By Elena Basati,
Columbus Day is celebrated in the United States of America on October 12th. It is a national holiday devoted to Christopher Columbus and his achievement of “discovering” the New World. This public celebration is extremely problematic and aims to highlight a westernized image of history. This narrative erases indigenous stories, glorifies colonization, and romanticizes oppression. This so—called “discovery” marks the beginning of centuries of violence, exploitation, and abuse, and it is surely not an event that deserves celebration.
Native American populations existed for centuries throughout the continent and expressed great cultural and linguistic variety, from North America, to the Aztecs and Montezuma located in today’s central Mexico, to the Taino and Kalinago in the Caribbean. We must acknowledge that in order to get a clear grasp of where these tribes were situated, we must refer to the places with the names given to them by the west. However, these places had been named by indigenous people themselves, way before Columbus arrival. This is due to colonial geography, which refers to the study of mapping and understanding of geographical spaces from the perspective of colonialists.
Before getting into the history of colonization, setting the theoretical framework seems necessary. Colonialism is defined as the dominant form of cultural exploitation that developed with the expansion of Europe over the last 400 years and imperialism is the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory.
The narrative of “discovery” has been used by many figures of power as a form of glorification of western achievement. For example, Bartolome de la Casas, a Spanish clergyman, writes about the Indigenous, “We later perceived their natural kindness, their innocence, humility, tameness, peacefulness, and virtuous inclinations, excellent wit, and readiness to receive our holy faith and be imbued with Christian religion”. In this passage, it is evident that the Natives are perceived as childlike, uncivilized, and inferior beings, in relation to the colonizers. However, they are ready to receive the Western wisdom and accept the Christian God. The Europeans are taking the role of saviors (heroic individualism), seeking justification of their actions from religion, monarchy, and their intrinsic western superiority.
To easily understand the concept of colonialism, we can employ the “5 Exes” method of colonial structures. Exploitation refers to the systematic extraction of resources and labor, which fueled European economies at the expense of indigenous communities. Examples include sugar plantations in the Caribbean, tobacco farms, and the extraction of silver from Potosí. Expropriation involved the violent dispossession of Native lands, justified through legal and religious frameworks imposed by the colonizers. Extermination came in the form of massacres, introduced diseases, and forced labor systems that devastated indigenous populations. Interestingly, researchers by UCL found that the killing of about 56 million indigenous people lead to the cooling down of earth’s climate. As the leader of the study, Alexander Koch states, “The great dying of the indigenous peoples of the Americas resulted in a human-driven global impact on the Earth system in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution.”
Exile was another tool of colonization, with indigenous peoples displaced from their ancestral lands and forced into marginal areas or reservations, stripping them of their cultural and spiritual connections to the land. Meanwhile, excitement reflects the colonizers’ fervor for expansion, wealth, and adventure, often cloaked in the language of exploration and progress.
The ideology of racial capitalism, also, emerged during this period, intertwining economic exploitation with the concept of race. According to Aníbal Quijano, colonization codified differences between conquerors and the conquered, creating a racial hierarchy that justified the subjugation of indigenous peoples. This system of labor control, combining slavery, serfdom, and capitalistic production, became the foundation of modern capitalism. Cedric Robinson described this as racial capitalism, emphasizing that racial subjugation is not a byproduct of capitalism but central to its function.
In conclusion, the history of colonization has left a lasting impact on the world, shaping global power structures, economies, and social hierarchies. The exploitation and subjugation of Indigenous peoples, along with the redefinition of land and identity, created a legacy of inequality that still resonates today. Understanding this history is crucial for addressing the ongoing effects of colonialism and debunking myths surrounding Native peoples and the narrative of “discovery”.
References
- Said, Edward. “Culture and Imperialism”. 1993.
- Las Casas, Bartolomé de. “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies”. 1552.
- Quijano, Aníbal. “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America.” Nepantla: Views from South, 2000.
- Robinson, Cedric. “Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition”. 1983.
- Koch, Alexander, et al. “European colonization of Americas killed so many it cooled Earth’s climate.” Nature, 2021.
