Columbus Day & Indigenous Peoples' Day

Columbus Day is a federal holiday observed on the second Monday in October. It marks Christopher Columbus’s landfall in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492. On the same Monday, a growing number of states, cities and tribal nations observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and some places recognize both. Columbus Day 2027 falls on Monday, October 11.

The two names reflect two ways of reading the same date. For many Italian Americans, Columbus Day has long celebrated their heritage and their place in American life. For many Native Americans and their supporters, October 12, 1492, marks the start of colonization, and the day is better used to honor the peoples who were already here. This page covers the history of both.

What October 12, 1492, Marks

Columbus sailed on behalf of Spain in search of a western trade route to Asia. On October 12, 1492, his expedition reached an island the Lucayan people called Guanahani, which Columbus renamed San Salvador. The Lucayans were part of the broader Taíno culture of the Caribbean. Exactly which Bahamian island was Guanahani is still debated.

There is a calendar wrinkle here. Spain used the Julian calendar in 1492, ninety years before the Gregorian reform, so October 12 is a Julian date. In that century the Julian calendar ran nine days behind the Gregorian one, which places the landfall on October 21 by the calendar Americans use today. The history of the Gregorian calendar explains where those missing days came from.

Columbus Day History: From 1792 to the Monday Holiday

Early Celebrations and the 1892 Anniversary

The first recorded US celebration came on October 12, 1792, the 300th anniversary, when New York’s Society of St. Tammany, also called the Columbian Order, marked the date.

The first national observance came a century later. Congress passed a joint resolution on June 29, 1892, and on July 21, 1892, President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation naming Friday, October 21, 1892, a general holiday for the 400th anniversary. The proclamation does not explain the choice of October 21, but the date matches the Gregorian equivalent of the 1492 landfall. Harrison wrote that it was “peculiarly appropriate that the schools be made by the people the center of the day’s demonstration.”

The schools took him up on it. Francis Bellamy wrote the original Pledge of Allegiance for the school program of that celebration, and it was first published in The Youth’s Companion in September 1892. The 1892 holiday was meant as a one-time event.

State Laws and the 1934 Proclamation

Italian American communities pushed for an annual holiday in the decades that followed. In Colorado, an Italian immigrant named Angelo Noce campaigned for recognition, and Colorado became the first state to make Columbus Day a legal holiday. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization, lobbied other legislatures and Congress.

Congress approved Public Resolution 21 on April 30, 1934, asking the president to designate October 12 of each year as Columbus Day. Franklin D. Roosevelt did so in Proclamation 2101, dated September 30, 1934. The proclamation directed that the flag be displayed on government buildings and invited Americans to observe the day “with appropriate ceremonies in schools and churches, or other suitable places.” Pew Research Center dates the first federal observance of Columbus Day to 1937. It did not join the legal public holidays that give federal employees a day off until the 1968 law described below.

The 1968 Law and the Move to Monday

The Columbus Day most Americans know took shape in 1968. A law signed on June 28 of that year moved several holidays to Mondays to create three-day weekends and made Columbus Day a legal federal holiday on the second Monday in October, starting in 1971. From then on, the holiday stopped being tied to October 12.

How Indigenous Peoples’ Day Grew

Talk of an alternative to Columbus Day dates to the 1970s, but the movement gained speed as the 500th anniversary approached. After the First Continental Conference on 500 Years of Indian Resistance in Quito, Ecuador, in 1990, Native groups in Northern California carried the idea home. South Dakota began recognizing Native American Day on the same Monday in 1990.

In 1992, Berkeley, California, became the first US city to formally recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The city council approved a task force’s recommendation unanimously. That year’s federal Columbus Day fell on Monday, October 12, 1992, the 500th anniversary to the day.

Adoption spread slowly at first and then faster:

• 2014: Seattle’s city council voted to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day as an alternative to Columbus Day, following Minneapolis.
• 2019: Maine, Vermont, New Mexico and the District of Columbia replaced their paid Columbus Day holidays with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
• 2020: Colorado, the first state to adopt Columbus Day, replaced it with Frances Xavier Cabrini Day, a paid state holiday on the first Monday in October named for the Catholic saint known as the patron saint of immigrants.
• October 8, 2021: President Joe Biden issued the first presidential proclamation of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, for Monday, October 11, 2021. He issued a separate Columbus Day proclamation the same year.

Federal practice has shifted with each administration. In October 2025, President Donald Trump issued a Columbus Day proclamation for October 13, 2025, that did not mention Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The federal law itself has not changed: the legal holiday is still named Columbus Day.

How the Columbus Day Date Is Set

The rule is the second Monday in October, which always falls between October 8 and October 14. The holiday matches the October 12 anniversary only when October 12 is a Monday, as it was in 2015, 2020 and 2026. In 2027, the second Monday is October 11. Compare the 2026 calendar with the 2027 calendar to see the one-day shift.

Because Columbus Day is always a Monday, it never needs an observed date. The federal weekend rule, which moves a Saturday holiday to Friday and a Sunday holiday to Monday, only affects fixed-date holidays such as Veterans Day on November 11.

States do not all follow the federal pattern. According to Pew Research Center’s 2025 review:

• 30 states and three territories recognize Columbus Day in some form, but only 20 states and two territories give state workers a paid day off.
• Washington recognizes Columbus Day on October 12 rather than on the Monday, and Puerto Rico’s observance falls on November 19.
• Tennessee’s governor routinely moves the state’s Columbus Day observance to the Friday after Thanksgiving.
• Delaware dropped Columbus Day in 2009 and gave state workers a floating holiday instead.
• Oklahoma marks Oklahoma Native American Day on the second Monday in October, Alabama observes American Indian Heritage Day and Fraternal Day, and Virginia marks Yorktown Victory Day.

How Americans Observe the Day

What happens on the second Monday in October depends heavily on where you live and who you work for. Federal offices close and regular mail is not delivered. Most banks and bond markets close. Stock markets, most retailers and many private employers stay open.

Italian American organizations in a number of cities hold parades, Masses, dinners and heritage festivals, treating the day as a celebration of immigrant history. In places that observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day, tribes, schools and city governments hold gatherings, powwows, lectures and cultural events focused on Native history and present-day communities. Some cities host both kinds of events on the same weekend.

School schedules vary widely. Some districts close and many others hold classes, so families should check the local school calendar rather than the federal one.

Columbus Day Facts Worth Knowing

• Two dates for one anniversary. The 1892 national celebration was held on October 21, the Gregorian match for a Julian-calendar landfall date of October 12.
• The Pledge began as a Columbus Day exercise. Bellamy’s 1892 pledge was written for schoolchildren taking part in the 400th-anniversary program.
• A fixed date for 37 years. From the 1934 proclamation until the Monday rule took effect in 1971, the observance was tied to October 12, whatever the weekday.
• Colorado’s reversal. The first state to adopt Columbus Day became, in 2020, the first to replace it with a holiday honoring Frances Xavier Cabrini.

The federal holidays guide shows how Columbus Day fits with the other Monday holidays created by the 1968 law.