U.S. monuments to Spanish conquerors facing criticism
SANTA FE, N.M. — Public statues and tributes to early Spanish conquerors are facing mounting criticism tied to the brutal treatment of American Indians centuries ago by Spanish soldiers and missionaries, with activists drawing ethical parallels to the national controversy over Confederate monuments.
From California to Florida, historical markers and common-place names trace the path of the 16th century Spanish conquistadors and missionaries who explored and settled land inhabited by American Indians in what is now the U.S. Few, if any, of the monuments honoring them have come down.
The Spanish presence is particularly noticeable in parts of the Southwest, which Spaniards controlled for about 300 years.
Elena Ortiz, a tribal member of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, said activist groups have been emboldened by the removal of Confederate monuments across the United States.
Here’s a look at Spanish historical figures whose legacies are stirring protest and debate: Santa Fe, N.M., schoolchildren have been visited by a dancing troupe portraying Spanish royalty for at least 50 years, led annually by an actor playing de Vargas who wears a shiny, featherplumed helmet.
Organizers of the “entrada” — or arrival — of de Vargas say the event on Santa Fe’s downtown plaza portrays a peaceful reconciliation between the conquistador and American Indians.
Deputy State Historian Rob Martinez says the dramatization wrongfully gives the impression that Native Americans welcomed back the Spanish without resistance.
A monument to de Vargas sits in a Santa Fe city park. Ortiz wants it removed.
Onate’s arrival in present-day New Mexico in 1598 is re-enacted at an annual fiesta in Espanola, a small city set amid several Indian Pueblos in northern New Mexico.
To American Indians, Onate is known for having ordered the right feet cut off 24 captive tribal warriors after his soldiers stormed Acoma Pueblo’s mesa-top “sky city,” an attack precipitated by the killing of Onate’s nephew.
Four hundred years later, in 1998, someone sawed off the foot of an Onate statue at a visitor center near Espanola named for him.
The former Onate Monument and Visitor Center reopened in August as the Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Center. Board member Patricia Trujillo said some people avoided the building for its focus on Onate, although a statue of him still stands on the path to the front entrance.
Maurus Chino, of Acoma Pueblo, says Onate should no longer be honored.
“These monuments really mean something obscene and evil to the indigenous people here and all decent people,” he said.
A Franciscan friar who founded the Spanish mission system in California, Serra believed that American Indians needed to be baptized and taught to farm. Once converted, they were prohibited from leaving the missions and became largely dependent on the Spanish, said Robert Senkewicz, a history professor at Santa Clara University.
In August, a statue of Serra in Southern California was splashed with red paint and defaced with the word “murderer” in white.
The problem isn’t Serra himself, Senkewicz said.
“The problem is he’s been allowed to symbolize everything.”
He is credited for naming Florida in 1513. Though he did not establish a permanent settlement, statues of him are found throughout the state.
He was among Spanish explorers who forged alliances with American Indians and fought against them.
De Leon and Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who founded St. Augustine in 1565, are less controversial than explorers in the Southwest and the Spanish never gained a stronghold over the peninsula, Francis said.