Controversial statue at state Capitol remains
The controversial statue of Capt. John Mason, who led the massacre of Pequot Indians during the Battle of Mystic in 1637, got a reprieve of sorts on Wednesday when the commission that oversees the preservation of the State Capitol building agreed to hold a hearing on the issue.
That forum, combined with a higher-than-expected price tag on the removal of the statue, mean that the possible tearing down of Mason is unlikely to occur until next year, at the earliest.
Amid reluctance by members of the Capitol Preservation and Restoration Commission to see the statuary torn away from the building’s third-floor facade overlooking Bushnell Park, the panel said that a November hearing of invited guests, including historians and representatives of Connecticut’s five surviving indigenous tribes, could fully air the arguments over removing Mason because his presence insults Native Americans, or keeping it in place to acknowledge the state’s messy history.
At the same time, leaders of the commission noted that there is room in empty niches around the Capitol, to commission new statues of indigenous leaders, such as the Mohegan Tribal Nation’s Sachem Uncas and Sachem Sassacus of the Pequots, who was killed in 1637 by the Mohawks in New York State and whose head and hands were sent to the English settlers.
During a more-thanhourlong discussion on the issue Wednesday, state Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, who as chairwoman of the legislative Appropriations Committee put $15,000 in the current budget to remove the statue and transfer
it to the Old State Capitol building a mile away, said that the Mason statue remains a symbol of genocide and an insult to federally and state-recognized tribes alike in the state.
“I just don’t believe he should have that place of honor on the State Capitol,” Osten said in a rare appearance before the appointed board, which includes former state lawmakers, retired nonpartisan staff, as well as State Historian Walter Woodward. “I’m not looking to dispose of that component of history.”
“It was an ugly, complicated, conflicted past” Woodward said. “There are no good guys here. It is not a case of the terrible bloodthirsty English and the mild-mannered, peaceable indigenous people. There was enough atrocity on both sides to make your head spin.” Woodward said. “In our desire to correct for centuries of injustice to indigenous people we have adopted an interpretation of much of the past events that downplays one side of the stories and mollifies another side of the story.”
He suggested retaining the Mason statue on the Capitol, and that statuary honoring both Uncas and Sassacus be created and put up on the facade, which has several empty niches. “I see this as a moment of great opportunity,” Woodward said. The last statue placed on the facade was Gov. Ella T. Grasso nearly 40 years ago.
Eric Connery, facilities administrator for the Capitol complex, said the $15,000 budgeted for taking down and transferring the Mason statue underestimated the actual costs, which exceed $50,000, he said. The issue is pending before a bipartisan group of House and Senate
leaders and Connery declined to give commission members, meeting virtually, with the current total cost.
The extraction of the statue would include mechanical lifts and a crane that would hold the statue in a sling while workers chiselout the material holding the heavy stone to the niche.
Connery’s remarks prompted William Morgan, a commission member who was the longtime head of the State Capitol Police, to warn that such a removal could affect the structural integrity of the building, which was erected in 1878.
“Equity dictates that we hear from all sides,” said Chairman Buddy Altobello, a former longtime state representative from Meriden, noting that Tuesday was the anniversary of the 1638 Treaty of Hartford.
Rodney Butler, chairman of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, sent a letter commemorating the 383rd anniversary of the treaty, stressing that its harsh terms included the execution of Pequot men and the placing of women and children into slavery and servitude. It essentially began to erase the tribe that once lived in 250 square miles of Southeastern Connecticut from historical memory, Butler said.
“In order to come to terms with our present, we must reflect on our past and acknowledge the atrocities committed in building this nation,” Butler wrote. “Mason’s actions, when viewed in
this full context, do not warrant posthumous representation on our State Capitol. Quite the contrary, his likeness should be relegated to halls of Connecticut’s historical museums, along with an accurate representation of his deeds and actions.”
Osten noted that after the Pequot Wars, which included the battle of the Great Swamp in Fairfield and other confrontations in New York State including the murder of Sassacus, the name of the river that separates Groton from New London was changed from the Pequot River to the Thames River. She said that in recent conversations with Connecticut College and the Coast Guard Academy, those two New London institutions became interested in commemorating the Pequot name for the river.
Connery, who works in the Office of Legislative Management, which sought bids for the statue removal, noted that another complaint from Native Americans that a picture in the underground walkway between the Capitol and the Legislative Office Building portrays a member of an indigenous tribe from Pennsylvania or Virginia, and not Connecticut, can be changed as soon as an appropriate eastern woodland Indian image is found. The commission does not have to review issues outside the Capitol.
Amid reluctance by members of the Capitol Preservation and Restoration Commission to see the statuary torn away from the building’s third-floor facade overlooking Bushnell Park, the panel said that a November hearing of invited guests, including historians and representatives of Connecticut’s five surviving indigenous tribes, could fully air the arguments over removing Mason because his presence insults Native Americans, or keeping it in place to acknowledge the state’s messy history.