What do we know about Christopher Columbus? Well, in 1492 “he sailed the ocean blue”. Columbus set sail to find a western trade route to Asia for Spain, and spread Christianity. This seems like a satisfactory thing to do. However, some of the acts he committed afterwards I do not agree with. I could see how some people might still get upset over celebrating the holiday.
According to our textbook, Columbus was convinced he was “an agent of God’s divine plan”. He also left about forty men on Hispaniola and captured a dozen Indians to present as gifts to the Spanish King and Queen. President Benjamin Harrison first declared Columbus Day a national holiday in 1892, four hundred years after the first voyage. This holiday is celebrated on October
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The one with the title Celebration and Controversy seemed to point out all of the flaws of Christopher Columbus and what a horrible person he was. This article pointed out that his motives were gold and conquest. According to the text and this article, both portray Columbus to be more focused on power and money than to be a part of something great. I think as a person, he wasn’t the best, but who is? He discovered the place, that most people in other countries call the greatest place on Earth. Despite the first article, The American Scholar states it best, “The holiday marks the event, not the person.” People tend to get so caught up in other things that they don’t realize, it’s meant to bring people together. For one thing, it’s a federal holiday. So people get to be absent from work and school and enjoy time with one another, which would please most people, even if they don’t want to celebrate the holiday. Because if they were to take away the holiday, most of those same people would continue to argue that now they don’t have a free day off from work from Labor Day until Thanksgiving.
Do we want to teach kids about the type of person Christopher Columbus really was, or do we want to continue to celebrate a day marked by his discovery? Let’s just let them figure it out later in life like we all did and continue to enjoy the simple