Leading an expedition of Spanish settlers northward, Don Juan de Onate y Salazar forded the Rio Grande near present-day El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in the spring of 1598. He formally claimed the region in the name of the king of Spain, setting into motion ripple effects that continue to reverberate.

Onate’s passage into lands little explored by Europeans — but already home to many indigenous tribes and pueblos — would mark the start of an enduring and often brutal campaign of Spanish colonization of modern-day West Texas and New Mexico.

It’s an especially painful history that New Mexicans have wrestled with in 2020 — a year marked by national protests seeking justice for Black Americans in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In New Mexico, that energy has translated into re-examining wrongs committed against Native Americans whose homelands were seized.

Amid a trend of greater public scrutiny of civic memorials and the historical figures they honor, two monuments in northern New Mexico honoring Onate were removed, and a high school bearing his name in southern New Mexico was renamed.

But who was Onate? And why is his legacy prompting the current uproar?

Onate was the first colonial governor of Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico, a territory of New Spain. Roughly 300 years later, much of the land he claimed for the Spanish government became part of the United States when New Mexico joined the union as the 47th state in 1912.

Born in Mexico

Onate was born in the mid-1500s in Zacatecas in the territory of New Spain, or present-day Mexico. He was the son of Catalina de Salazar and Cristobal de Onate, a wealthy miner, conquistador and all-around prominent figure in the Spanish colonization of the region. Growing up, Onate joined his father and brother in fighting Chichimecas, an indigenous people of the area.

The Onates wore several different hats.

“They’re businessmen and they’re frontier soldiers,” said Rob Martinez, New Mexico’s state historian. “In 1584, King Philip II — Felipe Segundo — of Spain mandated that New Mexico should be conquered and colonized.”

Spanish settlers had to petition for the opportunity to lead the colonization — akin to bidding on a government contract today. Onate’s bid was successful. Though previous Spanish explorers had been known as “conquistadors” or “conquerors,” Martinez said the term had become unpopular by Onate’s time. Rather, he was called the “adelantado,” or “leader.”

“Onate himself had to finance a lot of the expedition,” Martinez said. “He had to bring [Catholic] priests. He had to make sure his colonists had enough weapons and food and tools to start a community. It was to expand Spain’s interests into North America. It took him years to get the expedition going.”

Launching an expedition

Though some explorers and priests had ventured into the heart of what’s now the United States prior to Onate’s expedition, the Spanish didn’t understand the geography well at the time. Onate and his group of roughly 400 people were headed into the unknown.

“It wasn’t just Spaniards that came,” Martinez said. “He brought Mexican Indians as servants and people of mulatto or African background.”

Many were hoping to find riches, like the gold, silver and mineral wealth that had already been discovered in New Spain.

After crossing the Rio Grande in the spring of 1598, the expedition slowly continued northward through New Mexico, more or less following the Rio Grande in a pathway that would become part of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, or the Royal Road of the Interior Lands. They encountered communities of indigenous Puebloan people. The colonists finally halted near today’s Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, dubbed by the Spanish “San Juan Pueblo,” north of present-day Santa Fe.

“Initially, they lived in the pueblo,” Martinez said. “They pretty much just pushed their way in. Then, they established a community next door called San Gabriel.”

As the Spanish moved through the region, they were claiming territory for Spain that was already settled by indigenous people who had their own religion, modes of agriculture and ways of governing.

Hundreds massacred at Acoma Pueblo

Onate and some members of the group periodically left on smaller-scale expeditions. One such expedition would spark one of Onate’s most notorious and atrocious acts. In late 1598, Onate’s nephew, Capt. Juan de Zaldivar, and other soldiers explored farther west. The group stopped at Acoma Pueblo, an indigenous community located about 50 miles southwest of Albuquerque.

“While there, the Acomas accused one of Zaldivar’s soldiers of stealing and violating an Acoma woman,” according to NewMexicoHistory.org. “The Acomas proceeded to kill Zaldivar and nearly a dozen of his men, later claiming that the soldiers had demanded excessive amounts of provisions.”

Onate consulted some Franciscan priests in his colony about the attack, Martinez said, and they told him he had a just cause for war.

“He doesn’t go to Acoma, but he sends some of his soldiers with their muskets, cannons and horses to let Acoma have it and punish them,” Martinez said. “They go to battle with Acoma, and they kill [Puebloan people] — they say it’s numbered in the hundreds.”

The Native Americans taken prisoner suffered terrible fates.

“As an example to not just the Acoma Pueblo, but also the other pueblos, he orders the foot cut off of men over 25,” Martinez said. “And women and children are put into servitude.”

Sixty Acoma girls were sent to Mexico City to serve in convents. The Spanish cut off the hands of two Hopi men caught at the Acoma, and they were released to spread warnings to other pueblos about Spanish retribution.

Cruel to colonists, too

Meanwhile, the colony Onate founded was struggling, plagued by harsh environmental conditions and scarce food.

“He was also very cruel with colonists,” Martinez said. “A couple had deserted, so he sent some of his soldiers off to punish them. They caught up with them — they were heading south — and beheaded them.”

In 1601, Onate ventured away from the colony in search of wealth. He and his party of explorers headed north, reaching the Great Plains. When they returned to New Mexico, they found that most of the colonists — disillusioned because of the harsh living conditions and failure to find precious metals — had returned to Mexico. Only 40 or so men and their families remained.

Colonists took with them reports of the atrocities committed by Onate, resulting in King Philip III issuing an order for Onate to return to Mexico City for the allegations to be investigated further.

“Unaware of the order, Onate resigned as governor in 1607 because of the condition of the colony and financial problems,” states NewMexicoHistory.org. “He remained in New Mexico to witness the establishment of the new capital at Santa Fe.”

Onate found guilty of atrocities

In 1613, according to the website, the Spanish government accused Onate of “excessive force during the Acoma rebellion, the hanging of two Indians, the execution of mutineers and deserters, and lastly adultery.” He was permanently banished from New Mexico, banished from Mexico City for four years, and fined. He eventually returned to Spain, where he worked as a mining inspector, and died in 1626.

The era launched by Onate ended with the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 that sent the Spanish colonizers fleeing south to El Paso. A re-conquest of New Mexico in the early 1690s brought in a wave of new colonists from Mexico.

Fighting racism with racism?

For decades, Onate had largely been forgotten, Martinez said. But current political debates brought on a resurgence of interest in the historical figure.

At issue was a controversy over New Mexico joining the United States as a full-fledged state and not just a territory. Many Americans who hailed from Anglo backgrounds held racist views of New Mexicans because of their mixed Spanish and Native American heritage. The state’s residents were considered “uncivilized Indians and mixed-blood Mexicans,” Martinez said.

In defense of New Mexicans, Martinez said, a Hispanic resident responded to a critical piece in a local newspaper in 1901 by saying: “No blood runs through my veins other than the one Don Juan de Onate brought.”

“In a way, he’s saying: ‘I only descend from the Spanish colonists who were with Juan de Onate.’ He’s kind of ignoring the eight or nine generations that happened between there and the mixing with Native Indians from Mexico and New Mexico,” Martinez said. “So that’s where this really starts — this idea that ‘we’re not Mexican; we’re Spanish.’”

More New Mexicans began latching on to the false claim that their heritage was a Spanish lineage unmixed with Native American bloodlines. Apparently it did help to sway American attitudes.

“We finally get to be a state in 1912, when they say: ‘OK, you’re Spanish. That’s why we’ll let you be a state,’” Martinez said.

Among primarily Hispanic New Mexicans, this spurred what often were sanitized versions of the Spanish colonial period.

A more accurate picture

In reality, New Mexicans with Hispanic roots are of mixed Spanish and Native American heritage. Martinez said that’s shown in the historical records, like marriage certificates, and is borne out in DNA-based research. That indigenous heritage stems from groups in both Mexico and New Mexico.

“The average Hispanic New Mexican has about 60% Spanish DNA and about 30% Native American DNA,” he said.

In the decades since statehood, Onate has become a symbol of cultural pride for many Hispanics looking to celebrate their Spanish heritage, like the art, agriculture and language that are so entwined in New Mexico culture today. And, to some, Onate continues to be emblematic of a racist viewpoint: that certain Hispanic residents supposedly descend from an exclusively Spanish — and white — bloodline that’s superior to mixed-race or Native American heritage.

To many Pueblos, Onate is a reminder of the tyranny their ancestors suffered at the hands of the Spanish, not only during the Acoma massacre, but throughout subsequent generations.

In recent decades, the resurgence of interest in Onate has taken the form of public sculptures and namesakes in communities stretching from El Paso to northern New Mexico.

A bronze statue of Onate astride a horse was erected in Alcade, located in northern New Mexico, in 1994. Several years later, the statue’s foot was sawed off by vandals, presumably to send a message that Onate’s vicious crimes against Native Americans had not been forgotten. In June, amid heightened national tensions over memorials seen as racist, the sculpture was removed indefinitely.

Also in June, a sculpture depicting Onate in Albuquerque drew a crowd of protesters (some of whom were trying to topple the sculpture) and an armed militia. A man seeking to prevent the removal of the statue shot a protester. The man, Steven Baca, is facing charges in connection to the shooting.

Acoma Gov. Brian Vallo told NPR this summer that Pueblo opposes monuments to Onate.

Las Cruces district renames a high school

In Las Cruces, farther south along the Rio Grande, the governing board for the Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS) turned its attention to one of the city’s major high schools: Onate High. The school board voted July 14 to change the high school’s name. Some students supported the name change, others opposed it. But it caused an uproar among many of the school’s alumni.

The school district conducted a nonscientific poll among students, staff and teachers, and community members. Respondents opposing the name change outnumbered people supporting it by a 3-to-1 ratio.

LCPS spokeswoman Kelly Jameson said the board, in deciding to take up the matter, was cognizant of the growing support for social justice and racial equity that was building this summer.

“Las Cruces Public Schools has a department dedicated to equity and social justice, and it was apparent to us this was a topic we needed to discuss for all students and staff involved, not just the current staff and students, but for those who will be high school students in the next few years,” she said. “Even though it wasn’t a very popular move in the community — the polls were in overwhelming support to keep the name the same — the school board thought it was the right thing to do at the time to not display a name of somebody so controversial on a building such as our high school.”

Majority opposes name changes

A scientific poll carried out by Research and Polling Inc. on behalf of the Albuquerque Journal surveyed New Mexicans on the issue in early September. More than half of residents surveyed opposed removing Onate sculptures or renaming public buildings that bear his name. Another 27% of residents supported the changes. Another 20% had mixed feelings, were undecided or didn’t want to say.

The board opted to rename the school Organ Mountain High, which will result in some financial savings due to an “O” remaining as the first letter of the school. The school’s mascot — the Knights — will remain unchanged.

Las Crucen Jennifer Sanchez was among those upset by the decision to change the name of Onate High. She graduated from the school in 1998, and her son, a quarterback for the football team, graduated in 2018. 

“I have a lot of memorabilia from my days, as well as from my son’s days,” she said. “It’s a huge significance for me.”

Asked whether she’s disturbed by the name reflecting a conquistador who’s known to have carried out atrocities against Native Americans, Sanchez said she doesn’t view the name “Onate” as having a definitive tie to the historical figure. Onate is a surname, she argued, and it doesn’t necessarily have to hearken to Don Juan de Onate. Had the school carried the conquistador’s full name, she would have better understood the argument for changing it. 

‘That’s very powerful’

Las Cruces City Council member Tessa Abeyta-Stuve, who’s part Native American, grew up in Los Alamos in northern New Mexico. As an adopted child, she was raised by a Hispanic father and Anglo mother. She’s been aware, at least since high school, about the historical tensions that exist among different cultures in the state. Though the city council wasn’t involved in the move to change Onate High’s name, Abeyta-Stuve said she supports it.

“I always say history is complicated, and it’s often written by the victors,” she said. “You have to get deep into the history of people from all sides to see what happened. Personally, after the research and seeing the facts about Onate, I don’t believe he’s a man that should be honored in such fashion.”

Abeyta-Stuve said she received an email from an Onate High student who was helping to lead the charge for a new name for the school, and “I think that’s very powerful.” Her own children recite the state’s pledge as part of their classes each day: “I salute the flag of the state of New Mexico and the Zia Symbol of perfect friendship among united cultures.” To live out that sentiment, she said, Native Americans and their concerns can’t be ignored.

“We really do have to take all of those voices together and really respect and honor each one,” she said. “It has often been our indigenous communities that have not gotten the same level of a voice and perhaps the same respect in that way.”

As for residents who view Onate as part of their own cultural identity, Abeyta-Stuve said that’s a personal decision they make.

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean we honor that with naming schools after people who’ve committed these atrocities,” she said.

An honest approach

While some monuments have been removed and a high school has been renamed, others remain throughout New Mexico and West Texas. Since 2008, a massive statue of Onate on a horse has stood in front of the El Paso International Airport. It was marked with spray paint in June.

Martinez, the state historian for New Mexico, said a problem with statues is they show a glorified version of a person and not the individual’s full history. That’s the case for Onate monuments.

“The arguments are that he brought Spanish culture here. He brought Spanish religion, Spanish language, Spanish foods — like onions and lettuce — and animals, like chicken, sheep, goats, cows and horses,” he said. “He didn’t just do that; the colonists did. But he also brought things like encomienda (a system of servitude) and being cruel to the Native Americans. If you have a statue of Onate, a Hispanic person might say: ‘This is a symbol of pride for the beginning of my culture.’ But a Pueblo person might say: ‘That’s the guy who enslaved my ancestors and maimed them.’ I think that’s the bone of contention right there.”

To move forward as a society, Martinez said, it’s helpful to study history and the people in it with an eye for both the positive things they did — and the negative.

“We need to be brave about it because we’ll learn good things and bad things,” he said. “And we need to be open to all of our history — not just the parts of history we agree with or like. And we have to ask ourselves: Why don’t I like certain parts of history or my culture?”

Martinez said he believes the conversations taking place across the state are signs that reckoning with history is underway. He hopes they continue in a nonviolent way.

“We’re having some growing pains,” he said. “But we’ll get there. I’m optimistic.”