Indigenous Peoples Day mIssion
By ZOON-GII-GAHBOW, JAMIE EDWARDS
On October 8, 2021, via proclamation, Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to officially recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day. Stating, “Since time immemorial, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians have built vibrant and diverse cultures — safeguarding land, language, spirit, knowledge, and tradition across the generations.” The proclamation also admitted that “for generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures.”
In 1977, the International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, sponsored by the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, began to discuss replacing Columbus Day in the Americas with a celebration to be known as Indigenous People’s Day.
South Dakota was the first state in the U.S. to officially recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day and used it to replace Columbus Day back in 1989. Nine additional states have since passed laws officially recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day (Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon and Vermont) and 10 additional states have done so via proclamation (Arizona, California, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin). And 130 local governments no longer celebrate Columbus Day and have officially replaced it with Indigenous Peoples Day.
Any continence of the false narrative and/or myth of Christopher Columbus as discoverer of the “new world” is inaccurate, outdated and deeply disrespectful to Indigenous people.
Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan, the highest ranking Native American woman elected to executive office in U.S. history, said it best when asked a few years ago to share her thoughts regarding Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. Her response was enlightening:
“We were taught in school that Columbus discovered America – with the rhyme, 'In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.' And that is where it stopped.
“No mention of what transpired after Columbus’ three ships came upon a Caribbean island instead of the new trade route to India he had hoped to find. Columbus actions interrupted thousands of years of indigenous civilization, inciting genocide via disease, warfare and massacre.”
Indigenous Peoples Day has multiple missions. While it aims to reeducate folks about the racist and destructive side of Columbus’ legacy, it also raises a flag for the Native people who still live here.
At home, Governor Tim Walz and Lt. Governor Flanagan have committed to “righting the wrongs” when it comes to real meaningful government-to-government interaction with tribal nations. Their team has created possibly the most attentive and progressive approach to state/ tribal relations in the history of the state.
The Minnesota 2019 Indigenous Peoples’ Day proclamation summed it up with the following powerful words:
“The Anishinaabe and Dakota Peoples who resided on this land prior to the arrival of European settlers experienced a history of interactions with Europeans and Euro-American settlers defined by violence, broken promises, deprivation, and disease. This is a history that we must reconcile as we seek to build a brighter future for all Minnesotans while striving to maintain strong government-to-government relationships and strengthen tribal sovereignty.
“The state of Minnesota strives to eliminate systemic racism toward Indigenous Peoples...in order to promote appreciation, tolerance, reconciliation, understanding, friendship, and continued partnerships among all of its people and the Indigenous Peoples of this land.”
There will always be more work to be done for Native people to achieve true reconciliation for the terrible wrongs of the past but at least one story is being edited and indigenous people are being uplifted in the process.
