Tech Professor: More To Columbus Than Most Know

Monday is Columbus Day, a contentious holiday as people discuss what it means to celebrate one of history’s most iconic explorers.

Tennessee Tech History Professor Troy Smith said Christopher Columbus was a ruthless and controversial figure, even when judged by the standards of that time in history. Smith said many different Native American people have been advocated to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a way to honor those who were mistreated by the historic figure.

“It may just be a name to Joe Schmoe on the street but it, a name means a lot,” Smith said. “And what gets focused on, who gets memorialized and lionized really matters to the descendants of those people.”

Smith said Columbus engaged in the child sex trade, enslaved a large number of people, and tortured and killed many Native Americans. Smith said Columbus’s activities have been public knowledge for centuries but most people have never looked into them.

“A lot of what we think is just what we get framed, what we get presented when we’re in school,” Smith said. “And this is just not the sort of thing that has traditionally been discussed very much. My students are always very shocked to learn the extent of Columbus’s behavior because it’s completely new to them.”

Smith said Columbus was eventually arrested and fired from his role as colonial governor partly due to his treatment of Indigenous people.

“There was a whole movement that started in Spain in opposition to this kind of treatment to Native people,” Smith said. “People like Bartolomé de las Casas who was a priest who spent his whole life fighting for Native people’s rights.”

Smith said Columbus’s more respectable reputation spread during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Columbus became a central point of patriotism for the part he played in the early establishment of the United States.

“Most of the time we prefer not to think about this stuff, not to hear about it,” Smith said. “There are certain things that are framed for us as this is how it was and people don’t like change but this is something I agree with my Native friends on. I like to think of that day as Taíno Remembrance Day. That’s the name of the tribe that greeted Columbus, most of whom were horribly mistreated and killed afterwards.”