§59 —
On Columbus Day
Democrat
ELEVEN
Here is why the holiday exists, and it is not a matter of interpretation. On 14 March 1891 a mob broke into the Orleans Parish Prison in New Orleans and killed eleven Italian men held over the death of the city's police chief. None of them had been proven guilty 1. Italy recalled its minister from Washington that month, and the administration eventually paid $25,000 to the families of the dead 1.
The first national Columbus Day proclamation came the following year, 1892, from a Republican president — and the reason it came was conciliation: a gesture toward Italy and toward Italian Americans in the wake of the killings 1. So the holiday was not built to honor a voyage. It was built to tell a hated immigrant community, after a mob had murdered eleven of them in a jail cell, that this country would have them anyway. That is the thing the proclamation is defending from arsonists. It was already the apology. The question worth asking on the second Monday in October is not whether to keep it. It is whether the people currently holding it know what it was for.
Sources
- On 14 March 1891 a mob stormed the Orleans Parish Prison and killed 11 Italian men, none proven guilty in the police chief's death; Italy recalled its minister that month and the administration later paid $25,000 to the families; the first national Columbus Day proclamation, in 1892, was issued by President Benjamin Harrison as a conciliatory gesture toward Italy and Italian Americans — The Washington Post, 10 October 2021 ↑
Republican
ARSONISTS
The proclamation is short and it does not hedge, so it can be quoted rather than characterized. Signed 9 October 2025: "This Columbus Day, we honor his life with reverence and gratitude, and we pledge to reclaim his extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue from the left-wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name and dishonor his memory" 1.
Two things are true about that sentence at once. The grievance under it is real — statues did come down, the name did get removed from things, and Italian American organizations who had nothing to do with any of it watched a holiday they built get treated as an embarrassment. That is a genuine loss and it was not always handled with much care. The second thing is that the proclamation makes no mention of Indigenous Peoples' Day, breaking with the practice of issuing both, which had held every year since 2021 1. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia now observe Indigenous Peoples' Day or Native American Day; the federal holiday on the second Monday of October remains Columbus Day 1.
Sources
- "...from the left-wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name and dishonor his memory" — Columbus Day proclamation signed 9 October 2025; the proclamation does not mention Indigenous Peoples' Day, departing from the practice held since 2021; 17 states and DC observe Indigenous Peoples' Day or Native American Day while the federal holiday remains Columbus Day — The White House ↑
“Columbus Day. I pulled the proclamation and I pulled the founding, and I'd like somebody to help me line them up. The proclamation says we're reclaiming the legacy from "left-wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name." Fine. The founding is 1892, Benjamin Harrison, and the reason is the year before: a mob took eleven Italian men out of the Orleans Parish Prison and killed them, none of them proven guilty, and the government paid twenty-five thousand dollars to the families. Sorry, one thing before you go. The holiday was invented to tell immigrants that this country would have them. So when we defend it now, which half are we defending — the explorer, or the apology?”— Lou
“They'll tell you today that the left is trying to burn down Columbus Day. Fine. Go look up why there is a Columbus Day. Eighteen ninety-one, New Orleans, a mob walks into the parish prison and kills eleven Italians who were never convicted of anything. Italy pulls its minister out of Washington. We pay the families twenty-five thousand dollars. And the next year a Republican president proclaims a holiday, to tell Italian immigrants they belong here. That's the origin. The holiday IS the apology to immigrants. Read this year's proclamation and tell me who it's addressed to.”
“Columbus Day is about heritage and pride and I don't think we need to relitigate 1891 every October, and frankly bringing up the lynching in this context is a way of using dead Italians to score a point, which I would never do.”