The True Origin of Columbus Day isn't what you might would think

So, since it's time for Columbus Day again, and that the day is surrounded by normie controversy over racism in North America (even though he never stepped foot on the continent and instead was in the Caribbean/Bahamas area and Central/South America).  Now admittedly, he did some horrible things, such as bringing about the enslavement of some  settlements, some warrfare (although that's not quite as black and white, since he also negated with some tribes). Of course, he did bring some feudalistic brutality in crime and punishment policies and labor practices. However, a lot of those practices could also be found in Europe and other places, especially with the treatment of Pagans.

However, apparently the creation of Columbus Day didn't have much to do with Columbus, although it did have to do with racism, but not in the way you might think. In fact, the holiday came to be after the worse lynching in American history, March 14, 1891 New Orleans lynchings, where 11 Italian-Americans got lynched 

Now, I think most of us know that America had many issues with all non-Anglo Saxion's, do an incident like this isn't the most surprising. It began with the murder of a man named Captain William O'Connor, who was shot by several men. In his dying breath, he described this men as "Dagoes" (a derogatory term for Italians and others of Mediterranean heritage). After the incident, every Italian the police could find was rounded up and investigated. Most were released due to lack of evidence, but 19 were charged. However, there wasn't good evidence, so several of them were declared not guilty by juries, but still had to face other charges. This lead to "multiracial" riots outside the prison chanting, "We want the Dagoes". And eventually the rioters managed to lynch 11 of the prisoners. Unfortunately, a grand jury couldn't identify anyone who committed these heinous murders, so no one faced justice.

The fallout from this was huge. The Italian consul Pasquale Corte left New Orleans and the Italian government demanded the mob be brought to justice. The families of the victims were eventually paid reparations of $25,000 and Columbus Day was declared by then President Benjamin Harrison in 1982, as a way to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Italian explorers expedition and to ease tensions.

So there you have it. In summary, Columbus Day was declared a holiday to ease ethnic tensions after 11 Italian-Americans were lynched. So yes, it is a holiday about racism, but not in the way you might think. In fact, its creation is vaguely similar to June Teenth in that sense.

You can find more detail in the Wikipedia article.

I wouldn't have learned any of this if it wasn't for some random superchat on the Stitch and Adam Podcast