Petition to rename Columbus day

The following request is a petition to rename Columbus Day.  As young impressionable children, we all learned in history classes the slanted view of how Christopher Columbus discovered America.  He was heralded as a great man and explorer. 

However, the more accurate facts of this history are much different and much darker than the fun little rhymes we all were taught about Columbus sailing the ocean blue.  The truth is that as far as we have come as a country and pride ourselves as the beacon of freedom and hope for the world, we blindly continue to celebrate a man who robbed, enslaved, and murdered natives for his personal gain.  Under Columbus' reign of terror, natives were forced to convert to Christianity, taken from their lands and shipped back to Spain to be paraded through the streets as trophies from the latest New World conquest.  This genocide was never mentioned in our history classes, but these crimes against humanity are well-documented in history textbooks. 

Our government continues to honor and celebrate this man, and by doing so is an endorsement of his crimes.  We cannot give credit to a man with "discovering" a nation that had already been inhabited for millions of years by its own people and had its own culture. 

The message that our country sends every year on the second Monday in October is that it is acceptable to murder, enslave, steal, and kidnap in order to get what you want.  Become well-known enough, and you might even get a holiday out of it. 

Where do our native brothers and sisters stand?  Why don't we have a national holiday for the people that had literally everything taken from them and were slaughtered by the thousands?  We think nothing of continuing to slap them in the face with this holiday every year.  Please help us to correct this terrible injustice.  Make your voice heard and demand that our government finally set the record straight.  Rename Columbus Day!