There is no place for a statue of Christopher Columbus in Liverpool.

He murdered and enslaved thousands of indigenous people in the places that he supposedly "discovered". Some background on him:

 https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/triangular-trade

 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/235622  

"That Columbus, or Cristóbal Colón (to give him his proper spanish name), was a slave trader is a matter of historical fact. He cut his nautical teeth sailing under a Portugese flag engaged in the African slave trade a dozen years before 1492. When easy wealth in the form of gold proved not readily available in the Caribbean, Colón resumed his slave-trading occupation by loading the holds of his ships with Indian human cargo headed for the slave market in Seville."
 

 

The engraving below the statue reads:

The Discoverer of America was the Maker of Liverpool

This engraving is so troubling, and it's hard to believe it was kept during the restoration in the 1990s. 

1) Christopher Columbus did not discover America - there were already indigenous peoples there which he proceeded to murder and enslave. 

2) The idea that he 'made' Liverpool through his 'discovery' alludes to Liverpool's rise as one of the major ports of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. This is abhorrent and should not be glorified.

As historian David Olusoga said: "Statues aren't the mechanism by which we understand history. We learn about history through museums, through books, through television programmes. Statues are about adoration. They're about saying 'this man was a great man and he did great things.'" Christopher Columbus was not a great man. He was an enslaver and a murderer. 

Joe Anderson, Mayor of Liverpool: This statue is City Council property. Work with the Sefton Park Palm House Board of Trustees to take it down and remove the egregious engraving!

When you've signed the petition, please email Joe Anderson - mayor@liverpool.gov.uk and the Palm House Board of Trustees - info@palmhouse.org.uk to let them know what you think.