This has been so repressed. It's obvious to any casual observer: almost no one in Spain looks "Hispanic". Many or most Latinos in North America are an aboriginal group.
21
So Donald Drumpf and Steven Miller of recent immigrant background from far away think they belong to this land more than many Hispanics and others who have been on this continent for thousands of years before them- how revealing and ironic.
38
A few years ago as I was thinking about the illegal immigration I thought that Latinos do not look like people from Europe or Africa. Most people in Latin America are mostly Native American.
Then I remembered that under Jay’s Treaty Indians were allowed free passage to and from the US and Canada.
Should Latinos be allowed free passage to the US, since they were in the Americas before Europeans?
28
Then they are native American
6
Is it surprising to learn that people report heritage from the Greeks to who knows what? It's almost certain that my three brothers, card-carrying Children of the American Revolution as well as life members of the Society of Mayflower Descendants, are direct blood relative some 50 or more generations ago of an Ashkenazi Jew from Minsk. Why does it appeal to anyone to "identify" with groups long dissolved into legend? I know it is soothing to belong but join a cooperative garden, or a book group. Or the Navy.
25
I grew up in New Mexico, every honest person in that state knows what it was like in the 16th to 19th century, Spaniards brought good and bad.
My advice to an New Mexican, get educated and move on. It is already difficult enough in that state to find opportunity. Don't latch onto any more victimhood.
31
Great read and some wonderful, rich comments. Not to be a troll, but are we going to start hearing requests for reparations such as blacks are demanding from whites?
4
I find it almost amusing, to see people these days are racing label themselves as something that was considered less desirable in the bygone era. What some would call themselves Spanish would now suddenly want to be known as native Indian. Is it the benefits of tribal benefits, or is it advantages of being a minority in the affirmative action rage, one as to wonder.
One has to wonder too, as to how far back we should all take our ancestry? Afterall we all almost certainly come out of Africa. Can we now call ourselves Africans? Viewed from that lens, it almost feels silly, for those who might be a trace of some DNA and call it evidence to name themselves one thing or another.
Slavery, servitude, whatever you call it, is not a product unique only to colonialism. Tribal wars in ancient times result in taking of slavery too. How much guilt do we all need to live with, even from forebears that we don't even know existed??
28
Oversimplification is a dangerous, slippery slope. This story is about the act of reconciling the facts of history with the fiction of a heritage construct. There is no nefarious motivation other than truth, identity and understanding.
29
They get to decide for themselves what it means to them personally and whether they want to know more or honor their ancestry. I didn't read about anyone in this article who was racing out to claim perceived or real "benefits" from their newfound heritage. Even more importantly their history is our history as well, and we have to lift the haze that hid those circumstances and understand our past.
42
“Sedentary,” used in this article to refer to Indigenous peoples before they were taken into slavery, may have been confused with “non-migratory.” Only in its antiquated sense does it refer to people who have a permanent settlement. Today, it refers to those who simply sit.
15
Almost all Mexicans are mestizo, a status most Mexicans are proud of. But in the rest of Latin America (and in the US), indigenous heritage has been disparaged by Hispanics, as a part of internalized racism.
Mexico has its problems, but it is the only country in the Americas that embraces its indigenous heritage in its foundational myths.
8
Mexico does embrace the indigenous part of its history but not the many modern-day Mexicans who are indigenous peoples. Most of them suffer from discrimination and poverty and are often looked down upon because of their skin color and culture.
23
I honestly don’t see how this is really a surprise.
11
As a Hispanic born and raised in northern NM, I grew up learning about my diverse ancestry, which included aspects of Tewa, Apache and several other tribes from throughout NM. I learned that one of my ancestors owned Native Americans as slaves, and I also learned that another was stolen by the Comanche and made a slave himself. The article is relatively good at including most of the facts. What’s not told is that New Mexican Hispanics did not start to claim they were "Spanish" until we were annexed by the U.S. after the Mexican-American war. This was because the treatment of Mexicans, genízaros, and Native Americans by the invading Anglo-Americans was atrocious. It was a survival mechanism to receive better treatment than the other marginalized groups. In my family, we don't shy away from our Native American ancestry, and I know that many Hispanics in NM are aware of their Native roots.
67
It's nice to know America has more Native DNA than previously thought. A lesson in how when history shows one group replaced by another, reality is more complex.
10
You're a human being first then comes everything else. "Imagine" John Lennon. Even trying to adhere to the songs lyrics would end about 90% of all hatreds and human-human conflicts. Why don't people just try, they don't even bother giving it a shot. Why?
9
“I was just blown away to find that I had a slaver and slaves in my family tree,” Mr. Trujillo said. “That level of complexity is too much for some people, but it’s part of the story of who I am.”
Ok. It's been hundreds of years. Why not call yourself an American. As that is what Americans are.
17
But understanding who we *really* are as Americans is the whole point. So much of our national construct is a fiction drafted specifically to oppress. Facing these truths is part of a new understanding of the actual history of our nation.
22
Wonderful New York Times to go behind the Wizard of Oz's curtain. In Carefree & Cave Creek, Arizona, Dr. Larry Myers ,Director of Th e Playwrights Sanctuary ignited the "#Ialso" movement. The focus being Native Americas & Elders. Myers ran theater at St John s University 3 decaders. His Sanctuary was endorsed by the late playwright Edward Albee & is now tri-coastal mentoring dramas of newer & younger dramatists == the unheard & unseen & neglected. The mission of the theater foundation is expression rather than suppression, omission, depression.
5
The wonders of science...........I challenge white supremacists to have their DNA analyzed.
34
Welcome to the club and no shame because it's history now. How you go forward in handling the new truth takes guts and acknowledgment. Be proud and learn rather than cry and whine. From me, this African American, now you too understand. Embrace your newly found heritage. Pass it along to your children and remember where your forebears come from. No shame in this game here.
14
Wouldn't it be ironic if many of those 'dreamers' and illegal aliens turned out to be indigenous peoples. That would be an interesting path to citizenship now wouldn't it???
29
Keep on dreaming --
None of the Latino or Hispanic "immigrants" -- legal or otherwise -- in the USA today are descendants of anyone who lived north of the Rio Grande River and Sonoran Desert before 1848. Their "ancestors" lived south of the Rio Grande River and the Sonoran Desert.
All the people who lived north of the Rio Grande River and the Sonoran Desert in 1848 became American citizens.
3
But even that line is arbitrary, on some level. Nation states are always imagined communities.
7
None of them? Not one? Not any at all? You know the travel patterns of all the people who came before 1848? Wow. I work researching DNA for people and I have no such certainty.
7
Slavery is the world's second oldest profession. Humans have been doing it for a long time. Romans, Greeks, Persians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Israelites - all enslaved the people around them. Pretty much every human civilization has had some form of slavery - Aztecs and Incas, and all the North American tribes, they all had slaves, usually people captured during an attack of one group upon another.
45
And certainly we want to welcome new information about our own history and what happened - individually people do welcome information about their family tree. Slavery is an important part of American history wherever and however it took place, and bringing facts to the surface is not something to shy away from.
5
It's a little misleading to refer to Ottoman janissaries as "the special soldier class of Christians from the Balkans who converted to Islam, and were sometimes referred to as slaves." The janissaries were boys who were given in tribute by Christian communities in the Balkans (and some other parts of the Ottoman Empire, such as Armenia) to the Ottoman government in exchange for religious autonomy and freedom from Islamic proselytism. They were required to convert to Islam, raised in barracks in and around Istanbul and deployed as soldiers around the Empire after their maturity. They were not technically slaves, and were freed from their military service after 60, but in practical effect were bound to the Sultan's service for life and prohibited from marrying or raising families - military serfs in a sense. The tributary status and restrictions on family life eventually fell by the wayside in the mid-17th century, after which the janissaries became a hereditary Muslim military caste in Ottoman Turkey
37
"given as tributes" is not equal to slavery? Get outta here.
12
Many years ago when we visited Santa Fe we had a conversation with a NY transplant who told us that many of the residents practiced Jewish rituals such as eating Kosher and not thinking why. He surmised that so many of their ancestors were Marrano Jews who were forced to convert.
8
Filtered through slavery, it's been difficult to know precisely what my heritage is, but it's fair to assume that it includes Africans and Native Americans; I know that it includes English and Swedish. That's how I got here.
And that's why it makes me proud to see these people of mixed race step up and claim their roots, and thus acknowledge that no particular approbation (or opprobrium) accrues a claim of 'pure' European blood. We're all just humans, with as many good and as many bad ancestors as everyone else.
It saddens me that Ms. TallBear would reject their claims to being indigenous. As a mixed race person, it's always been difficult to find others to whom I could relate; and it's difficult to endure rejection from those (white, black or native) that share part of my background.
We make a choice whether to try to embrace all (sounds good, but not necessarily easy), embrace one branch (and thus deny part of our families and our selves), or being isolated completely. Having those we embrace reject us doesn't help.
19
My dad's family is from New Mexico, and I recently completed a DNA test revealing a surprising 13% Native American and only 8% Spanish. According to the little research I've done, our family has strong ties to Northern New Mexico dating back to the early 1700s. This article is very near to home and ongoing research of my heritage. Definitely an article I will save as I continued researching our history.
16
An interesting story on heritage but why do we keep viewing ourselves like poodles, thoroughbreds, or Siamese cats? At the end of the day, what difference does it really make?
7
Here is one example in which knowing has made an enormous difference to a community. In the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado--an area that is essentially a cultural extension of northern New Mexico--a genetic mutation has been found among Hispana women that was previously known to occur mainly in Jewish women. As a Smithsonian Magazine article from 2008 states, "The finding raised some awkward questions. What did the presence of the genetic mutation say about the Catholics who carried it? How did they happen to inherit it? Would they have to rethink who they were—their very identity—because of a tiny change in the three billion “letters” of their DNA? More important, how would it affect their health, and their children’s health, in the future?"
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-secret-jews-of-san-lui...
10
Fabulous article thanks for the link - fascinating!
2
The human species’ tendency to “tribalism” cannot be overstated.
Mail-in mouth swab DNA testing is also fraught with error and inconsistency.
6
I've been a genealogy hobbyist for 40 years and will be one until someone enters MY death date in the family database. One of the reasons I so love it as a hobby is that genealogy is the great equalizer; what I've learned over the years is that everybody is some kind of a mutt - putting on airs is always pointless, because every person's genes constitute an amalgam of history. What a shame this vast family of man can't do a better job of seeing just how inexorably we are all linked. Are you listening, Herr Trump?
12
Fascinating read, but I'm even more interested in how some people receive and interpret their genetic results. You read stories of people who completely change their lives upon finding their 'ancestry', throwing out who they thought they were and taking on a new identity. And I can't blame them! But if we found out as adults that we had been adopted would we show up at our biological parents every thanksgiving? How much of our identity should be determined by our genetic results? These are as much rhetorical questions as anything, nature vs nurture, etc...so interesting.
I grew up in New Mexico and our family goes back many generations there and elsewhere in the southwest. The diversity and history of New Mexico are truly incredible.
10
This is for me one of those interesting moments when the public seems to becoming aware of longstanding scholarship and is now challenged to make sense of it. James Brooks' "Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands" (2002) has been lauded as breaking opening this field, but the truth is that scholars have been writing about it much longer than that. The entirety of Southwest history is a lesson in how and why ethnic identities don't conform neatly to ancestry. The growing public awareness of the genízaros now seems to be hitting a threshold at which identities are changing again for many Southwesterners. It has happened before. It will happen again.
4
And let us not forget how some native Americans enslaved persons of African ancestry: We are all a combination - at times against the consent of the progenitors.
6
It’s not just the Southwest.
Take one white male doctor & one Native American woman. They get married in the early 1900’s. As many Northeastern Native Americans did back then, she & her family were ‘passing’ as white. Since my Grandfather just wanted to find a woman with strong ‘blood’ to have a family with, he only courted non white women. The cemetery in his home town was full of graves 3rd, even 4th wives; & graves with one date for children. He felt that rural white families in NH were too inbred for good health. Small communities, distances between communities led to the problem. So, the only fix in those days was finding someone willing to marry you, who wasn’t like you. Many Native Americans answered the question on ALL government forms (birth, death, marriage, census) ‘what state or country did your parents come from’ with the answer ‘Portuguese’, not Portugal. That gave them the coveted ‘W’ in the race column. A dog whistle if you will. Since Portuguese is neither a country or state, but still an allowable answer on say a census, it let them ‘pass’. Grampa didn’t care if his children were identified as Native American. It wasn’t important to him. He got the healthy family he craved. Except his son died within 2 weeks of birth, & his wife just over a year after my mother was born. Now I know I am by blood, 1/4 Native American. I also know that it would be almost impossible to find ‘my tribe’. 4 generations later, one branch is brown (Cuban), Gramps would be proud.
14
As the article point out, "DNA of Hispanic people from New Mexico is often in the range of 30 to 40 percent Native American. More often, it is s than 30 to 40 percent. Hispanic Americans art predominantly, and most indemnify as white. Blonde, blue-eye actress Cameron Diaz is an Hispanic who has some Native American ancestry.
1
Another piece of food for reflection by arm-chair leftist-radical intellectuals. Genetic mixing or miscegenation of ethnically different groups is an inevitable consequence of the migrations of people, conquests, and forced relocations.
It is time to stop bemoaning the past and pass on to the order of the day.
10
We learn from our history & so it must be studied.
6
Exactly. We all, including those of us of European descent, have been "victims"of past conquests by Egyptians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, Vandals, French, Spanish, English, and on and on...it seems that Americans are rushing to the bottom is an effort to their claim to who is the biggest victim.
3
"Bemoaning the past"??? Unusual take on an enlightening article on new discoveries that add depth to our nation's history and, for some, very interesting information on their heritage.
9
Interesting article, and interesting to me that so many of the comments here fall into either "I never knew that" or "everybody already knows that". I can vouch that NM History as taught to our middle schoolers really favors the noble-Spanish-explorers/Pueblo-and-Euro-Catholics-living-in-harmony narrative. With a shout-out to the Crypto-Jews.
17
This is not news (except in the New York Times). Anyone who had read a book about New Mexican colonial history knows that slavery was practiced in New Mexico, just as it was practiced in the British colonies and later in the eastern U.S.
But we love our myths, don't we? Many northern New Mexicans have long claimed to be "Spanish." And today, many of those same "Spanish-Americans" are Jewish roots because that is now en vogue. It reminds me of th 1970s, when suddenly a lot of white people has Cherokee princess ancestors. In Mexico, the favorite family myth is the blue-eyed Spanish grandmother.
17
Power, and Pain. When Spanish explorers finally discovered a way to cross North to the Coast of California, a series of Missions were built along the corridor of what is now Highway 101. Beautiful as these old Missions are, they were all built with Native American Slave Labor.
One of the most beautiful of these Missions, the Mission in Carmel, was designed and built under the direction of Father Junipero Serra. Local "Natives" were rounded up, and "encouraged" to convert to Christianity, while their labor and sweat built the Mission. Those Natives who would not "convert" were beaten, or killed, or ... had the good fortune to escape into the steep, rugged hills of upper Carmel Valley.
Acknowledging past atrocities is an excellent, and clear way to avoid having it happen again - whether that slavery is designed by "the Church", or the Dow Jones. To say that "God is on our side" while enslaving another human is THE depth of depravity. Hopefully, history has taught us something here. Now, let's start working on this thing called "Greed".
29
It started with the first tribal leader who convinced the shaman to tell people that the gods or the spirits wanted the people to give control of their goods and lives to the leader. In exchange for this service, the leader gave the shaman special privileges, and the two worked everyone else like a pair of blue jays working over a cat. Once this was established, normal people never had a chance.
We've finally gotten to the place were we can question this arrangement, but we had to go through slavery, conquest, and religious wars to get here. So now we can make the assumption that slavery is evil, when for most of our history, it was just a fact, like banks, money lenders, and landlords.
Have we really improved, or is it just that we have machines to do the heavy labor, so we don't need slaves to support the leaders and shamans any more?
5
The Aztec’s and many of the tribes throughout Central and North America were major salve owning and trading civilizations. Many of these tribes were warrior cultures that fought each other intermittently for A 1,000 years. Human and Child sacrifice was common in North American and Central American cultures. What is most surprising here is that this all seem to be a revelation NYT readers and the descendants of these people.
23
Poor New Mexico. So close to Texas, so far from Heaven. This is an airing of just one more aspect of the long-lived undercurrents of cultural racism and bigotry that influence daily life in New Mexico. Another chapter to be added to New Mexico’s long heritage of mistreatment of others and of tribalism, of the taking and reclaiming and retaking of lands, and of taking both inordinate pride and feeling undeserved shame in one's own ancestry. No one chooses their ancestors and those of us living today are not accountable for the sins of our ancestors though many of us desire to make amends as best we can. Past may be prologue but the future is ours to make. We can choose to do good things in our lifetimes. We can do things that build good will and strengthen New Mexico by improving the lives of our neighbors, of the people of our communities and of all New Mexicans – both recent arrivals and those with the deepest roots in the state. Tolerance of differences also has a long and rich legacy in New Mexico. This is the foundation on which we can join together instead of letting long ago bad acts drive us apart. Thank you Simon Romero for your excellent reporting on New Mexico.
19
I'm pretty sure that Mexicans are indigenous Americans. The fact that many have some European or African genetics doesn't change that fact.
And it's time to face up to the fact that ultimately there are no "good guys" in history if you are speaking of civilizations, empires, and cultures. All that I know of sanctioned expansionist war, class or caste oppression, economic injustice, and various forms of slavery or serfdom. There are good individuals who try to change things. Some have been more successful than others but none have entirely succeeded.
9
The constant search for tiny boxes of "identity" in which to climb continues.
Scientists have now determined that we human beings are 99% genetically identical to chimpanzees and bonobos, and 98% identical to gorillas.
Maybe someday we will learn how much we are like each other and stop making the tiny differences between us the largest determining factors in our self-identities.
Yes, history, culture... these things matter. They are part (but only a part) of who we are. But the constant search for differences encourages separation from "the other."
When do we start searching for what it is that unites us?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny-genetic-differences-betw...
6
"Scientists have now determined that we human beings are 99% genetically identical to chimpanzees and bonobos, and 98% identical to gorillas."
And, using the same scientific methods, when are the "scientists" going to enlighten us with the news about how far "genetically identical" we are to dogs, horses and rats -- I bet it is well over 80%.
Then we can go on to birds, and snakes and frogs, and fish. -- probably well over 50% "genetically identical" to "we humans".
Come on, scientists -- prove me wrong.
And, if you can't, then what is the relevance -- for human social and political interaction -- of the heavy genetic overlap?
1
I'm not sure why you feel it necessary to put "scientists" and "genetically identical" into parentheses, but yes, you right about similarities being well over 80% with other animals, which reinforces my point that we are all, fundamentally, animals, unified by almost our entire physical beings.
The relevance? Our entire social interaction, of which our political interaction is a part, is driven by our instincts for survival, our essential animal nature.
We all, whether we come from Europe, Asia, Africa ... have the same essential needs and drives.
When we can start to recognize the vast elements of ourselves that unite us with each other maybe we can begin to empathize again, to love our neighbors as ourselves.
2
Thank you.
I have traced my own family history back 400 years, and among many surprises, found connections with the Liverpool slave trade in the early 19th century. We should know our history, if for no other reason than to avoid feeling superior to others. All are punished.
11
We must learn from history or be doomed to repeat it. But this sudden concern on how our ancestors acted hundreds of years ago and how we are somehow responsible for that today is ridiculous. I’m tired of being accused for things my ancestors did. I am not my ancestors and I cannot help what they did in the context of their own time period. This revisionist history is dangerous and serves no good purpose. We also have to learn how to move on from history.
19
If something is wrong, it needs to be revised. It is imperative to revise our understanding of history from time to time as more information about history from various discoveries come to light. So unless the narrative is being incorrectly revised along some kind of ideological lines in order to obfuscate truth in service of propaganda, historical revisionism is something to be embraced, just as scientific theories are constantly under revision as new experimental data become available.
13
This isn't revisionist history. It is more accurate history. My believe is that it helps us break down divisions. If all the current white separatists found out their ancestors were slave holders and that they, themselves had African heritage from a former slave, would they continue to hold such strong beliefs about racial purity? We can best move on by acknowledging the past and vowing not to repeat it. Not repeating it would involve recognizing current injustices. No, you don't have to feel guilty about what your ancestors did. But acknowledging that your ancestors benefitted from slave labor and that some of your families advanced position in society is related to that is appropriate to keep you humble. We have far too many people insisting that everyone truly has equal opportunity in the US when old attitudes still prevail that make this not true.
16
Just so long as the "revisions" are based on scholarly work.
Further, regardless where scholarly work might lead in revisions of history qua history -- and even if we all "embrace" the historical "revisions" qua history -- nonetheless, whatever conclusions -- if, indeed any -- to be drawn and applied to contemporary political actions are not necessarily likely to be as obvious or clear-cut as you seem to think they might be.
1
"Concubine" was the common relationship between Spanish Conquistadors and Native women for 200 years following the Columbus "discovery" of the New World on behalf of Spain's King Ferdinand. Historians estimate more than three million African slaves were deployed to Spanish-controlled plantations in Mexico and Central America from 1500 to 1800. Enslavement of and by Indians in New Mexico is a small tip of a huge iceberg of history and abuse.
19
Concubine? I don't think you are well informed and in any case what about president Washington?. At least the Spanish mixed with the population they found, we in the North simply killed most of them. An about enslavement, well, you are right is a small tip of a huge iceberg as old as the human being.
2
Well, what*s *normal* is often very far from good, and the evolution of human society is a constant struggle to overcome our most natural impulses.
Domination and control of others is a basic component of the central unit of any society--the family--and that just spreads outward, relentlessly and, without just laws and their enforcement, unstoppably.
Just beneath the surface of otherwise apparently educated people is often a willingness to believe that human hierarchies are ordained by God--and this affliction is equally found within Judaism and its daughters--Christianity and Islam--as well as Eastern faiths not appearing to be monotheistic but still seeing everyone as fitting within his or her place.
I*d describe myself as a person of faith, too. Just not one who thinks God believes in what adherents of organized religions seem to think God does.
4
Perhaps the most important point about slavery in general is all of humanity’s tendency to cruelty towards those deemed somehow unworthy. History overflows with horrible injustice as we take advantage of each other, use each other for our own benefit and regard ‘others’ among us as less than. It is unlikely that any nationality has escaped the tarnish of enslaving others. It doesn’t matter if enslavement has been ‘justified’ in the name of politics, religion, or any other source of power or greed. It still goes on, still horrifies us, or at least should.The broader question for us all is whether or not we humans can ever rise above this terrible treatment of each other and for once truly embrace what many religions tell us but too often ignore, which is “to love our neighbors as ourselves.” If instead we choose to continue with dominating each other, then humanity is doomed. We haven’t been here all that long, anyway. Perhaps we’re just an experiment gone wrong.
8
Eliminate the property implications and who would really care? We are all "half-breeds". Every last one of us. I got tired of seeing myself as anything other than human a very long time ago.
The current problem? Our ability to share and love currently lags behind our ability to destroy.
18
As a side note, there were tribes in the Pacific Northwest that owned slaves as well and were forced to free them under the 13th amendment. We often think of slavery as limited to the south and a phenomenon of whites owning blacks, but as this story shows, it was much more widespread and took many different forms.
35
@AJD: It's a well known fact that the Cherokees in the Southeast held Black slaves. As a consequence, and not unexpectedly, had offspring of mixed heritage. Many of their descendants have been denied membership on the tribal rolls.
5
Let's keep several facts straight.
Whatever slavery might have existed in those lands did not exist under either British law or the law of the USA. It existed under Spanish law, or under the rule/law of people who lived in those lands before 1492.
Furthermore, by far, the overwhelming majority of "Hispanic" or "Latino" people who today live in the USA are not descendants of any of the people who lived in those lands at any time.
The overwhelming majority of "Hispanic" or "Latino" people who today live in the USA are descendants of various people (including the Spanish after 1492) and the Nahuatl people or other people who lived in Tenochtitlan and other lands south of the Sonoran Desert and south of the Rio Grande River and of mixtures of those people who have lived there for at least the past 1000 years (or, indeed, of other peoples who have lived in other lands still farther south).
Further still, for at least several hundred years before 1519, the Nahuatl people in Tenochtitlan ruled most of the other peoples south of the Sonoran Desert and the Rio Grande River and enslaved many of those peoples. Slavery was not something newly arrived solely from Spain, or anywhere else in Europe, suddenly in 1492.
16
There is an academic literature on this subject that goes far beyond the somewhat superficial take by Mr. Romero. Here are some of the best monographs to read (and authors to interview), in chronological order:
Ramon Gutierrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away (1991);
James Brooks, Captives & Cousins (2002);
Estevan Rael-Galvez, PhD Dissertation (2002), "Identifying Captives, Capturing Identity";
Laura E. Gomez, Manifest Destinies: the Making of the Mexican American Race (Second Edition, 2018).
I don't know Resendez's 2016 book, but I'll check it out.
6
What an amazing diversity born out of such terrible events. One wonders at the craziness of some citizens now trying to keep people out because they are "different"...the whole region (also including adjacent Mexico) just about defines the notion of "melting pot" while overlooking its own history--until now. Mexican mine workers, Welsh miners too...Indigenous slaves, the Spanish and everyone else from Greeks to Chinese. They were all part of it.
83
Peter nobody is "trying to keep people out because they are different." There is a legal way to enter the United States and an ILLEGAL way to enter the United States. Those who entered ILLEGALLY are being removed. NOT because they are different but because they violated the laws of the United States. What part of that don't you understand?
6
We lived in New Mexico for 30-plus years, and it took much much less time to discover that its vaunted "tricultural" society was a construct, a scam concocted by the tourist industry and local boosters. In reality, currents of racial animosity run through the state, between Native peoples and Hispanics, Hispanics and Anglos, etc. Across the west, conquerors enslaved or tortured or killed Native people. Who built the lovely mission churches that New Mexico's tourist industry touts? Pueblo slaves. The enslavement of Natives is not a secret--except to today's descendants of slavers.
12
Suggest reading "Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History," describing the incredible and unprovoked brutality of the Comanches back then.
5
Empire of the Summer Moon is a fantastic book.
Yes! So well-researched and incredibly well-written.
I'm kind of in line with Ms. Tallbear on this one. NA as a racial group is one thing, tribal affiliation is another. Tribes are more akin to nationalities than they are to races.
In the US, we've erroneously linked genetic ancestry to legal affiliation, which is the problem, as the legal affiliations are based on treaties signed between the US government and the governments of specific tribal nations. As a racial group, ambiguously Native American doesn't confer any additional rights that being Black or being Jewish would confer.
It would be like saying if the US goes to war with Israel, I as a Jew, would suddenly be an enemy combatant, despite having never lived in Israel and not being a citizen of Israel. (Or like saying a Muslim in America is part of the Islamic State).
We call that racist in every iteration of it... except when it comes to linking membership of a Native American nation to their "blood quanta".
You either were born and raised on a reservation (or born to parents who were) or you were not. People who are 4th, 5th, 8th generation Americans, whose entire family history has been spent as an assimilated part of the US nation, should not get to claim that they are somehow party to a treaty struck between the USG and a nation of people they've never met or interacted with, and shouldn't be claiming/receiving the benefits those agreements confer.
11
I'd heard about Hispanics being divided into Indio (pure indian) Mestizo (mixed) and Criollo (pure Spanish descent but born in the New World). This is the first time I've heard of Genízaros.
4
Indians were enslaved all throughout the US and in the Americas. At one point there were more Indians enslaved in the US than Africans. When Indian warriors in the Northern US caused too much havoc they were sent to the West Indies as slaves. There is one case where some Indian Fighters (from Puerto Rico) were imprisoned in Italy. Slaves are slaves and some were able to obtain their freedom
2
Unfortunately, this is not news to us who come from what was the Spanish colonial empire in the Caribbean.
3
Darling the British or the French colonial empires were worst just take a look to Haiti
2
This article gives the impression that this might be news to many New Mexicans. It isn't.
6
An informative historical report which has been turned into another identity based indictment of America. Doesn't the simplicity of this narrative ever grow old?
5
I read this as valuable, educational & apropos of our current times. And, as well known, our school books do not admit to these real histories.
3
Willa Cather's novel "Death Comes For the Archbishop" is a must read for anyone interested in the history of New Mexico. Funny no one mentioned it.
7
Now you have mentioned it, and I enthusiastically second your recommendation.
So it appears that Latinos owned slaves and traded slaves, and some Native Americans also owned slaves and traded slaves. So is any group pure and innocent?
10
The fact that most Americas never read history is no surprise the Hollywood version that all and only "white " people had slaves .. is a prefect example of the gullibility of most the population.
8
I sense another special interest group in the making which will prevent any illegal aliens within this new identity from being deported.
4
You do realize that the ancestors of this "special interest group" were almost certainly living in the territory of New Mexico for a century or more before the first Dutchman set foot in the vicinity of White Plains, NY?
9
I'm surprised there was no mention of Chicanos in this article.
This is a concept that I struggle with, and I seek genuine perspective from others. In the last sentence, Mr. Trujillo is quoted as saying that his ancestral history is part of the story of who he is. Is that right? Are we our ancestors, even in part? Our attitudes and habits are influenced by our parents and other family members, our ancestors, for better or worse. But at some point in our lives, say when we become adults, our minds and persons become our own responsibility. Right? I'm not suggesting that past human abuses are irrelevant in our world. I am suggesting that I am not my mother or her mother.
26
Since, I had ancestors from England in the 1600's who had slaves, I will have to agree that despite our heritage, we are the people we choose to be. it was fortunate that my grandfather left Georgia as a teenager and came to New York.
So I was born female in the 50's, and although there was racism, by the time I was raising my children, the color and culture of others was the most interesting part of who we had become. As I believe for most of us, a person's skin color became a non issue. As a genetic mutt, I reflect America. For most of us, diversity is what makes our lives richer and more interesting. Diversity is America.
And, by the way, if we are all going to be sent packing by the real Americans, I hope Ireland has enough room for all of us.
I will find it very interesting to see if these genetic revelations will make many more Latins subject to Native American rights of citizenship. I certainly hope so. It is a twist in our present immigration debacle that has potential for some quite interesting consequences.
Let us hope that America doesn't lose her identity under the current racist administration. We are all immigrants, and yes, some of us were slaves through the actions of people who are not currently here to answer to those crimes.
3
When my sister recently had her tested it revealed that she has a very small amount of native american ancestry. We were both very surprised in that our mother emigrated to the US from Liverpool, England in 1955 and our father's grand parents were from Palermo, Italy and emigrated about 1890. The ancestry company said that we had a native american great grand parent that lived between 1700 and 1760. Our ancestor was very likely a native american slave brought to Eurpoe.
76
Kate S a group of Indian Warriors was taken from Puerto Rico and imprisoned in Italy. Met a young lady some years ago who wrote her thesis for her Masters on this topic. She told me quite a bit about the paper the tribe and time period etc. but I don't remember all the details. They were imprisoned, then possibly freed, lived in Italy and had families. Maybe one of these warriors is an ancestor of yours. With a more specific DNA test you can find what region your Indian came from. But you are correct some Indians were enslaved in Europe.
10
I am sorry, but much more likely is that the analysis results were simply wrong. That happens a LOT.
5
I'm from Mexico and my paternal grandmother grew up in the small town of Magdalena, Sonora in the early 1900s - family lore told the story of her uncle who, as a child of about 8 or 9, was abducted by a Comanche raid party. Years later he returned as an undernourished teenager who still looked like a child. The story he told his family was that he had been trained to sneak into corrals and steal horses. For the remainder of his life, he preferred to sleep outdoors and constantly sang a little ditty that sounded (in Spanish) like "going to wikimbor". In the 1990s, on a family trip, we came across the tiny town of Wikieup in Arizona and found out that "wiki" is a Mohave word for shelter. To this day, "going to wikimbor" is an-often repeated family expression.
133
A visual history of the enslavement of Native Americans by the Spanish can be viewed at a small museum in the Toadlena Trading Post in New Mexico. This trading post, at the edge of the Chuska Mountains, was first established in 1890 and is now run by Mark and Linda Winter. Two Grey Hills, which are visible from the post, give their name to a distinctive style of Navajo weavings. The museum and the Navajo weavers and weavings are worth a visit to this obscure but beautiful trading post.
98
Her name is Lerina, not Linda.
1
New Mexico is a complex and very beautiful state. You can read a little more about Abiquiú in "The Genízaro & The Artist," written by Napoleón Garcia and Analinda Dunn. Garcia (a Genízaro) worked for Georgia O'Keeffe for forty years.
11
I've read that enslavement was a part of the social organization within most Native tribes. The surviving members of the Cabeza de Vaca expedition were for a time working as slaves for a Gulf coast tribe, because the Spaniards had no skills like hunting deer and rabbits with a bow that could contribute to the tribe and the Spaniards still needed to eat. So they basically sold themselves into slavery to do menial manual labor to eat.
The more prosperous tribes in the Pacific Northwest had a permanent slave class where if you were born into that class, you could never earn your way out of it.
But I have never read that Natives sold or traded their slaves as a business. Enslavement as a global business was practiced by Romans, Vikings and modern Europeans, and now we know that Natives were part of the product being shipped.
9
You are probably not aware either that freed black slaves comprised the owners of the largest number of slaves in New Orleans at the time of the Civil War. There were more black slave owners in NO than white slave owners.
3
@Patricia: The tribes on the Northwest Coast also sacrificed slaves, and stone artifacts known as "Slave killers" are well documented. In an 18th century account of one European voyage to that area, they discovered a Japanese "blacksmith" who was kept as a slave by one of the tribes, in that area, and who made, daggers, spears, and other steel weaponry for them, from salvaged iron from shipwrecks. Presumably, he was a survivor of one of those wrecks, or a vessel blown off course from Japan.
2
The slave trade in the Spanish colonies in the New World has been known for years and there have been several scholarly works written. The Spanish had Indian slaves ad the Indians had Spanish slaves. Much of the Native weavings reflect this cultural mix. Why this is just being brought to light is the mystery.
9
It is puzzling that the information in this article is presented as new. As far as I am aware it has never been a secret that the Spanish colonizers, along with other Europeans, enslaved native populations. It has also been known that native people raided other native groups and captured slaves.
Slavery is one of the ugly things that exists throughout human history, all over the globe. The important thing is to understand that and make sure it does not continue, in any form.
8
"Why this is just being brought to light is the mystery."
Actually, as you yourself say, this "has been known for years.
So, it is not "just being brought to light."
What is happening now is a revanchist Quixotic Quest for the Holy Grail of supposed "historical justice" which is finding fertile soil in the Fourth Estate and in the Academy where many supposedly erudite scholars and writers are earning their own living by regurgitating what been known for years and ballyhooing it to emphasize all kinds of supposed historical victimhood so that today bad ol' Anglo USA ends up paying restitution (whether in outright dollars or in imposed mandates for the benefit of all kinds of "protected classes") for supposed real and imagined evils of centuries long ago.
1
Perhaps the note in the article that Janisarries in the article "were sometimes referred to as slaves" (and the comment by David M. Fishlow) is a misunderstanding of what was sometimes meant by the word "slave" in Muslim culture. I have a friend who was raised as a Muslim, and his first and middle names are "Gholam Reza." The word "Gholam" can mean "slave" but the concept is one who is a slave to God's will. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gholam_Reza.
1
It sounds like some "slaves" had status similar to that of indentured servants.
1
It is difficult to believe that New Mexicans could have been unware of the Native American slave trade. However, it wasn’t just the Spanish. The Navajo also were notorious slave raiders. They raided New Mexico pueblo tribes and sold their captives to Spanish haciendas.
9
Bad deeds from the past greatly number and are abundantly available.
In regards to slavery, we have existing modern day slavery in many parts of the world, today, right now. Same with genocide. It has never really gone away. History always repeats.
3
Certainly the slavery aspect seems new. Everything beyond that though seems old hat. Mestizos is exactly the word used to describe Mexican-Americans--indeed, many Mexicans--in my seventh-grade social studies and Spanish-language class books. And that was a LONG time ago.
1
Never knew about any of this, despite a partial major in Latin American Area studies years ago. Thanks for the information.
18
A great article and a wonderful piece of history. Many thanks to Simon Romero. My grandmother came from the Oklahoma territory, and the family ancestry said she was part native indian, from the territory around the Red River of northern Texas. There is much history of the southwest we Americans never know because it isn't taught in our schools, possibly because of the shame of the white mans' treatment to our native cultures, and today it has little meaning except to those whose heritage take them there. I find it fascinating.
92
It's worthwhile considering what history is taught in our schools. What is the story of ourselves and our country that we impart to our future leaders. So much has been lost. So many fictions told.
5
After living in NM for nearly 20 years, the one constant I see among long-residence people, regardless of whether they identify as Hispanic-European, Native American, or a mixed genealogy is the overriding influence of the Catholic Church. It's so strong that St. Vincent's Medical Center in Santa Fe became Christus St. Vincent within the past decade. One is left to wonder what the role of the obviously influential Church was in dissuading or possibly ignoring the enslavement of its multitude of converts.
50
The Church ruined the Viking economy in the 12th century by forbidding Christians from trafficking in or owning Christian slaves. The Vikings had been Christianized by then, so they obeyed even though they went broke and lost their former power and influence that came partly from their traffic in English and Russian slaves. I suspect that as more Natives converted to Christianity, meddlesome priests began to intervene in local cases and eventually ruined that economy too.
2
The annual Fiesta in Santa Fe celebrates the re-conquest of NM by the Spanish in 1692 after having been run off by the Pueblo Revolt in 1690. It is an overtly religious event partly financed by the city government. Religiosity is everywhere.
4
I'm going to print this article out and save it. My family if from Northern New Mexico. My grandparents shied away from including Native American blood in our story. I always thought we were mostly Spanish. I was surprised when my 23 and Me results came back as 25% Native American. I would love to know more about this part of my heritage.
161
You have ancestors who were slaves of native Americans. you could sure the native Americans for reparations.
@JavaCat - you might be more surprised to discover that your ethnic background includes Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Look for any of your folks with reddish hair - or a history of the Mother of the house making secretive hand gestures over the dinner table.
. . . or sweeping dust toward the center of the floor, or eschewing pork, or lighting candles on Friday evenings.
Most students of the history of the American West knew about the Spanish enslavement of indigenous Americans. In fact the English tried to enslave them in Virginia but without success. The Spanish in the American Southwest had better success than their English counterparts. However that does not in anyway justify it.
5
In the US, native Americans enslaved illegal aliens and the members of weaker tribes. Bostonians imported slaves from Africa. Is someone of mixed blood a victim or predator? Or both?
2
This region of New Spain was populated by Spanish and Indian people who raided one another throughout the decades. It was common for Spanish to have Navajo captives as well as other Indian tribal members often sold by the Comanche and other plains tribes. It wasn't a white versus native thing it really was a war of all against all at times in the Southwest. With DNA testing I think the population of NM would learn just how intermingled they all are. Slavery there was not slavery as practiced in Anglo America a condition that eludes us when we hear the word "slave".
7
Navahos and Comanches had white slaves.
4
The Spanish Empire, the English Empire and the Portuguese Empire were the three largest competing colonial powers in the Americas. They all were terrible to the native populations and they all built their economies on slaves. Those facts are part and parcel of our historical roots whether we grew up north or south of the Rio Grande.
20
The native populations had slaves of other native tribes. What is your point? Europeans adopted the ways of the New World?
3
Slavery has existed all over the world for thousands of years,
including the Western Hemisphere long before 1492 (Columbus) and including Africa long before 1488 (Dias).
It is not -- and never was -- some kind of trait that emanated only from Europe or was practiced only under European rule.
7
In the book "Blood and Thunder" by Hampton Sides is a description of how Spanish speakers in the Rio Grande river valley raided Navajos for slaves and Navajos raided the Spanish speakers for slaves. This happened so much that sometimes slaves made return trips but some remained slaves, especially if they were Pueblo Indians from the Rio Grande. As I recall from the book, Congress paid Kit Carson to investigate in the late 1840s or 1850s and he wrote that the slave trade in New Mexico was so active it resembled the deep South.
31
Interesting article. I assume it's even more interesting for people who want to deride those who promote Native American culture and rights.
However, the takeaway shouldn't be that Native Americans *are* slavers, but that some of them *were* slavers. This should be added to the history books (though I thought it was already known that some Native Americans took their enemies as slaves?) and acknowledged.
The fact that some Native Americans sold slaves doesn't make Native American claims to the land less legitimate and it doesn't excuse the injustice of what the US did to their culture and people.
46
This is also true for some California "mestizos." Spanish/Mexican slavers would travel back and forth along the Old Spanish Trail and capture Indians each way to sell at either end. Dispersed, semi-nomadic desert peoples like the Southern Paiute (called "diggers") were particularly hard hit. This quote points to the brutality of ripping indigenous peoples off their homelands, which could also point to an initial, primal horror experienced by captured Africans:
"...these Indians are so ardently attached to their country, that when carried into the lands of their captors and surrounded with abundance, they pine away and often die in grief for the loss of their native deserts. In one instance, I saw one of these Paiuches die from no other apparent cause than this home-sickness. From the time it was brought in the settlements of California it was sad, moaned and continually refused to eat until it died."
Thomas J. Farnham, 1849
28
Having lived in New Mexico in 70s as a young man from NJ, I learned that Hispanic or Mexican was an inaccurate term for native people who lived there for centuries. I learned that there are 22 native American tribes in NM, each with their own language and culture. We are all pretty much ignorant of each others history. The Spanish were horrible towards the local people. I never understood why Hispanic is a proud term in the context of Native American history throughtout the Americas.
41
The local people were horrible to each other.
3
HIspanic is a term imposed by the federal government for census purposes. If you go down to Mexico, Central or South America, you'll find out that they NEVER call themselves Hispanics, and few use the term latino.
3
"taking the surnames of their masters and embracing Roman Catholicism"
That should have been forced to convert to Roman Catholicism. Slaves and native peoples were forced to practice Christianity frequently by kidnapping their children and baptizing them. When the parents came looking for their children they were enslaved. Slaves were forced to go to church hence the parish records. The Spanish have a long history of brutal forced conversions. I would not call that embracing the church.
93
I would have to agree.
7
So, how is this news? In 1973, at age nine, while living near the Mexican border in Arizona, even I understood that the missions were built by indigenous slave labor. I always wondered how tourists would be so fascinated by them. Gross.
24
Most Hispanics of colonial descent in New Mexico are mestizos, a mixture of Native American, European, Middle Eastern, and African descent. There is also a considerable Jewish-by-descent DNA component among most if not all of those descendants as their ancestors fled the Inquisition, converted to Catholicism, and ended up here in the late 1500s (long before 'Plymouth Rock'). Those who simply call New Mexican 'Hispanics' or 'Spanish' are not the most informed, but that's forgivable because it was and is the most common European language in the Americas. Those who call themselves Genizaros, mestizos, or Chicanos are simply honoring their diverse ancestors, not trying to get something in return.
87
The number of "Conversos" or "Cryptic Jews" in New Mexico has been greatly exaggerated. This article from a couple of studies shows that. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/12/mistaken-identity-t...
Our Spanish identity has been passed down from our great grandparents and those before them. This is what we've been told all our lives. Most of us understand that we have some Native American ancestry now. It's taken modern technology to bear that out. That being said, I will always be proud that my ancestors came to New Mexico with Onate. That is part of who my family is. And I take offense to you implying that the use of our Spanish identity was used for personal gain.
3
The article you shared if very outdated, riddled with errors, and does not mention DNA testing even once. Unless DNA ancestry is a faulty science, and maybe it is to some extent (it's actually just statistics after all), then who knows anything about anything? Right now that science is pointing to the points I was making.
1
For instance, CJ, to support your point: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-secret-jews-of-san-lui...
Good research--lots of facts.
5
I am from Northern New Mexico, just north of Taos. This story brings nothing new to the history of the region. There is nothing in this story the we the people of mestizo origins/or not, have not been aware of for centuries.
56
But this is news to many of the rest of us. Maybe school American History courses don't skim through Soouthwestern history so quickly these days, but I doubt it.
13
True. But I find that very few people outside NM have any knowledge of NM Hispano history, including the fact that northern NM was settled by families (including yours) who were in the region well before Anglo settlement of the East Coast. I think it’s a good thing for non-New Mexicans to have the chance to become educated about NM history and culture. It’s also valuable for New Mexicans who, unlike you, are not already in the know to be exposed to the more nuanced picture of their own history that DNA and other new data are pointing to.
10
Good for you, but this is news to most outside new mexico.
4
"...authorities have often tried to perpetuate a narrative of relatively peaceful coexistence between Hispanics, Indians and Anglos, as non-Hispanic whites are generally called here."
Visit the Salinas Missions National Monument in Mountainair, NM, and you'll learn how "peaceful" the coexistence was.
9
A Navajo man I know tells the story of his grandmother escaping from slavery in the Rio Grande valley and making her way over 300 miles to Shonto, Arizona, walking all the way back home.
24
Most Navajo families have stories like this.
3
The Genísaros need their own "Holocaust Museum". Maybe it's wrong to compare the two things, however, I say that because the Holocaust Museum in D.C. is very well-researched and, unlike so many other Holocaust Memorials, it includes ALL the people murdered by the Nazis – not just the Jews. So it's more historically accurate. The difficult fact that native Americans were captured and sold by other indigenous groups is similar to what happened in Africa as well.
Whether they deserve membership in a "tribe" is beside the point. Modern "tribes" have legal status. The Genísaros don't need legal recognition in order to uphold their ancestry and tell their own story.
A lot of people don't know that large numbers of Indians were enslaved. I had read about South America where they worked, and died, in silver mines among other places. I did not know about the North American enslavement until reading this article.
11
Genízaro, English Janissary, comes from the Turkish for "new soldiers," the Turkish army of "drafted" soldiers, largely Christian boys taken from countries ruled by the Ottoman Empire. Apparently the cavalry was reserved for freeborn Turks, while the Janissaries, slaves of the Sultan, was made up of abducted youths from other peoples... The parallels are obvious.
11
Hardly shocking given our legacy with Native Americans, and a genocide usually denied. Why don't we have a holocaust museum acknowledging crimes against Native Americans? I often wondered why? Are there any answers out there?
30
Well, what should be done in the relatively new museum in DC about this? What has been done? I've never been to it, but I know it's there.
"our legacy with Native Americans". Who is "our"? Black Americans? Native Americans? Asian Americans? Americans whose ancestors did not arrive until after the Plains Indian wars? "Our" seems white normative to me. Does "our" mean "us white people"? Should all white people be ashamed of this murderous history because most of the murderers were white? How does that work?
2
This isn't new, except for those who don't have an oral history.
However, I don't see the "latino" angle of the article at all.
Again, trying to make original native people into migrants and immigrants in their own lands, by virtue of their DNA.
3
The point is we all have some of the colonizer in our blood. Let's take responsibility for that and come together.
8
interesting to see how the roots of slavery have their impact on Hispanics. My americano dream by Lionel Sosa is a very interesting read on this subject and goes in depth to describe the slave mentality that has held Hispanics in bondage for century s. google it.
3
The term Indian is based on the river Indus on the Indian sub continent. Just because Columbus mistakenly thought he landed in India, publications like the NYT don't need to perpetuate this incorrect terminology. Native Americans are not Indians! Can you please stop using the term "Indian" to refer to all native populations. By this usage anyone that is indigenous, including Europeans and Africans" should all be called "Indians"! It makes no sense so kindly refrain from using this "colonial era terminology" to refer to native Americans! it is offensive!
12
American Indians use the term "Indian" when speaking of each other. The trem "Native American" is no better. I myself am a native American. I was born on this continent.
10
Rich - And the term Native American is based on the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci. Is that any better?
Let the people involved use whatever term they prefer.
11
And the culture of victimhood finds another room to occupy.
13
When I lived in rural NM in the 90's, the racism towards the Navajo people was palpabe and awful. Whites, Latinos, everyone treated them as lesser. I worked at a bar where I was told to only serve the Navajos with plastic cups. I asked the owner where she thought she came from bc her skin was darker than mine. She told me she descended from the Conquistadores - proudly- Mexicans were also called wetbacks but not other people from Latin America. Racism, classism and bigotry is everywhere. The degrading comments were constant, yet everyone was living on their land. The Navajos in NM were given the absolute worst land in the area for growing anything, not near water. When does the mistreatment of the original people of the Americas end?
171
And yet, ironically, these people who proudly say they are descended from the conquistadores have no idea that outside of the expedition leaders (Cortes, Pizarro, Cabeza de vaca, etc..) the conquistadores were mainly illiterate, bottom of the barrel types who had no other future but to be hired onto a ship and sail across the Atlantic and seek their "fortune"
7
So, Native Americans werre not the wonderful people, that we are told they were.
Who knew?
24
So the fact that no human beings are completely saintly makes the relentless US breaking of “sacred” treaties, expropriation of Indians’ land, destruction of native culture and murder and, in some cases, genocide okay?
25
Please be careful about over generalizing a population for good and for bad, as both are a form of racism. Certainly some tribes behaved in ways that would be considered war crimes today, but lets not forget that that much of ancient and fairly recent human behavior surrounding war, would be appalling or criminal to our modern sensibilities. Bio-warfare, slavery, raping and pillaging were all normal at one time and are still practiced today in certain regions.
4
Read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. You want to see brutality, true massive genocide, read about our history. The settlers were far more brutal. There were many different tribes and each one different. Widespread genocide was not their goal, they were territorial as all tribal people and western people are. Read more history. Mass graves of slaughtered children are a great American tradition when it comes to Westward expansion.
40
The article is evidence of America's never-ending obsession with race.
105
Robert Brandt, Yes, Indeed. Here we have one more layer of historic grievance. It is getting very boring - and hypocritical, since the people promoting the various centennials of victimhood are the current masters of society, i.e., the media.
8
It seems to bring about a little bit of history to the origins of most Latins: they carry Native American blood on their veins, although many of them would rather not know about it. To my mind, most most Latins from Latin America have been brought up to think that they are "Europeans." So, there, the article has brought to light something it may not have intended.
4
Because we haven't come to terms with the consequences of our history. There is a balance between recognition and moving forward that should not fall into dwelling on a dark chapter, but we as a nation haven't done enough to recognize the modern problems caused by and perpetuated by our historical problems. I have noticed that most people who complain about "America's obsession with race" are white people who want to ignore the fact that institutional racism was a thing within many peoples life times and it does have some relics left in the system that create lasting harm on communities. It wasn't until 1968 that it became illegal to discriminate based on race with housing. That means if you are 51 years old, your parents couldn't escape the impoverished neighborhoods even if they had the income to do so. It would be ignorant to believe that after '68 it would all be fixed. Institutional racism affected wages until very recently. If older generations of non-whites grew up and grew old in times where they couldn't get paid as much or move to places where wages were better, don't you think that would affect the wealth of the children and grandchildren that are now in their teens at the youngest?
53
The spanish were responsible for millions of deaths, directly and indirectly. White europeans have been a cruel bunch.
75
> The spanish were responsible for millions of deaths, directly and indirectly. White europeans have been a cruel bunch.
And yet the west was able to evolve past that and build some of the greatest democracies in history, championing human rights throughout the world.
They should be praised for their ability to overcome their flaws, yet 10x as much effort is put into berating them for the behaviour of generations long dead from over a century or two ago.
The only place slavery still exists (even formalized by the state) is in countries in Africa and indirectly in the middle east and India. The last country to make slavery illegal was an African country in 2007, yet millions are still "illegally" under slavery across the continent.
This obsession with blaming the west for past atrocities while downplaying the lack of progress and atrocities happening in countries TODAY (while also placing the fault of the west, despite many times as much as a century since colonization) is a cancer on the world. An attitude that helps fuel disastrous dictators and failed economies like Venezuela (who always blame the west for all of their failures) and not holding countries responsible for their own failures, with a near racist level of low expectations throughout the third-world.
Fortunately it's changing slowly as poverty has continually been reduced around the world as more and more countries adopt western style democracy and functional capitalist economic systems.
9
The European conquest was a horror of slavery and genocide, but it is also undeniable that the conquest was preceded by brutal indigenous empires who committed atrocities such as routinely murdering tens of thousands of captives in a single day (Maya), used slave labor commonly, as in building the pyramids (Aztec), and practiced horrendous forms of child sacrifice (Incas). If we're ever going to understand human nature and move toward more just governance, we're not going to get there by demonizing any one group. The article touches on some of that complexity as the descendants of the enslaved are also the descendants of slavers, descendants of slavers.
64
>>And yet the west was able to evolve past that and build some of the greatest democracies in history, championing human rights throughout the world.<<
Has it? This doesn't seem to be the case for Native American tribes who *still* have to battle the U.S. government for basic rights such as clean drinking water, treaty rights, and the overall right to be left alone. I imagine members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota would disagree with your statement above. The DAPL was built with the blessing of the president on Sioux Tribal land *despite* resistance from the Sioux Tribe and their justifiable concern about potential damage to their drinking water. How is that championing human rights when their rights have been clearly disregarded?
Standing Rock is just one example of many of trampled indigenous rights that continue today. I encourage you to research more from the perspective of indigenous people and really see how the past did not simply end for Native Americans. Or for anyone for that matter.
17
I’ve been deeply impressed by the complexity of lineage after watching a season of Henry Louis Gates’ Finding Your Roots. Whatever you think you are, there’s guaranteed to be more to the story—usually *much* more, and often unsettling.
126
Love Louis Gates' show! It is really interesting and revealing indeed.
9
Yes! This show is amazing! I think it should be shown in high school US history classes. History is much closer to us than we think.
4