# Should Columbus Day remain a holiday? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 11, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687 "2004-10-11T18:57:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/21 "2004-10-12T01:03:31Z")
All these Star Trak fans and no one has suggested First Contact Day? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/22 "2004-10-12T01:26:04Z")
Since Columbus and his actions are centuries in the past the question is, is there any _current_ reason for us to mark or commemorate Columbus day? I say no. Columbus did NOT:[ul] [li]prove the Earth was round[/li][li]boldly go where no one had gone before: there was a previous explorer (can’t find cite, sorry) who took a ship out into the Atlantic searching for new lands. He never came back. If a hurricane had descended on Columbus’ little flotilla, we might never have heard of him either.[/li][li]realize he had discovered an entire “New World”.[/li][li]explore or colonize North America[/li][li]introduce English-speaking people to the New World.[/li][li]have anything to do with establishing democracy, religiious freedom or human rights.[/ul][/li] Columbus might be culturally much more relevant to Latin America and Italian-Americans; to us Anglos, forget it. And finally, we have too damn many government-and-bank-only holidays. If it ain’t worth giving **me** the day off, it ain’t worth commemorating. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/23 "2004-10-12T02:29:27Z")
My major problem with the credits to Columbus is addition to the ones mentioned is that he never even saw or set foot on the North American mainland. He explored islands like the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands. I go on vacation to the Virgin Islands too and you don’t see a holiday for me. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/24 "2004-10-12T02:49:41Z")
We could change the name to “Canadian Thanksgiving”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/25 "2004-10-12T03:00:47Z")
The European colonization of the Americas was, for good or bad, a major event which changed world history. It was a direct result of Columbus’ voyages, even if not their original intention. Nor was Columbus some random guy off the street who happened to be in the wrong place at the right time; he was the primary advocate for a trans-Atlantic voyage at a time when most explorers were heading south to find better routes around Africa. And his maritime experience was a major factor in the success of the voyages. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/26 "2004-10-12T03:08:16Z")
We’ve gone from the 1950 rosy picture of Columbus to understanding his full character–which included actually killing some people. I will agree that he did some great things, but he also did some bad things. I don’t think we need a holidy in his honor. ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/27 "2004-10-12T04:11:18Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > All these Star Trak fans and no one has suggested First Contact Day? Yeah, but that’s April 5th. We need something for October. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/28 "2004-10-12T04:16:34Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > However, Christopher Columbus is a controversial figure. I don’t think he is as evil as most Indian groups state. I also don’t think he is worthy of a holiday. He is the only non American honored with a holiday. Doesn’t that Jesus guy have _two_? ---
**Author:** ![rockle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/73ab20/32.png) [@rockle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rockle)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/29 "2004-10-12T12:08:08Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Doesn’t that Jesus guy have _two_? Technically, there is only one religious federal holiday – Christmas. (Easter is always a Sunday, and most people have off on Sundays.) Contrary to popular belief, Good Friday is not a federal holiday (although many government employees do get the day off). [Here](http://www.usps.com/communications/news/uspscalendar.htm) is a list of US post office holidays – these are all the federal holidays. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/30 "2004-10-12T12:55:32Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I don’t think we need a holidy in his honor. Well, it’s too late, we _got_ one, and the Congress is no more going to rescind it than they’re going to take “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance. I’m for the “making it an Italian version of St. Patrick’s Day,” which is what it already is, really. Very few people think literal “St. Patrick,” they think, “Irish.” And Columbus Day has long since become “Italian Day.” That way, we could leave that genocidal bitch Queen Isabella out of it, too . . . ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/31 "2004-10-12T15:52:31Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > Well, it’s too late, we _got_ one, and the Congress is no more going to rescind it than they’re going to take “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance. > > I’m for the “making it an Italian version of St. Patrick’s Day,” which is what it already is, really. Very few people think literal “St. Patrick,” they think, “Irish.” And Columbus Day has long since become “Italian Day.” > > That way, we could leave that genocidal bitch Queen Isabella out of it, too . . . I never thought of Columbus Day as “Italian Day”, nor most I have known. Instead it is more honoring an interprid explorer. And, as most American’s are of European descent, Columbus was the key figure that caused immigration to the US. It is just the bad aspects of Columbus have been whitewashed. And it was just an accident for him he found the Americas. His goal was a trade route with the Far East. Thing just didn’t go as he expected. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/32 "2004-10-12T16:35:05Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > It’s undeniably true that things went downhill for the native Americans after the Europeans arrived but it’s unfair to blame Columbus for everything that happened in the last 500 years. It’s probably unfair to blame anyone for the destruction of native American societies, when most of the damage was done by disease in an era when nobody understood what a germ was. Au contraire. Columbus was a bloodthirsty ruler to the native population of Hispaniola; between him and his son, the entire native population was enslaved and/or wiped out is less than 100 years. The methods he used to bring the natives in line were incredibly barbaric, even for the time. I don’t think it’s at all a stretch to say that he set a horrific precent for the treatment of the natives peoples of the new world. There was no unification. Columbus brought exploitation, disease, slavery, and genocide. His own writings testify as the brutal nature of his conquest. From [here](http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v9/9.11/1columbus.html). > [@](#): > > The 1492 “voyage of discovery” is, however, hardly all that is at issue. In 1493 Columbus returned with an invasion force of seventeen ships, appointed at his own request by the Spanish Crown to install himself as “viceroy and governor of [the Caribbean islands] and the mainland” of America, a position he held until 1500. Setting up shop on the large island he called Espa–ola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he promptly instituted policies of slavery (encomiendo) and systematic extermination against the native Taino population. Columbus’s programs reduced Taino numbers from as many as eight million at the outset of his regime to about three million in 1496. Perhaps 100,000 were left by the time of the governor’s departure. His policies, however, remained, with the result that by 1514 the Spanish census of the island showed barely 22,000 Indians remaining alive. In 1542, only two hundred were recorded. Thereafter, they were considered extinct, as were Indians throughout the Caribbean Basin, an aggregate population which totaled more than fifteen million at the point of first contact with the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, as Columbus was known. From [here](http://www.millersv.edu/~columbus/data/art/STONE-01.ART). > [@](#): > > The somber chronicle of the events that ended in the genocide of the peaceful Arawaks of the Caribbean islands is amply documented in Columbus’ own letters and journals and in the pages of his most ardent admirer, Father Bartolome de Las Casas, > the great contemporary historian of the West Indies who believed Columbus had been divinely inspired to make the Discovery. But Las Casas was a thoroughly honest writer, and he did not hesitate to pass harsh judgement on his hero for initiating and carrying on the whole sale enslavement for profit of the gentle natives who had affectionately welcomed Columbus and his fellow argonauts to the New World. Throughout his long life Las Casas was an impassioned crusader for the rights and survival of the hapless Indians–his “poor innocents,” as he called them–whose cruel oppression by the Spanish invaders he laid square at Columbus’ door… > The tragic sequence of events that began on that November day of 1492, one month after the Discovery, had to be played out to the bitter end. “So that with the slaughter from the wars and the hunger and illnesses that resulted from them … > with so much sorrow, anguish and sadness, there did not remain of the multitudes of people which were in this island from the year '94 to '06 … but a third,” Las Casas wrote. “Great harvest and accomplished in sufficiently short time,” he added acidly. Both of those essays are worth reading in their entirety. You’ll never look at Columbus Day the same way again. ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/33 "2004-10-12T16:57:24Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Since Columbus and his actions are centuries in the past the question is, is there any _current_ reason for us to mark or commemorate Columbus day? > > I say no. > > Columbus did NOT:[ul] > [li]prove the Earth was round[/li][li]boldly go where no one had gone before: there was a previous explorer (can’t find cite, sorry) who took a ship out into the Atlantic searching for new lands. He never came back. If a hurricane had descended on Columbus’ little flotilla, we might never have heard of him either.[/li][li]realize he had discovered an entire “New World”.[/li][li]explore or colonize North America[/li][li]introduce English-speaking people to the New World.[/li][li]have anything to do with establishing democracy, religiious freedom or human rights.[/ul][/li] > Columbus might be culturally much more relevant to Latin America and Italian-Americans; to us Anglos, forget it. And finally, we have too damn many government-and-bank-only holidays. If it ain’t worth giving **me** the day off, it ain’t worth commemorating. You think Columbus isn’t relevant for the people of the United States? let’s put it in simple terms if it weren’t for that fatefull voyage of 1492 none of our countries would exist today in it’s present form. Leif Ericson left no mark in our continent. Eve: “Italian Day”? Italy didn’t pay the bill, therefore they dont’t diserve a celebration… and that bitch Isabella pawned her jewels to finance the entire operation, she diserves some credit. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/34 "2004-10-12T17:15:00Z")
Holidays celebrate people who accomplished something momentous, not people known for their sensitive, sharing.caring ways. We don’t celebrate the Feast of St. Francis of Asissi, or Rachel Carson Day. Men who accomplish important things–Washington, Lincoln, Columbus, FDR if he ever gets the nod–get blood on their hands doing it, and this has only been an issue within the last 40 years or so. We don’t celebrate Columbus _because_ he was a brutal bastard; Cortez and Pizzaro would get a whole _week_ if that were the criterion. Columbus achieved something unprecedented, and like the man or not, that rates a celebration. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/35 "2004-10-13T16:01:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Au contraire. Columbus was a bloodthirsty ruler to the native population of Hispaniola; between him and his son, the entire native population was enslaved and/or wiped out is less than 100 years. The methods he used to bring the natives in line were incredibly barbaric, even for the time. I don’t think it’s at all a stretch to say that he set a horrific precent for the treatment of the natives peoples of the new world. > > There was no unification. Columbus brought exploitation, disease, slavery, and genocide. His own writings testify as the brutal nature of his conquest. We’re not talking about the Dominican Republic; we’re talking about the United States. As others have pointed out, Columbus never set foot in any territory that is now part of the US; how could he have killed anyone here? Columbus didn’t set any precedents; the native American people knew about and practiced exploitation, disease, slavery, and genocide for centuries before any Europeans showed up. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/36 "2004-10-13T16:22:11Z")
I think it should be a holiday in Australia too - Peter Falk was fantastic. ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2004, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687/37 "2004-10-13T16:54:32Z")
> [@Estilicon](#): > > Eve: “Italian Day”? Italy didn’t pay the bill, therefore they dont’t diserve a celebration… and that bitch Isabella pawned her jewels to finance the entire operation, she diserves some credit. I think it’s a New York/East Coast thing. I never knew it was considered a celebration of Italian-American heritage growing up, but in some parts it is. Check out Monday’s Columbus Day parade in New York. Italian-Americans are the ones who get offended if you suggest that Columbus is not worthy of veneration. I agree with you - Columbus’s voyage had nothing to do with Italy, and even less to do with Italian-Americans. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-columbus-day-remain-a-holiday/268687.md?page=1)