A dominating figure atop his 38-foot tower, the cold marble figure of Christopher Columbus once sat proudly in front of the Casa Rosada, Argentina’s government building in Plaza de Mayo. For close to one hundred years, he gazed over the city of Buenos Aires, clutching his maps and binoculars, a highly visible nod to the country’s colonial past. But it wasn’t only this past that the monument acknowledged – its commission by the Italian immigrant community and construction by an Italian sculptor cemented it as an important symbol of Italy’s place in the fabric of the Argentine identity (Frei 2019).
Italian influence permeates every aspect of Argentine society, from the rhythmical way Spanish is spoken, to the style of buildings and most popular national cuisines (Puerto La Boca 2021). So, why then, has the Columbus monument - an emblem of Italian pride - been deposed from its prime spot?
In 2013, after years of protests against Columbus’s visible legacy from indigenous people across the Americas, the monument was dismantled and left to deteriorate on the ground in pieces, before eventually being reassembled in a new location next to the Jorge Newbery airport, miles from the city center (Lerer 2018).
Columbus may have once boldly surveyed the city of Buenos Aires, but he now stands lonely at the edge of the city, staring across the Rio de la Plata.
These two sites prove fruitful for a rich comparison between the nation-building efforts of Argentina’s past and present. Although the same monument has occupied both sites, the narratives it conveys are very different: from a focus on the integration of European identities into the national canon to a desire to scrub away a colonial past. While the Columbus monument’s original privileged position in front of Casa Rosada symbolized the dominant Italian immigrant identity in Argentina, its exile to the riverbank has removed this constant reminder from the public consciousness, revealing the indigenous struggles that also make up the modern Argentine national identity.
The first tale of Argentina’s Columbus monument concerns the Italian immigrant community, which rapidly increased following Argentina’s struggle for independence beginning in 1810. In the twenty years leading up to 1910, as many as six million Italians immigrated to the country, some scattering to the countryside while the majority made up over a third of the population of Buenos Aires (Baily 1967).
The figure on the left shows the enduring high concentration of Italian-Argentine presence in Buenos Aires (burgundy-shaded region) today (Ferraro 2022)
Argentina welcomed European immigration, seeking to “civilize” the country – European immigrants opposing the “barbaric” indigenous peoples (Frei 2019). European governments, especially those in Italy and Spain, were all too happy to comply, seeing this encouraged immigration as a way to “culturally colonize” South America (Kaplan 2019).
Argentine leaders saw this swift rise in immigration near the centennial of the country’s independence as a chance to impose a hegemonic national identity that emphasized European refinement, and discussions began about installing a monument to commemorate the occasion in a privileged position right in front of the government house (Frei 2019).
The Italian business community took the opportunity to invest in their place in Argentina’s history, and immigrant businessman Antonio Devoto’s bid to sponsor such a monument was accepted by the government in 1910, the completed statue unveiled in 1921 (Lerer 2018).
In its original place in front of the Casa Rosada, the Columbus monument was a highly visible and lavish symbol of the Italian community in Argentina. The 38-foot tall figure was constructed of tons of Italian marble, carrara, and was crafted by the famous Italian sculptor Arnaldo Zocchi in Italy before being shipped to the New World (Lerer 2018).
The expensive white marble structure was visible to all government officials from their windows, as well as city-dwellers passing through one of the city’s most central spots. Christopher Columbus’s original Italian name, Cristofero Colombo, sat in bold black letters upon the podium his figure stood on, asserting that this was a symbol of Italy’s presence. Ancient Roman Gods crowd the base of the monument, harking back to tradition and referencing the great classics to solidify Italy’s vast historical power.
At the back of Columbus rests symbols of Christianity: a palm frond, an anchor, and the raising of the cross - a nod to the strong Catholic influence brought by Italian immigration. Looking out over Buenos Aires with his maps in hand, Columbus’s figure was a dominating presence in the city centre.
The statue’s sponsorship by Italian elite businessmen shows the type of top-down national identity construction that Benedict Anderson discusses in his theory of imagined communities (Anderson 1983). The affluent Italian immigrants in Argentina saw an opportunity to make sure that the limits of an imagined community of Argentines not only included but emphasized Italians. Furthermore, the statue’s position in a busy central spot meant that there was a constant flagging, or reminder, of the importance of the Italian community in Argentina. This idea of ‘banal nationalism’, as described by Michael Billig, explains how there is an unconscious consumption of national symbols constantly enforced on the people living in a nation (Billig 1995). For the residents of Buenos Aires and government officials alike, the monument was a reinforcing symbol of Italy, one they unconsciously consumed every single day.
Today, nearly 30 million residents of Argentina claim Italian heritage, two-thirds of the population (Kaplan 2019). Italian identity in the Argentine canon clearly remains. So, why was the statue suddenly deposed from its prime position in 2013? The second tale of the Columbus monument concerns a group that was quietly excluded from the construction of Argentina’s imagined community: indigenous people.
Argentina’s shift towards a firmly European identity was born from the genocide of indigenous people. In the 1890s, significant government resources were deployed towards the systematic extermination of indigenous people in the country, who were seen as destructive forces of barbarism – the unruly opposite to European civilization (Gordillo and Hirsch 2003). This genocide, known as the Conquest of the Desert, was so rigorously carried out that there is a common misconception that there simply are no indigenous people left in Argentina (Delrio et al. 2010), despite recent biological evidence that there is a roughly even split of Amerindian and European ancestry across the country (Avena et al. 2012).
Following the 500-year anniversary of Columbus’s voyage to the Americas, indigenous peoples all over the continent began to question the sites of remembrance for a man who kickstarted their oppression (vom Hau and Wilde 2010). In Argentina, this pressure was focused on the Columbus monument in its prestigious spot in front of Casa Rosada. Where Italian-Argentines looked at the statue and saw a celebration of Italian ancestry and artistry, the indigenous people saw something darker.
The base relief on the monument depicts scenes of religious conversion of indigenous people, as well as Columbus presenting indigenous slaves to the royal court of Spain, making the indigenous narrative of the statue one of continued oppression.
The very same monument that allowed the integration of Italians into the Argentine identity belittled and excluded indigenous peoples.
Indigenous people drew attention to their exclusion from the limited community of Argentines throughout the early 2000s, and this all came to a head in 2013 when the statue was dismantled under government orders (Frei 2019). For the next two years, the Columbus monument lay in pieces on the ground, while the Italian-Argentine community filed two lawsuits against the government for removing an important symbol of their belonging (Lerer 2018). By 2015, a new location had been chosen for the monument far away from the city center: on the banks of the Rio de la Plata.
The monument carries damage from its years in pieces. Columbus’s name reads “Col mbo”, where the letter ‘o’ has fallen off in the reassembly process.
The base reliefs depicting indigenous oppression are faded and covered in stains, and piles of marble sit on the statue where they have crumbled away.
The new site is far removed from the prestige of the government house. Instead of looking over Buenos Aires, Columbus looks out towards his home in Genoa. People used to pass by the monument every day, but now there are only a few fishermen at the site, quietly fishing with their backs to the statue.
Background image shows the 9km distance between Casa Rosada and the new site for the Columbus monument (Google Maps 2022).
Where the Columbus monument was once a reinforcing symbol of Italy in Argentina, it is now a lonely straggler on the edge of the city. Without this constant flagging of Italian presence in the city center, there is room for indigenous peoples to begin to integrate themselves into the national canon. Now, when you walk through the city, the area where Columbus once stood holds a fenced-off heliport; wiping away traces of the colonial past with a symbol of Argentina’s modernity. In front of Casa Rosada sits a rotating shift of indigenous protestors. The imagined and limited community of Argentines that was carefully constructed by Italian elites in the 20th century is unraveling as the visible reminders of it are removed from the public consciousness, making room for indigenous people to begin claiming a part of what it means to be Argentine.
Works Cited
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.
Avena, Sergio, Marc Via, Elad Ziv, Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, Christopher R. Gignoux, Cristina Dejean, Scott Huntsman, et al. 2012. “Heterogeneity in Genetic Admixture across Different Regions of Argentina.” PLOS ONE 7 (4): e34695. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034695.
Baily, Samuel L. 1967. “The Italians and Organized Labor in the United States and Argentina: 1880–1910.” The International Migration Digest 1 (3): 56–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/019791836700100306.
Billig, Michael. 1995. Banal Nationalism. Los Angeles: Sage.
Delrio, Walter, Diana Lenton, Marcelo Musante, Mariano Nagy, Alexis Papazian, and Pilar Pérez. 2010. “Discussing Indigenous Genocide in Argentina: Past, Present, and Consequences of Argentinean State Policies toward Native Peoples.” Genocide Studies and Prevention 5 (2): 138–59. https://doi.org/10.3138/gsp.5.2.138.
Frei, Cheryl Jiménez. 2019. “Columbus, Juana and the Politics of the Plaza: Battles over Monuments, Memory and Identity in Buenos Aires.” Journal of Latin American Studies 51 (3): 607–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X18001086.
Gordillo, Gaston, and Silvia Hirsch. 2003. “Histories of Invisibilization and Reemergence.” Journal of Latin American Anthropology 8 (3): 28.
Hau, Matthias vom, and Guillermo Wilde. 2010. “‘We Have Always Lived Here’: Indigenous Movements, Citizenship and Poverty in Argentina.” The Journal of Development Studies 46 (7): 1283–1303. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2010.487098.
Kaplan, Lauren. 2019. “Crossing the Atlantic: Italians in Argentina and the Making of a National Culture, 1880–1930.” New York: CUNY. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3283.
Lerer, Marisa. 2018. “Christopher Columbus and Juana Azurduy: Revising and Revisiting Historical Monuments in Argentina.” International Public History 1 (2). https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2018-0013.
Puerto La Boca. 2021. “What Is the Connection Between Italy and Argentina?” Puerto La Boca. 2021. https://www.puertolaboca.com/blog/connection-between-italy-and-argentina.
Images Cited
Note: All images of the Columbus monument at its second site were taken by the creator of this web page, historical images and maps sourced from internet archives cited below.
CBS News. “Argentina’s Italian Heritage: In the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries Buenos Aires Experienced a Massive Wave of Emigrants from Italy.” CBS News, August 25, 2019. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/argentinas-italian-heritage/.
Ferraro, Christiano. 2022. CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Georgez. 2008. English: Monument of Columbus in Buenos Aires. Own work. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colombus_Monument_Buenos_Aires.JPG.
Google Maps. “Casa Rosada to Monument to Christopher Columbus.” Casa Rosada to Monument to Christopher Columbus, 2019. https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Casa+Rosada,+Balcarce,+Buenos+Aires/Monument+to+Christopher+Columbus,+Av.+Costanera+Rafael+Obligado,+Buenos+Aires/@-34.5756579,-58.4058828,12.84z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x95a3352cbe276f75:0xe16921ef0545f86d!2m2!1d-58.3702778!2d-34.6080556!1m5!1m1!1s0x95bcb50a1169a5c9:0xc894c25d50bea06a!2m2!1d-58.4096644!2d-34.5568598!3e2.
Latin America Reports. “Latin America Reports.” Latin America Reports, May 28, 2022. https://latinamericareports.com/argentine-state-responsible-for-1924-napalpi-massacre-of-500-indigenous-people-federal-court/6562/.
Nelson, Jerry. “The 10 Most Impressive Buildings in Buenos Aires, Argentina.” Culture Trip. The Culture Trip, January 19, 2017. https://theculturetrip.com/south-america/argentina/articles/the-10-most-impressive-buildings-in-buenos-aires-argentina/.
telesur. 2015. “Argentina: Columbus Statue Replaced by Female Freedom Fighter.” July 16, 2015. https://www.telesurenglish.net/multimedia/Argentina-Columbus-Statue-Replaced-by-Female-Freedom-Fighter-20150716-0011.html.
The Associated Press. 2013. “Argentina Takes down Columbus Statue from Pedestal.” San Diego Union-Tribune. June 29, 2013. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-argentina-takes-down-columbus-statue-from-pedestal-2013jun29-story.html.
Washington Post, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/VSS6BHBIIII6ZBZZLS3KXIYKGA.jpg&w=1200.
YouTube thumbnail, 2022. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vdgFGwbruVc/maxresdefault.jpg.