Columbus Day? Really?

Columbus Day was a day off from school when I was a kid. I never questioned how or why a vacation was connected to a man accidentally finding “The New World”. But now I wonder, given the more transparent aspects of his discovery and the devastating aftermath for the indigenous peoples, how we could honor him.

As I recall, in my little farming community in Ohio, there were no special speeches or parades or events on this day. Perhaps back in the 19^th century it was different, but not in mid-century Ohio. We just got out of school for the day. Hooray! Columbus Day sales came along later.

Having holidays as days off from work or school is a relatively new phenomenon. Puritans didn’t even “take off” Christmas Day. In fact, from 1659-1681, the celebration of Christmas was outlawed in Boston. They argued there was no scriptural directive to recognize the birth of Jesus and that the holiday celebration was rife with pagan symbols and rituals. The official federal recognition of Christmas as a day “off” came in 1870 and has morphed into commercialism and nostalgia tinged with spirituality.

The Pilgrims had one meal of thanksgiving that they did not repeat the following year. George Washington called for a day of thanksgiving in 1789, but never again. Thanksviging wasn’t a regular holiday until Abraham Lincoln set the fourth Thursday in November in 1863. It remained there until 1939 when Franklin Roosevelt moved the day to the third Thursday. That lasted two years, and then it went back to the fourth Thursday.

Giving people a day off to spend with family and friends makes some sense. But Columbus Day? Interestingly, many countries in the Americas do celebrate the date of Columbus’ discovery as a national holiday, including the United States. However, as federal holidays have proliferated, fewer schools take Columbus Day off.

Instead many schools opt to take part of the day to talk about Christopher Columbus and his three small ships happening onto an unfamiliar-to-them land mass. Amongst all the hagiography, however, is a continued neglect of the ramifications of the landing on native peoples.

There were thriving indigenous peoples all over what came to be known as the two continents of North and South America. Some estimates were that under his direct leadership several hundred thousand, and maybe up to a million native people, died. Some were enslaved and died under harsh work conditions. Wars took some lives. Some committed suicide. Many died of European diseases they had no immunity for. And this was just in the islands, not even yet the mainland where the devastation would be magnified.

One monk of the time, Bartolome de las Casas, wrote that between 1494 and 1508 under the system set up by Columbus, more than three million people died. He said, “Who in future generations will believe this? I, myself as an eyewitness, can scarce believe it.”

And that is not even close to accounting for the millions upon millions who would die across the two continents because of the explorations opened up to Spain and England.

It happened. Columbus stumbled onto lands unknown to Europe or Asia. But the cultures, so different from European ones, were considered barbaric and deserving of conquering from civilized Christian nations. By what logic do we honor that with a federal holiday?

But this momentous event did happen, so what is the answer?

Maybe it’s time to set aside the Columbus-worship in schools and society and strip the day of federal holiday status. Let’s insist that kids be taught the truth of the invaders, because that’s what they were. They believed that “might makes right,” but we know better. Don’t we?

Most Americans, I bet, give the holiday or the man little thought beyond the holiday sales ads and the ditty we all learned. “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” It’s sad, though, that we know or care so little for this piece of history and, more importantly, the ramifications.

Maybe someone could write an alternative history novel in which peaceful co-existence and trade was the result of Columbus’ accidental discovery. Not so dramatic, but such a happening would have enriched everyone culturally and financially.

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