In Ohio, JD Vance implied tribes were 'enemy,' and called Indigenous Peoples' Day 'fake'

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump may have upset many Native voters by choosing Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate.

Part of the animosity centers around a clash last year over a proposal to rename a national forest in Ohio. Another part of it relates to Vance mocking Indigenous Peoples' Day.

As for the first issue, the Wayne National Forest is named after Revolutionary War Maj. Gen. Anthony Wayne who battled and massacred Indigenous peoples in Ohio. Wayne also forced most of those that remained from their lands, opening the way for white colonizers.

When the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service proposed changing the name, citing requests from locals and Indigenous tribes, Vance stood against it.

He wrote, in part, “(Wayne) fought wars and won peace for our government, the government you now serve, and hewed Ohio out of rugged wilderness and occupied enemy territory.”

Many Indigenous peoples understood Vance was referring to them as the enemy.

"Be rugged; keep occupying and remember, you are not the enemy," said Marin Webster Denning, a community advocate and Oneida tribal member living in Milwaukee, about Trump's running mate. "There is an occupation, and there are enemies, but revisions of history like this erase us."

Jacob Abrams, an Oneida activist living in Milwaukee, said he supports Denning’s sentiments.

“Some people may view (Wayne) as a hero … but not for us,” he said.

Abrams likens Vance's resistance to changing the name of the forest to resistance to changing the names of monuments and other sites after Confederate generals in the South.

During the 2020 election season, both the Trump and Biden campaigns vied for Native votes.

Trump was the first president to officially recognize the epidemic of violence against Indigenous women and girls with the creation of Savanna’s Act and Not Invisible Act. The first was a bipartisan effort to improve the federal response to missing or murdered indigenous peoples by increasing coordination among federal, state, tribal, and local law enforcement agencies. The second was also focused on missing and murdered cases, but with an additional emphasis on human trafficking.

The Operation Lady Justice Task Force also was created under Trump to address the issue, but tribal advocates noted the office was staffed by only one person and that Trump’s three-page plan for addressing tribal issues did not include much in the way of specifics.

In contrast, advocates said Biden’s 15-page Tribal Nations Plan included goals that could be measured for accountability, while calling for the federal government to meet its obligations in treaties with tribal nations. The move paid off in swing states, such Wisconsin and Arizona, where there are relatively large tribal presences.

In Wisconsin in 2020, Biden won overwhelmingly in northern counties where there are reservations, such as Menominee County, home of the Menominee Reservation, and Bayfield County, home of the Red Cliff Ojibwe Reservation.

One way Biden rewarded Native voters was in appointing Deb Haaland to lead the Department of the Interior, the first Native American to do so.

One of the actions from her office that has directly affected Wisconsin was the changing of 28 place names that had been deemed offensive to Indigenous people.

The places in Wisconsin, mostly waterways, such as lakes and streams, had used the term “sq*aw” in their names, which has been historically been a slur for Indigenous women. It was part of an ongoing trend to replace names offensive to Indigenous communities around the country, from parks to even sports teams.

“It’s kind of like the (Native American race-based) school mascots ,” said former Menominee Nation Chairman Ron Corn, Sr. “They’re designed to make Natives feel ‘less than’ and the dominant society superior.”

Vance called Indigenous Peoples Day a fake holiday

Vance also made comments on social media disparaging the celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day and the use of the word “Two-Spirit” to describe gay or non-binary Indigenous people.

He posted on Twitter in October 2021 “Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a fake holiday created to sow division. Of course Joe Biden is the first president to pay it any attention,” as reported by ICT, an Indigenous non-profit news service, by reporter Mary Annette Pember, who is a member of the Red Cliff Ojibwe Tribal Nation in Wisconsin.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is replacing Columbus Day in many parts of the country, especially in tribal communities, to celebrate Indigenous peoples’ contributions to the world, including setting the record straight that Columbus did not discover America.

In September 2021, Vance posted on Twitter, “I’m sorry but what the hell is two-spirit? Would love if progressives just stopped inventing words,” according to ICT.

Two-spirit refers to the ancient acceptance and welcoming of gay or non-binary people within tribes. In many tribes, Two-Spirits were not considered either men or women, but were an alternative gender. Some tribes referred to them as "man-woman" or "woman-warrior".

The identity would describe a role a person had in tribal society. For example, some men might stay behind in the village to take care of the children and cook while the other men went hunting or on a war party. And some women might join the men on the excursions.

Everyone was accepted and everyone had their essential roles.

More: Feds look to find new name for Wayne National Forest without a 'history of violence'

Frank Vaisvilas is a former Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact him at fvaisvilas@gannett.com or 815-

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: In Ohio, JD Vance implied tribes were 'enemy,' and called Indigenous Peoples' Day 'fake'