A Republican-backed bill to preserve Columbus Day and have New Hampshire celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day in August drew opposition at a public hearing this week, in a reprise of a fight last legislative session when Abenaki leaders spoke against the August date.

Rep. Jess Edwards, an Auburn Republican, who is a co-sponsor of HB 1173, favored the August date, which would correspond with the United Nations International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. He presented the August date as a compromise and a way of ending what he called the “intersectional wars.”