Indigenous Peoples’ Day (10/10/2022)

Indigenous Peoples' Day is a holiday in the United States that celebrates and honors Native American peoples and commemorates their histories and cultures. On October 8, 2021, U.S.

President Joe Biden became the first U.S. President to formally recognize the holiday, by signing a presidential proclamation declaring October 11, 2021, to be a national holiday. It is celebrated across the United States on the second Monday in October, and is an official city and state holiday in various localities. It began as a counter-celebration held on the same day as the U.S. federal holiday of Columbus Day, which honors Genovese-born explorer Christopher Columbus. Some people reject celebrating him, saying that he represents &the violent history of the colonization in the Western Hemisphere". Indigenous People’s Day was instituted in Berkeley, California, in 1992, to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus in the Americas on October 12, 1492. Starting in 2014, many other cities and states adopted the holiday. It promoted the idea that Columbus's "discovery" of inhabited lands and the subsequent European colonization of them had resulted in the genocide of thousands of indigenous peoples because of the decisions which were made by colonial and national governments.

Minnesota, which gets its name from the Dakota language, has been inhabited by various indigenous peoples since the Woodland period of the 11th century BCE. Between roughly 200 and 500 CE, two areas of the indigenous Hopewell tradition emerged: the Laurel complex in the north, and Trempealeau Hopewell in the Mississippi River Valley in the south. The Upper Mississippian culture, consisting of the Oneota people and other Siouan speakers, emerged around 1000 CE and lasted through the arrival of Europeans in the 17th century. French explorers and missionaries were the earliest Europeans to enter the region, encountering the Dakota, Ojibwe, and various Anishinaabe tribes.

Minnesota, in 2016, became the third state in the union to officially celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of or in addition to Columbus Day.