Historian Megan Kate Nelson has a new article in the Atlantic on the ambiguous “Union” statues in the Southwest that now face removal. According to Nelson, some of the statues both honor the Union effort to end slavery in the South, and glorify the killing of indigenous people. Here are excerpts from her article:
Three weeks ago, a sculpture of a Union soldier who had fought in the Civil War stood on a pedestal before the state Capitol building in Denver, gazing out toward the Rocky Mountains. Across the street, Christopher “Kit” Carson—a frontiersman and scout—kept his balance on a rearing horse, the centerpiece of a fountain dedicated to Colorado’s pioneers. Four hundred miles to the south, another Carson monument stood in front of the Santiago E. Campos United States Courthouse in Santa Fe: a sandstone obelisk that lauded his career with an inscription reading “Pioneer, Pathfinder, Soldier.” One block away, another large obelisk towered over Santa Fe Plaza. A granite and marble monument to Union soldiers who fought in New Mexico, the obelisk’s four sides commemorated these soldiers’ battles with Confederates and Native peoples, who were originally described on the monument as “savage Indians” (an Indigenous protester chiseled off the word savage in the 1970s).
Today, these sites look strikingly different. The Union soldier in Denver is gone, pulled down by protesters demonstrating against police brutality and racial inequality. Carson had a less violent end, carted off by the city in anticipation of another protest. Santa Fe’s two obelisks are now covered in plywood to cover up tags labeling them as racist memorials of genocide and the theft of Indigenous lands.
…Most Americans are not taught the history of the Union Army in the West, and its campaigns against Native peoples. They do not know that a plaque on the Civil War monument in front of Denver’s capitol, erected in 1909, lists the Sand Creek Massacre as a Union victory understood by the soldiers—as the historian Ari Kelman explains in his book A Misplaced Massacre—as a proud moment in their service.
Most Americans do not know that the obelisk in Santa Fe Plaza, dedicated in 1868, lists the Union Army’s battles against “savage Indians” as part of its service to the Union, or that Kit Carson was among the vanguard of white supremacy in New Mexico. It is hard for many people to wrap their minds around the fact that Union Army soldiers fought to wrest Native lands away from multiple tribes, as part of the Union cause to create a free, white West.
The monuments in Denver and Santa Fe glorify the settler colonialism enacted by Union troops. That is why activist groups such as the Three Sisters Collective in New Mexico and the American Indian Movement in Colorado have been calling for their removal for decades. For them, Union soldiers and Kit Carson represent racism and oppression in the same way that Confederates embody these values for Black Americans. In this transformative moment in American life, the combined efforts of Indigenous activists and Black Lives Matter demonstrators have finally brought them down.
Communities are in the midst of deciding how these monument sites should look going forward. In Colorado, Governor Polis and the mayor of Denver have created committees to reassess the names of places and landmarks that honor controversial historical figures, but these measures do not include the evaluation of monuments. As of July 7, Polis’s position on these sites—that he will repair the Civil War monument to Colorado soldiers and arrest those responsible for bringing the sculpture down—does not seem to have changed. His decision ignores the state’s Civil War history and dismisses many Colorado residents’ demands.
In Santa Fe, local politicians have chosen a different and more direct path. The mayor has called for the creation of a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to discuss the removal of the monuments and what should replace them; Indigenous representatives should have a voice in those decisions. In the meantime, city officials have invited residents to contribute artworks that will be affixed to the plaza obelisk, reimagining it as an inclusive space for the entire community to enjoy. This engagement with monument removal holds the most hope for a future in which public spaces are open to everyone and reflect the richness of diverse communities, while also acknowledging and reckoning with the dark history of the American West.
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