Prior to the New York Columbian Order’s first celebration in 1792, the 300-year anniversary of Columbus’ arrival, Columbus Day was largely not celebrated.[1] Italian, catholic immigrants largely composed the Columbian Order, and they wanted a hero to rally behind and celebrate their history of coming to this country. For the next hundred years, certain cities had Columbus Day celebrations, but no official action was set into motion until 1892 and the Harrison Presidency. He issued an official proclamation encouraging citizenry to “cease from toil and devote themselves to such exercises as may best express honor to the discoverer and their appreciation of the great achievements of the four completed centuries of American life.”[2] In stepped the Knights of Columbus in the late 1800s - a Catholic organization created in reaction to the large number of working class men who died due to the dangerous industrial conditions of the late 19th century. Many were catholic immigrants, and Father Michael J. McGivney decided that he wanted to create an organization to care for these new widows and orphans.[3] Amassing serious political and social power, by the 1920s they were in a place to put pressure on the federal administration and push for a holiday they thought celebrated immigration and diversity. In reaction to the KKK, who targeted all minorities including Catholics in the country, the Knights wanted to create a holiday honoring minorities. They decided to look at an old holiday highly regarded in Italian, Catholic communities and champion federal recognition for this holiday as a way to honor and respect minorities and their contributions to this country. |
Allied by Generoso Pope, an Italian American politician who championed of the Italian-American cause to Franklin Roosevelt, the powerful coalition lobbied to have Columbus Day federally recognized. In 1934, FDR declared Columbus Day on the 12th of October as a national, federal holiday and in 1968 President Johnson moved the holiday to the second Monday of on October so that it better coincided with the weekend. [4] While this may seem like noble reasoning for a holiday, it celebrates immigrants at the expense of Native Americans. Instead, these tribes and nations are forgotten and instead the holiday promotes this narrative that American settlers found a country and civilized it - which frankly is not the case.
[1] "The Timeline History of Celebrating (and Not Celebrating) Columbus Day." Smithsonian.com. October 10, 2016. Accessed March 28, 2017. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/timeline-history-celebrating-and-not-celebrating-columbus-day-180960736/. [2] History.com Staff. "Columbus Day." History.com. 2010. Accessed March 28, 2017. http://www.history.com/topics/exploration/columbus-day. [3] "Our Story." Our Story. Accessed March 28, 2017. http://www.kofc.org/un/en/insurance/our-story.html. [4] History.com Staff. |
But who was Columbus? A fixture in early education, most Americans are familiar with a particular Columbus narrative. Most know that in 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue with three ships – the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María – and ‘discovered’ America. Some may know that when he came to this ‘new’ land he encountered Indigenous peoples whom he affectionately referred to as Indians, mistakenly thinking he was in India. And that, for most, is where the story ends. Columbus is painted as a friendly explorer who did the world an incredible service when he found this land. The story, however, is a little more complex, and one that for indigenous peoples in this country cannot be so neatly painted.
Sent in 1492 by the Spanish empire interested in expanding their empire and spreading Catholicism, Columbus set forth looking for a safer trade route west to East Asia. Following the Muslim concentration of political power in present day Turkey, the more Christian nations of Western Europe wanted an alternate safer and faster route. After about a month of sailing, Columbus landed in present day Bahamas and there was greeted by the Arawak tribe. Friendly in demeanor, Columbus describes how they “willingly traded everything they owned… [and] were well built, with good bodies and handsome features.”[1] He also noticed bits of gold in their jewelry, and from that small observation, changed the course of history. Later in his journals, he writes “with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”[2] True to his word, Columbus began to subjugate and enslave these people, taking around 25 captives back to Europe, about half of which died during the voyage. He set up small settlements back in the Americas as well, most of which were destroyed upon return due to poor governing. Regardless, he continued his campaign and set up encomienda systems that were predicated upon finding gold. These systems of forced labor made the Arawak mine fields for gold and set up quotas that, if not met, meant that workers’ hands would be cut off and they would bleed to death. The issue was that there was little to no gold on the island. Those who tried to escape were hunted down and killed. By the year 1650, reports showed that “none of the original Arawaks or their descendants” still lived on the island.[3] |
The Spanish royal court actively detested slavery, and upon hearing reports of Columbus’ practices and seeing settlement after settlement fail with little gold in return, the Spanish Crown arrested Columbus and stripped him of his royal authority. While his charges were dropped, he never regained his good standing with the Court and never gave them the gold he promised.[4] Instead, he died without any of the titles or nobility he had accrued over his life. Instead, his legacy set into motion the Columbian Exchange, predicated upon slavery to send raw materials back to Europe to be sold in the new American market. Instead, his 'discovery' led to the Doctrine of Discovery, which you can read about later on this site but essentially deems Natives as extinct and American land 'ours.' In reality, Columbus was an egotistical man hell bent on proving himself and his widely inflated claims. This had very real consequences of destroying a specific people group and set up precedent in this country that People of Color exist to be exploited – whether for land or labor. While portrayed in schools as a benevolent, adventurous explorer, the truth, seen from his own journals, is that on Columbus Day, we laud a genocidal man that set into motion the erasure of multiple people groups.
[1] Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne, and Dina Gilio-Whitaker. "All the real Indians died off": and 20 other myths about Native Americans. Boston: Beacon Press, 2016. [2] Ibid [3] Ibid [4] Flint, Valerie I.J. "Christopher Columbus." Encyclopædia Britannica. January 14, 2016. Accessed April 16, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Christopher-Columbus. |