Happy Columbus Day! And we can say that universally now in the US, regardless of state, because President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order once again officially recognizing the holiday. But does that make it right? Was it the European colonizers or the indigenous people who oppressed the other? Which people left a trail of bodies and other various atrocities in their wake? If you’ve picked a side in this battle of historical narratives, there’s bad news for you; both were guilty of all this and more. Turns out there were no good guys in this story.
The Battle for Columbus Day
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Today, Columbus Day commemorates Christopher Columbus landing in the Americas – a strange holiday in a way, when you factor in that he planned to go to (and thought he had reached) Asia. But his failure certainly worked out well for him and many of those who followed.
Though the event had been commemorated in various places by various folks over the years, it was in 1968 that President Lyndon Johnson signed the law that, in 1971, established the second Monday in October as the federal holiday Columbus Day. But it certainly didn’t happen without opposition, and by 1990, South Dakota became the first of many states to replace it with Native Americans’ Day. As of last year, 30 states and three US territories honored Columbus Day, while 17 states and the federal government observed Indigenous Peoples Day instead (though, by law, Columbus Day remained a paid federal holiday).
In 2021, President Joe Biden proclaimed Indigenous Peoples Day on the same day as Columbus Day, a proclamation he repeated each year of his presidency. Since federal holidays are established by legislation rather than executive action, Columbus Day was always the official holiday – but Biden’s declaration lent the replacement holiday, if you will, an air of legitimacy.
In an October 2022 story on Biden’s second proclamation, Oregon Public Broadcasting wrote:
“President Biden issued a proclamation on Friday to observe this Oct. 10 as a day to honor Native Americans, their resilience, and their contributions to American society throughout history, even as they faced assimilation, discrimination and genocide spanning generations.”
On October 8, 2025, however, President Donald Trump signed his Columbus Day, 2025 order. “Today our Nation honors the legendary Christopher Columbus – the original American hero, a giant of Western civilization, and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth,” the order read. “This Columbus Day, we honor his life with reverence and gratitude, and we pledge to reclaim his extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue from the left-wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name and dishonor his memory.”
Fact vs Fiction, or Two Truths?
Usually, when there are two conflicting narratives, either one is a lie, or both are. But, very rarely, in special situations like this, both just happen to be true, at least to some degree. Columbus and his men pulled off an amazing feat of exploration and opened a whole new world to Europeans. Indeed, many called it just that: the New World. But that land wasn’t unoccupied, and for European settlers to move in, the folks who were already here had to go. In many ways, those native peoples were the victims of European aggression.
Yes, Europeans brought war and slavery to the shores of the Americas. Yes, they made alliances and then broke them to gain ground. And, yes, they engaged in their fair share of genocide and probably a bevy of other human rights atrocities as well.
But here’s the kicker: the so-called indigenous people weren’t exactly sitting around peacefully, either. Long before Europeans ever thought about new lands across the seas, the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas were conquering smaller tribes, committing genocide, and taking prisoners of war to serve as slaves. And let’s not forget the human sacrifice and cannibalism central to some of these cultures.
On the topic of slavery, for men, it often meant physical labor. For women, well, let’s just call it forced labor of another kind. Indeed, numerous cultures in the Americas took conquered women and simply slaughtered the men. Sometimes, such slaves – men, women, and children – were used for ritual sacrifice in religious rites.
And it wasn’t just the Mesoamericans, either. In some cultures of the Northwest, like the Haida, wives could be sold into slavery as a deliberate attempt at humiliation by the husband. Historical accounts record that slaves were sometimes killed to honor the first whale kill of the season by the Mowachaht and Clayoquot of what we now call Vancouver. The Tlingit were known to sacrifice slaves during ceremonies like potlatches to display the owner’s wealth and social standing. And from north to south, slavery was often hereditary. Sound familiar?
To cut what could easily become a long, gory story mercifully short, suffice it to say the indigenous people were, by and large, no more innocent than the Europeans who sought to replace them. So celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day if you prefer it – or pick Columbus Day, both, or neither – just don’t pretend that one side was any less guilty of crimes against humanity than the other.
