As protesters topple statues of slave traders and controversial colonists in Europe and the US with advent of Black Lives Matter movement, New Zealand’s city of Hamilton on Friday tore down a statue of the colonial military commander after whom it was named.

A crane hoisted the bronze sculpture of Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton from the town square Friday morning after requests from local Maori and threats from anti-racism protesters to topple it.

Advertisement

AFP reports, Hamilton City Council acknowledged the statue’s extraction was part of a push to remove memorials “which are seen to represent cultural disharmony and oppression” sparked by global anti-racism protests.

“I know many people, in fact, a growing number of people, find the statue personally and culturally offensive,” mayor Paula Southgate said.

“We can’t ignore what is happening all over the world and nor should we. At a time when we are trying to build tolerance and understanding… I don’t think the statue helps us to bridge those gaps.”

Hamilton was a British naval commander who fought indigenous Maori defending their land against British colonial expansion in the 19th century.

He died at the Battle of Pukehinahina, in 1864, when, in an early example of trench warfare, a group of Maori in a fortified encampment successfully fended off British troops and artillery, despite being outnumbered. The statue was donated to the council in 2013 and the council said its removal came after a formal request from the regional iwi, or tribe, Waikato-Tainui.

Anti-racism protesters had vowed to tear it down at a demonstration this weekend, with activist Taitimu Maipi labelling Hamilton a murderer. “How can we accept that he’s a hero when he’s a monster who led battles,” Maipi told the Waikato Times.

Waikato-Tainui praised the statue’s removal, saying it was discussing other problematic colonial names and symbols with Hamilton council, including the prospect of restoring the city’s original Maori name Kirikiriroa, reports AFP.

“This was a devastating time for our people and these injustices of the past should not be a continual reminder as we look to grow and develop our beautiful city into the future,” iwi chairman Rukumoana Schaafhausen said.

Statues and place names honouring figures such as slavers and colonial military figures are being reassessed worldwide in response to anti-racism protests sparked by the police killing of African American man George Floyd in US on May 25.

A statue of Christopher Columbus in Boston was beheaded on Wednesday, as calls to remove sculptures commemorating colonizers and slavers sweep America on the back of anti-racism protests, according to the police.

Earlier this week in Richmond, a Columbus statue was vandalized in downtown Miami, and another was dragged into a lake, the local report said.

In UK, protesters tore down the statue of a notorious British slave trader on Sunday and dumped it in a harbour. Footage showed a few dozen people tie a rope around the neck of Edward Colston’s statue and bring it to the ground in the southwestern city of Bristol.

The incidents come as pressure builds in the United States to rid the country of monuments associated with racism following massive demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis.