The drawn-out legal battle about the future of the Christopher Columbus monument in Syracuse will likely continue well into 2023. A filing by the Onondaga Nation to be included in the case could be heard as early as Tuesday by a panel of appellate judges. It’s the second time the Onondaga Nation has asked for its voice to be heard. The native community says it was silenced when Onondaga County Supreme Court Judge Gerald Neri issued an injunction in March 2022. Neri ruled in favor of the Columbus Monument Corporation that supports the statue. That decision also went against the City of Syracuse and the Mayor’s Columbus Circle Action Committee. But the Onondaga Nation’s Lawyer, Joe Heath says the outcome wasn’t fair, so he submitted another filing to be heard by a higher court.
“…To bring another voice into this discussion, particularly one on who’s land this monument sits.”
Heath says the Nation’s filing is an attempt to reach out in goodwill as “a friend of the court” and already anticipates opposition from the Columbus Monument Corporation. He says over the past 25 years, historical books have provided a much clearer picture of who Columbus was and his mistreatment of indigenous and Caribbean people.
“The conditions that they endured as a result of Columbus and his voyages, and the launching of the African slave trade and the entire, almost ethnic cleansing of indigenous people. So, it just will not be so centrally located. It could be in a museum, or it could be in another park.”
The legal filing argues the location of the monument in Downtown Syracuse AND recognized as Nation’ land is troubling on a number of levels. The filing to the court reads: “The interest of the Onondaga Nation in this matter is to speak for their citizens, but also to speak for those four detached Indian heads, to speak for the Indians in the frescos, and to speak for the millions of Indigenous victims of European colonization.”
“The nation has a right to be heard in this very public matter as well, particularly one that sits in their homeland and that is so offensive to the people of the Onondaga Nation and to all indigenous people. And that's what we're arguing, merely a right to be heard. And that's what will be opposed when we see the papers from the other side.”
Heath says the motion could be heard in early January, unless there is an extension granted that delays the process. Otherwise, a panel of Appellate Court Judges in Rochester could make a decision in the near future as to whether or not the Onondaga Nation can express their input in the matter.
