The controversy that swept Southern states over Confederate monuments is spreading across the nation, as cities contend with calls to remove statues depicting stereotyped and subjugated Native Americans.
Among them: a sculpture in San Francisco’s Pioneer Monument near City Hall that shows a Native American at the feet of a Spanish missionary and vaquero, and one in New York City that depicts a Native American and an African holding the stirrups of Theodore Roosevelt astride a horse. Earlier this year in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a granite sculpture from the city’s Fountain of the Pioneers was trucked away to storage. It showed a pioneer, weapon raised, rising above a Native American.
In all three cases, Native Americans have criticized the statues as inaccurate, demeaning and racist for decades. Red paint symbolizing blood was splashed over the Roosevelt statue as long ago as 1971, and as recently as October.
[For more on this story by Martha T. Moore, go to http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/re...ive-american-statues]
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