How can Americans, who stand for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, celebrate forcing just the opposite on an entire continent of people? When Christopher Columbus arrived in America, he took thousands of Native Americans for slaves, and started wars with many more. And yet every year on Oct. 12, despite his crimes, an entire nation honors this “great” man.

Ignoring the debate of whether Columbus truly “discovered” the Americas, much of the death and destruction that occurred on the continent can be attributed to Columbus’s arrival in the New World. Within four years of the day Christopher Columbus landed, 100,000 indigenous people were dead. And only 50 years after the Europeans arrived on the land west of the Atlantic, an entire race of people, the Taino, were extinct. Of the estimated 50 million people living in the Americas in 1492, 80 percent were dead due to the European colonization by 1650.

The majority of the tragic depopulation can be attributed to disease that Europeans brought from the so-called Old World. The most famous virus to kill the natives is smallpox, but typhus, measles, influenza, whooping cough, yellow fever and mumps are only a few of the bevy of diseases that also contributed to the demise of the Native Americans. There are even two documented cases of Europeans consciously spreading deadly disease to the Indians—once to the Delaware tribe in 1763, and again in 1837 against the Mandan tribe.

Ironically, the Native Americans treated the Europeans primarily with generosity when the Europeans first stepped off the boat. When Sir Walter Raleigh landed in Virginia, one of his crew members reported that his group was “entertained with all love and kindness, and with as much bounty (after the manner of the natives) as they could possibly devise.” It was the men from the Old World who began the bloodshed, catching the Indians between their peaceful nature and their desire to stay alive and prosper in their own land.

Columbus himself encouraged such barbaric behavior. Not only did he do nothing to stop the violence, but he often joined in the aggression. He supported the rape of indigenous women, and cut off the ears, hands and noses of Native Americans he wished to punish for minor offenses. Even if Columbus was not directly involved in some of the atrocities Europeans committed, he was far from being an innocent man.

Why does our nation still celebrate such a cruel man every October? The U.S.—or at least California--should follow the lead of Minnesota, where the holiday is not recognized at all, or South Dakota, where the official name of Columbus Day was changed to Native American Day. Even the National Council of Churches has spoken out against the observance of Columbus Day, stating that “what represented newness of freedom, hope and opportunity for some was the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others.”

If Americans feel the need for a three-day weekend in October, there are many more deserving celebrations and holidays than that of Columbus Day. States should remember the Native American culture, rather than celebrating its destruction beginning in 1492. Other schools across the country could follow the lead of the Palo Alto Unified School District and simply give students a Staff Development Day, or local holiday four days after Columbus Day. There are many holidays worthy of celebrating in October—but Columbus Day certainly is not one of them.