After several years of searching for adequate financing for his proposed voyage, in April 1492 Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain signed an agreement with Columbus that officially sponsored his enterprise. Sometime in the early 1480s, after returning from a trip to a Portuguese trading fortress on the West African coast, Columbus began to seek support for his idea that Asia could be reached faster and easier by sailing straight across the Atlantic Ocean, instead of having to sail around the southern coast of Africa and across the Indian Ocean. In his early twenties, he worked as a mariner on merchant ships in the Mediterranean. As Ronald Reagan remarked in a 1988 speech, Columbus Day has become a day " to celebrate not only an intrepid searcher but the dreams and opportunities that brought so many here after him."Ĭhristopher Columbus (originally Cristoforo Colombo, 1451–1506) was born into a working-class family in Genoa, Italy. Immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries rallied around the immigrant Columbus. In the late 18th century, Americans began to see Columbus as somewhat of a mythic founding figure by the 1830s, he was seen as an archetype of the American ideal: bold, adventurous, innovative. Below is a timeline of commemorating Columbus Day.And yet, in the 500 years since Columbus's sighting, the day has become distinctly American.
Somewhere along the way, that message got lost. President Harrison suggested that Columbus Day should be a celebration of American diversity and national pride. Multiple states also refuse to celebrate Columbus Day, including South Dakota, Hawaii, Alaska and Oregon. Many cities have followed, including Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota Seattle, Washington and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Berkeley, California, started a movement of cities voting to change Columbus Day to instead celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day in 1992.
Many cities in the United States, and even some states, have in recent years moved to change the focus of Columbus Day off its namesake to the Native Americans who were already living and thriving here prior to Columbus. Why celebrate such plundering and pillaging? Today, support for Columbus Day is waning, as recognition of the horrors of Columbus’ actions upon arrival to the Americas increases. In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt declared Columbus Day a federal holiday. Harrison wanted to draw attention to the positives that all Americans had to offer to the nation. The first official recoginition of Columbus Day came in 1892, when President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation that encouraged Americans to celebrate the diversity of America through the lens of the 400th anniversary. Since his arrival in the New World, the Columbian Exchange of goods and ideas started and has continued to today, with both positive and negative effects.Įven though Columbus sailed under the Spanish flag, he was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451, and his Italian heritage has been a point of pride for Italian-Americans since as early as 1792, the 300th anniversary of his journey across the Atlantic. Today, most school children learn about the different explorers that came to the Americas in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, including Christopher Columbus.
“1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” It’s a rhyme many people remember from their elementary school days.
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