Statue of Juan de Oñate, Alcalde, New Mexico
Here in the Southwest, one of the most hated forms of brutality is represented by statues of the conquistadores, Spanish oppressors who struggled to gain mastery, by whatever means, over the indigenous populations of New Mexico. No figure is more hated than that of Juan de Oñate, who led many assaults on the people here. Worst was his conquest of the mountain top pueblo of Acoma; held off for days, he and his soldiers eventually discovered the only path up to the mesa top. They murdered 800-1000 of the Acomans, and at a trial, Onate ordered that all the men be sentenced to twenty years of slavery, and all those over twenty-five had their left feet chopped off. Several equestrian statues have caused protests for years here; one near Alcalde, north of Española, had its left foot severed a few years ago. The foot was replaced, and the legitimate complaints of the descendants of the people Oñate murdered and mutilated were ignored.
The protests in Albuquerque two days ago by residents determined to pull down the Oñate statue in Old Town ended in a burst of gunfire from one of the armed militia who have been intimidating protests all over the state. Because we have no effective gun laws, these men, often wearing camouflage, are heavily armed; the police did not arrive in time to prevent one of them from firing into the crowd, wounding a protester. This is not a case of police brutality but of police inertia, leading inevitably to the question of their compliance with these illegitimate terrorist militia. Their points of view may well be similar.
It is not so much the form authority takes but our rightful suspicion of all forms of authority that must be addressed. That suspicion has grown at least since the 1990’s when police became militarized, buying or being given military equipment, and putting together the notorious SWAT teams responsible for no-knock forced entry without warrants into people’s houses in the middle of the night and the murder, as in Louisville, of a woman they wrongly suspected of having some kind of drug involvement. Even had that been true, is death by firing squad of a sleeping black woman justice?
Two statues of Oñate have come down here, but only after powerful organized protests. We have a long way to go as a country to begin to address the wrongs of the generations; removing these obnoxious statues is the first step.
Aerial View of Acoma Pueblo – photo by Marshall Henrie, Wikipedia
How horrible! It is informative, however, to learn about the history of other states.
Notice the Germans didn’t immortalize, Hitler, Gerring and other viscious men with statues.
I do not agree taking down statues as they are part of history whether one likes it or not. You can’t erase it, but you can learn never to make those mistakes again.