The attempt to vanquish Columbus Day is an effort to erase the American story for an entire group
OPINION | COLUMN | THE BROADSIDE REVIEW
Imagine destroying a holiday dedicated to an ethnic group that suffered the largest mass lynching in the United States history. You do not have to be very creative in dreaming up this scenario because that is precisely what President Biden, numerous school boards, and scores of Progressive politicians attempt to do this time every year when they try to replace Columbus Day with “Indigenous Peoples Day.”
Officially declared a federal holiday in 1934 by President Franklin Roosevelt, Columbus Day resulted from a decades-long effort by Italian Americans to stymie the prejudicial treatment against them.
Prior to it being an official holiday, Columbus Day was first observed by President Benjamin Harris in 1892. Harris wanted the American people to “cease from toil and devote themselves to such exercises as may best express honor to the discoverer and their appreciation of the great achievements of the four completed centuries of American life.”
But this dedication did not come from the ether. Anti-Italian sentiment had been growing in the United States since the early part of the 19 century when large numbers of Italians began immigrating to the country.
In 1891 — a year before President Harris made his observance — 11 Sicilian immigrants were hanged by an angry mob in New Orleans. The event occurred when anger toward Italians had reached a fever pitch in the city. Kindling for the flames already existed as non-Italian city residents were distrustful of the Catholic minority taking up residence in such large numbers that, at the time, the area known as the French Quarter was referred to as “Little Palermo.”
However, the climax of resentment ensued when the city’s police chief, David Hennessey, was shot while walking down the street. In a deathbed-like confession, Hennessey blamed the “dagoes” — an Italian slur — for the act.
After that, it was open season. Hundreds of Italians were rounded up by police and lay personnel alike. After six Italians were found innocent at their trial, calls for vigilantism were made. The Daily States Newspaper wrote at the time: “Rise, people of New Orleans!” “Alien hands of oath-bound assassins have set the blot of a martyr’s blood upon your vaunted civilization.”
Thousands of New Orleans residents broke into the city’s weapons storage while others stormed the prison. They grabbed not just the Sicilians who were acquitted but some who had not even faced a trial. Some were shot. Some were hanged. Some had their bodies torn apart by the crowd.
The New York Times, which remains churlish in its reporting about the Columbus Day holiday even now, wrote at the time: “Yet while every good citizen will readily assent to the proposition that this affair is to be deplored, it would be difficult to find any one individual who would confess that privately he deplores it very much.” In addition, The Times’ editorial also called the victims of the attacks “desperate ruffians and murderers. These sneaking and cowardly Sicilians, the descendants of bandits and assassins…are to us a pest without mitigations.”
Italian Americans needed a way to make people accept that they were a part of the American story. Desperate, they clung to a book by The Legend of Sleepy Hollow author, Washington Irving, called “A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus,” which painted the Italian explorer as the hero that school children of the 20th century have come to know him as.
In 1906, Colorado became the first state to announce the Columbus Day holiday after an Italian immigrant newspaper editor named Angelo Noce and his friend Siro Mangini worked with the state legislature to make their dream come to fruition. According to NPR, Mangini named a tavern that he owned Christopher Columbus Hall because he thought that the explorer was the one Italian that Americans “would not throw rocks at.”
Within five years, 14 other states would also celebrate Columbus Day, leading up to the eventual encapsulation by FDR.
All of this points to Columbus Day being the story of one immigrant group’s journey to try to be accepted as worthy of obtaining the American dream. To eliminate the holiday is not only biased but also nonsensical.
Blaming Christopher Columbus for the eradication of Native Americans is akin to blaming the invention of sailing for the horrors of the Trans-Atlantic passage. While Columbus’s treatment of Native American’s is deplorable, he was not responsible for the manifest destiny that wiped out far larger numbers of people in an equally brutal fashion. To do so would mean one would have to subscribe to the belief that the entirety of the United States is one horrible sin — an idea that is unpalatable to all but the most progressive American.
Some have attempted to grapple with the holiday’s history, arguing that the day should be named Italian American Heritage Day. But to do so would be to whitewash the history of the holiday entirely.
The history behind the day is seldomly brought up, and that is the point. Columbus Day was never meant to be a holiday for Italian Americans to put forward their victimhood in the ever-competitive intersectional battle that has engulfed the country for several years. The holiday was about connecting Italians to the history of the United States to assimilate to its values of liberty and justice for all in peace. That should not be forgotten, replaced, or eliminated. Happy Columbus Day.
The Broadside Review is a substack column and content partner of The New Jersey Editorial Report. Please subscribe to them or check out their column here.
