Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!

Today is Columbus Day, remembering how Christopher Columbus landed in the “New World” on October 12, 1492.  This has become controversial.  For the people who were already here–the native Americans whom Columbus named “Indians”–the notion that this European “discovered” America is offensive, especially since Columbus’s landing marked the beginning of European colonization and the decimation of the people who were already here.

So, in a great example of co-opting a holiday for another purpose, some cities and the entire state of South Dakota are celebrating October 12 as Indigenous Peoples Day.

From Sabrina Rojas Weiss, Columbus Day Replaced Indigenous Peoples Day:

It’s difficult to think of a holiday that brings up more conflicted emotions in Americans than Columbus Day. It’s ostensibly to celebrate the day an Italian man hired by Spain landed on the island of Hispaniola. So for Italians, it’s a celebration of their eventual immigration to this place. For Latinos, it’s Dia de la Raza, which is kind of an acceptance of the intermarriage that colonization brought on. And for Native Americans, it’s the anniversary of the day European settlers began to take over their home — until recently, when several cities began taking it upon themselves to pass resolutions declaring the second Monday of October Indigenous Peoples Day. This year, the count is about 11 cities, one county, one state, and rising each day.

The entire state of South Dakota began calling it Native Americans Day back in 1990. Then Berkeley, CA, set the trend of declaring the first Indigenous Peoples Day in 1992. It took quite some time for others to follow its lead. Seattle, WA, and Minneapolis, MN, made the change last year. This year, Portland, OR; Lawrence, KS; Albuquerque, NM; St. Paul, MN; Bexar County, TX; Anadarko, OK; Olympia, WA; Alpena, MI; and Carrboro, NC, have added themselves to the list. Most of this movement comes in the form of resolutions that don’t really impact much in the way of daily life — they’re not even giving city employees the day off in most cases.

“For the Native community here, Indigenous Peoples Day means a lot. We actually have something,” Nick Estes told the Associated Press of the Albuquerque proclamation last week. “We understand it’s just a proclamation, but at the same time, we also understand this is the beginning of something greater.”

Now that I’m living again in Oklahoma, I have a growing appreciation and respect for Native Americans, particularly the various tribes that live around here.  So I’m not completely against this.  The native people were indeed badly used by the European invaders, though they were not passive victims and in many cases fought back fiercely.

Columbus may have been bad news for the people already in America, but his discovery was good news for Europe.  The Western migrations meant that poverty-stricken peasants could become land-owners in what was indeed a New World, making possible a social mobility that was impossible in the European class system.  The “discovery” of America would eventually lead to new principles of democracy and liberty that would transform the Old Country itself.

So Columbus deserves his day, but the native peoples deserve their day too.  It’s fitting for them both to be the same day.

P.S.:  I know, my new Scandinavian friends, we should also celebrate Leif Erickson Day, for the Viking who stumbled onto North America centuries before Columbus did.