My Turn: Maureen Moakley: It’s not about Columbus — it’s about us
The opportunity for constructive reckoning about systemic racism and discrimination is upon us. Part of that debate in Rhode Island concerns the fate of statues of Columbus. Protesters vandalize historic statues. City councilors consider replacing or moving the them and, in some misguided instances, support the vandalism. These machinations reflect a somewhat stilted outrage over the role of Columbus that tends to overlook our own culpability, past and present, in the treatment of our Indigenous populations.
More than 500 years ago, Columbus’ explorations on behalf of the Spanish crown brought centuries of brutal exploitation by Spanish, French, British, Portuguese and others that devastated Indigenous populations in the Caribbean and Latin America. But beyond recognizing the evils of European colonialism, shouldn’t the focus be on the barbarous treatment of Native Americans by the United States and our own sorry history in Rhode Island of the treatment of these people?
The basic outline of the story is familiar. More than 100 years after Columbus, the English Puritans arrived at Cape Cod, coming ashore onto the Native American territory, filching their corn reserves and other tools and artifacts. After a brutal winter aboard the Mayflower, a fragile contingent began to build a settlement at Plymouth. The Wampanoag tribe could have easily wiped them out but instead engaged with the settlers. By the following fall in 1621, they participated in a mutual harvest gathering that is the basis of our Thanksgiving celebration.
Shortly thereafter, Roger Williams, exiled from Massachusetts in 1636, arrived in Providence and was greeted by the Narragansetts. They, too, easily could have destroyed his settlement but instead offered assistance and comity. Decades later, when war broke out between settlers from all over New England and the several regional tribes, the Narragansetts chose to remain neutral. They hunkered down in the Great Swamp until it was raided by the likes of Miles Standish and his followers, who brutally killed women and children and drove remaining survivors into servitude and slavery. In subsequent years, most of the remaining tribal land was taken by force or deceit, impoverishing and marginalizing the remaining Narragansetts for generations to come.
In 1988, opportunities for economic development came when Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, allowing native tribes to operate casinos. A casino in Connecticut was beginning operations but, in a preemptive move against the Narragansetts, Sen. John Chafee attached a rider to a bill that essentially precluded gambling initiatives by the tribe. Shortly thereafter, the Carcieri administration, responding to an attempt by the tribe to generate revenue by selling cigarettes on tribal land, called the state police to forcibly shut down the operation. During the next election, there was talk of “doing something for the Indians” but nothing ever came of it. Recently, the Raimondo administration sued the Wampanoags (those of Thanksgiving lore) to obstruct plans for a casino in Massachusetts near our state line, essentially to prevent competition to “our own” Twin River gambling revenues. No tribal enterprises around here!
We should also consider that removal of the statues around the state are likely to cause rancor and resentment. They are a point of pride to many in our Italian-American community, who themselves endured decades of significant prejudice in Rhode Island and considered statues of Columbus, the explorer, a validation of their civic acceptance.
Continued conversations should include meaningful action. We should mandate curriculum reform that accurately portrays the region’s history, support economic opportunities and consider an appropriate monument to Native Americans. We could also set a time during Thanksgiving to honor our debt to the region’s Indigenous populations as a refreshing reset to the commercial fandango that consumes so much of our collective spirit.
This is a critical time to confront and remove the more hateful vestiges that reflect our shameful history toward our Black and Indigenous populations. Perhaps the statues of Columbus should go. But we need a thoughtful and determined perspective, lest this long-overdue reckoning becomes another political wedge that further divides our country and blunts essential structural reforms.
Maureen Moakley is professor emerita of political science at the University of Rhode Island.