If Christopher Columbus had known the fuss his discovery of America would cause some 500 years on, he might have stayed home. Instead, statues of the Italian explorer are being vandalized by racial rights activists across the US amid characterizations of him as a genocidal monster.

In one incident on June 10, protesters pulled down a statue of Columbus outside the Minnesota State Capitol. A rope was thrown around the 10-foot bronze statue as it was pulled it off its stone pedestal.

The protesters, including Dakota and Ojibwe Indians, say they consider Columbus a symbol of genocide against Native Americans. They say they had tried many times to remove it through the political process, but without success.

State Patrol troopers in helmets stood by at a distance but didn’t try to stop the protesters, who celebrated afterward with Native American singing and drumming.

The protest followed similar incidents in Richmond, Virginia and Boston.

In the Massachusetts capital, United American Indians of New England spokeswoman Mahtowin Munro, said that a park with a statue of Christopher Columbus that was decapitated by protesters “should be a public place that feels welcoming to everyone in Boston, not a place that is a tribute to a genocidal monster.”

Columbus’ sailing expeditions led Europeans to discover America, opening the door to centuries of exploration, conquest and settlement that included establishment of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the killing of scores of Native Americans.

Munro also called for Columbus Day in the US (Oct. 12) to be renamed “Indigenous Peoples Day.”

Passersby glancing at the empty granite pedestal where the towering statue once stood had mixed emotions.

“I feel it should be removed and I feel it shouldn’t be removed,” said Saideh Dartley, a retired elementary school teacher of Italian descent. “I feel it’s part of our country’s history, whether we like it or not. And we can’t erase all our history. If we don’t learn from the past, we can’t move forward.”

Lynne Esparo, a fellow Italian American, said people are understandably frustrated with Columbus’ treatment of indigenous people, but also said the destruction of property was “sad and disappointing.”

“I don’t think it helps move forward the needle that everyone wants, which is fairness, equality and justice,” she said.

Meanwhile, in Miami, seven people were arrested for vandalizing statues of Christopher Columbus and Juan Ponce de León in Bayfront Park, where demonstrators painted statues of Columbus and Ponce de León with “George Floyd,” “BLM” (Black Lives Matter) and a hammer and sickle.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday that he supports the statue of Christopher Columbus that stands in the middle of Columbus Circle in Manhattan.

Cuomo, who is Italian-American, says he understands “the feelings about Christopher Columbus and some of his acts, which nobody would support.” But he says the statue has come to “represent and signify appreciation for the Italian American contribution to New York,” and for that reason he supports it.

Columbus isn’t the only historical figure under attack, as protestors around the globe push – sometimes violently – to remove symbols or change names of historic sites that are seen as symbols of imperialism, oppression and, in particular, glorifying slavery (and in the US, the Confederacy).

In Bristol, England, a bronze statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston was hauled down by Black Lives Matter protesters and dumped into the city harbour.

Colston built a fortune transporting enslaved Africans across the Atlantic and left most of his money to charity and his name marks streets and buildings in Bristol, which was once the UK’s biggest port for slave ships.

The statue was recovered and sent to a “secure location” and will eventually be relocated to a museum.

The act has reinvigorated calls for the removal of other statues from Britain’s imperial past, with officials in Bournemouth, for example, planning to remove a statue of Scouts founder Robert Baden-Powell for fear it might become a target. Like many Englishmen of his time, Baden-Powell held racist views and he also expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler.

Across Belgium, statues of Leopold II have been defaced in half a dozen cities over the king’s brutal rule over the Congo, where more than a century ago he forced multitudes into slavery to extract rubber, ivory and other resources for his profit. Experts say he left as many as 10 million dead.

“The Germans would not get it into their head to erect statues of Hitler and cheer them,” said Mireille-Tsheusi Robert, an activist in Congo who wants Leopold statues removed from Belgian cities. “For us, Leopold has committed a genocide.”

Meanwhile, In Toronto, an online petition calling for Dundas Street to be renamed has garnered thousands of signatures. Henry Dundas was a Scottish politician known as “the great tyrant” whose generally distasteful legacy included delaying the abolishment of slavery in the UK from 1792 until 1807.

In Boston, mayor Marty Walsh told protesters he’s open to at least considering a name change for Faneuil Hall, where rebellious colonists plotted independence from Britain. The meeting hall and its marketplace are major tourist draws and were built with financing from merchant Peter Faneuil, who owned and traded slaves.

Kevin Peterson, founder of the New Democracy Coalition that’s pushing for a name change, calls the building “a symbol of white supremacy,” but adds, “We don’t want the mayor just to snap his fingers and change the name. We believe a public hearing on Faneuil Hall is critical to jumpstarting a conversation on the larger issues of race and reconciliation in the city.”

Supporters of such sites, however, have argued that they are important reminders of history.

“How far is too far in scrubbing away a history so that we won’t remember it wrong – or, indeed, have occasion to remember it at all?” asked Mark Summers, a University of Kentucky history professor. “I’ve always felt that honour to the past shouldn’t be done by having fewer monuments and memorials, but more.”

Scott Sandage, a historian at Carnegie Mellon University said, “Removing a memorial doesn’t erase history. It makes new history. And that’s always happening, no matter whether statues go up, come down, or not.”