Around 200 demonstrators amidst tens of thousands of tourists rallied on Boston Common on Oct. 11 to demand Massachusetts officially recognize the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples Day.
Jean-Luc Pierite speaking at Massachusetts State House, Oct. 11, 2025. (WW Photo: Maureen Skehan)
Saturday’s action was organized by an Indigenous-led coalition — United American Indians of New England (UAINE), The North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB), the Commission for Reparations, Italians for Indigenous Peoples Day, New Democracy Coalition and Cultural Survival. It continues a decades-long campaign to demolish the racist mythology that glorifies Christopher Columbus, a mercenary from Genoa, Italy, whose true legacy is defined by mass-murder, enslavement and rape.
Columbus: enslaver, mass murderer, thief
Sponsored by the absolutist Spanish monarchy and mercantile investors, Columbus began the genocidal colonization of the Caribbean in 1492. After he landed on “Hispaniola,” he and his men tortured, enslaved and massacred thousands of Indigenous people. These atrocities established a trans-Atlantic regime of enslavement and prepared the way for the genocidal settler colonization and capitalist extraction of resources that Indigenous peoples continue to resist worldwide.
Emphasizing the resilience of Indigenous peoples in the Americas, Rosalba Solis (Maya) opened the rally, declaring: “They have taken everything away from us, but they have not taken our continent. … From the North Pole to the South Pole, this is who we are.”
As speakers at Saturday’s rally stressed, the global genocide of Indigenous peoples that Columbus began continues to intensify — as the ongoing Zionist genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and Trump’s campaign of fascist terror in the U.S. have made clear.
Since taking office, Trump has reveled in overt anti-Indigenous rhetoric and action. Last month, Secretary of War Peter Hegseth, who personally committed war crimes as an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, refused to rescind Medals of Honor awarded to the 7th Cavalry soldiers who murdered hundreds of Lakota adults and children at the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota..
Shedding the mealy-mouthed pretense of the Biden Administration, which proclaimed both “Columbus and Indigenous Peoples Day” last year, Trump has openly embraced the Columbus death cult. In a proclamation issued October 9, Trump lauded Columbus as “the original American hero.” (npr.org, Oct. 11)
Land Back to defeat settler colonialism
“Our Indigenous peoples’ faces who you see amongst us today, that is what is being criminalized by this federal government,” said Jean-Luc Pierite (Tunica-Biloxi), President of the Board of Directors of NAICOB.
Vowing solidarity with the migrants whom ICE is terrorizing, Pierite said: “These are our people. These are our relations. … We are Indigenous to this continent, regardless of the borders that are set up by these settler governments that continue to extract and take and leave us nothing!”
As Pierite and other organizers stressed, Trump and his henchmen are merely flaunting the systemic, anti-Indigenous repression that Biden and other liberal politicians tried to cover up. The defeat of the genocidal, settler logic the Trump administration has taken to its logical end-point can come only through Land Back for Indigenous peoples worldwide.
As Samantha Jonas (Mashpee Wampanoag), an Indigenous youth organizer, declared: “We demand the abolition of settler systems, police that occupy our communities, borders that divide our homeland, pipelines that poison our life sources and settler curricula that erase our history. … We fight for the liberation of all Indigenous peoples — from Turtle Island to Palestine to Sudan, Kashmir and Congo — because Indigenous liberation does not stop at colonial borders.
Jonas stressed: “Indigenous Peoples Day means global Indigenous solidarity. It means recognizing that our struggles are connected, and our liberation must be collective.”
Gloria Colon (Mi’kmaq) and Janelle Pocowatchit (Comanche and Mi’kmaq) called attention to the thousands of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, whose cases have been ignored by settler media. Colon shared the story of Nannette Oleson, a murdered Indigenous woman and mother. Signs and posters displayed the names of Oleson and other Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
Indigenous students from Tufts University slam settler colonialism and demand “Free Palestine!” on Boston Common, Oct. 11, 2025. (WW Photo: Steve Kirschbaum)
Massachusetts Indigenous Legislative Agenda
On the steps of the Massachusetts State House, protesters rallied to demand that legislators pass the Massachusetts Indigenous Legislative Agenda. The Agenda includes bills to incorporate Indigenous perspectives in public school curricula; expand educational opportunities for Native youth; ban racist Native American mascots; protect sacred Indigenous artifacts and funerary objects; and redesign the Commonwealth’s racist flag and seal. (maindigenousagenda.org)
Years of intrepid Indigenous-led activism have forced concessions from the Commonwealth. Last year, the Massachusetts Senate appointed a Commission to approve a redesigned state flag and seal and announce the results this year. While the Commission deliberates, however, the anti-Indigenous symbols on the original state flag and seal remain in place. Massachusetts likewise still refuses to make Indigenous Peoples Day a statewide holiday.
Cops attack
As protesters began marching from the State House, Boston police handcuffed and detained Pierite in a brazen act of intimidation. Chanting “Let him go!” protesters surrounded the squad cars as they tried to speed away. After the standoff, the cops released Pierite, who returned to rally the demonstrators amid tumultuous applause and cheers.
As they resumed marching through the downtown streets, the protesters chanted: “City by city, town by town, we’re gonna bring Columbus Day down!” “Cops here, bombs there, U.S out of everywhere!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”
Demonstrators stopped in front of the Old State House to honor Crispus Attucks, a Black and Wampanoag sailor killed by British soldiers during the 1770 Boston Massacre. Marchers then proceeded to Faneuil Hall to demand the City of Boston change the building’s name.
‘Change the racist name!’
As tourists gawped, Rev. Kevin Peterson, representing the New Democracy Coalition and the Boston Reparations Commission, exposed the true legacy of Peter Faneuil, the hall’s namesake. A prominent Boston merchant, Faneuil acquired his fortune — and his reputation for “philanthropy” — by trafficking enslaved human beings. Peterson demanded reparations for generations of enslavement and racialized terror.
In defiance of racist reaction, Peterson urged belief in the power and possibility of liberation, saying: “As much as we’re protesting and as much as we’re angry and passionate — and we should be — we should also look towards hope, because there are still opportunities to win. … Keep hope alive!”
The march ended at Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park, where protesters toppled a statue of Columbus on June 10, 2020. Although the City of Boston never restored the statue, it allowed reactionary Italians to maintain the inscribed pedestal in his honor. Pierite demanded the immediate removal of this monument, which exemplifies the fascism resurgent today.
To close the action, Chal’Inaru Dones (Taíno) read a statement of solidarity from the United Confederation of Taíno People. “We are living in a time when intolerance, racism and xenophobia are being normalized at the highest levels,” the statement declared. “While this is disheartening, we cannot give up our resistance to these forms of oppression. …
“United we are stronger. I invite you all to keep supporting the rights of Indigenous peoples and speak out against all forms of oppression. We are the ones we have been waiting for!”