Columbus vs. Indigenous Peoples Day

Get ready to rumble!  It is a throwdown between two holidays vying for the same day.  We look at the history of both and the real reasons the left wants Indigenous Peoples Day in, and Columbus out.

Transcript

Columbus vs. Indigenous Peoples Day

October 2024

“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

and

“Following the Light of the Sun, we left the Old World”

Christopher Columbus

“If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.”

 Stephen Hawking

I love that Hawking quote because it is so unpackable.  He does not say Columbus “discovered” America, though from a Euro-Asian mindset, that is precisely what happened.  Hawking does note things were not propitious for the future of Native Americans.  He got that right, but who exactly are Native Americans?  The only true native homo sapiens on our little planet were those from East Africa.  Unless, of course, he means those born in a specific place.  But by that definition, I, too, am a native American.  I like the “first peoples” denomination for accuracy, which brings us to the word indigenous.  

Two definitions are provided: the first originates or occurs naturally in a particular place or native.  As noted, given the Bering land bridge, that is not, let’s say, the Sioux or the Apache. However, if birth is the criterion, then it is still me.  The second is closer to the mark: (of people) inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times or before colonists’ arrival.

They had me at the earliest time, then ruined it with that bit of leftist tripe thrown in. I marvel at Merriam-Webster today, which uses literary gymnastics to accommodate progressive ethos, but I digress.  Since it is in that definition, we then need a term for colonists, such as “a person who migrates to and settles in a foreign area as part of a colony.”  Again, since the peoples of the Western Hemisphere all came from someplace else, would they not be colonists?  I am sure that the mammoths and saber-toothed cats who these “Indigenous” people hunted to extinction would have viewed them very much as empire builders and colonists, were they capable of cognitive thought, of course.  

And this, in turn, brings us to the annual 2nd Monday in October kerfuffle that is about as political as a national party convention.  That we continue with this usual nonsense of the Columbus vs. Indigenous Peoples Day is, on its surface, rather shallow.  Like a pair of faculty professors contesting for the office with the best view, the stakes are pretty low. I mean, this one does not even come with a day off.  Ok, perhaps if you are an Italian American or a First People’s Nation, you have some skin in the game, but that comprises a total of 9% of all Americans.  And in the case of Italian Americans, I would ask that if they actually care, they need to pass a Columbus test. We could ask the name of the city he is from, the name of the three ships upon which he set sail, and finally, how many voyages he undertook. (The answers are Genoa, the Nina, Pinta, and the Santa Maria, and four, respectively). If one cannot do that, then I question their commitment.  And no, we all love Frank Sinatra, and Scorsese is a great director, so that does not cut it either.  

But there is something at stake here. The left’s ability to dictate terms in the culture war is something of which I am thoroughly sickened, from the odious Latinx, which no self-respecting Latino uses, to something of more serious note, accusations of racism, to attempting to reorder our history, our culture, and even our government based on a rump of very loud and intellectually challenged progressives.  I would not consider Columbus vs Indigenous Day if it were a standalone controversy, but it is part of something much more significant.

Any refutation that the left is currently winning the culture wars is demonstrated by this hubbub even being a thing.  In celebrating Indigenous Day, the White House said, “They are also stewarding lands and waters, growing our shared prosperity, and celebrating the good of our Nation while pushing us to tell the full truth of our history.” Uh-huh, the full truth, as they see it.  

Current Democratic candidate for President Kamala Harris stated, “European explorers... ushered in a wave of devastation for tribal nations. Perpetrating violence, stealing land, and spreading disease,” in a clear condemnation of Columbus. 

Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan said, “On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we celebrate Indigenous communities’ people, cultures, and traditions and recommit ourselves to uplifting Native Michiganders. We’ll keep working together with Tribal Nations to build a brighter future for indigenous peoples here in Michigan.” This is just a sampling of progressives who not only wish to blot out any memory of Columbus but also extoll the virtues of a people not really in and of themselves but as a smokescreen for a different agenda.  

A little history of Columbus Day. The first Columbus Day celebration took place on October 12, 1792, when the Columbian Order of New York, better known as Tammany Hall, held an event to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the historic landing. The Columbus Obelisk in Baltimore was also erected that same year. 

Many Italian Americans observe Columbus Day as a celebration of their heritage and not of Columbus himself, and the day was celebrated in New York City on October 12, 1866. The day was first enshrined as a legal holiday in the United States through the lobbying of Angelo Noce, a first-generation American, in Denver. Colorado governor Jesse F. McDonald proclaimed the first statewide holiday in 1905 and made it a statutory holiday in 1907. (To remove the stain of Columbus but to placate Catholics in the state, Colorado replaced Columbus Day with Frances Xavier Cabrini Day in 2020, though that holiday is observed a week earlier).  

For the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s voyage in 1892, following lynchings in New Orleans, where a mob had murdered 11 Italian immigrants, President Benjamin Harrison declared Columbus Day as a one-time national celebration. You probably thought that lynchings only happened to African Americans, but sadly, you would be wrong.  Harrison’s proclamation was part of a broader effort after the lynching incident to placate Italian Americans and ease diplomatic tensions with Italy.

In 1934, as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus and New York City Italian leader Generoso Pope, Congress passed a statute stating: “The President is requested to issue each year a proclamation designating October 12 as Columbus Day In 1966, Mariano A. Lucca, from Buffalo, New York, founded the National Columbus Day Committee, which lobbied to make Columbus Day a federal holiday. These efforts were successful, and legislation to create Columbus Day as a federal holiday was signed by President Lyndon Johnson on June 28, 1968, effective in 1971.  In 1971, Columbus Day became an officially recognized federal holiday in the United States; it has been observed on the second Monday in October.

I want to be clear that, though, as we shall see, I get the purpose of Columbus Day. We already have too many federal holidays, which should be removed from the Calendar. We can still have Cinco De Mayo and Columbus without another paid holiday for the Commerce Department staff.  

And Indigenous Day?  The roots of the holiday can be traced back to discussions and propositions regarding instituting it as a replacement for Columbus Day in 1977 during The International NGO Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas in Geneva, Switzerland. In 2021, Joe Biden formally commemorated the holiday with a presidential proclamation, becoming the first U.S. president to do so, and presidential proclamations have also been issued in 2022 and 2023. Here is an excerpt from the first one.

“Since immemorial, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians have built vibrant and diverse cultures — safeguarding land, language, spirit, knowledge, and tradition across the generations.  On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, our Nation celebrates their invaluable contributions and resilience, recognizes their inherent sovereignty, and commits to honoring the Federal Government’s trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations.” 

I would like to actually know how “invaluable the contributions are to our culture.” Indigenous peoples did not have industry, their farming was crude, they had no democracy, they did not understand the concept of individual liberty, and they were not above warring with their neighbors, as we shall see.  

Biden makes an interesting point, “The contributions that Indigenous peoples have made throughout history — in public service, entrepreneurship, scholarship, the arts, and countless other fields — are integral to our Nation, our culture, and our society.  Indigenous peoples have served, and continue to serve, in the United States Armed Forces with distinction and honor — at one of the highest rates of any group — defending our security every day.” And of this, I would certainly agree.  Only that could also be said for any other ethnicity in the United States, including Latinos, African Americans, and Italian Americans.  

Given its political nature, Indigenous Peoples’ Day is not recognized as a holiday under U.S. federal law.

So, regarding Columbus himself, should we celebrate a man who, however, inadvertently caused the deaths of millions by bringing germs to the Americas to which those peoples had no immunity? Should we heap honors in terms of organizations, statues, holidays, city names, and a holiday to a man who brought European Imperialism first, like the Spanish and Portuguese empires and later those of French, Dutch, Swedish, and English colonialism?  The answer from the left is a clear no, as Indigenous Peoples Day is not just meant to celebrate First Peoples but to intentionally replace an existing holiday.  My issue with cultural totems to one group, such as Juneteenth or the presentation of “Lift Up Your Hearts and Sing,” is my belief the left wishes to replace existing touchstones such as Independence Day and the Star-Spangled Banner.  Yet they are not (yet) so bold as to directly try.  But Columbus has to go; first, people are the replacement—revenge, as it were.  

Which brings us back to Columbus.  This begs my only issue with the Italian explorer.  Had he not introduced the Americas to Eurasia, someone else would have.  This was when Europe, through technological mastery that involved everything from the printing press to shipbuilding and oceanic navigation, became the dominant power in the world.  Prior to the 1400s, this was not the case. For example, China in the 100s, the 700s, and the early 1400s had greater technological advancement.  But that ended in the 15th century.  

Initially led by Portugal, Europe was in the throes of the Age of Discovery, with expeditions ranging around Africa and all the way to India by Sea. If not Columbus, it is conceivable that some other intrepid sole would have set forth due West from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, or England. Yet we know it was Columbus who did it first, and the sheer courage of that has to be honored.  

The term “Atlantic” was first used in the sixth century BC by the Greek poet Stesichorus, who referred to it as Atlantikôi pelágei, meaning “Sea of Atlas.” The Greeks also referred to modern-day Gibraltar on one side and Morocco on the other as the Pillars of Hercules with the concept that this was the end of the world.  Plato placed the legendary island of Atlantis, a lost Kingdom, beyond the “Pillars of Hercules.” Renaissance tradition says the pillars bore the warning Ne plus ultra or “nothing further beyond,” warning sailors and navigators.

Any discussion of Columbus must also include whether 5th-century Irish monks made it to North America.  Probably not.  However, Leif Erikson did land in what is now Newfoundland, Canada, around the year 1000. He named the area Vinland, which means “land of wine.” Yet the Vikings could not set up a permanent settlement, and the exploration of his Vinland would have to wait another 500 years.  Then we have contentions that on the other side of the globe, Zeng He, leader of massive Ming Era ocean-going vessels, crossed the Pacific and landed in South America.  Like the Irish monk theory, information is sketchy.  Both from evidence and description, the sheer mass of the Pacific, which is nearly four times as wide as the Atlantic, and the trade winds that tend East to Great for getting from South America to Asia but not good going the other way.  Columbus was brave enough to sail into the “nothing” and the last to discover the new lands that would later comprise our republic and many other nations.  

And in our “you know love, I am tired of London, let us go to New York” world in which we can make that journey in one-third of one day for about $400 bucks per seat, Columbus’ voyage is difficult to fathom.  For one, he took 60 days.  Again, he was sailing due west, so there was no land, no marks, and no reassurance that he was not approaching some abyss.  His largest ship, the Santa Maria, was 70 feet long, 25 feet wide, and weighed about 100 tons.  Our current-day guided-missile destroyers are 500 feet long, with a beam of 66 feet and a displacement of 8,300–9,700 tons.  The USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier is over 1100 feet long, 256 feet wide at the flight deck, and displaces 100,000 tons, so roughly one thousand times larger than Columbus’ largest ship.  To set out west where no one had ever been in that boat was courage that we could barely fathom.  Was Columbus brave, indomitable, or simply moonbat crazy?

Given that he got support from the Spanish monarchs to pay for and manage it, unlike Magellan, whom his men killed, Columbus was not crazy, but he was exceptional. His bravery, resourcefulness, intelligence, resilience, and intrepidity were virtues we once celebrated. They are attributes upon which this nation was built, and that in and of itself is reason for honor.  

For me, the celebration of Columbus does not have to do with the inadvertent things that most certainly would have happened without him.  Any group of Europeans would have spread the germs. And with Imperialism? This is presentism run amok, where we impose our ethos on people in the past.  Everyone was part of an empire, and everyone was conquered in the 15th century.  Of course, this involves the indigenous peoples as well.  

In his brilliant Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage, by Steven A. LeBlanc, “blasts the myth of a peaceful past in which the “noble savage” lived in a natural paradise. Constant Battles demonstrate that contrary to popular belief and scholarly bias, there has always been warfare and that humans have never lived in balance with nature.”

LeBlanc begins his narrative in the Southwest of the United States, in an area of New Mexico called El Morro. The author discovers the dwellings of the Anasazi people on Mesa tops, which were very difficult to reach.  Given the need to retrieve water and gather food, defense was the only possibility for this strange choice of living accommodations.  Later, Leblanc ascertains the reason. “We discovered a site that was burned to the ground and from which people had fled for their lives. Pottery and valuables were left in place on the floors, and bushels of corn still lay in the storerooms.” Adds Leblanc,

“The evidence indicated something catastrophic had occurred at this ancient Anasazi settlement and that the survivors had, almost immediately, with great speed, set about to prevent it from happening again.”  What happened was that the Anasazi settlement witnessed a massacre that, in terms of proportion of numbers, was horrific. 

LeBlanc’s work illustrates the astounding number of deaths per population.  In one encounter, a people nearly 1,000 strong succumbed to an almost 50% murder rate from another tribe.  Genocide on a native Indigenous site, but unlike Columbus, the taking of human life was the point.  

Barack Obama stated this past Monday, “On Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we honor the immeasurable contributions that Native Americans have made over the years.”  These were people barely in the Bronze Age whose leading societies practiced human sacrifice.  The Smithsonian describes one Aztec find as “Archaeologists excavating a famed Aztec “tower of skulls” in Mexico City have uncovered a new section featuring 119 human skulls. The find brings the total number of skulls featured in the late 15th-century structure, known as Huey Tzompantli, to more than 600.  

This is not just to denigrate other societies. There is obviously much to appreciate about indigenous culture and history. The Hopi Water Maiden Dance, also known as the Pavalhik, is pretty cool. The point is not just the disparagement of one culture, but if the left really wants to replace one holiday with another, then a side-by-side comparison is necessary, and as we see, it may not be as cut and dried as progressives believe.  The simple question is which place would one rather live, Columbus’ Republic of Genoa or Montezuma’s Aztec Empire.  

But then, this debate is not really a comparison of simply Columbus with the likes of Montezuma or a Navajo tribal leader, likely the group that massacred the Anasazi.  This is really about a concerted effort on the part of the left to vilify all things Western, with Columbus as the stand-in.  This is about the oppressor oppression narrative so beloved in the academy, with the West as the former and indigenous peoples as the latter.  If Columbus is the stand-in for the West, Indigenous peoples, all victims in the leftist narrative, are the stand-in for today’s Palestinians or African Americans.  

Indigenous Day is about the concept of European/American Imperialism and colonialism because the supporters of this nonsense have never heard of the Mayans, the Incas, or the Aztecs. Closer to home, they had never heard of the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, who, through a series of conflicts known as the Beaver Wars, effectively controlled a large portion of the Ohio River Valley through conquest. Go in the way back machine and ask the Hurons, expelled from their lands by the Iroquois, about settler colonialism.  

This is about climate change, featuring the myth that Indigenous people were living in harmony with Mother Gaia and not spewing dirty carbon emissions like those dastardly capitalists and their greedy, money-grubbing ways.  As noted above, if Mastodons or Glyptodons could talk, they could tell a tale of the nature of the harmony with which first peoples lived.  Even if they could speak, we can’t ask them, like the Anasazi, they’re all dead.