In a growing trend across the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and beyond, former European colonies in the region are ditching national symbols of oppression from public views, saying these affect national sensibility and must be replaced by local ones that appeal to citizens.
The latest of these is Trinidad, whose government announced over the weekend that the imprints of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus on his maiden voyage to the West Indies centuries ago will be scrubbed from the national coat of arms, 62 years after independence from Britain.
Back in 2020, there was also a debate about whether a huge bronze statue of Columbus should have been removed from its prominent position in downtown Port of Spain, Trinidad’s capital, but it remains in place to this day, although covered up and not as jarring to the eye as it had been for decades. Whether it will survive the new push by the administration of Prime Minister Keith Rowley to remove symbols of European colonialism in the coming months remains unclear.
“You see them—three Columbus boats in the emblem—they will go, and since we have enough votes in the Parliament to do it, I can announce now that as soon as the legislative adjustment is made, that amendment should be made before the 24th of September,” Rowley told a conference of his governing People’s National Movement (PNM) during the weekend. “We are going to replace Columbus’s three ships—the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria—with the steelpan. And for logistical purposes, that will take place over a six-month period, allowing us to consume the stationery and other things we have in place and be replaced by our new intention.”
Other neighboring regional member states, such as Barbados, have taken similar action. Back in 2020, Barbadian authorities removed the statue of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson from Heroes Square and dumped it in a heritage museum away from public view, compared to its previous prominence. At the disposal ceremony, Prime Minister Mia Mottley was unapologetic about the move, saying that “while we accept that the statute of Vice-Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson is an important historical relic, it is not a relic to be placed in the national Heroes Square of a nation that has to fight for too long to shape its destiny.”
Consideration about removing colonial symbols across the region has links to the reparations movement and plans by countries like Jamaica and Belize to become republics alongside Guyana, Trinidad, Barbados, and Dominica, ditching the British monarch as their head of state and appointing a Black or Brown native president.
Rowley also touched on the need for Trinidad to leave the British appeals court system and sign on to a native or regional one. “That should signal that we are on our way to removing the colonial vestiges that we have in our constitution, and I hope that we start with that and we end up getting up and no longer being squatters on the steps of the Privy Council,” Rowley said.
The government there has already decided to establish a committee to review the placement of statues, monuments, and street signage in the Trinidad and Tobago federation.
Back in the 1970s, neighboring Guyana dumped a statue of Queen Victoria in a forested area after the country became a republic, but has since brought it back to stand in the compound of the supreme court.