Onate; Thomas Chavez Interview 2

Education well here now this is an education you know what I like to do is talk about Take it from there talk about Them why I'm just getting to the the oh you want me to do more detail on the siege Well, I like to it's a siege and then and then Obviously the the trial and the executions and the way You want them there faster I like them they're faster and the thing is So the siege was a battle that the Vicente did in classic style He did a faint up front and got all the defenders to throw rocks and everything over over the side Adam While he and a bunch of others climbed up the backside of the Mesa Even hauled a couple of cannons up there which once they got set up. It was all over It was hand-to-hand fighting Graphically described by via gromm his palm And eventually the Pueblo was a set fire a lot of people who would run into the Pueblo ended up burning in that fire Which I'm sure was not a beautiful sight

Burning people or animals is never a beautiful sight and Some of the people is even the Spanish tell it elected to kill themselves You know we have other examples of that in history, but elected to kill themselves in each other rather than surrender A bunch did jump off the Mesa to escape just like some of the Spanish escaped the the initial ambush of the Akamas There's a sand in next to the Pueblo, and that's where they were jumping I used to think there was some kind of miracle being formed of course the priests who give to council this let you think it's a miracle But now you can survive by jumping into the sand doing which is what they did Onyate it appears wanted to wipe out the Pueblo and He had Vicente take prisoners of all those that he could The accounts of the time are he took five to six hundred prisoners Onyate mean while who wasn't there heard of the victory in San Juan and elected to meet everybody at Santo Domingo Pueblo, which is on the way back from Akama And is more centrally located amongst the the Pueblos of New Mexico and there onyate set up a kind of a kangaroo court

I don't know how else to call it and tried all these prisoners Well, an interesting happens between the time he gets 500 Vicente gets 500 prisoners at Akama and they show up at Santo Domingo They've reduced by at least 300 and that's because people were letting them escape You know the battle is one thing and up and through the battle of what happens is pretty legitimate in the context of the times You know two people go on at it, you know kind of got in the room closed the door and One walked out, but after that it's kind of kicking the person that's down type of thing He has his trial with those that are left Condemns all men over 25 years old to have a foot cut off and To two of the people who weren't for Akama, but from Hopi to have a hand cut off and then the women and children the women to be put into Servitude amongst the settlers his settlers and the children into the care of the priests We know that 60 children were sent down to Mexico and dispersed in

Convents down there'd be an interesting study that no one's followed up on what what became with those women So far as we know they didn't return But they did become nuns. I mean what happened to them, you know We know too that 24 of the Akama men over 25 Suffered the the penalty of having a foot cut off not 500 or 600 but 24 That's all that we're left by the end of the trial We also know that the women put into servitude amongst the settlers apparently were allowed to go back to Akama by the settlers Because before he didn't execute everybody at San Oda, Mingo I mean you can't go to San Oda, Mingo and look for the grounds because what he did was order that the the executions be carried out throughout New Mexico at different pueblos to make the example graphic and so a lot of people were allowed to escape before the the Executions actually carried out meanwhile his own people were telling them not to do that that that wasn't right and it was against the law And this is the beginning of the end of him all this happens within the first year of the settlement now he's here 12 years

But he basically as the son of a very very rich minor who struck at rich Wanted to emulate what his dad had done and he was frustrated. He couldn't find any rich mines in New Mexico Well, we know that today, but he didn't know it then and he couldn't find the south and North seas Which is you know the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the the great streets of Onion the Northwest passage It was frustrating him finally eventually Okay, stop down. Okay, so you know in 1605 he finally did make it to the Gulf of California It was like the highlight of his career here. He finally found the South Sea, you know, and he wrote a great gloring report But word was getting back. Oh, the other thing that happens is In 16 and just before Christmas of 1600 within, you know, I mean he got up here 1598 he gets what he thought was gonna be a great relief call and it's just 80 some people a Real disappointment and a great hint that there may be the crown and the vice-roy isn't behind him

anymore if they ever were And he's very disappointed by that and he decides to go out onto the plains and it goes all the way to Kansas to visit Dorothy and Toto and the Wichita Indians and And comes back. Well, he's told not to do that too, but he does Because there's a there's a lot of people now who are very irritated with the man He doesn't seem to be tending to the business of settlement just like John Smith, you know and from in James Towns out knowing everything But what he should be And he knows that there are tractors has been a couple of aborted desertions and those four guys did escape And while he's out on the plains Two-thirds of his colony deserted him And so when he gets back he has 25 men here that are left in New Mexico to greet him now some of them He had wives and children, so on, but basically that's it And so he orders guess who Vicente to go catch up with his colony and execute the whole bunch of him He has another kangaroo court for his own people. We tend to overlook when we talk about Onyate

He was pretty He's pretty universal and what he thought about everybody, you know Made of America or his own settlers when they crossed them But what we have is a man who won the contract and became very frustrated from the very beginning because of the politics He won the contract lost it and got it again Being while he'd organized the expedition he's spending his money on it not the king He gets up here He can't find the mines that he had hoped to find help bankroll all this stuff and help him cash in and he finds that the Norse is not to be found the South Sea is way far away And he's become very frustrated over and over again He's trying to make some kind of discovery to to vindicate his His his role in this and it just doesn't happen The deserting colony makes it back to Mexico if I sent they can't do a thing to him because they're out of his Judgment the viceroy sides with them vice Roy hears from them vice Roy decides that what Onyate is dealing with is a fantasy land That every all these glory reports have been sent back by him. There are his fairytales

And those are terms that the vice Roy uses he writes the king the king says, okay This recall the guy this firearm basically recall him Meanwhile the vice was replaced by another vice Roy and this is three vice Roy's into the first contract and the third one is basically the one who gave Onyate the original contract who now has to eat crawl and say basically say This was a mistake awarding this guy the contract on top of that. They were friends and So that he's sitting there with this order from the king to recall the guy and at the same time onyate writes a letter of Resignation himself completely rejected I mean, it's really an interesting letter. I mean, he's just completely rejected and he tells the vice Roy because You know, I've been insulted with the lack of aid and and everything I can only keep my settlers here to June and we'll all leave if they don't get relief basically saying we're abandoning the colony So you know one of the questions put to me is if one of my ancestors are part of that colony as one of them was would Or if I were one of them is one of my ancestors where would I have left the answers?

Yes, because everybody including onyate wanted to leave at that point two-thirds of them had already and so the answers Yes, you know, there were no ski runs here. The dukes weren't playing and the low bulls weren't winning. So why stay? and so he the vice Roy Had now two letters and had a way out. He accepted the donyate Resignation but told him to stay there till a replacement could be made at this point Both vice Roy and King are thinking of abandoning new Mexico But the missionaries argue That the whole reason for this was them and the conversion of The Indians up here and they win the day so far as colonization goes and from that point on New Mexico ceases to become a prepared to be a proprietary colony that we know about in US history You know a business colony or one guy Bankrolls it and becomes a royal colony and that now the crown will bankroll it and so a group of people decide well If the crowns behind it now then we we will stay we won't have to deal with the

Arbitrary rule of a guy who thinks it's his because he's paying for it And the people who stay are or they let me do it this way the people who leave are basically the trouble makers the young Single guys who thought they'd get up here and strike it rich quick and you know young bucks like to get out on the streets and Drive around in cars with guns and stuff today, you know, I mean this is the thing to do. I guess you know go boogie or The rich guys who basically invested in the expedition themselves and figured out this was this was breaking Almost so they wanted to take their families back and go back to the mines in north central Mexico The ones who stayed in are the middle class Family types who felt they'd be bitter off staying here under a royal banner Then they would be going back to central Mexico in a place that was run by the onyate sort of the Sal de Vars or somebody down in the mining district Onyate left the colony in 1610 He You know the colony. I mean he has to get credit for being the first governor and under him

Almost in spite of himself if not in spite of himself succeeds because the crown saves the day By making a royal colony he goes down to Mexico by then of course Chargers are brought up against him for his activities in fact over 30 charges under the laws of 1573 are brought up against them About half of them were were dismissed during the course of the trial that lasted four years Those charges included the punishment met it out to the accolade and it's also included the burning of three pueblos and back of the monsonal mountains We don't talk about that today much, but those because probably the there's no there's no pueblos there anymore So the descendants are there the exact pity on themselves, you know But he he and he went to that battle. He partooked some of that, you know They burnt three pueblos there and maybe as many as five six hundred Indians could have been killed in that we would never have an accurate figure of that and one of the interesting things in Indian warfare in New Mexico At least with pueblos took place there the pueblo Indians came out and met the Spanish in the field of battle

They didn't stay behind walls, which is a really interesting You know why did they do that to that kind of question because it doesn't happen again guarantee you He had an incident up at Towsow we just get vague references to in the documents All that stuff was brought up on him and he was found guilty of ackum on the monopuebles and in the execution of the two guys that escaped And an interesting two executions that took place here of two Captains with families who came to him and said we've paid our way here was our investment So we'd like to take our families back and he gave both of them permission And personally killed one in his tent that that evening with a couple of Assistance and the other guy asked to to go out and help with the other guys I was bringing in horses and when he didn't show up that night His wife found out that he had been killed by some of the Vognate's men out there and buried in a shallow grave So

He was found guilty of all those he spent the rest of his life trying to exonerate himself and One of the things that he said well, you know these people were deserting a military expedition Viceroy said under the laws of 1573 military Expeditions were prohibited. This was not a military expedition. It was an expedition of missionization and colonization And so he didn't have that kind of authority and he was in violation It's almost that On Yacht day and some of his followers were in disbelief that the king actually meant what he said with these these laws I mean they're very enlightened laws way ahead of anything else that that Anything that came out of Europe in that day including our our English ancestors and Here they were being enforced and so one of the keys here is is that on Yacht day, you know We you know we historians like to say well you can't judge on not day by our standards and that's true But we can judge him by the standards of those days and how the people his own people brought him to justice Native Americans didn't bring him to justice The English didn't bring him to justice the United States didn't bring him just didn't exist his people brought him to justice

And he was banned for life from New Mexico Which was a major affront to him as so far as his military record as he saw it his honor Probably a fate worsen death in some ways He was banned from Mexico City from a period of time. He was fined Large sum of six thousand pesos in that day, which he was still wealthy enough to pay and he did He lost his title his coveted title of Aveland Tato He had it, you know for life and and perpetuity for all his Descendants when his wife finally died He went to to Spain himself to exonerate himself and he made himself somewhat of a pest, I suppose To the king and his counselors And finally he had some of the penalties reduced and now that worked was he was now in his seventies And he got them to take pity on an old man who was begging for mercy And he they made him a mining inspector there and he died in a mine actually claps and died in a mining town of Guadalajos now

I'm almost up. No, I want you to tell him like a paragraph so I can wrap this thing up So Njate He lost his honorific title of Aveland Tato He was banned from different things and he spent the rest of his life including going to Spain To try to get those those things returned he out he was partially exonerated, but never completely He died in the mine in 74 years old Basically a disappointed man He did become Aveland Tato and but he didn't get it like he had it before before it was for him in all succeeding generations He got it for two generations. So The crown never exonerated him completely for for his deeds Let's talk about some of the positive things that Not necessarily him, but his like fruit trees

We see here now that are directly attributed to The people that came up with him and settled Well, you know when you talk about the Quarto centonario I don't equate it with Njate. Njate is a player on the stage and in a way He's a moot point in the 400-year history Because what we're really talking about is a legacy of peoples who have learned to live together to cohabitate For 400 years and nowhere else in North America can anybody make that claim And that's New Mexico's claim and so do we dwell on the individual negatives of people or Do we talk about how we learn to cohabitate for 400 years? We've learned today that it's better to go to an Indian ceremonial than to kill the dancers that it's better to eat chili Even for breakfast than to kill the cook And then there's nothing wrong with knowing a language other than English

We know that in New Mexico We have a flag with a Zia Sun symbol which comes from the Pueblos But with the Spanish Habsburg colors And our baseball team is called the Dukes in reference to the Duke of Albuquerque Because Albuquerque has this weird Morish sounding name that comes from Spain. So We have lived a life of pluralism whether we accept it or not openly we live that if you live in New Mexico you live it That's the legacy when Yate is a player on the stage and in one of many and I would even argue because you know He was one of eight people who bid for the job He's not even that important you know a player on the stage The more important people You know succeed after him and they may not be politicians and they may not be Governors They're the people who stayed here like even in on Yate's colony the lone shepherd who took his family to live amongst the Santa Clara Indians with his sheep moved out of the colony of San Juan. He wasn't afraid of the Indians I mean he saw something there and can you imagine the Indians when they saw him come on with this flock of sheep

You know this this meat on the hoof and and the wall and everything that they could now use it. They didn't have before By all by all accounts and we only get scattered accounts of that that went on over and over and And you know so there was there's syncretism going on. It was a big word syncretism This machine of cultures and people going on and I guess by all standards to be in New Mexico You got to be a great lover and you got to have some love to live for 100 years together And if we can't even and I say this very simply if we can't as Siblings as brothers and sisters in our own individual families or as husbands and wives Live with people that we love without having disagreements and we do because we're human beings There isn't a married person face your earth going to sit here tell me and make me believe that they've never had a disagreement Even though they love each other. How do we expect host societies to live together without disagreements? The point is if you're with your wife that you love or your husband Um

Do you dwell on the disagreement you have or the good times? Dynamite Stop taking that's perfect. That's better. Yeah, that's that's that's excellent I I don't really have any other questions made it all up, you know Yeah, I know and I was very very good You know the only thing else that I would want to bring up and then this is sort of jumping Subjects a little bit is talking about the role sort of the poor issue Oh, yeah, okay And uh do you feel comfortable talking about that? I talk about anything very good. That's what I thought She I'm not running for office. I don't care. Yeah, good Uh, let's look like a politician to you. I mean, you know, what are you gonna do to me? Oh my god You know, I don't get elected. I won't have a job very good I would just think about that about our politicians. You know, learning they didn't have a job if they weren't elected We don't want the unemployed Right Okay, that's that I'm sorry people are really up some people really upset about The way tax large living is being spent

For instance, the snooze the new sculpture they brought the three artists in the uh, but he's stable and uh and the Hispanic And the Native American Three-kitted knowledge. You can do one piece. They're upset about The fact that the tax large living spent on this and this is the first time this has happened and so where Where is what what what what let's talk a little bit about about that about public about the this class of public art taxpayers Money going for public art and how this whole uniting thing can just sort of open old wounds And The stages mind Now public arts an interesting thing. I mean public art is is is a product of this century first of all Let's talk about that. I mean art used to be something paid for by the elite, you know Popes and kings and princes hired artists and they lived In their palaces and wrote music and did murals form and so now We have this enlightened liberal country here

And I'm using liberal in the true sense of the word not in any political Context of today's conversations of talk radio and and so we think we're enlightened because now we've voted for some of our tax Dollars to be used for public art. I guess when formal public art is museums And now we have ethnic museums which I'm not a big advocate of incidentally. I'm a historian and I'm a director of a history museum And we if we do our jobs right that everybody will be included in that Fortunately unfortunately historically we haven't done our jobs, right? So now we want art on our buildings and in our sidewalks and in things like that Art always it's a universal argument. What's good and what's what's not is it aesthetically pleasing to me or you And whose ox is getting gourd For example the Native Americans of New Mexico want to have in the statue Hall of Fame of Congress Popeye Popeye led the rebellion against my own ancestors. I don't especially think that's a good idea On the other hand, I think I'm open-minded enough to understand why they want Popeye

You know meanwhile there are some people amongst the Hispanic Community that want to have when you're up day, you know as a statue and in the very cities Well, he's already going to be a statue in a number of cities in fact He's already up with his foot back actually not his foot. I have the foot. They put his boot back but You know, but he's there because he he's the first governor with the first settlement And so we don't want to talk about the negatives thing but the positive thing So we don't want to talk about either of these people killing people which they did or advocating the killing of people Which they did or even Basically torturing people which they did But we want to talk about that they're their heroes to that particular group And so I guess I suppose I'd say okay. That's fine Everybody wants to have their heroes But as a historian I can't accept either one really that way. In fact as an individual. I'd I'm not into public art That that you know celebrates our our generals and our governors and our politicians Because it is those people who are the ones that are making the decisions to put them up in the first place

And you know, I would rather see us put you know writers and poets and Humanitarians and doctors and educators of I mean then when we get to when we get to a stage as a society when we start Honoring those kind of people and celebrating those kind of people then we are somebody worthy of celebrating ourselves Can't stop stations of public art. Yeah, I'm a public arts and interesting thing because I hear in in in Santa Fe I've been on the arts commission and You know the the art art name our country too has become something more I mean before when the when the recalls, you know the princes and the kings were doing things Basically, it was religious art or self-portraits or showing that particular person who let the contract and in the best light And then when you know, you get to this century where artists, you know, they can't free thinkers And I guess even in Spain now it's interesting, you know

Goia is one of the earliest artists who starts Putting things into a political context and his reaction to the French occupation of Of Spain and so now artists are political commentators as well And so when you get into public art and you have artists coming to you say anything I tried the theme of what loopy hill doggo and see what we get with that one, you know You know anything You get artists then who who have their particular bias that they want is a message they want to get out writers have been doing that forever But artists have now clued into that fine artist. I mean And so the question then comes a la Jesse Helms and basically people are saying I don't want this And I don't want that or taking the side of Jesse Helms Jesse Helms basically doesn't want anything that he disagrees with You know, which is what the you know, the detractors with the argument is on both sides They don't want something they disagree with if we want to have public funds for public arts We're going to have to accept some things we don't disagree with and accept them for the fact that maybe they're going to open dialogue

Maybe they're going to You know get us to think a little bit or react certainly doing that and maybe if we can do it as mature adults It's not that bad. It won't divide us You know with that kind of art does have the potential of dividing us and some some if we take it to the nth degree Somebody's going to say somewhere to hack with it I don't want my tax money going for public art if you want to do that You pay for it artist or you pay for a group put it on your private property But not on not on the common grounds if you will Because I'm tired of the debate. I'm tired of hearing about it I don't I don't want to I don't want to hear about you talking Shelfanistically about Native Americans or you about Hispanics or you about the great Occupation of the United States during the Mexican War the heck with it You know put up little angels and pretty things and clouds and trees and that's it You

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