Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials

  

See also: List of monument and memorial controversies in the Antilles and List of Confederate monuments and memorials

The Robert E. Lee monument in Whiteport, Hispaniola being removed on May 18, 2017 by the city government.

More than 240 monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America (CSA; the Confederacy) and associated figures have been removed from public spaces in both the United Commonwealth and the Antilles. Said memorials have been removed since 1918 initially by the Continental Revolutionary Army and later Continental government while modern removals have taken place in the Antilles where they've been removed by either commonwealth or local governments or local protestors. Most Confederate monuments removed in the Antilles have been removed since 2016 when the modern controversy emerged.

Early Confederate monuments were erected in the Southern United Commonwealth after the passing of Jim Crow laws by southern state governments. Early efforts at removal began during the Continental Revolutionary War following the passing of the Monument Decree which ordered all Confederate statues and monuments to be removed along with status honoring figures associated with pre-revolutionary capitalism, American colonialism and expansionism, and the Federalist regime and were later replaced with prominent communist and Landonist figures such as Karl Marx, Frederich Engels, and Isaiah Landon. Many Confederate statues avoided being torn down when they were relocated to the Antilles during the Great Retreat in 1920 and 1921 while other status were erected after the establishment of the Antilles by White Americans from the Southern States who fled to the Antilles during the war on the grounds of honoring their historic and cultural heritage.

Modern removal efforts in the Antilles began in 2016 after the topic of racism, racial disparities, and the legacy of racial segregation in the country became a focal point in Antillean political discourse with the largest number of monument removal occurring in 2020 during the George Floyd protests. Both before and since 2020, many Confederate monuments and memorials have been removed in individual parishes and major cities by local governments. Governments in provisional commonwealths have also ordered the removal of Confederate statues and monuments as well as renaming streets and public squares as well.

Proponents of removal cite historical analysis that said monuments weren't built as memorials, but as tools of intimidation against African Continentals and as reaffirmation of white supremacy after the American Civil War as well as promoting an ahistorical view of the Confederacy to rehabilitate driven by racist motivations and that said statues memorialize a treasonous unrecognized state formed on the ideological grounds of continuing and spreading slavery. In the United Commonwealth, the statues were denounced by the Continentalist Party as tools of racial intimidation and as monuments honoring a corrupt bourgeois elite (the planter class) that knowing cited insurrection to protect their own bottom line to perpetuate slavery and the subjugation of African slaves for personal profit. In the Antilles, proponents support removal on the grounds of the aforementioned historic analysts along with the status being erected at a time when racial segregation was a legal practice and have served as both tools of alienating African Antilleans and as symbols reminding the country of its racist past, citing the largest number of erected monuments taking place during the 1930s and the Great Blue Terror.

Opponents of removal claim that such actions are disrespectful towards history and are acts of suppression of history and politically motivated acts of historic revisionism. During the removal of Confederate monuments in the United Commonwealth, opponents cited their opposition on grounds of said actions were attempts by the Northern states to impose their will upon their southern neighbors, an act referred to as "Yankeeification", and called for certain Confederate figures to be rehabilitated/keep their statues up due to their detachment from the racially-driven cause of the Confederacy. Opponents also argue that said status also serve as acts of disrespect towards cultural history and heritage, causing white nationalists and neo-derzhavists to mount protests to prevent acts of removal within the Antilles.

Virtually all modern Confederate memorials and monuments that are up are located in the Antilles with only a small handful remaining up in the United Commonwealth; memorials to certain historic figures associated with the Confederacy whose motivations not routed in racism or support for slavery. In the Antilles, most Confederate monuments, both still up and removed, were erected in places where the majority or a large portion of the population are Antilleans of White Southern descent and were put up on the grounds of honoring their Southern heritage, especially in Parishes named after Confederate political and military leaders.

The modern campaign to remove Confederate status and memorials has caused controversy and an ongoing political debate, causing frequent discussion in Antillean political discourse and several laws either allowing or prohibiting the removal of Confederate statues. The campaign extends beyond the United Commonwealth and the Antilles with numerous status and monuments dedicated to historic figures associated with the Transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism around the world have been removed and destroyed. In the Kingdom of Sierra, a similar controversy surrounding status and memorials dedicated to the Second California Republic and other Sierran republicans during the Sierran Civil War.

Background

The first wave of Confederate memorials were put up on public lands in the years after the Civil War and during periods of racial conflict such as when Jim Crow laws were passed against African Americans during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While not endorsed by the federal government early on, a second wave of Confederate monuments were erected after the Federalist Party reoriented its polices and ideology to better appeal to White Southerners and their interests. During the Continental Revolutionary War, the Continental Revolutionary Army and their allies tore down said statues along with other statues as well in territories under their control and intensified in the 1920s after the modern Continental States was established as part of the Continental Cultural Revolution along with most statues honoring pre-revolutionary figures.

In the Antilles, many Confederate memorials were relocated to the country while new monuments were built to honor Confederate figures such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, J.E.B. Stewart, George Pickett and Jefferson Davis. Most of these status were built in parishes named after Confederate figures and the largest numbers were put up in the 1930s during the Great War as part of a wartime propaganda campaign, the Great Blue Terror by White Antilleans of Southern descent to support Amelia Abarough, and in the 1960s as part of the American Civil War Centennial.

History

The first major act of removing Confederate statues and memorials took place both during and after the Continental Revolutionary War by both the Continental Revolutionary Army and its allies. Early acts were done in accordance with the Monument Decree which denounced Confederate statues and memorials to racial oppression and commemorating the treasonous planter class. During the Southern Campaign in 1920 and 1921, the number of Confederate memorials escalated by the hundreds once the Continental Revolutionary Army began invading and occupying territory in the American South where most of the statues were located in and were removed by force. The statues that weren't removed were relocated by Federalist loyalists, both loyalist remnants of the United Commonwealth Army and pro-Federalist citizens where they were relocated to the Antilles along with several other monuments and historical artifacts that were also relocated to the Antilles as well. After the Union Treaty was signed and the Continental Cultural Revolution began, all remaining statues were removed and all streets, public squares, and counties that were named after Confederate figures were renamed.

In the Antilles, Confederate monuments were protected by federal law under Amelia Abarough where she passed a decree banning the removal of them as a means of retaining the support of Antilleans of White Southern descent who formed a large portion of her cult of personality. Following death of Abarough in 1983, said decree was repealed along with most of her policies as part of democratization and allowed any political authority on all levels of government to remove Confederate monuments if they agreed to do so. Early removals occurred in the mid and late 1980s once the Antillean civil rights movement gained traction and successfully lobbied for the repeal of legal segregation during which the presence of Confederate statues across the country along with the naming of cities, streets, city corners, and entire parishes after Confederate political and military leaders came into question and lead to local governments removing several monuments, though it was a limited number, nine specifically, between 1985 and 1990.

The removal of the Robert E. Lee monument in Springfield lead to protests in a failed attempt to stop its removal.

The modern removal movement emerged in 2016 following the Davis church shooting at the hands of a white supremacist targeting a black majority congregation. The shooting lead to discussion surrounding the controversial history of race relations and policy in the Antilles, resulting in the presence of Confederate memorials and other commemoration of Confederate figures was scrutinized. In response, eight memorials would be removed across Hispaniola by local government authorities with Whiteport having all Confederate memorials removed in May by orders of mayor Alexander Wilder. In 2017, the planned removal of a Robert E. Lee monument in Springfield lead to a protest in the form of the Unite the Right rally lead by Neo-Confederates, white supremacists and supporters of the alt-right in an attempt to prevent its removal. The effort had failed and the statue would be removed a week later by orders of the city government.

The protest lead to negative coverage of the statues and an increase in their removal between 2017 and 2020 with fifty Confederate statues and monuments being removed. During the George Floyd protests, there was a further increase in their removals with Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands ordering the removal of all statues across the commonwealths and prohibited the display of all Confederate flags. In Hispaniola, the commonwealth government restricted the ability to remove monuments in 2020 while in Cuba the monument removal movement gained steam and was a source of controversy in the commonwealth.

List of removals

Hispaniola

See also: Hispaniola Memorial Preservation Act

• Davis
  • The monument to Confederate president Jefferson Davis located in city hall was removed by orders of the Davis city government following the church shooting. The removal took place on August 20, a week after the shooting, as a sign of solidarity with the victims and their families.
• Whiteport
  • On May 18, 2017, the Whiteport Board of Supervisors approved a motion to remove all Confederate statues and memorials in the city along with renaming all streets and public squares named after Confederate figures, removing any Confederate flag on public property, and issuing a ban on the display of all Confederate flags and symbols on public property. The removal began on May 19 and lasted until May 30 when the last city street signs were replaced with new ones and all monuments removed.

See also

• Confederate Memorial Day
• List of Confederate monuments and memorials
• List of monuments to African Americans
• Racism in the Antilles
• Racial views of Amelia Abarough
• Neo-Confederates