Why Do We Celebrate Columbus Still Alive

From a young age, we are taught that we celebrate Christopher Columbus because he discovered America. When in actuality he didn’t discover America. He actually never stepped foot here! Despite many articles, books, and historically correct works this idea of Columbus remains alive in America. So why does America celebrate and glorify a cruel, murderous, failure of a man? To find the answer to this we have to start at the beginning. In 1492, Columbus, an Italian explorer, and his crew stepped foot on land after being at sea for nearly two months. When he arrived on this land he thought he had landed on a spice island in Asia, but he really landed in present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic . It is here where he met the Taino people. At the time of Columbus’ arrival, there were roughly 200,000 Taino people living on this land. Because he thought he was in India he referred to the Taino as “Indians”. The Taino people treated Columbus and his crew with respect and hospitality, as noted in the journals of Columbus himself. He stated on November 12, 1492 “They are very gentle and do not know what evil is; nor do they kill others, nor steal” . He had hopes of bringing back lots of gold to Spain, but after realizing the Taino had no gold he murdered more than half of their population. The remaining Taino were either taken as slaves of died from diseases Columbus …show more content…
This biography made many false claims about Columbus and his accomplishments, many of which are well known today. These “facts” made their way into American history in the 1900’s when Italians started moving to America. Due to the oppression of Italians, they used Irving’s bibliography as proof that they contributed to the American Story . From here it grew in popularity and became the holiday we know

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