No one surpassed Americans for cruelty

This is in response to a letter to the editor by Rosemary Lowe (“Fair to everyone,” March 22), in which she writes about slavery and cruelty to the Indians by the Spanish.

The Indians were already practicing slavery when the Spanish arrived in the 1500s, and just as many Spaniards were taken as slaves by the Indians as were Indians taken as slaves by the Spanish. As for cruelty toward the Indians, no one has been more cruel to the Indians than the Anglo-Americans.

Few mention the Long Walk to the Bosque Redondo, surpassed only in cruelty by the Bataan Death March. The Spanish never did that to the Indians. On many occasions, most notably the Sand Creek massacre, the Americans attacked the Indian camps, murdering every man, woman and child as they were peaceably in their camp. The Americans scalped and murdered old men, women and children. They grabbed little babies by the feet, spun them around and bashed their heads into a rock or a tree. Few army officers dared to report it.

The Spanish did steal lands, mostly alongside the rivers in New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Arizona and California. But the Americans took all the land belonging to Indians — border to border and coast to coast. Had it not been for Donaciano Vigil, the second governor of the New Mexico territory, the Pueblo Indians likely would have lost their pueblos to the Americans. He was never thanked for that. Lowe obviously gets her facts from old Western movies and TV.

Luciano Martinez is a history fanatic who lives in Pecos.