Response to :

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn

Social Studies The United States by Scott Forseman

The Movement for Indigenous Peoples Day by  NPR

• A people’s story of the United States by Howard Zinn portraits Christopher Columbus as a selfish and cruel explorer who came to America in the pursuit of gold for his King and Queen. Who promised him “10 percent of the profits, governorship over new-found lands, and the fame that would go with a new title” Page 2.  after searching for gold  and not being able to find any Columbus decided to slave Arawaks (Native Americans) and sell them for a profit. While other Arawaks were force to work continuously searching for gold, many of them died and some were kill and other kill themselves. “In two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead” Page 4. in this quote we can see how devastating was the arrival of Christopher Columbus to America. Las Casas in his book number 2 History of the Indies described in details all the wrong doings and how the Arawaks were desperate that didn’t want to suffer no more “7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation. . . . In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work” Page 7. Just by this small facts we can see that whatever happened back then was so horrify.

• On the contrary in the Social Studies the United States by Scott Foresman shows Christopher Columbus as an great explorer whose expedition “would lead to powerful changes for the Americas, Europe, and the entire world” in this book they talk about and “exchange” of movement of people, animals, and plants omitting that fact that Native Americans were “slaved, raped and murdered” in masses. In today’s world all of these are considered a human crime that most historians tend to leave out when the refer to the discovery of America. I understand that back then things were different, but even back then this acts weren’t acts of gratification.

• After years of debates and arguments over Columbus being consider an important historical figure in American History in spite of all the death he caused. The podcast from NPR explains how and why Columbus became a national holiday in United States even though Columbus never even make it to North America. In this podcast they also argued that this holiday should be replaced to Indigenous people’s day instead, lot of Italian-American are against this movement, because they argue that it is part of their history and heritage, however most of people in United States don’t really want to honor a mass killer and some state have already changed this holiday without changing the American history, but instead changing who they honor on this day.

Why did it take people in United States so long to realize that Christopher Columbus was a murderer and that he shouldn’t be honored?

Why Columbus Day federal holiday hasn’t changed in United State, while many other countries in America recognize this day as indigenous people’s day since the 19th Century ?

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