Removing the giant Christopher Columbus Statues at the Ohio Statehouse, City Hall and Surrounding Colleges would impact the community greatly. We shouldn't be named after or adoring a man in history that enslaved whole islands in the name of "Discovery".

Discovery is the word that is engraved all around this statue. That word should be INVADED not discovered. RAIDED not discovered. PILLAGED not discovered. 

These statues and any others like it need to be removed.

Our state is named Ohio. Ohio is a Native American word meaning good river. How can we honor our heritage in one way and continue to defame it with statues of this man who took advantage of Native American people, their land and their goods?

Our state has a strong Native American history and after that, a strong Union state history during the civil war. We were a safe haven for escaped slaves AND we held thousands of Confederate Prisoners in central downtown. What sense does it make to have this proud history and be named after a man who terrorized the Americas?

More on Christopher Columbus: He accidentally stumbled upon the Americas backed and funded by Spain on his voyages. He never “discovered” the New World because millions of people had already vastly inhabited it. He didn't just search island and "set up camp". 

He INVADED, RAIDED and PILLAGED the peoples of Central America and South America. In his OWN words, "They willingly traded everything they owned … They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features …They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron …They would make fine servants … With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” 

Thats not the worst of it. Chris Columbus also sent about 500 slaves to the Queen of Spain. Queen Isabella was mortified, she believed the "discovered people" were actually Spanish subjects and could not be enslaved. She disapprovingly and promptly sent the "slaves" back.

In May 1498, Columbus visited Trinidad and the South American mainland before heading back to a Hispaniola settlement during a colonist revolt against the brutality and current management by Columbus' appointed leaders. Conditions were so terrible that Spanish authorities sent a new governor to take control. Sadly, the native Taino population, forced to pan gold and work on plantations, was reduced from an estimated 250,000 to a few hundred only sixty years after Columbus landed there. Even though these weren't always rich in gold areas, Natives who didn't collect enough gold would have their hands cut off. The accusations against him across the many islands and countries he took over include rape, murder, mass genocide, slavery, cutting natives just to test the sharpness of their blades and other forms of brutality. 

Christopher Columbus was hastily arrested and returned to Spain in chains.

As a union state, a blue jacket state, how can we continue to be named after and celebrate a man that stole from natives of the Americas and is treated as a hero?  

Thank you for reading and please consider signing and sharing this petition so we can stop openly celebrating a pirate with a license to steal and enslave native peoples.