How do you celebrate columbus day

European settlers brought a host of infectious diseases, including smallpox and influenza that decimated indigenous populations. Warfare between Native Americans and European colonists claimed many lives as well. The image of Christopher Columbus as an intrepid hero has also been called into question.

Upon arriving in the Bahamas, the explorer and his men forced the native peoples they found there into slavery. Later, while serving as the governor of Hispaniola, he allegedly imposed barbaric forms of punishment, including torture. Several U. Columbus Day was originally observed every October 12, but was changed to the second Monday in October beginning in Local groups host parades and street fairs featuring colorful costumes, music and Italian food.

In places that use the day to honor indigenous peoples, activities include pow-wows, traditional dance events and lessons about Native American culture. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in , , and He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did.

Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas. Though he did not really Labor Day will occur on Monday, September 6. Labor Day pays tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers and is traditionally observed on the first Monday in September. It was created by the labor movement in the late 19th century and became a federal More than years after he "discovered" the New World—kicking off centuries of exploration and colonization of the Americas—Christopher Columbus is honored with a federal holiday on the second Monday of every October.

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. In , ahead of the th anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre, in which U. The governor, George S. Mickelson, agreed , and the holiday has replaced Columbus Day in the state ever since.

Though Italian American groups protested the move, it fueled ongoing activism among Indigenous people. In addition, multiple states have stopped celebrating Columbus Day altogether. According to Pew Research, only 21 states offer their government workers paid holidays on the second Monday in October. In a similar spirit of reckoning, in April New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell apologized for the lynchings of Italian Americans, more than a century after the incident.

All rights reserved. For Native people in the U. Not only was he lost, thinking he had landed in India, but there is significant evidence of trans-oceanic contact prior to The day celebrates a fictionalized and sanitized version of colonialism, whitewashing generations of brutality that many Europeans brought to these shores. In cities across the country there is a growing awareness of our collective and violent history — and of the legacies that reverberate in our justice, health, and educational systems.

For me, it is not as simple as replacing one vacation day on the calendar with another. Investment in civics education needs to be made in partnership with tribal nations to teach the true history of the U.

Recent responses to police shootings and killings of unarmed Black people in the U. One consequence has been a radical rethinking of who we choose to publicly commemorate through statues, monuments, and celebrations. In this light, public observance of Columbus Day must end.

Thus, to commemorate Columbus is to commemorate European colonization of Indigenous peoples. Instead of recalling and recounting those tawdry tales, let us instead cite and celebrate a most improbable outcome of this history: Indigenous survivance.

Stories of Indigenous survival, resilience, and resistance remain in short supply in mainstream America, but not because they do not exist; rather, they have been eclipsed through a nationalist project of Indigenous erasure. The time of reckoning is at hand. Let us demonstrate together our collective solidarity with Indigenous peoples by abandoning public commemoration of Columbus in exchange for celebrating Indigenous survivance.

It is only contributing to the continued erasure of Native peoples. There should be no reason to celebrate a man who only brought disease, genocide, and various assault to Native communities. Quite frankly, he discovered nothing, so what is there to celebrate? Not only does this holiday allow the country to educate itself on the loaded history surrounding the holiday, it also celebrates the perseverance and power that Native communities continue to have in the world.