The students of do.think.learn worked together this week to craft a statement on whether or not we should celebrate Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day. I’m pretty psyched about their research and collaboration in putting this together.
Their statement reads as follows:
We should definitely not celebrate Columbus Day. Christopher Columbus represents European colonization and slavery. He was selfish and killed people. He pretty much popularized colonization on indigenous people’s lands. The indigenous people are the originators of the locations we live on. Columbus’s evil ways encouraged more colonizations and mass murder. For example- when the Spanish colonized/conquered the Aztec’s land. Hernan Cortes, the Spanish leader, took many of the Aztecs hostage and used his mistress (La Malinche) to manipulate the Aztec leader (Montezuma). Later the Spanish colonized California and the tribes of Los Angeles such as the Chumash and the Tongva. We should celebrate the indigenous people and individuals like Bartolome de Las Casas. He was originally a jerk like Columbus, who changed. He sold his land, freed his slaves, and spoke out against people who treated indigenous people poorly. Instead of taking a day to appreciate an evil European colonizer, we should take a day to appreciate the people that were here before us.