Christopher Columbus murals inside University of Notre Dame building to be covered up

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Notre Dame to cover Christopher Columbus murals

The murals, which date to the late 1800s and depict Columbus's trip to America and Native Americans greeting him on the shore, will be covered by a 'woven material consistent with the decor of the space.'

Christopher Columbus murals located inside a building at the University of Notre Dame campus will be covered up, the school president said Sunday.

The paintings from the 1880s were intended to encourage immigrants, especially during an anti-Catholic period in America, school president Rev. John Jenkins said in a statement. He said the 12 murals hide a “darker side” of Columbus’ story about discovering the New World: the exploitation and repression of Native Americans.

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“For the native peoples of this ‘new’ land, however, Columbus’s arrival was nothing short of a catastrophe,” Jenkins said. “Whatever else Columbus’s arrival brought, for these peoples it led to exploitation, expropriation of land, repression of vibrant cultures, enslavement, and new diseases causing epidemics that killed millions …. The murals’ depiction of Columbus as beneficent explorer and friend of the native peoples hides from view the darker side of this story, a side we must acknowledge.”

Jenkins said the murals on the wall in Notre Dame’s main building will be “covered by woven material consistent with the decor of the space, though it will be possible to display the murals on occasion.”

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A permanent display of photos of the paintings will be created elsewhere with an explanation of their context, Jenkins said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.