First Arrival of the Foreigners, Colonial History and Implications for Indigenous People Today

Summary: "There are only two federal holidays in America named after a historical figure, Martin Luther King Day and Columbus Day. Martin Luther King was a civil rights activist whose dedication to the human rights of minorities in America changed history and the lives of minorities in America forever. Christopher Columbus was an early explorer of claimed Italian descent who brutalized, tortured, murdered, raped, sold into slavery and decimated indigenous populations of the Americas. One has to wonder why America would honor the atrocities against indigenous people with a holiday to honor the perpetrator of these acts. Why does the American government continue to honor, with a national holiday, a man with a legacy of genocide, who never set foot in the United States of American and whose own homeland, Italy, has no day to celebrate him. This paper explores the recorded history of the beginning of the American holocaust, the acts of Christopher Columbus, and the United States Government herofication of the perpetrators of genocide and the American Holocaust." http://www.archive.org/details/Enlightenment_on_Columbus_Day