Statues Of Conquistador Juan De Oñate Come Down As New Mexico Wrestles With History

John Burnett

The movement for racial justice is toppling statues across America, from Robert E. Lee to Christopher Columbus — and now the Spanish conquistador, Juan de Oñate, the first European to colonize the arid wilderness of New Mexico, the state's first colonial governor and a despot who inflicted misery on Native Americans. Tensions boiled over recently at a demonstration to remove his statue, where a man seen defending the statue allegedly shot a protester. The confrontation has revealed fault lines over how native and Hispanic history are told. Time was when there were costumed pageants in the cities of Santa Fe and Española that reenacted the entry of Spanish governors into New Mexico, but both have been permanently cancelled after protests that they were culturally offensive to Native Americans. And time was when there were two bronze statues of Oñate, who established the first European settlement in America west of the Mississippi. In Albuquerque last month, protesters wrapped a chain around the neck of the bearded, armored figure, chanting, "Tear it down!" Authorities have removed both statues and put them in storage, with their futures uncertain. Historically, Native Americans say they were tyrannized by Spaniards. Hispanics say New Mexico wouldn't have its unique hybrid Spanish-native culture if it weren't for their ancestors. Melanie Yazzie, who is Navajo, asserts that original inhabitants deserve the dominant voice. She's a professor of Native American and American Studies at UNM and a co-founder of the Indian rights group, The Red Nation. "I mean, this is Albuquerque," she said, "and it's considered kind of an American city. But this is actually Tewa land. This is Pueblo land. And so the people you should be listening to, first and foremost, when it comes to the history of colonization are the native people whose land you're occupying." For some New Mexicans, the figure of Oñate in bronze, and the name Oñate on a local elementary school and on a building at UNM, represent a festering wound. "Someone might look at the statue and say, 'I see the beginning of Hispanic culture. I see the Spanish language being brought. I see Catholicism starting here,'" said state historian Rob Martinez. "But someone else will look at it and say, 'I see my religion being suppressed. I see my culture being eliminated. I see my ancestors being forced to work and pay tribute.'" The person whom one historian calls the last conquistador is one of the seminal figures in New Mexico history. But some Hispanic New Mexicans — many who trace their lineage to the founding colonists — are just as adamant that their history be told, not erased. "Sure he wasn't a saint, but you can't put aside what the Spanish brought — the horse, the pig, sheep, the cow, wine and the mining industry," said Reynaldo "Sonny" Rivera, the acclaimed sculptor of the two Oñate statues. The one in Albuquerque was of the conquistador afoot, leading a procession of settlers with oxcarts and animals, and the sculpture in Alcalde, north of Santa Fe, showed him on a horse ready for battle. Though Rivera gave his okay for the city to remove the Albuquerque statue for safekeeping, he's fuming over the outcome. "Indian lives matter. But also my people, Hispanic lives, matter. I matter. My art matters. And I'm pissed," he said...MORE