Happy Indigenous Peoples Day

[marmar]

via Truthdig:



Happy Indigenous Peoples Day
Posted on Oct 11, 2009


Read historian Howard Zinn’s account of that genocidal, gold-crazed maniac Christopher Columbus, and it’s impossible to think this man deserves a holiday. Upon meeting the Indians, for example, his first thought was “They would make fine servants. ... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

What he wanted was gold, and when none could be found he started wiping out the native people of the New World. —PZS

Howard Zinn, “A People’s History of the United States”:

The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.

Trying to put together an army of resistance, the Arawaks faced Spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords, horses. When the Spaniards took prisoners they hanged them or burned them to death. Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.

When it became clear that there was no gold left, the Indians were taken as slave labor on huge estates, known later as encomiendas. They were worked at a ferocious pace, and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand Indians left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report of the year 1650 shows none of the original Arawaks or their descendants left on the island.

read more

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20091011_happy_indigenous_peoples_day/

[NoPasaran]

1. Happy Columbus Day

[Fly by night]

2. Yah et eeh

[unhappycamper]

3. .

[catbyte]

4. Lol!

That's my office mouse pad. I picked it up at a Pow-wow last year. I get weird looks from my Faux News-inclined co-workers, but I don't care! :rofl:

Cheers,

Diane

Anishnabe in MI

[JuniperLea]

8. I know those people...

In Iraq, they would call them "insurgents."

[pipi_k]

5. Just another bullshit holiday

was exactly what I was thinking earlier this morning.



But yeah...Happy Columbus Day to the indigenous people

:sarcasm:



PS...some of my indigenous ancestors are actually from Canada (Mi'K Maq) but I still empathize with the indigenous US people.

[lonestarnot]

6. et al

:hi:

[juno jones]

7. Dump Columbus Day, replace it with Honor Day

Honor Day is a holiday created by Native artist Silversong Belcourt.

http://www.honorday.org /

It is devoted to honoring all peoples and life on this planet, and to restoring honor as a informant of action.




We had the privelege of printing this artwork of hers for Honor day a few years back.

She was a wonderful lady and will be missed. In the meantime we can support her holiday which is quite popular in the NW!

[Echo In Light]

9. K&R