“But an attack on Christopher Columbus”, whom the representative referred to as a serial killer and sex trafficker who today would be guilty of crimes against humanity. That means most federal offices are closed.
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Congress set aside the second Monday of October as a federal holiday honoring Columbus in 1934. He thought the world was much smaller than it is.
In his journal from 1492, Columbus himself describes ordering the capture of seven indigenous people. But just as Columbus prompted Cortés and Pizarro, so too did he prompt de las Casas. There were many people already living in the Caribbean Islands where he landed on his first journey. “He should not be honored by any people”, Diaz said. Other cities followed, albeit slowly. Yet, he always believed he had found the Indies. Specifically, it is thanks to Columbus that most of the Western Hemisphere remains a modern Christian land (and not a Puritan tyranny, as the folks on the Mayflower may have had it), and it is Christian tradition that led to the founding of the modern human rights movement. “He never got close to what is now called the United States”.
A delegation of Native nations first proposed Indigenous Peoples Day in 1977 at a United Nations-sponsored worldwide Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas. He controlled parts of the population with violence and oppression.
Joe Genetin-Pilawa, history professor at George Mason University, said the explorer enslaved numerous natives he encountered. By 1550, they estimated about 500 natives, as many died from diseases brought by Spanish soldiers. Columbus’ arrival in the Caribbean was devastating to the people there.
South Dakota renamed Columbus Day to Native American Day in 1990, and it has been an official state holiday ever since. From 2 to 4 p.m., students will be on the SU quad handing out flyers about Columbus Day and indigenous culture. While the answer years ago might have been an overwhelming “no”, times have changed since the 2008 recession, when business couldn’t afford to pay workers for a day off. Now, only 14 percent of government organizations are expected be closed this year on Columbus Day.
In a blog post published by the Huffington Post, Bill Bigelow, co-director of the Zinn Education Project, which “promotes and supports the teaching of people’s history in middle and high school classrooms across the country”, explained why many historians and indigenous communities find Columbus’s legacy so troubling. In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison called on the country to observe Columbus Day.
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Tulalip Tribe member Johnny Moses reacts to Seattle’s resolution to recognize Indigenous People’s Day previous year. We have all our American veterans, war heroes who gave their lives, shed their blood and fought against evil and those who sought to destroy the freedoms we hold dear. At that time, both groups had recently suffered violent attacks.
