Today, the U.S. gov officially recognized the day as “Columbus Day”, in honor of a sadistic war criminal, who brought slavery, rape & genocide to the native populations of the Caribbean. Christopher Columbus was not an explorer. He was the leader of a military invasion. 
The fact the the U.S.A. still celebrates “Columbus Day” shows the country’s foundations as a genocidal, settler-colonialist, slave state remain firmly entrenched in 2019.
Christopher Columbus was in search of gold, silver, spices, and land to control. On the first island he set foot on, the native Taíno Amer-indians greeted him with gifts, but his men kidnapped a number of the islands inhabitants.
When Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean in 1493 (his second arrival) he led the first ever military massacre of natives by a European power and then went on to commit a near total genocide of the native Taíno Amer-indians.
At the time of Columbus arrival, an estimated 30 to 60 thousand Taíno Amer-indians, lived in the Caribbean. 100 yrs later, the Taíno population had declined to fewer than 500 (99% extermination rate). The Taíno became nearly extinct as a culture following Spanish colonization.
The Spanish settlers forced the Taíno people into slave labor. Each adult over 14 years of age was expected to deliver a quota of gold and spun cotton. If this tribute was not brought, the Spanish cut off the hands of the Taíno and left them to bleed to death.
Dr. Chanca, a physician who traveled with Columbus, reported that Spaniards took as many women as they possibly could and kept them as sex slaves. After Spanish colonization, Taíno women became the first commodities subjected to Spaniards trade & theft.
Columbus gifted Taíno women to his crewmen, who violently beat and raped them. Pregnant Taíno women's children were sometimes thrown to hungry dogs. Columbus established a business in the sale of 9- and 10-year-old Taíno girls for sexual slavery.
