Columbus Day

Columbus Day, in the United States, a holiday (originally observed on October 12; since 1971 observed on the second Monday in October) to commemorate the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas on October 12, 1492.

Although his explorations were financed by Ferdinand and Isabella, joint rulers of Aragon and Castile (now in Spain), Columbus was a native of Genoa, Italy, and, over the years, Italian Americans took up the cause of honoring his achievement. The 300th anniversary of his landing was celebrated in New York City in 1792 by the Society of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, a benevolent fraternal organization that had been founded in that city in 1789 to promote patriotism and the principles of democracy.

However, the direct impetus for declaring the anniversary of Columbus’s arrival a national holiday was the mass lynching of 11 Italian Americans in New Orleans in 1891. One of the largest lynchings in U.S. history, it occurred during a time of widespread anti-immigrant and anti-Italian sentiment in the country and one year after the murder of New Orleans’ police chief, which was blamed on the city’s Italian population. In all, 19 Italians were to be tried for the murder, the weak evidence for which was exposed when 6 of the accused were acquitted and 3 were granted mistrials. Before the rest of the accused could be tried, a mob stormed the city’s prison and shot to death 11 Italians (a few of whom were not among the accused). The event threatened diplomatic relations between Italy and the United States, and, to appease the Italian government, U.S. Pres. Benjamin Harrison proclaimed the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival a national holiday in 1892, intending it to be a one-time celebration.

During the latter half of the 19th century, the day had begun to be celebrated in cities with large numbers of Italian Americans, and in 1937 it became an annual federal holiday by presidential proclamation. The day came to be marked by parades, often including floats depicting the ships of Columbus’s voyages, and by public ceremonies and festivities. By the quincentennial in 1992, however, the holiday had become an occasion for discussing the European conquest of Native peoples. Some people objected to celebrating the event and proposed alternatives, among them Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

The landing of Columbus also came to be commemorated in Spain and Italy. In many of the Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas, the landing is observed as Día de la Raza (“Day of the Race” or “Day of the People”). Rather than celebrating Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, many observers of Día de la Raza celebrate the Indigenous peoples of Latin America and the cultures that developed over the centuries as their heritage melded with that of the Spanish explorers who followed Columbus. In some countries, religious ceremonies are an important part of the observances.