We should not have Christopher Columbus Day

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Sebastiano del Piombo, public domain, used under Creative Commons license

Christopher Columbus, the despicable man who tortured and made many people’s lives harder.

Should we have a day for Christopher Columbus, the famous explorer? Columbus Day was created by President Benjamin Harrison because Harrison believed that Columbus was the first explorer to find America. Why should we have it? Research shows that Christopher Columbus never even set foot in North America. October 12  marks the day Christopher Columbus first stepped in the Bahamas. On top of that, Leif Erickson is the first European explorer to come on North American soil, beating Christopher Columbus by 500 years. We don’t know; there could have even been someone before Leif Erickson. We should not have Columbus Day.

Some people think Columbus Day is a good thing to have. One of these reasons is that most people in America have European heritage and without Columbus European heritage would not be part of America. Another reason is if we erase him from history, people will not learn the great sacrifices made by all of the explorers to get to the new land. 

Christopher Columbus Day should not be a holiday for multiple reasons. The first reason is that he did not discover anything! People were already living in North America before he came. Columbus also took over Haiti and made the people living there slaves. That is not something to honor. 

He said about these slaves, “They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawk’s bells, they willingly traded everything they owned… They were well built, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane…They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” He was a very cruel person to make them do what he wanted. 

According to an October 2015 article in the Philadelphia Tribune, Columbus was also a rapist and sold children into slavery. He initiated the African American slave trade. Even worse, Columbus murdered and tortured thousands of native people. He would cut people’s ears and noses off as punishments. He also cut people’s hands off, in what now is Haiti, for not bringing him enough gold every three months which he would send back to the king so he could continue getting funds for his expedition. This is not someone to honor.

We should not celebrate Christopher Columbus. He was a terrible man. He only deserves to be remembered so people will not repeat his mistakes. We should not celebrate Columbus Day.