Illustration by William Rerick/The Dakota Student.

“In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” is a cute little rhyme many are taught in their youth when learning about Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas. The brave explorer battled the mighty Atlantic to arrive at what he thought was Asia and began to encounter the natives who lived there, thus beginning the slow expansion of European influence on the “new” continent.

It’s a segment of every history class we have all taken at one point or another; we even have a federal holiday for the traveler. Though he is credited for much of the move to the new land, is he really worthy of a holiday?

What is often not taught in school is the massive slaughter of indigenous people, by weaponry and disease, and the entitled take over of land and resources that Columbus brought with him.

As he encountered the native people, they were cautious but gracious with Columbus and his people. They were seen  as uncivilized, savage, animalistic, even satanic. In the European  eyes, these naked, “wild” people needed to be taught how to dress, be educated and convert to Christianity. The explorer came in the name in the king, who has the God given right. Thus, he came in the name of God.

Millions of indigenous people were subject to the newcomers and their cruel laws, weapons and diseases. Columbus wasn’t some great hero to America. He was the big bully on the playground who took the swings and the slides away because he thought he deserved them.

So why do we have a federal day dedicated to him again?

In Brainerd, Minn. city council member Chip Borkenhagen suggested that instead of Columbus Day, the date should be celebrated as Native People’s Day. Other cities in Minnesota have done so, or have at least added  the holiday to the calendar.

Of course, this idea was criticized by those who had enjoyed the holiday.

So, what’s so bad about either replacing or adding a day for native people? Are we still basing our idea of Columbus from the happy tune we learned in school? This would mean it would be a simple case of being uneducated on the topic.

Or is it a matter of “race”?

Many in the U.S. are very patriotic, supporting the American ideal of “Land of the Free,” but that ideal simply isn’t a reality. This country was built on the mass genocide of native people and the enslavement of another.

White Christians abused their biblical text and used their faith as a means of justification for the horrific abuse and cruelty that our country began and was built on. Columbus was definitely a huge part of that.

Today, if there was such a figure doing the same, the news would be all over it. They may even see him as a terrorist.

It’s funny how extremists of any religion are branded with such a title, even though they believe what they’re doing is right.

There should be an entire month dedicated to the native people who were unjustly slaughtered, abused and forced out of their way of life because of those who came over to the country. They are often forgotten in the scheme of history. In fact, they are still, to this day, being marginalized and stereotyped.

This racism and prejudice isn’t new; it’s still here from those first years. And it needs to stop. Columbus Day should really be replaced with Native Peoples Day. It’s not that doing so would undo the horrors done to them, but they deserve the recognition far more than some hoity-toity man who was so self entitled and self absorbed.

We should not remember a man of mass murder, but rather, those wrongly murdered.

Steph Gartner is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].