Fighting Terrorism Since 1492
“In Fourteen Hundred and Ninety Two, Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue….”
Today is the day some in this nation honor Christopher Columbus, a very important man in American history. Being such, I thought it was appropriate to do a re-read of one of Howard Zinn’s essays on this wonderful human being.
In his essay “Columbus and Western Civilization,” you’ll find the following quotes attributed to Columbus concerning the native peoples (from his journals):
“They are the best people in the world and above all the gentlest–without knowledge of what is evil–nor do they murder or steal…they love their neighbors as themselves and they have the sweetest talk in the world…always laughing…They are very simple and honest and exceedingly liberal with all they have…They would make fine servants. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”
[...] And speaking of national holidays, isn’t it time we had a federal holiday honoring Native American Nations? In 2005, there was a House Resolution proposing such a holiday. It never made it to the Senate, thanks to two Republican Senators from Oklahoma, of all places. Why not cancel Columbus Day, a day that recognizes a mass murderer, and replace it with a day that honors some real American heroes? [...]