More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia now recognize Indigenous Peoples Day. – became the first state to officially recognize Native Americans’ Day, commonly referred to as Indigenous Peoples Day in other parts of the country. In 1990, South Dakota – currently the state with the third-largest population of Native Americans in the U.S. ![]() When did Indigenous Peoples Day come about? His arrival led to the forceful taking of land and set the stage for widespread death and loss of Indigenous ways of life. This is because Columbus is viewed not as a discoverer, but rather as a colonizer. The deal? Accept and go along with white supremacy and become “white” - or face the genocide, violence and discrimination visited on peoples who were Indigenous or of African descent.īut millions of people have said NO to that deal - choosing instead to organize and struggle against racism.A statue of Christopher Columbus is vandalized with the word ‘murderer.’ Nik Wheeler/Corbis via Getty Imagesįor many Indigenous peoples, Columbus Day is a controversial holiday. and offered to “ethnic immigrants” - who might be Slavic or Italian or other groups vilified as of color. Instead, that call was the sign of a new deal emerging in the U.S. 12 as the “discovery of America by Columbus,” in part because of “the divine care and guidance which has directed our history,” he was not taking a stand against xenophobia, white supremacy or colonization. President Benjamin Harrison called for the U.S. In fact, in 1891, 11 Italian men were openly lynched in New Orleans.īut in 1892, when U.S. This racism was especially aimed at those from southern Italy and Sicily linked to African lineage. Sharp historical memory underlines this support, because 19th and early 20th century Italians who immigrated to the U.S. Though some may argue naively, or with deliberate racism, that Columbus Day merely honors Italian cultural heritage, progressive people of Italian descent have been making it clear that they unite in solidarity with Indigenous peoples to fight white supremacy. And eventually, all over the U.S., statues went up to honor the symbolic initiator of this bloodshed. The “new world” of European conquest was established on the basis of genocide, land theft and brutal injustice to Indigenous peoples. ![]() ![]() The fact that there were Indigenous peoples living on that land was known by the authors of this document, deliberately crafted to justify colonization. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull giving the spiritual, political and legal justification for seizing any land not inhabited by Christians. That conquest was officially blessed by the highest religious authority. schoolchild is taught, was in fact a voyage of conquest by Christian Europeans. The 1492 “voyage of discovery” by Columbus, which every U.S. The move to rename the holiday is an attempt to correct official history as told by invaders and colonizers. states and Canadian provinces and by various religious groups. The most recent confirmation of the terrible war waged against Indigenous peoples is seen in the 2021 exposure of the forced acculturation, starvation and murder of many thouands of Indigenous children in schools run by U.S. Indigenous peoples have waged centuries of struggle to survive and advance against the death-dealing tide of settler-colonialism in the U.S. Organizing by Indigenous peoples, who steadfastly refuse to mark genocide as a holiday, has already resulted in six states and 130 cities and towns making the progressive change in the U.S. ![]() (American Indian Movement) anthem at British Columbia’s provincial legislature. During a May ceremony honoring Indigenous children whose graves were discovered at a Canadian residential school, Nipawi Kakinoosit of the Sucker Creek First Nations sings the A.I.M.
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