Origianlly posted on Oppression.org Oct 9, 2000

WATERTOWN, Massachusetts -- According to the classroom rhyme, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and discovered America. But these days, the old mariner is sailing into controversy ... even as a federal holiday bearing his name is celebrated the second Monday of every October.

The Italian explorer who flew the banner of Spanish monarchs is accused of brutalizing the indigenous people of the Americas.

In Denver, Colorado, last weekend, Italian-Americans holding a Columbus Day parade faced protests from Native Americans and Hispanic activists. Scores of demonstrators were arrested, including American Indian Movement activist Russell Means.

Some educators are also disturbed about how the story of Columbus is being taught in the classroom.

Former history professor James Loewen wrote a book titled, "The Lies My Teacher Told Me," in which he maintains that virtually all textbooks and teachers still place too much emphasis on the heroics of Columbus without mentioning his misdeeds.

Loewen calls Columbus a racist killer, saying he enslaved Indians, handed them over to his men for sex and set in motion their annihilation.

"They would even take Indians from place to place with them -- as dog food -- as a kind of mobile dog food," said Loewen. "When they got to where they were going for the night, [they would] allow the dogs to tear one of them apart and eat them."

That story came from the contemporary account of a priest, Bartolemy de Las Casas, who knew Columbus.

New World's first slave trader

Columbus' own diaries also extensively document his four voyages to the new land to gain riches for his patrons, Spanish monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand.

Columbus also brought with him diseases, against which the native people had no defense.

"As a result of Columbus coming to Haiti, we find that by 1555 -- which is about 60 years after he got there -- Haiti does not have any Indians left, except a few mixed people, partly Indian, partly Spanish," said Loewen. "It had had a population probably of about 3 million. That's complete genocide."

Columbus was the New World's first slave trader, sending thousands of Arawak Indians to Spain. The African slave trade would largely originate to replace cheap Indian labor which was dying off from the Spanish sword and European diseases, some historians say.

Teaching complex history to fifth-graders

In Watertown, teacher Mary Callahan struggles to teach her fifth-grade class about the complexities of Columbus.

While her students learn that he did land in the Bahamas, they also learn that Indian necklaces mattered more to the explorer than did the Indians themselves.

"He says, 'I can get the gold that they have.' He wants to be rich. Columbus wants to be a superstar," Callahan says in explaining Columbus' motives to her class. Some educators say children could handle more facts about the actions of the early explorers.

"It has to be done carefully. You don't want to crowd into their minds horrible pictures of violence and blood -- we don't want to do what the movies and television do to them all the time," said Howard Zinn, historian and author of "A People's History of the United States, 1492-Present."

"And yet at the same time, we must not hide the truth from them. Because if you begin hiding the truth from them at that early age -- then it goes on and on," he said.

Some Columbus critics say to sugar-coat his deeds is to be less vigilant about evil, and that ignoring the truth of the past is a good way to repeat it.

'Cultural Marxism'

However, Reform Party presidential candidate Pat Buchanan accused the Columbus Day parade protesters in Denver of "cultural Marxism."

"I think what is going on here is an intolerant, militant left-wing group is attempting to deny Italian-Americans their right to march under a banner of their hero, who is also a hero of Western civilization," Buchanan said in an interview Monday.

"It's all part of a political correctness, which is another name for cultural Marxism. It is anti-European and anti-Western civilization," Buchanan said. "We have a right to our heroes, and they to theirs."