Brian Joyce's Belated History of Santa Fe:



{"Each day, as they have for three centuries, Indians gather at the long, porchlike portal of Santa Fe's Palace of the Governors to trade and gossip." So, erroneously, begins the 1978 article in Newsweek magazine. That this national news weekly (which had in 1978 virtual "last word" powers over those matters on which it reported) should have fallen for and encouraged this Santa Fe Myth is not too surprising. That the Museum of New Mexico who, after all, was among the reported subjects of the article and who, after all, is responsible for accurate delineation of New Mexican history, should let the error go uncorrected, at Newsweek, and everywhere else, and undoubtedly unto this very day, is just another example of institutional abuse in America.}

In primeval times there was, At the site of the Palace of the Governors, a pueblo, an adobe village. It was near the Santa Fe river, which probably, actually flowed with water at the time. The terrain was largely a flat grassland with hills nearby and mountains behind the hills. There were no virtually no trees. I mention the topographical details because the shade trees in modern day Santa Fe leave the surrounding landscape a mystery to the eye.

The Spanish ascended the plateau from the lower Rio Grande valley to the south. Through their eyes of European civilization the Santa Fe Pueblo site must have immediately struck them as the natural location for an impressive city. The lower valley that they had just traversed was rather barren and inhospitable. Now here was flatland backed by the hills, backed by the mountains; and with water nearby; and right at the economic crossroads of natural resources and transportion.

There was some serious wrangling between the Indians and the Spanish over the site: a Spanish conquest, an Indian revolt and finally a Spanish reconquest. Without attempting to diminish the impact, the actual number of combatants and consequent deaths in these hostilities were few. The Spanish then dominated the region with a medieval system of highly cultivated well provisioned lords in possession of huge landholdings maintained by an illiterate Spanish peasantry and the whole of this system supported by the Church. The other pueblos in the Rio Grande Valley, whose location did not stir the Spanish dream, were generally left alone. However, Spanish/Mexican Santa Fe functioned as the center of trade for (fur) resources of the Southern Rocky Mountains. Prior to the appearance of the Spanish, the Puebloans had never worked in silver. Had there been a lot of silver in the area the Indians would likely have been wiped out. Neither were there any sheep for colorful blankets prior to the Spaniards.

The seat of government was built at the Santa Fe Pueblo site in horizontal Spanish Hacienda style. This Palace of the Governors sat at the north side of a small city square, the Plaza, of no more than a couple hundred feet on each side. The Palace, and all the neighbors on the Plaza, had large porchlike overhangs on the front of their buildings. The overhangs were not paved as sidewalks because the primary purpose of the overhangs in this treeless landscape was as parking space for horses.

There is very little documentary history of what went on under the Plaza overhangs, or Portals, but while there was regular trade with the Indians during the Spanish era I think it's a fair assumption that it usually took place inside the several trading posts rather than habituating trade among the horses.

Wagon trains full of trade goods from Missouri via the Santa Fe trail showed up the 1820's. A Conestoga wagon could hold six tons. This boon to the local economy, for all races, was believed have been rather celebratory and boisterous at its appearance on the Plaza and if ever there was an antique heritage of outdoor trade on Santa Fe Plaza this was it.

U.S. armed forces entered Santa Fe Plaza in 1846 during the Mexican War and afterward New Mexico became a U.S. Territory. Local legend has it that in the 1870's U.S. Terrritorial Governor Lew Wallace strode the "porch" while composing his famous novel "Ben Hur." I suppose by this time the Portal of the Palace of the Governors was paved as were the streets (very likely at the same level). The legend does not include mention of Lew Wallace having to deal with an open Indian arts and crafts market while he did his composing. Give or take a decade from the Lew Wallace era, however, there is an obscure local history book that mentions the Portal of the Palace of the Governors as the location where farmers sell their fresh produce.

Now, putting aside my bigoted, prejudiced, racist writing slant, the previous paragraphs are generally accepted as factual. These facts, however, coincide in conflict with the myth that Aboriginal Americans have been selling jewelry for centuries at the Palace of the Governors. I believe that there was very likely no collective Indian ethnic assembly of any kind in Santa Fe from the time of conquest and through the 19th century excepting possibly during the annual city Fiesta.

Funny how time makes history vague . . . in reverse. Our notions of the ancient pueblo are so secure and archeology will even back us up in every detail. Likewise, the Spanish/Mexican era has its nostalgic aura of factualization in the mind. And then, the villainous American Empire, of whom anthems and allegiances are sung, shows up in uniform and our historic memory becomes dim . . . or erroneous.

Around the time of New Mexico's entry into U.S. statehood in 1912, as the local politicians created a state constitution ("All . . . are born free and equal") a cultural coterie decided to spruce up the city. (This is also the era when the dreams of an automotive future arrive; and behind that is that economic illusion and myth maker - Tourism.) My guess is that preparations for statehood conferred some political monetary benefits and these civic minded (white) (aristocrats) were assigned to spend it. They developed a unified vision of what the local cultural emphasis was to be. They instituted, made concrete, with concrete, and law, the City of Three (racial) Cultures. However enlightened this effort at cultural toleration may have seemed in 1912, or even in 1978, its very racial definitude was and is inorganic to culture. The Three (racial) Cultures could not have conceived or admitted of a fourth culture, or an incubating culture, or a sub-culture, or a counter culture, or an independent culture or a solar culture. Obviously, African Americans were not considered and who can say what were their ideas on subcontinental Asian Indians.

Along with the Three (racial) Cultures, Santa Fe got an architectural make over. The Palace of the Governors was redesigned and covered in stucco to look more Pueblo-like than Hacienda-style. The Plaza had become Americanized over the years and was now predominantly brick buildings and included a bank with marble columns. It was suggested, by law, that all buildings in downtown Santa Fe - which was all of tiny Santa Fe - be covered in stucco and/or painted brown to harmonize in Disnification.

END of Part One.

Brian Joyce

P.O. Box 8313

East Lynn, MA 01904

Phone:

339 970 4760

email:

AncientOrderOfLonghairs@hotmail.com

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