Columbus viewed in different lights
For a holiday most people don't even get as a day off, Columbus Day has generated a fair amount of recent controversy.
The second Monday in October commemorating Italian navigator and explorer Christopher Columbus was designated a federal holiday in 1937 as a result of lobbying by the Knights of Columbus and Catholic immigrants. Columbus Day had been known chiefly for parades and no mail delivery.
But recently the holiday has been condemned as a commemoration of conquest and Columbus himself characterized as a conqueror of indigenous people, not an explorer.
The national Knights of Columbus order certainly doesn't see it that way.
“The order was named for Columbus when founded in 1882 because the explorer was a Catholic who was universally recognized at the time as a hero,” said Brian Caulfield, communications specialist with the Executive Office of the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus based in New Haven, Conn. The Knights are a Catholic fraternal order.
Caulfield added the organization “has always sought to promote its namesake in both public and private spheres.”
“As to our defense of Columbus' reputation despite recent attempts to defame him, our order has sought to stress the positive,” said Caulfield.
That's a sentiment expressed by local Knights of Columbus members.
Lanny Osche of Cabot, financial secretary for Knights of Columbus Council 11388 of St. Joseph Church, Cabot, and a 40-year member of the group, said the order chose Columbus as its namesake because “he was the founder of the country more or less. Father (Michael) McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus as a group of men who tried to help the poor.”
“He chose Columbus because it was a line back to the European roots in the founding of America. At that time there were a lot of different religious persuasions, and it gave it a unified culture from Europe,” said Mike Salaski of Butler, grand knight of Council 11388.
“We're just the Knights of Columbus. It doesn't matter where we came from,” said Osche.
Intrepid explorer of the history books or genocidal conqueror of more recent history, the truth about Columbus falls somewhere in between, said Aaron Cowan, assistant professor of history at Slippery Rock University, who teaches courses in public history, which deals with history interpreted by a popular audience. Cowan said Columbus' critics are judging him out of the context of his times.
“When I teach early American history and the age of exploration, I tell my students you have to look at those people in their context, you have to understand what was normal in their world, what was their world view,” said Cowan.
“We need to understand what was normal in their world,” said Cowan.
“For people like Columbus and other Spanish explorers, they were engaged in religious warfare, and conquest was how you spread your religion in the world,” said Cowan. “That would have been their environment. They weren't that far from the medieval crusades.”
Cowan said the record is pretty clear that Columbus took part in the enslavement of Indians not long after he landed on a Caribbean island in what's now the Bahamas on Oct. 12, 1492.
“But he wasn't the monster coming in bent on murderous genocide,” said Cowan. “But his job was to create wealth for the crown of Spain. He was able to extract gold and pretty quickly enslaved the native population and put them to work extracting that gold.”If anything, Cowan said, Columbus' biggest crime was setting a precedent for the Spanish conquistadores who came after him.“In letters back to the Spanish monarch, Columbus wrote that the people were very docile and make excellent slaves,” said Cowan. “This is more significant in that it opens up a pattern that subsequent explorers used.”“Few historical figures are without blemish or personal sins; yet we are still justified in celebrating their great accomplishments. Columbus certainly was a brave, noble and faithful Christian, whatever his faults and failings may have been — and these are the qualities that we wish to uphold.” said Caulfield.“What are you going to tell me? Columbus killed Indians? Stole land? I'm going to say to them, 'What did he do? He was lucky he made it 50 miles offshore,'” said Osche.Cowan said Columbus' biggest achievement was not discovering the New World but changing Americans' perception of the event.“He landed on a Caribbean island, so why do we, as citizens, think of Columbus discovering America?” asked Cowan.“This has a lot to do with the Knights of Columbus and Italian immigrants who made a big push to create Columbus Day as a way for immigrants to lay claim to 19th and 20th century legitimacy,” said Cowan. “'Hey, look at us, we really are Americans.' Columbus was the first to shift the narrative away from the Pilgrims.”“Where you start a story turns out to be really important,” said Cowan.Osche and Salaski celebrated Columbus Day Sunday with Knights of Columbus members and their wives from all over Western Pennsylvania at Pittsburgh Marriott North, 100 Cranberry Woods Drive in Cranberry Township.Salaski said the Knights traditionally celebrate Columbus Day on the Sunday before the second Monday of October.As for Cowan, he said “I'm all for any celebration or public event that makes people think about the past.”Cowan said he hopes for “a Columbus Day that is honest about Columbus and makes the period more nuanced, a Columbus Day where Italian-American and Native American communities get together and say 'This is what happened in the past and what can we do in the future?'”“I'm all for commemorating the day, but we need to understand it better. There aren't too many historical events that you can gloss as all good,” Cowan said.
