Settlers in Santa Fe were in a festive mood when they chose the city plaza as the site for a 33-ft. obelisk dedicated to "the heroes who have fallen in the various battles with savage Indians in the Territory of New Mexico." A plaque bearing that inscription went onto the monument's cornerstone in 1868, and there is no record that anyone found it objectionable.
Times change, however, and leaders of the American Indian Movement now condemn use of the word savage as "racism and prejudice." They want the obelisk destroyed. Governor Bruce King...
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