Bitter Columbus fray
Not everybody will be celebrating Columbus Day next week.
Members of 200 Native American tribes, who consider the Italian explorer a criminal rather than a discoverer, will skip the Manhattan parade Oct. 10 and instead descend on Randall’s Island for the second annual Indigenous People’s Day celebration.
“I thought it was important to have a free day for people to come and learn about what Columbus Day really means. It’s a blemish on our history that we choose to fabricate and reinvent,” said Cliff Matias, 40, who is a Taino Indian, the director of the Red Hawk Native American Arts Council and the festival founder.
“People are celebrating one of the greatest mass murderers and perpetuators of rape and human slavery,” Matias continued, referring to Columbus’ treatment of Matias’ ancestors, the Taino people of Hispaniola.
The all-day powwow will be attended by members of the Cherokee, Sioux, Ramapough and Seminole tribes, among many others, he said. The public is also welcome to attend the free event.
Nearly 6,000 Native Americans attended the event last year, and many will return this year to camp out Oct. 9 at Randall’s Island Park. The anti-Columbus festivities will commence at 7 a.m. the following day.
“We will honor our ancestors and think of the pain and suffering they endured because of Columbus,” Matias said.
The Columbus Day Parade meanwhile, will step off on Fifth Avenue, with the line of march stretching from 44th Street to 72nd Street.
Columbus Day became a national holiday in 1937. It celebrates the anniversary of the Italian explorer’s arrival in the Americas in 1492, and honors Italian-Americans and their culture.
“Our mission is to celebrate Italian-American culture, heritage and accomplishments,” said the president of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, Angelo Vivolo, who also runs the parade.
But recent decades have brought a revisionist version of history that argues Columbus, sailing under the Spanish flag, committed atrocities against Native Americans.
According to Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” he ordered the enslavement and murder of the inhabitants of the Bahamas and of what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and took their treasures.
Celebrations of America’s indigenous people have been popping up on Columbus Day in Oregon, Minnesota, Washington, Michigan and New Mexico.
Matias finds it “preposterous” that Italians have “attached themselves” to Columbus and suggested a Frank Sinatra day would be more appropriate.
“We want city officials to stop supporting a criminal,” he said.
[Columbus Day is] a blemish on our history that we choose to fabricate and reinvent. — Native American Cliff Matias