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Is it Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day?

 The first recorded celebration of Columbus Day occurred in 1792, when the New York City political organization Tammany Hall commemorated the 300th anniversary of Columbus’ landing on a Caribbean island. Celebrating this “discovery of America” gained popularity throughout the 1800s, particularly among Italian-Americans who, facing the violently anti-Italian xenophobia of the day, were eager to make a positive connection to U.S. history. In 1891, after 11 Italian-Americans were horrifically murdered by a lynch mob in New Orleans, President Benjamin Harrison designated October 21, 1892 a “general holiday” in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ landing in an attempt to assuage the angered Italian government.

In 1937, in response to intense lobbying from the Catholic fraternal service order Knights of Columbus, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Columbus Day a national holiday. The U.S. Congress added Columbus Day as an official federal holiday in 1968, noting that it was already an established holiday in 45 states.

By designating it a national celebration, Congress had hoped that “the nation would be honoring the courage and determination which enabled generations of immigrants from many nations to find freedom and opportunity in America.” In more recent years, however, the celebration of Columbus Day has fallen under scrutiny for failing to recognize the violence and suffering inflicted on Native peoples by Columbus and other Europeans during American settler colonialism.

Says Megan Hill, Program Director of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin:

For Native people in the U.S., Columbus Day represents a celebration of genocide and dispossession. The irony is that Columbus didn’t discover anything. Not only was he lost, thinking he had landed in India, but there is significant evidence of trans-oceanic contact prior to 1492. The day celebrates a fictionalized and sanitized version of colonialism, whitewashing generations of brutality that many Europeans brought to these shores.

Earlier this year, protests for justice in the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement also shifted focus toward the acknowledgment and removal of symbols and tributes to historical oppression. Confederate monuments and symbols of Christopher Columbus became clear targets. Since June, at least 33 statues of Christopher Columbus have been removed throughout the country, including the one in  Wilmington, Delaware. This count includes a number of statues that were vandalized, toppled, and even beheaded by protestors in cities including Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Richmond, Virginia.

South Dakota was the first state to officially un-recognize Columbus Day, changing it to Native American Heritage Day in 1990. Today, 14 U.S. states and more than 130 cities have re-dedicated the day to a celebration of Native American history and heritage. While Delaware does not officially recognize today as an Indigenous Peoples’ Day, it does not designate Columbus Day as an official state holiday, either.

Want to help celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day? Here are some recommendations inspired by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian:
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