2023-09-01 07:00:00
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Police in New Mexico’s capital city on Friday investigated the partial destruction of a public monument to a 19th-century frontiersman and American soldier who played a leading role in the deaths of hundreds of Native Americans during Anglo-American Settlement of the American West.
The monument to Christopher “Kit” Carson has been surrounded by a plywood barrier for its own protection since 2020, when Santa Fe was swept by the movement to remove depictions of historical figures who mistreated Native Americans. amid a national reckoning over racial injustice.
The monument’s top spire was toppled on Thursday night. Photos showed an abandoned van and cable that may have been used to cause the damage. Last year, the monument was splashed with red paint by activists on Indigenous Peoples Day.
Carson carried out military orders to force the surrender of the Navajo people by destroying crops, livestock and homes. Many Navajos died during a forced relocation known as the Long Walkbeginning in 1863, and during a years-long internment in eastern New Mexico.
The signing of the Navajo Treaty of 1868 marked an end to the chapter, allowing the Navajo to return to an area that has since become the United States’ largest Native American reservation by land area and population.
Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber issued a statement describing the latest damage to the monument as a “cowardly act.”
“I want those who did this caught and held accountable,” the Democratic mayor said. “There is no place for this type of criminal behavior in our community. We must all condemn it.”
The U.S. attorney’s office asserted federal jurisdiction over the monument, located outside a U.S. courthouse in downtown Santa Fe. The US Marshals Service, which protects federal courts, could not immediately be reached Friday.
Webber has attempted to diffuse conflicts over various historical markers associated with Spanish colonialism and Anglo-American settlers, with mixed results.
In 2020, activists toppled a monument in Santa Fe’s central square to American soldiers who fought not only for the Union in the Civil War, but also in armed campaigns against Native Americans described as “brutal” in inscribed letters that chiseled out of the landmark decades. ago.
In March, the City Council abandoned a proposal to rebuild the plaza monument with new plaques amid a whirlwind of concerns.
Last year, New Mexico’s governor declare pre-state orders null and void which targeted Native Americans and said that revoking the territorial-era proclamations would help heal old wounds.
Carson’s life as a fur trapper, scout and courier was chronicled in dime novels and newspaper articles that made him a legend in his own time. He was buried in Taos after his death in 1868.
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