Columbus Day

This past Monday October 12, 2009 was Columbus Day. The holiday is celebrated in honor of Christopher Columbus, who was the son of a wool merchant and weaver who was born in Genoa, Italy. He's a historical figure that's been widely celebrated throughout the last 500 or more years. Popular legend has it that he set sail out on the Atlantic and discovered America. According to many scholars, he didn't set sail in North America. He led four expeditions to the New World but never found a western ocean route to Asia. Tha was his original goal. The regions that he explored were already inhabited. On Columbus's first voyage, he found out the earth was not only round, but that the size of the earth was much bigger than he dreamed. He underestimated how long the voyage would take to head to the "East Indies in Southeast Asia."

On August 2, 1492, Columbus set sail in search of the East Indies. His voyage was financed by Ferdinand and Isabella. They made the city of Palos pay back their debt owed to the crown by providing two of the ships and also by getting Italian financial backing for part of the expense. Columbus and 90 crewmen boarded three ships that were to make the voyage to the New World; the Nina, Pinta, and the flagship Santa Maria. Columbus landed in the Bahamas. He also sailed to Cuba and Hispaniola (Haiti). He never made it to the East Indies. He had made reference to the native peoples he saw as "Indians" because he mistakenly thought he had landed in that area. Columbus recognized how huge the earth was in making that voyage. Many people who were uneducated at the time believed this world was flat. I'd venture to guess many people thought that back then because many parts of the world at that time were uninhabited. Those that were educated knew that the world was round. However, the areas that Columbus landed in, I believe, would eventually pave the way for future explorers to set sail in that direction and to discover North America.

Many Americans have celebrated Columbus's landing since the colonial period on October 12, 1792. On that particular date New York City and other U.S. cities celebrated the 300th anniversary of his landing in the New World. In 1892 President Benjamin Harrison called upon people of the U.S. to celebrate Columbus Day on the 400th anniversary of the event. Teachers, preachers, poets, and politicians used Columbus Day to teach various rituals of patriotism. Back in the mid-nineteenth century an influx of Catholic immigrants immigrated to America and many of them supposedly had experiened "induced discrimination". As a result, a Catholic organization called the Knights of Columbus was formed bearing Christopher Columbus's name. The organization helped provide relief to those new Catholic immigrants. The Knights of Columbus played an integral part in helping to lobby for the new holiday. Angelo Noce, a first generation Italian born citizen helped lobby for Columbus Day to be a federal holiday. The first official state holiday celebrating Columbus Day was Colorado. Columbus Day was proclaimed a state holiday by Colorado Governor Jesse F. McDonald in 1905. It was made a statutory holiday in 1907.

In April 1934 due to the lobbying of the Knights of Columbus, Congress, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, October 12 was made a federal holiday. Since 1971, Columbus Day has been set aside to be honored on the second Monday in October. Over the years there have been many Native American groups along with former Ethics Professor Ward Churchill (University of Colorado) who have been very critical of Americans celebrating that holiday. Regardless of the flaws and imperfections Columbus may have had, he has definitely played an integral role in the shaping of American history. His voyage to the Caribbean helped pave the way for numerous European explorers to settle both North and South America. That helped pave the way for the founding of the greatest country of all: The United States of America.