Someone placed fake severed hands around the neck of a Christopher Columbus statue in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor neighborhood, bringing attention to the controversial explorer’s treatment of America’s indigenous population. The hands, which had been removed by 5 p.m., were bloody and were draped in front of the Italian explorer’s statue sometime Monday.

It was a clear move to bring attention to the way Columbus and his fellow sailors treated Native Americans when they landed on the continent in 1492. Historians say that, after Columbus and his crew landed in what would become the Bahamas more than 500 years ago, the sailors kidnapped and enslaved the local population.