Cuartocentenario

Published with permission from the Santa Fe New Mexican

Joe Sando: An American Indian’s View of History

By Antonio López – April 24, 1998
Antonio López is a staff writer for Pasatiempo

Author/historian Joe Sando, director of the Institute for Pueblo Studies in Albuquerque, takes a moderate stance on the controversial figure of Don Juan de Oñate and his legacy in New Mexico.

Key to Sando’s own perspective is a broad overview. The third edition of his Pueblo Nations (Clear Light) will be released this month. He also wrote Pueblo Indians and History of Jemez Pueblo, both of which are out of print.

Although critical of celebrations commemorating Oñate, Sando recognizes the contributions made by the Spanish to contemporary Pueblo Indian culture, and vice versa. In 1693, he said, Spanish colonialists and Pueblo Indians allied to defend themselves against invading nomadic tribes, including the Apache, Comanche and Navajo. It was that era, he believes, that forged New Mexico’s culture.

“Oñate was the leader who brought the culture, which developed today as the mestizo” or a mix of Spanish and Pueblo Indian, Sando said. “There are just as many Pueblos who are part Spanish as there are Spanish who are part Pueblo. That’s how we were raised.“ Moreover, he added, “During the Pueblo Revolt, there were lots of mestizos.”

In 1599, Acoma Pueblo rose against the Spanish, killing several soldiers. In retaliation, Oñate ordered the right feet cut off of 24 Acoma men, causing many to resent this year’s celebration of Onate.

Lost in the controversy surrounding Oñate’s atrocity in Acoma are the priests, who Sando said deserve to be honored for defending Pueblo Indian rights against Spanish rule. Sando also believes that as a result of protection under the Spanish land grants, Pueblo Indians fared better under Spanish rule than under the U.S. government.

“In my written articles, I have indicated the Spanish government was the best, because under the American government, we lost much of the land that was left untouched,” Sando said.

The Pueblo Indians were fortunate, Sando said, because other tribes were engulfed by what is known as the Land Allotment Act, when the United States government took over large amounts of land and gave out only small parcels to some tribal members. Then the rest—the majority—was divided among homesteaders. “Veterans of the Civil War and all sorts of Europeans were allowed to homestead on former Indian land,” Sando said.

Other American Indian tribes suffered more than the Pueblos, Sando said, because the pueblos were protected by Spanish laws. “With the Spanish land grants, the federal government cannot touch those today,” he said. “It’s protected by the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty, because (the United States) said they would continue the relationship the pueblos had with the Mexicans and the Spanish.”

When the United Sates signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, ending the Mexican War, it agreed to recognize the Spanish colonists and Pueblo Indians as equal citizens.

According to Sando, modern-day pueblo life is the result of mixing with the Spanish. “Half of the Pueblos’ government was introduced by the Spanish, including the governor, lieutenants, sheriffs and church officers,” he said. “The structure was introduced in 1620 to work along with the traditional form of government.”

In addition, Sando said, the Catholic priests helped introduce many of the agricultural practices of the modern Pueblos, and also brought Arabic engineering to Northern New Mexico. “Padres served as an extension agent, teaching the Pueblos how to farm the new things: orchards, vineyards, the new crops and how to create acequias,” he said. “That’s where the Moors come in. They were the ones who did the acequias in North Africa, introduced it to Spain, and the Padres taught it to the Pueblos.”

Sando recognizes atrocities committed by many Spanish conquistadors, but thinks it’s wrong to focus only on Oñate. In 1540 Francisco Vásquez Coronado, who led the first major exploratory mission into the Northern Rio Grande region, was responsible for sacking two pueblos in the Bernalillo area.

“A lot of people don’t read history,” he said. “Right now the focus is on what happened at Acoma, but they don’t know what happened at other times, like there was some activity (atrocities) under Coronado. (Garcia Lopez) Cardènas, who reported to Coronado, was punished for what he allowed (the atrocities) to happen in the Sandia area. They don’t teach history in school. Good or bad, we need to know all those things.”

Sando said the priests and colonial women deserve honors more than Oñate. “I have maintained from the beginning of this rhetoric that we should honor the padres along with the Hispanic woman who suffered because her husband was away most of the time as a citizen soldier,” he said. “The husband was gone, and the fear that he might be killed, never come back, or maybe they feared an attack by the Navajo and Apache. And along those lines, the Pueblo woman also suffered like the Hispanic colonial woman. These are the kind of things I would like to see represented and honored, rather than Oñate.”