The Faro a Colón in Santo Domingo

This is the version of record of an article originally published by the University of California Press. This journal article was made available to read in accordance with the publishing agreement.The “Faro a Colón,” or “Columbus Lighthouse,” is perhaps the largest memorial to Christopher Columbus in the world. Inaugurated in 1992 as a celebration of the five-hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s first arrival in the Americas, it is visible throughout much of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This article argues that the typical presentation of the monument is badly misaligned with the historical record, but that a historically and historiographically informed interpretation can lead to a truer understanding of the violence and greed of colonization. Contrary to what its designers wanted to show about Columbus, and in some ways in spite of itself, the Columbus Lighthouse conveys with unusual clarity the problems of memorializing one of the most (in)famous figures in world history