Columbus Day, the New Orleans Lynching, and Why Giuseppe Garibaldi—Abolitionist and Freemason—Would Have Been a Better Symbol for Italian-American Pride
Introduction
Columbus Day, officially made a U.S. federal holiday in 1934, is often assumed to honor Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage to the Americas. (1) Yet the holiday’s creation was shaped less by Columbus’s actual history than by Italian-American efforts to recover dignity after one of the largest mass lynchings in U.S. history: the killing of eleven Italian immigrants in New Orleans in 1891. (2) Rather than honoring an explorer who never set foot on the North American mainland, (3) Italian Americans could have chosen Giuseppe Garibaldi—an abolitionist, a Freemason, and an internationally respected military leader—whose life embodied liberty and unity.
The 1891 New Orleans Lynching: From Assassination to Mob Violence
On October 15, 1890, New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy was ambushed and fatally shot. As he lay dying, he reportedly whispered that “the dagoes did it,” a phrase that immediately cast suspicion on the city’s Italian immigrant community. (4)
Within days, police arrested over 100 Italians, many of them Sicilian immigrants. Nineteen men were formally indicted for conspiracy and murder. The trial began in early 1891 but quickly unraveled: jurors were reluctant to convict based on weak and circumstantial evidence. On March 13, 1891, six men were acquitted and three others were declared mistrials. (5) The verdict outraged large parts of the public, who believed corruption and bribery had tainted the jury. Local newspapers fanned the flames, calling for “justice” outside the courtroom.
On March 14, 1891, the day after the verdicts, a mass meeting of citizens took place at the old Parish Prison. Prominent civic leaders, businessmen, and politicians—not merely rabble—called for action. A mob of thousands gathered, with a smaller armed core storming the prison where the Italians were held. The mob shot and beat prisoners, dragging some outside and hanging them. Eleven men were killed, making it the largest mass lynching in U.S. history. (6)
Many in New Orleans defended the lynching as necessary “justice” where the courts had failed. But nationally, the reaction was divided. Some newspapers condemned the mob as a disgrace to law and order, while others justified the violence on racialized grounds, portraying Italians as inherently criminal and unassimilable. (7) The event exposed deep anxieties about immigration, whiteness, and citizenship in the United States at the turn of the century.
African American Solidarity: John Mitchell Jr. and the Richmond Planet
John Mitchell Jr., editor of the Richmond Planet, emerged as one of the most fearless African American journalists of his era. Born into slavery in 1863 and later rising to prominence as a civic leader in Richmond, Mitchell earned the title “the Fighting Editor” for his unflinching attacks on Jim Crow, lynching, and racial injustice. (8) His editorials combined sharp analysis with moral courage, making the Planet one of the most influential Black newspapers in the South.
The 1891 New Orleans lynching of eleven Italians gave Mitchell a powerful opening to expand his campaign against mob violence. In the Planet, he argued that the Sicilians were “lynched, not because they were guilty, but because they were not white.” By drawing this connection, Mitchell demonstrated that lynching was not a crime visited only upon African Americans but a tool of racialized terror wielded against any group deemed “other.” His words reframed the massacre as part of the same racial violence that threatened Black lives across the South. (9)
This intervention was significant for two reasons. First, it exposed the hypocrisy of American democracy before an international audience. As Italy protested the killings and dispatched its navy, Mitchell pointed out that African Americans had long suffered lynching without diplomatic recourse or foreign pressure. Second, it positioned the Black press at the center of a broader conversation about human rights, linking the African American freedom struggle to immigrant communities facing exclusion. Mitchell’s editorials on the Italian lynching joined his larger body of anti-lynching journalism, anticipating later civil rights strategies that built alliances across communities and sought to expose American racism to the world.
International Crisis: Italy vs. the United States
The lynching of eleven Italians in New Orleans in 1891 sparked not only outrage in immigrant communities, but also a diplomatic crisis between the United States and Italy. The Italian government responded by breaking off diplomatic relations and recalling its minister from Washington. (4) According to Richard Gambino’s Vendetta: The True Story of the Largest Lynching in U.S. History (1977), Italy also dispatched warships to the Atlantic as a show of force. Italian cruisers were prepared to protect Italian citizens and pressure the U.S. government into action. (4)
Italian-language newspapers in the United States amplified this fury. Il Progresso Italo-Americano called the killings “an atrocity unworthy of a civilized nation,” while La Voce del Popolo Italiano warned that Italians could never feel secure in America without justice. Their pages described the lynching as a national insult to Italy and urged readers to demand protection from Rome. (10)(11)
The New York Times (April 1891) reported that the Italian fleet, including the ironclad Etna and other vessels, was put on alert and at one point moved into the Caribbean. This created genuine fears that the crisis could escalate into a military confrontation. (12) The standoff cooled only after the U.S. government (under President Benjamin Harrison) paid an indemnity of $25,000 to the families of the victims in 1892, restoring diplomatic relations. (4)
The presence of the Italian Navy underscored the international dimensions of the New Orleans lynching. What began as a local act of mob violence had escalated into a transatlantic confrontation, reminding Italian Americans that their struggle for dignity was tied to larger questions of race, diplomacy, and minority rights in America.
Italian-Language Press and Anti-Lynching Solidarity
Italian-language newspapers in the United States did not confine their outrage to the killing of Italians. Leading dailies such as Il Progresso Italo-Americano regularly covered lynchings of African Americans and treated lynching itself—rather than only its victims—as a mark of national disgrace and civic incivility. (13) Editors translated and reprinted accounts from English-language papers and reform publications to educate their readers about the broader epidemic of racial terror across the South, helping Italian immigrants situate the New Orleans atrocity within America’s wider crisis of mob violence.
This mattered politically. By foregrounding anti-lynching coverage that included Black victims, the Italian-language press signaled an emerging cross-ethnic moral position: that mob violence imperiled all those deemed outsiders to full citizenship. In the wake of 1891, Il Progresso and other papers amplified appeals for justice in New Orleans while contextualizing them alongside the routine lynching of African Americans, underscoring that the fight against lynching could not be selective. (14)
Placed together with John Mitchell Jr.’s arguments in the Richmond Planet, this Italian-language press stance helped bridge immigrant and Black critiques of American “civilization.” The convergence of these voices—Italian and African American—exposed the hypocrisy of a republic that tolerated mob rule and advanced a broader, shared case for federal action against lynching. (14)
Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Abolitionism
Giuseppe Garibaldi’s anti-slavery stance was evident during his South American campaigns, where he fought alongside liberal forces in Brazil and Uruguay that opposed the institution. (15) In 1861, he wrote to American abolitionists praising the cause and urging them to “never lay down arms until slavery be exterminated from the world.” (16) His offer to lead Union forces in the Civil War came with a single condition: that the war’s primary aim be the abolition of slavery. (17)
Garibaldi’s correspondence with Abraham Lincoln via Secretary of State William H. Seward reveals this dramatic episode. In July 1861, Garibaldi wrote that he would only accept command if emancipation was declared as the Union’s central war aim. Lincoln, still wary of alienating border states, could not commit. Seward delicately informed Garibaldi that while the Union valued his offer, it could not meet his condition. (18) By declining, Garibaldi demonstrated his uncompromising moral clarity.
After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Garibaldi congratulated Lincoln, calling him “the great emancipator of the slaves.” (19) This episode illustrates the consistency of Garibaldi’s abolitionism: he was willing to fight abroad only when the cause aligned with universal liberty.
Garibaldi’s Legacy in America: The Garibaldi Guard
Garibaldi’s name lived on in the United States through the 39th New York Infantry Regiment, known as the “Garibaldi Guard.” (17) This unit, composed largely of European immigrants—including Italians, Hungarians, Germans, and Poles—fought valiantly for the Union cause. Their service symbolized the merging of European revolutionary ideals with America’s struggle for freedom and unity.
The regiment’s adoption of Garibaldi’s name reflected the esteem in which he was held across the Atlantic. For Italian Americans, he offered an alternative model of pride: not conquest and colonization, but liberty, unity, and resistance to oppression.
Why Garibaldi, Not Columbus?
Moral Vision vs. Conquest
Columbus’s voyages were financed to expand empire, extract wealth, and enslave Indigenous peoples. His own writings describe imposing tribute systems, and Spanish records document violence, forced labor, and mass deaths among Taíno populations. (3) Garibaldi, by contrast, aligned his military campaigns with ideals of liberation. From South America to Italy, he sought to overthrow tyranny, abolish slavery, and unify people across lines of nationality and class. His legacy is remembered not for conquest but for emancipation.
Relationship to the Americas
Columbus never set foot on what is today the United States, yet became a symbol of discovery through mythmaking. (3) His symbolic role was manufactured by later Italian Americans seeking respectability. Garibaldi, on the other hand, directly engaged with American struggles. He offered to command Union forces during the Civil War (on the condition it be fought for abolition), and inspired immigrant regiments like the Garibaldi Guard. (17)(18) His reputation was alive in U.S. immigrant communities as a liberator, not an imperial conqueror.
Symbolism for Italian Americans
Columbus became a tool of assimilation, a way for Italians to align with white America by celebrating a “founding” European explorer. (2) But this association tied Italian pride to colonial violence and obscured solidarity with other oppressed groups. Garibaldi embodied values of freedom, abolition, and fraternity—values that resonated with both African Americans and other immigrant communities. Choosing him would have affirmed Italians as part of a global struggle for liberty, rather than linking them to conquest and subjugation.
Global Reputation
By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many critics already challenged Columbus’s role in ushering in colonialism and genocide. (3) His reputation was contested. Garibaldi, however, was universally admired in his time. He was celebrated in Europe, South America, and the United States as a hero of democracy. Radical movements, abolitionists, and Freemasons hailed him as a figure of moral integrity. (15)(17)
Conclusion of Contrast
The elevation of Columbus as the symbol of Italian-American identity represents a compromise with American racial politics—an effort to claim belonging through a figure of conquest. A Garibaldi-centered commemoration, by contrast, would have placed Italian Americans in solidarity with abolitionism, anti-lynching activism, and the international fight for justice.
Conclusion
The establishment of Columbus Day as a federal holiday in 1934 reflects a historical compromise: an effort to affirm Italian-American identity in the face of discrimination, but at the cost of celebrating a figure whose legacy is deeply problematic. Revisiting Garibaldi as an alternative symbol opens a path toward a more inclusive and justice-oriented remembrance. His abolitionism, his solidarity with oppressed peoples, and his global reputation as a liberator make him a far more fitting figure for Italian-American pride.
By remembering Garibaldi rather than Columbus, Italian Americans could have anchored their heritage in values of freedom and solidarity. Such a choice would have honored not only Italy’s revolutionary past but also forged ties with African Americans and other minorities resisting oppression in the United States. In a nation still reckoning with racial violence, Garibaldi’s example offers a vision of pride rooted in justice, not conquest.
Sources
William J. Connell and Stanislao G. Pugliese, eds. The Columbus Affair: Empire, Politics, and Italian-American Identity. New York: Fordham University Press, 2017.
Clive Webb. Rabble Rousers: The American Far Right in the Civil Rights Era. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010.
Laurence Bergreen. Columbus: The Four Voyages. New York: Viking, 2011.
Richard Gambino. Vendetta: The True Story of the Largest Lynching in U.S. History. New York: Doubleday, 1977.
Thomas A. Bailey. “The Lynching of Italians in New Orleans, 1891.” American Historical Review 44, no. 1 (1938).
James W. Clarke. Defining Danger: American Assassins and the New Orleans Italian Lynchings of 1891. Rutgers University Press, 1982.
Ida B. Wells. Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. New York: New York Age Print, 1892.
Ann Field Alexander. Race Man: The Rise and Fall of the “Fighting Editor,” John Mitchell Jr. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002.
Richmond Planet, March 21, 1891, p. 2.
Il Progresso Italo-Americano, March 1891, p. 1.
La Voce del Popolo Italiano, March 1891, p. 3.
The Italian Warships, New York Times, April 1891.
Peter G. Vellon. A Great Conspiracy against Our Race: Italian Immigrant Newspapers and the Construction of Whiteness in the Early 20th Century. New York: NYU Press, 2014.
Charlie Seguin and David Nardin. “The Lynching of Italians and the Rise of Antilynching Politics in the United States.” Social Science History 46, no. 3 (2022).
Lucy Riall. Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
Ibid., 223.
Ella Lonn. Foreigners in the Union Army and Navy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951.
Alfonso Scirocco. Garibaldi: Citizen of the World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
The Lincoln Papers: Correspondence of William H. Seward with Giuseppe Garibaldi, 1861. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
