Overview:
Native News Editor Levi Rickert argues that Indigenous Peoples’ Day honors Native history and survival while challenging the myth that Columbus discovered the Americas.
Opinion
After a busy week, I finally got around to reading President Donald Trump’s Columbus Day proclamation on Saturday night. I struggled to get past its first sentence, which credits Christopher Columbus with having “discovered the New World.” Columbus was looking for a westward route to Asia when he arrived in the Bahamas on Oct. 12, 1492.
“More than five centuries ago, Christopher Columbus embarked westward across uncharted waters and discovered the New World — bringing with him the rich traditions of Western civilization and paving the way to the birth of the American Nation less than three centuries later,” reads this year’s presidential proclamation.
The proclamation repeats a familiar myth: that Columbus was a hero who “discovered” lands already inhabited by Indigenous peoples.
That raises a simple question: How can you discover a place where other people are already living?
The word “discovered” implies that the Americas were uninhabited or waiting to be found. It overlooks the nations, histories and cultures that existed for thousands of years before Columbus arrived. Challenging that word is part of correcting the constructed version of American history that has long marginalized Indigenous peoples. I suggest we start with the rhyme schoolchildren learn — and add back the history it leaves out.
In fourteen hundred ninety-two,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
But Native Nations already thrived
Long before his ships arrived.
Why Indigenous Peoples’ Day Matters
In 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival in the Bahamas, a group of Native American advocates in Berkeley, Calif., pushed to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day. They believed the annual celebration of Columbus glorified European colonization while ignoring the destruction, displacement and suffering inflicted on Indigenous peoples.
The advocates also maintained that describing Columbus as having “discovered” America erased the existence of the Indigenous peoples who had lived here for thousands of years.
Their efforts reflected a broader Indigenous movement to challenge historical accounts that portrayed European arrival as the beginning of American history while marginalizing Native nations and their experiences. Indigenous advocates had proposed an alternative observance at an international conference in Geneva in 1977. In 1990, at a gathering in Quito, Ecuador, Indigenous leaders from across the Americas renewed their opposition to celebrations of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival.
For these advocates, Columbus represented the beginning of a period marked by violence, enslavement, land dispossession, introduced diseases and the suppression of Indigenous cultures. They objected to a national holiday that celebrated Columbus without acknowledging these consequences.
Historical records document Columbus’ role in the mistreatment, enslavement and deaths of Indigenous people. The colonization that followed his voyages contributed to millions of deaths across the Americas through violence, forced labor, disease and famine.
History is full of constructed stories that help nations perpetuate myths and legends, building national pride from one generation to the next. Too often, those stories are veiled as patriotism.
The celebration of Columbus rests on one such myth. He never reached the land that is now the mainland United States. He never set foot in the country that today celebrates Columbus Day as a federal holiday.
The Lasting Consequences of Colonization
Missing and murdered Indigenous women is a crisis in the United States and Canada. Sexual violence against Indigenous women and girls is also widespread. A National Institute of Justice study in 2016 found that more than half of American Indian and Alaska Native women had experienced sexual violence in their lifetimes.
The abuse has historical precedents. Historical accounts from Columbus’ voyages document the forced transport of Indigenous people to Europe and the sexual exploitation of Indigenous women and girls.
These histories are part of the larger legacy of colonization that generations of Indigenous communities continue to confront.
Understandably, Native people aren’t typically interested in celebrating a figure associated with the murder, exploitation, trafficking and dispossession of our ancestors.
Columbus did initiate a wave of violence that forever altered the lives of Native peoples across the Americas. The historical record documents the devastating consequences of his voyages and the colonial system that followed.
Some Italian Americans have come forward to say they do not want their cultural pride tied to Columbus. They should not have to. Italian heritage can and should be celebrated through figures who reflect the best of that culture — not through a colonizer whose name has become synonymous with suffering in Indian Country.
Being against Columbus statues and Columbus Day is not an attack on Italian identity, just as opposing Confederate monuments is not an attack on Southern culture. It is about aligning public honor with shared values: truth, justice and respect.
Let’s also reject the false idea that opposing Columbus is anti-American. If anything, it is deeply American to confront the full truth of our history, question whom we celebrate and ask why.
That is what it means to “form a more perfect union.” That is what progress looks like.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day Honors Our Survival
This year’s presidential Columbus Day proclamation ends by calling Columbus “a legend whose vision, fortitude, and perseverance unleashed a dynamic of history that led to the creation of the greatest, freest, and most just Nation in history.”
That language elevates Columbus while overlooking the Indigenous nations and peoples who were already here — and the devastating consequences of colonization.
Today, we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day because it tells a more accurate story. It recognizes the existence, histories, cultures and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and acknowledges that our history did not begin with Columbus.
I will celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day with pride, knowing that our ancestors’ resilience made it possible for us to still be here. Despite centuries of colonization and efforts to erase our cultures, our nations and our identities, we remain.
We are still here, and we are building a future for the generations to come.
Thayék gde nwéndëmen – We are all related.
