Bill Text: HI SCR55 | 2011 | Regular Session | Introduced

Hawaii Senate Concurrent Resolution 55 (Prior Session Legislation)

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

Bill Title: Renaming Discoverer's Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2011-04-27 - (H) Recommitted to HAW/CUA with none voting no and Representative(s) Cabanilla, Carroll, M. Oshiro excused. [SCR55 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2011-SCR55-Introduced.html

THE SENATE	S.C.R. NO.	55
TWENTY-SIXTH LEGISLATURE, 2011
STATE OF HAWAII

SENATE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

requesting the governor to support legislation that redesignates discoverers' day in hawaii to indigenous peoples' day.

WHEREAS, the basic concept of discovery established Christian dominion over non-Christian nations and peoples and allowed for the colonization and seizure of their lands; and

WHEREAS, on January 8, 1455, the papal bull Romanus Pontifex was issued by Pope Nicolas V to King Alfonso V of Portugal, establishing Christian dominion throughout Africa, based upon the concept of discovery; and

WHEREAS, on October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus did not discover America because it had been previously inhabited by indigenous people for thousands of years and because after four voyages to the Caribbean, Columbus believed until his death in 1506 that he had landed in Asia; and

WHEREAS, in his famous letter to the Spanish Crown in 1493, Christopher Columbus was the first to suggest the enslavement of the native inhabitants that he had encountered; and

WHEREAS, on May 4, 1493, the papal bull Inter Caetera was issued by Pope Alexander VI to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain establishing Christian dominion in the Americas and everywhere one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, based upon the concept of discovery; and

WHEREAS, as the governor of Espanola, known today as Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Christopher Columbus in the 1490s imposed an institutional system of forced labor that killed many of the area's native inhabitants; and

WHEREAS, on January 19, 1778, British captain James Cook did not discover the Hawaiian Islands, or Ka Paeaina, because the islands had been inhabited by the native Hawaiian people, or Kanaka Maoli, for hundreds of years prior to Cook's arrival; and

WHEREAS, as a result of the crusading concept of discovery and European colonization of native lands, indigenous people perished worldwide; and

WHEREAS, the use of the name Discoverers' Day to recognize the first arrival of non-Polynesians to Hawaii is problematic because of the inhumane nature of the concept of discovery; and

WHEREAS, in the July 1990 Declaration of Quito, Ecuador, in which representatives from one hundred twenty Indian nations met at a continental gathering to mark five hundred years of Indian resistance, indigenous people mobilized and declared their opposition to the 1992 quincentennial celebration of the European arrival in the Americas and reaffirmed their continental unity and struggle toward their liberation; and

WHEREAS, in 1992, the city of Berkeley, California abolished Columbus Day, renaming it Indigenous Peoples' Day to protest the European colonization of North America and call attention to the plight of Native American people; and

WHEREAS, since 1992, an increasing number of American states, cities, local governments, and institutions have renamed or abolished Columbus Day; and

WHEREAS, the recognition of Discoverers' Day in Hawaii is synonymous with Columbus Day because of the inhumane nature of the concept of discovery; and

WHEREAS, Indigenous Peoples' Day and Native American Day are two of the most prominent names now used to recognize the day; and

WHEREAS, beginning on October 12, 1997, indigenous peoples and supporters have gathered annually in Hawaii to call public attention to this issue; and

WHEREAS, beginning in October 2002, indigenous peoples and supporters have been calling Discoverers' Day in Hawaii, Indigenous Peoples' Day in solidarity with indigenous people worldwide, to celebrate indigenous survival, pride, and culture, and to call public attention to this issue; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-sixth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2011, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Governor is respectfully requested to support legislation that redesignates the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples' Day, in recognition of the countless numbers of indigenous people worldwide who perished as a result of the indigenous-European clash of civilizations and of those indigenous people who have endured and survived over the past five hundred years and who wish to celebrate their continuity and breath of life, educate the general public about this issue, and create a more peaceful world; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.