Honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day: Reflecting on Ohio’s Native History

From Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Each year on the second Monday of October, Americans have traditionally celebrated Columbus Day, honoring the 15th-century explorer. In recent years, however, a growing movement has sought to refocus this day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a time to honor the Native peoples who lived on this land long before Columbus’s arrival.

This shift in perspective is especially meaningful in Ohio, where our capital city still bears the name of Christopher Columbus, a figure whose legacy is increasingly viewed as problematic. Instead of celebrating a man linked to colonial violence, many Ohioans are choosing to celebrate the resilience and heritage of Indigenous peoples.

Even Columbus City Council recognized this need for change in 2020, officially renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Council President Shannon Hardin said:

“It’s impossible to think about a more just future without recognizing these original sins of our past.” 

By acknowledging that painful history, the city chose to honor Native American culture and contributions on this day instead.

How Columbus Day Started, and it's Contested Legacy

Columbus Day became a U.S. federal holiday in 1934, originally meant to celebrate Italian-American heritage. Yet the choice of Columbus as an icon is now widely questioned. Historians have documented that Columbus and his men committed acts of enslavement and violence against the Indigenous peoples they encountered.

For Native Americans, Columbus’s arrival marked the beginning of centuries of loss. Before European contact, an estimated five to fifteen million Native Americans lived across North America; by the late 1800s, only about 238,000 remained; a catastrophic decline due to war, disease, and forced displacement. It’s no wonder that many now see celebrating

Columbus without context as an erasure of that trauma.

Replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day doesn’t erase history, it corrects it. It’s an acknowledgment that the Americas were already home to diverse, thriving civilizations long before 1492.

Indigenous Names Across the Ohio Landscape

One doesn’t have to look far to see that Ohio’s identity is deeply rooted in Indigenous heritage. Even the name Ohio comes from the Seneca word Ohiːyo’, meaning “good river” or “great river,” a reference to the Ohio River (William Bright, Native American Placenames of the United States 2004. p.344).

Across the state, countless towns, rivers, and counties preserve Indigenous words and meanings:

• Scioto — from a Wyandot word meaning “deer.”

• Cuyahoga — from a Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) term meaning “crooked river.”

• Muskingum — from a Delaware (Lenape) term meaning “by the river side.”

• Chillicothe — from the Shawnee word Chala·ka·tha, meaning “principal town.”

  
  

These are just a few examples... there are many more, from Ashtabula (Algonquian for “fish river”) to Ottawa (for the Ottawa tribe). Each Indigenous place name is an everyday reminder of those who came before us. They highlight the fact that Ohio was not an empty frontier, but a homeland shaped by generations of Native peoples. Even our recreational areas reflect this legacy – for instance, Shawnee State Park in our own county is named in honor of the Shawnee tribe, as the park’s forested hills were once the hunting grounds for the Shawnee.

Scioto County: Our Native Peoples

Our county is particularly rich in Native American history. Thousands of years ago, this area was a center of the remarkable Adena and Hopewell cultures, who built enormous ceremonial earthworks along the rivers. In fact, Scioto County is home to what was once the largest prehistoric earthen mound complex in the entire world: the Portsmouth Earthworks.

This gigantic complex, constructed about 2,000 years ago, spanned over 25 square miles around the confluence of the Scioto and Ohio Rivers. It included miles of raised embankments, huge circular enclosures, and two enormous horseshoe-shaped mounds at what is now Mound Park in Portsmouth.

Archaeologists believe these earthworks served as ceremonial and astronomical sites – a kind of grand cathedral for the Hopewell people, aligned with solar and lunar events. The Portsmouth Earthworks was the largest of all Hopewell ceremonial centers ever built, showcasing the ingenuity and sophisticated culture of Ohio’s Indigenous inhabitants long before European contact.

Today, only traces of this ancient complex remain – a few mounds preserved at Mound Park and nearby sites – but its significance is recognized by historians. In 2023, a group of Ohio’s American Indian earthwork sites (in Ross, Licking, and Warren counties) were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, underscoring the global importance of these Indigenous achievements. While the Portsmouth Earthworks did not survive intact enough to be part of that World Heritage listing, Scioto County locals take pride in this heritage. Mound Park, for example, is maintained as a city park named for the prehistoric mounds it contains, and recent archaeological digs there continue to uncover artifacts of the Hopewell era. This ancient legacy literally lies under our feet in Scioto County, inviting us to learn about and honor the first Ohioans.

By the 1700s, Shawnee people had moved into southern Ohio and established a village and trading post known as Lower Shawnee Town near present-day Portsmouth. This town, strategically located by the Ohio River, became an important hub of commerce between Indigenous nations and European traders. The Shawnee, along with other tribes such as the Delaware (Lenape), Miami, and Wyandot, lived in various parts of Ohio during the eighteenth century. They farmed, hunted, traded, and fought to defend their homelands. One famed Shawnee leader, Tecumseh, even attempted to unite the tribes of the region in resistance to American expansion around 1805 - a significant chapter of Ohio history rooted in Indigenous leadership.

However, as American settlers poured into Ohio after the Revolutionary War, the situation for Ohio’s Native peoples became dire. The United States government pursued policies of removal and forced cession of lands. After the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, most tribes were pressured to leave southern and eastern Ohio. By the early 1800s, virtually all Indigenous communities had been forced out of Ohio, either through warfare, broken treaties, or relocation. The Shawnee of our county, for example, were compelled to leave Lower Shawnee Town and move westward around the time of the War of 1812. The Wyandot were the last tribe to maintain a reservation in Ohio, and they were finally removed to Oklahoma in 1842. As a result of these policies, no federally recognized tribes remain in Ohio today, a stark fact that highlights how complete the removals were.

Yet, despite this painful history, the legacy of Indigenous peoples in Scioto County and Ohio endures. It survives in the names of our rivers and towns, in the ancient mounds that still rise from our soil, and in the efforts of Ohioans to preserve and teach this history. Local museums and historical societies in southern Ohio tell the story of the Shawnee and the mound builders. The very existence of places like Shawnee State Park, named to honor the Shawnee tribe, serves as a tribute to the region’s first inhabitants. Every time we discuss the Scioto River or visit Chillicothe, we unknowingly speak the words of Native languages, keeping a connection (however tenuous) to those original cultures.

Embracing a New Mindset

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day is more than renaming a holiday, it’s an act of reflection and respect. It’s about teaching the true history of the land we live on and acknowledging that vibrant Native civilizations existed here long before the United States.

This Monday, we can celebrate by learning about the Hopewell earthworks, visiting places like Serpent Mound or Mound Park, and supporting Native-led organizations. Most importantly, we can talk openly about why it matters to move beyond outdated myths of “discovery.”

Columbus Day honored one explorer; Indigenous Peoples’ Day honors entire nations. It reminds us that our state’s story began long before Columbus set sail, and that understanding this truth brings us closer to justice, empathy, and a shared sense of belonging.

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Ohio. Let’s honor the first Ohioans, and the living cultures that continue to shape our state today.