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Insisting that the Genovese explorer’s activities in the Americas amount to a stain on history, LA Council member Mitch O’Farrell, a descendant of the Native American Wyandotte nation, secured the removal of his statue from the city center’s Grand Park on November 10 to cheers and celebratory drumming from the local indigenous community, many of whom had fought alongside O’Farrell during his campaign.
The statue, which was a gift from an Italian association based in southern California in 1973, was trucked off to be left in storage.The question, however, remains: was Christopher Columbus a product of his time or was he, as O’Farrell and the indigenous community maintain, the man who ushered in some of the worst massacres the world has ever known?
The explorer
Columbus undertook four voyages across the Atlantic under the patronage of Spain’s Catholic Monarchs between 1492 and 1502, seeking to establish a western route to the East Indies and profit from the spice trade. When he came ashore in the Bahamas, he believed he had reached his destination, which is why the indigenous population became known as Indians.
His discovery paved the way for centuries of colonization, and though colonization is, by its very nature, violent and repressive, a majority of historians consulted for this story do not believe Christopher Columbus should be accused of genocide.
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