Columbus

Columbus Police Execute Donovan Lewis

September 10, 2022 Abayomi Azikiwe, Popular Resistance. Educate! Columbus, Ohio, Police abuse, Violence

In the midwestern city of Columbus, Ohio, 20-year-old Donovan Lewis was shot to death while lying in his bed during the early morning hours of August 30. Police claimed they were serving an arrest warrant on multiple charges although there was no threat from Lewis who was unarmed. The police in Columbus say that Lewis raised his arms and therefore this justified the bullet fired into his body causing him to die at a hospital shortly afterwards. The officer involved in the killing of Lewis, Ricky Anderson, a 30-year veteran of law-enforcement, has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal and judicial investigation. This act of blatant police violence represents a continuation of the legacy of law-enforcement brutality and killings across the United States.

Mass Killings, Native Erasure

November 10, 2021 Matt Remle, Last Real Indians. Educate! American genocide, Columbus, Indigenous Peoples, Massacres

Upon his arrival into the “New World” Columbus and his crew unleashed a vicious and relentless wave of violence against the Indigenous populations. From enslavement, to mass rapes, to mass killings Columbus and his men inflicted grotesque levels of violence never before seen in the Western hemisphere. By 1508, an estimated three to five million Indigenous peoples from the Island Nations had died since the time of Columbus’s arrival. The genocide had begun, one driven, and backed, by an ideology under the Doctrine of Discovery that claimed European Christians had a God given right to set forth and colonize any lands not occupied by European Christians. Throughout the Western hemisphere, colonization and genocide followed from the eastern shores to the Pacific Ocean.

Indigenous Woman Monument To Replace Columbus Statue

September 8, 2021 Indian Country Today. Educate! Columbus, Indigenous Rights, Mexico, Women

Mexico City — Christopher Columbus is getting kicked off Mexico City's most iconic boulevard. Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum announced that the Columbus statue on the Paseo de la Reforma, often a focal point for Indigenous rights protests, would be replaced by a statue honoring Indigenous women. “To them we owe ... the history of our country, of our fatherland,” she said. She made the announcement on Sunday, which was International Day of the Indigenous Woman. The Columbus statue, donated to the city many years ago, was a significant reference point on the 10-lane boulevard, and surrounding traffic circle is — so far — named for it. That made it a favorite target of spray-paint-wielding protesters denouncing the European suppression of Mexico's Indigenous civilizations.

Students Can Name Columbus, But Have Never Heard Of The Taíno People

October 8, 2018 Bill Bigelow, The Zinn Education Project Educate! colonization, Columbus, Indigenous Peoples

Before Enslaving and Slaughtering Them, Columbus wrote: "The Taíno people are 'the best people in the world, and beyond all the mildest… a people so full of love and without greed… They love their neighbors as themselves, and they have the softest and gentlest voices in the world, and they are always smiling.'"

The Legacy Of Christopher Columbus

October 9, 2017 Lili Bernard, www.youtube.com Educate! Colonialism, Columbus

On the weekend when the United States celebrates the exploits of Christopher Columbus there is increasing debate as to whether this is a person who should be celebrated. Seattle and Minneapolis have both abandoned Columbus Day in favor of focusing on Indigenous peoples. This brief movie is based on the diary of one of those who was on the voyage with Columbus when he "discovered" the new world. It is a harsh reality and brutal reality to face therefore view discretion is advised. A brief dramatization of Bartolomé de Las Casas' testimonial account of the Spanish Conquest of the New World. This was an exercise for me and my children in remembering the slaughter which our indigenous Caribbean ancestors endured. My father's grandmother, Clemencia Figueroa, was pure-blooded Siboney (native tribe of Eastern Cuba). She died a victim of Cuba's War of Independence from Spain. It was also an exercise in memory for the lead actress in the film, Dolann Adams, who is more than half Native American -- Choctaw and Blackfoot on her dad's side and Cherokee and Apache on her mom's side.

Christopher Columbus: No Monuments For Murderers

October 8, 2017 Bill Bigelow, zinnedproject.org Educate! Colonialism, Columbus, Columbus Day, Racism

By Bill Bigelow for Zinn Educate Project. There is nothing murky about Columbus’ legacy of slavery and terrorism in the Americas. The record is clear and overwhelming. The fact that The New York Times could report this with such confidence — adding that “most Americans learn rather innocently, in 1492 [Columbus] sailed the ocean blue until he discovered the New World” — means that educators and activists still have much work to do. In fact, Christopher Columbus launched the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1494, when he sent back at least two dozen enslaved Taínos, including children, to Spain. In February of that year, Columbus dispatched 12 of his 17 ships from the Caribbean back to Spain with a letter to be delivered to the king and queen by Antonio de Torres, captain of the returning fleet. Columbus wrote: There are being sent in these ships some Cannibals, men and women, boys and girls, which Your Highnesses can order placed in charge of persons from whom they may be able better to learn the language while being employed in forms of service, gradually ordering that greater care be given them than to other slaves.

New York City Considers Removal Of All Statues Symbolizing Hate

August 23, 2017 Madina Toure, www.observer.com Create! Columbus, Indigenous Rights, Monuments, Racism

By Madina Toure for Observer. New York, NY - A proposal to remove a statue of the explorer Christopher Columbus on the Upper West Side will receive “immediate attention” by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office in the wake of violence stemming from a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, a Democrat, and Harlem elected officials held a rally on Monday calling for a statue of J. Marion Sims, a 19th Century doctor who has been called the “father of modern gynecology,” to be removed from Central Park, where it is situated on East 103rd Street in East Harlem. Concerns with that statue stem from the fact that Sims experimented on African slaves without their consent or any anesthesia throughout his career as a doctor.

Multiple Cities Call For End To Celebration Of Columbus

August 23, 2017 Ramona Giwargis, www.mercurynews.com Educate! Columbus, Genocide, Indigenous Rights, Monuments

By Ramona Giwargis for The Mercury News. San Jose, CA - A battle is brewing inside San Jose City Hall to remove a statue some say represents violence and genocide. The San Jose Brown Berets last week launched a petition to remove the Christopher Columbus statue from the City Hall lobby, its home since the East Santa Clara Street building opened in 2005. “That part of history was written in my people’s blood,” said Peter Ortiz, 27, a labor organizer, trustee at Mount Pleasant Elementary School District and co-chair of the Brown Berets. “Christopher Columbus didn’t just come here with nuts and berries for my ancestors. There was rape and genocide.”

Newsletter: War Culture, What’s It Good For?

October 11, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Afghanistan, China, Columbus, Iran, Iraq, Kunduz, Russia, Syria, War crimes, Wars and Militarism

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The confluence of Columbus Day Weekend and the Kunduz hospital bombing has us thinking about the deep levels of cultural violence in the United States and what can be done to change it. How does the US move from a country dominated by war culture to one dominated by a humanitarian culture? Popular Resistance has reported on the the legacy of Columbus. Howard Zinn describes the true history of Columbus and the Indigenous people of North America. There is a great need for the Columbus myth to be revised with realities. When the truth is understood, it is evident the US is celebrating a brutal war criminal and that it is time to abolish Columbus Day.

Columbus Day: Celebrating A Brutal War Criminal

October 12, 2014 Indian Country Staff, www.indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com Educate! Columbus, First Nations, indigenous

The US Should Not Be Celebrating the Legacy of Columbus: Slave Trade, Sex Trade, Ethnic Cleansing, Mass Slaughter, Rape, War Crimes, Mutilation and Carnage Today America celebrates a man who committed obscene slavery, rape and genocide, comparable to the horror perpetrated by Adolf Hitler. Indian Country Today Media Network lists a few of Columbus' most offensive cruelties inflicted upon the Caribbean inhabitants. 1. He cut off the hands of roughly 10,000 Natives in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Columbus mandated every indigenous Taino over the age of 14 provide him with a “hawk’s bell” of gold every three months. Those who failed to meet orders were “punished by having their hands cut off” and were “left to bleed to death,” Columbus’s son Fernando reported. 2. Columbus punished minor offenses by cutting off Natives' noses and ears. 3. Columbus combatted resistance by releasing hunting dogs to rip Indians apart . . .

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