From Wikipedia
The date Columbus arrived in the Americas is celebrated in some countries of Latin America. The most common name for the celebration in Spanish (including some Latin American communities in the United States) is the Día de la Raza ("day of the race" or the "day of the [Hispanic] people"), commemorating the first encounters of European and the Native Americans.
The day was first celebrated in Argentina in 1917, in Venezuela and Colombia in 1921, in Chile in 1922 and in Mexico it was first celebrated in 1928.
The day was also celebrated under this title in Spain until 1957, when it was changed to the Día de la Hispanidad ("Hispanicity Day"), and in Venezuela it was celebrated under this title until 2002, when it was changed to the Día de la Resistencia Indígena (Day of Indigenous Resistance).
Originally conceived of as a celebration of Hispanic influence in the Americas, as evidenced by the complementary celebrations in Spain and Latin America, Día de la Raza has come to be seen by nationalist activists throughout Latin America as a counter to Columbus Day; a celebration of the native races and cultures and their resistance to the arrival of Europeans in the Americas.
In the United States, Día de la Raza has served as a time of mobilization for pan-ethnic Latino activists, particularly since the 1960s.
Since then, La Raza has served as a periodic rallying cry for Hispanic activists. The first Hispanic March on Washington occurred on Columbus Day in 1996. The name is still used by the largest Hispanic social justice organization in the nation, the National Council of La Raza....
American anthropologist Jack Weatherford says that on Columbus Day, Americans celebrate the greatest waves of genocide of the American Indians known in history.
A second strain of criticism of Columbus Day focuses on the character of Columbus himself. In time for the 2004 observation of the day, the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents was published by the University of California, Los Angeles' Medieval and Renaissance Center. It stated that Columbus, while a brilliant mariner, exploited and enslaved the indigenous population.
Spelman College historian Howard Zinn described some of the details of how Columbus personally ordered the enslavement and mutilation of the native Arawak people in a bid to repay his investors.
Journalist and media critic Norman Solomon reflects, in Columbus Day: A Clash of Myth and History, that many people choose to hold on to the myths surrounding Columbus.
He quotes from the logbook Columbus's initial description of the American Indians: "They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance.... They would make fine servants.... With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
In contrast to "the myth," Solomon quotes Las Casas, who describes Spaniards driven by "insatiable greed"—"killing, terrorizing, afflicting, and torturing the native peoples" with "the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty" and how systematic violence was aimed at preventing "[American] Indians from daring to think of themselves as human beings."
The Spaniards "thought nothing of knifing [American] Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades," wrote Las Casas. "My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write."
2 comments:
Ok. Say Columbus arrived and said “these poor helpless indigenous who haven’t even entered the Iron Age in this modern 15th century. Let’s return to Europe and pledge to leave them alone forever.” Then we get to the 20th century and the indigenous are still happy having an entire continent to themselves yet still haven’t figured out any thing more advanced than tools of wood. And good old Hitler or Khomeini or Putin says “There is no America, we need resources, let’s go the indigenous lands.” Conditions for the natives surely would have been better had Columbus just chosen that noble path.
fairy tales typical pinche gringo
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