Columbus Day in Ohio

At a glance

The man and his four voyages in brief

Christopher Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa in 1451, the eldest son of a master wool weaver, Domenico Colombo, according to Wikipedia's biography. His Genoese origin rests on more than 100 Latin notarial records, described in a 1933 review in the American Historical Review. Other birthplaces have been proposed, and none has comparable documents behind it (origin theories).

Columbus planned on about 2,400 nautical miles from the Canaries to Japan. The real distance is about 10,600 (Wikipedia). The Portuguese and Castilian advisers who rejected his plan were right about the size of the Earth, and he survived because an unknown continent lay in the way (navigation study). The idea that his critics thought the Earth was flat comes from Washington Irving's 1828 biography (flat-Earth myth).

The four voyages

• First voyage, 1492-1493. Three ships and about 90 men left Palos on August 3, 1492. The Pinta's lookout, Rodrigo de Triana, sighted land at 2 a.m. on October 12. Columbus claimed the lifetime annuity for a light he said he had seen four hours earlier (log as abstracted by Las Casas).
• Second voyage, 1493-1496. Seventeen ships carried 1,200 to 1,500 men and founded La Isabela in January 1494. About two thirds of the settlers were dead by the end of that year (Wikipedia).
• Third voyage, 1498-1500. In August 1498 Columbus landed in Venezuela, the first recorded European landing on the South American mainland. He wrote that he had found a very great continent, and he also argued that the Earth is pear-shaped (letters printed by Major). The royal investigator Francisco de Bobadilla reached Santo Domingo on August 23, 1500, and sent Columbus and his brothers home in irons.
• Fourth voyage, 1502-1504. Four ships explored Central America. Columbus was marooned on Jamaica for about a year, and in late February 1504 he used a lunar eclipse to restore the food supply from the Taino (Ferdinand Columbus).

Columbus died in Valladolid on May 20, 1506, a wealthy man who had lost his office rather than his fortune (CBS News). He never set foot in what is now the continental United States. His men landed on St. Croix on November 14, 1493, and fought a Carib canoe crew there (Wikipedia). That was not their first fight: on January 13, 1493 his crew had clashed with the Ciguayo at Samana Bay on Hispaniola, which he named the Gulf of Arrows (log as abstracted by Las Casas).

What the record shows, and what is disputed

The evidence comes through four channels, each with a slant: his own writings, his son Ferdinand's biography, the history by Bartolome de las Casas, and hostile testimony such as the 1500 Bobadilla inquiry. The log of the first voyage is lost; what survives is an abstract by Las Casas, in the translation printed by Olson and Bourne. Las Casas admired Columbus as a man and condemned the colonial system.

First contact, October 1492

On October 12 Columbus wrote that the people he met should make "good servants" and could easily be made Christians, and that he would take six of them to Spain. On October 14 he noted the seven he had already caused to be taken, per the translated log.

The same entry holds the line "with fifty men they can all be subjugated." Its subject is the Spanish sovereigns ("Vuestras Altezas"), not Columbus, per a modernized text of the log. Popular versions that read "I could subjugate them all" paraphrase it.

The gold tribute, 1494-1496

Las Casas describes the tribute in his Historia de las Indias. Everyone aged 14 or older near the mines owed a Flemish hawk's bell filled with gold every three months. Payers were to wear a metal token as a receipt, and anyone without one was to be punished, "though, it is said, moderately." When most could not pay, Columbus halved the quota. The cacique Guarionex offered to plant a cassava field from sea to sea instead of paying gold, and Columbus refused (Las Casas, vol. 2).

The hand-chopping story. The claim that Columbus cut off the hands of people who missed the gold quota is not documented as his policy. It traces to Hans Koning's 1976 book and Howard Zinn's 1980 A People's History (History in Focus). Las Casas does describe Spaniards cutting off the hands of captured Taino in the 1504 Higuey war under governor Nicolas de Ovando, four years after Columbus was removed (Las Casas, vol. 3).

Slavery

In 1493 Columbus offered the sovereigns slaves, "as many of these idolators" as they would order shipped. In January 1494 he proposed paying for cattle with slaves taken from among the Caribs, the people he called cannibals. The monarchs' marginal reply was that the matter was "suspended for a time," per Major's translation of the letters.

In February 1495 about 550 captives were loaded on ships for Spain, and about 200 died at sea, according to the account of his crewman Michele da Cuneo (translated by Morison). On April 12, 1495 the Crown told Bishop Fonseca to sell them in Andalusia. Four days later it held the sale money until theologians and canonists could say whether the sale was made "with good conscience." Both letters are in Navarrete's collection (documents LXXXVII and XCII).

Isabella's famous question, "What power has my Admiral to give away my vassals?", concerns about 300 Taino whom Columbus let returning colonists take home in 1499, not the 1495 shipment. Las Casas's own father was one of those colonists (Las Casas, vol. 2). A royal order of June 20, 1500 told Pedro de Torres to free the Indians sold by the Admiral's order and hand them to Bobadilla, the man sent to arrest Columbus (Navarrete, document CXXXIV). The Crown did not abolish Indian slavery then; capture of "cannibals" and of rebels in "just war" stayed lawful (Giammarella).

Two letters often quoted

Cuneo's letter. Michele da Cuneo, a friend of Columbus, wrote in 1495 of a captive Carib woman whom, he says, the Admiral gave to him, who fought him and whom he beat before, in his words, coming to an agreement. Critics such as the biographer Laurence Bergreen read this as rape. Defenders such as Michael Giammarella note the letter never uses that word (Giammarella's letter). It is Cuneo's letter, not Columbus's.

The "girls of nine or ten" passage. In a late-1500 letter Columbus wrote that merchants were seeking girls and that girls "from nine to ten" fetched a price. Snopes rates the common claim a "Mixture": the passage describes what colonists were doing, and Columbus neither condemns it in so many words nor says he took part (Snopes).

The Bobadilla inquiry, 1500

When Bobadilla arrived at Santo Domingo on August 23, 1500, two gallows stood on the river banks, each with a Spaniard recently hanged (Las Casas, vol. 2). A copy of his inquiry was found in 2005 in the Archivo General de Simancas by the archivist Isabel Aguirre and published in 2006 by the historian Consuelo Varela (Stanford catalog). One review lists 22 witnesses and says the inquiry records 14 executions (Ojos de Papel).

According to the testimony, a man who stole corn had his nose and ears cut off and was sold as a slave, and Spaniards were auctioned. A woman who said the Columbus family was low-born was paraded naked on a mule. Varela says Bartolome Columbus ordered her tongue cut out and Christopher congratulated him for defending the family (The Guardian, 2006).

The inquiry is a hostile document, compiled in weeks by the official who replaced him, largely from colonists who had rebelled or been punished. Las Casas read the trial record himself. He judged the brothers harsh to Spaniards, and noted that the accusers almost never charged cruelty to Indians (Las Casas, vol. 2). The Spanish wire service EFE reported that some witnesses were his enemies but some were members of his own team (EFE report). The legal historian Istvan Szaszdi argues the inquiry followed Castilian procedure (Journal on European History of Law, 2012).

He was harsh to his own people as well. Las Casas reports that Columbus ordered the rebel Adrian de Mujica thrown from a fortress battlement (Las Casas, vol. 2), and the biographer Samuel Eliot Morison, an admirer, called him a failure as a governor (quoted by Giammarella).

How many Taino, and what killed them

Estimates of Hispaniola's 1492 population span more than a hundredfold, from about 60,000 to about 8 million (Cook, 2003). Historian Massimo Livi Bacci argues for a few hundred thousand (Livi Bacci, 2003). The Spanish counts are firmer: about 60,000 around 1507-08 and 26,334 in the 1514 repartimiento (Wikipedia on Ovando).

Smallpox is firmly recorded in December 1518, when fewer than 20,000 Taino remained. Livi Bacci says forced labor, disrupted farming, flight and very low fertility drove the collapse before then (Livi Bacci, 2006). Columbus governed from 1493 to 1500. The encomienda and the massacres of 1503-04 came after him, while the tribute, Taino slave shipments and labor grants to settlers began under him (Britannica).

Samuel Eliot Morison himself wrote in Christopher Columbus, Mariner (1955) that "The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide," as indexed in Open Library's full-text search.

The case each way

What is not in dispute

Columbus crossed the open Atlantic, returned by a route on the westerlies, and made four voyages, after which contact between the hemispheres became permanent (Wikipedia). He was wrong about where he was, and the continent bears Vespucci's name, not his (Library of Congress). The Crown removed him from office in 1500 and sent him home in chains (Ferdinand Columbus).

What defenders of the holiday argue

• The holiday was never mainly about the man. Italian Americans paid for the Columbus Circle monument through a fund drive by the newspaper Il Progresso, edited by Carlo Barsotti, and donated their labor to prepare the site (Central Park Conservancy). By 1890 a commission of Italian businessmen had given $12,000 of the $20,000 needed (Wikipedia). On Columbus Day 1942 Attorney General Francis Biddle told Carnegie Hall that about 600,000 Italian immigrants would no longer be classed as "enemy aliens" (National WWII Museum).
• By the standards of his peers he was not exceptional. In 1502 Vasco da Gama burned the pilgrim ship Miri with about 300 aboard (Wikipedia). Balboa had about 40 people torn apart by war dogs (Wikipedia). Ovando had caciques burned at Jaragua in 1503 and Queen Anacaona hanged, and was recalled but never tried (Wikipedia).
• Some of the worst popular charges are wrong or overstated: the hand-chopping quota, the Cuneo letter and the Juana de la Torre passage (see above).
• Even his sharpest contemporary critic admired him. In the chapter that calls the tribute intolerable, Las Casas also calls Columbus "Christian and virtuous" (Las Casas, vol. 2).
• Judging by his own time. A 2017 Marist poll for the Knights of Columbus found 57 percent said celebrating Columbus Day is a good idea and 29 percent not, and 76 percent said historical figures should be judged by the standards of their own time (PR Newswire).

What critics of the holiday argue

• The charges are not modern inventions. They come from his own log, his own letters, Las Casas, his crewman Cuneo and the Crown's 1500 inquiry (Olson and Bourne; Major).
• "Judge him by his era" fails on its own terms, they say, because people of his era did judge him. Isabella ordered the Taino he had given away freed (Las Casas), her 1504 codicil ordered the Indians "well and justly treated" (University of Barcelona), and on December 21, 1511 the friar Antonio de Montesinos asked in Santo Domingo, "Are these not men?" (Wikipedia).
• He began the systems others scaled up: tribute, slave shipments to Europe and labor grants to settlers (see above).
• A holiday is an honor, not a history lesson. Venezuela, Argentina and the Bahamas, countries that also trace their histories to 1492, renamed their October 12 observance. Venezuela's became the Day of Indigenous Resistance in 2002, Argentina's the Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity in 2010 (Wikipedia), and the Bahamas replaced Discovery Day with National Heroes Day in 2013 (The Tribune).
• Italian-American history can be honored directly. Colorado replaced Columbus Day in 2020 with Frances Xavier Cabrini Day (Colorado Public Radio).

What the polls say

The answer depends on the question. In 2024 YouGov found 35 percent of Americans called Columbus a hero, 20 percent a villain and 36 percent neither (YouGov). Asked what the federal government should recognize, 63 percent said Indigenous Peoples' Day and 49 percent Columbus Day (YouGov).

How the holiday came to be

From Tammany to the Pledge (1792-1892)

The first recorded Columbus Day celebration in the United States was held on October 12, 1792, by the Society of St. Tammany in New York, for the 300th anniversary (Saturday Evening Post). The society took its name from a Lenape chief and called its leaders "sachems" (Wikipedia). Italian Americans held their first distinctly Italian celebrations in New York in 1866 and 1869 (Saturday Evening Post).

Colorado made it the first state holiday by law in 1907, after Governor Jesse McDonald proclaimed it in 1905 (History Colorado; Colorado Session Laws).

On March 14, 1891 a mob in New Orleans killed 11 Italian-American men held in the murder of a police chief. The United States agreed to pay a $25,000 indemnity; the family of each victim received $2,211.90, about $24,331 in all (Wikipedia). In 1892 President Benjamin Harrison, who was born in North Bend, Ohio, proclaimed a Columbus Day for the 400th anniversary (Proclamation 335). Many accounts link the two events. The proclamation itself never mentions Italians or Italy. It carries out a joint resolution of Congress, and the push for that resolution came from a magazine's school flag campaign and the Chicago world's fair (Proclamation 335; NPR). The timing and the diplomatic thaw are documented. Whether the lynching motivated the proclamation is a later interpretation.

Harrison set the date at Friday, October 21, 1892, the Gregorian-calendar equivalent of the 1492 landfall, since October 12, 1492 is a Julian date (Wikipedia). New York kept October 12 and unveiled the Columbus Circle statue on October 13 (Central Park Conservancy).

The Pledge of Allegiance was written for that school celebration. The Youth's Companion published it on September 8, 1892, and its campaign sold flags to 25,000 schools (Smithsonian).

The federal holiday (1934-1971)

Congress asked the president on April 30, 1934 to proclaim October 12 each year as Columbus Day. The resolution created no paid holiday. President Roosevelt issued the first proclamation on September 30, 1934 (Proclamation 2101). The date usually given for the first federal holiday, 1937, is a simplification. The Knights of Columbus and the newspaper owner Generoso Pope are credited with the lobbying (NPR).

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act of June 28, 1968 made "Columbus Day, the second Monday in October" a federal holiday from January 1, 1971. The same act moved Veterans Day to the fourth Monday in October, so from 1971 to 1977 October had two Monday federal holidays (Pub. L. 90-363; Wikipedia). Federal offices close; the New York Stock Exchange stays open and the bond market closes (NYSE; SIFMA).

Indigenous Peoples' Day

The idea of replacing Columbus Day with an Indigenous Peoples' Day was first discussed at a 1977 non-governmental conference on discrimination against indigenous populations, held at the United Nations in Geneva (Wikipedia). Berkeley, California, was the first city to rename it, in 1992 (New York Times, 1992).

In 2021 President Biden issued the first presidential Indigenous Peoples' Day proclamation, and he also proclaimed Columbus Day every year from 2021 to 2024 (Federal Register). The federal holiday itself is still listed as Columbus Day (OPM). President Trump's October 2025 proclamation called Columbus "the original American hero" and issued no Indigenous Peoples' Day counterpart (Proclamation 10980). A September 2026 Senate resolution says more than 200 municipalities, 17 states and the District of Columbia recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day (S.Res. 900).

Ohio and Columbus

How the capital got its name (1812)

The vote was taken in Zanesville, Ohio's temporary capital from 1810 to 1812 (Remarkable Ohio). On February 20, 1812 the House rejected 19 to 22 a motion to ask the proprietors to name the new town "Ohio city." On February 21 a Senate resolution, whose name had first been entered as a blank, was amended to read "Columbus," and the House agreed 24 to 10, per the journals as printed in Lee's 1892 history. Lee's narrative gives February 20 for the resolution, the journals February 21.

Lee says the name "is said to have been suggested by" Joseph Foos, a Franklin County member. That is tradition, not record. Christian Zacher, who chaired Ohio State's quincentennial committee, said the public record does not show why, and many at the time favored "Columbia" (Columbus Underground).

What Ohio law says

R.C. 1.14(H) and R.C. 5.21 name the second Monday in October "Columbus day," a legal holiday, and R.C. 124.19 makes it a paid holiday for state employees, which state universities and colleges may move to another day (Legislative Service Commission). Ohio first made it a legal holiday in 1910, mainly through the work of Cleveland stone carver Giuseppe Carabelli, the first Italian American in the Ohio House (Western Reserve Historical Society). The General Code called it "Columbus Discovery Day" until a 1959 law renamed it (Legislative Service Commission).

Ohio has no state Indigenous Peoples' Day. A Pew Research Center map suggests otherwise, but the Legislative Service Commission's April 2026 list of every statutory holiday shows the second Monday in October only as Columbus Day, and tribal leaders have asked for a statewide day (WTOL). In the other direction, Rep. Mike Rulli (R-Ohio) introduced a bill in October 2025 to bar federal funds to governments that observe Indigenous Peoples' Day in place of Columbus Day (Washington Times).

What Ohio cities observe

• Columbus. In 2018 the city did not close for Columbus Day, closing for Veterans Day instead. A spokeswoman said the city could not afford both days off for its 8,500 employees and that the change was not a response to the Indigenous Peoples' Day movement (ABC News). On October 12, 2020, City Council designated Indigenous Peoples' Day, naming the Shawnee, Miami and Wyandot, as a recognition and not a paid closure (ABC6).
• Oberlin adopted Indigenous Peoples' Day on August 21, 2017, the first Ohio city to do so (WDTN).
• Cincinnati passed a council resolution recognizing it on October 3, 2018 (FOX19).
• Akron voted 12 to 1 on June 29, 2020 to rename the second Monday "Italian-American Heritage and Culture Day" from 2021 (Ideastream).
• Cleveland holds a Columbus Day parade in Little Italy. In 1992 a councilman's proposal to rename the day was withdrawn after about 600 Italian Americans came to City Council (La Gazzetta Italiana).

Statues and monuments in Ohio

The City Hall statue. The bronze by Edoardo Alfieri was a 1955 gift of the citizens of Genoa. It crossed on the liner Cristoforo Colombo and rode a Pennsylvania Railroad freight car named "the Santa Maria" (Columbus Underground). Mayor Andrew Ginther announced its removal on June 18, 2020, the Columbus Art Commission voted unanimously on June 24, and crews took it down on July 1. Ginther said it "represented patriarchy, oppression and divisiveness" (ABC6). The city keeps it in storage and has not disclosed where (WOSU). In August 2025 a "Reimagining Columbus" team recommended a new park, site not chosen, with the statue as one element (Columbus Underground). On April 7, 2026 seven Italian-American groups, led by the Columbus Piave Club, sued the city in federal court over the removal, and the case is pending (WOSU).

The Columbus State statue. A 17-foot marble by Alfred Solani was offered to San Francisco, which declined it. It stood in Barrington, Illinois, before being moved to Columbus in 1986 and installed at the college in 1988 (Wikipedia). It was taken down on June 19, 2020 (WOSU).

The Statehouse statue. A nine-foot sheet-copper Columbus made by the W. H. Mullins Company of Salem, Ohio, is the only one of the three still standing, and the oldest. A priest bought it in 1892 for the Josephinum seminary, which gave it to the state in 1932 (Wikipedia). In July 2020 the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board voted to draft its first rules for removing a monument: a petitioner pays and the process takes five years (WOSU).

Elsewhere. Akron's bust at the airport traffic circle, a gift of the Sicilian Society, was dedicated on Columbus Day 1938 (Ohio Outdoor Sculpture). AmeriFlora '92, an exposition for the quincentennial, closed on Columbus Day 1992 with about 2 million visitors, half its forecast (Columbus Dispatch via Yahoo).

Ohio's Italian American communities

About 682,157 Ohioans report Italian ancestry, 5.8 percent of the state. Mahoning County has the highest share (16.7 percent), against 5.1 percent in Franklin County (Census Bureau, American Community Survey). The Columbus Italian Festival began in 1980 and draws more than 35,000 people on Columbus Day weekend (ABC6). Ohio's first Knights of Columbus council was Youngstown's Council 274, in 1897 (YSU Foundation).

At an October 2025 rally over the statue, the Columbus Italian Club's James Sisto said the community "feels very disrespected," while a supporter of removal said she did not want the statue in her city (Spectrum News).

Native Ohio

None of the 575 federally recognized tribes is based in Ohio today, and 45 tribes with historic ties to Ohio now live in ten other states (Federal Register; Ohio History Connection).

Ohio newspapers over time

A typed index to Columbus's 1892 Dispatch and Ohio State Journal lists school programs, an Ohio State program and a Dispatch story headed "Columbus Celebrates," but no parade; the articles are not online, so how the city itself marked the day is not documented (Columbus Metropolitan Library). Perrysburg schoolchildren recited the Pledge in its original "my flag" wording (Perrysburg Journal). A Cincinnati correspondent of the Black-owned Cleveland Gazette called the holiday a "vain mockery" after Southern lynchings (Cleveland Gazette). In 1910, under the new state law, Columbus's Italian societies held a demonstration in Goodale Park after a street parade (Marion Daily Mirror).

Places named for Columbus

Ohio has more place names built on Columbus or its offshoot "Columbia" than any other state: 30 in the federal names database, 13 of them containing "Columbus" itself, also the most (USGS GNIS). Columbus Grove in Putnam County is named for Columbus, Ohio, not directly for the explorer (Wikipedia).

Myths corrected

• "Columbus proved the Earth was round." Educated Europeans knew it was; the scene of churchmen arguing otherwise comes from Washington Irving, 1828 (Wikipedia).
• "He discovered America." The Norse were there around 1021, and Columbus never reached the North American mainland (Smithsonian).
• "He cut off the hands of people who missed the gold quota." Not documented as his policy (History in Focus).
• "He died poor." He died wealthy (CBS News).
• "The Klan created Columbus Day." No source supports it, and the Klan opposed the holiday; Klan-backed Oregon bills of 1923 to end state recognition of it because he was Catholic were defeated (Oregon Archive).
• "Biden abolished Columbus Day." He proclaimed it every year from 2021 to 2024 (Federal Register).
• "AmeriFlora drew 5.5 million visitors." A count of 1,225,000 by August 10, 1992, with nine of 25 weeks left, rules that out (Columbus Navigator).
• "Columbus Day exists because of the 1891 lynching." The timing is real, but the proclamation never mentions Italians, and celebrations go back to 1792 (Proclamation 335).

Sources

• OPM
• Pub. L. 90-363
• R.C. 1.14
• R.C. 5.21
• R.C. 124.19
• R.C. 5.223
• Lee, History of the City of Columbus
• Census Bureau
• Ohio Capital Journal
• Pew Research Center
• Wikipedia's biography
• 1933 review in the American Historical Review
• origin theories
• navigation study
• flat-Earth myth
• log as abstracted by Las Casas
• letters printed by Major
• Ferdinand Columbus
• CBS News
• Wikipedia
• modernized text of the log
• Las Casas, vol. 2
• History in Focus
• Las Casas, vol. 3
• Major's translation of the letters
• translated by Morison
• Navarrete's collection
• Giammarella
• Snopes
• Stanford catalog
• Ojos de Papel
• The Guardian, 2006
• EFE report
• Journal on European History of Law, 2012
• Cook, 2003
• Livi Bacci, 2003
• Wikipedia on Ovando
• Livi Bacci, 2006
• Britannica
• Open Library's full-text search
• Library of Congress
• Central Park Conservancy
• Wikipedia
• National WWII Museum
• Wikipedia
• Wikipedia
• Wikipedia
• PR Newswire
• University of Barcelona
• Wikipedia
• Wikipedia
• The Tribune
• Colorado Public Radio
• YouGov
• YouGov
• Saturday Evening Post
• Wikipedia
• History Colorado
• Colorado Session Laws
• Wikipedia
• Proclamation 335
• NPR
• Smithsonian
• Proclamation 2101
• Wikipedia
• NYSE
• SIFMA
• Wikipedia
• New York Times, 1992
• Federal Register
• Proclamation 10980
• S.Res. 900
• Remarkable Ohio
• Columbus Underground
• Legislative Service Commission
• Western Reserve Historical Society
• Legislative Service Commission
• WTOL
• Washington Times
• ABC News
• ABC6
• WDTN
• FOX19
• Ideastream
• La Gazzetta Italiana
• Columbus Underground
• ABC6
• WOSU
• Columbus Underground
• WOSU
• Wikipedia
• WOSU
• Wikipedia
• WOSU
• Ohio Outdoor Sculpture
• Columbus Dispatch via Yahoo
• Census Bureau, American Community Survey
• ABC6
• YSU Foundation
• Spectrum News
• Federal Register
• Ohio History Connection
• Columbus Metropolitan Library
• Perrysburg Journal
• Cleveland Gazette
• Marion Daily Mirror
• USGS GNIS
• Wikipedia
• Smithsonian
• Oregon Archive
• Federal Register
• Columbus Navigator