As a debate on the future of Confederate monuments rages south of the border, Hudson's Bay Company quietly removed a plaque dedicated to Confederate President Jefferson Davis from outside its downtown Montreal store Tuesday night, a company spokesperson has confirmed.
“He was a staunch defender of slavery, a staunch defender of white supremacy who continued to believe in the righteousness of those ideas long after the war,” Leonard Moore, an associate professor of American history at McGill University, told CTV Montreal.
Davis, a wealthy Mississippi slave owner and military leader, served in both chambers of the United States Congress before the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. Davis was anointed President of the Confederate States later that year -- a post he would hold until the Civil War ended with Davis’ imprisonment and the Confederates’ defeat in 1865.
After his release from prison two years later, Davis moved to Montreal where he lived in a home located where The Bay store now stands. His time there was commemorated in 1957 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a controversial American organization dedicated to erecting monuments to Confederate soldiers and leaders.
Following violent clashes between white nationalists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va., this past weekend, Montrealers who learned of the plaque were furious to see an outspoken proponent of slavery commemorated here. They contacted The Bay, which quickly took action.
Confederate monuments are meeting the same fate across the United States. Early Wednesday alone, four Confederate monuments, including a statue of General Robert E. Lee, were taken down under the cover of darkness in Baltimore, Md. A statue of Davis was removed from New Orleans, La., in May. In Charlottesville, the violent demonstrations stemmed from a protest over the planned removal of a General Robert E. Lee statue.
“I think any city that has Confederate statues are concerned about violence occurring in their city,” Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh told reporters on Wednesday.
Other monuments are now being scrutinized in Montreal, including a plaque outside the Bank of Montreal building in the city’s historic quarter. “Near this square… the founders of Ville-Marie first encountered the Iroquois whom they defeated,” that plaque reads. “Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve killing the chief with his own hands.”
A similar debate is also raging in Halifax over a statue of the city’s founder, Edward Cornwallis, who issued a bounty on the scalps of the region’s Mi’kmaq people.
With files from CTV Montreal’s Rob Lurie and The Canadian Press
