Colonial Pirate Christopher Columbus

By Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer

Open letter to Bishop Kinney:

I spoke to Father Raymond Steffes about changing the decor of our lily white church in Wahkon, Minnesota so that the Native Americans who live on, or near, the Isle reservation would feel welcomed. But Father Steffes told me that if I could get some Isle reservation Indians to start attending church services at Scared Heart Church, THEN he and other Sacred Heart Parishioners would change the decor of the church so that the Native Americans who live near Sacred Heart Church would feel welcome. Now if that is not a racist policy I do not know what is.

The majority of Sacred Heart's men are members of the Knights of Columbus organization and because this organization has a racist name I find this situation very offensive. On the T.V. cable channel "History" there is a documentary about Columbus that is frequently broadcast. It portrays Columbus and his knights as violent racists who after arriving in the Americas set up an "Indian" slave camp where the enslaved "Indians" were sent out from the camp to get gold and then bring it back to them. And if they did not come back Columbus would send his knights out to find them and bring them back to the slave camp where Columbus had his knights cut off their hands so that they would bleed to death.

From Columbus's base on Haiti, he sent expedition after expedition into the interior. They found no gold fields, but had to fill the ships returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. In the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Of those five hundred, two hundred died en route. The rest arrived in Spain and were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town, who reported that, although the slaves were "naked as the day they were born," they showed "no more embarrassment than animals." Columbus later wrote : "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."

But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. "Indians" found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.

The "Indians" had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed. Trying to put together an army of resistance, the Arawaks faced Spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords, horses. When the Spaniards took prisoners they hanged them or burned them to death.

Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through muder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 "Indians" on Haiti were dead. When it became clear that there was no gold left, the "Indians" were taken as slave labor on huge estates, known later as encomiendas. They were worked at a ferocious pace, and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand "Indians" left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report of the year 1650 shows none of the original Arawaks or their descendants were left on the island.

If you were a Native American and you knew the hateful and violent anti-Native racist history of Columbus and his knights would you want to attend church services at a church where the majority of its men parishioners periodical paraded around in their Knights of Columbus attire?

On a cable TV channel, the Mdewakanton Dakota periodically broadcast an anti-Columbus song being sung by a popular Native American Rock and Roll Band. The Mdewakantons are anti-Columbus, and who can blame them given his hateful and violent anti-Native racist history. Archbishop Harry Flynn wrote me a letter wherein he thanked me for inviting the Mdewakantons to teach Sacred Heart Parishioners about their culture and spirituality, but I would be embarrassed if the Mdewakantons were to respond to my invitation to come to Sacred Heart Church to teach us about their culture and spirituality. The reason why I would be embarrassed is because of all the Knights of Columbus d'ecor displayed inside Wahkon, Minnesota's Sacred Heart Church.

And the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe believe that Columbus was an "Indian" hating evil doer and should not be glorified by anyone. And, therefore, they do not glorify Columbus by celebrating "Columbus Day". I have asked some of the members of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe what they think about the Knights of Columbus organization's involvement in their Indian Country area and they said they believe its racist and that they would like to see it come to an end.

I would ask Sacred Heart's Knights of Columbus members to quit the Knights and start up a none-racist named organization that would do the good works that they were accustomed to doing with the Knights. But I found out, way back in the 1960s, as did a whole generation of youth, that our country's cultural mainstream Catholics do not care what is right or wrong. They only care what the majority thinks is right or wrong. They blindly conform to the mainstream culture and only take counter-cultural stances on social justice issues when you and the rest of our country's bishops ask them to. So therefore, it would be a waste of my time to ask them to quit the Knights of Columbus, they only go in the way of the majority, that is, unless you and the rest of our country's bishops ask them to take counter cultural stances, and you and our country's other bishops are not asking them to quit the Knights of Columbus organization in protest of its racist name. Only Catholics who are open minded and willing to take a number of counter cultural positions on social justice issues, a number that exceeds the number that you and the rest of our country's bishops are taking, are going through the "straight gate" and in the "narrow way" that leads to everlasting life. And Sacred Heart's Knights of Columbus men do not follow this principle that leads to everlasting life.

I do not expect you to do anything about this Knights of Columbus racist problem because I have seen over and over again the principle that you and the rest of our country's Catholic bishops follow. Whenever new evidence indicates that the people of our country's mainstream culture have, for a long time, been wrong about something, the majority of our country's cultural mainstreamers do not repent but keep right on going in the wrong way. And then you and the rest of our country's Catholic bishops instead of taking the lead and calling the unrepentant cultural mainstreamers to repentance, you and the rest of our country's Catholic bishop to not say anything in order to avoid persecution.

An AIM Statement:

"Indigenous People's Opposition to Celebration and Glorification of Colonial Pirate Christopher Columbus".

"As we enter the new Millennium, on October 12, 2000 the settler governments and peoples of North, Central and South America, who occupy the lands of various Indigenous nations of peoples, will again celebrate with holiday parades and festivals the invasion of our sacred lands by the colonial pirate Christopher Columbus."

"Columbus was the beginning of the American holocaust, ethnic cleansing characterized by murder, torture, raping, pillaging, robbery, slavery, kidnapping, and forced removals of Indian people from their homelands."

"To our Italian American friends, we say that to celebrate the legacy of this murderer is an affront to all Indian peoples, and others who truly understand this history. It would be the same as if German people would celebrate and glorify Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism, and the Nazi holocaust by holding parades through the Jewish communities of America and throughout the world."

"We unequivocally support the right of Indian peoples of all the Americas along with friends and supporters to peacefully hold demonstrations and vigils, and exercise firm and resolute civil disobedience against any groups, religious, other organizations, and governments who continue to insist on celebrating and glorifying the murderous Columbus with parades, festivals, and celebrations."

"In order to end the Columbus legacy we call on the Congress of the United States to repudiate the Columbus legacy by eliminating the Columbus holiday by following the lead of states such as Louisiana, and South Dakota who declare October 12th each year honoring American Indians. American Indians gave you your spiritual, cultural, social, economic, and political freedom and sanctuary."

"Russell Means and Glenn Morris wrote this position statement in 1991 on behalf of the American Indian Movement of Colorado,1574 South Pennsylvania St., Denver, CO"

"When Taino Indians saved Christopher Columbus from certain death on the fateful morning of Oct. 12, 1492, a glorious opportunity presented itself. The cultures of Europe and the Americas could have merged and the beauty of both races could have flourished."

"Unfortunately, what occurred was neither beautiful nor heroic. Just as Columbus could not, and did not, "discover" a hemisphere that was already inhabited by nearly 100 million people, his arrival cannot, and will not, be recognized as a heroic and celebratory event by indigenous peoples."

"Unlike the Western tradition, which presumes some absolute concept of objective truth, and consequently, one 'factual' depiction of history, the indigenous view recognizes that there exist many truths in the world and many legitimate recollections of any given historical event, depending on one's perspective and experiences."

"From an indigenous vantage point, Columbus' arrival was a disaster from the beginning. Although his own diaries indicated that he was greeted by the Taino Indians with the most generous hospitality he had ever known, he immediately began the enslavement and slaughter of the Indian peoples of the Caribbean islands. As the eminent Columbus biographer Samuel Eliot Morison admits in his book, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Columbus was personally responsible for enslavement and murder of indigenous peoples. He was personally responsible for the design and operation of the encomienda system that tied Indians as slaves to the lands stolen from them by the European invaders."

"As detailed in the American Heritage Magazine (October,1976), Columbus personally oversaw the genocide of the Taino Indian nation of what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Consequently, this murderer, despite his historical notoriety, deserves no recognition or accolades as a hero; he deserves no respect as a visionary; and he is not worthy of a state or national holiday in his honor."

"Defenders of Columbus and his holiday argue that indigenous peoples unfairly judge Columbus, a 15th century actor, by the moral and legal standards of the late 20th century. Such a defense implies that no moral or legal constraints applied to individuals such as Columbus, or countries, in 1492. As Roger Williams details in his book, The American Indian in Western Legal Thought, not only were there European moral and legal principles in 1492, but they largely favored the rights of indigenous peoples to be free from unjustified invasion and pillage by Europeans."

"Unfortunately, the issue of Columbus and Columbus Day is not easily resolvable with a disposition of Columbus, the man. Columbus Day as a national, and international, phenomenon reflects a much larger dynamic that promotes myriad myths and historical lies that have been used through the ages to dehumanize Indians, justifying the theft of our lands, the attempted destruction of our nations, and the genocide against our people. Since the 15th Century, the myth of Columbus' discovery has been used in the development of laws and policies that reek of Orwell's doublespeak: theft equals the righteous spread of civilization, genocide is God's deliverance of the wilderness from the savages, and the destruction of Indian societies implies the superiority of European values and institutions over indigenous ones."

"Columbus Day is a perpetuation of racist assumptions that the Western Hemisphere was a wasteland cluttered with savages awaiting the blessings of Western 'civilization'." Throughout the hemisphere, educational systems perpetuate these myths - suggesting that indigenous peoples have contributed nothing to the world, and, consequently, should be grateful for their colonization and their microwave ovens."

"As Alfred Crosby, Kirkpatrick Sale, and Jack Weatherford have illustrated in their books, not only was the Western Hemisphere a virtual ecological and health paradise prior to 1492, but the Indians of the Americas have been responsible for such revolutionary global contributions as the model for U.S. constitutional government, agricultural advances that currently provide 60 percent of the world's daily diet, and hundreds of medical and medicinal techniques still in use today."

"If you find it difficult to believe that Indians had developed highly complex and sophisticated societies, then you have been victimized by an educational and social system that has given you a retarded, distorted view of history. The operation of this view has also enabled every country in this hemisphere, including the U.S., to continue its destruction of Indian peoples. From the jungles of Brazil to the highlands of Guatemala, from the Chaco of Paraguay to the Supreme Court of the United States, Indian people remain in a perpetual state of danger from the systems that Christopher Columbus began in 1492."

"Throughout the Americas, Indian people remain at the bottom of every socioeconomic indicator, we are under continuing physical attack, and are afforded the least access to economic, political, or legal redress. Despite these constant and unbridled assaults, we have resisted, we have survived, and we refuse to surrender any more of our homeland or to disappear into the romantic sunset."

"To dignify Columbus and his legacy with parades, holidays and other celebrations is intolerable to us. As the original peoples of this land, we cannot, and will not, countenance social and political festivities that celebrate our genocide. We are embarking on a two-pronged campaign in the quincentenary year to confront the continuing racism against Indian people."

"First, we are advocating that the divisive Columbus Day holiday should be replaced by a celebration that is much more inclusive and more accurately reflective of the cultural and racial richness of the Americas. Such a holiday will provide respect and acknowledgement to every group and individual of the importance and value of their heritage, and will allow a more honest and accurate portrayal of the evolution of the hemisphere. It will also provide an opportunity for greater understanding and respect as our societies move ahead into the next 500 years. Opponents to this suggestion react as though this proposal is an attack on ancient time-honored holiday, but Columbus Day has been a national holiday only since 1971 - and in 1991, hopefully, we can correct the errors of the past, moving forward in an atmosphere of mutual respect and inclusiveness."

"Second, and related to the first, is the advancement of an active militant campaign to demand that federal, state, and local authorities begin the removal of anti-Indian icons throughout the country. Beginning with Columbus, we are insisting on the removal of statues, street names, public parks, and any other public object that seeks to celebrate or honor devastators of Indian peoples. We will take an active role of opposition to public displays, parades, and celebrations that champion Indian haters. We encourage others, in every community in the land, to educate themselves and to take responsibility for the removal of anti-Indian vestiges among them."

"For people of goodwill, there is no better time for the re-examination of the past, and a rectification of the historical record for future generations, than the 500th anniversary of Columbus' arrival. There is no better place for this re-examination to begin than in Colorado, the birthplace of the Columbus Day holiday."

And nowadays, in respect to Wahkon, Minnesota, the headquarters of the Tekakwitha Conference and Russell Means supported Rum River name change movement, there is no better place for the re-examination of the supposed righteousness of the name of the Knights of Columbus organization than Wahkon, Minnesota's Sacred Heart Church.

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A related article can be found at: Genocidal Maniac Christopher Columbus

More articles by Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer can be found at: articles

Thomas Dahlheimer's e-mail address: Wahkonrainbow@gmail.com