Columbus Day Approaches Under Heavy Fire and a Call for Change

A few weeks ago, I profiled the nascent movement to re-dedicate Columbus Day as Exploration Day, a change that would preserve the positive attributes of Columbus' legacy while eschewing the unsavory particulars of his expeditions and broadening the holiday's reach.

As Columbus Day -- Monday, October 8th -- approaches, the movement appears to be gaining momentum, with several media impressions across both regional and national markets. Two new petitions have been launched (through Change.org and The White House), and the initiative's leaders will get national airtime during CBS' Sunday Morning News this weekend.

The annual debate over the meaning of Columbus has begun. Writing in the Huffington Post, Bill Bigelow offers a scathing critique of the Italian explorer's exploits:

After all, Columbus did not merely "discover," he took over. He kidnapped Taínos, enslaved them -- "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold," Columbus wrote -- and "punished" them by ordering that their hands be cut off or that they be chased down by vicious attack dogs, if they failed to deliver the quota of gold that Columbus demanded. One eyewitness accompanying Columbus wrote that it "did them great damage, for a dog is the equal of 10 men against the Indians."

Corporate textbooks and children's biographies of Columbus included none of this and were filled with misinformation and distortion. But the deeper problem was the subtext of the Columbus story: It's OK for big nations to bully small nations, for white people to dominate people of color, to celebrate the colonialists with no attention paid to the perspectives of the colonized, to view history solely from the standpoint of the winners.

Meanwhile, the exploratory spirit of trans-oceanic sea voyages (like those of Columbus) is thriving in new, 21st-century ways as the Curiosity Mars rover continues to operate flawlessly inside Gale Crater. Each day brings jaw-dropping photographs and new scientific data from the surface of another planet, an awe-inspiring expedition that unveils new aspects of our planetary neighbor almost daily. And it's that spirit of wonder, Exploration Day advocates believe, that should be the focus of a national holiday.