Discovery and Destruction

When Christopher Columbus made landfall in the Bahamas, it was not so much a “discovery” as it was an accident. As it has been quipped, Columbus didn’t know where he was going, didn’t know where he was when he arrived, and when he returned home, couldn’t tell anyone where he had been.

Native and indigenous voices have long lamented the honor bestowed on Columbus, and with good reason. He was this hemisphere’s first colonizer, European slave trader, and génocidaire. He, and the waves of pillagers who followed, eliminated more than 90% of America’s aboriginal people and cultures.

So when hundreds of native tribes – and a few city councils and state governments – refuse to celebrate the man they view more as a villain than a victor, give them their due. How can they applaud a person who brought their ancestors nothing but sickness, massacre, and destruction?

As a person…