“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”-Christopher Columbus. In every corner of the world the name “Columbus” has been talked about and in many of these places even memorialized for his great discoveries. In recent tears this image of Columbus has changed drastically because of all the havoc he caused everywhere he went, especially the idea of committing genocide against natives from the lands he would “discover”. This opens the global conversation on whether his monuments should stay up despite the atrocities he committed. This paper will focus on one of his monuments specifically, the Columbus monument in New York city. The monument will be analyzed to determine why it was built, what does the monument consist of, how the monument perceived when it was first built, how is the monument perceived in the present, and lastly if the monument should be taken down.
The monument is memorializing Christopher Columbus and the rough relationship the city of New York had with the Italian community in the 19th century. Christopher Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa which is now the Northwest part of Italy, and he was born to a very low socioeconomic class. His education was very limited even for his period, but he was able to attend the great school of Pavia where he learned some arithmetic, grammar, Latin, and most importantly astrology and navigation. Colombus was a devout Catholic and he was very strict when it came to the performance of all duties enjoined by the church and often attended mass at the Covent of All Saints at Lisbon.
Through the church Columbus met a woman of high class and ended up marrying her, his new father-in-law was a general for Prince Henry and he taught Columbus a great deal about map reading as well as excursion plans. From all the map readings and the stories of the time Columbus had determined that there was some land out there that had yet been discovered, and he had received a mission from God to go find that land and explore it, from here on out it was his whole life motive to which he devoted all of his time. Before setting out on his journey Columbus had to find the resources to do it, he tried proposing his idea to the court of Portugal and his own state of Genova but was rejected from both, Portugal rejected him out of jealousy and uncertainty and Genova didn’t have the resources to fund his expedition. In the brink of giving up Columbus begged the court of Spain to fund this expedition, Columbus found luck here as the king deemed him to be a good man and built him a crew with the most experienced astrologists and navigators in his kingdom to accompany him on his journey. In October of 1492 Columbus first set foot on what is now known as North America.
In celebration of Columbus 400th year of arrival in the Americas the Columbus monument was built in 1892 by Italian sculptor Gaetano Russo. This monument was primarily built as a symbol of Italian American pride as we turned into the 20th century because of all the discriminations Italians citizens were facing in the city of New York during this time, this monument was built to represent Italians in a very public place within the city of New York. Carlo Barsotti, who devoted his whole life to lobbying for many different monuments to Italian heroes in the city of New York was the one responsible for starting to raise funds for the Columbus monument. Interestingly enough Italian Americans not only donated money to get the monument built but also took matter into their own hands by doing the physical labor to prepare the location where the monument would be built.
Although this monument was built in New York, discrimination to Italians was happening all over the U.S. in the 20th century. Italian immigrants would usually take jobs that were known as “black jobs” because they were low waged and mostly only black people worked these jobs, because of Italians taking these jobs some southern states like Louisiana had Italians labeled as “black”. Due to being labeled as “black” Italians were at risk of the mobs that racially motivated attacked black people. In an interesting turn of events the holiday known as “Columbus Day” was an attempt to ratify Italian Americans as being “white”. The event that leads this to happen was the New Orleans lynching of 1892 that caused 11 Italian immigrants to lose their lives. This was not the only lynching incident, but Italian lynching happened at a time when black lynching was justified so Italian lynching was masked and justified under black lynching.
“Columbus Monument (New York City) – DSC05924“
by Daderot is marked with CC0 1.0.
In this image we get to see the broad image of the monument, the monument is 76 feet tall and shows Columbus in a pillar. This depiction sends a message of “exaltation” and “glorification” of Columbus and what his achievements mean to the Italian population. Columbus stance also shows “confidence” and almost as if he’s looking of into the future, this symbolizes the Italian optimism at the time to get through the hard times they were experiencing. Also since Columbus was catholic him being so high up can symbolize that he is looking over New York from “heaven”.
“Angel-Columbus-Monument-New-York-2014“
by Acediscovery is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
This angle of the monument depicts an angle with their hand over a globe of the earth, continuing with the catholic symbolism this symbolizes Columbus as keeping the globe safe. In Catholicism an angle is supposed to represent a strong protector and giving this type of symbolism to Columbus is a big deal because this means that the Italian see him as much more than the person that discovered North America, but rather more like a founding father. Again, having him being an angle also ties into the idea of Columbus watching over New York and the Italians there from heaven.
“Christopher Columbus discovers America“
by quinet is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
This angle shows the scripture within the monument, and it pays tribute to Columbus for discovering North America, but it also talks about the situations that Italians have had to endure. The scripture emphasizes that even though Columbus (Italians) gave the world a “home” Italians are still “chained” and “oppressed” by the world even up to the time when the monument was built.
by Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Columbus landing” by quinet is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
These two pictures show the two scenes depicted in the monument; both are about Columbus’ first arrival in the Caribbean. The one on top shows his three infamous ships arriving at the shore and the one at the bottom depicts Columbus and his crew once they step on land. The bottom picture is interesting because it follows the whole theme of “idolizing” Columbus by having him in the middle of the picture with an imposing stance and everybody is aligned towards him, there even seems to be a native on their knees holding on to his clothes.
When the monument was first built the people of New York were very optimistic about it, especially the Italian population and the catholic population. The monument itself was part of a quadricentennial celebration, and it was a form of showing unity, and progress for Italians and the rest of the civilization. It is quite evident that Italians see Columbus as a heroic figure and this monument is the biggest expression of those thoughts. This monument was a key turning point for the oppression that Italians were experiencing not just in New York but all over the U.S., this monument opened the door to liberty, equality, and fraternity. When it was first established a lot of figures were there at the inauguration to show support, some of these people included John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan. These two contributed a lot of money to make the inauguration a grand spectacle that was talked about throughout the whole U.S.
Today there is a wide range of thoughts about the monument and this is because of the change that Columbus has had in frequent times. Columbus went from being seen as a founding father for the world for “discovering” a huge part of the world but now he’s seen as someone who monopolized a huge part of the world. He is also blamed with committing genocide against the Tanios in order to take their resources in the Caribbean throughout his many trips. Due to these acts people believe that monuments previously built to him should be completely taken down because he caused a lot more harm than good throughout his expeditions. I don’t think the monument should be removed because of what it meant to the Italian people of the time that put their hard earn money and physical effort to getting the monument built, instead I think the monument can be edited. One edit I would make is removing the angel from the monument since this gives off the idea that Columbus is an “angel” which are typically with associated with being righteous, but he clearly has done a lot of wrong throughout history. A second edit I would make is removing the person kneeling at his side in the scene depicted in the monument, the person on their knees appears to be a native so this can make the issue even worse for the genocide views.
In conclusion, this paper has shown some background on how Columbus came to be who he was, the process behind making the memorial, how the views have changed over time, and lastly how the monument could be revised. Going back to the quote in the introduction, it is very evident that Columbus did a lot of bad things, and some people just refuse to let go of the “shore” Just because Columbus did some bad things that doesn’t mean that all of his monuments should be immediately taken down. This monument is a perfect example of a Columbus monument that is about him but not for him, this monument means so much more to the Italian population for all the reasons discussed throughout the paper yet it is a big target for one of the monuments that people think should be taken down. We must all embrace the “ocean” of facts and analyze all the facts before any monument gets removed, that goes for the New York memorial but also every other memorial around the world.
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