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The statue of Christopher Columbus and Elizabeth the Catholic will also fall in Sacramento as part of the historical revisionism that reigns in the United States. After 137 years dominating the Capitol roundabout in Sacramento, legislators from the country's most populous state, with a Democratic majority, have decided to withdraw the monument as it is considered offensive to the indigenous population.

The announcement comes amid the social outcry against racism for the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta a few days later. To the wave of protests has now been added the rejection of symbols about the conquest of America and the colonizers that until now were a source of pride in various parts of the country. On Monday, a person was injured in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when a group of protesters tried to tear down the statue of Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate.

"Christopher Columbus is a deeply polarizing historical figure given the deadly impact his arrival in this hemisphere had on indigenous populations," Democrats said in a statement. "The continued presence of this statue on the California Capitol, where it has been since 1883, is completely misplaced today. It will be removed."

This is not the first statue of Columbus to succumb to the trend. In November 2018, Los Angeles gave the green light for the removal of the Columbus monument from Grand Park, near the town hall of the main Californian city. "The statue of Christopher Columbus rewrites a stained chapter in history that charges with false romanticism the expansion of European empires and the exploitation of natural resources and human beings," said then Hilda Solís, the former congresswoman of Mexican and Nicaraguan origin . Solís called the initiative a "restorative act of justice that honors and embraces the resilient spirit of our county's original inhabitants."

Councilman Mitch O'Farrell, a member of the Oklahoma Wyandotte tribe, was the precursor to the measure to cancel Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day . In September 2017, the Los Angeles municipal council decided, by 14 votes in favor and one against, that the second Monday of October was dedicated to the indigenous people who lost their lives before the arrival of the Spanish hosts in different parts of America .

The Republican side in California has been against the decision . "I suppose now, if we don't like a part of our history, we just delete it," said Roger Niello, a former conservative assemblyman.

The clamor against the statue is not new. Since the 1970s, indigenous groups have lobbied to end it , but it has continued there, even part of a tradition of lawmakers throwing coins to try to fit them into Queen Elizabeth's crown at the end of the session. The monument is the work of Larkin Goldsmith Meade and was a gift from a banker, Darius Ogden Mills, who dedicated it to his brother.

It has not yet been established when the monument will be removed. There is a document from the Mills family demanding the return of the artwork if it is no longer displayed at the Capitol rotunda.

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