Columbus Day replaced with ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’ in Cambridge

Officials in Cambridge, Massachusetts, unanimously voted Tuesday to stop honoring Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World.

The second Monday in October will no longer be referred to as Columbus Day after the Cambridge City Council voted to rename it Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Officials are calling the Spanish explorer, originally from Genoa, a monster.

Critics of Columbus say his landing on Watling Island in the Bahamas on Oct. 12, 1492, should be scorned instead of celebrated. They say his efforts to reach India or China with his famous vessels — the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria — should only be remembered as the catalyst for a holocaust.

Vice Mayor Marc McGovern invoked his Italian heritage to criticize the explorer after the vote.

“In terms of my Italian perspective, I view [the change] as really making it a day I can actually be proud of, as opposed to a day that we get off of school for someone who committed, even by those standards, some of the worst atrocities and genocide in world history,” Mr. McGovern said, the Boston Globe reported Tuesday.

Councillor Nadeem Mazen echoed Mr. McGovern’s sentiment by calling Columbus a war criminal, a local ABC affiliate reported.

U.S. cities that have made similar changes include Seattle, Washington and Minneapolis.