(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Caribbean Matters: Should the 'Birth of the New World' Columbus statue in Puerto Rico be removed? [1] [] Date: 2023-10-12 On Oct. 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus and his crew spotted land in the Caribbean and changed history—for better or for worse. For many years Columbus Day was celebrated on Oct. 12 here in the U.S. It was later shifted to Oct. 9. However, celebrating Columbus has become problematic for many Native people here in the U.S. As a result of the activism of Native Americans, many people now celebrate “Indigenous People’s Day” instead. In Puerto Rico, like many other parts of Latin America, “Día de La Raza” is celebrated. In the U.S. colony of Puerto Rico, there have been efforts to erase the historical footprint of Christopher Columbus given his and Ponce de Leon’s genocidal role in the island’s history, which decimated the island’s Taino population. RELATED STORY: Biden becomes first U.S. president to officially recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean. When addressing Columbus’ large footprint in Puerto Rico, nothing could be more symbolic than the enormous statue of him named “The Birth of the New World,” which was erected in Puerto Rico in 2016. x I've got a guest essay in the @nytimes opinion section today about something that's been on my mind: why are there HUGE monuments to Columbus in the Caribbean? Big thanks to editor @isvettverde. It was hard to write this week but I'm glad I did.https://t.co/ajZcEn63pO — Alana Casanova-Burgess (@AlanaLlama) October 8, 2023 Alana Casanova-Burgess, a freelance audio journalist, creator, and host of the podcast “La Brega,” wrote this opinion piece on the statue for The New York Times on Oct. 8: To find the tallest statue in the Western Hemisphere, take Puerto Rico Highway 22 west from San Juan. After about an hour, if you take an exit and a few turns, you’ll get to a narrow two-lane road that runs along the island’s northern coast. As you get closer, a very angular Christopher Columbus, one hand on a ship’s wheel and the other raised to the sky, comes into view. In this rural corner of Arecibo, there’s nothing to obscure the view. The whole 350-foot bronze monument, complete with three sails and a rendering of a map on a scroll, towers over everything around it, making palm trees look like toys. There’s no parking lot or visitors’ center. So in addition to being out of place, it’s devoid of context about the violence of Columbus’s time in the Caribbean. Puerto Rico, now a territory of the United States after centuries of Spanish rule, is one of the world’s oldest colonies. In “La Brega,” a podcast about Puerto Rico, I’ve talked about how Columbus is even featured prominently in Puerto Rico’s anthem. That doesn’t mean he’s always front of mind, but his legacy still shapes day to day life on the island. The statue: x YouTube Video Back in 2016, art critic, writer, and reporter Anthony Haden-Guest covered the history of the statue for The Guardian: Zurab Tsereteli’s The Birth of the New World is 45ft taller than the Statue of Liberty and was turned down by Columbus, New York, Boston and Miami On Tuesday in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Zurab Tsereteli’s huge sculpture of Christopher Columbus was inaugurated. At 350ft, Birth of a New World is not the tallest sculpture in existence. For example, Anish Kapoor’s Arcelor Mittal Orbit, in the London Olympic Park, is 25ft taller. But Tsereteli’s work is enormous, 45ft taller than the Statue of Liberty from pedestal to torch. The voyage to Puerto Rico of the work, entitled The Birth of the New World, has been long, arduous and controversial, not least because of its expense on an island gripped by a $72bn debt crisis. Making strategic donations has long been part of Tsereteli’s modus operandi, but though The Birth of the New World is a present it cost $12m to raise it in Puerto Rico, which was not its intended home. The statue was to have been a donation to the United States, to mark the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s landfall there in 1492. In 1993, Columbus, Ohio, turned it down. Other cities followed suit, including New York, Boston, Cleveland, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. Finally the statue was offered a home in Puerto Rico, where Columbus arrived in 1493. The first choice was Catano, across the bay from the capital, San Juan, but it was decided it would be a risk to aircraft. Arecibo, a northern town, was chosen. In 2020, Delilah Friedler wrote for Mother Jones about attitudes toward the statue from Indigenous activists on the island: It’s the tallest sculpture in North America, and locals say it’s “an embarrassment.” If all the sculptures in North America got together for a party, only one would stand taller than Lady Liberty’s torch: Christopher Columbus on a three-sailed ship, wrought in bronze. Clocking in at 6,500 tons with a height of 350 feet, the “Birth of the New World” has 45 feet on the Statue of Liberty, and like her, presides over a kind of port of entry: the shores of Puerto Rico, one of the first places Columbus and other Spaniards made landfall in their conquest of the so-called “New World.” It’s an unlikely place for the giant sculpture. Though 76 percent of the island’s residents identify as “white,” studies show that most Puerto Ricans have varying degrees of Taíno ancestry, meaning they are descended from the Native people Columbus and his men enslaved and killed. And on the eve of Indigenous People’s Day, in a year when monuments to colonizers have fallen left and right, some Puerto Ricans are renewing their call for this one to be dismantled. “The statue is really a tribute to genocide, colonialism, religious intolerance, racism, gender violence, and white supremacy,” says R. Múkaro Borrero, president of the United Confederation of Taíno People (UCTP). “There are mixed feelings among locals, but Taíno and other Indigenous peoples of Borikén [an Indigenous name for the island] would like to see it gone, as it is looked upon as an embarrassment.” Indigenous people? Protesting? What Indigenous people? RELATED STORY: Caribbean Matters: Sorry, Columbus. You didn't discover anything. The Caribbean was already occupied Like me, I assume if you were taught anything about Columbus and the Caribbean in grade school or high school, you learned that the Indigenous peoples were essentially wiped out. That isn’t true, though historians’ and archaeologists’ estimates of how many Indigenous people there were in the Caribbean in 1492 and how many survived the enslavement, slaughter, and death due to newly introduced diseases vary. the Smithsonian Museum established a “ Many believe that Christopher Columbus’ conquest of the Caribbean led to the extinction of the Native people known as the Taíno. However, despite the devastation of the early colonial era, the Taíno passed on their knowledge about their natural and cultural world to Europeans and Africans who arrived to the islands, and Native culture and people survive—and thrive—today. The Smithsonian’s Caribbean Indigenous Legacies Project (CILP), co-led by Ranald Woodaman, Exhibitions and Public Programs Director at the Smithsonian Latino Center, and José Barreiro, Assistant Director for Research at the National Museum of the American Indian, explores how Taíno culture continues to evolve and thrive, despite the first devastating encounter with European colonization. The Caribbean Indigenous Legacies Project tells this story of perseverance and helps provide a framework for understanding Native heritage in a multiethnic context. To address the issues of Indigenous cultural survivals,the Smithsonian Museum established a “ Caribbean Indigenous Legacies Project :” The growing community of Taino activists in Puerto Rico are making themselves heard. In July of 2020, Al Jazeera covered their anti-colonizer statues protests on the island: Statues, street names, plazas and even the body of conquistador Juan Ponce de Leon himself: Spain left a nearly indelible legacy in Puerto Rico that attracts hordes of tourists every year, but some activists are trying to erase it as they join a United States movement to eradicate symbols of oppression. Dozens of activists marched through the historic part of Puerto Rico’s capital on Saturday, some wearing traditional Taino clothing as they banged on drums and blew on conch shells to demand that the US territory’s government start removing statues, including those of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus. “These statues represent all that history of violence, of invasion, of looting, of theft, of murder,” said an activist who goes by the name of Pluma and who is a member of Puerto Rico’s Council for the Defense of Indigenous Rights. “These are crimes against humanity.” On Jan. 24, 2022, Bloomberg Quicktake posted this video of Puerto Rican protestors toppling a statue of explorer Ponce de Leon just hours before a visit from Spain’s King Felipe VI: x YouTube Video Bloomberg Quicktake explained: The statue was made of melted steel from British cannons and featured the Spanish explorer facing south with his left hand on his hip and right finger pointed toward the first settlement he founded. The ruins still mark the spot of the island's first Spanish capital and is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. The statue also points in the direction of the nearby San Juan Bautista Cathedral that holds Ponce de León's remains and is a popular tourist spot. Municipal workers struggled to remove the heavy statue hours after the incident."It is a heritage of the people of Puerto Rico, it is an emblematic statue placed here since the 19th Century, and it is important that it can be placed in the same place where it has been for the last few years," said Raúl García, director of the municipal decoration department.The incident occurred just hours before King Felipe VI was scheduled to meet with Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi and other officials to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the founding of the capital of Puero Rico, San Juan. Christopher Columbus landed in Puerto Rico in 1493 accompanied by Ponce de León, who became the island's first governor and quelled an uprising by the native Tainos, a subgroup of the Arawak Indians. Puerto Rico remained a Spanish colony until 1898, when Spain transferred the island to the United States at the end of the Spanish-American war. As part of his NBC television docuseries “Leguizamo Does America,” actor, comedian, and film producer John Leguizamo visited Puerto Rico and met with local Tainos at the Caguana Indigenous Ceremonial Site: x YouTube Video Puerto Rican independent journalist Bianca Graulau has also explored the island’s modern-day Indigenous groups, stating in her video note: “I spoke to the people who call themselves Indigenous Boricuas and the academics presenting evidence that the Natives of Puerto Rico did not go extinct in the 16th century.” x YouTube Video I hope that the people of Borikén will win their struggle to reclaim their indigenous as well as African heritage and win their battles to remove shrines to their colonizers and slave masters. Please join me in the comment section below for more, and for the weekly Caribbean news roundup. 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