Certain states and localities have moved away from celebrating Christopher Columbus, and now celebrate Indigenous People’s Day.Īccording to a recent poll, 79% of college students support such a change. Yet in the past few decades, something has changed. South Dakota celebrates Native American Day, and Hawaii “Discovers’ Day,” which refers to the actual Polynesian discoverers of the island, and explicitly not Columbus.Most of us can remember the day when Americans still seemed to like Christopher Columbus. As of 2019, Vermont, Maine, Alaska, Oregon, Louisiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Iowa, and Washington, DC celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Since then, many other cities and several states have either decided to swap the holidays, or recognize both. In 1992, the city of Berkeley was the first to declare the day Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Finally the state eliminated the Columbus Day holiday as part of a budget-cutting measure, yet city and county offices still observe it. As a compromise, the council allowed city employees to celebrate either holiday. In my hometown of Los Angeles, City Council voted to allow city employees to take Cesar Chavez Day as a paid holiday instead of Columbus Day, a move that prompted much objection. 14, 1492, three days after being greeted with kindness by the Lucayan people (the original inhabitants of the Bahamas), “I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men and govern them as I please.” As I try to disentangle truth from history, I wonder why we celebrate the man in such heroic terms if so much about him needed to be hidden.Įfforts to eliminate or rename Columbus Day in various states and cities have met strong resistance. One account reports that he wrote in his journal on Oct. ![]() The further I dig into history, more horrific acts are revealed. There are also reported accounts of Native infants being lifted from their mothers’ breasts by Spaniards and smashed by rocks. A reported comrade, Michele de Cuneo, who wrote of a relation between himself and a Native woman gifted to him by Columbus, supports this information. Rape of indigenous women of color became rampant and was tolerated by Columbus. Yet for many Americans, the Columbus myth has become real and a preferred substitute for reality.Īside from the fact that I’m of Cherokee, Delaware, and Seneca descent, I am something else too - I am a woman. Others argue that Columbus should not be honored for discovering North America because he only went as far as some islands in the Caribbean and never got as far as mainland America. For more than 500 years, Native peoples have been measured and have competed against a Columbus fantasy over which they have no control. The story of Columbus’ discovery and the indigenous people he misnamed as “Indians” continues to affect us with a dual identity misunderstood by mainstream America. As a European colonizer, he set the genocide in motion. Over the years the holiday celebration has become controversial: The arrival of Columbus to the Americas - followed by the European settlers - heralded the beginning of devastating movements against indigenous people and the demise of their histories and cultures. After strong lobbying from the Knights of Columbus, President Franklin D. As his mother, that responsibility belongs to me.Ĭolumbus Day first became a federal holiday in the United States in 1937. ![]() But at age seven it’s not his job to carry the weight. My son has older siblings and he knows there is controversy surrounding Columbus and his day of recognition. ![]() We are a mixed-race, mixed-blood Native American family. With his eyebrows curved in question marks my son tells me that there is also a song about Columbus, sung to the tune of “Oh, My Darling Clementine.” And then we both laugh at the absurdity.
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