Indigenous Peoples Day: what it is and how to get involved
- Madison Moore
- Oct 12, 2020
- 4 min read
“In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” is a popular poem that was drilled into our heads in primary school to remember who Christopher Columbus was and what year he “discovered” America. However, what the textbooks didn’t teach us in school was how Columbus and his crew of men, tortured, enslaved and colonized Indigenous populations that were living on these lands well before Columbus stumbled upon them. Columbus didn’t discover anything, he stole land and exploited Native American peoples for his own benefit and has been hailed ever since as an American hero.
History of Columbus Day and Who Columbus Really Was
According to History.com, Columbus Day was celebrated on October 12 in a number of cities and states as early as the 18th century and formally became a federal holiday in the United States in 1937 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Columbus was an Italian-born explorer who was sent out by the Spanish to chart a western sea route to China, India and Asia. However, his voyage took him to the Bahamas instead where he stumbled upon Native American communities who had already been occupying the land for quite some time. Columbus had believed he made it to India and returned to Spain with gold, spices and “Indian” captives. This “discovery” led to the brutal colonization of the Americas, the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade and the deaths of millions of Indigenous peoples from torture, murder and the spread of European diseases.
Columbus was a dangerous and violent man who forced native peoples into slavery and allegedly imposed barbaric forms of punishment according to History.com. This has led to centuries of colonization and the eraser of Indigenous Peoples communities, land and rights.
Indigenous Peoples Day
In more recent decades, Native Americans and other groups have protested the celebration of Columbus Day and reclaimed the day as Indigenous Peoples Day to honor and celebrate the lived experiences of Native peoples. According to a PBS article, during a 1977 United Nations conference in Geneva, the group recommended that October 12 be observed as an International Day of Solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. However, it took another 30 years before this was formally recognized in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that was adopted in 2007.
Today, 14 states, the District of Columbia and 130 cities across the nation observe the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples Day instead of or in addition to Columbus Day.
Many campaigns and projects have shed light on the realities of who Christopher Columbus really was and what today should really be all about. You can watch one of these projects titled “Reconsider Columbus Day” in the video below.
President Trump’s view on Columbus Day
While so many groups of people and state and local governments recognize today as Indigenous Peoples Day, President Donald Trump continues to hail Christopher Columbus as a legendary figure in his recent Proclamation on Columbus Day 2020. President Trump denounces “radical activists” in his proclamation for trying to undermine Christopher Columbus’s legacy saying, “We must not give in to these tactics or consent to such a bleak view of our history.”
President Trump even goes as far to state that he signed an Executive Order last month “to root out the teaching of racially divisive concepts from the Federal workplace, many of which are grounded in the same type of revisionist history that is trying to erase Christopher Columbus from our national heritage.”
President Trump also mentions in this proclamation how he signed another Executive Order in June to prosecute any person or group destroying or vandalizing a Federal monument, memorial or statue to the fullest extent of the law.
Defacing of monuments and Indigenous appropriation
This Executive Order ties into the more recent national conversations surrounding the defacing of monuments that celebrate “American heroes” such as Confederate war heroes and Columbus himself. Debates over these monuments and the controversial naming of various sports teams after Native American appropriated terms, was sparked over the summer amid the Black Lives Matter movement and a national reckoning with race and violence in America.
Most notably, the NFL Washington Redskins team announced on July 13 that it would be changing its name and retiring the racist ‘Redskins’ team name and logo.
According to a recent study by University of Michigan professor and member of the Tulalip Tribe, Stephanie Fryberg, exposing Native American teenagers to Native sports mascots not only decreased their self-esteem but also diminished their sense of community worth and increased suicidal ideation and depression.
Monuments and statues of Christopher Columbus have also been vandalized across the nation including one in Providence, Rhode Island that was covered in red paint with the words “Stop Celebrating Genocide” painted onto the statue. Just yesterday, a group of protestors in Portland, Oregon pulled down statues of President Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln dubbing the event “Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage.”
How Non-Natives can celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day
For people who are non-native and looking for ways to get involved in Indigenous Peoples Day, Bustle suggests five ways to celebrate.
Learn about Indigenous Cultures
Donate to Indigenous Rights Organizations
Attend vigils, rallies or marches organized by Native People
Support Native Artisans
Don’t just celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day – actively disavow Columbus Day
For more ways to get involved, check out nine other ideas from Cultural Survival.
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