Protesters Pull Down Controversial Obelisk in Santa Fe
Protesters in Sante Fe, New Mexico, marked Indigenous Peoples’ Day by tearing down a monument in the city that Native Americans said glorified genocide.
This footage, posted to Instagram, shows the toppling of an obelisk on Santa Fe Plaza, months after the city had said it would be removed.
In a statement on YouTube, Mayor Alan Webber condemned the “wanton destruction” of the obelisk. “That’s not how we do things in Santa Fe,” he said. “There is no place in Santa Fe for this type of behavior. There is no place for people taking the law into their own hands. There is no place for people destroying historic monuments on their own.”
He said a “peaceful and respectful outcome” should have happened with the obelisk, and said that was what would be needed for other monuments in the city, in a “community-wide dialogue”.
The monument to the Civil War and the Indian Wars dates to 1868. An inscription on the base dedicated the obelisk to “the heroes who have fallen in the various battles with the savage Indians in the territory of New Mexico.” The word “savage” was chipped off in the 1970s by what local reports said was an unidentified person. Credit: Stephanie Korupp via Storyful
