While the illegitimate settler colony known as the United States celebrated Columbus Day (October 10) and Thanksgiving (November 24), continuing to amass wealth through capitalist consumerism at the expense of Indigenous peoples and colonized Africans, we recall the atrocities committed by the Genoa Italian known as Christopher Columbus, the brutal butcher, rapist and thief of the islands known today as the Caribbean.
I note a passage from the book “A People’s History of The United States 1492-2001” by Howard Zinn where he writes:
“Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, and gifts. Columbus wrote of this in his log:
‘They brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they owned. They were well built, with good bodies and handsome features. They do not bear arms, and do not know them.’
Columbus goes on further to say, ‘I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance.
‘They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. They would make fine servants. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.’
These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like as he called the Indigenous of the U.S., the Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (colonial European observers were to say repeatedly) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europe of the Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus.”
A Colonizer of the Caribbean
Columbus didn’t “discover” the Caribbean nor the territory known as North America today. In fact, he never set foot in North America.
During four separate trips that started in 1492, Columbus landed on a Bahamian island occupied by the Indigenous Lucayan people, who originally called it Guanahani. He also invaded the island later called Hispaniola, as well as the coasts of Central and South America.
Columbus incorrectly believed that he landed in East Asia, and had captured “Indians” to bring back to Spain.
Given that the European colonizer has a U.S. federal holiday and is honored with celebrations in other countries, let’s look at some of the disturbing truths about the brutal Columbus.
Columbus was a murderer
Columbus initiated full blown genocide against the Indigenous people, the original custodians of the Caribbean islands, decimating and devastating whole populations.
The European colonialists introduced several infectious diseases, including typhus, smallpox, influenza, whooping cough, and measles following his voyage to the Americas.
From an online article produced jointly by Candid and Native Americans in Philanthropy, some of the atrocities committed against Indigenous peoples by Columbus and his bandits are summarized thus:
“Columbus and his men round up Arawak men, women, and children and enclose 550 of them in pens and four caravels bound for the slave market of southern Spain during his second voyage to the New World. Approximately 200 perish during the passage, and their bodies are cast into the sea.
After the survivors are sold as slaves in Spain, Columbus later writes: “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold” (Resendez, 2016). Additionally, while in Haiti, Columbus orders all Natives 14 years or older to collect a certain amount of gold every three months, an impossible task since there is so little gold there.
If Arawak Natives do not collect enough, Columbus has their hands cut off and tortures them. Bartolome de las Casas, a young priest, witnessed many atrocities committed by Spaniards against Native peoples.
He later wrote: ‘I saw here cruelty on a scale no living being has ever seen or expects to see.’
Las Casas describes the treatment of Natives thus: ‘Our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder, then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then…. The admiral, it is true, was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians…’ (Zinn, 1950).
Las Casas also notes that the Spaniards ‘thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades.’”
Colonizers’ days are numbered
Today, the existence of Columbus Day, as well as statues honoring the colonizers of the Americas, have come under fire based on the growth of anti-colonial struggles and increased consciousness of colonized people, ourselves.
The system of colonial-capitalism has made efforts to get in front of this, for instance, rather than doing away with Columbus Day altogether, which would still only result in a symbolic act, they hardly pretend to acknowledge Indigenous Peoples’ Day while requiring the two to coexist.
This same example can be applied to the reality of Indigenous people in the U.S. who were forced into concentration camps called “reservations” while the colonizers set the terms for who is a “legal citizen” and an “alien” on stolen land.
This profound contradiction has been exposed in much sharper view, and increasingly the colonized are rejecting the imposition of colonialism and the rule of the colonizer over our lives.
In order to completely eliminate the existence of both the colonizer and the colonized, the entire system of colonialism must be destroyed.
This in part means that this social system cannot, with any legitimacy, bestow upon us a single day while maintaining this brutal relationship. This repetitive strategy, to kill, torture, rape, steal, brutalize and assassinate us, then offer us a holiday, requires nothing to change.
Our objective has to be to totally transform the conditions of our existence and rectify the historic wrongs committed against us. This is why the African People’s Socialist Party has taken on the task of completing the African Revolution, standing with the Indigenous peoples throughout the so-called Americas and colonized peoples of the world.
Through the anti-colonial movement, we will develop our own traditions and culture that upholds and celebrates our struggle for freedom and independence.
Death to colonialism!
