skip to main |
skip to sidebar
From The New York Times-
As I watched the disturbing events unfold in Charlottesville, Va., several weeks ago, I knew our Italian-American community would soon be called to once again address questions about statues celebrating Christopher Columbus and the day named in his honor. We would once again be called on to “defend Columbus” against efforts to remake his day into Indigenous People’s Day.
Indeed, within days, Baltimore’s Christopher Columbus monument, believed to be the first erected to the Italian explorer in America, was vandalized. Calls multiplied to remove the iconic statue from New York’s Columbus Circle. We watched Columbus unceremoniously decapitated in Yonkers. Then, as reports of similar actions began to flood in from around the nation, Los Angeles officially replaced its celebrations of Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day.
More here-
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/opinion/christopher-columbus-day-statue.html
From Common Dreams-
Once again this year many schools will pause to commemorate Christopher Columbus. Given everything we know about who Columbus was and what he launched in the Americas, this needs to stop.
Columbus initiated the trans-Atlantic slave trade, in early February 1494, first sending several dozen enslaved Taínos to Spain. Columbus described those he enslaved as "well made and of very good intelligence," and recommended to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella that taxing slave shipments could help pay for supplies needed in the Indies. A year later, Columbus intensified his efforts to enslave Indigenous people in the Caribbean. He ordered 1,600 Taínos rounded up—people whom Columbus had earlier described as "so full of love and without greed"—and had 550 of the "best males and females," according to one witness, Michele de Cuneo, chained and sent as slaves to Spain. "Of the rest who were left," de Cuneo writes, "the announcement went around that whoever wanted them could take as many as he pleased; and this was done."
More here-
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/10/07/time-abolish-columbus-day
From The New York Times-
