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By Leah, November 14, 2009 6:05 pm

This blog posting originally appeared on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s blog. To view it there, click here.

In recent history, Columbus Day has become less a celebration of discovery and more a moment of contention as people debate the true significance of the explorer’s initial arrival in the Americas in 1492. Whether you believe that Columbus is a hero or a villain (or perhaps somewhere in between), Columbus Day is a moment when we should all consider the true complexity of our history and heritage. Historical interpretations can vary widely, but a consideration of all viewpoints can help us to better understand the past and to better appreciate events that led us to the present day. Embracing and accepting such diversity in opinion is one of the best parts of historic preservation.

Consider all the worldwide preservation efforts related to Columbus. The capital city of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic is the oldest continually-inhabited European city in the Americas; the colonial section is even a World Heritage Site. Columbus named the island Hispaniola and served as governor there for a period of time. In 1948 the controversial Columbus Lighthouse (or “Faro a Colón”) was erected as a tribute to the explorer, and the site even claims to contain the explorer’s mortal remains. In A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World author Tony Horwitz explores European contact with the Americas prior to the landing at Plymouth Rock. He has an entire chapter dedicated to Columbus’s Santo Domingo, including a description of his own personal visit to the Columbus Lighthouse.

In Venezuela, Columbus Day was long celebrated as a commemoration of the first meeting between Europeans and Natives, but in 2002 Hugo Chavez renamed the holiday “The Day of the Indigenous Resistance,” commemorating instead the resistance of Natives to Europeans. In 2004 protesters toppled a statue of Columbus, linking the destruction of the monument to the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Iraq, which had happened the previous year. They saw Columbus as a tyrant in the same vein as Hussein.

There are many examples of Columbus’s presence in historical memory as well. The American Knights of Columbus were so named when the group protested the American government’s attempts to limit Catholic citizenship. They viewed Columbus as an appropriate namesake since he was a Catholic and, in their opinion, was responsible for the discovery of America. For American Indians, Columbus represents the beginning of an era in which their people were subjected to a great deal of pain and suffering, and they use Columbus Day as an opportunity to remind people of the negative consequences of European colonization. The Intercontinental Gathering of Indigenous People in the Americas has been encouraging people to stop observing the holiday, noting that what was the beginning of freedom and discovery for some was the beginning of death and destruction for others.

It is largely accepted that Columbus did not discover America, but most people can agree that, upon his arrival, Europeans were in the Americas to stay. Regardless of whether that legacy is a positive or negative one in your personal opinion, his arrival is nonetheless significant. Columbus Day is an opportunity for us to reflect on that arrival, maybe even at a historic site related to the explorer’s legacy. And perhaps if we’re lucky, we can reflect on a day off from work!

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By Leah,

From mid-May through mid-August 2009, I worked with the Heritage Education Services (HES) program of the National Park Service (NPS). The goal of HES is to “enable the NPS to be fully engaged in using cultural resources and historic preservation programs to educate people of all ages, promoting public knowledge and support for cultural resources in parks and communities nationwide and the role the NPS plays in their identification, preservation, and interpretation.”

The two main programs within HES are the Teaching with Historic Places program (TwHP) and the Discover Our Shared Hertiage travel itineraries program. This summer, I was able to work on projects within both of these programs. For TwHP, the lesson plan I was most closely involved with was President Lincoln’s Cottage: A Retreat. I also helped with two other lesson plans that deal with President Lincoln (these lessons were being focused on due to the bicentennial of his birth), but those lesson plans are still in production. I was able to participate in the editing, partial rewriting, and digital posting of President Lincoln’s Cottage: A Retreat, and learned just how detailed this process can be.

For the travel itineraries program, I worked most closely on revising the Virginia Main Street Communities travel itinerary, though I also helped with revisions on the Detriot and Route 66 itineraries if necessary. These travel itineraries deal with a variety of places and topics, but all of them include sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As time goes on, these itineraries need updating, so much of my work with the travel itineraries included researching, rewriting, and updating existing projects.

Prior to my work with HES, I had little experience with the educational side of public history. I had little experience with educational programs beyond being an interpreter, and this internship certainly exposed me to new things. Additionally, I learned a great deal about the issue of heritage. Heritage is a buzz word in the world of public history these days—from heritage education to heritage tourism, it seems that almost all organizations are trying to get their piece of the heritage pie. Being able to talk to my supervisors Carol Shull and Beth Boland about issues surround heritage and education was incredibly helpful as I tried to make sense of these issues and draw conclusions about my future as a public historian. While I’m not sure that the education side of public history is what I want to do for my long-term career, I do feel that I better understand and appreciate the importance of history education programs. The internship was an invaluable experience in helping me to further define my professional goals.