Columbus ship replicas sail into Mississippi harbour

Replicas of Christopher Columbus' Niña and Pinta have arrived along Mississippi's Gulf Coast, sailing into a Biloxi harbor as spectators aimed their phones out to the horizon.

About a dozen spectators lined a pier Wednesday as the ships arrived.

Columbus used the Niña on three of his four voyages to the New World beginning in 1492.

He was long celebrated in the U.S., and is honored with a federal holiday — but in 1992, with the 500th anniversary of his first transatlantic voyage, more voices joined in the call for a reckoning with the brutal aspects of his legacy. Columbus' arrival brought violence, disease, enslavement, racism and exploitation to the native people. Some states and cities have replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous People's Day.