Indigenous People’s Day – Engaging Peace

Doing the right thing

Posted on October 11, 2019October 11, 2019 by kathiemm

Mohave Indians; Indians of North America; Military personnel. Around 1868. Author: Gardner, Alexander, 1821-1882 (photographer). In the public domain.

by Anthony J. Marsella

Let’s change October 11 to Indigenous Peoples’ Day!

In our Global Era, we need to move away from Euro-American domination–including domination of history and the historical record.

It’s time to look at that record honestly. Reminders of genocides, enslavement, exploitation, repression of identity, and destruction of cultures can lead to opportunities for understanding, respect, and justice.

Columbus’ voyage had monumental consequences for indigenous people.. Even now, in the Amazon, as well as in Alaska, Hawaii, and other parts of the USA indigenous people struggle for human rights denied them by colonial and imperialistic powers. Time for change! There must be place and privilege for all.

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., ProfessorEmeritus, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822

Republished, with light editing, from the Psychologists for Social Responsibility discussion group, 10-11-19.

What’s in a name? (This one doesn’t smell so sweet.)

Posted on October 10, 2016 by kathiemm

Columbus Day. Everybody loves a day off, but honestly, does the United States really want to continue celebrating the name of a man who was a slave owner, a slave trader, a greedy, cruel, vicious dishonest brute? A lot of people have been asking that question.

The demythologizing of Columbus has begun; an engaging and chilling example can be found in the comic strip story by Matthew Inman. [His exposé is based on information from A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, and Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James W. Loewen, both of which use primary sources such as eyewitness accounts, journal entries, and letters from Christopher Columbus himself. It’s worth reading.]

In recognition of the genocide started by Columbus’s invasion of the not so new “New World,” some communities have renamed Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day or Native American Day to recognize and honor the native people whose lives, communities, and cultures have continued to suffer . South Dakota has renamed the day as Native American Day and this year Vermont (I love Vermont!) is celebrating Indigenous People Day.

Matthew Inman recommends renaming Columbus Day as Bartolomé Day after Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566), a settler in the New World who initially participated in atrocities committed against Indigenous Peoples by Spanish colonists but ultimately came to reject all forms of slavery. Although his name will never catch on for a U.S. holiday, he appears to be a man very much in the image of John Newton (1725–1807), who wrote Amazing Grace .

Our most recently named federal holiday is Martin Luther King Day, honoring a man who is an icon of the nonviolent pursuit of civil rights and social justice. Let us not forget that Columbus is also an icon; he represents what is most repellent, most harmful, and perhaps most dangerous in many segments of the United States today. Greed was his predominant motive. He lusted for wealth in the form of gold but enslaving and selling men for labor and women for sex would do. He relentlessly pursued power. He did not hesitate to use military violence to accomplish his goals. Sound familiar? Are these the people whom we want to represent the United States?

Recognizing that Columbus is the anti-hero surviving in our culture will not be pleasant, but it is a task that is long overdue. Maybe today should become U.S. Redemption Day.

Extolling WHOM

Posted on October 13, 2014November 15, 2014 by kathiemm

The 10¢ Columbian. Columbus Presenting Natives, 2 January 1893, US Post Office
This work is in the public domain in the United States

Today I am enjoying what appears to be a disappearing commodity: the three day weekend.

But, I am not celebrating the “accomplishments” of Christopher Columbus, who chanced on the Americas in his quest for riches and found them in his own form of “brown gold” i.e., the native peoples of the long-inhabited “New World,” whom he captured and sold or gave away in the thousands.

How can one honor such a man?

* On encountering the native people on the island he named San Salvador, he wrote, on October 14, 1492, “When your Highnesses so command, they could all be carried off to Castile or be held captive in the island itself because with 50 men they could all be subjugated and compelled to do anything one wishes.”

* On further exposure to the gentle native people, he wrote on December 16, 1492, “They have no weapons and are all naked without any skill in arms and are very cowardly so that a thousand would not challenge three.… Thus they are useful to be commanded and to be made to labor and sow and to do everything else of which there is need and build towns.…”

* On February 2, 1494, he dispatched 12 ships with a cargo of slaves—nearly half of whom died during the voyage—to be sold in the slave market at Seville.

I find no honor in such deeds or in the reign of terror Columbus unleashed on the people of the Americas. On this day (known in many places as Indigenous People’s Day) I join in honoring the native peoples who survived Columbus’s assault on their homes and families.

It is time to apologize and make amends.