To What Extent Should We Celebrate Columbus Day

Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. Many people know this saying and the story behind it. Everyone knows who Columbus is and what he did. Although, they do not know the horrible things that went on when he reached the Americas. Most people know the story of how he thought the earth was flat and how he could get to India by moving west across the ocean. They know he reached the Americas and thought it was India. However, this is not the whole story. We celebrate Columbus Day in honor of him finding the Americas. Even though he did find the Americas, does not mean what happened when he got to the Americas were all good things. We should not celebrate Columbus Day because he treated the Native Americans horribly, he took men, women, and children as slaves over to Europe, and he would do
Columbus wrote in his log, “They willingly traded everything they owned.” As can be seen the Arawaks were very nice to the Europeans and did not cause any harm, however the Europeans took that for granted. Columbus wanted to find the gold and knew that the Arawaks knew where the gold was. Columbus also wrote, “I took some natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me some information of whatever there is in these parts.” Columbus noticed that the Arawaks were wearing tiny gold ornaments in their ears. He immediately took them onto the ship as prisoners and made them take Columbus and the fellow Europeans to where the gold was. He then took more indians as prisoners and when they refused to trade bows and arrows, he would run them through with swords and let them bleed to death. They would make the indians find a certain quantity of gold and when they did not find this much their hands would be cut off and would bleed to death. None of this says anything about being a hero, let alone having a day celebrated for what he did (Zinn,