Letter to the Mayor of Baltimore

I wrote the below letter to Catherine Pugh, Mayor of Baltimore, Maryland, and the Baltimore City Council.  The letter is in reference to the Columbus Obelisk that has been vandalized twice and now is in dispute over its long-term fate. 

August 19, 2018

To the Honorable Mayor of Baltimore, Catherine Pugh, Greetings:

   I am writing to you as an American Citizen, an historian, and a member of the National Christopher Columbus Association concerning the Columbus Obelisk on Harford Road.  It has come to my attention that the Italian American Civic Club made you aware of matters concerning the Obelisk, namely their request to restore the monument after it was vandalized August 21, 2017.  According to the Italian American Civic Club you, Mayor Pugh, and the Baltimore City Council, promised them in October 2017 to restore the Obelisk.  I request that you honor that promise. 

    The Columbus Obelisk is the oldest monument to Christopher Columbus in the United States and the World.  It was dedicated in 1792 in the presence of President George Washington.  In July of this year, the Obelisk was again vandalized.  Because of the continuing danger to this important historical relic, the Civic Club wishes the Obelisk to be moved to a more secure location where it can be protected from further desecration.

   Mayor Pugh, I share the sentiments and desires of the Italian American Civic Club regarding the Columbus Obelisk.  I also share their outrage at the suggestion from the Baltimore City Council to rededicate the monument to a figure other than Christopher Columbus.  If such a thing is done, it will violate the historic importance of the monument itself and also remove the value this monument holds in the Italian-American community.  In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Italian Americans adopted Columbus as a symbol of struggle against prejudice and a desire to be accepted a American citizens. At the time, the Ku Klux Klan was attempting to erase the legacy of Columbus because he was a Spanish/Italian Catholic and not a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. At the same time, many Italian immigrants were persecuted for the same reasons. After eleven Italians were lynched in New Orleans in 1891, many Italian-American communities erected monuments to Columbus in their memory. 

   I believe Christopher Columbus is not only for Italian-Americans.  Every American citizen who is a descendant of immigrants, from those who arrived at Jamestown to those who arrived yesterday, belong to the legacy of Columbus.  If George Washington is the father of the United States, then Christopher Columbus is its grandfather. We are all in the New World because of him.  Our nation’s capital, the District of Columbia, was named for Columbus, and the Pledge of Allegiance was written in his honor. 

  The people who vandalized the Columbus Obelisk and other such monuments did so because they believe Columbus to be guilty of crimes such as rape, slavery, and genocide.  I can assure you, Mayor Pugh, based on historical evidence all these allegations are false.  Columbus did not mistreat Native Americans,  he did not rape or engage in sex trafficking, did not own slaves, and did not attempt to exterminate native populations.  The few people Columbus did sell as slaves were prisoners of war he fought in a conflict of self-defense. According to Columbus’ own writings the slaves he did capture as prisoners of war he intended to later release. 

  Mayor Pugh,  I implore you to uphold the promise given to restore the Columbus Obelisk.  I also entreat you to not rededicate it to another subject.  This monument belongs to the heritage of all Americans.