Thread by @rebeccanagle

If you are still observing #ColumbusDay instead of #IndigenousPeoplesDay today here is your annual reminder of what you are celebrating...

CW: violence, sexual assault

Christopher Columbus's army used Indigenous people as dog food. They were known to feed live babies to dogs in front of their horrified parents.

His "voyage" helped start the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade when he captured 1600 Taino people and shipped them to Spain for gold. Most died on the journey.

Columbus sold Indigenous girls into sex slavery for his own personal profit. He journaled, “There are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand.”

Columbus's army required any Taino person 14 or older to bring them a thimble of gold dust every 3 months. If not, the army would chop off their hands and tie the victim's hands around their neck. Most victims bled to death. An estimated 10,000 Taino people died this way.

After 50 years of “Columbus discovering America”, 2.86 million of the estimated 3 million Tainos living on the island now named Hispanola had died, 95% of the population. Imagine if in a period of 50 years, 19 out of every 20 people you knew died.

What Columbus symbolizes is not better. What followed the “discovery of the new world” was the genocide of Indigenous peoples of the Americas and the kidnapping of enslavement of Africans peoples for the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

In 1982, when Spain proposed to the UN General Assembly that the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’s voyage should be marked by celebration, the entire African delegation walked out.

The criticism of Columbus is not new. But if it’s new to you that’s okay. We are all learning. Here are some other things to read:

indiancountrytoday.com/archive/8-myth…

archive.thinkprogress.org/the-15th-centu…