Celebrate
this annual
holiday with us in honor of all of our ancestors,
the people continuing
the struggle today and future generations.
THE
HISTORY OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY
Berkeley replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day in 1992. The
inaugural year was filled with ceremonies, and each year since then the
city has celebrated with a free pow wow, organized by local Native and
non-Indigenous residents. Held in Civic Center Park, the Indigenous
Peoples Day Pow Wow and Indian Market has become an important annual
event, where the local population can interact with and learn about
Native culture and the Bay Area Indian community.
The idea of replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day was
first proposed in 1977 by a delegation of Native nations to the United
Nations-sponsored International Conference on Discrimination Against
Indigenous Populations in the Americas, held in Geneva, which passed
that resolution.
In July 1990, representatives from 120 Indian nations from every part
of the Americas met in Quito, Ecuador in the First Continental
Conference (Encuentro) on 500 Years of Indian Resistance. The
conference was also attended by many human rights, peace, social
justice, and environmental organizations. This was in preparation for
the 500th anniversary of Native resistance to the European invasion of
the Americas, 1492-1992. The Encuentro saw itself as fulfilling a
prophesy that the Native nations would rise again “when the eagle of
the north joined with the condor of the south.” At the suggestion of
the Indigenous spiritual elders, the conference unanimously passed a
resolution to transform Columbus Day, 1992, "into an occasion to
strengthen our process of continental unity and struggle towards our
liberation." Upon return, all the conference participants agreed to
organize in their communities. While the U.S. and other governments
were apparently trying to make it into a celebration of colonialism,
Native peoples wanted to use the occasion to reveal the historical
truths about the invasion and the consequent genocide and environmental
destruction, to organize against its continuation today, and to
celebrate Indigenous resistance.
A representative of Berkeley’s mayor attended the Encuentro, to gather
information as to how the city should commemorate the Quincentenary.
The U. S. Congress had chosen the Bay Area as the national focus for
the planned “Quincentenary Jubilee” hoopla, with replicas of Columbus'
ships scheduled to sail into the Golden Gate and land in a grand climax
(eventually canceled).
In the fall of 1990, a well-attended conference of Northern California
Indians met at D-Q University in Davis, California, and organized the
Bay Area Indian Alliance for counter-quincentennial planning. They
resolved to "reaffirm October 12, 1992 as International Day of
Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples." The final day of the conference
was moved to Laney College in Oakland and opened to non-Native people.
This conference organized Resistance 500, a broad coalition to
coordinate 1992 activities with Indigenous leadership. The Resistance
500 coalition broke down into four committees revolving around
different municipalities, planning local activities in San Francisco,
Oakland, Berkeley and the South Bay.
At the request of the Berkeley committee of Resistance 500, the
Berkeley City Council set up a task force to make recommendations
regarding Quincentenary planning. The Berkeley Resistence 500
Task Force investigated the historical record, and concluded that
Columbus’s expedition was not a scientific “voyage of discovery,” but a
scouting mission for a scheme of imperialism and conquest.
Columbus openly stated that he planned to conquer and colonize the
lands he “discovered”: first the Caribbean islands and then mainland
America. On his second voyage he brought the Spanish army with him, and
proceded to do just that. The islands were populated by over a million
Taino Indians, peaceful farmers and fishermen. Unable to find enough
gold there to finance his schemes, Columbus captured thousands of
Tainos and shipped them to the slave markets of Spain. The Tainos
resisted with fishbone-tipped spears, but those were no match for
artillery. Columbus demanded that each Taino pay a tribute of gold dust
every three months, under penalty of amputation of the hands. In two
years over a hundred thousand Tainos were dead, and the survivors were
slaves, mostly in mines and plantations. Columbus personally invented
European imperialism in the Americas and the transatlantic slave trade.
He took personal leadership in acts that would today be called genocide.
Berkeley Resistence 500 reported those historical facts to the city
council, and that Native peoples around the world had proposed
replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. The task force
recommended that Columbus should no longer be honored, but the city
should instead commemorate the contributions of Native people and their
resistance to the European invasion. With strong support from the
community, the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously that October
12th was henceforth to be Indigenous Peoples Day, to be commemorated
annually on the nearest Saturday.
In subsequent years the municipality of Santa Cruz also began
celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day. The State of South
Dakota replaced Columbus Day with Native American Day. October 12 is
now celebrated in Venezuela as the Day of Indigenous Resistance,
‘Día de la Resistencia Indígena’. The United
Nations, at the request of Indigenous groups and led by Nobel Prize
winner Rigoberta Menchú, declared International Indigenous
Peoples Day. But instead of changing Columbus Day, as requested, the
U.N. sidestepped the issue of Columbus by naming August 9th as
International Day of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples. Phoenix now
celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day on March 12, relating to the Aztec
calendar. However, in keeping with
the original request of the Indigenous spiritual elders at the
Continental Conference (Encuentro) on 500 Years of Indian Resistance,
Berkeley has retained October 12 as Indigenous Peoples Day.
We invite you to come this year to the Berkeley Indigenous Peoples Day
pow-wow, make or renew our friendship, enjoy Native American foods and
crafts, share a wonderful and powerful experience. Ride the lifestream
of the pow-wow highway with us, as Indigenous culture spreads its
spiritual roots and breaks through into the mainstream of the
multicultural society that is appearing before our eyes today here on
Turtle Island.
The Indigenous Peoples Committee works for social justice and human
rights for Native Peoples. We promote the necessity of Indigenous
wisdom for human survival in balance with the environment. We organize
educational and cultural events publicizing Native struggles, including
Indigenous Peoples Day Powwow and Indian Market annually on the
Saturday nearest October 12th.
