Christopher Columbus Holiday

Christopher Columbus has been credited for opening up the Americas to European colonization. We have a holiday in honor of his name and we celebrate his so called “discoveries,” when truth be told, he committed genocide on one of the largest scales known in history. Christopher Columbus was a megalomaniac, killing in the name of self-glory, and for the Crown of Spain. So then,the question stands, why is there a holiday in honor of Christopher Columbus? In order to answer this, we must first dive into a little history. 1792 was the year in which an event honoring Christopher Columbus first emerged. The event was held by New York's Columbian Order as a celebration honoring Christopher Columbus' landing 300 hundred years prior. Throughout the 19th century, it was not unusual for Catholic-Italian communities across America to organize yearly events and parades in honor of Christopher Columbus. In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison wrote, “...let the people, so far as possible, cease from toil and devote …show more content…
His father was a third-generation weaver, and shopkeeper, named Domenico Colombo. Except for the marriage between Domenico and Susanna (Columbus' parents) nothing is known of his mother. Columbus is one of at least five children born to a low middle-class family. It is thought that Domenico had poor work ethics. This may have lead Columbus to a life of sailing and exploring. According to American Historian Samuel Eliot Morison, “Domenico had his sons optimism, without his will” (Samuel Morrison). Had Domenico been prosperous with his craft, Columbus may have spent his entire life as a fourth-generation weaver, and shopkeeper. Instead, as a young teenager, Columbus and his brother Bartholemew set out to sea for adventurous journeys and trade. They sailed the Mediterranean and Aegean seas on various trading voyages, but the routes where hard to navigate, and very