Cabezon Peak, Sandoval County
According to recent research, the colonization of the Americas is the largest human mortality event in known history. It caused the deaths of 55 million indigenous people - the equivalent of 10% of the world population at that time. Colonization impacted the lives of people around the globe - such as causing famines and inspiring hate-filled violence by dictators. It is vital that we understand what happened here and find ways to atone.
Telling a 530+ year history will inherently contain inaccuracies. New Mexico’s history (as it is told) is largely based on the writings of Spaniards and U.S military. Tribes did not have written documentation but passed down their history through song and art. It is not uncommon that they keep these stories to themselves. Every story told about our history is colored by both the person telling it and those hearing it. Every attempt was made to ensure the descriptions of events on the timeline below are honest. We apologize if an important date was not included or if there are errors in our telling.
CW: The timeline below describes atrocities such as genocide, mutilation, violence against children, and more.
We are not reading this history from an objective and removed position, as an academic might. Rather, we are learning about events that have shaped our communities and caused real harm to our friends, neighbors, and colleagues. Reading from this perspective can make it a more difficult process. For people who have a personal connection to events on this timeline, reading it can bring on painful emotions.
Please remember to show yourself and those in your group kindness and care.
TIMELINE OF COLONIZATION IN NEW MEXICO
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In the fifth and sixth centuries, Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities in the world, home to as many as 200,000 people. It had the largest market and was the center of trade throughout the region, including the Southwest.
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Although we probably will never understand the specific origins of irrigation and flood-control practices in North America, we do know that the organized manipulation of water resources in New Mexico spans back to at least 800 A.D. and the run-off collection systems of the Ancestral Pueblo people of the Four Corners region.
By 1400, their descendants had created a complete system of gravity-fed irrigations ditches on the major rivers and tributaries within the state. These early irrigation systems arose simultaneously with the development of agriculture, thus making permanent settlements a possibility in an arid land and leading to the flowering of a rich Pueblo culture.
By the time that the Spanish explorers arrived in the 1540’s, both the Pueblo and Navajo people had developed irrigation practices that depended on centralized authority and mandatory community responsibility for the maintenance of the irrigation canals and ditches.
If the traditional water-control practices of the Spanish settlers and the Indigenous people resembled one another, there was one thing that the Spaniards brought with them that the Indigenous peoples did not have: a body of formal, written water law. This one fact would go far in helping to create in New Mexico a unique legal culture related to the use of water.
By 1700. seventy acequia systems operated in New Mexico, with several hundred more added over the next hundred years.
Acequia Madre in Santa Fe is one of the oldest acequias still operating.
Acequia comes from the pre-Islamic Sabaean (ancient Yemeni) term saquiya (bearer of wine or water), which went on to become the Arabic term as-saqiya (that which gives water). Water management systems like the acequia have for millennia—some say 10,000 years—provided a foundation for desert religions. Over time, water and religion shaped each other. The most important term in Islamic law, besides “Allah,” is Shari’ah—a word that originally described the legal principles that governed the water management practices of nomadic tribes in the Arabian peninsula of the pre-Islamic era.
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At this time in Mesoamerica, regional governments became commercially oriented. Long-distance trade routes developed and alliances were formed. There was a prolific amount of art created and exchanged. The technology for smelting gold, silver, and copper, was introduced to Pueblo cultures from Central and South America. Around the year 1000, Pueblo cultures had become fully integrated into the pan-Southwest trade network.
It has long been thought that the highly valued turquoise used in Aztecan moisaics came from the Pueblo people, though research and analysis done in 2018 questions that theory. Even if that turquoise came from northern Mexico, the coral, sea shells, and tropical bird feathers found in Southwestern traditional art shows there was active trade.
The items in the images below:
A. Feather Prayer Fan with Macaw Feathers by Patrick Scott (Diné)
B. Necklace of Sea Shell Inlaid with Coral, Turquoise, Jet by Kewa Pueblo artist Percy Reano
C, Pottery Parrot by Santa Clara artist Autumn Borts Medlock
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Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann were German cartographers. They were the first to use the name “America,” chosen for the Italian Amerigo Vespucci, who colonized Brazil.
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The Laws of Burgos was the first legal code in the Americas. Originating in the West Indies, these laws governed the behavior of Spanish colonizers and were centered on converting Natives to Catholicism. By the time Spaniards were colonizing the Southwest, these laws authorized and legalized encomiendas. Spaniards were ordered to read aloud Spain’s religious justification and demand for obedience from the Native populations (ignoring the fact that none would speak Spanish.)
Encomiendas were a reward to conquerors (who were called encomenderos). Among the 35 laws, Natives had to pay a tax but could not be forced into labor. Encomenderos had to provide housing and protection, could not issue punishment or verbal abuse, and they were not granted ownership of the land. When an encomendero died, the encomienda was inherited by their children.
Encomiendas were implemented by New Mexico's governors from 1598 to 1680.
Despite Spain’s intent with the Laws of Burgos and despite Queen Isabella officially declaring slavery of Natives illegal in the 1550s, this system was impossible to over-see and immediately became a highly abusive, unethical form of communal slavery. The first to implement encomiendas (Oñate) was among the worst to abuse the system. And so was the church. Indigenous people were enslaved and forced to build churches and mine for silver, or they were sold into slavery to other tribal nations. Apaches, Navajos, and Utes were often targeted and women and children were abducted and sold through this system through the early 1900s.
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Following an earlier expedition to Yucatán led by Juan de Grijalva in 1518, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés led an expedition to Mexico. The Spanish-Aztec War lasted for two years. The Spanish win was largely due to the warriors from Tlaxcala who became their alliies. Tlaxcala land was surrounded by Aztecan land. The two states had been warring for decades.
Later, Tlaxcalan warriors joined the Spanish as they colonized and brutalized the Pueblos.
As a result of their alliance with the Spaniards, Tlaxcala had privileged status. Tlaxcala was allowed to survive and preserve its pre-Columbian culture. In addition, as a reward to the Tlaxcalans unyielding loyalty to the Spanish, the city and its inhabitants largely escaped the pillaging and destruction following the Spanish conquest. The Tlaxcalans gave further assistance in the Mixtón War and traveled with colonizers in New Mexico.
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The Massacre in the Great Temple has also been called the Alvarado Massacre and The Toxcatl Massacre.
In May 1520, Tenochtitlan celebrated the Festival of Toxcatl, the highest day in the Aztec calendar. As an act of diplomacy, they invited the Spanish to witness the festivities. The indigenous and the Spanish have different stories at this point.
On Spain’s side, some say they were attacked. Others say they were stopping a human sacrifice.
The version told by the indigenous people is corroborated by research done at the Getty Museum. At the height of the celebration, when the bravest captains and warriors performed a ritual known as the Dance of the Serpent, the Spanish soldiers in full body armor surrounded the palace and launched a surprise attack where almost everyone dies.
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Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was a crewmember on a Spanish ship that landed in Florida. Most perished. Survivors made their way to the Gulf Coast, Texas. Within a year after landing in the Americas, only Cabeza de Vaca and two others remained. They willingly became slaves to Native tribes so they could survive. They traveled through Texas to California - becoming the first Europeans to see New Mexico. Cabeza de Vaca finally made his way to Mexico in 1536. It was his story that encouraged other colonizers to try to find the Cities of Gold.
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Francisco Vasquez de Coronado arrived to survey the land - and look for gold - accompanied by 400 Spanish soldiers, 1,000 Tlaxcalan warriors, six Franciscan friars, dozens of African slaves, and 1,500 horses, sheep, cattle and pigs.
First contact was with the Zuni. Coronado sent someone ahead to scout. He met the Zuni - who killed him. Coronado initially set his sight on Hawikúh, today’s Zuni Pueblo, a large western New Mexico settlement fabled to be constructed of gold. When his arrival at Hawikúh met fierce resistance, and legends of gold proved untrue, a missive from fellow soldier Pedro de Alvarado directed Coronado north to the thriving Tiwa communities of Tiguex province.
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The Tiguex (tee-wish) were a group of pueblos on the Rio Grande. They are now called Tewa, and include Nambe, Ohkay Owingeh, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, and Tesuque.
The Coronado expedition brutalized the native people, destroyed crops, and assaulted the women. They forced their way into to Coafor (near Bernalillo), forcing the people out to make the pueblo their camp. Fighting erupted and lasted for months.
When the Spanish laid siege, they burned at the stake 50 people who had surrendered. At the end of the siege, they killed 200 fleeing warriors.
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With the objective of spreading Catholicism, Juan de Oñate y Salazar colonized New Mexico. His first interactions were with the Piro, who gave him and his men food and water. He named the pueblo Socorro, which means "help" or "aid." He founded the Province of Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico and traveled throughout the west.
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At the end of 1598, some of Oñate's men went to Acoma Pueblo to demand the provisions that were required payment as part of the Spanish encomienda. (see entry for the year 1500). This was a reserve the Acoma people needed to survive the winter, so they refused. A fight broke out and 11 colonizers died - including Oñate's nephew.
To retaliate for his nephew's death, Oñate murdered 800 people from Acoma Pueblo, including 300 elders, women, and children. Two Hopi men had their right hands cut off and were sent to the Hopi mesas as a warning. The 507 survivors were put on trial at Ohkay Owingeh. All Native women between the ages of 12 and 25 became indentured slaves at the Spanish capital. It is told that 24 men had one foot amputated (though research says it was just the toes so they would be workable slaves.)
Later, upon learning of the atrocities committed by Oñate, the king of Spain banished him from the new world. He returned to Spain where he lived the rest of his days.
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In early 1601, five soldiers deserted Oñate's camp and fled toward Mexico. They were attacked by the Jumanos/Tompiro and two were killed. The other three returned to the Spanish capital at Ohkay Owingeh. The Spanish learned the Jumanos were planning to descend on the Spanish capital. Vicente de Zaldivar (Oñate's nephew) was sent to the Salinas region to punish them for the murder of the two fleeing Spaniards. A six-day battle ensued, likely at Quarai. The Spanish won, having killed 900 Native Americans.
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La Villa Rael de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis (The City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi) was founded on the site of a pueblo that had been abandoned 200 years previously - Ogha Po’oge (Tewa for "White Shell Water Place"). In 1609, Don Juan de Peralta became the next governor and moved the capital from Ohkay Owingeh to Santa Fe.
As an example of how colonization still impacts us at all levels - the current official website for the City of Santa Fe describes this transition of power as Peralta being appointed governor after Juan de Oñate "retired" - ignoring the fact that Oñate had been exiled by the king of Spain for the atrocities committed against the Tiguex and Acoma.
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The Spaniards - driven by bigotry and greed - were set on removing or converting as many indigenous people as possible.
By 1617, eleven Franciscan churches were built and 14,000 indigenous people were Baptized.
1630-1670 is called the Mission Period in the Salinas region south of Albuquerque because of the number of churches built at the Pueblos.
Treatment of indigenous people was violent and went against the law of Spain. The friars would often whip the inigenous people.
By 1637, 43 missions stood on or near the Pueblos. Many Puebloans accepted the Church into their lives.
What the missionaries failed to see or understand was that these ‘pagan inferiors” were, in fact, deeply spiritual. There was no real separation between their personal and tribal identities, the natural world, ancestors, and those who would follow. They understood that the health of the land is tied to the health of the people. The actions of yesterday and today influence the lives of those not yet born.
The Pueblo people were not forced into Catholicism and they did not convert. They did a syncretistic blending of belief systems so that the Catholic Church became a way for each tribal nation to hold on to its unique cultural identity. To this day Catholic Feast Days are times for communities to gather, share a meal, and share their stories through traditional dances.
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The Jemez joined in rebellion with the Navajo. For this “crime”, 29 Jemez leaders were hanged.
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Navajo and Apache were doing raids for horses as early as the 1650s. Following the Revolt, the Pueblo people began a lucrative trade of horses - and thus began the rise of horse culture among nomadic bands such as the Navajo. Apache, Ute, and eventually the Kiowa and Comanche.
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Spanish governors declare that no “foreign Indians” such as Apache may enter into Pueblos except at designated times.
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In 1675, the Spanish governor arrested 47 Puebloan medicine men on the grounds that they practiced sorcery. Four of the holy men were sentenced to death. Three were killed by the colonizers. The fourth took his own life. The men that lived were beaten publicly and imprisoned. Pueblo leaders arrived, and because his military support was gone to fight Apache raiders, the Governor released his captives. Among them was Po’Pay, a holy man and War Captain from Ohkay Owingeh.
Over the next 5 years, while living at Taos Pueblo, Po'Pay sought the support of 46 villages in the Rio Grande Valley. He got support from most of the Pueblos, as well as from Zuni (300 miles away) and Hopi (400 miles away). The Pueblos not joining the revolt were the four southern Tiwa (Tiguex) and the Piro Pueblos, including Isleta, who have been called allies of the Spanish.
Some of the most important players in the revolt were Tesuque Pueblo, with support from Cuyamungue.
The Tano, who lived on the Glorieta Basin, burned every church.
When the Spaniards fleeing Santa Fe arrived at Kewa, they found the church intact and all of their religious items waiting for them - along with the bodies of missionaries that had been piled up inside the church.
The Pueblo Revolt was the only successful uprising of Natives against invaders. Four-hundred colonizers were killed. The remaining 2,000 fled New Mexico. They were not equipped to fight against this highly coordinated attack.
The pueblos were free from Spanish rule for 12 years, but the violence returned within 9 years.
Note: A great read about the revolt is The Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico in 1680 by Charles Wilson Hackett, written for the Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Oct., 1911), pp. 93-147. You can read it for free here.
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In 1683 Jironza de Cruzate was appointed Captain General and Governor of the New Mexico territory. He was given the mandate of fighting the Apaches and attempting to re-conquer the territory. He was temporarily removed from his position from 1686-1689.
The first thing Jironza did when reinstated was attack Zia Pueblo. This was one of the bloodiest battles at this time. Jironzo massacred 600 people from Zia then burned the village and enslaved the remaining 70 people for 10 years. These enslaved Zia were forced to fight in campaigns against other Pueblos.
The violence of this attack caused many Pueblo people to flee (several tribes went to stay with the Hopi). But, because Jironzo was not equipped to continue inflicting his violence on other pueblos, he retreated back to El Paso.
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In 1688, Spain appointed a new governor - Diego de Vargas Zapata y Luján Ponce de León y Contreras - Despite not having a presence in New Mexico since the Pueblo Revolt. De Vargas arrived in New Mexico in 1691. He and his men surrounded the city and called on the Pueblo people to surrender, promising clemency if they would swear allegiance to the King of Spain and return to the Christian faith. The Pueblo leaders agreed to surrender and on September 12, 1692 De Vargas proclaimed a formal act of repossession.
De Vargas’ repossession of New Mexico is often called a bloodless reconquest since Santa Fe was initially retaken without any use of force. But this telling ignores the violent assault on Zia Pueblo a few years prior. And, de Vargas came in the middle of the night with heavily armed warriors. He cut off the water supply and surrounded the village, ready to destroy them if necessary. "I would consume and destroy them all by fire and sword, holding nothing back." De Vargas had a feast to celebrate the reconquest. This event has been repeated every September during Fiestas de Santa Fe. (See timeline listing for year 2018)
In 1693, the Pueblo people rose up once more against the ongoing oppression and violence. De Vargas retaliated by murdering 70 warriors and enslaving hundreds of women and children.
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From 1692-1846, Spain (and then Mexico) issued 291 land grants in New Mexico, four that include land in New Mexico and Colorado, and three in Colorado. The majority of their land area was designated as common land for residents of the grant and was primarily used for grazing cattle and sheep. Smaller parcels were designated for irrigation agriculture and home sites. In 1846, the United States adjudicated the grants and confirmed 154 as valid.
Some of these land grants are:
Grants to 23 Pueblo villages of 17,712 acres each
Atrisco Land Grant gave 82,729 acres of land in the Atrisco Valley south of Albuquerque to individuals who intended to found a settlement.
Elena Gallegos Land Grant includes 35,049 acres from the crest of the Sandia Mountains to the Rio Grande Valley. Much of it is designated as an open space preserve.
Alameda Land Grant included 89,346 acres on the west side of the Rio Grand, in the area that is now Rio Rancho.
Beaubien and Miranda Grant was the largest grant at 1,714,765 acres. This land grant included land in the north-east corner of the state, near Raton and into Colorado. When the namesakes were killed during the Taos Revolt, it was renamed the Maxwell Grant. The largest surviving piece of the grant is Ted Turner's Vermejo Park Ranch, a guest ranch of about 585,000 acres.
Sangre De Cristo Land Grant was 1,000,000 acres in the San Luis Valley, also awarded to the Beaubien family.
San Miguel de Vado Land Grant was 350,000 acres inthe Pecos River Valley. This grant contributed to the demise of Pecos Pueblo.
Anton Chico Land Grant-Merced in Guadalupe and San Miguel counties.
The New Mexico Attorney General’s website is a great place to start if you are interested in looking up land grants specific to your area.
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Astialakwa, a Jemez Pueblo village, was the scene of an attack by de Vargas and about 120 Spanish soldiers with about 100 enslaved people from Zia Pueblo and others from Tamaya. They were under the command of Bartolomé de Ojeda. More than 80 Jemez people and their allies from Kewa and Cochiti pueblos were killed, and 360 were captured and taken to Santa Fe. Jemez War Chief Diego was sentenced to 10 years hard labor. All prisoners were pardoned after they helped the Spanish defeat the Tewas at Black Mesa.
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(Also known as the O'odham Uprising or the Pima Outbreak)
The Akimel O'odham, or Pima, lived in southern Arizona and Mexico and on the Gila River. The initial act of rebellion was the massacre of 18 settlers . They kept attacking for 3 months, killing more than one hundred settlers. They eventually surrended. When they explained the treatment by the Jesuit missionaries, they were pardoned by the colonial governor Ortiz Parrilla.
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In 1696 the Indians of 14 pueblos attempted a second organized revolt. They murdered five missionaries and thirty-four settlers, which provoked a prolonged and unmerciful response from Diego de Vargas. By the end of the 1600s de Vargas secured the surrender of every pueblo in the region, though many Puebloans fled, joining Apache or Navajo groups.
The Spanish never convinced some pueblos to pledge allegiance to the Spanish Empire and they were far enough away to make attempts at re-conquest impractical. For example, the Hopi remained free of any Spanish attempt at re-conquest; though the Spanish did launch several unsuccessful attempts to secure a peace treaty or a trade deal. In that regard, for some pueblos, the Revolt successfully diminished the European influence on their way of life.
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The Virginia Colony was the first to adopt blood quantum laws. These laws dictated that:
If you had less than 1/2 Native ancestry, then you were not Native. You were “mulatto” and your land could be taken and you could be enslaved.
If you had 1/8 or more African ancestry, then you were considered Black and you could be enslaved.
These blood quantum laws were designed to limit the civil and land rights of both Native Americans and African Americans while giving White colonizers increased wealth.
“Any amount of African ancestry, no matter how remote, and regardless of phenotypical appearance, makes a person Black. For Indians, in stark contrast, any non-Indian ancestry compromises indigeneity, producing ‘half breeds,’ a regime that persists in the form of contemporary blood quantum regulations today. As opposed to enslaved people, whose reproduction augmented their owners’ wealth, Indigenous people obstructed settlers’ access to land, so their increase was counterproductive. In this way, the restrictive racial classification of Indians straightforwardly furthered the logic of elimination.” (Wolfe, 2006).
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Russian maritime explorer and navigator Ivan Fedorov first sighted the Alaskan coastline in 1732, but he did not land.
The first outsiders to set foot in Alaska were Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov in 1741. The first Russian colony in Alaska was founded in 1784.
At the height of Russian America, the Russian population had reached 700, compared to 40,000 Aleuts.
Russian America was sold to the U.S. in 1867, for $7.2 million (2 cents per acre,)
By the 1860s, the Russian government was ready to abandon its Russian America colony. Zealous over-hunting had severely reduced the fur-bearing animal population, and competition from the British and Americans exacerbated the situation. This, combined with the difficulties of supplying and protecting such a distant colony, reduced interest in the territory.
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Spanish troops ambushed a group of Utes on the Chama River, killing 111 Natives and taking 206 as captives.
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Spanish troops surprised a large fortified Comanche village near Spanish Peaks (Raton, NM). They killed nearly 300 men, women, and children and took 100 captives.
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Juan Bautista de Anza was appointed Governor of New Mexico in 1788.
The first tribe to receive Anza’s attention was the Comanche. Under the leadership of Chief Cuerno Verde (Green Horn) - the most prominent of the Comanche war leaders - this nomandic tribe would frequently raid settlements in an extremely violent manner. Anzo wrote that Cuerno Verde had “exterminated many towns, killing hundreds and making as many prisoners whom he afterwards sacrificed in cold blood.” The Chief hated the Spanish because they had killed his father in an earlier battle.
A Spanish and Puebloan force of 560 men, led by Anza, surprised a Comanche village near Pueblo, Colorado. Cuerno Verde was killed at this battle.
This event essentially stopped the Comanche raids and established peace betwen the Comanche, Spanish, and Pueblos.
The Comanche subsequently joined the Spanish in expeditions against their common enemy, the Apache, and turned their attention to raiding Spanish settlements in Texas and northern Mexico.
The peace between the Spanish, the Pueblos, and the Comanche endured until the United States conquest of the province in 1846 during the Mexican–American War.
Peace with the Comanche stimulated a growth in the population of New Mexico; settlements expanded eastward on to the Great Plains.
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Disease killed more indigenous people than overt violence and is considered the deadliest agent of conquest.
Smallpox is believed to have arrived in the Americas in 1520 on a Spanish ship sailing from Cuba, carried by an infected African slave. Smallpox devastated the Inca Empire.
Smallpox (variola) is an acute infectious disease distinguished by high fever and eruptions of the skin which leave severe disfiguring scars. It strikes individuals of all ages, passing by direct contact, but the young, the old, and the undernourished are the most susceptible. Survivors have life-long immunity, which is why the disease tended to occur in cycles. After a widespread epidemic, a period of years is needed for an unprotected population to grow up.
Smallpox devastated Native communities the most during an 80-year period from the 1770s to 1850. A vaccine was discovered in 1799, but it was difficult to transport to this area.
Epidemic of 1780-1782
In 1779, an epidemic began in Mexico and worked its way up to the Rio Grande Pueblos.
Population centers like Albuquerque and Santa Fe were hit hard, first. But the most damage was seen in the Pueblos. San Felipe lost 130 people. Kewa lost 230 people. Santa Clara and Cochiti each lost 106 people.
As the Pueblos along the river finally saw the disease dissipate, it began to hit Pecos, Zuni, and Hopi.
Some say that 50% of the Pueblo population was taken by this epidemic.
Smallpox was a major reason Pecos Pueblo was abandoned, because the disease had contaminated their water sources.
It is likely diseases ravaged this area starting right after it first hit Mexico in 1520. Documentation is not conclusive about specific epidemics until the 1700s. The years of documented contagion - smallpox or other - include:
1709
1728–1729
1733
1736-1737
1748
1780–1781
1785
1789
1799–1800
1804-1805
1816
1840
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The United States Constitution includes recognition of tribal sovereignty. Article I, Section 8 states that "Congress shall have the power to regulate Commerce with foreign nations and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes", determining that Indian tribes were separate from the federal government, the states, and foreign nations.
Historians agree the Iroquois wielded a major influence in the writings of the U.S. Constitution. The traditions of Congressional debates were inspired by the Iroquois Confederacy, who had already formed a multi-state government that ensured individual governance and freedoms. The Confederacy represented the Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, and Seneca. The Confederacy was federal in nature, operating under The Great Law of Peace. Individual tribes handled their own affairs but came together to solve issues of common importance.
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The signing of the Louisiana Purchase kicks off decades of violence as Spain, the United Kingdom, France, and the U.S. battled over stolen lands. This land purchase doubled the size of the United States with territory largely unexplored by colonizers, including the northeast corner of New Mexico.
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The 1819 act of Congress was meant to "civilize" Native communities. Hundreds of boarding schools were built around the country. They forbid Native American children from using their own languages and practicing religions. They were given new Anglo-American names, clothes, and haircuts, and told they must abandon their way of life because it was inferior to white people’s.
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The Mexican War of Independence was not a single, coherent event, but rather a series of local and regional armed struggles which can be considered a revolutionary civil war that culminated with the drafting of the Declaration of Independence of the Mexican Empire in Mexico City in September 1821. Spain did not recognize Mexico’s independence until 1836 with the signing of the Santa María–Calatrava Treaty.
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There is a group of people which we can clearly describe as those who lived in this region before Mexico’s independence from Spain and after the Mexican American War, and who have both Spanish and indigenous heritage. But, there is not an agreed-upon or popularly used name.
Indo-Hispanic: those with a genetic and cultural mixing of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Old World peoples throughout Latin America.
Hispanos of New Mexico (a.k.a. Neomexicanos or Nuevomexicanos): Hispanic residents originating in the historical region of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, who have both Oasisamerican and Spanish heritage
Mestizo: an ethno-racial classification that refers to a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry.
Chicano/Chicana: once a classist and racist slur used toward low-income Mexicans which was reclaimed by the Chicano Movement in the 1940a-1970s and used to express political autonomy, ethnic and cultural solidarity, and pride in being of Indigenous descent. The term originated from the Nahuatl word for Mexico, and was used to identify the people of mixed descent who lived in this region during Spanish, Mexican, and United States rule. (The Nahua are often referred to as Aztec but they are an indigenous group that lived in Central America and southern Mexico. The Aztecs were Nahua people, as were the Tlaxcalans who were allies of the Spanish.)
Some of these terms lean towards the indigenous heritage and others towards Spanish heritage. The term you use is likely dictated by whom you are speaking with or about. For simplicity, the following description refers to this group as “new Mexicans.”
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The time from Mexico’s independence in 1821 through the Mexican-American War and the decades that followed was a period that proved to be a traumatizing turning point for ‘new Mexicans.’ The descendents of Spanish colonizers had been living in the area for over 300 years. Many of their families now had both indigenous and Spanish heritage. Following the war, “new Mexicans” held an emotional affiliation with Mexico, even though they were officially U.S. citizens. In the years they were considered Mexican, these people saw the caste system dissolve. White colonizers moving through to the west coast and settling on stolen land in the region treated ‘new Mexicans’ as second class citizens - in part because of Mexico’s huge financial loss from the war and also due to their skin color and mixed ancestry. And, just as had been done to Native communities, the U.S. failed to uphold all of the provisions in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which led to many ‘new Mexicans’ losing the land they had lived on and which they believed they owned.
These ‘new Mexicans’ were beginning to grapple with the lasting harm that comes with having their homes and land being taken, they were experiencing a shift in class and social standing, and they were struggling with understanding their cultural identity. This time is attributed as the cause of the cultural and historical trauma at the root of issues plaguing many New Mexico communities today.
In the 2000s, Española and Chimayó (Rio Arriba County) garnered national attention due to the heroin epidemic. In a 2008 New York Times article, Ben Tafoya (then-director at Hoy Recovery) was quoted as saying he believed heavy drug use is “rooted in a shared sense of loss, starting when the United States refused to recognize many Spanish land grants in the mid-19th century and building more recently as struggling families, accustomed to farming and ranching, became dispirited as they had to sell land.”
A 2004 article in Counter Punch goes even farther, saying the epidemic can be traced back to Oñate and is seen in the rise of Penitentes in northern and central New Mexico following Mexico’s independence and the church’s decision to pull missionaries and install far fewer secular priests. Penitentes - whose faith is proved through penance and suffering - became the spiritual leaders in the area. The article quotes a Chimayó counselor as saying “Heroin addiction is the involution of the trauma of being the conqueror and the conquered. The perpetrator-victim cycle gets repeated. It’s in the family. It’s in the streets with the children. It’s in the institutions. When you have trauma, this charge in the nervous system builds up, and it has to be released. It goes out on others with violence, or inward with alcohol or drugs. It’s self-hatred. Trauma begets trauma.”
In 2000, Congress acknowledged that actions taken by the federal government and the Territory of New Mexico in the mid to late nineteenth century were central to the dispossession of Mexican American landholders. The descendants of Spanish colonizers were now feeling the lasting harm that comes from having their homes taken from them.
This newly-felt turmoil felt by “new Mexicans” is what led to the phrase "We didn't cross the border. The border crossed us."
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The Comanche and their Kiowa and Kiowa Apache allies carried out large-scale raids hundreds of miles deep into Mexico killing thousands of people and stealing hundreds of thousands of cattle and horses.
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Secretary of War John C. Calhoun administratively established the BIA within the his department on March 11, 1824. Congress later legislatively established the bureau and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs post via the act of July 9, 1832 n 1849, the BIA was transferred to the newly created Interior Department.
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Andrew Jackson ordered the removal of Southern tribes to West of the Mississippi. From 1830 to 1850, about 100,000 Natives were displaced. Between 10,000-16,000 Native Americans died on the Trail of Tears and in the immediate aftermath, including 8,000 Cherokee, 3,500 Creek, 500-800 Chickasaw, and 700 Seminole.
The Choctaw were the first to be displaced. The Choctaw people originated from Nanih Waya, a sacred hill near what is now known as Noxapter, Mississippi. Nanih Waiya means "Productive Mound" and is often referred to as "The Mother Mound." The U.S. gave them 2 weeks to collect crops, livestock, and other belongings. And say goodbye to their ancestral lands. Along their journey, they were forced to leave their cattle. They walked in flooding rains, then sleet, then a blizzard, while either naked or poorly dressed. They had to ration their food and struggle to survive starvation and dysentery. About 6,000 Choctaw (nearly one-third of the Choctaw Nation) died on their 500-mile journey.
They walked the Trail of Tears knowing they would face hardship and death. But they had a vision of health for their descendants. Every step carried a prayer. The Trail of Tears shaped the Choctaw's understanding of Blood Quantum and the tribe's policies for determining enrollment, but it did not change who they are. By adapting to the reality of being a displaced people, they found ways to stay connected. Now, the Choctaw Nation is the third largest in the U.S., with over 200,000 citizens around the world. And, their spirit of mutual aid persevered. When the Choctaw learned about the Irish Potato Famine - only 14 years after the Trail of Tears - they pooled what little they had and sent $170 to Midleton in County Cork, south of Dublin (equivalent to $5,000 today.) The two communities have maintained a connection for 175 years.
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Also known as the Río Arriba Rebellion, the rebellion was against the Governor at the time, Albino Perez, who the people living in northern New Mexicans despised.
When Pérez heard of the rebellion, he made a failed attempt to rally allies. He and his troops went to fight the rebels, meeting up with them in San Ildefonso. Most of Pérez's men promptly abandoned him and joined the rebels.
Pérez retreated to Santa Fe with the few men who remained loyal to him. Unable to find security in the capital, Pérez attempted to flee the city, but a group from Kewa intercepted and killed him. They decapitated Pérez and returned his head to Santa Fe for public display.
José María Angél González (Taos/Pawnee) was made governor - the only Puebloan to govern New Mexico.
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At least 20 Mimbreños Apaches were killed near Santa Rita del Cobre, NM - including their leader, Juan Jose Compa. The Apache thought they were meeting up to trade with some American settlers led by John Johnson. Johnson and his group were expecting to get the Mexican bounty for Apache scalps. Johnson crew blasted the Apaches with a canon loaded with musket balls, nails and pieces of glass. Those not killed immediately were quickly finished off.
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His platform while running was to expand the United States territory to California, Oregon, and Texas - all of which were lands claimed by Mexico. Soon after, the term “Manifest Destiny” was coined to validate expansion.
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During his tenure, U.S. President James K. Polk oversaw the greatest territorial expansion of the United States to date. Polk accomplished this through the annexation of Texas in 1845, the negotiation of the Oregon Treaty with Great Britain in 1846, and the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848, which ended with the signing and ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848.
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The Oregon Treaty was an agreement between Britain and the United States. It formalized the border between the United States and British North America west of the Rocky Mountains.
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The Mexican-American War began after the Mexican forces attacked a small American detachment in dispute over land near the Rio Grande. In response, Congress was requested by President Polk to declare war on Mexico.
In 1846, General Stephen Kearny arrived in Santa Fe with a force of about 2,500. They say he captured the territory without firing a shot.
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The Taos Revolt was a populist insurrection in January 1847 by Hispano and Pueblo allies against the United States' occupation of northern New Mexico during the Mexican–American War.
In response to uprising in Taos, American troops attacked the heavily fortified Pueblo of Taos with artillery, killing nearly 150, many of whom were Native. Between 25 and 30 prisoners were shot by firing squads.
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The Mexican-American War came to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico received half the amount of money that the U.S. had originally offered before the start pf the war - 5 cents an acre. The Treaty explicitly recognized the personal and property rights of New Mexicans and Pueblo Indians brought under U.S. sovereignty.
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Tensions rose among every group living in the West. As they saw their ancestral lands being taken and traversed by colonizers heading west, tribes fought each other over hunting grounds, raided settler towns, drove people off land grants, and attacked wagon trains.
The Treaty of Abiquiu was an attempt at making the area safer - at least for settlers heading to California and Oregon. Part of the treaty included a land allotment nearly 1/3 the size of modern-day Colorado. Not only did this pull the Ute out of New Mexico - it forced a nomadic culture to become confined to one place and switch to being agrarian. Over the next 100 years, the Ute saw their parcel of land shrink to a fraction of what it was. Now, their land is two separate parcels - one reservation in northern Utah and two in southern Colorado.
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In the Indian Appropriations Act of 1951, Congress designated funds for moving Native American tribes to reservations where they would be "protected" and enclosed.
In the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871, the United States denounced Native sovereignty, and the federal government no longer recognized Native tribes as independent nations.
In the Indian Appropriations Act of 1885, the United States said tribes could sell unoccupied land they claimed as their own.
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This was a battle involving the Jicarilla Apache, the Ute, and the American 1st Cavalry Regiment. It is said to be one of the most severe battles between Native Americans and the U.S. It was a part of the Ute Wars, in which tribes were fighting against the loss of lands and growing invasion of "settlers."
The Jicarilla and Ute ambushed the Cavalry. A 4-hour battle ensued. The Calvalry lost 22 of their 60 men, 22 horses, and much of their supplies. Another 36 men were wounded. Soon after the U.S. hunted down the Jicarilla with the help of Kit Carson. They defeated the Jicarilla at what is now Ojo Caliente.
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In the Treaty of Mesilla (also called the Gadsden Purchase), the United States acquired 29,670 acres of land from Mexico in what is now the southern part of Arizona and the southwestern corner of New Mexico.
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The first Boarding School opened on the Yakima reservation in Washington. Eventually, several boarding schools and day schools were built in New Mexico. And, youth were sent to schools out of state.
Life at boarding schools was brutal. In 2021 the Secretary of the Interior started an investigation into U.S. Boarding Schools. They have found mass grave sites and confirmed at least 500 deaths, but anticipate that number will climb into the thousands. The boarding school era perpetuated poverty, mental health disorders, substance abuse, and premature deaths in Indigenous communities.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland stated “Recognizing the impacts of the federal Indian boarding school system cannot just be a historical reckoning. We must also chart a path forward to deal with these legacy issues.”
One of the first tasks Deb Haaland started when she became Decretary of the Interior was to form a task force to investigate boarding schools in the U.S.
New Mexico had 45 boarding schools in these counties: McKinley (20), San Juan (10), Santa Fe (4), Bernalillo (3), Sandoval (2), Cibola (2), Otero (1), Sierra (1), Socorro (1), and Torrance (1)
Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report
The Stories Behind the Names: Death at the Santa Fe Indian School, 1891–1909
The video below is of the graduation speech given by Michelle Obama at the Santa Fe indian School in 2016.
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To help develop the American West and spur economic growth, Congress passed the Homestead Act of 1862, which provided 160 acres of federal land to anyone who agreed to farm the land. The act distributed millions of acres of stolen land to individual settlers.
The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in U.S. states using the proceeds from sales of federally-owned land, often obtained from indigenous tribes through treaty, cession, or seizure.
These Acts are what inspired doing Land Acknowledgements.
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During the 1820s and 1830s, hostilities between Mexico and the Apache began to increase. Apaches raids happened more frequently.
Following the Johnson Massacre of Apache in 1837, Kan-da-zis Tlishishen (who the Spanish called Mangas Coloradas) became the principal chief, leading the Warm Springs Apache for 25 years. He is regarded as one of the most important Native American leaders of the 19th century because of his fighting achievements against the Mexicans and Americans.
In 1863, Kan-da-zis Tlishishen arranged a meeting with Americans to come to a peace agreement. When he arrived at Fort McLane, the U.S. military took him into custody. That night, he was tortured - poked with red hot bayonets - and then killed. They cut off his head, boiled it, and sent the skull to a phrenologist in New York.
The betrayal of honorable treaty protocol, the illegal confinement, torture, and murder of Chief Kan-da-zis Tlishishen enraged all the Apache people. The Apache believe that a person travels in the afterlife in the body he or she is left with at death, and so the heinous defilement of Tlishishen’s body united all Apache. It was the catalyst for increased Apache savagery against Americans.
The United States ensured peace with the Apache would be impossible.
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In 1862, Col. James H. Carleton, then in charge of the U.S. “Department of New Mexico,” perceived a threat to settlers from the Native Americans who had long called this place their home. Clothing his solution in the form of a benevolent future, he created a vision of an agricultural reservation in eastern New Mexico, a sparsely populated area fed by the slender Pecos River.
He charged Kit Carson with killing all Apache men and taking the women and children prisoner.
Instead, Carson took the men prisoner and convinced the tribe to surrender.
Next, Carleton order Kit Carson to gather the Navajo. In the siege of Canyon de Chelly, the spiritual heartland of the Navajo people, Carson burned the tribe’s crops and peach orchards, shot their livestock and destroyed wells.
More than 8,500-10,000 men, women, and children of the Dine were forced to leave their homes in northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico. In the dead of winter, they made the 300-plus-mile trek to a desolate internment camp in eastern New Mexico called the Bosque Redondo Reservation, where the military maintained the outpost, Fort Sumner. Along the way, approximately 200 died of starvation and exposure to the elements. Also, those who could not keep up with this pace (tribal elders, the sick, and pregnant women) were shot. The Dine continued to arrive at Bosque Redondo for a period of over two years.
The Mescalero and Dine had longstanding rivalries and different languages. Little firewood was available. There were no tents. The river was laden with salt that weakened the soil. Comanche raids cost the tribes what little they had. Smallpox infected them. An estimated 1,500 perished in the winter of 1863-64 alone.
In 1865, all of the Mescalero Apache escaped, despite the death warrant it carried. The Navajo remained until 1868. That year, Gen. William T. Sherman crafted a treaty granting both tribes permanent rights to a portion of their ancestral lands. On June 18, 1868, freedom in hand, the Navajo people began the long walk back homne.
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Based on archaeological evidence, the earliest habitation of the Hawaiian Islands dates to around 1000–1200 CE, probably by Polynesian settlers from the Marquesas Islands.
British explorer James Cook arrived in 1778.
After Cook's visit, many Europeans came to the islands, bringing diseases to the once-isolated islands. The caused a huge drop in the Native population. By 1820, disease, famine and wars between the chiefs killed more than half of the Native Hawaiian population. During the 1850s, measles killed a fifth of Hawaiʻi's people.
In 1887, Kalākaua was forced to sign the Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Drafted by U.S. businessmen and lawyers, the document stripped the king of much of his authority. It established a property qualification for voting that effectively disenfranchised most Hawaiians and immigrant laborers and favored the wealthier, white elite. Because the 1887 Constitution was signed under threat of violence, it is known as the Bayonet Constitution. King Kalākaua was reduced to a figurehead. Upon his death in 1891, he was suceeded by his sister, Queen Liliʻuokalani. She was the last monarch of Hawaiʻi.
In 1893, Liliʻuokalani announced plans for a new constitution to proclaim herself an absolute monarch.In response, sugar and pineapple-growing businessmen, aided by the American minister to Hawaii and backed by heavily armed U.S. soldiers and marines, deposed Queen Liliʻuokalani and installed a provisional government.
In 1897, over 21,000 Natives, representing the overwhelming majority of adult Hawaiians, signed anti-annexation petitions in one of the first examples of protest against the overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalaniʻs government.
In 1898, Congress officially annexed Hawaii.
In 1959, residents of Hawaiʻi voted to have Hawaiʻi become a state.
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The Treaty of the Navajo ended a horrific period for the Ndé in eastern New Mexico. After the Long Walk, the U.S. attempted to assimilate the tribe and force them to go from being a semi-nomadic culture to an agrarian one. But the land of Bosque Redondo was not fertile. The site was described as one where "the Navajo had sunk into a condition of absolute poverty and despair." Their population dropped from 9,000 to 6,000.
The Treaty included provisions that would force the Ndé to stop raiding and be isolated on their land allotment, which was 13.5 million acres - a fraction of the land they used to have. The U.S. would provide seeds and tools so they could farm. The treaty established the Ndé as a sovereign nation, though made them dependent on the United States. While most of the provisions in the treaty were not honored. the Ndé have been able to grow their land and now own 16 million acres (25,000 square miles). This is the size of West Virginia and the largest reservation in the United States.
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Native American forces led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in the Battle of the Little Bighorn near southern Montana's Little Bighorn River.
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When Chiricahua Apache religious and military leader Geronimo surrendered for the final time to the U.S. government in September 1886, they became prisoners of war and were sentenced to manual labor at an Army camp in Florida.
About 350 people were originally sent by train to Fort Marion, Florida. They died in large numbers and within a year were moved to Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama where they lived for seven years. Then, the remaining 296 people were moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma - the last Native American’s to be relocated to Oklahoma.
They were finally given freedom through an act of Congress in 1913. They had been POWs for 27 years.
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The law authorized the President to break up reservation land, which was held in common by the members of a tribe, into small allotments to be parceled out to individuals. Thus, Native Americans registering on a tribal "roll" were granted allotments of reservation land.w authorized the President to break up reservation land, which was held in common by the members of a tribe, into small allotments to be parceled out to individuals. Thus, Native Americans registering on a tribal "roll" were granted allotments of reservation land.
Native American life deteriorated. The social structure of the tribe was weakened. Nomadic tribes had a difficult time adjusting to an agricultural existence. Natives were swindled out of their property. Reservations began to look like third-world counties - overcome by poverty and despondency. Because the act allowed “surplus” land to be made available to whites, by 1932, Tribal Nations lost two-thirds of the 138,000,000 acres they held in 1887.
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The Homestead Act was not entirely bad. It allowed for freed men to move out of the South. Such was the case with Frank and Ella Boyer, who founded the town of Blackdom 20 miles south of Roswell.
Drought and the Depression made this town short-lived. It dissolved in 1930.
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States began enacting sterilization laws, starting in Indiana. All told, 32 states had eugenics laws, leading to 60,000 disabled people, Native Americans, Black Americans, and "promiscuous women" being sterilized, often without consent. For Native Americans, this practice was administered by Indian Health Services. In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court decided, by a vote of 8 to 1 in the case Buck v. Bell, to uphold a state's right to forcibly sterilize a person considered unfit to procreate. Sterilization was seen as the ideal form of contraception for Native American patients during the 1960s and 1970s. Many could not afford necessary follow-up care and died as a result. Native American women that survived experienced deep psychological trauma. They felt shame and embarrassment and they faced possible condemnation from their tribe due to the value placed on motherhood.
The Nazis looked to American laws when developing their own forced sterilization program, just as they mimicked reservations when designing their internment camps. Otto Frank (Anne Frank's father) wrote the State Department many times, pleading for visas for his family. They were all denied, and Anne Frank eventually was murdered by the Nazis.
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After a gap of over 300 years, the All Indian Pueblo Council began to meet again in the 1920’s, specifically in response to a congressional threat to appropriate Pueblo lands. Partly as a result of the Council’s activities, Congress confirmed Pueblo title to their lands in 1924 by passing the Pueblo Lands Act.
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The IRA (also known as the Indian New Deal and the Wheeler-Howard Act) acknowledged a new degree of autonomy by Native Americans in the United States, giving them greater control over their lands and allowing them to form legally recognized tribal governments.
More info
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Marine Corps' Navajo Code Talker Program was established. During tests, Navajos demonstrated that they could encode, transmit, and decode a three-line English message in 20 seconds - a tast that would take. amachine 30-minutes. .
The Japanese, who were skilled code breakers, remained baffled by the Navajo language. The Japanese chief of intelligence, Lieutenant General Seizo Arisue, said that while they were able to decipher the codes used by the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps, they never cracked the code used by the Marines.
Their contribution was clasified for decades, but in 1992 the Department of Defence was finally able to acknowledge and honor the Navajo for their efforts.
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Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 into law, giving the US military unprecedented power to detain and imprison citizens of Japanese descent. Camps around the country at over 100,000 people. Four smaller camps were erected in New Mexico: Lordsburg (Hidalgo County), Fort Stanton (Lincoln County), Raton (Colfax County), and Santa Fe.
"People think it was only because of Pearl Harbor, but a lot of these [Japanese people] had to register with the government before then," former State Historian Hilario Romero told the Santa Fe Reporter. SFR.
Santa Fe had the largest site in New Mexic. Around 4.555 Japanese men were held at what is now the Casa Solana neighborhood - 22 miles away from where the U.S. was building the bombs that would be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
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Los Alamos was established in 1943 as Project Y, a top-secret site for designing nuclear weapons under the Manhattan Project during World War II. It was built practically overnight on land that was taken from Hispanic and Native people. LANL created the weapon that would kill millions of people and has caused severe environmental harm ever since. To this day, LANL stores radioactive and other hazardous waste on the 63-acre Material Disposal Area G. In recent years, the lab has generated an underground plume that has been spewing hexavalent chromium – a contaminant linked to increased risks of cancer and made famous by Erin Brockovich. In 2016, LANL said it could take over 20 years and nearly $4 billion to clean up decades-old nuclear waste in the area.
San Ildefonso Pueblo Governor Gilbert J. Sanchez has stated that his family, his community, and his tribe have seen their resources slowly co-opted by the lab for decades. “Our irrigation networks depend on water being diverted to the lab. We have watched our resources dwindle over the years because of their nuclear projects, and the lab’s needs only grow. With every transmission line they create to increase their energy capacity, another resource is being diverted from our communities.”.
Los Alamos has been counted as a town with the highest concentration of PhDs and one of the wealthiest counties per capita in the U.S. One in 12 people living in Los Alamos is a millionaire. One of the largest wealth gaps in the nation is between Los Alamos and Rio Arriba.
In 2021, LANL announced the Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade Project. They have labeled this a "sustainable" project, but proposed power lines will pass through the Sante Fe National Forest and cross over ancestral Pueblo Tewa land, thereby disrupting cultural practices connected to the sacred region, causing environmental harm, and diverting local resources - all for energy only the lab will benefit from. No environmental study has been completed. No tribes have been consulted. And none of the tribal prayer sites, ceremonial kivas, or petroglyphs have been considered.
The video below is of Marian Naranjo of Santa Clara speaking on. the displacement caused by Los Alamos National Labs. Marian founded the nonprofit Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE).
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The day the nuclear bomb went off, there were 19,000 people living near the Trinity test blast site. The Mescalero Apache reservation is only 50 miles from the Trinity site.
Residents weren’t given any warning of the detonation, and the health effects lingered through the decades.
In July 2020, on the 75th anniversary of the Trinity nuclear test, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on toxics, Baskut Tuncakhe, describes the nuclear testing's legacy as "one of the cruellest examples of environmental injustice witnessed." He continues, "the discriminatory nature of nuclear testing should be acknowledged and addressed as part of the ongoing conversation on systemic racism and nuclear disarmament."
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The ICC was established under the Indian Claims Act to hear longstanding claims by Native Nations against the United States. I
When it came to land claims, they were required to be based on exclusive use and occupancy of a given area at the time the United States assumed political sovereignty over the Southwest in 1848.
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In 1953, Congress enacted Public Law 83-280 to grant certain states criminal jurisdiction over Indians on reservations and to allow civil litigation that had come under tribal or federal court jurisdiction to be handled by state courts. New Mexico was not among the states this affected.
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The New Mexico Commission on Indian Affairs was created by statute in 1953 by the New Mexico State Legislature. The statute established a state agency, the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA), which would serve as a vehicle between New Mexico’s governor, legislature, and the state’s separate and distinct tribal groups.
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This law not only ended the federal government's recognition of the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin Bands of the Snake Indians. tribes as being sovereign nations - it also transferred all of the land holdings of these tribes. The excuse used by Congress was that the tribal members had fully assimilated civilized culture. The Secretary of the Interior testified to Congress that "It is our belief ... these people have been largely integrated into all phases of the economic and social life of the area ... Their dress is modern, and there remains little vestige of religious or their traditional Indian customs ..." And so they were deemed appropriate for termination.
The truth is the Klamath was the wealthiest tribal nation - fully self-sufficient. They owned the largest remaining stand of Ponderosa pine in the west. With the passage of this federal law, the Klamath's land holdings became property of the United States. And, tribal members became dispersed throughout the region.
The Modoc were reinstated in 1978 and the Klamath were reinstated in 1986.. The United States did not compensate the tribes nor return their land..
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Relocating people from reservations and villages into urban U.S. cities for training and employment became a general trend after World War II. Indian Commissioner Glen Emmons started the BIA Relocation Program in 1948. In 1951 Alaska Delegate Bartlett praised the Alaska relocation program on the floor of Congress, calling for its expansion.
By 1953 relocations had reached 2,600, and they peaked in 1957 with some 7,000. By 1960 a total of 33,466 American Indian and Alaska Native people had been relocated.
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President Lyndon Johnson calls for “termination” to be replaced by Indian “self-determination.” Congress passes the Indian Civil Rights Act “to ensure that the American Indian is afforded the broad constitutional rights secured to other Americans … [in order to] protect individual Indians from arbitrary and unjust actions of tribal governments.”
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The federal prison on Alcatraz island was closed in 1963.
In 1964, Sioux activists claimed the closed prison site under the terms of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which required that unused federal land be given back to Native Americans. The group included Richard McKenzie, Mark Martinez, Garfield Spotted Elk, Virgil Standing-Elk, Allen Cottier, and Walter Means (Russel Means’ father.) The protestors left after a few hours, under threat of being charged with a felony. It did succeed in bringing awareness to Indigenous issues in the Bay area.
In 1969, the facility had been closed for 6 years. A group of 89 protestors decided to occupy the island again. Many of the protesters were Bay Area college students, including two of the group’s leaders: Richard Oakes, an Akwesasne Mohawk, from San Francisco State University, and LaNada War Jack Means, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, who was was the first Native American student admitted to the University of California at Berkeley. (LaNada had married and divorced a relative of Russel Means prior to this action.)
After other failed attempts to take the island, the group that called themselves Indians of All Tribes snuck past a Coast Guard blockade, made it to Alcatraz, and proceeded to occupy the island for 19 months. This has been regarded as one of the greatest acts of political resistance in American Indian history.
The occupiers issued a proclamation to President Richard Nixon and the United Nations that said they would purchase the 16 acres of land for $24 in glass beads and red cloth — an equivalent price to what the U.S. government paid for Manhattan 300 years before.
The occupiers intended to make the island a cultural center. At first, they had support from others in the Bay area. They were given generators, food, and other supplies. At times more than 400 people occupied the island, including Navajo and Ute.
Much happened over those 19 months. Near the end of the occupation, the government had cut off electricity to the island and a fire of unknown origins destroyed several buildings. In June 1971, thelast 15 occupiers were removed from the island.
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In a Special Message to Congress on Indian Affairs, President Richard Nixon denounces the Eisenhower-era policy of terminating Indian nations and announces a policy under which “the Indian future is determined by Indian acts and Indian decisions.” Forced assimilation, the aim since colonial days, would be abandoned.
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Some say that heroin was brought to New Mexico by veterans who became addicted during the Viet Nam War,
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After a 64-year battle, the sacred Blue Lake was returned to Taos Pueblo. Bill H.R. 471/Public Law 91-550, known as “Return of the Blue Lake Act,” returned 48,000 acres of land back to Taos Pueblo - including their sacred Blue Lake.
One of the most significant moments in Federal-Tribal relations, this was the first time land was returned to a Native Nation (rather than compensation.)
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The Native American Religious Freedom Act recognized the integrity of native cultures and ended the persecution of American Indians for religious practices such as the use of peyote in religious ceremonies.
Native Perspectives on the 40th Anniversary of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act
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The Indian Child Welfare Act recognized tribal courts as the primary and ultimate forum for welfare and custody cases concerning Native children. NICWA protects native children from adoption or placement in foster care with non-Natives in response to the long history of forced assimilation and removal.
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This law provides for the repatriation and disposition of certain Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. By enacting NAGPRA, Congress recognized that human remains of any ancestry "must at all times be treated with dignity and respect." Congress also acknowledged that human remains and other cultural items removed from Federal or tribal lands belong, in the first instance, to lineal descendants, Indian Tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations. With this law, Congress sought to encourage a continuing dialogue between museums and Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations and to promote a greater understanding between the groups while at the same time recognizing the important function museums serve in society by preserving the past.
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At the time, the Pecos Repatriation of stolen artifacts was the largest Native American repatriation in United States history.
More information is shared on the Pecos Pueblo profile.
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This executive order required federal departments and agencies to consult with Indian tribal governments when considering policies that would impact tribal communities. The actions leading up to ths are as follows:
1993: President Clinton's first significant action within Indian policy was his issuance of Executive Order 12875, "Enhancing the Intergovernmental Partnership" which called for a decrease in unfunded mandates and the development of a process for all elected officials, including tribal officials, to provide input on federal policies.
1994: President Clinton invited leaders from all 547 recognized tribes to a tribal summit on issues facing tribal communities, the first such summit since James Monroe's presidency.
1998: Clinton issued Executive Order 13084, which only two years later would be annulled and replaced by the identically titled and similarly purposed Executive Order 13175, "Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments."
The First Judicial Court ruled in the case Yazzie v. State of New Mexico, finding that the state's public education system was failing Native American students. The result was the State legislature passing the New Mexico Indian Education Act. The purpose of the act is to ensure equitable and culturally relevant learning environments; to ensure the maintenance of native languages; to study, develop, and implement educational systems that positively affect the educational success of American Indian students; to ensure the public education department partners with tribes; and to encourage cooperation among the educational leadership Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and the Navajo Nation to address the unique issues of education students in Navajo communities."
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Former Governor Bill Richardson signed Executive Order No. 2003-022 on June 20, 2003, elevating the Office of Indian Affairs to the Indian Affairs Department (IAD), a cabinet-level department.
“Our vision is that tribal nations, tribal communities, and Indigenous people are happy, healthy, and prosperous and that traditional ways of life are honored, valued, and respected.”
The IAD mission is “advocating for tribal interests at state and federal levels through policy and legislative work; Supporting tribes with access to resources, technical assistance, and funding opportunities; and Connecting tribes with the executive branch, other tribes, and with the tools and resources they need to be self-governing and self-sufficient."
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The First Judicial Court ruled in the case Yazzie v. State of New Mexico, finding that the state's public education system was failing Native American students. The result was the State legislature passing the New Mexico Indian Education Act.
The purpose of the act is to ensure equitable and culturally relevant learning environments; to ensure the maintenance of native languages; to study, develop, and implement educational systems that positively affect the educational success of American Indian students; to ensure the public education department partners with tribes; and to encourage cooperation among the educational leadership Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and the Navajo Nation to address the unique issues of education students in Navajo communities."
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The Galisteo Basin Archaeological Sites Protection Act provides for the protection of archaeological sites in the Galisteo Basin in New Mexico.
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Governor Bill Richardson’s order tasked government agencies to develop drafts of tribal consultation plans. This was likely inspired from his time as a U.S. Representative for New Mexico and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton administration.
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The U.S. was one of four nations to vote against the declaration and was the last of those four to reverse their decision in 2010.
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The State Tribal Collaboration Act provides the framework for the state and tribes to work together to develop successful programs and services to benefit New Mexico's Native American citizens. It also mandates a yearly Summit.
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In 2015, the people of Standing Rock (Sioux) started organizing with urgency and a new community action collective to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline being built across their lands. Despite more than two years of objections raised directly to the company, Energy Transfer Partners, and years of successive Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council resolutions passed in opposition to pipeline construction within the boundaries of their treaty lands, plans were redrawn so the oil pipe would cut through Standing Rock.
A year later, in March 2016, the young people of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota - along with people from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and Oceti Sakowin Nation - began raising awareness.
In April, Standing Rock's Historic Preservation Officer, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, founded Sacred Stone Camp.
In early August, the Tribe sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for approving the plans. Energy Transfer Partners countersues because protestors won’t let them work.
Scred Stone Camp continued to grow. People from over 100 tribes were camped at Standing Rock, though the rest of the country was still in the dark because no news agencies even bothered to mention what was happening.
On September 3, 2016, the tribe announced that the oil company had destroyed an area that contained significant artifacts.
The next day, on September 4, 2016, a group of peaceful protestors began a prayer walk. The group got news that the oil company’s private security was around and bulldozers were active. The group changed direction to protes. The initial crown was mostly women and children. They were armed with nothing but their voices and strength of character. As bulldozers tore up the earth the security attacked the protestors with dogs and pepper spray. National news reported that the Native Americans attacked the security guards. But, as luck would have it, that very day, Amy Goodman from Democracy Now had arrived to document the events unfolding. She captured the attack on video and shared it with the world. (You can watch that initital report here, but be advised this is very difficult to watch.)
By the end of September, over 300 federally recognized tribes were represented at Standing Rock - plus an additional 4,000 supporters.
In October, the Sheriff claimed the camps were a safety hazard. Police in riot gear with crowd control equipment and supported by National Guard members attacked protestors with pepper spray, bean-bag shot guns, concussion grenades and mace. They even used Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD), which are used to make noises at a piercing frequency and volume. Many protestors were removed and arrested, but many stayed, setting blockades on the highway.
In late November, police launched an attack on the protesters with water cannons in 28 °F weather, along with teargas, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades, injuring hundreds of people. When the news annoucned what they had done, the police tried to say it was protestors who attacked with home-made bombs.
Before Obama left office, he directed the Army Corps of Engineers to do a new environmental study.
In December, before he was actually president, Donald Trump authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to proceed, ending its environmental impact assessment and the associated public comment period.
The camp was eventually cleared the next year. The state claims they had to pay $1 million to clean the site.
At the end of the protests, two narratives emerged:
1) We have never seen anything like this before.
2) This has been happening for hundreds of years.
Both were true. Native Americans have been resisting oppressions since colonizers first arrived. And, this was the largest and most widely supported Native American protest in history, with millions of people around the world voicing their support on every social media platform. Thousands of Natives and non-Natives helped to hold the line.
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Every September in Santa Fe the community hosts Fiestas de Santa Fe - an event that commemorates the reconquest. This event has been called the oldest civic and religious celebration of its kind in North America. Events take place for a week, including presentations in public schools, a special Catholic mass, parades, and a reenactment of de Vargas taking Santa Fe.
A protest of this event happened in the 60s, with no change. In 2015, a silent protest was staged by a mixed group that included Native Americans, white people, and people of Spanish descent (some who had participated in Fiestas in previous years). A dialogue began but nothing significant changed.
A different group of all Native young people protested in 2016 and 2017. The second year, eight protesters were arrested - with the motivations and tactics of the police called into question. (Thhe image below is their arrest of a protestor who they inititally charged with a felony for alleged battery on officer.)
In 2018, after months of negotiations, the reenactment of the Entrada of de Vargas was removed from Fiestas de Santa Fe. The links below are to articles about each of the protests.
In 2020, the City of Santa Fe removed a statue of Diego de Vargas that had been erected 150 years earlier.
But, attitudes about this has not significantly changesd. In 2019, officials with the Española Valley Fiesta made statements “downplaying” the Acoma Massacre. A historian and adjunct professor at Northern New Mexico College, said. “Our encounter with the local Pueblo Indians benefited them. Do not listen to the rhetoric of harm and evil and massacre. Those aren’t true. They live among us and that is proof of our friendship.”
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The purpose of the County and Tribal Health Councils Act is to improve the health of New Mexicans by encouraging the development of comprehensive, community-based health planning councils to identify and address local health needs and priorities.
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When Debra Anne Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) was confirmed as U.S. Secretary of the Interior, she became the first Native American Cabinet Secretary in U.S. history.
She created a new unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs that plans to tackle the decades-long crisis of missing and murdered Native Americans.
She started the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to investigate abusive boarding schools.
She banned the word "squaw" from all federally owned lands, and ordered a task force to determine new names for the 650 places that currently use the word.
She allocated $25 million to bison conservation.
