Official Columbus Day observations began as an effort to counter prejudice against Italian immigrants.
Current debates about Columbus Day tend to spotlight Christopher Columbus himself, especially his treatment of Native Americans in the wake of European contact. What often goes unmentioned is why Columbus Day became a significant American holiday in the first place: largely as a response to the harsh discrimination faced by Italian immigrants.
The pertinent history starts with a surge of Italian migration to the United States in the late 19th century. Italians, particularly those from Sicily and other southern regions, were widely stereotype d as culturally backward, sometimes criminal, and unable to assimilate into American life.
The most notorious expression of anti-Italian hostility unfolded in New Orleans in 1891. After Police Chief David Hennessy was murdered, a group of Italians was prosecuted for the crime. The trial failed to yield the anticipated convictions. On March 14, 1891, a mob broke into the jail and killed eleven Italian defendants and prisoners. Some had been acquitted, others had not yet stood trial. The Italian consul at the time described them as “defenseless Italian prisoners.”
The lynching precipitated a major diplomatic crisis. Italy withdrew its minister from Washington, and in April 1892 the Harrison administration paid 125,000 francs to Italy to distribute to the victims’ families. Secretary of State James Blaine expressed the hope that this gesture would end the dispute and restore amicable relations between the two nations.
Six months later, on the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed a nationwide Columbus Day observance.
Harrison did not originate the idea of commemorating Columbus. Americans had been marking Columbus long before the 1890s, and the 400th anniversary would have been a major event regardless of the controversy surrounding Italian immigration. Thus it would be too strong to say that the New Orleans lynching caused Columbus Day.
Yet the link between the rise of Columbus Day and the status of Italian Americans remains significant. Columbus offered Italian immigrants a particularly valuable American hero. At a moment when Italians were commonly portrayed as undesirable outsiders who could never become true Americans, Italian Americans could point out that an Italian stood at the traditional starting point of the American story.
Consequently, Italian-American organizations made Columbus celebrations a central vehicle for ethnic pride and assimilation. In New York, Italian Americans raised funds for the Columbus monument at Columbus Circle, dedicated in October 1892. Columbus Day parades blended overt Italian ethnic pride with conspicuous displays of American patriotism.
Anti-Italian prejudice persisted well beyond the 1890s. Immigration restrictionists frequently depicted southern Italians as inferior and inherently prone to criminality, and the immigration limits enacted in the 1920s drastically reduced Italian immigration.
Columbus Day gradually became institutionalized. Franklin Roosevelt established an annual federal Columbus Day observance in the 1930s. Italian-American organizations then spent years lobbying to have it recognized as a federal holiday. Congress finally did so in 1968 as part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. The National Archives’ history of the legislation notes that making Columbus Day a federal holiday had been “a goal sought for years by Italian-American groups.”
None of this settles how one should view Columbus himself. There is a growing, appropriate awareness today of the brutal treatment of Native Americans following European colonization. But that heightened awareness has tended to obscure a distinct aspect of Columbus Day’s history.
For Italian immigrants and their descendants, Columbus Day was not merely a celebration of European conquest. It was also part of an effort to win acceptance for a group that faced widespread prejudice and, at times, horrific violence. Whatever one thinks of Columbus, that chapter of history deserves to be remembered.
