Today we celebrate him. And to remember the Native Americans, … let’s choose another day!
This year Columbus Day falls exactly on the “Saint’s day” (“il giorno del Santo” – as they say in Marche, the Italian region I come from), October 12, that is, the day when in 1492 the Genoese Navigator discovered America – as I was taught at school, in Italy, a geological era ago !!
I say “geological”, not only because so many years have passed (I will not tell you how many otherwise you can figure out my venerable age) but also, and above all, because everything has changed since then – not always, and not necessarily , for the better.
It is clear that, growing up, one discovers that things are not as simple as you learned them with a primary school uniform on. Slowly but surely, studying history in middle school, high school, and, in my case, in college too, one realizes, for example, that the Vikings had already “discovered” it long before – even if maybe they didn’t call it that and, above all, they didn’t tell anyone. Or that not even Columbus knew (certainly not in the first mythological journey) he did. Otherwise the whole continent would have been called Colombia and the indigenous “Colombians”. If he called them “Indians” it is easy to understand where he thought he landed.
Then, growing a little older, one also discovers the political and economic reasons behind that adventure, and that perhaps both the captain and the sailors were not all idealists and dreamers and that since they put their lives at risk to enrich the royals of Spain, they wanted – and rightly so – to earn something for themselves too. Christopher Columbus (or rather Cristobal Colon as he let his financiers call him) included.
Finally, if like “yours truly” you are lucky enough to have personal friends who happen to be professional historians, you discover (as I did when – as a journalist – I started asking myself the question “what did Columbus do so wrong to have his holiday abolished and his statues destroyed? “) that in the contract he stipulated with the Spanish Crown there was also a clause establishing that – in the event of “mission accomplished” – the expedition leader would become Governor of the lands he discovered with all the honors – as well as all the burdens – pertaining to such an office. Considering that that in the late 1400’s, in “Super Catholic” Spain the unbaptized were considered second-class humans – if not third-class”, it takes little imagination to understand that, under the “Columbus-Administration”, the relationship with the legitimate residents of those newly “discovered” lands must not have been always pretty.
Now, we all know (even those who do not have professional historians as personal friends), that history is written by the winners, who either omit facts, or embroider them, depending on what suits them. In fact, history – be it personal, local or global – is always made up of lights and shadows, with “the good and the bad” swapping roles depending on who is telling the tale. Mostly because the storyteller does not explain you why the “bad guys” were bad, or even less, what the “good guys” did to them to begin with, to make them become so “bad”.
Relativism and heroes do not get along; yet societies – all societies – do need them both. Thus, the latter – the heroes – to be such, must necessarily transcend the chiaroscuro that emerge from the historical-biographical details and become symbols. Without this somewhat simplifying makeover no hero would come out clean. All of America’s founding fathers, for example, owned slaves: if viewed with modern eyes, the 4th of July should also be abolished! And the fact the Italian explorer (despite all the alleged shadows surrounding his biography) has become a hero over the centuries, for everyone – and not just for Italian Americans – it is absolutely no coincidence.
In reality, Christopher Columbus was adopted much earlier by the Americans themselves as a symbol of courage, free thought, entrepreneurial spirit, (and, in the case of the rebellious and victorious colonists against the British Crown, also because, simply, non-English). The same qualities that have made it a symbol among many European peoples (Irish, Polish, Jewish) who found economic security in America and beyond.
The Italians, who basically arrived last, have actually inherited the myth, and since, at least by origin, he was Italian like them, it was almost natural to make it their own, adopt it so to speak, and dye the day dedicated to him red, white, and green, the colors of their (our) beloved Italian flag. In other words, the Genoese navigator has become – and still is – the emblem of the Italians who made it to, and in, America.
Now, transforming the Holiday this Country has dedicated to him (and to them) into “Indigenous People’s Day”, or “Giorno degli Indigeni” (God, in Italian it sounds even worse!), as many local authorities have unfortunately already done (municipalities, counties and even some states) it makes no sense whatsoever: if not, for them, to ride the gravy train of a politically “fashionable” trend to attract certain political sympathies by giving minorities a (cheap) sop, instead of “seriously” helping them to emancipate from centuries of exploitation.
Nor does the replacement of Holidays hold up from a historical point of view. To begin with, Columbus has never been to North America (and therefore what the United States is today), on any of his 4 transoceanic voyages. So he certainly has little or nothing to do with the story of the Native Americans.
And even attributing him the discovery of the continent, all the atrocities that have happened upon it would have happened anyway, regardless of the discoverer. Moreover, in the list of European peoples who have, in turn, violated its inhabitants, the Italian one is not at all included. If anything, it appears, quite to the contrary, in the list of those who were violated, once they got here.
Now, sadly there is a real risk of pitting a mistreated minority against another, hoping that in the fog of the fight, we will forget who the true perpetrators of past, present and future misdeeds are.
Originally written in Italian, on Columbus Day 2020