After a two-day delay, the Colorado House on Wednesday approved a bill renaming Columbus Day, the second Monday in October, to one honoring St. Francis Xavier Cabrini, an Italian-born American who lived in Colorado 100 years ago.

House Bill 1031 passed on a 37-to-26 vote, garnering “yes” votes from all but two members of the Democratic caucus, Reps. Bri Buentello, D-Pueblo, and Tracy Kraft-Tharp, D-Arvada. The entire Republican caucus voted against. Two members of the House, one from each party, were absent.

“This has been a festering sore in this state” for at least 30 years, said Rep. Adrienne Benavidez, D-Denver, the bill’s co-sponsor.

The last moments for the bill drew heated rhetoric from both sides, but none more so than when Colorado’s own bloody past with Native Americans was brought up by lawmakers. 

Rep. Richard Holtorf, R-Akron, whose district includes the sites of the Sand Creek Massacre and Battle of Summit Springs, angered lawmakers. 

There are things that need to be said, Holtorf began. “Native American tribes in this country were not the idyllic peaceful people that sometimes we speak of. They were not harmonious group of tribes in North America … nothing could be farther from the truth. They were warring tribes, they were territorial. They were violent.” The Cheyenne and Pawnee, who dwelled in what is now his district, hated each other due to territorial conflicts, Holtorf continued.

“They would war, they were violent. they would even enslave and torture each other if captured. We talk about how horrible slavery was, and it is abhorrent and real and it’s a part of the history of this country. Make no mistake about it, they broke treaties. It was a war,” including the battle of Summit Springs, and “you fight a war to win.” 

The Battle of Summit Springs was waged in Logan and Washington counties, between the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers and the U.S. Cavalry and took place in July 1869, more than four years after Sand Creek. The Cheyenne were retaliating for massacres of Native Americans in Kansas and Oklahoma; the Army had been ordered to clear out Indians from the Republican River area and to rescue two white women. One of the women, Susanna Aldrice of Denmark, Kansas, whose four children were killed by the Dog Soldiers, died during the battle, along with 45 Cheyenne and Sioux men, women and children. 

As to Columbus Day, Holtorf said Italian-Americans are proud of Columbus and his history, and that it’s not fair to apply 21st century standards to a 15th century world. 

In response, Benavidez brought up Sand Creek, stating that old people, women and children were murdered by the Colorado cavalry. The soldiers then took body parts and made purses from them and carried heads back to Denver, she said. “Those wars were not fair, and Columbus who started this should no longer be honored. We have to stop venerating this man.”

Benavidez pointed out that local Italian-Americans came to her with the compromise to honor Mother Cabrini. The battle against ending Columbus Day in Colorado has largely come from national Italian-American groups, she later told Colorado Politics.

“Where do I start?” said a clearly angry HB 1031 co-sponsor Rep. Kyle Mullica, D-Thornton. Genocide is wrong, rape is wrong, he said. “We’re not here to celebrate a man who brings pain to those in our community.”

Mullica later told Colorado Politics that Holtorf’s remarks were inappropriate and that they implied that Native Americans “had it coming to them” because they weren’t always a peaceful people. “We can do better as a body,” he said.

HB 1031 now heads to the Senate, where Sens. Angela Williams and Chris Hansen, both Denver Democrats, will sponsor it.