Being Australian I don’t know much about the history?
In: Other
Somebody else asked the same question. Here was my response there:
He was the first imperial European to discover America. Once there, he proceded to colonise. His methods included enslaving the locals, kidnapping the locals and shipping them back to Europe for the slave trade there, dismembering them as punishment for failing to mine enough gold, and one or two casual genocides. All of this he proudly documented in his own journals.
He is celebrated because he is considered the founder of modern America and that must be a great thing. However, since growing as a culture and coming to globally accept that slavery, dismembering, and murder are wrong, he’s been seen more and more as the monster he was. The trouble is that his monstrous deeds cast America’s origins in a bad light, so they don’t appear too often in 4th grade texbooks.
People are becoming more aware of their history and less accepting of the “America is the beacon of freedom and goodness” narrative so they’re taking action against the celebration of monsters.
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