Columbus: Hero or Villain?
DBQ
Introduction: You have been invited to join a debate on Capital Hill to answer the question, should Columbus Day be abolished as a National Holiday? To prepare for your involvement in the discussion you must complete research to form your side of the argument. Read through the evidence provided in the documents and from your reading. Complete the Outline for a Debate worksheet by filling in information that directly supports your side or refutes the opposition’s side of the argument. Though you may speak your opinion throughout the debate you must have specific information to support your beliefs!
Topic Focus Question: Should Columbus Day be Abolished as a National Holiday?
Evidence: The following excerpts come from diverse sources and have been edited for the purpose of this activity. (Helpful Hint: Underline the words that display point of view of the author.)
Document 1
This extraordinary man, who was now about twenty-seven years of age, appears to have united in his character every trait, and to have possessed every tallant, requisite to form and execute the greatest enterprizes. He was early educated in all the useful sciences that were taught in that day. He had made great proficiency in geography, astronomy and drawing, as they were necessary to his favourite pursuit of navigation. He had now been a number of years in the service of the Portuguese, and had acquired all the experience that their voyages and discoveries could afford. His courage and perseverance had been put to the severest test, and the exercise of every amiable and heroic virtue rendered him universally known and respected.
Such was the situation of Columbus, when he formed and thoroughly digested a plan, which, in its operation and consequences, unfolded to the view of mankind one half of the globe, diffused wealth and dignity over the other, and extended commerce and civilization through the whole.
Source: Joel Barlow, The Vision of Columbus
Document 2
The “Columbus Day” holiday is the only national holiday that is overtly insulting to millions of Americans. It is now universally understood that Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the American continent. That concept is a “Euro-centric” one that is deeply insulting to American Indians and many native-born Americans of all cultures. It is also historically incorrect. American Indian people have been on this continent at least 10,000 years, and scientists have proven that numerous other explorers had arrived on this continent from other parts of the world long before Columbus. It is also now known that many of the things we once believed about Christopher Columbus were myths, and that much of what we did not know about him would seriously tarnish his image, to say the least. This petition, however, is not meant to be an attack on Christopher Columbus, but rather an appeal for a holiday that is not insulting to any American.
American national holidays should be days that bring a sense pride and togetherness for ALL Americans, and stem from an “American perspective.” “Columbus Day” fails that test on all counts. “First Americans Day” would be a holiday that would be meaningful to each and every American. It would be a holiday that would be from an “American perspective” rather from an “Euro-centric” one. And, finally it would be a holiday that would instill pride in us as a collective group of people, while still recognizing and honoring our differences. The concept is one that is a “win-win” for all Americans regardless of their heritage.
Source: Online Petition to “Abolish Columbus Day and Rename it.”
Document 3
Timeline of Columbus Day:
1792 a ceremony organized by the Society of St. Tammany, or Colombian Order was held in New York City honoring Columbus and the 300th anniversary of the landing.
Oct. 12 1866 out of the pride for their native son, the Italian population of New York organized the first celebration of the discovery of America.
1869 when Italians in San Francisco celebrated Oct. 12 they called it Columbus Day.
1892 President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed the 400th anniversary of the event.
1905 Colorado became the first state to observe a Columbus Day.
Since 1920 the day has been celebrated annually.
1937 President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed every Oct. 12 as Columbus Day.
1968 President Johnson declared it a federal public holiday on the 2nd Mon. in Oct.
Document 4
The association between Columbus and America took root in the imagination" in the eighteenth century. "People had even more reason to think of themselves in distinctive American terms." (Noble, 250) Americans, searching for a history and a hero, discovered Columbus….
It is not hard to understand the appeal of Columbus as a totem for the new republic and the former subjects of George III. Columbus had found the way of escape from Old World tyranny. He was the solitary individual who challenged the unknown sea, as triumphant Americans contemplated the dangers and promise of their own wilderness frontier...as a consequence of his vision and audacity, there was now a land free from kings, a vast continent for new beginnings. In Columbus the new nation without its own history and mythology found a hero from the distant past, one seemingly free of any taint from association with European colonial powers. The Columbus symbolism gave America an instant mythology and a unique place in history, and their adoption of Columbus magnified his own place in history.
Source: John Noble Wilford, Mysterious History of Columbus
Document 5
This gallery [of heroes] was not in place at the birth of the political nation. America, as a young republic, found itself immediately in the middle of an identity crisis. Having effected a violent separation from England and its cultural and political icons, America was left without history--or heroes. Michael Kammen, in his Mystic Chords of Memory explains that "repudiation of the past left Americans of the young republic without a firm foundation on which to base a shared sense of their social selves." (65) A new national story was needed, . . . The human need to explain origins, to create self-identity through national identity, was thwarted …. A vacuum was created, and was slowly filled with the image of Christopher Columbus.
Columbus was a perfect icon for the confusing days of the early nineteenth century, cutting across social, political, and regional boundaries, providing a kind of superficial unity for the American national identity, a decontextualized and increasingly monodimensional hero, created in the image of the age.
Source: Online source of Columbus in History
Document 6
"societies in fact reconstruct their pasts rather than faithfully record them" and do so "with the needs of contemporary culture clearly in mind."
Source: Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory
Document 7
The Landing of Columbus by John Vanderlyn portrays the Age of Discovery. Commissioned by Congress the work hangs in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. opposite those painted by John Trumball.
Document 8
The Columbus Doors at the east entrance of the Rotunda are an imposing welcome to the heart of the gallery of national myths. Standing nearly 17 feet tall, and weighing 20,000 pounds, Randolph Roger's alto-relief bronze doors make a powerful statement about not only their subject, Christopher Columbus, but the importance of Columbus to the national consciousness.
Document 9
Columbus in Chains – Philip Freneau
Are these the honors they reserve for me,
Chains for the man who gave new worlds to Spain!
Rest here, my swelling heart! -- O kings, O queens,
Patrons of monsters, and their progeny,
Authors of wrong, and slaves to fortune merely!
Why was I seated by my prince's side,
Honored, caressed like some first peer of Spain?
Was it that I might fall most suddenly
From honor's summit to the sink of scandal?
'Tis done, 'tis done! -- what madness is ambition!
What is there in that little breath of men,
Which they call Fame, that should induce the brave
To forfeit ease and that domestic bliss
Which is the lost of happy ignorance,
Less glorious aims, and dull humility? --
Whoe'er thou art that shalt aspire to honor,
And on the strength and vigor of the mind
Vainly depending, court a monarch's favor,
Pointing the way to vast extended empire;
First could your pay to be ingratitude,
Then chains and prisons, and disgrace like mine!
Each wretched pilot now shall spread his sails,
And treading in my footsteps hail new worlds,
Which, but for me, had still been empty visions.
Document 10