I never got school off for Columbus Day. It wasn’t for any certain reason. It just was. Columbus Day was always one of those minor holidays that held significance somewhere, but not in my tiny corner of southern Wisconsin. However, in my new collegiate home, things are a tad different. I don’t get just time off for Columbus Day, but two whole days.
Which is why the controversy over Columbus Day as a holiday is much more pertinent to me this year than in time past. I had always heard that there was discord over whether or not Columbus Day celebrated a hero or a villain, but I had never put much thought into it beyond general curiosity. Looking into the topic a little more closely I found that there’s been much more than just protest over the issue, but action as well.
The State of Vermont and Phoenix, Arizona have both moved to call the second Monday in October (generally the date reserved for Columbus Day) Indigenous Peoples’ Day, honoring the native people who Columbus subjugated. Denver, Colorado also made their observance of Indigenous Peoples’ Day permanent this past week; ironic considering that Denver was the place where the idea of an official Columbus Day originated in the first place.
This idea of honoring Native Americans is one that I fully support. They’re an integral part of American diversity and occupied the land I now stand on for many thousands of years before my ancestors first stepped foot here.
Simultaneously, the idea of honoring Christopher Columbus is one that I also fully support. How can I do both? Let me explain.
Christopher Columbus enslaved the native peoples he encountered. He extracted the New World’s natural resources and used them to engorge Spain’s own standing on the world stage. He and his crew brought disease to the Americas that the native people had no immunity built up against, all of which only served to hasten their assimilation and downfall.
But Christopher Columbus also established a permanent connection between the Americas and the Old World. The Columbian Exchange took many things from the New World, true, but just as many things came across the pond from Europe, Africa, and Asia (including but not limited to horses, pigs, cattle, grain, olives, and gunpowder). This exchange undeniably altered the world forever, arguably more so than any other single event in human history.
George Washington and many of our Founding Fathers owned slaves and operated plantations. New Deal hero Franklin Delano Roosevelt operated internment camps for Americans of Japanese ancestry during World War II. Yet we still celebrate Washington’s birthday as a holiday and for years VJ Day was given a significant amount of clout.
Why must we judge history so harshly? Will the future chronicler not look upon some of our own actions as detestable and grossly archaic? I can only hope not.
Columbus’ story is undeniably tied to colonialism, but without his story the world as we know it would look drastically different. Perhaps without someone with the ambition to sail uncharted waters, we’d still be believing the universe was stuck between Gibraltar and Shanghai.
I cannot say that a world without Columbus would be better or worse. What I can say is that a world with Columbus is the one we have. Why not celebrate that? Columbus is a historical figure that has moved us to where we are today, both Native Americans and people of European descent. So why not celebrate the American Indian that was here pre-Columbus and those that came after him?
Ultimately, we are all Americans and the Americas we know would not exist without Columbus. Let us not vilify him, rather view him through the lens of history as a man. And men are imperfect.
