Politics based on grievance has a long and violent history in America

Recently, President Donald Trump declared^[1] that he is “bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes.” He hopes to make up for the removal of commemorative statues^[2] important to “the Italians that love him so much.”

But Columbus Day had not been scrapped or reduced to ashes. Although President Joe Biden issued a proclamation for Indigenous Peoples Day^[3] in October 2024, on the same day he also declared a holiday in honor of Christopher Columbus^[4].

Nonetheless, Trump posted in April 2025^[5], “Christopher is going to make a major comeback.” By using Columbus’ name, which means “Christ-bearer,” a president who covets the praise of faith leaders^[6] yoked the explorer to his campaign promise^[7]: “For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

By reasserting the importance of Columbus, the president took a stand against the toppling^[8] and vandalism of statues of Columbus^[9]. In this case, his act of retribution for his supporters focused on the holiday, which he could declare more easily than returning icons of a fallen man to empty pedestals.

Trump’s statement invoked the politics of grievance^[10] – a sense of resentment or injustice fueled by perceived discrimination – that have characterized his actions for years^[11].

The list of targets for his retribution, which have included Harvard University^[12], elite law firms^[13] and former allies he believes have betrayed him^[14], now exceeds 100, according to an NPR review^[15].

As a historian of early America^[16], I am familiar with how grievance marked the colonial era. Throughout this period, grievance fueled rage and violence.

European grievance in America

Europeans who arrived in the Americas following Columbus’ 1492 journey claimed the territories in the Western Hemisphere through an obsolete legal theory^[17] known as the “doctrine of discovery^[18].”

Spanish, English, French, Dutch and Portuguese rulers, according to this notion, owned portions of the Americas, regardless of the claims of Indigenous peoples. This presumption of ownership justified, in their minds, the use of violence against those who resisted them.

In 1598, for example, Spanish soldiers patrolling the pueblo of Acoma^[19] in New Mexico demanded food from local residents, whom the colonizers saw as their subordinates. The town’s inhabitants, believing the request excessive, fought instead, killing 11 Spaniards^[20].

In response, the governor of New Mexico, a territory almost entirely populated by Indigenous peoples, ordered the systematic amputations of the hands or feet of residents whom the soldiers thought had participated in the attack. They also enslaved hundreds in the town. Roughly 1,500 residents of Acoma died^[21] in the conflict, according to the National Park Service, a response seemingly driven more by grievance than strategy.

English colonizers proved just as quick to deploy extraordinary violence if they believed Native Americans deprived them of what they thought was theirs.

In March 1622, soldiers from the Powhatan Confederation^[22] – composed of Algonquian tribes from present-day Virginia^[23] – launched a surprise attack to protest encroachments on their lands, killing 347 colonists^[24].

The English labeled the event a “barbarous massacre^[25],” using language that dehumanized the Powhatans and cast them as villainous raiders. An English pamphleteer named Edward Waterhouse castigated these Indigenous people^[26] as “wyld naked Natives,” “Pagan Infidels” and “perfidious and inhumane.”