Indigenous activists see Trump’s Columbus Day rhetoric as cause for continued advocacy

In this June 16, 2020 file photo, a city worker measures the statue of Christopher Columbus at Marconi Plaza in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

This week, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he won’t recognize Indigenous Peoples Day and will bring Columbus Day “back from the ashes” — another sign some Native leaders say that advocacy for Indigenous representation must continue during Trump’s second term in the White House.

Columbus Day, celebrated annually in October, venerates the accomplishments of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus.

Native Americans have been lobbying local and federal governments for decades to replace celebrations of Columbus with a holiday that recognizes the contributions of Indigenous peoples. For many, the goal was to not only create a celebration of the beauty of Indigenous cultures and experiences but to also recast Columbus’ historical framing.

Instead of focusing on his navigation to the Americas, many Native people want to increase awareness of the role Columbus played in the mass atrocities and deaths inflicted upon Indigenous peoples.

Democrat Joe Biden was the first president to mark Indigenous Peoples Day, issuing a proclamation in 2021 that celebrated “the invaluable contributions and resilience of Indigenous peoples” and recognized the sovereignty and self-determination of tribal nations. The proclamation did not establish Indigenous Peoples Day as a federal holiday, nor did it remove Columbus Day as one.

Trump said he would not follow his predecessor’s practice of recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day alongside Columbus Day, accusing Democrats of denigrating the explorer’s legacy as he pressed his campaign to restore what he argues are traditional American icons.

However, Trump has previously acknowledged National Native American Heritage Month, which is celebrated in November. “As business owners, artists, teachers, writers, courageous members of our Armed Forces, and so much more, (Native American) contributions to our society are cause for celebration and appreciation by all Americans,” reads a 2020 heritage month proclamation issued by Trump.

In 2020, the Trump administration awarded $30,000 for the restoration of a Columbus statue in Baltimore torn down by protesters. That same year, during the presidential election, the administration released a policy vision for Indian Country entitled “Putting America’s First Peoples First — Forgotten No More!” in which the president pledged to “honor the storied legacy of American Indians and Alaska Natives.”

But on Sunday on his Truth Social site, Trump insinuated that Columbus’s legacy was another victim of wokeness. “The Democrats did everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much,” Trump wrote.

Former president of the Navajo Nation, Jonathan Nez, was with Biden when he signed the Indigenous Peoples Day proclamation. He said it was an acknowledgment that generations of Native Americans fought and died for their right to be recognized as citizens of sovereign nations and the nation-to-nation relationship they have with the U.S.

“We have this special relationship with the federal government, but yet actions like this, it just takes us back in time, to a time where Indigenous peoples were not respected and were not seen as human beings,” Nez said.

Although the first official Indigenous Peoples Day celebration began in the 1990s, it didn’t gain widespread momentum until the last decade, with an uptick in state and local governments recognizing the holiday. At the same time, as a broad reckoning on racial injustice swept across the U.S., statues of Columbus have been ripped down by activists and protesters — part of a generations-long push to have more honest conversations about the history of the country and its founding.

Columbus Day first gained traction in the 1890s after the lynching of several Italian men in New Orleans. President Benjamin Harrison used it as a way to both quell anti-immigrant sentiments against Italians and to court their votes in the presidential election. Since then, Columbus Day has not only become tied to Italian American ethnicity but has also been a part of American nationalism identity, said Philip Deloria, a Harvard historian and member of the Dakota Nation.

“It’s pretty clear that Trump is seeing the ethnic strain — he said as much — but not really seeing the American nationalist strain,” Deloria said. “It’s a history he doesn’t want to hear. It seems like it might play into the kind of grievance politics he typifies. So it’s not at all surprising.”

During the Biden administration, the necessity for Indigenous Peoples Day was something that most Americans understood and respected, said Bryan Newland, former assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior under Biden and a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community (Ojibwe).

The work Native people have done to push the federal government to recognize Indigenous peoples’ dignity doesn’t end with an administration, Newland said. It’s generational work.

“As you go through four-year presidential terms and two-year election cycles it’s going to ebb and flow, but that toothpaste isn’t going back in the tube,” he said.

“Once you know the historical record of Columbus’ impact on Indigenous peoples, you can’t unlearn it,” said Montana state Sen. Shane Morigeau, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation who has a bill in the state legislature to recognize Indigenous Peoples Day alongside Columbus Day.

“It’s like it’s not like you’re trying to erase him from history. What you’re trying to do is teach through history, an accurate history, and not ignore it,” he said.

Article by Graham Lee Brewer.