As I was walking along the Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City's iconic, monument-studded boulevard, I noticed that something was missing. The statue of Christopher Columbus which has stood along the Paseo since 1877 was gone.
I asked a nearby vendor what had happened to the statue. He said that it had been removed a few days before Columbus Day (known as "Día de la Raza" in the Spanish-world) of last year. Supposedly it was removed for cleaning and restoration.
Of course Christopher Columbus, a brave navigator with a lousy sense of geography, is hated by many for his despicable treatment of the native peoples he encountered on his voyages to the New World. In Mexico, which still has many indigenous tribes, and where the glories of pre-Hispanic civilizations are honored, Spanish conquerors (or even Italians sailing for the Spanish crown) are suspect. You will find nary a monument to Hernán Cortés, the conquistador who defeated the Aztec Empire... but just down the Paseo is a grand statue of Cuauhtémoc, the last of the Aztec emperors.
In 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus's first voyage, protestors defaced the monument and even tried to topple it until stopped by police. There were again plans to topple the statue last year on Columbus Day, but just a few days earlier it was unexpectedly removed. We will see whether or not Chris returns to his pedestal, but I would be willing to bet that he will not be returned this year. After all, 2021 is the 500th anniversary of the fall of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán... present day Mexico City.
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