By Tom Pittman in TomPittman.Blog — Oct 10, 2022

Commandeering Columbus Day is an iffy way to honor Native Americans

Giving Native Americans a holiday that was originally established for another purpose is like giving your wife a bouquet of flowers that was originally purchased and used for someone else's funeral. Sure, she got flowers, but did she really get a heartfelt token of your love and appreciation?

Photo by Stormseeker / Unsplash

Quick Disclosure

Before I begin, I should disclose that I am a member of the Tlingit tribe of Southeast Alaska. I am of the Raven moiety, and of the T'akdeintaan (or Seagull) clan. My Tlingit name is Koohook.

My mother raised us in the ways of our people: I harvested herring eggs, fished, hunted, gathered shellfish and berries, wore regalia, danced traditional dances, sang native songs, and ate Tlingit foods.

Now that you know I have a major conflict of interest in this matter, here are some thoughts I have about "the slash holiday": Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Regifting a Federal Holiday

The idiom "Indian Giver" first appeared in a dictionary in 1848 (John Russell Barlett's Dictionary of Americanisms). The idom has had two definitions.

The first is unflattering to Native Americans: to give, but to also expect something in return.
The second is unflattering to colonial Americans: to give, and then to take it back.

The first definition comes from a cultural misunderstanding.

To European colonists, you used money to trade, so when you gave people an item, it was a gift — and you expected nothing in return.

But indigenous Americans did not trade with coins or currency. Consequently, in Native American cultures, trade was done through the exchange of items. And gifting was seen as practice of mutual respect: I give you something as a token of my respect, and in kind you give me a token of your respect.

The second gift was the Native American equivalent of saying, "Thank you."

Because of this cultural misunderstanding, pretty much every time colonialists interfaced with Native Americans, both cultures were insulted by the other. Native Americans were insulted that their gifts were not reciprocated, and colonial Americans were insulted that natives wanted their stuff in return.

Both sides judged their own culture to be right and good, and the other to be rude and disrespectful — rather than try to understand each other's cultures.

Fast forward to October 2021.

In theory, President Biden's October 8, 2021 proclamation expanded an official federal holiday that traditionally celebrated Christopher Columbus to also include honoring Native Americans: "Columbus Day / Indigenous People's Day".

I believe this was done with the best of intentions, and at the urging of some Native Americans.

However, in practice, the Columbus-slash-Indigenous Peoples' holiday:

Is actually insulting to Native Americans — even if some haven't figured that out yet,
Annually fans the flames of animosity between the U.S.'s two major political parties,
And it partially confiscates a holiday that is esteemed by some Italian- and Portuguese-Americans.

I get that tagging "Indigenous Peoples' Day" onto Columbus Day was meant to be a gift of respect to Native Americans, but...

Commandeering Columbus Day truly is a really iffy way to honor Native Americans.

"Giving" Native Americans a holiday that was originally established for another purpose is like giving your wife a bouquet of flowers that was originally purchased and used for someone else's funeral.

Sure, she got flowers, but did she really get a heartfelt token of your love and appreciation?

"Giving" Native Americans a holiday that was originally established for another purpose is like giving your wife a bouquet of flowers that was originally purchased and used for someone else's funeral. Sure, she got flowers, but did she really get a heartfelt token of your love and appreciation?

Second Class Americans

I do not begrudge in the least America's holidays intended to honor human rights for Blacks. In fact, I'm so glad that our country has made progress in human rights, and that these national holidays keep racial fairness fresh in the minds of generations to come.

But if you genuinely want to honor Native Americans, then please respect us in the same way you respect Blacks with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Juneteenth, etc.

Don't give us a warmed-over, re-purposed, politically-charged, hand-me-down holiday.

I see two ways of paying proper respect to indigenous peoples with a holiday:

Give indigenous peoples our own federal holiday on par with the other holidays — complete with time off for federal employees. Or,
Rename Columbus Day to "National Heritage Day" so everyone can celebrate their own diverse heritage on that federal holiday.

But please: don't support the incredibly ironic and divisive idea that Columbus Day can just double as a day for celebrating indigenous peoples.

(My personal preference would be to rename Columbus Day to "National Heritage Day, but I'd take a real Indigenous Peoples' Day too.)

Again, I'm happy for the recognition we give to the improvement of human rights for African Americans.

But the electoral insignificance of Native Americans seems to contribute to ongoing injustices.

According to the 2010 census, just 0.9% of the U.S. population is "American Indian" or Alaska Native. And keep in mind: that is count of people who are self-identifying as Native American, not a tally of actual tribal enrollment.

By contrast, 12.4% of Americans are Black, and 18.5% are Hispanic.

This is why political parties and candidates care about Hispanic and Black causes, but outside of New Mexico, Arizona, and Alaska — the political parties really couldn't care less about Native American issues.

Native Americans are such a minority that there really is only one way we will ever get fair treatment in America: if enough non-Natives care enough to stand with us.

Native Americans are such a minority that there really is only one way we will ever get fair treatment in America: if enough non-Natives care enough to stand with us.

Indigenous Suffrage

To better understand what it is like to be indigineous in America, here is a quick historical calibration.

According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database kept by professors David Eltis and David Richardson:

• About 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World

• About 10.7 million Africans survived the voyage

• About 388,000 Africans were shipped to North America.

Remember those numbers about African slavery as you consider these numbers:

According to Andrés Reséndez, a historian at the University of California Davis:

• Between 2.5 million and 5 million Native Americans were enslaved in the United States.

In other words, conservative estimates say that there were 6.44 times as many Native American slaves in the U.S. as African.

But in addition to Native American slavery, an estimated 130 million indigenous people were killed as European colonizers made the Americas their own.

"In 1491, about 145 million people lived in the western hemisphere. By 1691, the population of indigenous Americans had declined by 90–95 percent, or by around 130 million people." (McKenna, Erin, and Scott L. Pratt. 2015. American Philosophy: From Wounded Knee to the Present. Bloomsbury. p. 375.)

For perspective, the current population of the U.S. is 328 million.

In other words, more than 26 times more Indigenous Americans were killed by Europeans in the western hemisphere than the number of Africans who taken to be slaves.

Nothing quite screams "Native Americans are second class citizens" like America's own timeline for human rights of indigineous Americans:

1776: America's Declaration of Independence declared that "all men are created equal" and "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
1869: Black Americans given the right to vote.
1920: Women given the right to vote.
1924: Native Americans win a CONDITIONAL right to citizenship to be decided state by state.
1962: New Mexico finally becomes the 50th state to guarantee Native Americans the right to vote.

If you think the "Three-Fifths Compromise" in the U.S. Constitution was an insult to Black Americans, then what about the fact that "Indians" were not considered Americans at all?!

(Is that the "Zero-Fifths Non-Compromise"?)

Did you know that when Jim Thorpe won 2 gold medals for the U.S. in the 1912 Olympics (decathlon and pentathlon), it was unclear if Thorpe was a valid U.S. citizen because he was a Native American?

Native Americans experienced genocide, property theft, relocation, assimilation, and perpetual discrimination as Europeans colonized the land now known as the United States of America.

Either stop treating us like second-class Americans and do this holiday right, or don't do it at all.

In Conclusion

I am Koohook, a Raven of the T'akdeintaan clan, raised by my mother in the ways of the Tlingit people.

But that's not the whole truth.

I am also Tom Pittman, an American citizen exercising my freedom of speech with this essay.

Speaking of the whole truth, there is significant evidence that Christoffa Corombom was not the monster some make him out to be, but for argument's sake, let's just say he was.

The rest of the truth is that Columbus risked his life to dispel the ignorance of his day, and he changed how people saw the world.

At any rate, in my opinion, regifting Columbus Day is no honor to indigenous peoples. If you sincerely want to honor Native Americans with a holiday, then give us a day of our own, or a day for everyone to celebrate their heritage.

This is a great country; I am glad to be an American. Truly. 🇺🇸

But unlike Hispanics or Blacks, Native Americans will probably never tip a national election one way or another. We will probably never be a political force on what used to be our land.

That means the only way Native Americans can get something we want or deserve is with the support of non-Natives.

Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples' Day is an awfully iffy way to honor Native Americans.

We can — and should — do better.

Thanks for listening.

Gunalchéesh Háw'aa.