Reimagining Columbus

Dutch, English, French, and Spanish exploration of North America began the 1500s. Scholars estimate that at this time “some 10 million [Indigenous] people lived in the area that would become the United States.” English immigrants established the first permanent settlement on the continent at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.

The American slave trade began in 1619 when the first slave ship from Africa arrived at a port in Virginia. The African slave trade was extensive in North and South America, the Caribbean, and Europe. The vast majority of slave traders were Dutch, English, Spanish, or Portuguese. Historians have debated the nature and extent of European and African cooperation in the capture of those who were enslaved. During the early years of the slave trade, the Portuguese generally purchased Africans who had been enslaved during tribal wars. As the demand for enslaved people grew, the Portuguese took captives in the African interior, while other Europeans generally they remained on the coast and purchased captives from Africans who had transported them from the interior. As early as the 1650s, some enslaved Africans escaped into the wilderness. They often set up small remote communities where they built homes and raised crops and livestock.

Native American slavery “is a piece of the history of slavery that has been glossed over. Between 1492 and 1880, between 2 and 5.5 million Native Americans were enslaved in the Americas in addition to 12.5 million African slaves.”

By the mid-1700s some Europeans and migrants from the colonies had settled west of the Appalachian Mountains, but major settlement occurred only after American independence in 1783.

By the mid-1700s some Europeans and migrants from the colonies had settled west of the Appalachian Mountains, but major settlement occurred only after American independence in 1783.

 “On December 6th, 1831 President Andrew Jackson delivered his State of the Union Address to Congress. In his letter he wrote that Indian removal was off to a good start in Ohio and that “It would be just a few more years and the U.S. Government will have extinguished the Indian title to all lands within the States of the Union.” Nearly all of the Indigenous tribes were removed from Ohio by the early 1840s.

The name “Columbia,” the feminine version of “Columbus,” came into use during the Revolutionary War as a patriotic reference to the independence-seeking American colonies. In 1791 George Washington chose 100 square miles of land in Virginia and Maryland as the site for the national capital. Later reduced in size and located only on the Maryland side of the Potomac River, the new federal city then being laid out was named for Washington, but the land itself was referred to as the “Territory of Columbia.” In 1871 that changed to “District of Columbia.”

Eastern states made claims to large areas of Ohio; they gave these up in the 1780s but retained areas including the Connecticut Western Reserve and the Virginia Military District (VMD). Federal laws established the vast Northwest Territory, where slavery was banned. From it came the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio (the first, in 1803), and Wisconsin.

The Virginia Military District was land between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers claimed by the state of Virginia to be awarded to its Revolutionary War Veterans. Lucas Sullivant, who worked as a land surveyor, received land as payment for his services. He founded the settlement of Franklinton on the west bank of the Scioto River in 1797.

Ohio was the first state carved from the Northwest Territory, entering the Union as the nation’s 17th state on February 19, 1803. The Ohio General Assembly first met on March 1 that year, so that date is celebrated as Statehood Day. 

Chillicothe became the first state capital (1803-1810), followed by Zanesville (1810-1812), but the Ohio Legislature was looking for a centrally-located permanent capital.

Franklinton property owners John Kerr, Lyne Starling, John Johnston, and Alexander McLaughlin platted a new community on the Scioto River’s east bank. They offered the state a ten-acre site on which they would construct buildings to house state functions in return for selection of the community as the new state capital. The proprietors’ proposal was accepted on February 14, 1812. The platted land was located in the Refugee Tract, land set aside by the US government to compensate Canadians who fled their country due to their support of the American cause in the Revolutionary War.

On February 21, 1812 a resolution of the Ohio General Assembly stated, “That the town to be laid out at the Highbank, on the east side of the Scioto River, opposite the town of Franklinton, for the permanent seat of government, of this state, shall be known, and distinguished by the name of Columbus.” Thus was the city named for Christopher Columbus.

Today’s Capitol Square is that original ten-acre site.

The first legislative session was in 1816 after the promised state buildings were completed and the fledgling community had begun to develop. Growth of the population was slow in the 1820s, but once it reached 3,500 citizens the General Assembly chartered Columbus as a city on March 2, 1834. Improvements in transportation during the 1830s, including the National Road and the Ohio & Erie Canal feeder, contributed to the city’s growth by expanding markets for goods and attracting additional investment and new residents. The first railroad reached the city in 1850, further spurring economic and physical development.

Between 1830 and 1860 Franklin County’s population grew from 14,756 to 50,361. By 1840 Columbus was a city of more than 6,000 residents; more than 500 were African American, many of them former slaves who had been emancipated or had been born free in Ohio. This portion of Franklin County’s population increased to 1,578 by 1860. This also was the period when immigration from Ireland and Germany began.  

Construction began on the Ohio Statehouse with laying of the cornerstone on July 4, 1839; the building was occupied in 1857 but was not fully completed until more than a decade later. It is now listed as a National Historic Landmark.

A number of Columbus residents were active in the antislavery Abolitionist movement. Among the most notable was Rev. James Preston Poindexter, who was born in Virginia and at the age of 12 moved to Columbus. He was educated here and became pastor of the anti-slavery Second Baptist Church.  A fierce advocate for African Americans throughout his life, he served on Columbus City Council, the Columbus School Board, and was a trustee of Wilberforce University, among many other accomplishments.

Among the first of the new state of Ohio’s first legislative actions was passage in 1804 and 1807 of “Black Laws” to discourage both free blacks and fugitive slaves from living in the state. The laws denied all Blacks the right to education, required posting of a bond and registration with local authorities, and forced individuals to prove that they had a right to be free. These laws had been largely repealed by the time of the Civil War.

Fugitive Slave Acts were enacted by Congress in 1793 and 1850, authorizing local governments to seize and return escapees to their owners and imposing penalties on anyone who aided in their flight. 

Ohio, a free state between Canada and the slave states of Kentucky and Virginia (West Virginia was created in 1863), had a major network of Underground Railroad routes by which escaping slaves could reach freedom. The Fugitive Slave Acts made this into dangerous and illegal work. Tensions between free and slave states in the 1840s and 1850s built to the breaking point, and the Civil War ensued.   (Image 45)

At the time the Civil War began there were four million enslaved people in the United States. The vast majority in the Confederate states, but the 1860 census for the first time counted “the statistics of negro slavery among Indian tribes west of Arkansas, comprising the Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Chickasaw nations.” On September 22, 1862, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared that as of January 1, 1863, all enslaved people in the states currently engaged in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” This did not include slaves in border states that were loyal to the Union. 

The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and was ratified on December 6, 1865. It abolished slavery in the United States and was followed by the 14th (1868) and 15th (1870) Amendments, which defined birthright citizenship and guaranteed due process and equal protection under the law. It further granted all males the ability to vote by prohibiting voter discrimination based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

The Civil War tested and proved the viability of a diverse nation at great cost in lives and treasure.  Ohio contributed a remarkable group of military and political figures memorialized in the “These Are My Jewels” state on the Statehouse grounds.

East coast and many riverside communities thrived economically, while places relying on unpaved roads suffered. The National Road, built from 1811 to 1834 between Cumberland, Maryland and Vandalia, Illinois via Columbus, aided growth, and canals built from 1817 to the 1850s in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio spurred further development. Railroads began in the late 1820s and by the Civil War linked most of the states east of the Mississippi River. By then Ohio had an extensive railroad network and was beginning to become an economic power. 

For more than two centuries the United States has attracted -- and continues to attract from around the world -- immigrants seeking a better life. Nearly all of them quickly assimilated, proud to become new Americans. Still, many retained connections to and customs of the places they left. Ellis Island was the nation’s primary entry station for immigration between 1892 and 1924. Over 12 million immigrants were processed here.

Physical growth and economic development in Columbus continued during the second half of the 19th century due primarily to expanded rail transportation that increased commercial activity, industrialization, and immigration. The population of Franklin County grew from 74,176 in 1880 to 164,400 in 1900. Of the total in 1900, 14,707 were identified as “foreign born,” 11,727 as “colored,” and 35,833 as “native born with foreign parents.”

Immigrants from eastern and southern Europe began to arrive in larger numbers during this period. Among them were Italians and Greeks from southern Europe, Jews from Russia, and eastern Europeans from Hungary and Poland. 

The city’s first statue of Christopher Columbus was commissioned by and installed in 1892 at the Pontifical College Josephinum at 821 East Main Street to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage.

The city expanded outward, spurred by development of extensive streetcar lines. In the early 20th century nearly everyone in the city lived within a few blocks of a car line, making it convenient and affordable to work far from home.

Another reason for the city’s growth during this period was the “Great Migration” during the 1910s, when people moved from the rural south moved to northern industrial cities for jobs and opportunity. Columbus saw new arrivals of African Americans from the south but also of white arrivals from Appalachian states. The near east side of Columbus became the nexus of the African American community, especially along East Long Street and Mount Vernon Avenue.

Coincident with the peak years of foreign immigration, in the 1910s there began a massive internal migration that remade the character of northern cities. Known as the Great Migration, before it ended some 6,000,000 African Americans left the rural South to seek jobs and opportunities for better lives than they had known. 

The early 20th century saw the peak of immigration of diverse ethnic groups and nationalities. Ellis Island in New York Harbor served as the nation’s main immigration station from 1892 to 1924 and processed nearly 12 million immigrants. In reaction, by the early 1920s the federal government had set immigration quotas, but there had been a much earlier backlash. On Christmas Eve of 1865 the Ku Klux Klan was formed in Tennessee, focused mainly on African Americans. The Klan was the first organized terror movement in American history and was active throughout the South during the Reconstruction period after the Civil War.

In 1932 the Pontifical College Josephinum moved from East Main Street to its current site north of Worthington.  It donated its Christopher Columbus statue to the State of Ohio for installation on Capitol Square, where it remains today.

The growing population increased in diversity during this period, with many new immigrants settling in existing or new neighborhoods that often were often marked by race, nationality, or ethnicity. Residents of German descent continued to be the largest group in the city and were concentrated on the city’s south side. The German language was taught in public schools and, over time, there were more than a dozen newspapers published in German.

World War I brought a backlash against the city’s German population and culture that resulted in the German language being eliminated from schools, the closing of German language newspapers, the renaming of streets, and the changing of Schiller Park to City Park. In this same period came the peak years of immigration from Italy and other southern and eastern European countries. Image description: Der Westbote was the largest German language newspaper in the city. It closed down in response to anti-German sentiment during World War I. (Source: Terry Sherburn)

A nationwide resurgence of the Klan came in the 1910s. “This second generation of the Klan was not only anti-Black but also took a stand against Roman Catholics, Jews, foreigners and organized labor.” Georgia Governor Clifford Walker addressed the Klan in Missouri in 1924 and stated, “I would build a wall of steel, a wall as high as Heaven, against the admission of a single one of those Southern Europeans who never thought the thoughts or spoke the language of democracy in their lives.” At one time boasting membership in the millions, the Klan is much reduced in numbers today but remains a significant threat.

In response to anti-immigration sentiment, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1921 as a temporary measure. It limited European immigration in any one year to three percent of the foreign- born of each nationality living in the United States according to the 1910 census. Under this law, only 42,075 Italians per year could enter the United States, which lost its dominant position in Italy's transoceanic migration.

Federal policy encouraged housing segregation beginning in the 1930s.  At that time discrimination based on race, religion, or national origin was legal in housing, education, and employment, and redlining discouraged investment in certain neighborhoods. Suburban communities, some quite old and others newly-established, began to grow and attract new residents. These included Bexley, Grandview Heights, Marble Cliff, Upper Arlington, and Worthington. Deeds in some communities had restrictive covenants controlling who could purchase property. 

The nation quickly changed to a wartime footing on the home front and abroad after the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941. Though united in war, the US still practiced discrimination: some 10,000 Italian-Americans and 120,000 citizens of Japanese descent were immediately suspected of disloyalty; an additional 600,000 Italian-Americans were identified as “enemy aliens” and had their movements restricted. Civilians of Japanese ancestry were subjected to a three-tiered process of exclusion, removal, and internment, but most ethnic Germans and Italians were not forced to endure a comprehensive program of removal followed by incarceration in War Relocation Authority camps.

The US armed forces were segregated; African Americans typically were assigned to menial jobs. The Tuskegee Airmen, however, once they were given the opportunity, proved to be at least as skilled and fearless as white fliers. Their successes helped to spur integration of the military in the late 1940s. 

The war ended in an Allied victory and the United States emerged as a superpower. (Image 58) In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Marshall Plan spent $13 billion ($173 billion today) to rebuild postwar Germany, Italy, France and Japan, At home the GI Bill helped veterans achieve both educations and new homes, but these benefits were overwhelmingly allocated to white Americans. In the face of persistent widespread discrimination, President Truman integrated all the military branches by Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948. After Italy’s surrender to the Allies in September of 1943, the war continued due to German occupation of much of the country. It led to ongoing fighting, bombing, and destruction of cities, villages, and transportation networks, yet the Italians welcomed the Americans as liberators. A major victory was the liberation of Rome on June 4, 1944, and following the war there was the Marshall Plan. Between 1948 and 1952, the US built 14,912 projects in Italy costing $12 billion in today’s dollars. Expenditures focused mainly on repairing and improving transportation facilities and supplying tractors to support agricultural production. “There was a concomitant increase in Italian GDP by $1.90 to $2.00 for every dollar in Marshall Plan aid. All of this led to Italians’ lasting gratitude for what America did for their country. 

Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition celebrated the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s landing. The event focused on exploration, discovery, and material and economic development; but various proposals to showcase the progress of African Americans since the end of slavery were largely rejected. 

Christopher Columbus’s name has been associated with the American origin story since the 18th century, as evidenced by the national capital’s location in the District of Columbia. Columbus, however, was not associated with Italian-American heritage until the mid-to-late 19th century, with the first Italian-American celebrations held in New York City in 1866 and in San Francisco in 1869.

Even so, discrimination was common and even led to a shocking lynching of Italian-Americans in New Orleans in 1891. As Italian immigration peaked between the 1890s and the 1920s, and anti-immigration sentiment became more widespread, Italian-Americans found a source of pride in the Italian navigator credited with “discovering America.” Observation of Columbus Day varied over the years; it became a federal holiday (but not always a state one) beginning in 1934. How the day is celebrated still varies depending on state and local customs, with a number of states and cities now celebrating  Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead on October 12th. 

In 1950 a Columbus Day wreath-laying ceremony at the 1892 Christopher Columbus statue on Capitol Square drew just 14 people. One was attorney Salvatore Spalla. Noting that Columbus is the largest city in the world named after Christopher Columbus, Spalla began a campaign to create greater recognition for him in the capital city. The effort built momentum, and included both Mayor James Rhodes and Mayor Maynard Sensenbrenner’s administrations; the Italian American community (including the Italian American Association representing thirty Italian American organizations); local, state, and federal elected officials; the Italian Consul in Cleveland; the Mayor of Genoa, Italy; and the US Ambassador to Italy. From this effort developed a relationship between Columbus and Genoa. The Mayor of Genoa offered a statue of Christopher Columbus as a gift from the citizens of his city to the city of Columbus. The gift was made in a spirit of friendship and to recognize the bond between Americans and Italians, as noted in a City Council resolution that “special plans be made for the dedication of the statue presented by the City of Genoa, Italy, to properly acknowledge this gesture of brotherhood of significance to the entire world.”

A competition held by the city of Genoa resulted in selection of noted Italian sculptor Eduoardo Alfieri for the commission. His design for a monumental sculpture was cast in bronze at an Italian foundry in the summer of 1955. After Genoa celebrated the gift by a public display at the Port of Genoa, the statue was packed and shipped to the US aboard an Italian Line ship named, appropriately, Cristoforo Colombo. From New York City the statue traveled by rail to Columbus, where it was unpacked and installed on a new pedestal in front of City Hall. 

Multi-day festivities culminated in the statue’s dedication on October 12, 1955, with a parade followed by a program and unveiling of the statue. Approximately 100,000 were in attendance. The program listed all of the Italian American organizations involved in the effort over several years. Artist Alfieri and the Vice-Mayor of Genoa spoke at the dedication. The mayor of Genoa sent a letter to the mayor of Columbus expressing good wishes “at the moment of particular significance because they convey with them a donation which is a symbol not only of friendship between our two peoples but also a symbol commemorating the special ties between North America and our country. . . . It is a pledge of friendship and of reciprocal esteem between our two cities.” It is interesting to note that the Columbus Evening Dispatch printed the program for the dedication in the newspaper of the day before. Just below the article was a small one-paragraph article entitled, “Columbus Did Not Reach North America” that stated “an ironic historical note is the fact that Christopher Columbus, credited with discovering the new world, never actually set foot in North America.

The developing relationship between the two cities resulted in the City of Columbus entering into its first Sister City relationship with the city of Genoa that same year. The relationship is mayor-to- mayor and has been maintained through many administrations for nearly 70 years and continues to this day.

Columbus Italian Americans continued its involvement with annual Columbus Day celebrations, holding a parade and laying a wreath at City Hall. They also contributed to the maintenance of the Columbus statue. 

Columbus Day USA ultimately became a three-day Columbus festival, held for the first time in 1963. This continued for a number of years.

The Italian Festival was started by St. John the Baptist Italian Catholic Church in 1980. It is a three-day celebration held each year on Columbus Day weekend when the Italian community comes together to celebrate with food, entertainment and celebration of Italian culture. It continues to this day.

In 1992 Columbus opened AmeriFlora, an international flower exposition in Franklin Park to observe the 500th Anniversary of Columbus’s voyage. Nearby residents raised concerns about closing the park for several years for construction and during the six-month run of the exposition, which required paid admission, and some Indigenous groups boycotted the event. A long-term result was the rehabilitation and expansion of the historic Franklin Park Conservatory.

By 1999, the Columbus Day parade was discontinued. Columbus Day ceased to be an official Columbus public holiday in 2018, when Veterans’ Day became a city holiday instead. It also ended the official city celebration of Columbus Day. 

Inspired by the “autobahn” highways he saw in Germany during the war, President Eisenhower signed legislation creating the Interstate Highway system, construction of which continues today. It triggered vast suburban development and permanently altered the economic role of the nation’s cities.

The Civil Rights movement began in the 1950s, seeking to ensure the rights of all citizens regardless of race. A landmark Supreme Court decision in 1954, Brown v. Board of Education, banned discrimination in public schools, and Fair Housing legislation in 1968 banned it in access to housing. (Image 59)

The Vietnam War, triggered by fear of Communist domination in Asia, began in 1964 and ended in 1975 at a cost of almost 60,000 American lives and vastly more Asian ones. Domestically this was the most divisive period since the Civil War. It led to an all-volunteer military, which has ensured that the armed forces of the US welcome both sexes and all races to its ranks.

A small Soviet satellite (“Sputnik”) triggered the Space Race between the world’s two superpowers. The US worked fast, moving from a 15-minute manned suborbital flight to a man on the in a little over eight years. The moon landing, which was televised live around the world, was a great source of pride for Americans.

The Immigration Act of 1965 eliminated quotas, increased the number of visas issued each year, prioritized immigration for skilled workers, and instituted a policy of family unification.

The nation celebrated its bicentennial in 1976, which helped it heal from the traumas of the 1960s and the Vietnam War.