Many
countries officially celebrate as a holiday the
anniversary of Christopher Columbus'
arrival in the Americas, which
happened on October 12, 1492. The landing is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States. The holiday has
been celebrated unofficially since the late 18th century and officially in
various areas since the early 20th century. there is saying say that this holiday is controversial because the European settlement in the Americas led to the demise of the history and culture of the indigenous peoples.
Observance
History
Columbus Day first became an official
state holiday in Colorado in 1906, and became a federal holiday in the United States in 1937, though
people have celebrated Columbus's voyage since the colonial period. In 1792,
New York City and other U.S. cities celebrated the 300th anniversary of his
landing in the New World. President Benjamin
Harrison called upon
the people of the United States to celebrate Columbus Day on the 400th anniversary
of the event. During the four hundredth anniversary in 1892, teachers,
preachers, poets and politicians used Columbus Day rituals to teach ideals of
patriotism. Many Italian-Americans observe Columbus Day as a celebration
of their heritage, the first occasion being in New York City on October 12,
1866. Columbus Day was first
enshrined as a legal holiday in the United States through the lobbying of
Angelo Noce, a first generation Italian, in Denver. The first statewide
Columbus Day holiday was proclaimed by Colorado governor Jesse F. McDonald in
1905, and it was made a statutory holiday in 1907.
It is generally observed
nowadays by banks, the bond market, the U.S. Postal Service, other federal agencies, most state government offices, many
businesses, and most school districts. Some businesses and some stock exchanges
remain open, also some states and municipalities abstain from observing the
holiday. The traditional date of
the holiday also adjoins the anniversary of the United States Navy (founded October 13, 1775), and thus both occasions are
customarily observed by the Navy (and usually the Marine Corps as well) with either a 72- or 96-hour liberty period.
Local
observance of Columbus Day
Columbus
Day in Salem, Massachusetts in 1892
Actual observance varies in different
parts of the United States, ranging from large-scale parades and events to
complete non-observance. Most states celebrate Columbus Day as an official
state holiday, though many mark it as a "Day of Observance" or
"Recognition" and at least four do not recognize it at all. Most
states (including states where it is not a legal holiday) close schools and
other state services, while others operate as normal.
San Francisco claims the nation's
oldest continuously existing celebration with the Italian-American community's
annual Columbus Day Parade, which was established by Nicola Larco in 1868, while New York City boasts the
largest.
As in the mainland U.S., Columbus Day
is a legal holiday in the U.S.
territory of Puerto Rico.
In the United States Virgin Islands, the day is
celebrated as both Columbus Day and "Puerto Rico Friendship Day".
Virginia also celebrates two legal holidays on
the day, Columbus Day and Yorktown Victory Day, which honors the final victory
at the Siege of
Yorktown in the Revolutionary War.
Non-observance
Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon,
and South Dakota are U.S. states that do not recognize
Columbus Day at all, though Hawaii and South Dakota mark the day with an
alternative holiday or observance. Hawaii celebrates Discoverers' Day, which
commemorates the Polynesian discoverers of Hawaii on the same
date, the second Monday of October, though the name change has not ended
protest related to the observance of Columbus' discovery. The state government does not treat
either Columbus Day or Discoverers' Day as a legal holiday; state, city and
county government offices and schools are open for business. South Dakota
celebrates the day as an official state holiday known as "Native American Day" rather than Columbus
Day. Oregon does not recognize Columbus Day, neither as a holiday nor a
commemoration; schools and public offices remain open. Iowa and Nevada do not celebrate
Columbus Day as an official holiday; however, the governor is "authorized
and requested" by statute to proclaim the day each year.
Several other states have removed
Columbus Day as a paid holiday for government workers while still maintaining
it either as a day of recognition or a legal holiday for other purposes. These
include California and Texas.
The city of Berkeley, California, has replaced
Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day since 1992, a move which has been
followed by several other localities including Sebastopol and Santa Cruz, California; Dane County, Wisconsin; Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota; and Seattle,
Washington. Various tribal governments in Oklahoma designate the day
"Native American Day", or name the day after their own tribe.
Latin American observance
The date Columbus arrived in the
Americas is celebrated in many countries in Latin America. The most common name
for the celebration in Spanish (including in some Latin American communities in the
United States) is the Día de
la Raza ("day of the
race" or "day of the [Hispanic] people"), commemorating the
first encounters of Europeans and Native Americans.
In the U.S. Día de la Raza has served
as a time of mobilization for pan-ethnic Latino activists, particularly in the
1960s. Since then, La Raza has served as a periodic rallying cry for Hispanic
activists. The first Hispanic March on Washington occurred on Columbus Day in
1996. The name has remained in the largest Hispanic social justice
organization, the National Council of La Raza.
Colombia
Colombia, the only country in the
world with a name originated from Columbus himself, celebrates El dia de la Raza, and is taken as an opportunity to
celebrate the encounter of "the two worlds" and to reflect on the
richness that the process of mestizaje has brought to the culture.
Venezuela
Current
state (June 6, 2006) of the Columbus Walk in Caracas. The statue was knocked
down by activists after a "public trial" during the celebrations of
the newly instituted "Day of the Indigenous Resistance" (October 12)
in 2004
Between 1921 and 2002, Venezuela celebrated Día de la Raza along with many other Latin American
nations. The original holiday was officially established in 1921 under
President Juan Vicente Gómez. In 2002, under president Hugo Chávez,
the name was changed to Día de
la Resistencia Indígena (Day
of Indigenous Resistance) to commemorate the Indigenous peoples' resistance to European
settlement. On October 12, 2004 a crowd of pro-government activists toppled the
statue of Christopher Columbus in Caracas and sprayed allusive graffiti over its pedestal.
Costa Rica
Since 1994, Costa Rica had changed the official holiday from Día de la Raza to Día
de las Culturas (Day of the
cultures) to recognize the mix of European, American, African and Asian cultures that helped to compose Costa Rican
(and Latin
American) culture.
Caribbean observance
Some Caribbean countries also observe
holidays related to Columbus Day. In Belize,
October 12 is celebrated as Day of the Americas or Pan-American Day. In the Bahamas,
it was formerly known as Discovery Day,
until 2001 when it was replaced with National Heroes Day.
Italy
Since the 18th century, many Italian
communities in the Americas have observed the Discovery of the New Worldas a celebration
of their heritage; Cristopher Columbus (called in Italian "Cristoforo
Colombo") was an Italian explorer,
citizen of the Republic of
Genoa.
In Italy, Columbus Day has
been officially celebrated since 2004. It is officially
named Giornata nazionale di
Cristoforo Colombo.
The "Lega Navale Italiana"
has created a Regata di
Colombo as a celebration of
the Columbus achievement. Italians have celebrated their "Cristoforo
Colombo" naming after him many civilian and military ships, like the ocean
liner Cristoforo Colombo.
Spain
Since 1987, Spain has celebrated the anniversary of
Columbus' arrival in the Americas as its Fiesta
Nacionalor "National Day". Previously Spain had celebrated the
day as Día de la Hispanidad,
emphasizing Spain's ties with the Hispanidad,
the international Hispanic community. In 1981 a royal decree established the Día
de la Hispanidad as a
national holiday. However, in 1987 the name was changed to Fiesta Nacional, and October 12
became one of two national celebrations, along with Constitution
Day on December 6. Spain's
"national day" had moved around several times during the various
regime changes of the 20th century; establishing it on the day of the
international Columbus celebration was part of a compromise between
conservatives, who wanted to emphasize the status of the monarchy and Spain's
history, and Republicans, who wanted to commemorate Spain's burgeoning
democracy with an official holiday. Since 2000, October 12 has also been
Spain's Day of the
Armed Forces, celebrated each year with a military parade in Madrid.
Opposition to Columbus
celebrations
Opposition to Columbus Day dates to at
least the 19th century where activists had sought to eradicate Columbus Day
celebrations because of its association with immigrants and the Knights of Columbus. They were afraid it was
being used to expand Catholic influence. By far the more common
opposition today, decrying Columbus's and Europeans' actions against the
indigenous populations of the Americas, did not gain much traction until the
latter half of the 20th century. This opposition has been spearheaded by
indigenous groups, though it has spread into the mainstream.
The fact that Columbus brought
slavery, enormous exploitation or devastating diseases to the Americas used to
be seen as a minor detail – if it was recognized at all – in light of his role
as the great bringer of white man's civilization to the benighted idolatrous
American continent. But to historians today this information is very important.
It changes our whole view of the enterprise".
Howard Zinn described some of the details of how
Columbus personally ordered the enslavement and mutilation of the native Arawak people in a bid to repay his
investors:
Now, from his base on Haiti, Columbus
sent expedition after expedition into the interior. They found no gold fields,
but had to fill up the ships returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. In
the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred
Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and
dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Of those
five hundred, two hundred died en route. The rest arrived alive in Spain and
were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town, who reported that, although
the slaves were "naked as the day they were born," they showed
"no more embarrassment than animals." Columbus later wrote: "Let
us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be
sold."
But too many of the slaves died in
captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had
invested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the
province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to
exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain
quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given
copper tokens to hang around their necks. American Indians found without a
copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.
In the summer of 1990, 350 representatives
from American Indian groups from all over the hemisphere, met in Quito, Ecuador,
at the first Intercontinental
Gathering of Indigenous People in the Americas, to mobilize against
the quin-centennial celebration of Columbus Day. The following summer, in Davis,
California, more than a hundred Native Americans gathered for a
follow-up meeting to the Quito conference. They declared October 12, 1992,
"International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People". The largest
ecumenical body in the United States, the National Council of Churches, called on
Christians to refrain from celebrating the Columbus quin centennial, saying,
"What represented newness of freedom, hope, and opportunity for some was
the occasion for oppression, degradation and genocide for others".
Note: this article is about the holiday,
states the facts and issues associated with this observance but does not
disclose its opinion on the matter. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and the website.
