A group of about 25 MSU community members marched Monday evening to the rock on Farm Lane, some wearing T-shirts that accused Christopher Columbus of genocide, racism, rape and torture.
Instead of celebrating the man recognized throughout history for discovering America, during Columbus Day on Monday members of several cultural student groups observed Indigenous People's Day - which honors those who lived in the Americas long before Columbus set foot on the continent.
About 50 people in all attended Monday evening's events, which included a prayer, music and speeches from several group members at the rock.
Those who participated in Indigenous People's Day events - including members of the North American Indigenous Student Organization and Movimiento Estudiantil Xicano de Aztlan - said they hold different views than those traditionally taught in U.S. elementary schools that portray Columbus as a heroic explorer.
"It means a celebration of our heritage and traditions and all of our ancestors that went through so much before us to enable us to get where we are today and hold on to our traditions," said Le Anne Silvey, assistant professor in the Department of Family and Child Ecology. "It's a spiritual renewal and revitalization."
There were other explorers who came to the Americas before Columbus, but Columbus' arrival marked the start of colonization and conquest, said Phil Bellfy, associate professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures.
"The singular difference between Columbus and the other explorers is that was the beginning of that whole process of genocide," Bellfy said. "But we don't teach our second graders about the genocide, we just teach them about Columbus and all the supposed good things. But here we are at the university - we should be able to confront these very uncomfortable truths."
In addition to educating others on indigenous people's history and suffering, the day is meant to honor American Indians and indigenous people around the world, said Bellfy, who is Chippewa.
"We choose to remember our survival on that day," he said. "We are celebrating the fact that we've struggled for 500 years, and we're still here."
But political science sophomore Jon Lorence, who stopped to watch the event, said Columbus Day doesn't necessarily celebrate him as a person, but more as a figurehead for the beginning of European settlement in America.
"Without him, nothing we have today would have been like it is," Lorence said, adding that people need to recognize the positives with the negatives of the situation.
It's estimated that more than 90 million people died during the hundred years after Columbus came to the Americas in 1492, Bellfy said.
Columbus was responsible for the destruction of many tribal nations and the enslaving of many American Indians, said Don Lyons, a hospitality business senior and co-chairman of the North American Indigenous Student Organization.
"He came with the mindset that he's better than indigenous people, and we don't think it's right to have a day celebrating him," Lyons said. "In our minds, it's the same as celebrating Hitler or (former Soviet Union leader Joseph) Stalin."
Lynne Goldstein, chairperson of the Department of Anthropology, said she doesn't see Columbus himself as representing genocide, and when thinking about him, it's important to look into all aspects of history.
"If we're going to talk about Columbus Day, we need to look at the whole context of what Columbus' voyage was about, what it really meant, what that voyage really started and what it was he saw when he got here," Goldstein said. "(But) that discovery was not necessarily a total positive thing. It brought a lot of disease and destruction, and a lot of other very negative things."
