Indigenous Peoples Day celebrates our Indigenous, Native American heritage and contributions to U.S. culture on the second Monday in October.
Many countries celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day on October 12 to counter the Spanish National Day which some celebrate as Columbus Day. [NOTE: Columbus triggered an Indigenous genocide in the Americas. The man himself was so cruel to Indigenous Americans that his Spanish sponsors called him home, stripped his wealth, jailed him and put him on trial. Nobody should be proud of that man.]
Indigenous Peoples Day NYC 2022
The Indigenous Peoples Day NYC 2022 PowWow with drumming, singing, dancing, an overnight, and a sunrise ceremony is in Randall’s Island Park, Sunday-Monday, October 9-10, 2022, from 11am Sunday to 6pm Monday. 🇺🇸
Indigenous Peoples Day 2022 is Monday, October 10, 2022.
The 1st Indigenous Peoples Day Parade NYC starts at 46th St and Sixth Avenue on Saturday, October 15, 2022.
Indigenous Peoples Day NYC 2021
NYC’s 7th Indigenous Peoples Day celebration is at Randall’s Island Park in Manhattan on Sun-Mon, Oct 10-11, 2021. FREE
We Are Still Here, We Have Always Been Here
It has to be said that the colonization of the Americas and the founding of the United States began with an Indigenous genocide. In the USA, we are terribly marginalized. South of the border, Indigenous Peoples dominate. The difference is just plain weird.
Americans of the United States have been taught false colonial narratives about Indigenous Peoples. If the land is empty, you can take it. But if it’s occupied the takers are just criminals.
At the moment of colonial European contact in 1492, the Americas were filled with Indigenous Peoples who managed and farmed the land. Trade networks ran from Tierra del Fuego (Argentina and Chile) to the Arctic, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
European contact brought diseases from domesticated animals that caused an epidemic with a 95% death rate in a few short years. The COVID-19 death rate is between 1-3%. So out of a clan of 20, just one person might survive. Think about that for a moment. 1 in 20 survived.
This was followed by the freeing of pigs which destroyed Indigenous farms, and endless military campaigns famous for their brutality.
Then the colonizers enslaved the Indigenous Peoples. It’s said that they would just give up and die. Actually they were worked to death in slave labor camps feeding European gold lust.
Then the US Army and organizations like Texas Rangers pursued an extermination campaign which didn’t end until 1877. The heartfelt words of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce people, the last free Indigenous Americans were, “I will fight no more forever.”
The American Ever War is a vestige of our British heritage. We haven’t stopped fighting since World War II. The Afghanistan mess is the latest example of the Ever War.
Then there was the taking of Indigenous children who were forcibly taken from their families, taught to forget their heritage and deny their roots in the name of Christianity. Canada is digging up their graves around old churches. Wow!
Today we are becoming aware of the epidemic of violence against Indigenous women. Authorities don’t seem to care when they disappear.
Americans of the USA have been taught that the land was empty. It was never empty, but the reason for the depopulation was a genocide of the First Nations, the First Americans.
Americans are taught that Indigenous Peoples are gone, but that’s not true either. Men and children were killed and women were taken as wives. The US Army force marched Eastern Indigenous Americans to Oklahoma. Many died on the way. That was probably the point.
So we are still here. We have always been here and our spirit always will be for we are the guardians of the land.
It’s strange that the US government recognizes other genocides around the world, but not our own.
Christopher Columbus was an Evil Man
Every year, people complain to us about Columbus Day. We understand, but in the United States that celebration was started to stop lynching of Italian Americans by Confederate Southerners.
The day is a celebration of Italian American culture, not the sailor who was called back to Spain and thrown in prison for his abuse of Indigenous peoples.
We believe everyone has the right to celebrate or worship in their own way. Tolerance is part of being a New Yorker. We hope you will join us, but we know that Columbus was evil, and he was just the beginning.
