BTColumn – Righting historic wrongs

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today.

by Rev Guy Hewitt

Who doesn’t like Public Holidays? Even Scrooge got over his Yuletide ‘Bah! Humbug!’ As one of only two individualised US Federal Holidays, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day being the other, one assumes Columbus was germane to the history of the United States. But was he?

To those raised on the rhyme: “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…,” Columbus Day seems acceptable. But is it? Celebrated on the second Monday in October, Columbus Day actually marks his first landing on Guanahani Island, The Bahamas on 12 October 1492. And while Columbus’ ‘discovery’ of the ‘New World’ was globally transformative we need to interrogate the man carefully.

Despite the propaganda, Columbus was not the first European, nor the first person, to ‘discover’ the Americas. Northern Europeans preceded him and Indigenous people had been living here for centuries before the advent of Columbus. So why the hype?

Importantly, several US presidents subscribed to the Columbus “discovering the New World” myth. Another significant factor was politics. Columbus’ acclaim for landing in the Caribbean while another explorer, Venetian John Cabot, actually landed on the mainland in 1497 was predicated by the fact that Cabot sailed under the English flag. No one in the newly independent nation would choose to associate with an England-sponsored explorer.

In hindsight, Cabot would have made a better choice not only because he actually landed here but equally important, he didn’t enact genocide against the indigenous people.

Although deemed ‘devout’ and deeply religious, like many European explorers, Columbus’ concern for the ‘salvation’ of native peoples was subsumed within a notion of white superiority, and as such, he saw nothing wrong with violently enslaving them.

Columbus may have been the world’s most famous explorer, but he was also largely responsible for much of imperial colonialism in the Americas, including slavery, forced labour, torture, and diseases hitherto unknown, together resulting in the killing of hundreds of thousands of people.

His misdeeds eventually caught up with him and in 1500, Columbus was detained, sent home in disgrace and did some jail time.

His infamy came to prominence during the Black Lives Matters protests as Confederate as well as colonial transgressions were interrogated.

Out of the collaborative work of Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC), connections were made between white supremacy and anti-Blackness on the one hand, and white settler colonialism on the other hand. During the Black Lives Matters protests, the statue in the Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park in Boston’s North End was decapitated.

Following that incident, the Mayor of Columbus, Ohio Andrew Ginther had their Columbus statues removed and the city’s seal and flag, with the Santa Maria, being reviewed. Boston’s Mayor Marty Walsh subsequently announced the vandalized sculpture, once repaired, would not return
to the Park.

Significantly, on 22 September Arizona Governor, Doug Ducey signed a proclamation to recognize 12 October 2020 as Indigenous Peoples Day. Other states including Alaska, Minnesota, Oregon and Vermont, already replaced Columbus Day to atone for the former’s transgressions and bring awareness to the historic maltreatment of Indigenous people and to respect and celebrate their culture.

Notwithstanding the challenges ahead, we should hold to the belief that the USA can become a beloved community, a nation at peace with itself.  Have a blessèd Indigenous Peoples Day.

The Rev. Amb. Guy Hewitt is a priest in the Diocese of Southeast Florida.