As read­ers may well be aware, there have been re­cent calls for the re­moval of the stat­ue of Christo­pher Colum­bus from the place it oc­cu­pies just east of the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion.

There is no deny­ing the fact that through his voy­ages of dis­cov­ery, Colum­bus in­ad­ver­tent­ly pre­cip­i­tat­ed un­told hor­rors lead­ing to the geno­cide of en­tire peo­ples, al­most to­tal dec­i­ma­tion of the en­tire in­dige­nous pop­u­la­tion of the Amer­i­c­as and even­tu­al­ly evolv­ing in­to the transat­lantic slave trade, the worst atroc­i­ty in hu­man his­to­ry.

Even from the out­set, what­ev­er the high­er mind­ed goals of the sailor as he made his his­toric ex­pe­di­tions west, were tem­pered with ideas of do­min­ion as ev­i­denced by the deals he struck with the monar­chy of Spain for his own ben­e­fit since he ex­pect­ed to find an im­mense store of wealth.

Re­gard­less of the var­ied opin­ions sur­round­ing the lega­cy of Colum­bus, we as cit­i­zens are not ex­act­ly flush with his­toric mon­u­ments and arte­facts to al­low us the lux­u­ry of dis­pos­ing of those we see as ide­o­log­i­cal­ly op­posed to what we hold to be ac­cept­able. More­over, it is not left to us to de­cide what is 'good' or 'bad' his­to­ry since we can­not boast of any great love for re­search­ing and doc­u­ment­ing our past. Trinidad is al­so for­tu­nate enough to be one of the few places with a tan­gi­ble link to Colum­bus.

When he hap­pened up­on the is­land in 1498 (Dis­cov­ery Day was an an­nu­al hol­i­day on Au­gust 1 un­til it was re­placed by Eman­ci­pa­tion Day), he lost an an­chor from one of his ships while an­chored off Ica­cos Point dur­ing a tidal surge. This rel­ic was re­dis­cov­ered in 1877 by ac­ci­dent and af­ter a tour of ex­hi­bi­tion in sev­er­al World Fairs, was even­tu­al­ly do­nat­ed to the Roy­al Vic­to­ria In­sti­tute in 1912 by its dis­cov­er­er, Fran­cois Agos­ti­ni. The RVI is now the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um and Art Gallery and the huge bronze an­chor can be seen there still.

Part of the mis­di­rect­ed angst against the Colum­bus mon­u­ment is pos­si­bly due to a com­plete lack of knowl­edge about its his­to­ry. One faux-news on­line source even pon­tif­i­cat­ed that it was 'do­nat­ed by a big shot in the 1990s. The fol­low­ing is the fact of the mat­ter on how this an­tiq­ui­ty came to be.

In the Port-of-Spain of yes­ter­year, the dead were in­terred in a patch of mud­dy ground by the sea. Near the wa­ter­front ceme­tery was a rick­ety wood­en chapel which served the Catholics of the town. In 1816, con­struc­tion of the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion com­menced, al­though the old wood­en church con­tin­ued to be used un­til 1824 when its se­vere dere­lic­tion be­gan to pose a se­ri­ous haz­ard to the safe­ty of wor­ship­pers.

Af­ter the com­ple­tion of the Cathe­dral, the old ceme­tery be­came a sort of refuse tip and im­promp­tu stor­age area with rub­bish shar­ing space with old sug­ar hogsheads, crates, carts, cor­beau and the odd va­grant or two. Mean­while, Hyp­poly­te Bor­de, a planter who had im­mi­grat­ed to the is­land from Mar­tinique as a child in 1810 along with his fa­ther and two broth­ers, had be­come a very wealthy man in­deed.

Hy­po­lite's broth­er Pierre Louis Gus­tave Bor­de was a his­to­ri­an and one of the ear­li­est chron­i­clers in the is­land. It is per­haps this con­scious­ness of the is­land's his­to­ry as well as in­nate pub­lic-mind­ed­ness which prompt­ed Hy­po­lite to land­scape gratis, the land of the old ceme­tery be­hind the cathe­dral and erect a mon­u­ment to the ex­plor­er, Christo­pher Colum­bus who dis­cov­ered the is­land in 1498. The memo­r­i­al, a foun­tain and bronze stat­ue, was un­veiled in 1881 by Gov­er­nor Sir William A G Young. A de­scrip­tion of the space a few years lat­er (1887) runs thus:

"Colum­bus Square, to the east of the Ro­man Catholic Cathe­dral, is sur­round­ed by an iron pal­isad­ing. It was laid out and plant­ed with or­na­men­tal shrubs by the Cor­po­ra­tion, to whom it be­longs. The hand­some foun­tain, which was pre­sent­ed by the late Mr Hy­po­lite Bor­de, a wealthy ca­cao pro­pri­etor, is sur­mount­ed by a bronze stat­ue of one whose mem­o­ry should be per­pet­u­at­ed in this colony–Christo­pher Colum­bus. This stat­ue was un­veiled and the Square opened with some cer­e­mo­ny by the late Gov­er­nor Young in 1881. This end of the town used for­mer­ly to be much ne­glect­ed, but the re­cent em­bell­ish­ments have great­ly im­proved its ap­pear­ance, and once a month, on the third Thurs­day, the Po­lice Band plays at the usu­al hour, from 5 to 6 PM."

The square and stat­ue are well-main­tained to­day. We must not run the risk of rewrit­ing his­to­ry ac­cord­ing to our own prej­u­dices or emo­tions for then we will lose more than we can ever hope to re­cov­er.