00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, BrainStuff. Lauren Vogelbaum here with a classic episode of the podcast for you. In this one, we get into the history of Columbus Day, a national holiday here in the United States, including why some Americans now celebrate a relatively new holiday, Indigenous Peoples Day, instead. As of October of 2026, 17 states, Washington, D.C., And over 200 other municipalities have officially made the switch. There's a bill in Congress to recognize it nationally. I'll let prior Lauren get into why.
00:00:40
Speaker 2: Hey BrainStuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. For more than 500 years after stepping ashore on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, Christopher Columbus is a divisive figure here in this so-called new world he opened to European explorers and colonists. On the second Monday in October, as many Americans celebrate Columbus Day with a fall cookout or big sales at the mall, others will observe Indigenous Peoples Day, a holiday born of protest against a conflicting historical icon. Columbus was once revered as the brave navigator from Genoa, Italy, who defied critics to seek out a Western passage to India. Sure, he miscalculated the distance from Spain to India by nearly 8,000 nautical miles, that's around 14,000 kilometers, but he stumbled onto two continents largely unknown to the Europeans in the process. And no, Columbus never actually stepped foot in North America, but many European Americans still saw him as the nation's de facto discoverer. But then a new image of Columbus began to emerge. From his journals, we learn that when Columbus first met the indigenous Taino people of the Caribbean islands and noted that they were peaceful and didn't have advanced weapons technology, his first thought was to enslave them. Columbus wrote, they would make good servants. With 50 men, they can all be subjugated and made to do what is required of them. Indeed, on Columbus's second voyage to the Americas, he rounded up 1,500 native Arawak men, women, and children, and held them in pens while his ships prepared to sail back to Spain. He chose 500 to be taken to Europe and sold into slavery. 200 of them died on the journey. And those who remained in their homeland? Through a combination of forced labor in Spanish colonies and European diseases like smallpox, the native populations of the Bahamas and Hispaniola were virtually wiped out within decades of Columbus's arrival. By low estimates, there were 100,000 Arawak on Hispaniola in 1492. By 1514, only 32,000 remained, and by 1542, there were only 200. Some historians claim that up to 3 million Taino died in that same time period. We spoke with Kerry Gibson, historian and author of Empire's Crossroads, A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day. She said Columbus didn't come over in the spirit of scientific inquiry and cultural sensitivity. First, he was mistaken in his navigation. Second, he was looking for gold and for people to enslave. When you realize that it's very hard to still hold him up as a positive symbol. It makes a lot of sense that some people are pushing back against Columbus Day. The movement to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day started back in 1977 at a United Nations International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations. Instead of celebrating Columbus's arrival as the foundation of the Americas, participants proposed an alternative holiday that would recognize that Native peoples had inhabited these lands for millennia. South Dakota ditched Columbus Day for Native Americans Day in 1990, and Berkeley, California became the first place to switch to Indigenous Peoples Day in 1992. Since then, more cities and states have distanced themselves from Columbus and embraced a new holiday that, in the words of Maine's proclamation, celebrates, quote, the historic, cultural, and contemporary significance of the indigenous peoples of the lands that later became known as the Americas. The anti-Columbus Day movement has its detractors, though. Some believe it's a case of political correctness run wild, while others allege that repealing Columbus Day would be an affront to another ethnic group, Italian-Americans. The National Italian American Foundation, or NIAF, wrote in a statement, When Columbus Day was founded in 1937, the federal holiday provided a sense of dignity and self-worth in light of the hostility and discrimination that many Italian immigrants, Italian Americans, and Catholics more broadly, faced. An estimated 4 million Italian immigrants came to America between 1880 and 1920, mostly farmers fleeing desperate poverty in their home countries. Italian immigrants faced terrible discrimination and outright violence, and early Italian-American civic groups latched onto the Genovese Columbus as a symbol of pride, connecting Italians to the broader American experience. The first Columbus Day celebration was in 1792, to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Columbus's first voyage to America. In San Francisco, Italian communities started celebrating an annual Columbus Day as early as 1869. Then, in 1891, the Italian immigrant community in New Orleans was the victim of the largest mass lynching in U.S. history. Eleven people were killed. Following this, in 1892, President Benjamin Harrison called for a general holiday, the 400th anniversary of Columbus's landing, and proclaimed Columbus a pioneer of progress and enlightenment. At the urging of the Knights of Columbus, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made Columbus Day an official federal holiday in 1937, and the holiday has since become a day when many Italian Americans celebrate their heritage through community festivals and parades. Given the painful history that led to the founding of Columbus Day, groups like the NIAF are some of the staunchest opponents of state and national efforts to erase it from the calendar. The NIAF wrote, we believe that to repeal Columbus Day as a federal holiday, which is celebrated by over 20 million Italian Americans, only to replace it by another holiday celebrated by another ethnic group, would be culturally insensitive. The group says it does not oppose Indigenous Peoples Day as long as it's held on another day beside Columbus Day. Gibson, the historian, doesn't have an easy answer for solving the Columbus Day controversy, but encourages deeper reflection on the long and complicated history of the lands and people that we call American. She said, The minute Columbus arrived in Hispaniola, everything changed. We're still having discussions about how it changed, and historians are still dealing with the legacy of that initial encounter. Today's episode is based on the article The Messy Legacy of the Columbus Day Holiday on HowStuffWorks.com, written by Dave Ruse. BrainStuff is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with HowStuffWorks.com and is produced by Tyler Klang. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, BrainStuff. Lauren Vogelbaum here with a classic episode of the podcast for you. In this one, we get into the history of Columbus Day, a national holiday here in the United States, including why some Americans now celebrate a relatively new holiday, Indigenous Peoples Day, instead. As of October of 2026, 17 states, Washington, D.C., And over 200 other municipalities have officially made the switch. There's a bill in Congress to recognize it nationally. I'll let prior Lauren get into why.
00:00:40
Speaker 2: Hey BrainStuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. For more than 500 years after stepping ashore on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, Christopher Columbus is a divisive figure here in this so-called new world he opened to European explorers and colonists. On the second Monday in October, as many Americans celebrate Columbus Day with a fall cookout or big sales at the mall, others will observe Indigenous Peoples Day, a holiday born of protest against a conflicting historical icon. Columbus was once revered as the brave navigator from Genoa, Italy, who defied critics to seek out a Western passage to India. Sure, he miscalculated the distance from Spain to India by nearly 8,000 nautical miles, that's around 14,000 kilometers, but he stumbled onto two continents largely unknown to the Europeans in the process. And no, Columbus never actually stepped foot in North America, but many European Americans still saw him as the nation's de facto discoverer. But then a new image of Columbus began to emerge. From his journals, we learn that when Columbus first met the indigenous Taino people of the Caribbean islands and noted that they were peaceful and didn't have advanced weapons technology, his first thought was to enslave them. Columbus wrote, they would make good servants. With 50 men, they can all be subjugated and made to do what is required of them. Indeed, on Columbus's second voyage to the Americas, he rounded up 1,500 native Arawak men, women, and children, and held them in pens while his ships prepared to sail back to Spain. He chose 500 to be taken to Europe and sold into slavery. 200 of them died on the journey. And those who remained in their homeland? Through a combination of forced labor in Spanish colonies and European diseases like smallpox, the native populations of the Bahamas and Hispaniola were virtually wiped out within decades of Columbus's arrival. By low estimates, there were 100,000 Arawak on Hispaniola in 1492. By 1514, only 32,000 remained, and by 1542, there were only 200. Some historians claim that up to 3 million Taino died in that same time period. We spoke with Kerry Gibson, historian and author of Empire's Crossroads, A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day. She said Columbus didn't come over in the spirit of scientific inquiry and cultural sensitivity. First, he was mistaken in his navigation. Second, he was looking for gold and for people to enslave. When you realize that it's very hard to still hold him up as a positive symbol. It makes a lot of sense that some people are pushing back against Columbus Day. The movement to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day started back in 1977 at a United Nations International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations. Instead of celebrating Columbus's arrival as the foundation of the Americas, participants proposed an alternative holiday that would recognize that Native peoples had inhabited these lands for millennia. South Dakota ditched Columbus Day for Native Americans Day in 1990, and Berkeley, California became the first place to switch to Indigenous Peoples Day in 1992. Since then, more cities and states have distanced themselves from Columbus and embraced a new holiday that, in the words of Maine's proclamation, celebrates, quote, the historic, cultural, and contemporary significance of the indigenous peoples of the lands that later became known as the Americas. The anti-Columbus Day movement has its detractors, though. Some believe it's a case of political correctness run wild, while others allege that repealing Columbus Day would be an affront to another ethnic group, Italian-Americans. The National Italian American Foundation, or NIAF, wrote in a statement, When Columbus Day was founded in 1937, the federal holiday provided a sense of dignity and self-worth in light of the hostility and discrimination that many Italian immigrants, Italian Americans, and Catholics more broadly, faced. An estimated 4 million Italian immigrants came to America between 1880 and 1920, mostly farmers fleeing desperate poverty in their home countries. Italian immigrants faced terrible discrimination and outright violence, and early Italian-American civic groups latched onto the Genovese Columbus as a symbol of pride, connecting Italians to the broader American experience. The first Columbus Day celebration was in 1792, to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Columbus's first voyage to America. In San Francisco, Italian communities started celebrating an annual Columbus Day as early as 1869. Then, in 1891, the Italian immigrant community in New Orleans was the victim of the largest mass lynching in U.S. history. Eleven people were killed. Following this, in 1892, President Benjamin Harrison called for a general holiday, the 400th anniversary of Columbus's landing, and proclaimed Columbus a pioneer of progress and enlightenment. At the urging of the Knights of Columbus, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made Columbus Day an official federal holiday in 1937, and the holiday has since become a day when many Italian Americans celebrate their heritage through community festivals and parades. Given the painful history that led to the founding of Columbus Day, groups like the NIAF are some of the staunchest opponents of state and national efforts to erase it from the calendar. The NIAF wrote, we believe that to repeal Columbus Day as a federal holiday, which is celebrated by over 20 million Italian Americans, only to replace it by another holiday celebrated by another ethnic group, would be culturally insensitive. The group says it does not oppose Indigenous Peoples Day as long as it's held on another day beside Columbus Day. Gibson, the historian, doesn't have an easy answer for solving the Columbus Day controversy, but encourages deeper reflection on the long and complicated history of the lands and people that we call American. She said, The minute Columbus arrived in Hispaniola, everything changed. We're still having discussions about how it changed, and historians are still dealing with the legacy of that initial encounter. Today's episode is based on the article The Messy Legacy of the Columbus Day Holiday on HowStuffWorks.com, written by Dave Ruse. BrainStuff is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership with HowStuffWorks.com and is produced by Tyler Klang. For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
