Group calls for pardon of man convicted of damaging Columbus statue

NASSAU, Bahamas (CMC):

The Trinidad-based Caribbean Freedom Project (CFP) is calling on the Bahamian authorities to pardon Shervandaze Smith, who was convicted in 2023 for smashing the Christopher Columbus statue outside Government House in 2021.

Smith, also known as ‘Michael the Archangel’, was sentenced in October 2023 for damaging the statue two years earlier with a sledgehammer. He pleaded guilty to causing damage and trespassing and was ordered to pay US$7,050 to avoid prison.

During his arraignment, Smith said he was in his right mind when he damaged the statue, adding that he did so because of a divine purpose after God touched him.

In a letter dated July 11, 2025, the Caribbean Freedom Project urged Prime Minister Philip Davis and the Mercy Committee to pardon Smith, saying his action was “a principled act of conscientious objection” against a symbol of genocide and white supremacy.

The letter was signed by project directors Shabaka Kambon and Dr Claudius Fergus, who urged the authorities to view Smith’s actions “through a historical and moral lens”.

“Resisting the suppression, distortion, or minimisation of historical or ongoing genocides is a principled act grounded in the defence of truth, justice, and the dignity of survivors and their descendants,” the Trinidad-based group wrote.

But National Security Minister Wayne Munroe, who chairs the Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy, disagreed with the petition, saying “nothing about damaging the Columbus statue strikes a blow like the Garvey conviction”, referring to the Jamaica-born civil rights leader Marcus Garvey, who was posthumously pardoned in the United States.

“On the surface of what I know about him, he is no Marcus Garvey,” Munroe is quoted by the Tribune Newspaper as saying, adding that there may be stronger cases for posthumous pardons for people who resisted slavery directly.

“There probably are a number of persons who may have been convicted of offences when they were rebelling against slavery, and that would be more profitable to have their convictions posthumously addressed.”

NECESSARY CONFRONTATION

The government minister cautioned against historical revisionism, describing the statue as “a gift to the state by free black people”, and warned against targeting monuments based solely on their associations with the colonial era.

“You can’t attack and destroy anything connected with the slave era. That would be dangerous,” he said, adding, “...on what they say, then I should be able to burn down Government House. Or I should be able to burn down the British Colonial Hotel”.

He said that Shirley Street, for instance, is named after one of the governors during that period, as well as Clifford Park, which is named after another governor.

“Should you be able to physically attack anyone who ensures the benefit of the family history of money made on slaves?”

The chair of the Bahamas National Reparations Committee, Dr Niambi Hall-Campbell Dean, who formally submitted the petition, defended Smith’s act as one of necessary confrontation.

“He bravely forced us to confront uncomfortable truths about our past that we heedlessly overlook at our own peril. Most people today understand that Columbus was not a hero — that he did not discover this land but invaded it, initiating a protracted period of genocide and slavery,” Hall-Campbell Dean said.

Support has come from nearly 50 organisations and public figures across the region, including UN leaders Dr Gaynel Curry, Ambassador Dr June Soomer, and Professor Verene Shepherd.

The initiative has also been backed by Professor Sonjah Stanley Niaah of the UWI Centre for Reparations Research, and national reparations chairs, including Antigua’s Ambassador Dorbrene Omarde.

The Caribbean Freedom Project has had success in similar campaigns before. In 2018, it lobbied for the renaming of a hall at the University of the West Indies that had honoured British colonialist Alfred Milner, and three years later it petitioned the Trinidad and Tobago Parliament to remove colonial symbols, an effort that led to the removal of Columbus’ ships from the national coat of arms earlier this year.