Opinion | Born in another ugly era, Columbus Day is an accident of history
The holiday is a result of toxic immigration politics, racial violence and one president’s actions.


Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain in December 2020 in D.C. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

By C.W. Goodyear
October 13, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

C.W. Goodyear is the author of “President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier.”

Another Columbus Day will soon be upon us, and many Americans will spend the occasion debating the propriety of observing the holiday. The explorer’s arrival in the New World in 1492 came at horrendous cost to indigenous people.

These are important conversations, but they’ll likely overlook an important bit of history — because Columbus Day’s origins are much bloodier and more complicated than many realize. Its modern place as a national holiday is essentially an accident — an unexpected result of toxic immigration politics of the Gilded Age, racial violence in the South and the actions of a mostly forgotten president.

The story begins in Louisiana. As Richard Gambino chronicled in his excellent book “Vendetta,” a volley of shotgun fire cut down New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy on Oct. 15, 1890. Mortally wounded, Hennessy was asked for the identity of his assailants. His reply was a racial slur for Italian Americans.

Italian immigrants were having a rough go of it in late 19th-century America. Many had reached the United States following the Civil War — fleeing instability at home and seeking opportunity on this side of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, their eagerness to work, readiness to accept low pay and strong cultural cohesion (especially on matters of family, faith and language) stirred resentment among Americans already here.

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