Goodbye, Columbus Day | 5 Minute Video

Even though it remains a national holiday, many cities no longer celebrate Columbus Day. They celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead. What’s behind the switch? Contrary to what you might think, it’s not about paying homage to America’s original inhabitants. Steven Crowder, host of Louder with Crowder, explains.

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Script:

Thanksgiving. Independence Day. Memorial Day.

Holidays are a great time to riddle Americans with needless, oppressive guilt.

But the one that stands head and shoulders above the rest is Columbus Day—the day where progressives indoctrinate your children into believing Columbus to be Satan incarnate, the USA to be his evil spawn, and the Native Americans to be pacifists. And so now we have “Indigenous Peoples Day” or, as it would have been named thirty years ago, “Aboriginals Day,” or, as it would have been named ten or fifteen years ago, “Native Americans Day,” or, as it could be named tomorrow in Canada, “First Nations Peoples Day.”

Feeling the urge to self-inflict grievous bodily harm yet? That’s only natural, because the whole charade has become an exercise in hating Western civilization, which is really just an exercise in hating yourself.

First, as far as Columbus goes, the guy deserves some credit, right? Flawed, to be sure, but he was the greatest navigator of his age—the first person to cross the Atlantic from the continent of Europe. And he did so without any maps and only three small ships. If you can name them, by the way, comment below, as I’m sure your professor can’t.

But your professor probably has taught you the tale of Columbus as a villain, usually as a starting off point to indict the United States as a whole, often relying on a few key myths and some pivotal lies by omission.

So, to start with, I’ll bet that you probably believe Columbus and other European settlers to simply have committed mass genocide against Native Americans…sorry; Indigenous.

But here’s the truth: While there were many examples of brutal warfare between Europeans and Native Americans, neither side actually committed genocide; in fact, there was never an outright policy of Indian extermination.

The Native Americans were mostly wiped out through infectious diseases that the settlers had inadvertently brought with them. Of the estimated 250,000 natives in Hispaniola, Columbus's first stop in the Americas in 1492, new infectious diseases wiped out a staggering 95% of their population by 1517.

As far as the genocide by violence, you can look at any historical account of even the most one-sided battles and find that they were still just that—battles. Take Wounded Knee (although hundreds of years later, I only bring it up because I know that if I don’t, you will). It’s become ubiquitous with the idea of Native Americans’ genocide. After all, there were 150-350 Aboriginals killed or wounded. That’s terrible, but there were also 25 American soldiers killed and 39 wounded. That’s not genocide; that’s a one-sided beatdown with Old Glory wielding the hammer.

And sometimes the “massacres” went the other direction. See the Apaches for reference, or the Comanches, or a dozen or so other tribes. So, the natives often gave as good as they got—not exactly the way genocide usually tends to work.

Here’s another thing I bet you’ve been made to believe: that many Native Americans…sorry; American Indians…sorry; Idon’tknowwhat-takeyourpick lived in harmony with the environment until Columbus arrived, and European settlers destroyed the land with their evil technology.

Truth? Not only did the Natives brutally take out PEOPLE, but they took out entire forests and hunted species to extinction.

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