Honesty about the past offers reason to celebrate

With so many challenges facing Northern New Mexico today, rewriting history in a manner that causes harm is the last thing we need. Yet witness what apparently happened at the 50th Española Valley Fiesta earlier this month, where historical participants decided to run with the story that Conquistador Juan de Oñate isn’t as bad as history painted him. Oñate, remember, was kicked out of New Mexico by the Spanish government for crimes against the Acoma Pueblo people.

His own government held Oñate accountable. Today’s New Mexicans should do no less.

Locally, the conquistador is remembered for the 1598 expedition that led to the European

settling of New Mexico — and in Rio Arriba County, where Oñate established the first Spanish settlement, he is particularly revered. His presence is incorporated into the annual valley fiesta every year, just as Don Diego de Vargas is a part of the Fiesta de Santa Fe.

However, that’s no excuse to whitewash the actions of Oñate, as some historians apparently did at the recent festivities. According to accounts in the Rio Grande Sun, two speakers went out of their way to downplay historical atrocities. That’s unfortunate because we cannot celebrate cultural unity while telling lies about the past.

As former Ohkay Owingeh Lt. Gov. Matthew Martinez told the Sun, the crimes committed by Oñate are “historical fact.” He is also right to argue that a fiesta can celebrate the culture of Northern New Mexico, but that it is hard to do that while honoring Oñate. His deeds are that dark.

It was Oñate who led the Spanish against Acoma Pueblo in 1599, killing some 800 men, women and children and eventually ordering that all men over 25 would have one foot cut off. The massacre came in retaliation for the Acoma killing an expedition of 12 Spanish men, including Oñate’s nephew. That expedition, however, was said to have invaded Acoma homes and raped a woman. They were not a peaceful group.

For his crimes, Oñate was banished from New Mexico; eventually, the Zacatecas-born conquistador moved to the mother country of Spain, where he died in 1626.

Whatever gratitude people here show him — the descendants of those Spanish settlers, after all, cannot be sorry to be alive and living in New Mexico — his presence must not overshadow a cultural celebration. The new Fiesta Corporation, a nonprofit founded to run the celebration up north, should do better than featuring historians who peddle a false narrative.

Just as Santa Fe has changed its fiesta over the years, emphasizing the creation of a New Mexican culture while moving away from language that describes the return of the Spanish as “peaceful,” Española should move on from emphasizing Oñate.

All New Mexicans must recognize that European settlement came at a huge cost to Native peoples. Otherwise, these fiestas will not be commemorating unity, but rather, conquest. That is no way to unite our cultures.