On Sunday morning, Montrealers jogging or walking their dogs through Wilfrid Laurier Park found a startling surprise: The Queen Isabella memorial, a local landmark since the late 1950s, had been bloodied, paper-crowned, and re-branded. "Guilty of crimes against humanity," read a tag on her back.
Nearby, a makeshift plaque outlined these crimes, in French: "Genocide of 80 million Latin American Indigenous people; annihilation of 1 million Taïnos; generalization of slavery in Spanish America and the systematic destruction of pre-colombian cultures; expulsion of 200,000 Spanish Jews along with forced conversion, rapes, and systematic massacres; ethnic cleansing of Grenada and the expulsion of its 300,000 Muslims; and, finally, the creation and application of the Spanish Inquisition."
Quick history lesson: Queen Isabella of Spain—a.k.a. Isabella I of Castile—is the woman who funded Christopher Columbus's exploration of the Americas. She was also a devout Catholic famous for her occasionally murderous intolerance of Jews and Moors.
The person behind the Carrie-ing of the statue (who wished to remain anonymous) spoke to VICE to explain their actions. Here's what they had to say.
VICE: Why this statue?
Artist: It's a very shocking statue to me. In today's world, she's a criminal against humanity. She's known to be one of the most harsh and cruel rulers of Europe. She created, with her husband, the Spanish Inquisition, which was a very violent way of oppressing everyone who disagreed with the monarchs and the Church. She is known to have killed and expelled all the Jews of Spain in a very very very violent manner, and is also the one who sponsored Christopher Columbus to do his famous discoveries.
After that, everything that was done by Christopher Columbus was done in her name. She had all the power and drove everything she did through her vision of her faith and was not a kind ruler. She has a violent history and a ton of blood on her hands and I find it extremely shocking in North America that in we would honor such a woman, especially given the values we're trying to promote as Canadians. When we see Justin Trudeau get his relationship with First Nations to better grounds, you have the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we have all these things that we're trying to do, understanding there's a very painful past, and then at the same time we have a bust of this bitch? Makes no sense to me.
It's adding insult to injury. We can't undo what is done, history is what it is, but we don't need to have this statue here—there are better women to honor. She's not a woman to honor, she's not one to represent women, she's not one to speak for our values.
One of my friends said something funny, he said it's almost like having a statue of Hitler in Israel. If I was native I would be so shocked to see her in this park.
I'd personally never even heard of this statue. Who put it up?
It was offered in 1958 by the Embassy of Spain to the City of Montreal. But honestly, thank you but no thank you Spain, this is not what we want to keep from you. It's like if history went a different way and Germany went to Poland and offered them a bust of Hitler.
Most people don't know who she is. People know Christopher Columbus a little bit but she's the one who sent were treated.
But I think we need to understand the whole system that was behind him, and that was her. And in order to create a proper society with proper values, we have to debunk certain ghosts, certain skeletons, and make sure that we don't honor them. Again, we can't change them, but we should honor another woman, not her.
A makeshift plaque outlines Queen Isabella's "crimes against humanity."
Why do it like this?
Because I wanted to bring attention and honestly, I feel it's the least I could do because I feel so aggressed every time I see her. It was my anger speaking.
What do you hope people feel when they see this?
I hope they feel disgust. I want them to be like, why is this lady here, why is it that we have this statue here, it makes no sense, it's crazy.
Do you think the city should take it down?
I personally think so, but at least I want people to be outraged by it.
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