There is a tall monument commemorating Christopher Columbus in the Greenmount Cemetery overlooking Durango. The inscription reads “to the great discoverer.” What has Columbus ever done for the people of Durango or the Native tribes that formerly occupied this location?
He did not discover America. His arrival to the Caribbean and North America began an abomination of massacres, torture, rape, disease and forceful relocation of Native Americans. With his arrival began the centuries long trans-Atlantic enslavement and trade of Black people into this country. His atrocities are easy to discover and include the amputation of the hands of Native American people for not collecting enough gold.
Columbus and his men “thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades,” according to Bartolomé de las Casas, as recounted by Howard Zinn in his “A People’s History of The United States.” “Two of these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys.”
Why do we honor this man in our town? If this is part of your heritage, why commemorate such a person?
As we start this brave conversation in our town, amid the national debate surrounding the presence of white supremacism in our statues and monuments, will Durango step up and make the necessary changes by removing this statue?
Irene CooperDurango
