For years Americans celebrated Columbus Day. I grew up thinking he was a hero for discovering America. I was confused as to why instead of Columbus Day others celebrated Indigenous Peoples' Day. As I moved closer to the Morongo Indian Reservation, I became more aware that as Americans we are celebrating not a hero but a man responsible for racist genocide. So I did some research on why we have a national holiday for a man who tortured, raped, killed, and then robbed Native Americans of their homeland. I wanted to discover the real Christopher Columbus. Why are we taught songs glorifying this man and not told the truth? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay As for me, I agree with the indigenous people because I think Columbus is an impostor. He first came to Latin America to find a new way to get to India and failed. Then he landed in Latin America and he knew it, and he deceived his shipmates into thinking they were in India. He would have had a disaster on his hands and would most likely die! Then they went to the Native Americans who already lived there and took everything, their land, and then enslaved them! Unfortunately, being a slave wasn't the only horror Native Americans faced from Columbus and his crew. The diseases brought to the “new world” by Europeans killed many natives, drastically reducing their numbers.” He then elected himself "governor" of the settlement in which he neither respected nor gave any power to the monarchs of Spain. He implemented inhumane rules that led him to kill his own colonists. Queen Isabella was so disgusted with Columbus that they sent a replacement for him and he returned to Spain in chains. Giving this man a vacation is a joke! What did he do that was so heroic? Absolutely nothing. Nothing worth applauding. We should reserve national holidays for the people who truly deserve them. Christopher Columbus actually sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, but never reached North America. Furthermore, it is not possible to discover a land where people have lived there for centuries, and he also killed and enslaved them. It's true that Columbus opened up the world, forever connecting the East and the West, but human suffering has real and lasting consequences for those he "discovered." Are his achievements enough to justify a national holiday in his honor? No. If Christopher Columbus were alive today, he would be tried for crimes against humanity. Works CitedDelaney, R. (2005). Columbus and the search for Jerusalem. Free printing. Diamond, J. (1999). Guns, germs and steel: the fate of human societies. W. W. Norton & Company. Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014). A history of the indigenous peoples of the United States. Lighthouse print. Loewen, J. W. (1996). Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. The new press. Minnich, E. K. (1992). Transforming knowledge. Temple University Press. Morison, S. E. (1955). Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus. Piccolo, Brown and company. Phillips, M. J. (2017). A Hopi's Truth: Stories of Hopi Origin, Myths, and Clan Histories. University of New Mexico Press. Sale, K. (1991). The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Colombian Legacy. Plume. Stannard, D. E. (1993). American Holocaust: Conquest of the New World. Oxford University Press. Zinn, H. (1980). A popular history of the United States. HarperCollins.