A time capsule, which had rested for more than 130 years in the plinth of a statue of a Confederate general - since unbolted - was opened on Wednesday, revealing books, a cloth envelope and a coin.
The imposing equestrian statue erected in Richmond in 1890, the former secessionist capital of Virginia, represented General Robert Lee, leader of the Confederate Army during the Civil War (1861-1865).
Seen as a symbol of the country's slavery past by many Americans, the statue was debunked in September, in a context of questioning of Confederate monuments.
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Once the statue was dismantled, experts had begun the search in its base for a mysterious time capsule placed in 1887. After several days of unsuccessful search, the work had been abandoned. But the box was finally discovered last week, and taken to authorities in Richmond to be opened. Its cover was ceremoniously lifted by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam on Wednesday, after experts spent several hours unsealing it. The capsule, the size of a shoebox, was the object of all fantasies.
According to an article published in 1887, it must have contained relics from the Civil War, such as buttons or bullets, Confederate currency, a bible, or even a photo showing President Abraham Lincoln in his coffin, a photograph presented as a historic bomb, likely to panic the collectors market. The capsule opened on Wednesday contained three books, a cloth envelope with a photograph, and a coin of unknown origin, the only item to have escaped the water damage. One of the works was a guide for astronomers and navigators dating from 1875. But another seemed to have been published in 1889, two years after the supposed burial of the capsule, suggesting that another receptacle of this type could be under the plinth.
General Lee's statue in Richmond had become the target of anti-racist protests after the May 2020 death of George Floyd, an African-American suffocated below the knee of a white policeman in Minneapolis, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Another controversial equestrian statue of General Lee in Charlottesville sparked violence in the summer of 2017, with a white extremist going so far as to drive into a crowd of anti-racist protesters, killing a young woman. At the time, Republican President Donald Trump believed that debunking the statues of Southern officers was tantamount to
"tearing"
the history of the United States
to pieces
. During the Civil War, the Confederate South fought for the maintenance of slavery, abolished during the conflict in the rest of the country.
