"Of the several fine books recently published honoring the 400th anniversary of the founding of Santa Fe, one of the most challenging to my mind is White Shell Water Place, which is the Tewa Pueblo name for the original site of Santa Fe.

Edited by F. Richard Sanchez (of Isleta ancestry), it is a collection of Native American reflections on the meaning of that event from an Indian perspective.

The other evening, I was reading the final chapter in the book when a significant statement by its author arrested my attention. That author is Alvin H. Warren (Santa Clara Pueblo), who served as Gov. Bill Richardson's Cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department.

He wrote that many pueblos welcomed the possession of New Mexico by the United States, because during the previous 25 years of rule by Mexico that government had failed to protect Pueblo lands from encroachers.

As Warren points out, a Pueblo delegation in 1846 met with Gen. Stephen W. Kearny, asking the U.S. government's help in regaining their lands up on which others had illegally settled.

As it turned out, Kearny was in no position to respond to the Indians' legitimate request. However, a year later, the pueblos found, to use Warren's words, "a powerful ally" in New Mexico's first Indian agent, James S. Calhoun. That officer began the process of affirming the Pueblo people's land rights as initially granted them by Spain."

Get the Story:
Howard Houghton: Indians give perspectives on Santa Fe's founding (The Santa Fe New Mexican 3/5)