Today, the second Monday in October is marked by Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day. But the big question many people have is: why do we celebrate two things on the same day?

 Going back to October 12, 1492, when Christopher Columbus saw the American land, he expected he had arrived in India, and so he didn’t think much about what he saw. He was traveling to discover new trade routes on behalf of the king and queen of Spain. When he arrived, he encountered some Indigenous people, but instead of feeling intimidated by them, he saw them as weak. This was because they did not have much structure in their empire, nor a religion to study. So Columbus and other Europeans began to take some indigenous people to Spain, portraying them as slaves. Then they killed them and took control of their land. The indigenous people did not have modern weapons, so they could not protect their society against the Spaniards, who had a lot of strength and resources for war. Because of this, the indigenous empires fell, and the Europeans took the land. 

 That’s how it happened, and today we remember that day from two perspectives, because some people think that Europeans conquered that land because the indigenous people did not have an organized system to form an empire, but others think that since the indigenous people were already living on the land, they had control of the space. In general, there is no 100% agreement on what really happened during that time, but the most important thing is that students today are educated about history and learn more about the history of the Americas