What has become of the statues of Christopher Columbus in Latin America?

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They vandalize statues of Columbus 1:14

(CNN Spanish) -  The controversy over the figure of Christopher Columbus is rekindled with the protests after the death of George Floyd. What has happened to the monuments of the so-called "discoverer" of America? Accusations, destruction, movements and replacements in Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela and Bolivia show that the admiral's trajectory has also been turbulent in the southern United States.

In October 2019, plans to increase the price of the metro ticket in Santiago de Chile sparked protests - several of them violent - that showed the entire world the discontent of a society that rejected the increase in the cost of living, low income and inequality.

By early November, approximately 60 statues had been damaged, according to the Chilean Council of National Monuments. Among the targets of the protesters were several figures linked to the colonization process, including Christopher Columbus. The statue of the navigator located in the Plaza Cristóbal Colón de Arica, which according to the Council had been inaugurated in 1910 for the centennial of independence, was destroyed. The mayor of the city, Gerardo Espíndola, showed how it turned out on his Twitter account.

Today the sculpture of Christopher Columbus #Arica was destroyed. Given the characteristics of the monument, the National Monuments Council will be in charge of the investigation. pic.twitter.com/Iyz07lzJSz

- Gerardo Espíndola (@Gerardo_Arica) November 2, 2019

Against Columbus and Cortés

A Mexican deputy last year asked to remove the statues of Christopher Columbus and Hernán Cortés from Mexico City, and also to change the names of the streets that honor them. "Christopher Columbus committed atrocities such as mutilation to indigenous people who did not think the same as him. It also ordered brutal murders of the natives who dared to reveal themselves against their abuses, whom they even ordered to dismember and display before the people to keep them intimidated, "said Teresa Ramos, coordinator of the Green Party.

This request came weeks after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked the King of Spain to apologize for the "grievances" during the "so-called conquest." At that time, this was the refusal of the Government of Spain: "The arrival, 500 years ago, of the Spanish in the current Mexican lands cannot be judged in light of contemporary considerations."

• READ: López Obrador asks the King of Spain to apologize for "grievances" during the "so-called conquest"; the Spanish government rejects it

The initiative of the Green Party did not prosper and those who visit the popular Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City will still be able to see the Columbus monument that shows it with an arm extended towards the horizon. 

In Bolivia, a year earlier, the protesters did not reach the point of Chile, but they got closer. In November 2018, the statue of Columbus located on the popular Paseo del Prado in La Paz woke up vandalized with posters of "Columbus genocidal" asking for her removal, reported the EFE agency, which interviewed one of the restorers. Chance? The incident occurred after the Columbus statue was removed in downtown Los Angeles, California. At that time, the Government assured that it did so as an act of restorative justice for the original inhabitants.

Then-President Evo Morales celebrated the decision. "We agree with him (Los Angeles councilor) that the so-called Discovery was a genocide and looting of natural resources," he said on his Twitter account.

The controversy with Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

For almost a century, the "discoverer" of America had a privileged place in Buenos Aires, behind the Casa Rosada, headquarters of the Presidency. However, in 2013 the Government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner decided to remove it from that site, according to EFE, and argued the need for maintenance. The case generated a great controversy in which even Justice was involved.

Who took your place? Juana Azurduy, a figure linked to the fight for independence who on the page of the Ministry of Culture of Argentina is described as “the woman who left everything for the independence revolution, losing her family and fighting against the Spanish empire in recent years of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata ”. The sculpture of this "popular heroine" was donated at the time by Evo Morales.

After a long process, the sculpture of Colón was relocated in 2017 in front of the Río de la Plata near one of the city's airports and, according to  La Nación , it can no longer be removed after the Government declared it a National Historic Monument. .

Caracas, without traces of the "discoverer"

In Venezuela this dispute occurred many years earlier. In 2004, supporters of the late President Hugo Chávez made a "symbolic trial" of the statue of Columbus in the Plaza Venezuela in Caracas and the sentence was to demolish it, reported the BBC, which interviewed one of the organizers. This happened two years after Chávez changed the name of “Día de la Raza” to “Día de la Resistencia Indígena”. Years later, in 2009, Chávez ordered the removal of the last remaining Columbus statue in the Venezuelan capital.

These were his words about the navigator who crossed the Atlantic in La Niña, La Pinta and La Santa María, according to information from  La Nación  and GDA: “Christopher Columbus was the leader of an invasion that produced not a massacre, but a genocide. Ninety million aborigines lived on this land, 200 years later three million remained. What was that? Genocide ”.

• READ: Why was Christopher Columbus not the hero we learned from at school?

Today, the figure of Columbus is back in controversy after the beheading of a statue that honored him in Boston and the vandalization of his figure in several cities during the protests after the death of George Floyd, which question racism and police brutality. in the United States and other parts of the world. In Latin America this debate started much earlier.

Christopher Columbus George Floyd Racism