Every second Monday in October we honor a holiday called Columbus Day. In elementary school, they used to teach us that we were celebrating the day that an Italian explorer called Christopher Columbus discovered America. Now I understand that there's more to the story, and they weren't exactly telling us the whole truth. This holiday has started a whole controversy. Some people believe that we shouldn't celebrate Columbus day because he practiced genocide on the Native Americans and that he was a “bad guy”, and some say that we still should. After studying both sides of the argument, I have decided that there a few major reasons that convinced me that we should continue to celebrate the holiday.

 

It is true that Columbus didn't actually discover America, there were already natives living there, but he discovered America for Europe. A vast majority of the people living in the United States today are from European heritage, so what is wrong in celebrating the day our ancestors came to the country we now call home? Columbus wasn't exactly a “nice guy”, and he killed a bunch of Native Americans and it's true that Columbus Day can be offensive to indigenous people but that's not the point here. There are more people in our country that are from Italian and Spanish heritage than there are Native Americans. The majority is what matters. There are always going to be those people who aren't happy with the decision, that automatically want to go against the common interest. Switch the picture around. Suppose Columbus was actually a nice guy, and he tried to make peace with the natives. But, the natives ignore this and kill Columbus and all his men. Columbus never makes it back, and Europe doesn't discover America until many centuries later, when the Native Americans have developed the technology and weapons to keep the Europeans out. Then, today, the majority of our population would be Native American, and we would be honoring the day that we kept Columbus from conquering America. You see, it all depends on the majority of the population, and what they support.

The second reason for wanting to continue celebrating Columbus day is because it wasn't just a one way street. The Europeans weren't the only ones gaining something out of the discovery of the New World. Even though a huge portion of the indigenous population was wiped out by small pox, disease, not to mention being killed by the Europeans, the remainder of the Native Americans still prospered. The Europeans brought a lot of new technology to the Native Americans. The Native Americans also gained something out of Columbus' discovery of the New World.

The last reason for why we should should celebrate Columbus day goes along with the previous one. When the Europeans got to the Americas, they exploited the natural resources there, which benefited everyone. They sent back “staple crops” to Europe, and brought many new foods back home. The Native Americans also gained lots of resources and food, after relations between the indigenous people and the Europeans had become more cordial. Everybody was benefited by the exploitation of the natural resources in the Americas.

 

Overall, there are three major reasons why we should continue to honor Columbus day. Number one, more of the population of the United States today are from Italian or Spanish heritage than there are Native Americans. It may be offensive to the indigenous population, it's all about the majority. My second reason is that the Native Americans also gained something from the Europeans when they came to the Americas. The Europeans brought a lot of new technology to the New World. The final reason of why we should celebrate Columbus day is that the Europeans exploited the natural resources in America, which both the Europeans and the indigenous people were benefited by. In the end these three reasons out rule the people who believe we should continue to celebrate this holiday. Of course, we also get the day of school which is very important.