Why columbus day

But the new arrivals were not welcomed by all. Maligned as sinister and criminal, Italian immigrants were the focus of increasing bigotry. In anti-Italian sentiment boiled over in New Orleans after police chief David Hennessy, reputed for his arrests of Italian Americans, was murdered.

In the aftermath, more than a hundred Sicilian Americans were arrested. When nine were tried and acquitted in March , a furious mob rioted and broke into the city prison, where they beat, shot, and hanged at least 11 Italian American prisoners. None of the rioters who lynched the Italian Americans were prosecuted.

The brutal killings created tit-for-tat tensions between the U. At first, the U. The U. In the decades after the mass lynching, Italian American advocates pushed for a nationwide holiday, and states slowly began to adopt it. In , President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated it a national holiday, and in Congress changed the date from October 12 to the second Monday of October. Columbus Day celebrated Italians. But for many with Indigenous ancestry, it was a slap in the face—a celebration of invasion, theft, brutality, and colonization.

Columbus and his crew enabled and perpetrated the kidnapping, enslavement, forced assimilation , rape and sexual abuse of Native people, including children; the Native American population shrank by about half after European contact. For Indigenous Americans, the landing celebrated by some as a day of triumphant discovery was the beginning of an incursion onto land that had long been their home. In the s and s, protests against the holiday grew. But the truth is that Indigenous people were here before the settlers.

Even if Columbus Day were to reach its end in name, the things it represents— the doctrine of discovery, manifest destiny, etc. The specter of Columbus will not be exorcised so easily from the land. After centuries of the United States and Canadian governments attempting to make our culture, lives, and sovereignty illegible or nonexistent, we are still able to find one another wherever we go.

I have been heartened too by the non-Indigenous people who have joined us in celebration, reflection, and reckoning with the difficult histories of colonialism and genocide. If we are to heal, to find a way to live here together, these processes are indispensable. While renaming Columbus Day to honor Indigenous peoples will not do this alone, I believe it has created a new space to allow for such connections and work to begin.

Legal scholar and historian puts the push to remove Confederate statues in context. From Oklahoma to Cambridge, Truman Burrage brought his fervor with him.

A citizenship ceremony hosted by Harvard Kennedy School. Pushing to end myth of Columbus and honor history of Indigenous peoples. America could learn a lot from its first peoples. But it must start with the truth. Joseph P. How is it celebrated? Columbus's arrival in the Americas is a huge symbol of Italian heritage.

Many Italian-Americans celebrate their heritage on this day with parades and street fairs. Further, native groups use the day to honor the indigenous people of the Americas. The day is used as an opportunity to learn and teach about Native American culture and history, which many feel were violated by Columbus's arrival. Many schools and businesses are closed in observance of this day, and all banks, post offices, and government offices are closed.

There is a huge amount of opposition to Columbus Day and what it represents. The primary goal of Columbus's expedition was to find riches and conquer and exploit the new lands. Although various indigenous peoples had been settled in the Americas long before Columbus arrived, Columbus's goal was to pillage the land for riches regardless of who stood in his way. Columbus and his men mistreated the natives, and used slavery and violence to get what they wanted.

They also forced natives to convert to Christianity and introduced a number of diseases to the native people living there.

These new illnesses would end up wiping out entire communities, so many Americans argue that Columbus should not be celebrated for bringing disease and destruction to the Americas. Further, Columbus sent thousands of peaceful Taino Indians from the island of Hispaniola to Spain to be sold, and many died en route. The local population was forced to dig for gold and harvest the land to serve the colonizers. Within 60 years after Columbus landed, only a few hundred of what may have been around , Tainos were left on their island.

For example, one lesson plan from IllumiNative provides opportunities for students to learn about Indigenous Peoples Day and at the same time explore ways to honor and protect the land, air and water. Such lessons are important, as they address the ways in which conservation of natural resources is essential to the economic self-determination and self-sufficiency of Native nations.

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