Shift to Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrates native community
Anne Arundel County is acknowledging Indigenous Peoples’ Day today, a shift after decades of using the second Monday of every October to honor Italian-born explorer Christopher Columbus.
Though much of the Western canon has credited Columbus with discovering the Americas, he did not set foot on the current United States, and “honoring Columbus as a hero disregards the painful legacy of violence and brutality inflicted upon the indigenous and native people of the Americas,” according to a resolution unanimously passed by the Anne Arundel County Council on Oct. 5.
“Native Americans have had a tremendous effect on American life today, including the areas of art and music, law and government, and conservation and environmental sustainability, and without the knowledge and influence of the Native Americans our country would not be what it is today,” the resolution states.
County leaders in both the legislative and executive branch, and across party lines, agreed this was the right move — County Executive Steuart Pittman issued a formal proclamation in honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The day is intended to celebrate the history, culture and contributions of the Piscataway, Anacostank,
Pamunkey, Mattapanient, Nangemeick, and Tauxehent people, and people of other groups that may have been native to this region.
Councilwoman Lisa Brannigan Rodvien, D-Annapolis, said shewas inspired to bring forth the legislation after other Maryland jurisdictions, including Howard County and Baltimore City. Across the country, Minnesota, Alaska, Maine, Louisiana, Oregon, New Mexico and Vermont celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day. South Dakota celebrates Native Americans’ Day, and Hawaii celebrates Discoverers’ Day.
“We need to distinguish important moments from moments we want to celebrate and be grateful for,” Rodvien said. “It’s really a slap in the face to indigenous people to be celebrating Columbus Day, given the devastation that he began.”
She said she was pleased to have the support of her colleagues.
“It’s not like ‘Oh, yay!’ we are done, but I think we are headed in the right direction,” Rodvien said.
Crystal Proctor, a member of the local Cedarville Band Wild Turkey Clan of the Piscataway Conoy Nation, said changing the day is purely performative unless it comes with meaningful public education changes and development of substantive relationships between the county government and the native community.
“All of Maryland is our territory. This is your first history,” Proctor said. “This should be something you know verbatim from school. You shouldn’t have to call us every year to learn.”
Proctor and their family have long been involved in local education and preservation efforts, something they described as “exhausting.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has given Proctor a break from educating and community engagement to focus on what being Piscataway means.
In his proclamation, Pittman wrote: “Indigenous people experienced conquest, enslavement, displacement, and disease which decimated the stories and teachings of parents, grandparents, great grandparents accumulated during more than 10,000 years of native presence in Anne Arundel.”
Indigenous people advance social justice causes and equity locally and nationally by fighting to preserve lost languages, oral traditions and elders’ collective memories, Pittman wrote.
Historians estimate indigenous communities have been living in Anne Arundel County for about 10,000 years, said Jane Cox, the county’s chief of cultural resources for Planning and Zoning. Over the past two decades, Cox has been working to examine more than 1,000 archeological sites around the county where stone tools, pottery and other artifacts have been found.
They’ve also discovered fire pits, burnt bones and burnt oysters that help historians understand indigenous peoples’ lives. Cox said those findings demonstrate a robust native presence in the county.
“You are living on our land, occupying our land without our permission all year round, every day,” Proctor said.