#lucayans

It snowed this year in Seattle for Christmas … or so I’ve been told. I wasn’t here. I escaped to the Bahamas.

I’m back home now, grateful for my week in the sun with my family and hoping you’ll enjoy seeing a few pictures from the beautiful country we visited.

We stayed at the Hotel Melia Nassau Beach, where the sand was as fine as powdered sugar and the sea was calm and warm (once you got used…

Columbus Day is a holiday on October 12 that celebrates the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas. As a child that went to a Catholic middle school, I was taught all about the long, treacherous journey across seas that only the brave could survive. We memorized the names of his ship and held a play in the gymnasium, where we saw the sixth graders reenact the relationships between the settlers and the natives. I remember that we still called them "Indians," wore costumes that stereotyped them, (headbands with colourful feathers in them, war paint on our cheeks) and had the chief greet Columbus with a raised palm and "Hao." We learned through the play and our teachers how Columbus had "discovered the New World," and that his heroics are what started the colonization of North America. What our school failed to mention, however, were the acts of genocide, murder, and enslavement that occurred after the arrival of the sailors. We didn't learn about Columbus rewarding his men by giving them native women to rape, nor did we learn that he was stripped of his title as Governor of the Indies and jailed for the acts committed against the natives of America. I think this classifies as lying by omission, wouldn't you agree?

This article written by Eric Kasum for the Huffington post dispels the two most prominent ideas about Columbus that we have:

"First of all, Columbus wasn't the first European to discover America. As we all know, the Viking, Leif Ericson probably founded a Norse village on Newfoundland some 500 years earlier. So, hat's off to Leif. But if you think about it, the whole concept of discovering America is, well, arrogant. After all, the Native Americans discovered North America about 14,000 years before Columbus was even born! Surprisingly, DNA evidence now suggests that courageous Polynesian adventurers sailed dugout canoes across the Pacific and settled in South America long before the Vikings.

Second, Columbus wasn't a hero. When he set foot on that sandy beach in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, Columbus discovered that the islands were inhabited by friendly, peaceful people called the Lucayans, Taínos and Arawaks. Writing in his diary, Columbus said they were a handsome, smart and kind people. He noted that the gentle Arawaks were remarkable for their hospitality. "They offered to share with anyone and when you ask for something, they never say no," he said. The Arawaks had no weapons; their society had neither criminals, prisons nor prisoners. They were so kind-hearted that Columbus noted in his diary that on the day the Santa Maria was shipwrecked, the Arawaks labored for hours to save his crew and cargo. The native people were so honest that not one thing was missing.

Columbus was so impressed with the hard work of these gentle islanders, that he immediately seized their land for Spain and enslaved them to work in his brutal gold mines. Within only two years, 125,000 (half of the population) of the original natives on the island were dead." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-kasum/columbus-day-a-bad-idea_b_742708.html )

The second voyage of Columbus brought even more devastation to the native community than before. Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain, gave Columbus resources for conquering the "Indians". Bartolomé de Las Casas says that Columbus chose "200 foot soldiers and 20 cavalry, with many crossbows and small cannon, lances, and swords, and a still more terrible weapon against the Indians, in addition to the horses: This was 20 hunting dogs, who were turned loose and immediately tore the Indians apart." With the advantage of superior weaponry and resistance to the deadly diseases they brought alongside them, Columbus and his Spanish soldiers quickly subdued the native peoples and forced them into hard manual labor.

In my opinion, celebrating Columbus Day is celebrating the genocide of hundreds of people, and should be viewed as a day of memorial for the dead and enslaved. When it is taught in schools, all of it should be taught; children shouldn't be kept from the truth because ignorance leads to bigger problems like bigotry and prejudice. Besides that, remember George Santayana's words: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."