Indigenous Peoples' Day: Why Some Americans Don't Celebrate Columbus Day

Every year on the second Monday of October, the United States marks a holiday that has two very different names. Some people call it Columbus Day, which honors the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who sailed to the Americas in 1492. Others call it Indigenous Peoples' Day, a name meant to honor the Native American communities who already lived in the Americas long before Columbus arrived. This year, the holiday falls on Monday, October 12, 2026.

Columbus Day became a federal holiday in 1937. It was pushed for by Italian American Catholics, who at the time faced a lot of discrimination in the United States. They wanted to highlight Columbus — a Catholic Italian — as an important figure in American history. Over time, this helped spread the idea that Columbus 'discovered' the Americas, even though Indigenous people had been living there for at least 500 years before he arrived.

Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean for Spain. But historians have found that he and his crews treated the people they met with great cruelty. On the very first day Columbus arrived, his journal shows he ordered six Native people to be captured and forced into service as servants. There are also records that suggest Columbus oversaw the killing of Indigenous people and ordered that hands be cut off as punishment for not completing tasks for his crew.

Because of this dark history, many Americans have pushed to rename the holiday. In 2021, President Joe Biden made the first-ever official presidential declaration of Indigenous Peoples' Day. In his statement, he said the day is meant to 'honor America's first inhabitants and the Tribal Nations that continue to thrive today.' While it is not yet a federal holiday, the day is now recognized in 17 states, including Maine, South Dakota, and Washington, DC.

Some public schools across the country do not teach students much about the millions of people who lived in the Americas before Europeans arrived. Indigenous Peoples' Day was created partly to shine a light on that missing history. Leo Killsback, a professor of American Indian Studies at Arizona State University, explained it this way: 'Columbus Day is not just a holiday; it represents the violent history of colonization in the Western Hemisphere.'

Indigenous Peoples' Day is often marked with protests and events across the country. People gather to call for the return of Indigenous lands, to demand environmental justice, and to bring attention to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Supporters of making the day a federal holiday say doing so would draw more attention to the ways Native Americans continue to face discrimination and are disproportionately affected by climate change and gender violence. Several members of Congress have already introduced bills to officially replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day at the federal level.