There is a terrible irony in the fact that of the only two federal holidays named after noteworthy persons in the United States, one was the father of the slave trade and the other was martyred trying to put an end to the post-traumatic spiritual disorder that followed in its wake for centuries.
When the Columbus City Council voted two years ago to give federal employees in Columbus the day off on Columbus Day, Councilman Julius Hunter, who sponsored the resolution, said he thought it was a “no brainer.” After all, he pointed out, there were already a number of cities in the United States named Columbus and they had holidays. My teenagers used to use that same kind of logic for all sorts of questionable maneuvers: “Everybody’s doing it!”
Of course it’s not so simple. Some cities have annual demonstrations over the holiday. The problem with celebrating the accomplishments of Christopher Columbus, is that most people know him only for ‘”discovering” America while “sailing the ocean blue in 1492… on ships named the Nina, the Pinta and the St. Maria.” Others think of him for helping wipe out the entire Arawak-Taino population (numbers estimated from 400,000 to 3,000,000) in Haiti. After discovering what he described as peaceful and kind inhabitants on his first landing, Columbus returned a second time armed with attack dogs covered with chain mail, artillery and soldiers and proceeded to conquer the island enslaving the population to work in mines in the search for gold. Eye witness reports from a priest on the expedition and his own journals indicate that he and his men flung native infants to their dogs to be torn to pieces, cut off the noses of the people if they didn’t bring them gold and began sending inhabitants back to Spain as slaves for the Queen, informing her in writing that “in the name of the Holy Trinity I can send you as many slaves as you want.” Columbus records in one of his journals that young girls were being taken by his men as sex slaves, “with nine year olds being the most favored.” As the native population was decimated, Columbus began to import African slaves to the island to continue the search for gold.
In light of these tragic facts, it seems a no-brainer to me that we would definitely want to use the opportunity of celebrating Columbus Day as a means of addressing the post traumatic spiritual disorder of American history that has done so much damage in the search for gold from the first colonies on through the founding of our nation. Celebrating Columbus Day is not unlike the old Johnny Cash song “A boy named Sue” in terms of drawing attention that will eventually make us stronger. By passing this resolution, the Columbus City Council has given our community an opportunity annually to learn more about the whole history of our country, not just the sanitized and selected parts that support the myth of American generosity and democracy.
We need not be ashamed of the name Columbus unless we fail to apprise ourselves of the facts and meanings related to it. On the other hand, if we approach the celebration of Columbus Day without looking beneath the mindless saccharine historical propaganda, denial and dissociation that are part of our post traumatic spiritual disorder, then indeed we should indeed be ashamed of ourselves because we are more likely to continue such abuse in other forms in the future, turning a blind eye to the struggles of conscience that arise in the face of the truth of our actions.
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