Columbus: memorials to, protests against

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The rather bleak Columbus Lighthouse, in Santo Domingo

PreservationNation, the blog of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, takes stock of the famously "conflicted legacy" of Christopher Columbus.

In Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic (which makes up a good part of the island Columbus named Hispaniola, which he briefly governed), stands the Columbus Lighthouse, which was erected in 1948 to honor the man. The "site even claims to hold the explorer's mortal remains," the blog observes, with just a hint of skepticism.

Venezualans used to use Columbus Day as an occasion to celebrate multiculturalism, specifically, the coming together of the European explorers and the American natives. That changed in 2002, under Hugo Chavez, who "renamed the holiday 'The Day of the Indigenous Resistance,' commemorating instead the resistance of Natives to Europeans.

"In 2004 protesters toppled a statue of Columbus, linking the destruction of the monument to the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Iraq …"

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