Mexico’s Indigenous Purepecha Tear Down Statues of Spaniards

Activists from Mexico’s Purepecha people used axes and sledgehammers Monday to knock down statues of their ancestors being forced to haul and work stones by a colonial-era Spanish priest.

The Purepechas have objected to the statues since they were erected in 1995 in the capital of western Michoacan state, Morelia, and have repeatedly called for them to be taken down.

The life-size statues depict Spanish priest Fray Antonio de San Miguel ordering one nearly naked Purepecha to cut a stone block, while another is depicted hauling a stone away {snip}

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The Supreme Indigenous Council of Michoacan said the statues glorified the brutal exploitation of their ancestors, who continued to resist the Spanish after the rival Aztec empire to the east fell to the conquistadores in 1521.

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“Five hundred years after the invasion of Michoacan, the indigenous people continue to resist and fight as our grandfathers did.”

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