Council Refers Columbus Statue Resolution to Committee

The New Britain City Council voted to refer to committee a resolution to move a statue of Christopher Columbus from a prominent city park.

Introduced by two Democratic Council members, Ald. Chris Anderson (D-AL) and Ald. Colin Osborn (D-2), the resolution calls for the removal of the statue of Columbus from its present location on city parkland at the corner of Main and North streets and replacing it with another symbol honoring Italian Americans in New Britain.

In the Council meeting on Thursday, November 12, 2020, Ald. Anderson said that he thought that the Council had enough information needed to approve the resolution immediately.

But, Republican Ald. Sharon Beloin-Saavedra (R-AL), while claiming to support moving the statue, made a motion to refer the resolution to the Council Committee on Administration, Finance and Law, saying that she wants the committee consider who is to remove the statue, at what costs and where it will go.

Expressing concern that some resolutions have died in committee, Anderson said that he was putting his faith in the Council’s Republican majority that the resolution would return for final approval. In October, in a Council committee, City Council Republicans voted down a proposal that would have created a strong community police review board in New Britain.

But, the motion to refer the Columbus resolution to committee was approved by the Council, apparently with no opposition.

The resolution proposed by Ald. Anderson and Ald. Osborn acknowledges that the statue of Columbus, “was erected in New Britain in 1941 as a symbol of the important contributions Italian Americans made in New Britain and across the country, in spite of the discrimination they faced at the time,” and goes on to say that,

it is important to honor and celebrate the heritage of Italian Americans while also being conscious of the meaning of symbols that have been defined by history through a legacy of oppression which has had a negative impact on other residents of our diverse community.

The resolution notes that,

Christopher Columbus also symbolizes a dark history of white supremacy and violence against the indigenous residents of the Americas, perpetuated by Columbus as well as other conquistadors, practices which persisted in the United States well beyond our nation’s founding, the impacts of which are still clear today.

If approved, the resolution would order that, “the City of New Britain will immediately remove the statue of Christopher Columbus from McCabe Park and donate it to a local Italian American organization.”

It goes on to say that, the city will work with the city’s Italian American community, “to find a symbol to honor the significant contributions of Italian Americans to our city that can be celebrated by the entire New Britain community.”

With nationwide protests against racism and inequality including a focus on bringing down symbols of racism and colonialism, renewed attention to accounts from a priest, Bartolome de las Casas, and others, telling about enslavement, murder, rape and other brutality upon native peoples under Columbus’ conquests have led to successful calls for statues of him being removed in some cities.

The New Britain Racial Justice Coalition, has been advocating for the city to remove the statue since July. The group held a protest against the statue in July and has been pressing for its removal since.

New Britain NAACP President Ronald P. Davis commented in July that,

Although Christopher Columbus is remembered as a ground-breaking explorer, we must remember his actions led to the transatlantic slave trade and the mass killing and exploitation of indigenous people. He is the cornerstone of ‘Institutional Racism’ in America.

“As a community, we cannot continue to praise a man who stole land and continually chose to dehumanize native people,” Davis said in his July comments, “Why should we have a statue, or a street dedicated to anyone who stands as a symbol for the violence?”

The resolution now heads to the Council’s Committee on Administration, Finance and Law. The next meeting of that committee appears to be December 2, 2020 at 7:00pm

In other business, in a party-line vote, the Council Republican majority voted to replace Mattabassett Commission member Lanette Spranzo Macaruso, who is a Democrat, with former Republican Council member Don Naples, as a representative from New Britain to the regional wastewater treatment authority.