A statue of an Indigenous woman will replace a Columbus monument in Mexico City

Mexico City has removed a monument of Christopher Columbus and will replace it with a statue of a pre-Hispanic Indigenous woman to represent the country's Indigenous history.

Activists demand justice where the statue of Columbus was located in Mexico City. Source: AAP

Mexico City has confirmed a new statue of an Indigenous woman will replace a monument to Christopher Columbus.

The new statue will feature a replica of the sculpture of a pre-Hispanic female figure known as the Young Woman of Amajac, which was unearthed near Mexico’s Gulf Coast in January this year. 

In a press conference on Tuesday, Mexico City's head of government Claudia Sheinbaum said the new statue was a nod to “decolonisation” and “represents the fight of women, particularly the Indigenous ones, in Mexican history”.

The new statue will be a replica of the sculpture known as the Young Woman of Amajak. Source: AAP

The announcement was symbolically made on the anniversary of Columbus’ first arrival in the Americas. 

While 12 October is celebrated in the United States as Columbus Day, Mexicans know it more commonly as Dia de la Raza, or the Day of the Pluricultural Nation, recognising the struggle and resilience of the Indigenous people during colonial conquest. 

The federal government also changed the name of the national holiday from “Day of the Race” in a bid to acknowledge the country’s 70 other cultural groups. 

The monument of Columbus, which had stood in the city’s main Reforma boulevard since 1877, was continuously vandalised until authorities made the decision to pull it down last year. 

The statue was removed for restoration, but the head of Mexico’s Institute of Anthropology and History Diego Prieto Hernandez suggested this was not the case. 

“This was based, not on any ideological judgement of the [Columbus] character, but rather because of a need to conserve the sculptural group, which, if it had been left in place, would have been the target of threats and protests”, he said.

The statue of Christopher Columbus was protected by metal fences before it was removed. Source: AAP

Global debate continues over statues of Columbus and other colonial figures which are seen as offensive by many Indigenous people around the world.

The new statue is expected to be three times the size of the original sculpture, which was discovered in January and is currently displayed in Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology.  

The Columbus statue is set to be moved to a quieter location in Mexico City.