Christopher Columbus statue removed from California State Capitol
The California Capitol Rotunda’s 5-ton statue of Queen Isabella and Christopher Columbus was removed Tuesday morning, two weeks after Legislature leaders announced it would come down.
The statue, which was donated by D.O. Mills, a wealthy California banker, in the late 1800s, faced renewed calls for its removal amid protests over racial inequality. Native American leaders say the statue glorifies a man who never stepped foot in the state — and who is responsible for what they call centuries of genocide and colonization in North America.
The statue was transported to the California Statewide Museum Collections Center at McClellan Business Park, where it was unloaded around noon.
Geanie Hollingsworth, deputy director of facilities for the California Assembly, said the plans for the statue were to “clean her, store her and contact the heirs of the original owner.”
“It’s all in process,” she said of the efforts to locate the heirs of Darius Ogden Mills, who donated the statue in 1883.
The Christopher Columbus statue is the latest in a string of monuments across Sacramento to face removal. In early June, a statue of early California settler John Sutter was winched away from Sutter Medical Center. On Saturday, protesters tore down a statue of Junipero Serra — a pioneer of the Spanish mission system and saint — amid marches across the city.
Nathaniel Levine of The Sacramento Bee contributed to this report.
