Editing Columbus Day (section)

== Opposition ==
{{see also|Monument and memorial controversies in the United States#Christopher Columbus (2017)|Monument and memorial controversies in the United States#Murals of Columbus (2019)}}
[[File:Christopher Columbus' Soldiers Chop the Hands off of Arawak Indians who Failed to Meet the Mining Quota.jpg|thumb|Engraving by [[Theodor de Bry]], depicting the account by [[Bartolomé de las Casas]] of the ''[[Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias]]'', 1552.]]

For years after the first Columbus Day celebration in 1892, opposition to Columbus Day recognized the suffering inflicted on American Indians with westward expansion.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://today.ku.edu/2022/09/21/controversy-over-columbus-old-news-scholar-shows | title=Questioning Columbus | date=September 14, 2022 }}</ref>

It also originated from [[Opposition to immigration|anti-immigrant]] [[Nativism (politics)|nativist]] [[Know Nothing]] political movement, who sought to eliminate its celebration because of its association with [[Immigration|immigrants]] from the [[Catholic countries]] of Ireland and Italy, and the American Catholic fraternal organization, the [[Knights of Columbus]].<ref name=":0" /> Some [[Anti-Catholicism|anti-Catholics]], notably including the [[Ku Klux Klan]] and the [[Women of the Ku Klux Klan]], opposed celebrations of Columbus or monuments about him because they thought that it increased [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] influence in the United States, which was largely a Protestant country.<ref name=":0">{{cite book|title=Cultural movements and collective memory: Christopher Columbus and the rewriting of the national origin myth|last1=Kubap|first1=Timothy|publisher=Macmillan|year=2008|isbn=978-1-4039-7577-5|pages=33–38}}</ref>

In the summer of 1990, 350 representatives from American Indian groups from all over the hemisphere met in [[Quito]], Ecuador, at the first Intercontinental Gathering of Indigenous People in the Americas, to mobilize against the 500th anniversary (quin-centennial) celebration of Columbus Day planned for 1992. The following summer, in [[Davis, California]], more than a hundred Native Americans gathered for a follow-up meeting to the Quito conference. They declared October 12, 1992, to be "International Day of Solidarity with [[Indigenous Peoples' Day (United States)|Indigenous People]]".<ref name="ncc">''A Faithful Response to the 500th Anniversary of the Arrival of Christopher Columbus in A Resolution of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA'', para. 1.</ref>

More recently, mainly since the 1990s, more people oppose Columbus's and other Europeans' actions against the indigenous populations of the Americas. This opposition was initially led by Native Americans and was expanded upon by [[Left-wing politics|left-wing]] political parties.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.liberalamerica.org/2013/10/12/still-celebrate-columbus-day/ | title=Why Do We Still Celebrate Columbus Day? | publisher=Liberal America | access-date=28 September 2016 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161001191700/http://www.liberalamerica.org/2013/10/12/still-celebrate-columbus-day/ | archive-date=October 1, 2016 | df=mdy-all | date=2013-10-12 }}</ref><ref name="aim">{{cite web | url=http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/columbus-oct00.html | title=Indigenous People's Opposition to Celebration and Glorification of Colonial Pirate Christopher Columbus | access-date=October 7, 2012 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121005011842/http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/columbus-oct00.html | archive-date=October 5, 2012 | df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref name="AandE">{{cite web | url=http://www.history.com/topics/columbus-day | title=History.com: Columbus Day Alternatives | date=January 4, 2010 | access-date=October 7, 2012 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120930104848/http://www.history.com/topics/columbus-day | archive-date=September 30, 2012 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> Various holidays commemorating Columbus have now been abolished, with various Latin American countries altering the holidays to now recognise indigenous populations.
[[File:IMAGE0022.JPG|thumb|left|250px|Statueless plinth in Caracas in 2006.
A statue of Christopher Columbus, which formerly occupied the plinth, was knocked down by activists in 2004.<ref>{{cite news |publisher=Iblnews.com |date=October 13, 2004 |url=http://iblnews.com/noticias/10/117331.html |title=Derriban la Estatua de Cristóbal Colón en Caracas |language=es |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080414185843/http://iblnews.com/noticias/10/117331.html |archive-date=April 14, 2008 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>]]

There are many interrelated strands of criticism. One refers primarily to the treatment of the [[Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous populations]] during the [[European colonization of the Americas]], which followed Columbus's [[Voyages of Christopher Columbus|discovery]]. Some groups, such as the [[American Indian Movement]], have argued that the ongoing actions and injustices against Native Americans are masked by Columbus myths and celebrations.<ref>''Blackfoot Physics: A Journey into the Native American Universe'', by F. David Peat, Weiser, 2005, {{ISBN|1-57863-371-0}}, p. 310</ref> American [[anthropologist]] [[Jack Weatherford]] says that on Columbus Day, Americans celebrate the greatest waves of [[Genocide of indigenous peoples#Colonialism and genocide in the Americas|genocide of the American Indians]] known in history.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Weatherford|first1=Jack|title=Examining the Reputation of Christopher Columbus|url=http://www.hartford-hwp.com/Taino/docs/columbus.html|website=hartford-hwp.com|publisher=Baltimore Evening Sun, reprinted by Clergy and Laity Concerned|access-date=7 October 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161020221801/http://www.hartford-hwp.com/Taino/docs/columbus.html|archive-date=October 20, 2016|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

A second strain of criticism of Columbus Day focuses on the character of Columbus himself. In time for the 2004 observation of the day, the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents was published by the [[University of California, Los Angeles]]' Medieval and Renaissance Center. It stated that Columbus, while a brilliant mariner, exploited and enslaved the indigenous population.<ref name="RC">{{cite web|title='Repertorium Columbianum' Makes Landfall|author=Meg Sullivan|date=October 6, 2004|url=http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/6664|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116163703/http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/6664|archive-date=2013-01-16}}</ref>

[[Spelman College]] historian [[Howard Zinn]] described some of the details in his book, ''[[A People's History of the United States]]'', of how Columbus personally ordered the enslavement and mutilation of the native [[Arawak]] people in a bid to repay his investors.<ref name="zinn">{{cite web|title=A People's History of the United States|last=Zinn|first=Howard|date=1980|url=http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140903104652/http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html|archive-date=September 3, 2014|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Journalist and media critic [[Norman Solomon]] reflects, in ''Columbus Day: A Clash of Myth and History'', that many people choose to hold on to the myths instead of reality in the events surrounding Columbus. He disputes the idea that the Spaniards' arrival was beneficial towards the Indians by quoting ''[[Bartolomé de las Casas#History of the Indies|History of the Indies]]'' by the Catholic priest [[Bartolomé de las Casas]], who observed the region where Columbus was governor. Las Casas writes that the Spaniards were driven by "insatiable greed" as they killed and tortured native populations with "the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty" and laments that "my eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write".<ref name="solomon">{{cite web|title=Columbus Day: A Clash of Myth and History |work=Media Beat |last=Solomon |first=Norman |date = October 1995 |url=http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/4621/columbusday.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091020025030/http://geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/4621/columbusday.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 20, 2009}}</ref>