Denver, Civil War Monument will be replaced with a monument to native woman

In the United States, the debate over monuments has never died down, and now a new chapter in history is poised to spark discussion: in Denver, Colorado, one of the main monuments in the city (population 600,000, the 19th most populous in the country, as well as the state capital), a bronze monument dedicated to Unionist soldiers who participated in the War of Secession will be replaced with a monument to a native woman. The monument in question is the so-called Civil War Mon ument that stands in front of the State Capitol in Denver (the city’s seat of administrative power), and is a portrait of a soldier who participated in the war in Union ranks, Jack Howland: it was made in 1909 by the Bureau Brothers foundry to a design by Swiss-American artist Jakob Otto Schweizer (1863 - 1955), and on June 25 of this year it was beheaded during the days of demonstrations by the Black Lives Matter movement. Following the latter event, the statue was moved to the History Colorado Museum.

To understand why the statue is contested, it is necessary to refer to Colorado’s history: the state was the scene, between 1863 and 1865, of a violent war between white settlers and the native Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, as part of which occurred the infamous Sand Creek Massacre, when 700 white militiamen encircled a native camp on the banks of the Big Sandy Creek River, killing between 125 and 175 people (but some estimates go as high as 500 victims), including mostly women and children. In Italy the massacre is also known thanks to Fabrizio De Andrè’s account of it in music with his River Sand Creek. The Union soldier’s monument in this sense is contested because the unit of which Jack Howland was a member, the First Colorado Cavalry, also participated in the Sand Creek massacre.

And it is precisely to pay tribute to the victims of the massacre that the monument will rise. The decision was made by the Capitol Building Advisory Committee, with seven votes in favor and two against, and comes after years of controversy surrounding the monument depicting Jack Howland. How big the monument will be will be determined next, while the name of the person who will create it is already known, namely native artist Harvey Pratt, who told the Denver Post newspaper that it will be “a monument really dedicated to women. The women of the tribes took charge of their men. And I want to depict a woman. It’s going to be a grieving, kneeling woman, a woman who has lost her child and maybe even her grandparents, depicted with cuts on her legs.” Pratt also let it be known that the woman will carry an empty cradle, symbolizing the loss of the baby. “The woman,” the artist anticipated, “will say ’remember us. Don’t forget us. I have lost my whole family.’” The model of the statue has already been completed; it will be up to the Colorado administration to decide how big the finished statue will be.

Pictured is the Civil War Monument before the beheading. Ph. Credit

Denver, Civil War Monument will be replaced with a monument to native woman

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