Mexico’s indigenous Purepecha tear down statues of Spaniards

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Activists from Mexico’s Purepecha people have used axes and sledgehammers to knock down statues of their ancestors being forced to work by a Spanish priest in the 1700s. The Purepechas have objected to the statues since they were erected in 1995 in the capital of western Michoacan state, Morelia, and have repeatedly called for them to be taken down. The life-size statues depict the priest ordering one nearly naked Purepecha to cut a stone block, while another hauls a stone away on his back. The Supreme Indigenous Council of Michoacan said the statues glorified the brutal exploitation of their ancestors.