Why do We ( People of the United States of America) Celebrate Columbus Day

[erpowers]

The reason for this post is that earlier today I was walking and passed by a bank that was tuned to Fox News Channel. At that time there was a discussion about the fact that Brown University had changed the name of it Columbus Day celebration to Fall Weekend. That led me to think why do we (people in the United States of America) celebrate Columbus Day. I am not even going to say what some Native Americans have said. I am just going to point out that it seems that historians are beginning to acknowledge that christopher Columbus never came to the United States of America. They state that he made it to the Americas but not the United States. In addition, when I learned about Christopher Columbus I was always told that Columbus found the Americas because he had gotten lost in a storm. Beyond that Christopher Columbus, as far as I know, was not the first non-native to discover America. As far as I know people had been coming to the Americas many years before Columbus. So, why do we celebrate a guy who did not come to our country, only made it to where he did go because he got lost, and was not the first to discover the land?

[eShirl]

1. it never made any sense to me

[nykym]

2. Well here's one answer

Columbus Day Began as an Italian-American Holicay

By Chuck

The first recorded celebration of Columbus Day in the United States took place in New York City on October 12, 1792 when a group known as the Columbian Order held a parade to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the landing of Columbus. The Columbian Order was a political organization that was also known as the Tammany Society which in later years morphed into the corrupt political machine known as Tammany Hall.

Link: http://hubpages.com/hub/The_Origins_of_Columbus_Day

[jobycom]

3. They are called Founder's myths. Think Homer, or Romulus and Remus.

Even the Bible. Think of the similarities of God granting occupied land to the original Hebrews for obeying him, and Columbus claiming and occupied land for the Europeans so he could bring Christ to the "savages."

Every great nation has them, and they are generally created to justify the existence of a nation that had to conquer someone else to exist. In the later 19th century, we were very aware that we were slaughtering the original inhabitants of this nation and stealing their land. To justify this and soothe our collective conscience, we developed a series of stories--an American mythology--to explain why we were really the owners of the land, and were justified in our conquests. Pilgrims, Thanksgiving, religious freedom, and Columbus all played a role in laying our claim. America was a savage land until discovered by a white European, who (and this is wrong) just accidentally found the place while looking for something else. He was Christian (notice how they got that into the mix, since our leaders in 1776 were rarely Christian), he was virtuous, he was kind and patient and paternal, and he had only the best interests of the natives at heart.

Next came the Pilgrims and others trying to escape religious oppression in England (notice the mythological justification for both the settlement here and the rebellion against England), then Thanksgiving when the "Indians" welcomed us and we shared our feast with them (notice the mythological acceptance into this land by the original inhabitants, justifying the later slaughter of the ingrate natives who were trying to take our land back from us).

The truth is much different than the myth. Columbus knew the Americas were here. His ships were loaded with weapons and supplies for a long siege and a settlement. Columbus wasn't trying to discover India, he was trying to conquer and settle, to find his wealth. There were stories all over Ireland, the Canary Islands, and Portugal and Spain that there was a land over here. Columbus wasn't a virtuous Christian, not even by the standards of his time. It is often said he died broke and out of favor with the crown because of his failures, but in truth he died very wealthy. He was out of favor with the crown because they were horrified--even by their standards--by the slaughter and enslavement Columbus brought to the Americas. On one of his journeys back to Europe, he brought several Native American slaves for Queen Isabella. She ordered them sent back to their families.

As for the Pilgrims, they were one group of settlers. They weren't the first, the biggest, the most successful--they were simply the most appropriate for the Founders Mythology because they fled religious oppression in England. More settlers came over for wealth, to exploit the land or find gold. More settlers were sent here as prisoners than came here for religious freedom. But criminals and exploiters make lousy Founders Myths. Thus, we celebrate the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving (where in reality the Native Americans shared their ancient holiday with the Pilgrims, not the other way around), and not the prison colonies in Georgia.

Columbus the person wasn't and isn't important. It is the myth of a white, Christian European "discovering" a "new" world that gives us our pretense to the land. Even now, simply abandoning Columbus (though we should) would just generate a new Founders Myth, showing how our white ancestors were brutal thugs, but we now are so much wiser and more gracious.

So, people won't give up Columbus. It has nothing to do with Columbus.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

4. Because Columbus's voyage was the first that mattered to us.

There had been other "discoveries" of the Americas before (e.g., Chinese moving east, and Vikings moving west), but with the exception of the native Americans crossing over the land bridge, nothing stuck.

Columbus's voyage of 1492 was the first real proof to most of Europe that there were other lands and other peoples between Europe and Asia. That revelation jump-started the great age of exploration, which ultimately led to the European colonization of North America, and thus to the United States.

[Oregone]

5. Because life would be dreadfully boring if we only celebrated rational holidays