"I understand the feelings about Christopher Columbus and some of his acts which nobody would support," he said at a briefing. In June, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is Italian American himself, said he intends to keep it there. A view of the Christopher Columbus statue at Columbus Circle in New York City.Īmong the most prominent monuments dedicated to Columbus sits in Manhattan's Columbus Circle. "After that, as part of an atonement or an apology to Italian Americans, they erected statues and held celebrations for Columbus Day," Dimino said. He cited one of the largest single-day lynchings in the country happened in New Orleans in 1891, when 11 Italian Americans were killed. in the late 1800s and experienced discrimination. Andre' Dimino, director of the Italian American One Voice Coalition, said Columbus became a symbol of pride after Italians came to the U.S. "They rather wanted to extract value from them, exploit them."įor many Italian-Americans, Columbus represents a different legacy. "It was not the Spanish crown's intention to cause wholesale genocide in the Caribbean, for example, which was the outcome, but that was not the intention," Reséndez said. Slavery combined with the epidemics turned into a "terrible circle," Resendez said, that killed millions of natives from disease or violence. The explorers also brought virgin-soil epidemics such as smallpox to the Americas.
Reséndez estimated between 2.5 and 5 million natives were enslaved throughout the Americas from 1492 to the 19th century. Columbus forced natives into mining gold, Brazilwood, pearls and other resources – a practice that was adopted by other colonizers after him.
He said Columbus began to form an enterprise centered on the slavery of indigenous people.
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