Columbus

How Our Hero Columbus Has Fallen

by Brian Regal

"Humans seem to need to have heroes, but we’re often not sure what to do with them. We want them to embody high ideals, but they rarely do."

Reviving the Conflict Between Columbus and Taíno Chieftain Caonabó Through Historical Fiction

by Andrew Rowen

By resisting the conquest of Columbus, Taíno peoples made the story of conquest their story too. A novelist explains how he worked to recover both sides of the conflict, including the values and worldview of Native and European antagonists, through historical fiction. 

4 Perspectives on the Christopher Columbus Statues

Several stakeholders are interviewed about Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot's decision to temporarily remove two statues of Christopher Columbus from public space.

Philadelphia Historical Commission Votes To Remove Marconi Plaza Christopher Columbus Statue

Advocates for the statue's removal noted that Columbus has come to sybolize white supremacy, colonialism, and genocide and that there are better figures or stories that exemplify Italian American culture to celebrate.

The Rap Against Christopher Columbus Statues Overlooks Their Origins

by Jonathan Zimmerman

The great achievement of the 20th-century United States was the integration of formerly excluded ethnics -- Italians, Irish, Jews, and others -- into full citizenship and equality. And the great tragedy was our failure to do the same for nonwhites, especially African Americans and Native Americans.

Tearing Down These Monuments Doesn’t Erase History. It Rescues History.

Children, strangely, are rarely so confused about all this. They know what it means when something is big and tall and in the center of things.

Even defenders off Columbus now admit he was flawed

"Columbus was an explorer, a renowned sailor, and later governor who certainly partook in actions over the course of his career that were deemed unjust."

From Columbus to Trump: What Has America Gotten Wrong?

by Walter G. Moss

We have overemphasized getting and spending.

Black, white and red: Atlantic history points to new understanding of Columbus' context

by Steve Haycox

Beginning in the 1960s, a new sub-discipline in history arose called Atlantic studies. The focus?  The crops of sugar, coffee, chocolate and tobacco and the slave labor needed to grow them.

Pro-Columbus twitter page turns into a riot of racism

Nasty comments posted on the site suggest that the Columbus holiday has become a lightning rod for discontent with the history liberals back. 

Christopher Columbus, The Knights of Columbus, and American Indians

by Heather Cox Richardson

The irony of Columbus Day.

Some Places Are Celebrating A Different Holiday On Columbus Day

Seattle and Minneapolis are among the locations that will celebrate "Indigenous Peoples' Day."

Turkey's Erdogan: Muslims got to America before Columbus

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is claiming that Muslim sailors reached the Americas more than 300 years before explorer Christopher Columbus.

Discover this: Columbus Day isn't about Columbus

by Sam Wineburg

These days, a good word about Christopher Columbus is about as rare as an insult was 100 years ago.

Activists have started a petition on the White House website urging Obama to change the name of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day

"In the era of global decolonization, Native Americans remained colonized. Columbus Day is a painful symbol of that traumatic past."

Columbus Day? Not in Seattle. It’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day

The Seattle City Council on Monday declared the second Monday in October as “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”

Santa Maria found - but recently looted

"If the artefacts are still around, they are likely to be in a hidden collection of bits and bobs somewhere, utterly decontextualized."