Indigenous Peoples’ Day is to be celebrated in place of Columbus Day, which has been recognised as an unjust holiday celebration taking place over the mass marginalisation of indigenous people belonging to Native America.

“In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” It’s a rhyme that many people associate with their primary school years when they first learned about the several 15th- and 16th-century explorers who came to the Americas, notably Christopher Columbus.

Columbus Day has been observed in the United States since 1792, when the Society of St. Tammany, often known as the Columbian Order, marked the 300th anniversary of his arrival in the “New World.” (Ironically, the Columbian Order took terminology from the exact peoples that suffered as a result of their eponymous hero, taking as their patron a mythical Delaware chief and referring to its members as “brave” and “sachem”).

President Benjamin Harrison encouraged Americans to commemorate Columbus’ discovery and the four centuries of American life he had made possible in a proclamation on the occasion of the next centenary in 1892, referring to the Renaissance explorer as “the pioneer of progress and enlightenment.” 

Harrison sought to promote acceptance of Italian immigrants, who shared heritage with the Renaissance explorer and had endured violent attacks in the United States, in addition to honouring Columbus. 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed October 12 to be a federal holiday in 1934.

The United States formally added Indigenous Peoples’ Day to the second Monday in October in 2021. 

The declaration came after decades of opposition to Columbus Day celebrations as understanding of the explorer’s appalling treatment of Native Americans grew. 

Why celebrate such pillaging and plundering, many people had started to wonder.

According to the New York Times, South Dakota became the first state to formally declare Columbus Day to be Native American Day in 1990. 

Additionally, the first city to designate Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day was Berkeley, California, in 1992. 

Since then, locals have planned an Indian market and pow-wow as part of the city’s annual celebration.

The oppression faced by Indigenous Native American communities became widely known due to anti-imperialist activists amplifying the cause of Indigenous people, thus transforming the early romanticism of Columbus’ New World expedition into intricate commemorations of Indigenous culture and history.