Reflections on Columbus or Happy Genocide Day

Here we are, another celebration of Columbus Day has passed, and every year it gets just a little bit more embarrassing, bordering on surreal. We citizens of the United States are slowly waking up to the reality that the Americas were heavily populated by natives and doing just fine without European “civilization”. The fact that the Europeans were greeted for the most part by friendly folks willing to share what they had, was taken as a sign of weakness by our “hero”, Columbus. Instead of honoring the people that invited him into their home, he enslaved and murdered them, of course, baptizing them before they were put to the sword. Not the best way to start a new relationship.

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic was ground zero for the invasion of the Americas. Columbus’s son became governor of the new colony and promptly started the African slave trade after all the Indians were killed off. Charming family. The natural born inhabitants of the “new world” had to contend with the occasional minor invasions by Icelanders in the north and perhaps Africans and Polynesians in the south, but they either died off or were assimilated into their adopted cultures. Columbus, on the other hand, was only the vanguard of an endless supply of dim witted and diseased people longing for a place far away from all those dim witted and diseased people at home. “The Americas” was the place to go to get away from religious and political persecution, only to bring it all here!

I recall watching the movie “Little Big Man” starring Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan George. Filmed during our disastrous involvement in Vietnam; it was an introspective look at our checkered past as a nation. We are sort of going through the same disastrous wars today, but without the introspection, but I digress. Dustin Hoffman played, Jack Crabb, the adopted white son of Old Lodge Skins, a Cheyenne Plains Indian, played by Chief Dan George. Old Lodge Skins and Jack were discussing the fate of “the people” and Old Lodge Skins admitted, “There is an endless supply of white men. There have always been a limited number of human beings…” which pretty much sums up the story for the native people. The invaders that followed Columbus decimated the native population through warfare, murder, disease and deceit. They rubbed out the Plains Indian’s source of food and shelter in a methodical annihilation of the buffalo. Crushing the indigenous people and profiting from it, a win/win for whitey!

In North America the Native Americans are a small political voice due to their numbers and cultural anonymity. In South America, however, the indigenous people are numerous, but still have no voice because the political machines and power elite that have descended from the Spanish and Portuguese occupiers consider the Native Americans somehow less than human. The racial makeup of many South Americans has them sharing la sangre de los indios, either full blooded or mixed and these people are made to feel ashamed of their heritage; enough to even deny it and all the while their governments make life for them close to impossible.

For example in many South American country’s “Indians” are denied property ownership and are serfs in their native land. The Zapatista uprising of indigenous Mayan peoples in Chiapas, Mexico was the result of new trade policies implemented by Bill Clinton’s NAFTA creation that killed any hope of the people making a living on the corn they grew, because Mexico could now import cheap US corn. Outright genocide of Amazonian natives is not uncommon to this day. European and U.S. oil interests trump the health of the native environment in a repeat of the northern buffalo kill off. By destroying the forest for oil profit they destroy the people of the forest. The beat goes on.

That’s not to say we “Americans” haven’t made progress on a different view of Columbus’s “discovery”.

With the elections of Evo Morales in Bolivia and the late Hugo Chavez in Venezuela there is/was finally some justicia for the indigenous people of South America. More and more people are questioning our treatment of the Native Americans and evaluating cultural insensitivities such as naming sports teams with demeaning racist titles. Oddly enough, the most racist is our own nation’s capitol’s football team, The Washington Redskins! This is symptomatic of a victor’s arrogance and inability to question our modus operandi and switch gears on our autopilot ethos.

An ironic twist in all this is the U.S. right wing nationalist’s irrational hatred of immigrants from South America. Of course the irony is lost on these descendants of the original dim witted invaders from Europe. Fact is most of those “Mexicans” are in part or entirely descended from true Native Americans! It would be laughable if it wasn’t so hurtful. This anachronistic and thoughtless celebration of a genocidal maniac must eventually end as more and more of us become aware of his fathomless cruelty and his legacy of five hundred years of injustice. It’s only a matter of time.