Oct. 12 is Columbus Day in the US, a national holiday. On that day and the preceding couple of days, celebrations are held across the country to commemorate white Europeans’ “discovery” of the New World, which actually means occupation and colonization.
On the campus of New Mexico State University, where I am visiting, a group of people, mainly local Native American students, also had a celebration. What they were celebrating, however, was not Columbus Day, but Native American Day, marking Indigenous people’s maintenance of their unique social and cultural traditions after more than 500 years of occupation. They also submitted a petition to the school administration, asking it to recognize and value Native American Day rather than celebrating and publicizing Columbus Day.
The occupiers’ celebration of their ancestors’ arrival on the continent is an affront to Indigenous people, whose ancestors — the original masters of the land — were slaughtered, had their land seized and were forced to change their religion and abandon their culture.
One example is the Pueblo tribe, whose members live in New Mexico. Before the white Europeans arrived, the Pueblo numbered approximately 50,000 people, but their population declined to little more than 10,000 a century later. Some were killed by Europeans and more died of diseases brought by the colonialists.
Through no fault of their own, Indigenous people suffered greatly from the onslaught of the “white peril.”
In the past, the white occupiers often rationalized their colonization of the American continent on the grounds that they were the bringers of civilization, but it is arguable who really was more civilized — the settlers or the natives.
When the Spanish first came to New Mexico, they brought not only massacres and disease, but also the backward European feudal system. They imposed massive levies on Aborigines’ land and crops, taking them as tribute.
The settlers’ extreme monotheistic religion — Catholicism — had no tolerance for any other form of religious beliefs. As a result, many followers of traditional Indigenous faiths were put to death under the banner of religion, mirroring the notorious Spanish Inquisition.
Before the arrival of Europeans, the Pueblo natives of what is now the southwestern US had already developed a highly complex social organization with advanced architecture, art and culture, and they did not have such a backward and unequal class system as was dominant in Europe at the time.
The highly civilized Indigenous people repeatedly resisted the white colonists’ hegemonic and backward rule. In 1680 they launched the first successful, though brief, revolution in the Americas, driving out the Spaniards.
Thereafter they constantly resisted the returning Spanish and later Mexican and US forces.
As they fought bravely again and again, they built an unshakeable society and culture, full of confidence despite their small population.
On what white Europeans call Columbus Day, the Pueblo insist that the occupiers should not commemorate the beginning of their occupation on land soaked with the blood of the ancestors of the occupied.
Here in Taiwan, some of the majority Han people celebrate “glorious October,” including the Republic of China’s “Double Ten” National Day and Retrocession Day on Oct. 25. Do they, too, hear the Pueblos’ call?
Chi Chun-chieh is a visiting professor at New Mexico State University.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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