4 Reasons Why Columbus Day Is the Worst Holiday

Last updated on: October 13, 2019 at 12:08 pm by Jason Mankey

4 Reasons Why Columbus Day Is the Worst Holiday 2019-10-13T12:08:51-06:00 Jason Mankey

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On the second Monday of October every year thousands of stock brokers, government employees, and postal workers enjoy a random day off from work while the rest of us go about our daily business. I won’t even notice Monday’s “holiday” until I check the mailbox and find it empty. Out of all the holidays in the United States it’s Columbus Day that’s the worst of them all.

Like most American holidays Columbus Day is of relatively recent vintage. It wasn’t established as a national holiday until 1937, though the day was celebrated on and off beginning in the colonial era. Columbus Day was originally championed by Italian-Americans, not so much for the explorer, but more to serve as a day for Italian-American pride. Think of it is an Italian St. Patrick’s Day, or Halloween at the end of the 19th Century when that holiday served a similar function for Scottish-Americans.

“The Landing of Columbus” by John Vanderlyn

About the only good thing I can say about Columbus Day is that it shares a date with Canada’s Thanksgiving holiday. I guess no one north of Mexico is getting any mail that day. Columbus Day is such a crappy holiday that 16 states no longer observe it, and in many cities the day is now celebrated as Native Americans’ Day or Indigenous People’s Day (if you live in Berkeley CA). There’s been some backlash to the removal of Columbus Day by Italian-Americans, but Columbus sailed for Spain. I’m sure we can come up with a much better Italian guy to celebrate.

Here now are four great reasons to abolish the holiday. Down with Columbus Day! Long may something else serve in its stead.

He Didn’t Discover Anything. The idea that Christopher Columbus discovered “The New World” is one of the great fallacies of history. When Columbus landed on the island of Guanahani in 1492, North and South America were full of people. Upwards of 112 million people lived in the Americas when Columbus stepped out of his boat and had been living there for possibly 30,000 years (and at least 20,000). (1) The population of the Americas was greater than that of Europe in 1491 by a huge margin. There were 60 million Europeans versus 100 million Native Americans, and those Native Americans had been in their country for thousands of years more than those Europeans.

Columbus and his crew weren’t the first Europeans to reach the Western Hemisphere either. The Vikings accomplished that task in the 10th Century and then stayed there for nearly 500 years. The Norse never numbered more than a few thousand in North America (and top estimates end at about 6000 people) but at one point there were at least 1500 Norse people in Greenland. The population was large enough that the area had its own bishop beginning in 1126, and trade between Greenland and Europe was robust during the period of Norse colonization. The Norse settlement in Greenland probably lasted until the 1450’s, though Danish kings were still sending expeditions to look for the descendant’s of lost colonists as late as the early 1600’s. (2)

In addition any sailor worth their salt knew that the Earth was round. It was not a new idea during the time of Columbus, the Ancient Greeks had come up with it centuries before. What people were wrong about was the size of the world, but they knew what shape it was in.

Possibly Columbus, from WikiMedia.

He Just Wasn’t a Good Guy. Even before making landfall in the Caribbean Columbus was busy being a jerk. 10,000 silver coins had been promised to the first sailor to spot land on Columbus’s initial voyage by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. After Spanish sailer Rodrigo de Triana first sighted land Columbus swooped in and claimed he had seen land first the night before, taking a small fortune out of the hands of one of his crewmen.

Of course it got worse after Columbus landed, despite the natives being especially friendly. Columbus repaid their kindness by kidnapping ten of their number and taking them back to Spain. He also stole gold and other valuables from them which he also took back to Spain. Once landing in Spain he penned a mostly fictitious account of what he had found in the Americas-including his delusion that he had landed in Asia.

On his second trip to the Americas Columbus enslaved 560 individuals and attempted to bring them back to Spain, despite Queen Isabella’s insistence than he not take any slaves. 200 of those individuals died on the way to Europe. I don’t want to hear any of that “it was another time” garbage either. He was told not to do it, and he did it anyways. (For the record I’m not sure we should celebrate Washington’s birthday as a holiday either for similar reasons. “President’s Day” is a much better alternative.)

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