As one of two federal holidays bearing the name of a specific person (the other is Martin Luther King Jr. Day), opposition to celebrating Columbus's achievements has been mounted by many human rights groups and Native American groups such as the American Indian Movement (AIM). They call into question the propriety of celebrating Columbus's arrival in the New World. Columbus may have been the world's most famous explorer, but, as they argue, he also ushered in genocide against indigenous peoples as well as the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade. Columbus introduced imperial colonization, forced labor, torture, and the advent of European diseases formerly unknown to the Americas which resulted in the deaths of thousands of Native peoples.
. . . and that's just a summary of his alleged wrongdoing. You can read the rest.
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