Since 1977 Native Americans have been trying to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day. The text of a bill in the Massachusetts legislature is short, sweet, and uncomplicated:

The governor shall annually issue a proclamation setting apart the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day and recommending that it be observed by the people, with appropriate exercises in the schools and otherwise, to acknowledge the history of genocide and discrimination against Indigenous peoples, and to recognize and celebrate the thriving cultures and continued resistance and resilience of Indigenous peoples and their tribal nations.

Yet, for whatever reasons, some in the Legislature resist making this simple change. And in so doing they are continuing to honor one of the first perpetrators of genocide and enslavement in the New World — instead of the victims of these atrocities.

Republican culture wars have created very real wounds. Some Democrats are now overly defensive to Republican accusations of “wokeism” and “political correctness.” But Democrats ought to first consider from what noxious pit of white supremacy these accusations are coming — and should also be less concerned about so-called “cancel culture” and “erasure” than the actual erasure of Native people.

But while Massachusetts legislators dither and squirm, other states have ratified some form of an Indigenous People’s Day that either replaces* Columbus Day or coexists with it: Alabama (2019); Alaska* (2015); Arizona (2020); California (2019); District of Columbia* (2019); Hawaii* (1988); Iowa* (2018); Louisiana* (2019); Maine* (2019); Michigan (2019); Minnesota* (2016); Nebraska (2021); Nevada (2020); New Mexico (2019); North Carolina* (2018); Oklahoma (2019); Oregon (2021); South Dakota* (1989); Texas (2021); Vermont* (2016); Virginia (2020); Wisconsin (2019).

Indigenous People’s Day is also celebrated in over 130 American cities.

In 2021 President Biden signed a proclamation making Indigenous People’s Day a federal holiday, although Columbus Day remains.

And, internationally, the United Nations honors Indigenous people on August 9th.

Despite all this, some of our state legislators still regard indigenous people as a trivial issue that will just go away if they ignore it long enough. But they are mistaken.

If Indigenous People’s Day doesn’t move out of committee this year, legislators can expect to see it on their desks once again in 2023.

Another reckoning with history

H.3191/S.2027 An Act establishing an Indigenous Peoples Day

There is a bill before the Massachusetts legislature asking that Massachusetts join Vermont and Maine in changing Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day. Yet for some reason several of our local state representatives are hesitant to move the bill forward. Perhaps they have forgotten the ugly, brutal history associated with the discoverer of the New World, Cristoforo Colombo, otherwise known as Christopher Columbus.

In the Fifties every kid could recite the poem, “In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue…” We learned that Columbus had made an astounding “discovery” of “America” — although it was hardly new to the Arawak and Taino people who had lived there for millennia. For them it was simply home.

We learned that Columbus was a Genoan explorer who finally persuaded a Spanish queen to underwrite his voyages in exchange for a cut of the plunder. Accompanying Columbus in the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria were 87 men. Encountering the Arawak people on what is now the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas, Columbus dubbed them “indios” and noted:

“They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion.”

Whereupon Columbus immediately enslaved several, forcing them to show where they had obtained the gold in their earrings. Columbus explored a few more neighboring islands, including what is now Cuba and Haiti. Upon his return, the Portuguese royalty were unhappy at the Spanish royalty’s incursion, so four Papal Bulls (Vatican decrees) were issued to specify how the two Christian kingdoms would divvy up the spoils.

The following year, a second voyage of 17 ships explored a dozen other islands. On the island of Santa Cruz Columbus encountered Caribs, whom they murdered, gutted, and beheaded. The historical record also includes an account of the rape of a Carib woman by one Michele da Cuneo, a childhood friend of Columbus.

Spanish troops remaining on the various islands Columbus visited killed indigenous people at will, forcing them to carry the new slaveholders on litters, like royalty. As King Leopold of Belgium later did in the Congo, the Spanish gave native people quotas of gold to bring to the colonizers. The consequence for failing to deliver was being maimed or murdered.

By now we all remember the breach of the U.S. Capitol Building by insurrectionists on January 6, 2021. One of these breaches occurred at the Rogers Doors on the east entrance to the Capitol. The two doors are almost 17 feet high and 10 feet wide, made of bronze, each weighing 5 tons. Completed in 1861 by sculptor Randolph Rogers, the doors tell the story of Christopher Columbus.

The semicircular panel “Landing of Columbus in the New World” depicts the terror of native people encountering the heavily-armed Spanish. Another panel “Columbus’ First Encounter with the Indians” depicts a rape like the previously-mentioned one.

Howard Zinn may have upset more than a few people when he recounted the grisly details of European conquest in his history books, but all this was old history when the Rogers Doors were cast in bronze. At the time, 1861, the mistreatment, colonization, and enslavement of native people was seen as inevitable — if not desirable — when creating an American empire. And 1861 was the very moment in American history in which the government itself was involved in the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Native American people.

So here we are in 2022. Rather than continuing to honor Columbus for what in modern times can only be regarded as war crimes, it’s time we honored the indigenous people whose old world became our New World.

Please sign the petition to persuade your representative to get behind H.3191 — or just call them.