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Columbus Day Research Paper

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Indigenous: originating or occurring naturally in a particular place. In the United States, Christopher Columbus is honored as a hero who discovered this country, but he should be seen as a invader who enslaved and seized the native people. California undoubtedly made the appropriate decision to change Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day because how can America say Columbus discovered the United States when the Native Americans originated and inhabited the land first? The world continues to observe invaders as brave conquerors. The hidden truth is, the world honors those with fair skin as the heroes while the people with dark skin are seen and treated as less than human. Columbus Day was invented by the Knights of Columbus so their kids have a Catholic hero to look up to. Due to lobbying, Franklin Roosevelt signed Columbus Day as a federal holiday. The notion of Christopher Columbus discovering America is arrogant because Native Americans inhabited the land thousands of years before Columbus was even born. DNA evidence even suggests that the first settlers of South America were of Polynesian decent before the Vikings. On October 12th, 1492 Columbus arrived in the Bahamas which was occupied by the kind people of Lucayans, Taínos and Arawaks. In his diary, Columbus noted how friendly these people were. Seeing this as an advantage, he enslaved them to work in his gold mines. Half of the Native population died after only two years. If the Natives did not meet the working

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