Rio Arriba county statue vandalized on day of the Entrada
Around the same time 150 protesters gathered in Santa Fe to protest the Entrada pageant during the city’s Fiesta celebrations last week, a prominent equestrian conquistador statue was vandalized near Alcalde.
Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s office Captain Randy Sanches confirmed that one foot of the statue of Don Juan de Oñate was covered in red paint last Friday. Sanches had not seen a police report, but said he heard there was also graffiti including the phrase “Remember 1680,” the year of the Pueblo Revolt, on a wall at Rio Arriba County’s Oñate Monument Resource and Visitors Center on N.M. 68.
Oñate, who declared New Mexico for Spain in the late 1500s, has been a controversial figure. In 1598, Oñate ordered the right feet of Acoma Pueblo men cut off following a revolt against Spanish leaders.
Nearly 20 years ago, anonymous vandals — in messages to the Journal, they called themselves “Friends of Acoma” — sawed off the Acalde Oñate statue’s right foot, which was later replaced.
Friday’s vandalism by paint was on the statue’s left foot, however. Sanches didn’t know if arrests have been made.
Thomas Romero, director of the Northern Rio Grande Heritage Area whose offices are housed in the Oñate center, said his employees noticed the vandalism Friday afternoon. They did not call the police. An organization volunteer tried cleaning the foot Friday and county employees came over the weekend to paint over the tagged wall, he said.
“It still has a little tint on it,” Romero said of the painted foot. He said heavier cleaning will be needed for the paint to be fully removed.
On the same day, as previously reported, two Taos Plaza memorials were marked. A foot on the statue of Padre Antonio José Martínez, a 19th-century community leader, was covered in red paint and a World War II monument was covered with a “Remember 1680” banner.
In light of the vandalism and controversy over historical statues nationwide, Sanches said the Rio Arriba sheriff’s office is adding extra patrols around the Oñate statue.
Santa Fe’s Entrada, part of the annual Fiesta weekend, re-enacts the Spanish re-occupation of Santa Fe in 1692, 12 years after the Pueblo Revolt. Eight people were arrested in the protests of this year’s Entrada on Sept. 8., the same day the statues were hit in Alcalde and Taos.