Yesterday was the second Monday in October, which in most localities in the U.S. is known as Columbus Day. But in several cities and one state — Alaska — the day has been rechristened Indigenous People’s Day.
The name change is less an expression of pride in the native population of North America that predates Columbus’s arrival than it is a repudiation of alleged crimes that he committed in the name of exploration which, according Biography.com, included enslavement and mutilation. Proof of the slavery claim is said to reside in the diary Columbus kept in which he wrote that the Taino people he encountered in Hispaniola “were very well built … do not carry arms or know them …. [and hence] should be good servants.”
Biography never enlarges on the mutilation claim, but modern-day sympathizers in the city of Detroit didn’t need proof before going ahead and returning the favor, is symbolically:
The Detroit Free Press reports:
[A] statue of Christopher Columbus in downtown Detroit was vandalized just in time for this year’s Columbus Day.
[…]
Tthe statue was dedicated in 1910 to honor Detroit’s Italians, but was restored and relocated in 1988, according to the statue’s plaques.
Desecrating public historical art and other relics of the past has become something of a cottage industry along with more formal expressions of outrage over America’s sinful past. This reached a zenith of insanity in July when the city council of Memphis voted to dig up the earthly remains of a Confederate Civil War general and wife and move them to a new location.
An interesting side note: Recently completed excavations of a town just east of Mexico City determined that the natives there reacted to the incursion of Spanish conquistadors by decapitating them (and the Cubans of African and Indian descent in their service) and eating their flesh. Compared with that grisly description, an axe in a statue’s head sounds tame.
Related Articles
- Excavation of Mexican site reveals ‘peaceful indigenous peoples’ decapitated invaders
- Several cities around the U.S. will celebrate Indigenous People’s Day instead of Columbus Day
- PC madness! Seattle Schools to observe ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’ on Columbus Day
- Public radio commissions fabulous new southern flag to replace Confederate flag
- New Orleans becomes the latest city to attempt to bury its Confederate past
- Memphis city council votes to dig up remains of Confederate Civil War general, wife
