ÁCOMA AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Once only Indians lived in this land. Then came strangers
from across the Great Water. No land had they. We gave them
of our land. No food had they; we gave them of our corn. The
strangers are become many and they fill all the country. They
dig gold—from my mountains; they build houses—of the trees
of my forests; they rear cities—of my stones and rocks; they
make fine garments—from the hides and wool of animals that eat
my grass. None of the things that make their riches did they
bring with them from beyond the Great Water; all comes from my
land, the land the Great Mystery gave unto the Indian.—It was
meant by the Great Mystery that the Indian should give to all
peoples. But the white man has never known the Indian.—HIAMOVI,
CHIEF AMONG CHEYENNES AND DAKOTAS.[101]
In 1863 seven of the pueblo governors went to Washington to see the
Great Father and to settle with him the question as to the boundaries of
their land grants, and very probably other Indian problems. After their
conference, Lincoln presented each governor with a silver-headed cane,
upon which was engraved as below, varying only as to the name of the
pueblo:
A. Lincoln
Prst. U.S.A.
Ácoma
1863.
The cane is passed to each succeeding governor upon his election in
January, and constitutes his badge of office. When he is absent it is
given to the man who represents him. On our second visit to Ácoma in
1922 we saw it hanging on the wall of our host’s living-room, since the
governor was temporarily away from the pueblo. In a sense, therefore, the
government of the United States is represented in the election ceremony
each year at seven of the New Mexico pueblos, of which I have learned the
names of only four, besides Ácoma—Isleta, Tesuque, Taos, and Zuñi.
In an attempt to learn wherein the laws and courts of the United States
government coincide or conflict with such a local pueblo organization
as has been outlined in Chapter XI, I have read the annual reports of
the Commissioner for Indian affairs from 1854 to 1920, but with no very
satisfactory result. Up to 1875, apparently, the only resource the Indian
agents had, when crimes and disorders occurred, was military force.
In 1915, murder, assault with intention to kill, arson, and burglary
were under the jurisdiction of American courts, but the commissioner
stated that our citizens were not thus safeguarded against many other
misdemeanors, some of a serious nature. This dual control results in a
divided allegiance in government as in religion among the pueblo peoples
and must induce infinite difficulties on the one hand and deceptions
that are truly deplorable on the other. Throughout these Reports,
however, it is interesting and gratifying to find that praise of the
Pueblo Indians is almost universal. They are described by commissioner
after commissioner as being as “different from the Indians of the Plains
as light from darkness,” or “as men of a wholly different race.” The
adjectives “loyal,” “generous,” “honest,” “industrious,” “amiable,”
“eminently self-supporting,” are constantly used to describe the village
peoples.
In 1867 the commissioner regrets that since the “marauding Indians” have
to be placated so often, “these very friendly and deserving people” have
become “ill at ease” and distrustful of our government agents because our
promises to them are not kept. In 1874, the commissioner protests that
the failure to produce order among the Indians is “largely attributable
to the fundamental failure to treat the Indian as a man capable of
civilization and therefore a proper subject of the Government and
amenable to its laws. At the same time tribal government has virtually
broken down by contact with the United States” and he specifically
recommends “qualified citizenship.” In 1915 Cato Sells, the commissioner,
writes: “The Indian has demonstrated his capacity for intellectual and
moral progress amid conditions not always propitious,” and in 1917 he
declares that the time has come “for discontinuing guardianship of all
competent Indians and giving closer attention to the incompetent so as to
fit them to transact their own affairs and control their property.” Such
a procedure would leave the Indian assured of full personal rights, quite
free to work out his own destiny, while relieving the government of a
large number of wards and placing at the same time, before those Indians
left under guardianship, an incentive for progress and true ideals of
citizenship.
[Illustration: A NAVAJO HOGAN
_Bolton_]
The World War did much toward impressing the Indian with the truth
that his welfare can only be advanced through opportunity to share the
benefits accruing to our free and self-governing nation. “The Indians
signally honored themselves” by the part they took in war activities, but
the commissioner dissented from the proposition to make of them separate
units in the army. “I want the Indian to go into this conflict as the
equal and comrade of every man who assails autocracy and ancient might,
and to come home with a new light in his face and a clean conception of
the democracy in which he may prosper and participate.” In 1920 he adds
that the recent attitude of our government has been “sympathetic, humane
and definitely practical,” and recognizes the Indian as “the first and
hyphenless American, with quick intellect, glowing spirituality, ardent
love for his children, and faithful to his promises”—until betrayed.
In his tribal state, all his training was individualistic; the good of
the whole was not definitely sought for. “In our policy of absorbing
the Indian into the body politic,” we must educate him to care for the
welfare of society, but we “must take into account his peculiar endowment
which is his social heritage,—religion, art, deftness of hand and
sensitive esthetic temperament.” A most interesting piece of information
in the Report is that “Indian soldiers and sailors honorably discharged
from service in the World War may be granted citizenship by Federal
courts without affecting their individual or tribal property rights.”
But, immediately the question arises, have the educational privileges
offered the Indians since the United States took them over as its wards
been such as would fit them for citizenship? Everyone knows that under
Spanish rule the mission schools directed by the padres did excellent
civilizing work and that under Mexican independence these schools
were less well supported. The United States assumed control in 1846,
twenty-two years later. In 1868 the commissioner reports that “there
is not a single school nor mechanical shop” in existence, that parish
priests who formerly resided in the pueblos have “long since given up any
such ideas,” and that there are no government farmers: in short, that the
Indians “have been steadily retrograding” since they became the wards
of the United States—a melancholy statement indeed! In 1872 the report
states that the Indians have been granted 439,664 acres of land, and
that there are five schools conducted to teach the children the English
language. In 1920, three fourths of all Indian children are said to be
in school where their studies are “pre-vocational and vocational with an
elimination of needless studies.” “The increased attendance of Indian
children in state and in public schools will eventually take them out of
Government Indian day and boarding schools.”
In following up this matter more specifically as pertaining to Ácoma,
we find the Indian agent reporting in 1897 that there were fifty-five
children on the mesa, but no school. The building formerly used by
Catholic missionaries for a school-house was used by the United States
in some other way. In 1917 the agent again reports “no school at Ácoma
but one at Acomita. If the mesa is still to be inhabited” he recommends
that a school should be installed there, but admits that “because the
people are most unprogressive, the situation demands the utmost tact and
ability.” In 1919, the agent says that “of 150 children of school age
but 19 were in attendance at Acomita and that the Ácoma people are very
backward, almost resentful of anything being done to assist them. So long
as there is opportunity for them to remain in isolation at the peñol of
Ácoma, where almost anyone can be safely hidden in the cliffs and escape
from the influence of law and authority, there is an opportunity for them
to evade their duties and responsibilities. Much as Ácoma appeals to me,
as it must to anyone having the least regard for history and sentiment,
I believe that to minimize its importance is an important step in the
progress of these people.” This agent’s remedy would be to increase
permanent school facilities at Acomita and exert “proper pressure” to
make the children attend.[102]
I was told in 1922 that all children not at Acomita are sent to
Albuquerque or Santa Fé, but it was fairly obvious that a good many
of the younger ones can get no regular teaching whatever, since their
parents migrate too frequently between the mesa and the farm villages.
The long procession of the years has produced but little material change
in Ácoma. Very few references to this pueblo occur in government reports
and such alteration as one notes is in the increased hostility of the
mental attitude of its people toward the white man. Its geographic
isolation from other pueblos is matched by its aloofness in every other
respect. No matter at what point of mental or spiritual contact we
attempt some _rapprochement_, we are now met by closed doors and our
knocking gains no entrance. Yet it was not always so at Ácoma.
Lieutenant Abert, who was, in 1847, a member of the Advanced Guard of the
Army of the West, says, in his “Examination of New Mexico,” that when he
had gone to Ácoma from Laguna,
we entered some of the houses and the people received us with
great gladness. They brought out circular baskets, nearly
flat, filled with a kind of corn bread or _guayave_. It bears
a striking resemblance to a hornet’s nest and is as thin as a
wafer. [After describing the rock and the houses he goes on
to say], these people appear to be well provided with all the
necessaries and luxuries that New Mexico affords. They are
quiet and seem to be happy and generous.
[Illustration: THE PUEBLO OVEN]
On their way to the rock his party overtook or passed many Indians going
thither with burros heavy-laden with peaches, and on the summit the men
urged the Americans to eat all they wished of this delicious fruit. It
was carried to their _azoteas_, or roofs, where, cut in halves, it was
spread to be dried in the sun. Compare such cordial friendliness and the
spirit shown in the Indian agent’s report in 1919, and ask yourself, why
this change?
How ardently one wishes the Ácomas might believe in our sincere sympathy
and would respond as the Zuñis and Hopis have done, who say they wish us
to know about their beliefs and their rich legacy of tribal lore, if only
we will record it “straight and true”; or, as the High Chief among the
Cheyennes and the Dakotas is quoted in that delightful book by Natalie
Curtis Burlin:[103]
I want all Indians and white men to read and learn how the
Indians lived and thought in the olden time. A little while and
the old Indians will no longer be, and the young will be even
as white men. When I think, I know it is the mind of the Great
Mystery that white men and Indians who fought together should
now be one people.
Or, as Short Bull, a Dakota medicine man, phrased it (when the Federal
government forbade the Ghost Dance movement and, in order to enforce this
mandate, massacred three hundred men and women of that tribe),
who would have thought that dancing could make such trouble.
For the message I brought was peace. We went unarmed to the
dance. We are glad to live with white men as brothers. But we
ask that they expect not the brotherhood and the love to come
from the Indian alone.
I should like to incorporate here entire the splendid appeal of
Commissioner Francis E. Leupp, for the development of the Indian along
the lines of his own genius. His protest against the idea of the white
philanthropist, that the Navajos should be supplied with power-looms to
advance their particular industry of blanket-weaving, contains more irony
than is often found in official reports. Mr. Leupp sums up the situation
in the following words:
The Indian is a natural warrior, a natural logician, a natural
artist. We have room for all three in our highly organized
social system. Let us not make the mistake in the process of
absorbing them, of washing out of them whatever is distinctly
Indian. Our aboriginal brother brings, as his contribution to
the common store of character, a great deal which is admirable
and which needs only to be developed along the right line. Our
proper work with him is improvement, not transformation.[104]
After one has learned from very varied sources how tragic is the gulf of
misunderstanding that has yawned between the races, one asks perforce,
was it necessary, and if not, why did it happen? Even in the days of
their early and difficult adjustment to the new rulers who came and took
their lands, their corn, their freedom, there was much of kindliness
and receptivity among the Pueblo Indians which the centuries of white
over-lordship has turned to bitterness and hostility. One cause of
their distrust has been, besides our bad faith in smaller matters, the
encroachment of our race upon the lands assured them by the Spaniards,
grants long ago confirmed by the United States. But the more vital hurt
has come from the total misapprehension by white men of the significance
of their “dances” and their withdrawals to the wilderness for fasting and
prayer. The contempt shown for their rich heritage of poetic ceremony
has wounded the Indian in his deepest and holiest susceptibilities,
especially when this criticism is accompanied by a Federal ban upon their
periodic festivals, upon their native costume, and limitations upon their
freedom in pursuing their crafts and their whole manner of life. One is
forced to conclude that we have not yet, as the governing race, really
understood the task or the responsibility that we assumed in taking over
as wards human beings with an individuality highly sensitive and highly
developed. If the two paths so long travelled at cross purposes by the
two races shall ever converge and become but one, we may be sure the
gain will not all be to the Indian. His poetry, his art, his music, his
religion, are all fraught with infinite suggestions from which the white
man may well learn to his profit.
Yet in spite of so much expert testimony through the years, the United
States Senate in the autumn of 1922 passed a bill that is the most
injurious to the Indian of all that the Federal government has ever been
besought to make the law of the land. Unless there can be substituted for
the Bursum Bill[105] something permanently protecting and effective, it
would be more humane to make brief work of the complete annihilation of
the Indian race by standing up the tribes, one after another, to face a
firing squad of the army.
The writer has been told by well-informed men in the East that, unless
some thorough and honest remedy for the present situation is carried out,
an explosion is bound to come. That the Indians themselves will choose
to die fighting, after the tradition of their race, rather than by slow
starvation, is hardly to be wondered at or condemned.[106] The Paiute
uprising in 1923 is only the first torch of what we may expect to hear of
here, there, anywhere, like the signal fires of the ancients, till all
the Indian country is aflame.
And when the beacons are all put out, and there remain only silence and
ashes, we, the ruling race, proud of our superior intelligence, will have
deliberately and completely killed the only original contribution by
America to the art of the world.
This chapter may be fitly closed with
THE APPEAL OF THE ÁCOMAS
The Ácomas held here, this 13th of November, at Acomita, in
the year 1922, a meeting; there met the Chief of Ácoma and all
of his principal men and his officers. Willingly we will stand
to fight against the Bursum bill, which by this time we have
discovered and understood.
Our white brothers and sisters: This bill is against us, to
break our customs, which we have enjoyed, living on in our
happy life.
It is very much sad, indeed, to bear, and to know, and to lose
our every custom of the Indians in this world of men.
Therefore we are willing fully to join to the others our
Pueblo, where we may beat out the Bursum bill for the benefit
of our children and of our old people and of all our future.
We have held a meeting, assembling yesterday in the school
house all day long. The meeting was very good. Every person was
sworn and each did say that he is willing to help right along
from now on.
Yes, sir, we are all glad to do so to help through the name of
our great God and to help those who are trying to stand for us,
our American honorable people.
This is all very much appreciated, and thanks for the help, and
signed with all our names: we the chiefs of said Ácomas.
Signed:
Lorenao Watshm Pino
Chief Ácoma (thumb print)
Santiago Sanches
Chief Ácoma (thumb print)
Santiago Juancisco
Chief Ácoma (thumb print)
Diego Antonio Valle
1st Principale (thumb print)
Fraustin Salbador
2nd Principale (thumb print)
Santiago Watshm Pino
Principale (thumb print)
Francisco Marino
Principale (thumb print)
Antonio García
Principale (thumb print)
Lorenzo Routizin
Principale (thumb print)
James D. Valle
Principale (thumb print)
John Brown
Principale (thumb print)
Diego Anotonio Showety
Principale (thumb print)
_Elected Officers_
Lucieino Peyetemo
Rules (thumb print)
Juan L. Sanchez
Rules (thumb print)
Santiago Hawey
Rules (thumb print)
_Officers of the Pueblo_
Juan Pablo García
(thumb print)
José Louis Valle
(thumb print)
James Brown
(thumb print)
San Juan Shurtewa
(thumb print)
Thomas Lucio
(thumb print)
Henry C. Routzin
Governor (thumb print)
John C. García
Interpreter
James H. Miller
Frank Ortiz