A Reflection: How Should White People Celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day?

By Rev. Shannan Vance-Ocampo

There is a growing movement in the United States to change Columbus Day, which is a federal holiday that celebrates the “discovery” of the Americas by the explorer Christopher Columbus. Any cursory read of history knows that this is not a correct version of history, that many other explorers from many other places visited the Americas long before Columbus. And of course, there is also Columbus’ history, and the way of “exploring” that he brought with him which was a precursor to chattel slavery, was in and of itself incredibly violent and was focused primarily on extractive land theft for economic gain. 

And yet, we still celebrate this day. Many of our schools still force children to do coloring pages of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria and sing songs. For many people, it is just a “day off.” 

What an offensive and violent federal holiday it is. On this day I must acknowledge that I am white, that my ancestors were “settlers” and therefore engaged in some form or another of slave-holding and destruction of Indigenous lands and peoples. That the view that dominates much of my ancestral history is extractive of resources of all types from land that did not originally belong to them. 

When we read the first book of the Bible, Genesis, what we first notice is that human beings were not first on the scene. Creation was okay for some time without people. And when God does create people their first mandate is to “till and keep” the earth. The mandate was never extractive. For me, this is an important piece of how we might imagine how we relate to this day as people of faith. As people of faith, we must understand that the worldview, lifestyle, and way of changing the world that the explorations of Christopher Columbus represented and still do represent are an anathema to the will of God both for people and for land. 

For me, this is the beginning of the theological basis to celebrate the day from the perspective of the Indigenous or First Nations peoples rather than through the perspective of Christopher Columbus and all that came after him. 

As a white person, it should be a day when I take some time to repent and to consider my ancestral role. Here are some questions for your reflection that I seek to ask myself these days in relation to my Indigenous siblings:

• What am I learning about land, extraction, location, and history?

• What am I unlearning about land, extraction, location, and history?

• What is my personal ancestral history? 

• What am I noticing about the first peoples and the history of the space where I am?

• What was I indoctrinated into as I grew up? What history was prioritized? What worldview was embedded? 

• How do I want to be different and how do I want to grow?

• What am I reading, watching, or experiencing that is from a purely Native perspective, free from extractive settler-colonialism? 

• What difference do the answers to these questions have for my faith and discipleship journey? Where is God in all of this?

May this be a day of discovery for you, soul-discovery that leads to repentance, confession, celebration, turning in a new way, whatever it is that God has set in motion in your life. May it be a day of deep intentionality for you.