The Legacies of “Discovery” and “Conquest”: Why the Columbia River needs a Name Change
Amid all the protests, amid all the statue topplings, amid all the talk of equity, diversity and inclusion, and amid the removals of racially-charged and/or culturally insensitive symbols, mascots and names, one idea is now our charge: it is high time we changed the narrative of this nation and indeed the narrative of the “developed” world (which is in itself a grossly insensitive word, but I don’t have a better one at time of writing).
When it comes to equity and inclusion of Indigenous peoples, two of our most dearly-held and basic concepts desperately need examination and reform. These concepts (actually fallacies) are the “discovery” of places by white men and the “right” of said white men to rule these places by conquest.
Most of us were taught at a very young age that the lands we know as America were “discovered” by a white man named Christopher Columbus in 1492. We were taught that he mistakenly thought he was near India, so he named the islands the West Indies and he called the inhabitants Indians. The diminution and oppression of Indigenous peoples begins by sticking to the name “Indians” while being fully aware of its incorrect origin…it conveys two basic messages from whites to Indigenous people (1) the whites have the power and thus will decide on your names, not you, and (2) you don’t matter enough for us to correct our mistaken name for you.
The legacy of “discovery” pre-supposes who matters and who doesn’t. Most of us were also taught very young that, even though America was already inhabited in 1492, it is Columbus’s “discovery” of them that matters to us today. This teaching further imparts the values of white America and brands them into young minds: that which is light-skinned, Christian, and of European origin is inherently superior to other colors, races, religions, and cultures. We honor Christopher Columbus today, because he “really discovered” America, through the naming of places: the District of Columbia, the province of British Columbia, cities in Ohio, South Carolina, Georgia and other places, and the Columbia River. That last name is actually taken from a fur trading ship (the Columbia Rediviva), but because the ship was named to honor Columbus the river name honors him as well.
As if this weren’t insulting enough to the cultures of Indigenous peoples whose civilizations were established on this continent, literally for millennia, prior to the lifetime of Christopher Columbus, we honor the man as an embodiment of the Doctrine of Discovery (not to be confused with the legacy/fallacy of “discovery” I write about above). The Doctrine of Discovery was invented and adopted by the Catholic Church to empower and justify the behavior of European nations toward non-European peoples. The Church as part of Christianity preaches that all people are to be treated with kindness, consideration and compassion. However, from the Middle Ages to the present day nations identifying as Christian have profited from engaging in decidedly un-Christian behavior…that is, the murder, rape, enslavement and robbery (amongst other cruelties) of the Indigenous peoples they encountered when they explored new places. To make this un-Christian behavior jive with the tenets of their religion (it would have been very unprofitable simply to condemn it), the Catholic Church came up with the Doctrine of Discovery: the subjugation of Indigenous peoples through murder, rape, enslavement, etc. is okay because God wills it. And we know that God wills it because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have made our technology so badass (ships, cannons, muskets, etc.) and he would’ve made the Indigenous peoples Christian just like us. Another way to state it is: because we are bringing Christianity to these heathen peoples we can do unto them the exact opposite of what Christ himself taught us to do. Columbus embodied this principle by looting Central American places (thou shalt not steal), murdering their inhabitants by the thousands (thou shalt not kill), raping their women (thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife) and enslaving the survivors (love thy neighbor as thyself), all with the blessings of the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church.
Besides being absurdly self-contradictory and transparently greed-based, the Doctrine of Discovery is a violent, offensive relic of our past, from a time when “might made right” and “to the victor belonged the spoils”. Many of the Protestant religions (which separated from the Catholic religion but took the Doctrine of Discovery with them when they left), recognizing that humankind can and should evolve beyond such a brutish concept, have in recent years denounced and abandoned the Doctrine. But amazingly, the Catholic Church still clings to it today as a cornerstone of the faith.
But we needn’t worry about that in the good old US of A, right? After all, our First Amendment mandates the separation of church and state. Well, in reality it’s not that simple. While it might not be an official policy of the US, the Doctrine of Discovery has crept into countless aspects of American life over the years, such as Manifest Destiny, i.e. we white Americans are such badasses against the “Indians” that it must be because God/the Universe wills it…and who are we to question God’s will? We’d better get out West and do what He wants us to!! And while we may not come right out and say “This is the natural order of things, and it is right and good,” it is the sentiment we honor and respect even today. We name mountains, rivers, lakes and cities after white men who carried out genocide, murder, and enslavement of Indigenous peoples, often in the very places of their namesakes. Sheridan, Vancouver, McLoughlin, Jefferson, Jackson…these are just a few examples out of thousands. In a few cases (such as Denali) we have returned to using the Indigenous name; this needs to continue and expand to as many places as possible. And the right ones to start with are the names that wrongly honor white men who murdered and raped and enslaved Indigenous people for years…such as Christopher Columbus.
We need to rename the Columbia River. At least 20 different sovereign Indigenous nations still live within its watershed, in BC, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. It may not be easy to decide on which name to replace “Columbia” with, but the task’s difficulty does not make it any less right. Let’s right the wrongs we can, starting with the Columbia.
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