Columbus Day; Indigenous Peoples Day

Today I am celebrating Columbus Day.  It is a Federal holiday.  It celebrates the courageous feat of a daring and persistent explorer Christopher Columbus who, with his 3 small ships the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa Maria, discovered or rediscovered the land we now call America.  He found this place that the people of Europe did not know existed.

His discovery was enormous and something to be lauded in the same way that we laud the manned moon landing.  The consequences of this discovery were not all positive, and those people who were living here already, their ancestors having discovered it much earlier, suffered many negative consequences as the result of European exploration that one can argue would not have occurred but for Columbus’s journey.

But that does not diminish Columbus’s feat itself.  And, I celebrate his courage and ability to seek beyond what is known and to fearlessly go where he believed no one had previously been.  

Most every action has both foreseen and unforeseen consequences.  I do not believe that many of the negative consequences experienced by Native Americans were  foreseen or intended by Columbus.  For example, how would he have known that people living in this country would contract smallpox?  How is he responsible for the actions of Spaniards 100 or more years after his journey?

My state, like some others, has replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.  The intent is to celebrate those peoples that we refer to as Native Americans who believe that Columbus’s journey resulted in a variety of negative consequences for them.  I have no problem with the concept behind this.  I believe that Native Americans can and should express their perceptions of and feelings about Columbus and his consequences and should educate those of us who are not Native American about those views.

But, why do we have to blot out Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day?  Why not have both?  We can celebrate and learn about the feat of a great explorer on one day, and on another day we can celebrate and learn about the people who were living here before Christopher Columbus.  Both are a part of our country’s history.  And history is important not only as a way to understand the past, but to understand why the past unveiled itself as it did and what effects that past still has on us in the present.  And history can also help us to make more thoughtful and better decisions in the future.

Moreover, I think that the use of the word Indigenous is erroneous.  In my state we have several Pueblo Peoples as well as other Indian Reservations, all inhabited by people whose ancestors were in this country before Columbus, but who, it is believed, originally came to this country from elsewhere – mostly from Asia across the land bridge that once existed during the Ice Age. 

Indigenous means something that occurs naturally in a given place or environment.  Merriam Webster clarifies the difference between the terms NATIVE, INDIGENOUS, ENDEMIC, ABORIGINAL, all of which refer in one way to something or someone belonging to a locality. NATIVE implies birth or origin in a place or region and may suggest compatibility with it.  INDIGENOUS applies to that which is not only native but which, as far as can be determined, has never been introduced or brought from elsewhere.  ENDEMIC implies being peculiar to a region.  ABORIGINAL implies having no known others preceding in occupancy of a particular region.   

I would argue that the Native Americans whom the Indigenous Peoples Day is intended to honor, are not indigenous since they originally migrated to this country from elsewhere.  The better term would be Native or Aboriginal.  I think that this misnomer does not cloud the current understanding of the purpose of the day.  But, it does blot out another key fact of history – the fact that while the Native Americans were likely the first to settle in this country, they are not indigenous but simply arrived well before any others.

Many years ago, when I was in elementary school, I learned about Columbus and his great voyage of discovery.  I learned about the negative impact that his discovery had on many native peoples.  I learned about the Asian origins of our Native American populations.  I learned about the positive and the negative consequences of European settlement of this country.  But, this fuller version of history is no longer acceptable.  Instead we seem to want good guys and bad guys and no grey area in between.  We blot out those whom we have determined to be “bad” (in this case Columbus, making him the representative for every perceived evil of European exploration and conquest in this country).  We ignore facts that don’t fully fit our purposes or our narrative (for example,  that Native Americans are ultimately not indigenous, having migrated here from Asia centuries ago). 

History, like life, is complicated.  We can celebrate Columbus, his exploratory feat and the fact that without his introduction of this part of the world we likely would not have the United States of America, probably the greatest country ever and a shining beacon of democracy for the rest of the world.  And, we can understand that other consequences of Columbus's journey brought great pain to those people already living here; we can listen to their stories and try to understand their feelings and why they may not want to rejoice in Columbus and his “discovery.” 

But, that is the beauty of America.  We allow and are tolerant of many viewpoints.  We can have Columbus Day and we are free to celebrate or not.  We can also have Indigenous Peoples Day as a time to celebrate and understand those who lived here first.  We can have both.  America does not blot out one view, one piece of history, in favor of another.  It accepts all.  And we should too.  So, while I am not opposed to Indigenous Peoples Day, I am opposed to it replacing Columbus Day.  Both Columbus and our indigenous or native peoples are a part of our history to be both celebrated and understood.  Our feelings or judgments about one should not and cannot eradicate the other.

So, happy Columbus Day and happy Indigenous Peoples Day.  May you celebrate one or both or neither as you choose, but may you learn about the people and the history of both.