Opinion of replacing Columbus Day with Native American Day

[minionofmidas]

Only one? How about 364?

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Considering the culture that Columbus came out of, what he did was nothing short of astonishing.

It's astonishing that somebody from a Renaissance Italian seafaring culture became a sailor, managed to get funding for an expedition based on an underestimation of the size of the planet about which he consistently refused to listen to as it happened entirely correct outside opinions, then spent the rest of his life on a power trip that alienated so many of his subjects as Governor of the Indies that at one point he and his brothers were hauled back to Castile in chains for incompetence and tyranny? Actually, now that I lay it out like that, I agree with you, I'm just not astonished in a good way.

We should have a day to honor explorers in general, not one specific more-than-usually historically significant but less-than-usually admirable one.

[DemPGH]

Unfortunately, the conquest of the natives was inevitable. You had conquistadors pumped up on religion and violence running against a primitive, indigenous culture; that's a real bad mix. The best case scenario for the natives was to simply face assimilation, but the differences were probably too great to allow even that.

Why honor explorers? Because they found new lands, defied odds and tradition, and built roads.

Columbus is the most overrated man in history.  He was freaking WRONG.  Everybody knew the Earth was round, he just thought it was much smaller than everybody else and he was wrong and they were right.

Well, everybody was wrong. Because they were trying to find out things and they had little actual knowledge. The truth is, no one had any idea where he was (although generally believed that it was Asia) and there were disagreements about where what continents were, how large the Earth was, and how big the continents were. Vespucci, I think, postulated that there was an entirely new continent to the west, which was correct.

All trial and error.

Considering the culture that Columbus came out of, what he did was nothing short of astonishing.

It's astonishing that somebody from a Renaissance Italian seafaring culture became a sailor, managed to get funding for an expedition based on an underestimation of the size of the planet about which he consistently refused to listen to as it happened entirely correct outside opinions, then spent the rest of his life on a power trip that alienated so many of his subjects as Governor of the Indies that at one point he and his brothers were hauled back to Castile in chains for incompetence and tyranny? Actually, now that I lay it out like that, I agree with you, I'm just not astonished in a good way.

We should have a day to honor explorers in general, not one specific more-than-usually historically significant but less-than-usually admirable one.

I do agree about honoring explorers, but--

Considering what passed for knowledge in 15th century Europe, and that fear, superstition, and terrifying levels of religious excess were the order of the day, and considering that everyone else was content to guess about what continents were where or how big the planet was, he went and found out.

Sure, Cristoforo was greedy, corrupt, and deluded to the point of violence by what he believed. That comes with mixing power and religion in the 15th and 16th centuries.

The crown gave him his power, though, and when it was taken away to make room for others who were similarly greedy and corrupt, his family sued to a large degree of success up until, I think, the 18th century, and maybe beyond, although I am not sure. That was an ongoing legacy, I know.

[angus]

We should have a day to honor explorers in general, not one specific more-than-usually historically significant but less-than-usually admirable one.

Explorers in General Day.  Now that really rolls of the tongue.

You should get the Salvadorians to change their currency from the Colón to the Exploradores por lo general. 

"Hola, cuanto cuesta los zapatos?" 

"Pues, treinta y dos Exploradores por lo general, señor." 

Okay, to be fair they did stop making Colones since the last time I was in El Salvador, but it was to adopt the US Dollar as their official currency, not to create the Exploradores por lo General.

You might convince Columbia, either the District or the country, to change its name.  "Welcome to Washington, District of Explorers in General."  That has a nice ring to it. 

In principle, I might be comfortable with changing the name of Columbus Day just for the hell of it, but so far only really stupid alternatives have been suggested.  Why not just leave it as is?  The world is confusing enough without the constant changing of names. 




"Please prepare for our landing in Tanzania...
I'm sorry, it is now called New Zanzibar.
Excuse me.  It is now called Pepsi presents New Zanzibar."

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Leif Erikson Day makes no less sense than Columbus Day, but why is celebrating any of these explorers more important than respecting the first Americans?

Vikings are cool, bro. Also, they're the source of more than one History Channel conspiracy theory about the Knights Templar and the Masons as well. Though we should probably have a Chief Pontiac Day, I'll give you that. I may or may not have visited his burial site twice this weekend. Legend shall be the judge of that.

[angus]

That'd be okay, but drop the Erikson, and, in before it gets mentioned, "the lucky" as well.  Make it one word.  Leifday.  In the far future, when people are even shallower than they are now, they'll assume it has to do with autumn, and they'll tell each other that this was how 21st-Century Americans spelled Leaf.  Probably there will be some ritual that goes with it.  Hey dude, what did you get for Leifday?  A new leaf blower, man.  Awesome, my parents just got me a rake.

[TDAS04]

Leif Erikson Day makes no less sense than Columbus Day, but why is celebrating any of these explorers more important than respecting the first Americans?

Vikings are cool, bro. Also, they're the source of more than one History Channel conspiracy theory about the Knights Templar and the Masons as well. Though we should probably have a Chief Pontiac Day, I'll give you that. I may or may not have visited his burial site twice this weekend. Legend shall be the judge of that.

Absolutely.  I'm part Norwegian and the college that I attended has Ole the Viking as its mascot.  Even with that aside, Vikings are worth celebrating more than Columbus.  I said that they were no less great; perhaps I should have just said more.

Unfortunately, the conquest of the natives was inevitable. You had conquistadors pumped up on religion and violence running against a primitive, indigenous culture; that's a real bad mix. The best case scenario for the natives was to simply face assimilation, but the differences were probably too great to allow even that.

Why honor explorers? Because they found new lands, defied odds and tradition, and built roads.

There may be reasons to honor explorers in general, but my question was:  Why are they worth celebrating more than the very first people of our country, and their cultural contributions?  If we love this nation and its history, there must some respect for the first inhabitants of the our territory.  

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Leif Erikson Day makes no less sense than Columbus Day, but why is celebrating any of these explorers more important than respecting the first Americans?

Vikings are cool, bro. Also, they're the source of more than one History Channel conspiracy theory about the Knights Templar and the Masons as well. Though we should probably have a Chief Pontiac Day, I'll give you that. I may or may not have visited his burial site twice this weekend. Legend shall be the judge of that.

Absolutely.  I'm part Norwegian and the college that I attended has Ole the Viking as its mascot.  Even with that aside, Vikings are worth celebrating more than Columbus.  I said that they were no less great; perhaps I should have just said more.

Columbus is less great--despite my being half-Italian and all--due to, despite having managed to convince a queen to give him a huge amount of money, was actually a moron. First off, he didn't prove the world was round. He just assumed it was smaller than it actually was, thus believing he could reach Asia. If you take out the Americas, he would have died at sea in all likelihood, being one more idiot, though an innovative one. The Vikings were all like "cool, land, let's live her some time".

[Redalgo]

I'd prefer Columbus Day just go away. And I'd like to rename a bunch of things in terms of buildings and geographic locales so that they are no longer celebrating HP. Thanksgiving can be the holiday that gets replaced with one dedicated in honor to Native Americans instead.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Let's replace it with "Explorers Day" to celebrate everyone who came to America and colonized it, not just the one who started it all. (And his predecessor Leif Erikson, who discovered Canada.)

[Link]

No, no, no. How about Explorer's Day? That would encompass them all, including Armstrong and Aldrin.

Did you just compare Neil Armstrong a very very humble man who the entire globe united and watched step on the moon to Columbus?!

Considering the culture that Columbus came out of, what he did was nothing short of astonishing.

What culture was that?  Everyone that could read a book back then knew the world was round.   Hell the Greeks knew it.  No new information here.  We have people called Indians in America because the guy was a moron.

But, in my opinion, either keep it Columbus Day or get rid of the holiday entirely.  Replacing it with Native American day seems to place the blame for American mistreatment of Native Americans on the feet of Christopher Columbus.  And then, why don't we have a day for every race of people?  It just gets silly at a certain point.

Maye because Native Americans are the only true Americans.  Yeah maybe because of that.  We aren't going to give them reparations.  I don't see how a national holiday celebrating the cultures we decimated is "getting silly."  It really doesn't matter.  A few hundred years from now I doubt there will be a Columbus day.  The propaganda can only go on for just so long.

[barfbag]

I don't know very many people who even realize Columbus Day when it happens. Is it really a big deal?

[angus]

I don't know very many people who even realize Columbus Day when it happens. Is it really a big deal?

I don't get the day off in my current or past few jobs, but I have had it before.  It is a postal holiday.  This year it will be Monday October 14.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

No, because I'm so sick of PC bullsh**t.

[TNF]

We have too few of them as it is.

Fixed that for you. And I don't really care what the day is called, so long as we get the day off. I would however lean towards changing it to perhaps something more neutral - maybe Discovery Day or something? Or just to get rid of it and insert another holiday elsewhere in the year to make up for it. Recognize May 1st as National Origins Day or something.

[Link]

No, because I'm so sick of PC bullsh**t.

Suing to allow girls onto the boys high school wrestling team is "PC bullsh**t."  The OP is talking about setting the historical record straight and ceasing to make fools of ourselves.  I really don't understand a country that routinely stirs up a hornets nest in the middle east because some third party in Europe mistreated some Jews decades ago.  Spending billions a year on Israel, Egypt, etc while celebrating Columbus day at home is just ludicrous.

[The Free North]

As an Italian American, I strongly disagree with the question in the OP


Columbus, despite his shortcomings, was not responsible for the genocide that the US government/Spanish/Portuguese governments committed years later.

His courage and determination make me proud to be from such a great country.

[DemPGH]

What culture was that?

The one that by policy tortured heretics, burnt witches, made no technological advancements save armor and weapons between about the time of Heron of Alexandria and Copernicus, fought with Muslims because they thought God wanted them to, conducted an Inquisition, believed Jews were demonic, and thought the Earth was at the center of the universe.

Yeah, that culture. But they also painted some pretty pictures!

Everyone that could read a book back then knew the world was round.

Yeah, but only about 15% of the population could read. If that. Most of the authorities accepted that the planet was round, but they had no idea that there was a continent to the west that was not Asia, and they disagreed about how large the Earth was. They thought Columbus was going on a suicide mission.

Re: the Greeks - yeah, and it's too bad Aristarchus was lost. He figured out the Sun was at the center of the solar system. The scholastic authorities didn't like that, though.

Greek knowledge that the scholastic authorities did not like fell on deaf ears.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

What culture was that?

The one that by policy tortured heretics, burnt witches, made no technological advancements save armor and weapons between about the time of Heron of Alexandria and Copernicus, fought with Muslims because they thought God wanted them to, conducted an Inquisition, believed Jews were demonic, and thought the Earth was at the center of the universe.

Most of this I don't think really has to be addressed (because it's more or less true, even though the way in which you're presenting it indicates a perhaps shaky understanding of the context behind why these things were the case and even though you're unduly dismissive of what medieval society was able to accomplish in its less savory aspects' despite), but the bolded part is completely false and ridiculous.

[dead0man]

As an Italian American, I strongly disagree with the question in the OP


Columbus, despite his shortcomings, was not responsible for the genocide that the US government/Spanish/Portuguese governments committed years later.

Only because he wasn't around for it.  From wiki:

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The dude wasn't just stupid, he was an asshole too.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Some Italians (not saying you do) bitch that everybody thinks pizza and the mafia when they think of Italians, glorifying this pile of dog poo isn't helping.  Pick a new guy to fawn over, say Leonardo da Vinci maybe?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

No don't do it. Things don't need to change.

This thread is pretty out of touch with South Dakota.

Who is out of touch with South Dakota now?

South Dakota has like 3 Italian people and a decent Native American population so it's no surprise.  

But, in my opinion, either keep it Columbus Day or get rid of the holiday entirely.  Replacing it with Native American day seems to place the blame for American mistreatment of Native Americans on the feet of Christopher Columbus.  And then, why don't we have a day for every race of people?  It just gets silly at a certain point.

Columbus Day makes little sense considering that not only was he not the first person set to foot in the Americas, he was not even the first European; the Vikings were.

Anyway, Martin Luther King Day (which I support) honors the fight for African American rights.  The Native Americans were the first Americans.  They are the ones who have a the strongest case against "illegal aliens".  To this day, they are still persecuted.  On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, poverty is horrendous, and the life expectancy is similar to that of an African country.  In the wealthy US, that is downright shameful.  

Also, Congress must apologize for their destruction.  Congress has apologized for slavery, for Japanese internment, and for the overthrow of the Hawaiian queen.  It must apologize for the worst atrocity in US history, which is of course, what was done against the Native Americans.

Surely, the original people of our "free land, the greatest nation on Earth" are entitled to our respect.

From what I can recall, the US Government has never apologized for it's draft policies during the Civil War, has never apologized for the treatment of the native population of the Philippines after McKinley took it over, never apologized for inaction during the flooding of the Mississippi in the 1920's (the most untalked about natural calamity in American history that was that era's Katrina), has only given a very minimum apology for the behavior of abusive military in the Vietnam War (to which their initial reaction was disgusting), and has come nowhere near (though Fox News pundits claim differently) to apologizing to the world for the World Policeman status that the US now has.

So yes, the US Government doesn't have exactly that great of a record of "apologizing".

Congress actually did make an apology in a Brownback amendment to the Defense authorization bill in 2009.

[TDAS04]

Congress actually did make an apology in a Brownback amendment to the Defense authorization bill in 2009.

Stand corrected.

That's good to know.  Good things can even come from Sam Brownback.

[tpfkaw]

What culture was that?

The one that by policy tortured heretics, burnt witches, made no technological advancements save armor and weapons between about the time of Heron of Alexandria and Copernicus, fought with Muslims because they thought God wanted them to, conducted an Inquisition, believed Jews were demonic, and thought the Earth was at the center of the universe.

Most of this I don't think really has to be addressed (because it's more or less true, even though the way in which you're presenting it indicates a perhaps shaky understanding of the context behind why these things were the case and even though you're unduly dismissive of what medieval society was able to accomplish in its less savory aspects' despite), but the bolded part is completely false and ridiculous.

Yeah, if you think there weren't any technological advancements in Europe between "Heron" and Copernicus, you're pretty much a complete unreconstructed ignoramus about history.  An extremely partial and non-chronological list I can come up with off the top of my head:  blast furnaces and forged steel, stirrups and horseshoes, soap, firearms, crop rotation, heavy plows, enclosure, flying buttresses and pointed arches, sailing ships, magnetic compasses and astrolabes, the rudder, glass-blowing, mechanical clocks, windmills, paper, the printing press, eyeglasses, beer, wells, universities, the scientific method, and fwucking magnets (how do they work?).

Most Indians who live outside reservations are every bit as affluent and successful as their white neighbors.  It's actually pretty much the best real-world example of the "culture of dependency" rhetoric.

*Ahem* Native Americans

Ah, I used to always use that term, but an Indian friend of mine informed me that only white people use that term and he and most others prefer the term "Indian."  I did some searching around and apparently that's true.  I therefore changed my terminology.

[dead0man]

Ah, I used to always use that term, but an Indian friend of mine informed me that only white people use that term and he and most others prefer the term "Indian."  I did some searching around and apparently that's true.  I therefore changed my terminology.

Yeah, that's true, but it (the term Indians) hurts the feelings of the bleeding hearts.....wait, that's fun.  Carry on.  Same thing is true with African-American/black people.



(and of course you can find Indians and Blacks that prefer the whatever-American, but the vast majority of them here in the real world don't give a sh**t about it)

[they don't love you like i love you]

I hate the term "Indian" not for PC reasons but because it's inaccurate. Indians are from India.