In the center of the plaza of Santa Fe there is a monument, erected in 1867, to “the heroes of the Federal Army who fought and who fell in the battles of
Canon del Apache and Pigeons' Rancho, March 28, 1862" --that is, the Civil War battle now known as the
Battle of Glorieta Pass-- "and in the battle of
Valverde, February 21,1862” and
To the heroes who have fallen in various battles with ______ Indians in the Territory of New Mexico.
There’s a watercolor of this monument on the web: www.virtuallastchapter.com/examples/chapter03/sfobelisk/
The word before “Indians” was chiseled out on August 7, 1973. It used to say “savage”. Witnesses to the erasure describe the chisel-wielding critic as “a young man with blonde hair tied in a pony tail and wearing a hard hat.”
Said “young man” (what people used to call me when I was a hippie) probably shared the sentiments of this masterpiece(www.santafenow.com/links/april99/):
These days there is a baselisk [sic] monument in the center of the plaza commemorating the rich history and culture of our community. Look closely. You'll notice one side has a word missing, it's been chipped from the stone in mid-sentence. It was originally a reference to "Savage Indians." It was corrected to read "Indians." Cultural competency requires conscious attention and practice. By leaving the missing word gouged from the marble, we are always reminded that the multicultural community we so value should not, - and can not -, be taken for granted. The annual Indian Market is held on the Plaza, in the shadows of the baselisk. I think that's a good sign.
It’s “obelisk”, not “baselisk”. “Cultural competency” requires knowing what “savage Indian” meant in 1867, when this monument went up. Why? Because the Indians who participate in Indian Market are mostly Pueblo Indians. The Pueblo (and the Ute, the Hopi and others) fought and died along with the U.S.Army in the battles against the “savage” Indians. The “heroes” the obelisk honors includes their ancestors, too.
The term “savage” Indian was not a racist epithet. It was used to describe a particular class of Native Americans who behaved ... like savages. The usage of the term is documented in a contemporary opinion of the Supreme Court of the Territory of New Mexico (the equivalent of a modern-day federal district court). United States v. Lucero, 1 N.M. 422 (1869).
In United States v. Lucero, Juan Lucero was prosecuted for buying some land in Cochiti Pueblo. Under an Act of Congress in 1834, it was a crime for non-Indians to settle on Indian lands. The New Mexico court decided that the term “Indian”, as used in the 1834 statute, could not possibly apply to the Cochiti, because they were civilized Indians, not “savage Indians”. Chief Justice Watts wrote the opinion, which is uncharacteristically informative for 19th Century legal writing:
The Spanish rule in Mexico was partial and unjust. Its few favorites of the Spanish crown held all the offices in church and state, made the laws, executed the laws, and considered the great body of the Mexican people, equally honest and more industrious than themselves, a sort of upper servants and peons to the wants of their whiter skin and more refined civilization.
Justice Watts went on to describe the role of the Indians in the Mexican Revolution. In light of their contribution to the liberation of the Republic, Indians were granted full and equal citizenship. Since this was leading up to the rather shocking (for 1869) assertion that Pueblo Indians were not really “Indians”, but full citizens of the United States, the learned judge then explains the distinction between the civilized “Indians” and “savages”:
The Spanish scholar will not fail to remember that when Spanish law books and Spanish legislators speak of Indians, they mean that civilized race of people who live in towns and cultivate the soil, and are often mentioned as naturales and pueblos, natives of the towns, and as Indios del pueblos, Indians of the towns; and for the other distinct and separate class of Indians whose daily occupation was war, robbery, and theft carried on against the pueblo Indians, as well as the Spaniards, the term savages (salvajes) or barbarous Indians (Indios barbaros), was the expression used.
In 1848, the War between the Republic of Mexico and the United States was ended with a treaty, executed in the town of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Section VIII, Mexicans residing in territories ceded to the United States were allowed to elect to become United States citizens by remaining in the territory. The same section of the treaty also ratified existing property rights. Thus, the “Indians” of New Mexico were citizens of the Republic of Mexico and by the treaty (which supercedes an Act of Congress) they were United States citizens with full property rights. Conclusion: the Cochitis could sell their land to Mr. Lucero if they wanted to, and it was none the United States Attorney’s business, notwithstanding the Act of 1834.
The Judge then explains that the people the Mexicans called “Indians” had no counterpart in the experience of United States lawmakers, and the people that federal statute referred to as “Indians”, the Mexicans would and did call “savages”.
An examination of the eleventh article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo will demonstrate, that in speaking of the Indians, no reference was had, or intended to be had, to the pueblo Indians, for the term is tribus salvajes (savage tribes). When the term Indian is used in our acts of congress, it means that savage and roaming race of red men given to war and the chase for a living, and wholly ignorant of the pursuits of civilized man, for the simple reason that when those laws had been enacted, no such class of Indians as the pueblo Indians of New Mexico existed within the existing limits of the United States.
By contrast, parts of Arizona and New Mexico, ceded to the United States by this treaty, were occupied by Navajos, Apaches and Comanches, semi-nomadic herders who had been raiding Spanish settlements since 1650, thus earning the epithet “savages”. In Section Eleven of the treaty, the United States promised to use military force to suppress these “savage tribes” and prevent them from crossing the new border to raid Mexico.
The Treaty makes no mention of the citizenship or property rights of these "savage tribes", because under Spanish law, they had no such rights:
Neither the Spanish crown, its viceroys in the new world, nor the Mexican republic ever legislated for the savage class of Indians. They would as soon have thought of legislating upon what time the wolf should be admitted into their sheep-fold, the bear into their cornfields, the fox into their hen-roosts, or the skunk into their parlors.
The Pueblos, by contrast, had land grants from the Spanish Crown, to honor the promises made by De Vargas in the re-conquest of New Mexico following the Pueblo Revolt. In short, the epithet “savage Indians” was not racist. The Navajos, Apaches and Comanches earned the epithet by their behavior and lifestyle.