Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2016 will officially go down in Cincinnati history as FC Cincinnati Day. The footnotes of the record will also mention that Oct. 5, 2016 was the day Cincinnati City Council rejected a resolution adopting Indigenous Peoples’ Day to replace Columbus Day.
The resolution was authored by a coalition of indigenous peoples and non-indigenous allies, including myself in my role with the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission. My thoughts are not representative of CHRC nor that of the committee; rather, they reflect my disappointment as an activist invested in uprooting oppression and disturbed by the dangers of maintaining the status quo.
The fact that descendants of the original people of this land, whose existence preceded the establishment of Cincinnati, have to advocate for formal recognition one day per year is not only insulting, but modern proof of the depth of Columbus’ atrocities.
Claims of neutrality, ignorance of marginalized histories and “traditions” are no longer acceptable excuses for safeguarding symbols like Christopher Columbus and the oppressive ideologies that accompany them.
The somber mood that followed the failure of the Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution was a stark contrast to the earlier tone of the meeting, when the FC Cincinnati soccer team, owners and staff were on hand giving speeches and posing for photos with council members to celebrate the club’s record-breaking success during its inaugural season.
When team owners were prompted to address Council and onlookers, they expressed gratitude for the newfound fans and noted that FC Cincinnati’s support demonstrated Cincinnati’s boldness. They also underlined the idea that sports posses the unique power to bring people of all walks of life together in the pursuit of a shared goal.
There was no such camaraderie or celebration when it came to extending recognition to indigenous peoples. As the resolution went through the voting process, an unprecedented five council members vocally abstained, resulting in the item’s failure. An awkward moment of silence followed. Most members of Council did not offer comment explaining why they didn’t vote.
Since 1937, the day that would have become Indigenous Peoples’ Day has been federally recognized as Columbus Day. The holiday was originally billed as recognition of Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” (read: colonization) of America in 1492.
In 1992, an enduring domestic movement arose in California determined to reframe an ode to one of America’s earliest deplorables as a celebration of the erased contributions of the country’s original inhabitants. Phoenix, Ariz. and Spokane, Wash. recently adopted the switch, and Cincinnati was poised to become the first city in Ohio to make Columbus Day history. That is, until a majority of Council literally abstained from doing so.
Speculating about the motivation of these abstentions is tempting, but ultimately irrelevant. It is more important to explicitly frame the consequences of keeping Columbus Day and other parallel historic lies intact.
Columbus’ personal journal alone disqualifies him from being celebrated as a collectively heroic figure. On Oct. 2, 1492 he wrote: “They (Native Americans) should be good and intelligent servants, for I see that they say very quickly everything that is said to them; and I believe that they would become Christians very easily, for it seemed to me that they had no religion.”
While this may seem non-controversial to many, these sentiments set the tone for the promotion of the so-called Doctrine of Discovery, according to the Gilder Lehman Institute of American History, the basis of all European claims in the Americas as well as the foundation for the United States’ western expansion.
Modern indifference and opposition to demystifying the lies propped up by Columbus Day aids and abets the genocide and mass displacement of indigenous peoples. The promotion of this sham also affirms the institution of chattel enslavement and the rape and torture of other people of color.
This is a seemingly abstract, national kind of history. But it has deep local implications. A journey through Cincinnati’s Northside neighborhood provides an inconspicuous connection to the perils of Columbus’ terroristic legacy.
There, located in back streets of the industrial side of the neighborhood, you will find Mad Anthony Street. General “Mad Anthony” Wayne was instrumental in what has been historically described as “Indian Removal.”
The Ohio Historical Society’s “Historic American Indian Tribes of Ohio” details Wayne’s campaign of 1792 through 1794 as a culmination of 40 years of fighting against Native Americans.
That fighting ended in August of 1795, when Wayne and his forces pushed native peoples to sign the Treaty of Greenville, in which Native Americans gave up about two-thirds of the present area of Ohio.
This legacy of removal and displacement likely explains Cincinnati’s 0.3 percent American Indian population, reported by the Census as of April 1, 2010.
More than just lives and land were lost in the pursuit of manifest destiny. Languages, artifacts and customs are hidden in the rubble of America’s devastating history.
Another reminder of local removal can be found by a quick walk into Cincinnati’s West End where Mound Street runs. The street takes its name from an earthen mound built by the Adena people there some 2,000 years ago.
Similar mounds once dotted the basin that would become downtown Cincinnati but were destroyed as the city grew. The mound in the West End was unceremoniously demolished in 1841, though a tablet found buried there remains in the Cincinnati Museum Center’s collection. Other items found there, including human remains, are lost to history.
After settlers forced out native peoples themselves, they quickly went to work removing their memory as well.
Adopting Indigenous Peoples’ Day does not restore that which was inhumanely wrestled from the first peoples. It is public recognition that in our insurmountable debt to indigenous peoples, we at the very least owe them this.
Cincinnati City Council made it a priority to celebrate sports on Oct. 5, 2016, but a majority did not extend the same celebration to the lives and cultures of millions of indigenous people who lived here before we did and whose lands were taken by force from them. Those priorities — and the silence that resounded in Council chambers that day in lieu of an explanation for withholding such a gesture — are shameful.
Luckily, redemption is still a possibility. Whether this city is courageous enough to seize it is yet to be determined.
CHRISTINA D. BROWN serves on the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission and organizes for various social justice causes and racial equity. Contact Christina: letters@citybeat.com.
This article appears in Oct 12-19, 2016.