{"id":282,"date":"2023-10-08T12:18:11","date_gmt":"2023-10-08T16:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/?p=282"},"modified":"2023-10-09T08:13:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T12:13:00","slug":"goodbye-columbus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/growpurpose.com\/skipjack\/2023\/10\/08\/goodbye-columbus\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye Columbus?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most countries of the Americas and elsewhere, including the United States, are celebrating Columbus Day today, a holiday that celebrates \u00a0the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas on Oct. 12, 1492.\u00a0 The United States celebrates the occasion by giving federal workers the second Monday in October off.<\/p>\n

But 10 states and more than 100 cities across America have officially rejected recognizing Columbus Day and instead officially recognize Indigenous Peoples\u2019 Day, thus honoring America\u2019s native population whose demise began with Columbus\u2019 arrival.<\/p>\n

Joining those states and cities are 10 other states that officially recognize the day without making it an official holiday, plus President Biden, who signed a proclamation honoring the Indigenous People.<\/p>\n

The commemoration officially recognizes that America\u2019s Original People suffered atrocities forced on them by the white European invaders, how they fought valiantly despite impossible odds (the white man had rifles and they didn\u2019t, end of story), and their contributions to America\u2019s society.<\/p>\n

Indigenous People want us to see the story of America from their point of view, which is a far different story than most of us learned in school.\u00a0 They call that story a baldfaced lie.\u00a0 It was written by the victorious white European invaders to glorify themselves with little regard for truth, and they want us to hear their story anew and reflect on it. They feel they have been invisible in everyday American life, and until they are fully seen, until their story is fully recognized, the rest of us will never see their real issues and real concerns, and justice will never be done.<\/p>\n

And today, Inaugural Peoples\u2019 Day, is a good day for all of us, but especially all of us white folks, to take a few moments and do just that. We owe them that much.\u00a0 But first a warning:\u00a0 For those of us who grew up sainting our Founding Fathers, this can be painful reading.<\/p>\n

Most histories of the United States tell how Columbus\u2019 discovered America, and from there they tell of how Europeans converted a wild world into a new form of government, a government of the people, by the people and for the people, a society in which all people would be free.<\/p>\n

The Indigenous People\u00a0 don\u2019t dispute the European\u2019s version of history \u2013 the who-what-where-when of it\u00a0 \u2013 but they do very strongly dispute its essence, its truth.<\/p>\n

Begin with the word \u201cdiscovery\u201d that the European writers used.\u00a0 Indigenous People point out that Columbus discovered nothing.\u00a0 They were here long\u00a0 before he was and they deserved to be recognized for it.<\/p>\n

As for \u201cwild world\u201d, Indigenous People laugh. Indigenous Person and author Roxanna Dunbar-Ortiz explains:\u00a0 \u201cEuropean colonialists shoved aside a large network of small and large nations whose governments, commerce, arts and sciences, agriculture, technologies, theologies, philosophies, and institutions were intricately developed nations that maintained sophisticated relations with one another and with the environments that supported them.\u201d\u00a0 They lost all that because the white man had rifles and they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

And as for that \u201csociety in which all people would be free,\u201d Indigenous People\u00a0 see a history of cruel colonialism, a state that was founded on white supremacy, developed on the backs of enslaved Black people, and grew into full power through a policy of land theft and genocide.<\/p>\n

Even \u201cland theft\u201d and \u201cgenocide\u201d are pathetically weak words to describe what happened.<\/p>\n

Land theft:<\/em> Indigenous People once occupied an estimated 21 million square miles of land across the contiguous United States, and 99 percent of it was stolen from them.<\/p>\n

Genocide<\/em>:\u00a0 The newly arrived Europeans tried to exterminate them, and they almost succeeded.\u00a0 The invaders starved them by burning their crops and slaughtering their main source of food, the buffalo; unmercifully massacred their unarmed women and children; and purposefully introduced diseases they knew would kill large numbers of them.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t only the early settlers.\u00a0 The Indigenous people see America\u2019s Founding Fathers as being such white supremists that they had the audacity to say that \u201call men are created equal\u201d when what they really meant was all white<\/em> men were created equal, and preferably white men who owned land.\u00a0 They clearly did not consider white women or Black men or women as created\u00a0 their equal,<\/p>\n

In her book An Indigenous People\u2019s history of the United States<\/em>, author\u00a0 Dunbar-Ortiz names the worst offenders, using their own words and actions to back up her accusations.\u00a0 She singles out George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Calvin,\u00a0 Andrew Jackson, James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, John\u00a0 Smith, William Sherman, Robert E. Lee, Frank Baum, Theodore Roosevelt and others.<\/p>\n

There is nothing we or they can do about that history now.\u00a0 History cannot be changed.\u00a0\u00a0 But land deals can be changed, and that\u2019s what today\u2019s Indigenous People want.\u00a0 They want their stolen land back.\u00a0 The government once offered them money but they refused.\u00a0 They only want their land, and they want it now<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why they want the rest of us to hear their side of the story anew and reflect on it. These are the real issues and concerns they face, but they cannot succeed without us understanding and being aware of them, and helping as we can.<\/p>\n

And with an ever-growing number of us joining the effort, they\u2019re beginning to get their wish, one significant chunk of land after another. Three examples:<\/p>\n