Hayter article for October 10, 2021
“The Wrong Columbus?”
Columbus Day was my fourth favorite holiday. The first was Christmas, the second Spring Break, and the third Thanksgiving. A few of you may not put Spring break in the category of “holiday”. That’s a problem you need to sort out.
“Holiday is many things to many people, but I have indorsed the definition à “A day fixed by law or custom on which ordinary business is suspended in commemoration of some event or in honor of some person.”
That’s why Columbus Day was considered a Holiday. The Congress of the U.S. decided that the man needed honoring. Since a holiday allows kids not to have to attend school, Sunday is a bad day for a holiday. That’s why Congress went with the second Monday in October. This year that’s the 11th.
Yet, the Conroe ISD school calendar shows that students get off both on Friday and Monday. And, get this, the holiday is not referred to as, “Columbus Day”. It’s labeled “Holiday”! If the name “Christopher Columbus” had not become associated with so much bad juju the holiday would still be named for him.
When I was a school kid, we were taught that Columbus was nothing short of super. Today, Columbus is considered by about half of us as a great guy. The rest see him as the father of some cruel and selfish deeds aimed at those who considered our New World, to be their “Old World.” The indigenous.
In this wonderful country of ours, we are allowed to develop our own opinions about things. Only we can’t legally hurt people with our opinions. With that in mind, I don’t care to toss caution to the wind and stir up controversy concerning rights of the “tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore." Those words were not attached to the Statue of Liberty by the French who built the thing. Had they been, we might’ve torn ‘em off. No, a contest was held, and “ The New Colossus” a poem by Emma Lazarus was chosen. The words are as godly as can be, just difficult to implement. Americans can at least applaud themselves for having some great thoughts.
Perhaps the native Americans would’ve been treated better had they been as welcoming as our Statue of Liberty says we are. But, again, I don’t care to get into that. If I ever come up with some attainable answers to our immigration woes, I will gladly share them. But for now, I would like to approach today’s holiday from a different angle. For several years there has been controversy over whether or not Christopher Columbus ever set foot in the New World. There is evidence that could show that he was imagined.
History tells us that Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy. From there he moved to Portugal where he learned a lot about ships and sailing. He then went to Spain and asked King Ferdinand and Isabella to sponsor a voyage to Asia so he could bring back stuff from China or India and claim both regions for Spain. An agreement was signed and Columbus made it as far as Japan. Not really. On one of his voyages, he landed in Cuba, thinking it was Japan. If you want to blame someone, blame the mapmakers who neglected to include the Pacific Ocean on their world maps. What saps! Eventually, Columbus did the math and figured out there was a rather large obstruction positioned between Europe and Asia.
The problems associated with the identity of the founder of the New World have been stirred up since the time of the death of Columbus’ grandson. It was then that people from Spain, Portugal, and Italy claimed they were in the lineage of Christopher Columbus, but they had different names for him, and different occupations for him. Right off the bat, there was no evidence of anyone named Christopher Columbus born in Genoa around the time of 1450, the approximate time of his birth. And different paintings of the man began to surface, that did not match the one being accepted at the time.
One of those credited with the discovery of the new world was a navigator born in Portugal who had documents to prove his navigating skills. Another was born in Spain who had been given credit by some as being the one who sailed to the New World at the same time Columbus was there.
The only way to untangle this mess is to question history. Before doing so, let us find a definition of the word “history”. Here’s one -- “The record of past events and times, especially in connection with the human race.” -- Record! When you’ve got families of three countries – Italy, Spain, and Portugal, each with documents forged or genuine espousing different names of those who might have discovered America, well, history becomes a grab bag. A DNA test is in the works that will be compared to a family member from each party contesting the accepted title of Discoverer of the New World. One problem is that the body of Columbus can be both in Spain and Santo Domingo. I’m confident that all of this will be settled long after I’m deceased.
No worries, my original reason for writing about Columbus was to reminisce about how much I enjoyed Columbus Day while I was teaching. That’s when the Pliers and Hayters would set off on a Friday evening to a camping area near a lake or creek. Such a great time. No school worries were allowed inside the camp area. We’d be home by Sunday evening and still have one day left to prepare lessons for school.
It was my third favorite holiday of the year. My big regret is that we didn’t get two days off for Columbus Day like today’s CISD students and teachers. That’s just so unfair.
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