Stories of Resistance: Indigenous Peoples' Day
In honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we look back at stories about Indigenous resistance and organizing across South America.
This is episode 71 of Stories of Resistance, providing fearless, uncompromising truth.
Once known as Columbus Day, it commemorates Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who supposedly “discovered” America.
America was there long before Columbus came. And so were millions of people up and down the continent.
Experts estimate 60–90 million people inhabited the Americas at the time, possibly exceeding Europe's population.
Disease and successive wars by invading Europeans decimated local Indigenous populations, wiping out roughly 90% of Indigenous peoples in the Western Hemisphere over the next century.
Despite this, Indigenous peoples have constantly resisted to this day.
Author's summary: Honoring Indigenous resistance on Indigenous Peoples' Day.