Columbus was celebrated in America long before the first Italian immigrants arrived. The US wanted to distance itself from its British colonialization past. Therefore the Columbus "discovery" story was aligning our history with Spain (Isabella). That's why we have the District of Columbia, 2 state capitals named after Columbus and the great Columbia River in the northwest. Columbus and his legacy was embraced by early America because of a conscious and deliberate decision to establish a non-colonial, non British historical founding identity.
What was made up from an early period was the "Columbus Discovered America" myth- and for reasons I explained above. The fact that the narrative was also embraced by grade school teachers for generations is unfortunate. Columbus was also identified throughout western culture with what became known as the "Columbian exchange" (also known as the Columbian interchange) named after Christopher Columbus, was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries.
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| Columbus Day Celebration 2020 Columbus Park, Hoboken, NJ |
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| "Landing of Columbus"- J. Vanderlyn |
