For most students in the United States, our first introduction to genocide probably came to us during elementary school in the looming form of lessons about the Holocaust. We learned the facts of the Nazi atrocities from the outside looking in, shocked that a government could sponsor the slaughter of millions of its own people. Genocide was a foreign concept. We were relieved that the United States was not responsible for such state−organized killing.
Now in college, our understanding of genocide deepens. We learn about Rwanda, Armenia and Sudan, aware that such atrocities are an ongoing problem in our world. Perhaps we join various groups where we proactively speak out against the slaughter of humans. Perhaps we are again glad that we don't live in a place where genocide happens. But every October, we accept a holiday, in the form of Columbus Day, that glorifies Christopher Columbus and genocide of indigenous Americans in our country.
In our nation's textbooks, Christopher Columbus was a bold and adventurous explorer, charting unknown lands and bravely conferring European civilization upon the rarely mentioned natives. We memorized rhymes about 1492 and understood Columbus as the legendary discoverer of the "New World." What we learned had a distinctly Eurocentric, romanticized perspective and lacked any meaningful mention or analysis of the Native Americans' experience of invasion and colonization.
On a fundamental and obvious level, our glorification of Columbus as the discoverer of America makes no sense. To historicize him as the discoverer of the nation entirely neglects and discounts the Native Americans who called the continent home prior to the arrival of the Europeans. More pressing, however, is the reality of what took place after Columbus's arrival. He made four trips to the "New World" — each time in search of more riches, slaves and personal glory — and his conquests led to genocide, ethnocide and ecocide. Columbus's model of exploration and invasion was adopted by many later explorers, and the effects of his colonization reverberate today.
For these reasons, I propose a reinterpretation of the Columbus Day that we will celebrate on Oct. 11 this year. If we cannot abolish the holiday altogether, our attention would be better turned to education and remembrance rather than celebration. Teaching the history of North America in a balanced, complete, chronological way would signal a more sincere national commitment to social justice issues, both as we acknowledge the past and look to the future.
To change the tone of Columbus Day, we must first understand the scale and impact of Columbus's colonization programs. Labeling him as a genocidal leader might initially seem extreme, but this description is apt. Consider the definition of genocide as explained by the United Nations. The internationally understood definition includes five possible criteria, only one of which references directly killing members of the targeted group. Other categories of genocidal activity include causing extreme physical or mental harm to members of the group and deliberately creating conditions designed to destroy the group. Examined in the context of these criteria, Columbus's actions in the "New World" certainly qualify as genocide.
Columbus's regimes on the island of Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti) alone clearly indicate that genocide took place during his European colonization. In his book "Acts of Rebellion" (2002), scholar and activist Ward Churchill illustrates the harm that Columbus brought to the native populations, enslaving Taino people and abducting them as slaves for Spain. He instituted a system of tribute that resulted in poverty for those who paid and physical maiming and death for those who could not. Under his direction, systematic extermination, starvation, torture and spread of disease reduced the Taino population by several million in the span of just four years. Both the direct murder and the willful creation of life−threatening conditions qualify as genocidal activity, and Columbus's journals and letters betray his willingness to carry out these acts.
It is helpful to draw a comparison between the genocide of Native Americans and the World War II genocide of Jews. While the two events differ somewhat, the mechanics, outcomes and lasting impacts of both genocides are strikingly and sadly similar. The eventual slaughter of Taino people on Hispaniola, estimated to include five million deaths, is roughly equivalent to the number of Jews (approximately six million) who perished during the Holocaust. While those who perished under the Holocaust were victims of a regime specifically designed to bring about their destruction, those who died in the New World suffered from a glaringly oppressive system founded by Columbus whose goal of naked exploitation led to the rapid death of indigenous peoples. Today, oppression and discrimination of both groups continue far beyond the specific confines of genocide. As we learn about and are horrified by the Jewish Holocaust in school, so, too, should we learn and register shock at the treatment of American native people at the hands of Columbus.
The more I learn about present−day racism and genocide, the more opposed I become to our national and university recognition of Columbus Day. The United States only has two federal holidays dedicated to individuals who were not presidents — one to Christopher Columbus and the other to Martin Luther King Jr. It is not fitting that we continue to celebrate Columbus in the same way that we celebrate King, a civil rights luminary dedicated to ending — not perpetuating — racism.
And anti−Indian racism does perpetuate. We must understand Columbus's genocide in North America not only for its obvious past destruction but also for how it enabled racism that endures. Oppression of Native Americans has long since been manifested within United States federal legislation and public policy, from President Andrew Jackson's Trail of Tears to aspects of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. Overt, institutionalized racism is accompanied by less obvious but equally harmful bias. How is it acceptable to wear an "Indian" costume for Halloween? Why do we keep racist team names and mascots like the Washington Redskins in play? To understand the root of present−day racism, we must understand historical injustice. The national celebration of Columbus Day only perpetuates racism toward fellow Americans in its glorification of their oppression.
The best way to confront and combat this violent legacy is through education. We can reframe our education both of Columbus Day and of North American history, and this movement is gaining momentum. Some groups around the country have begun to speak out against this holiday, as Marvin Lunenfeld explains in his 1992 article "What Shall We Tell the Children? The Press Encounters Columbus." The National Council of Churches, which includes most American Protestant denominations, has noted the genocide, ethnocide and ecocide of Columbus and has deemed Columbus Day celebrations inappropriate. The American Library Association has passed a resolution urging libraries to teach about Columbus from a balanced, truthful perspective that includes the experience of native people.
Scholar James Axtell has led the charge in textbook analysis by illustrating that textbooks are distorted in their depiction of Columbus and rife with omissions. Ceasing the lying by omission and teaching history instead from a chronological perspective would better incorporate the perspective and experience of Native Americans. We should abandon the Eurocentric approach of our teaching and seek to teach the complete, truthful account of history.
Turning away from Columbus Day and restructuring the ways we educate about Columbus would hardly be anti−American or inappropriately revisionist, as some may charge. On the contrary, understanding and acknowledging the clear realities of United States history would make us better Americans, more informed about our nation's past and better able to stand with those who have suffered and resisted injustice in our own country.
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