Why we need to change Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day

As being Americans, we can all pretty much remember reading about Christopher Columbus in our elementary grade school text books. He “Discovered” America, made friends with the “Indians,” and paved a new way in a new land. The land we know today as being these United States.

THE END. That’s how we all got here, now go home and do your homework.

That synopsis worked for me until about fifth grade. Then in 1969, I watched the protests on our home television set. It was Alcatraz Island that had been taken over by Indigenous people who protested their mistreatment and land rights.

Land rights? What do you mean, more mistreatment?

By the time I was a junior in high school I had pretty much understood what was behind the illusion of the Fort Laramie Treaty. I wrote school essays as well as letters to Russell Means. I wanted our Indigenous people to know that they are still a vital part of our history. It was then that there was an uprising at Wounded Knee South Dakota where FBI agents clashed with the AIM.

I was on a roll and wrote numerous letters to Senator McGovern, in defense of our Indigenous people. Where were their natural born rights?

So, what does all this have to do with changing Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day?

It’s a state of mind. A level of awareness for every child growing up in America today.

We are all connected as human beings, we were all Indigenous at some point in history. If it weren’t for the resistance of the Indigenous people today, we would never know a different state of mind. Think about that.

"It wasn’t until 1898 that the pope declared Indigenous people to be human beings."- Russell Means. Can you even fathom that? Where does this belief system come from? Did you know that Christopher Columbus was the first trans-Atlantic slave trader? So, why are we glorifying another statue?

If the school children of today were to observe Indigenous People’s Day, simultaneously they will be observing and participating in the consciousness entailed in that. They will be awakened to their own hidden connection to nature and to the environment. There would be no lies.

We will all be reminded of the original ways of a people who still nurture the earth. We will be giving honor to a people that are not only human beings, but also the very people who discovered Christopher Columbus when he stepped upon this land.

Patricia Huff, author.