did not collect enough, their hands would be chopped off.

What legal authority gave Columbus the right to seize land and commit genocide on the native population? A papal bull issued in Portugal, then in Spain, named the Doctrine of Discovery, became the standard doctrine in Europe. The doctrine, put simply, allowed Europeans to claim land that they “discovered” as their own, despite the native populations.

This Doctrine of Discovery is the source of the U.S.’s obsession with Columbus. The first recorded celebration of Columbus in the Americas was in 1792 by the Columbian Order. In 1798, the song “Hail, Columbia” was composed to serve as the National Anthem. “Hail, Columbia” would be replaced as the National Anthem later, but the song is still used today in events with the Vice President.

From the U.S.’s inception, Columbus and the Doctrine of Discovery have been useful tools to justify Manifest Destiny, an imperialist belief that urged Americans to spread westward, displacing Natives from their homes and their lands. The U.S. celebrates Columbus to rewrite history so that it seems as though Columbus was the start of U.S. history, that somehow an American founded the “New World.” This conveniently ignores multiple facts, including that Columbus was not English, never set foot on the land that would become the United States, and that his discovery preceded the establishment of the first English colony by more than 100 years. Nevertheless, using Columbus’s legacy of exploration and the Doctrine of Discovery, the United States Government pushed westward with little to no pushback from the European settler population.

In 1882, the Knights of Columbus were formed, and they believed they were entitled to the rights and privileges of Columbus’s discovery. They further intertwined the idea of Columbus and American patriotism, and soon had chapters in every state. The Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, in which the US Seventh Cavalry murdered hundreds of Lakota seeking refuge (An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States, pages 154 and 155), is just one of many ripples that came out of Columbus’s “discovery”. Four hundred years after Columbus landed in the Americas, in 1892, America is celebrating Columbus nationwide. Francis Bellamy would write the Pledge of Allegiance, and then-Presidential candidate Grover Cleveland used the Pledge of Allegiance to honor Columbus. President Franklin Roosevelt, in 1934, after heavy lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, made Columbus Day a federal holiday.

America was built around an idea of conquest brought to the Americas by Columbus and mythologized by prominent American figures. To admit that Columbus is a person who should not be celebrated implies that we should not celebrate America, and this is why it is difficult for some to acknowledge an alternative holiday like Indigenous Peoples Day. Indigenous Peoples Day does not hide behind a revised version of history. Embracing Indigenous Peoples Day means that, as a nation, we can look our bloody past in the eyes and strive for a better future.

After reading all that, you might be wondering what any of that has to do with One Spirit. It is important to understand the systems in which we must maneuver. Columbus Day is a controversial holiday for a reason; his actions in 1492 set in motion a series of events and a system that keeps the Lakota people on Pine Ridge in such deplorable conditions.

Still today, Natives are fighting to undo the harms of that system. It was not too long ago that Native people took back their right to practice their spirituality and ended the horrors of the boarding schools. More people are recognizing today as Indigenous Peoples Day. That’s a win. On this day, do not celebrate Columbus. Instead, think about the Lakota and their future, a future where food is not scarce, healthy food choices are plentiful, and drugs and alcohol are not a problem. Not a utopia, but a place where the Lakota can live the way they want with dignity and sovereignty. Think about all native people on Indigenous Peoples Day and spare a special thought for the Arawak.

Happy Indigenous Peoples Day from One Spirit