Christopher Columbus • 10/08/07

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Today is Columbus day in United States. Here we observe Columbus Day on the second Monday in October. In Canada, the second Monday in October is their Thanksgiving Day. In Berkeley, California, a group of native Americans celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day on Saturday, October 6. Celebrating indigenous people instead of Christopher Columbus started in 1990 at the first intercontinental gathering of indigenous people in Quito, Ecuador. The purpose of the conference was to mobilize against the quincentennial celebration of Columbus Day, which was October 12th, 1992. They declared that day as International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People.
(Wikipedia Entry)

I went to Columbus Circle today and spent a few hours taking pictures and video. Interestingly, the monument at the southwest entrance to Central Park facing Christopher Columbus is called the USS Maine National Monument. The USS Maine was a battleship constructed at the Brooklyn Navy Yards in 1888. The Maine spent her active career in the Caribbean between Key West and Cuba, to protect US interests. In 1898 an explosion aboard the Maine led to the death of 260 men. This explosion was the precipitating cause of the Spanish-American War. The exact cause of the explosion remains a mystery to this day.

Christopher Columbus' expedition to the Americas was funded by the great Catholic Monarchs, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas on October 12, 1492. October 12 in Spain is called Hispanic Day. In most of Latin America except for Venezuela, it is called Día de la Raza, or "day of the race." In Venezuela it is called Day of Indigenous Peoples' Resistance. Domestically, there is resistance to Columbus Day. In the state of South Dakota, Columbus Day is known official as Native American Day. Also, this past weekend the police arrested 80 protesters at a Columbus Day parade in Denver, Colorado. (AP Article) Colorado in 1905 became the first state to officially observe Columbus Day before it became a federal holiday.


 

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