I remember reading Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee as a teenager. Like most Americans of my generation, I had seen lots of cowboy and Indian movies on television and always hoped the cowboys would win.
That impression was mixed somehow with the romantic image many Americans, and many foreigners, have of Indians—that they were noble savages, people who lived in harmony with nature.
Americans today, depending on where they live, have practically no knowledge of Indians. In fact, many would be surprised that there are Indians still alive today. Those who know that Indians still exist probably think of them mostly in terms of casinos. This points to a failure of our educational system.
The romantic view of Indians was reinforced by my upbringing. I was told that I had Indian ancestors, Cherokees, and once was shown a picture of a white man and an Indian woman, my relatives, sitting in chairs in front of their house, with a half-dozen or more brown sons stretched out on the lawn in front of them.
So, I both liked and disdained Indians but had never met any.
Dee Brown slapped both impressions—those of the bloodthirsty killer and the noble savage—out of me.
In his book, Brown pointed out that many Americans claim Indian ancestry. He derided these claims, especially those who claimed to be descended from a genuine American Indian princess.
I felt duly shamed, and stopped telling people about my long-dead Indian relations.
He described the numerous massacres committed against Indians. At first I thought the author must be unreliable, that he must be making this all up. Americans would never do this.
It surprises me now that I could have gotten as far as the 11th grade without learning the long history of killing that makes up much of the history of this country.
Later in life I learned about how Indians, and particularly Cherokees, lived. I learned that Cherokees themselves indulged in terrible cruelty. Women, for example, would string captives up by their feet and torture them with fire for long hours until their deaths.
What was left was a sense that neither people, neither the Americans nor the Indians, had clean hands. That neither were particularly good nor right, in a moral sense. A survey of history shows that this can be applied to all people in all countries in every time. It took a while for me to learn this lesson about life.
And yet we still have Columbus Day.
We set aside a day of our year to celebrate the accomplishments of a man who enslaved, tortured, and murdered hundreds of Arawaks and others.
“In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he [Christopher Columbus] and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without copper tokens had their hands cut off and bled to death. ”
The story of Columbus I was taught glossed over his murderous lust for gold. Instead, it focused on his role in publicizing the continent to Europeans, which got the American ball rolling.
This approach, and this deification of Columbus is a disservice to our history. It is a disservice to our children.
“To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and adventurers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not just a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves—unwittingly—to justify what was done.”
Is it possible that our politicians are as ignorant as I was as a 16-year-old? Are they, men and women of educational accomplishment, so timid as to fear the response of those flag-wavers who dare not admit to history?
My employer, although not a bank or a federal agency, is generous enough to recognize this day as a holiday for its employees. But I would gladly give it up. Or rather exchange the holiday for another.
South Dakota has now celebrates Native American Day instead of Columbus Day. The cities of Berkeley, Calif., Duluth, Minn., and Portland, Ore., all have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day (with or without an apostrophe).
The federal government should follow the lead of these local efforts. In doing show, it should follow the model of South Dakota, which first declared a Year of Reconciliation, then replaced Columbus Day with Native American Day. In the same year, 1990, the state recognized Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
But the cities of the Conejo Valley should not wait for the federal government. To the contrary, citizens should lobby public officials to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, which seems to be the term used by most places that have made the change.
This action would generate press and might inspire other cities to do the same. Soon the federal government would be swayed.
I call on our local representatives to let Columbus Day fade into the past and replace it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Let us educate our children about our nation’s present and historical relationship with Indians, so that they no longer associate Columbus with heroism, and Indians with slot machines.
Links
“Native American Day Came without a Shot Fired,” Tom Giago, The Huffington Post, October 1, 2007.
“Goodbye, Columbus; Hello, Indigenous Peoples Day?” ReligionLink, October 2, 2007.
“Columbus Day,” U.S. Department of State, retrieved October 7, 2007.
“Today in History: October 12,” Library of Congress, retrieved October 7, 2007.
“Celebrate! Holidays In The U.S.A. : Columbus Day,” U.S. Embassy, Stockholm, retrieved October 7, 2007.
“Police Arrest 83 Protesters at Denver Columbus Day Parade,” Associated Press, FoxNews.com, October 7, 2007.
“Across Kansas: Students Want to Rename Columbus Day,” Kansas City Star, October 6, 2007.
