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E l P al a c io P r e s en t s 3
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4 E l P ala c io Pr esen ts
E l P al a c io P r e s en t s 5
 A Tale of Three Editors
In the
In the last
last year,
year, El
El Palacio
Palacio has
has bid
bid its
its share
share of
of fond
fond farewells
farewells and
and welcome
welcome aboards.
aboards.
Meet the people who’ve brought us our most recent
Meet the people who’ve brought us our most recent editions.editions.

Cheryle Mano
Cheryle Mano Mitchell
Mitchell served
served two
two
stints as
stints as El
El Palacio
Palacio managing
managing editor—from
editor—from
1989–2004 and 2007–2009—with
1989–2004 and 2007–2009—with an an almost
almost
Zen level
Zen level of
of calm.
calm. Perhaps
Perhaps that
that came
came from
from
more than
more than aa decade
decade ofof daily
daily deadlines
deadlines at
at the
the
Tucson Citizen.
Tucson Citizen. Or
Or from
from almost
almost two
two decades
decades
of working for the Museum of New
of working for the Museum of New Mexico,Mexico,
including overseeing
including overseeing aa federal
federal grant
grant related
related to
to
the Lasting
the Lasting Impressions:
Impressions: The
The Private
Private Press
Press of
of
New Mexico
New Mexico exhibit
exhibit and
and coordinating
coordinating the
the Van
Van
of Enchantment.
of Enchantment.
Cheryle Mano
Cheryle Mano Mitchell
Mitchell

When Cheryle
When Cheryle decided
decided to
to choose
choose another
another level
level
of Zen,
of Zen, one
one that
that involves
involves aa Colorado
Colorado cabin
cabin and
and
her husband,
her husband, former
former newspaper
newspaper editor
editor David
David
Mitchell, Carmella Padilla
Mitchell, Carmella Padilla gamely
gamely offered
offered
to guest-edit
to guest-edit several
several editions.
editions.
Carmella, aa Santa
Carmella, Santa FeFe native,
native, wrote
wrote for
for
newspapers before
newspapers before becoming
becoming aa free-lance
free-lance
writer and
writer and author
author of
of books
books that
that include
include El
El
Rancho de
Rancho de las
las Golondrinas:
Golondrinas: Living
Living History
History in
in
New Mexico’s
New Mexico’s La
La Ciénega
Ciénega Valley;
Valley; The
The Chile
Chile
Chronicles: Tales of a New Mexico Harvest;
Chronicles: Tales of a New Mexico Harvest;
Carmella Padilla
Carmella Padilla
and Low
and Low ’n’n Slow:
Slow: Lowriding
Lowriding inin New
New Mexico.
Mexico.
She also
She also has
has curated
curated museum
museum exhibits
exhibits and
and assisted
assisted cultural
cultural and
and civic
civic efforts
efforts that
that
included the
included the birth
birth of
of Santa
Santa Fe’s
Fe’s International
International Folk
Folk Art
Art Market.
Market. AA winner
winner ofof the
the 2009
2009
Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, Carmella lives in La Cienega
Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, Carmella lives in La Cienega with her with her
husband, noted
husband, noted artist
artist Luis
Luis Tapia.
Tapia.

Taking over
Taking over the
the helm
helm this
this spring
spring is Cynthia
is Cynthia
Baughman, a Washington,
Baughman, a Washington, D.C. native D.C. native
who spent
who spent her
her teen
teen summers
summers working
working atat
the Smithsonian
the Smithsonian Institution
Institution and
and the
the Folger
Folger
Shakespeare Library.
Shakespeare Library. AA chance
chance trip
trip to
to Santa
Santa
Fe led to a long-distance love and
Fe led to a long-distance love and longtimelongtime
membership in
membership in the
the Museum
Museum of of New
New Mexico
Mexico
Foundation.
Foundation.
Cynthia has
Cynthia has extensive
extensive experience
experience as as aa writer
writer
of feature
of feature articles,
articles, cultural
cultural criticism,
criticism, and
and screen-
screen-
plays. Most recently, she did the research
plays. Most recently, she did the research and and
Cynthia Baughman
Cynthia Baughman
writing for
writing for aa new
new documentary,
documentary, Top Top Secret
Secret Rosies:
Rosies:
The Female “Computers” Who Helped Win World War
The Female “Computers” Who Helped Win World War II. II.
Cynthia’s mother
Cynthia’s mother has
has already
already relocated
relocated to
to Santa
Santa Fe.
Fe. Soon
Soon toto arrive
arrive is
is Cynthia’s
Cynthia’s
husband, Dr.
husband, Dr. James
James D.
D. Mickle
Mickle Jr.,
Jr., who
who plans
plans to
to establish
establish aa practice
practice inin Santa
Santa Fe,
Fe,
of Cultu
nt r
Cholesterol Studies
Cholesterol Studies and
and Treatment
Treatment West.
West. (Here’s
(Here’s hoping
hoping hehe won’t
won’t crack
crack down
down onon the
the
e

al
p a rt m

Affairs •

breakfast burritos
breakfast burritos that
that have
have long
long kept
kept El
El Palacio
Palacio editors
editors going).
going).
De
•

Ne
w Mexico

6 l a cio
E l P a la c i o Prese
P r e s e nts
nts
 FFaavvoorriitteess ffrroom
m tthhee m
maaggaazziinnee ooff tthhee M
presents
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Contents
The Stories
The Stories of
of Our
Our Lives
Lives 88
by Kate
by Kate Nelson
Nelson

Galisteo Basin:
Galisteo Basin: Centuries
Centuries of
of Collaboration
Collaboration and
and Conflict
Conflict 10
10
Interview with Eric Blinman, Ph.D.
Interview with Eric Blinman, Ph.D.

How the
How the West
West Is
Is One
One 14
14
by Joseph
by Joseph Traugott,
Traugott, Ph.D.
Ph.D.

AA River
River Apart
Apart 18
18
by Valerie
by Valerie K.
K. Verzuh
Verzuh

Material World:
Material World:
All in
All in the
the Family
Family at
at the
the Museum
Museum of
of International
International Folk
Folk Art
Art 22
22
by Robert
by Robert Wilder
Wilder

The Palace
The Palace of
of the
the Governors
Governors
in the
in the Seventeenth
Seventeenth Century
Century 26
26
by José
by José Antonio
Antonio Esquibel
Esquibel

Dearest Annie:
Dearest Annie: Letters
Letters from
from Fort
Fort Selden
Selden 30
30
by Shelley
by Shelley Thompson
Thompson

El Palacio
El Palacio Presents
Presents isis published
published with
with The
The Santa
Santa Fe
Fe New
New Mexican
Mexican ■
■ www.sfnewmexican.com
www.sfnewmexican.com
El Palacio
El Palacio magazine
magazine isis published
published quarterly
quarterly by
by the
the New
New Mexico
Mexico Department
Department of
of Cultural
Cultural Affairs
Affairs
To request
To request copies
copies of
of this
this publication,
publication, please
please call
call (505)
(505) 476-1126
476-1126

Director of
Director of Marketing/Outreach:
Marketing / Outreach: Shelley
Shelley Thompson
Thompson

Editors: Carmella
Editors: Carmella Padilla,
Padilla, Cheryle
Cheryle Mano
Mano Mitchell
Mitchell

Introduction: Kate
Introduction: Kate Nelson
Nelson

Art Director:
Art Director: David
David Rohr
Rohr
Design: Natalie
Design: Natalie Brown
Brown Baca,
Baca, Autumn
Autumn DeHosse,
DeHosse, Paula
Paula Eastwood,
Eastwood,
Susan Hyde
Susan Hyde Holmes,
Holmes, Linda
Linda Johnson,
Johnson, Monica
Monica Meehan
Meehan

To Subscribe:
To Subscribe: ElEl Palacio
Palacio isis available
available by
by subscription
subscription or
or as
as aa benefit
benefit of
of membership
membership in
in the
the
Museum of
Museum of New
New Mexico
Mexico Foundation.
Foundation. To To become
become aa member
member call
call 505-982-6366,
505-982-6366, ext.
ext. 100.
100.
To subscribe
To subscribe call
call 505-476-1126,
505-476-1126, or or visit
visit elpalacio.org.
elpalacio.org. $24.99/year,
$24.99/year, $39.99/two
$39.99/two years.
years.

ON THE
ON THE COVER:
COVER: Jar,
Jar, Cochiti
Cochiti and
and Santo
Santo Domingo,
Domingo, Lisa
Lisa Holt
Holt and
and Harlan
Harlan Reano,
Reano, 2006,
2006, 30.5
30.5 xx 33.9
33.9 cm.
cm.
Holt, from Cochiti Pueblo, constructed the pot and Reano, from Santo Domingo Pueblo, painted
Holt, from Cochiti Pueblo, constructed the pot and Reano, from Santo Domingo Pueblo, painted it. it.
Museum purchase,
Museum purchase, Native
Native Treasures
Treasures Indian
Indian Arts
Arts Festival,
Festival, 57254.
57254. Photograph
Photograph by
by Addison
Addison Doty.
Doty.

ElE l Palacio
P al a ci o Presents
P r e s en t s 7
8
The Stories of Our Lives
8
El Palacio Presents
El P alaci o Present s
BY KATE NELSON
A
few months back, I headed to the State Fair to
help out on the Van of Enchantment, the mobile
museum of the Museum of New Mexico system.
At one point, a youngish fellow approached us
with a question: How much could he get for a
picture that proves the Pat Garrett story was bunk
and that Billy the Kid lived to a ripe old age?
Now, I know a thing or two about the many Billy legends and
I’ve watched my share of TV shows that use forensic science
to solve crimes, so the potential absurdities of his question left
me momentarily at a loss for a kind and considerate response.
(Not to mention that we museum-types aren’t in the “Antiques
Roadshow” business of assessing the dollar value of Aunt
Minnie’s Beanie Baby collection).
I asked how he knew the picture “proved” Billy’s unexpected
longevity. I was hoping his answer might include photo
comparisons that use eye-distance measurements and cheekbone
composition, and that maybe he’d drop in a telltale fingerprint
on the back for convincing effect. But, no. The fellow simply
leaned forward and said in that portentous, italics-only style:
“Because it looks just like him!”
Let it be known that I held my laughter until the gentleman
was way out of hearing range.
Even so, the experience underscored something I’ve known
about New Mexicans for a long time. We love our stories. Many
of us have lived them and still own them. Others of us chose
them, moving from other places — places without a past
places—places — for the
past—for
spectacular and fragile landscapes, the rich stew of cultures, and
a history that stretches centuries back, embracing the West’s
monumental fi gures and unknown heroes alike.
figures
Which is where El Palacio comes in. Founded in
November 1913 as the scholarly journal of the state’s
offi cial museum — the Palace of the Governors —
official
the magazine has recorded the past and the
present, our art, culture and history, in quarterly
installments and, occasionally, even more frequent
installments, ever since.
From a slender black-and-white pamphlet, El
Palacio grew into today’s full-color, glossy-paged
production, sharing stories from the exhibits,
public programs, and scholarship of the Museum
of New Mexico’s four Santa Fe museums — the New
Mexico History Museum/ Palace of the Governors,
Museum of International Folk Art, Museum of
Indian Arts & Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology,
and New Mexico Museum of Art; as well as the
Offi
Officece of Archaeological Studies and the six State
Indian raids, a gambling priest, a cheating — and, ultimately,
murdered — lieutenant.
A curator analyzes the way one river so divided two Native
cultures that, today, you don’t have to be a curator to see the
difference in their pottery styles.
Santa Fe author Robert Wilder treats his family to a day at the
museum, discovering “a chef’s menu” of artifacts and channeling
his inner Madonna (the singer, that is).
An archaeologist explains why ancient Puebloan ruins argue
for leaving the Galisteo Basin free from oil rigs.
The art of the Southwest evolves on its pages, as Native and
transplanted artists mix and mingle their styles to produce
something wholly new and wholly New Mexico.
And the photographs! Drawing on the Palace of the Governors
Photo Archives and other sources, El Palacio celebrates the role
of visual storytelling over the decades.
Today, El Palacio stands as the nation’s oldest museum
magazine, a hallmark not taken lightly in an era of failing
newspapers, magazines, and book publishers. For all the
wonders of the worldwide Web, the act of putting ink on
paper, of creating a document both tactile and portable,
stands as something to be treasured.
For proof, consider the antiquarians
who offer back issues of El Palacio well
above their cover cost. Bound editions
of mid-century annuals fetch prices
of $75 and up, despite admitted
defects that include “a little rust on the
staples.” Individual issues as recent as 2002
command $8, the magazine’s current
cover price, and, perhaps, a hint that
its investment value exceeds that of
your average 401(k).
On the same State Fair day that
the Billy Lived! believer visited the
Van of Enchantment, an Acoma
woman stopped by. She lauded Opposite: American Museum of
the Museum of New Mexico for Natural History curator George
Pepper packing Cochiti pottery
keeping history alive and then
for shipment east to the museum,
offered a story of her own. A
1903. Courtesy National
sobering one. As a child, she Museum of the American Indian,
was forced from the Pueblo Smithsonian Institution, N32657.
and placed into a boarding
school for Native children. The This page: Billy the Kid,
teachers barred their students from courtesy Palace of the Governors
speaking their Native languages Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA),
and practicing cultural ways that had Neg. No. 30769.

Monuments — Coronado, Jémez, Fort Selden, Lincoln, sustained them for centuries.
Fort Sumner, and El Camino Real International “That story,” she said, “needs to be
Heritage Center. remembered.”
Within its pages, historian José Antonio Esquibel This special publication of El Palacio stories
breathes life into an average day in the seventeenth- is produced in partnership with the Santa Fe
century Palace of the Governors. Mexican, which has been preserving its
New Mexican,
A lonely soldier at Fort Selden sends own stories for more than 150 years. Together,
letters to the love of his life in a far, far place we aim to remember the past and, we hope,
called Brooklyn, recounting for her tales of tempt you into reading even more. ■

El Palacio Presents 9
El Palacio Presents 9
Galisteo Basin The Galisteo Basin is home to sheep,

Centuries of Collaboration and Conflict cattle, horses, ranchers, and an increasing

number of residents who are attracted to its

beauty and serenity. Besides spectacular

and nearly pristine archaeological sites that

record Puebloan cultural development and

Spanish colonial occupation, the Basin could

also hold economically valuable deposits of

oil and gas. In an interview for El Palacio,

ERIC BLINMAN, PH.D., Director of the

Office of Archaeological Studies, gives his

perspective on the impact of people and

plans on archaeological sites identified by

the federal Galisteo Basin Archaeological

Sites Protection Act, with this caveat:

“I’m not sure why anyone should believe

an archaeologist who predicts the future.”

The Creston, also called Comanche Gap, provides a vantage point for

the northward expanse of the Galisteo Basin. Photograph courtesy of

the Office of Archaeological Studies (MNM/DCA).

10 El Palacio Presents
 Suspended over a natural rainwater basin, this image of corn reflects the essential

relationship between people and climate in the Galisteo Basin. Photograph courtesy

of the Office of Archaeological Studies (MNM/DCA).

Q: What’s so special about the archaeology of the Galisteo Basin?

A: How much time do you have? If I have to narrow it down to a soundbyte, I’d say
that the Galisteo Basin represents an incredibly well-preserved record of the most
dramatic cultural transitions of the past 10,000 years in northern New Mexico.
It sounds like hyperbole, but I think it’s true.

Q: What are those transitions?

A: The most significant climate change in the Southwest occurred around AD
1200 and opened up the Galisteo Basin for maize agriculture. What followed
was a sequence of migration, homesteading, population growth, and community
building, culminating in the super-Pueblos of the fifteenth century. The Galisteo
Basin neighborhood was multiethnic, with evidence for collaboration and conflict
that defined the shape of modern Pueblo cultures. The climate change was reversed
about AD 1500, causing social and economic crises that led to a progressive
abandonment of the area. Since then it’s been all about ranching rather than farming
or urban life, so the Galisteo Basin holds a nearly pristine record of both cultural
florescence and decline.

Q: Is it all about Pueblo Indian history?

A: Most of the archaeological record is Native American history, but Coronado’s
party and others explored the region, followed by a strong Spanish colonial mission
presence in the seventeenth century. That Spanish colonial influence allowed the
Pueblo populations in the Galisteo Basin to hang on longer than they could have
otherwise, so seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century archaeology is a complex
story of indigenous persistence, adaptation, and colonial exploitation. The record of
the Mexican and Territorial periods is a lighter veneer on the landscape, and then
there are late additions like the set for the 1972 John Wayne movie The Cowboys.
El Palacio Presents 11
 Q: Why is this any different from the archaeology in other areas of northern New Mexico?
A: The Galisteo Basin is analogous to Bandelier National Monument in terms of being a mirror
for human adaptation—in both places you canseethe remainsof a relatively pristinesequenceof
human responses to climate change. What’s important is that the two records are contemporary

The small sites are perhaps more at but different, and the differences are an important key to the diversity of modern Pueblo
peoples. In Santa Fe and the Rio Grande Valley bottom, most of the archaeology is obscured
risk than the big ones because they or obliterated by many subsequent layers of occupation, especially the population explosion of
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Since the Galisteo Basin has been populated mainly by
appear to be less impressive and sheep, cattle, and horses since the Pueblo Revolt, the archaeological sites are much easier to see
and much less disturbed.
important.
Q: There seems to be a heightened interest in Galisteo Basin archaeology of late.
A: That’s in part because our memories are relatively short. Archaeologists have been fascinated
by the Galisteo Basin since Adolph Bandelier was hosting scholars at the Fisher Brewery beer
garden on Palace Avenue in the late-nineteenth century. Extensive excavations were carried out
by Nels Nelson in the 1910s, but since then the basin has been viewed much like a preserve.
Bertha Dutton carried out some important but only partially published excavations in the mid-
twentieth century, but archaeologists haven’t felt much urgency about the area until recently.

Q: Why now?
A: There are two reasons for the resurgence in interest. First, research done in the 1980s and
1990s on the Pajarito Plateau and the Rio Grande Valley has posed some interesting questions
about Puebloan cultural development. The Galisteo Basin is the next logical place to look for
answers. The second reason for interest is the perceived threat of development to the integrity
of the basin as a whole.

Q: Are Native Americans as interested in the Galisteo Basin as the archaeologists are?
A: The simple answer is yes, but as I get older I find there are few simple answers to
anything. As recently as a decade ago, Pueblo elders were arranging permission for
pilgrimages to some of the sites, but those visits have stopped with the passing of that
generation. The Pueblo of Cochiti contributed funds for the purchase of Pueblo San Marcos
by the Archaeological Conservancy, and some Pueblo families still have stories that relate
to the Galisteo Basin in the time before the Spanish Reconquest. However, private land
ownership has had an intimidating effect on visitation, so many Pueblo people, including
religious leaders, have never set foot in the basin.

Q: Do you see interest increasing?

A: I do. The current preservation efforts led by the Bureau of Land Management include a
formal Native American advisory group. For many of the representatives the field trips have
been the first chance to see the sites. Many times the sites, and especially the rock-art images, are
too sensitive for discussion with us non-Natives, but a sense of reverence comes across clearly.
When they are comfortable enough to tell us stories, it can be fascinating. Elders find that the
sites can serve as a touchstone for telling stories and passing on religious information to younger
members of the tribe. We hope that the formal consultations will lead to more visitation by
religious leaders.

Q: Do archaeologists and Native Americans agree on the history represented by the sites?
A: Most of the time the histories are parallel and compatible, but not always. Interesting
contrasts emerge where the archaeologists simply need to step aside. Comanche people have
kept stories alive about the rock art at Comanche Gap without anyone having seen the rock art
in generations. We helped a group of Comanche elders visit the site, and they quickly departed
from the archaeological script that attributes the rock art to Pueblo people. In their stories,
the images are vital Comanche symbols authored by Comanche artists at a formative time in
Comanche history.

Q: How do you resolve the conflicts?

Wall remnants of the San Cristóbal church, constructed in the 1620s, still stand with the help of several
A: We don’t need resolution. There’s really no need for only one interpretation, and I can’t
stabilization efforts. Above: Neg. No. 12070, Courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/ claim that my archaeological story of today is truth since it may change when the next new
DCA). Below: Photographs courtesy of the Office of Archaeological Studies (MNM/DCA). piece of information comes along. A panel of Galisteo rock-art images will hold a full suite of

12 El P alaci o Present s
meanings for a visiting Hopi, even though the panel may have been created by a Keres or a
Tanoan religious society five centuries ago. Much of the imagery is common to all the Pueblos,
regardless of language or cultural boundaries, due to the spread of religious concepts in the
late-fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It’s ironic that Tano and Keres refugees from Spanish
repression in the Galisteo Basin carried their images out to the Hopi Mesas, completing a circle
that started with what archaeologists see as the eastward spread of religious ideas from the Hopi-
Zuni area centuries earlier.

Q: Is oil exploration in the Galisteo Basin the greatest threat to the archaeology?
A: Not in the way you might suppose. The drilling rigs and their access roads can be placed
so that they don’t directly damage archaeological sites. In that sense, obvious impacts of
development can be managed and controlled by current laws and regulations. However, the
work crews and roads mean that more people would have easier access to the area, increasing
the risk of both casual and deliberate damage to the sites. A finders-keepers ethic pervades
our society, and even people who value preservation can be guilty of taking home sherds
or flakes as mementos of the past or touchstones for the feelings of being in a beautiful or
spiritual place. One sherd isn’t a problem, but the cumulative effects of one sherd per person
are inevitable and devastating to the archaeological record. The small sites are perhaps more
at risk than the big ones because they appear to be less impressive and important, and yet
they contain essential evidence of the foundations of the later cultural developments.

Q: So people are the problem, not just oil and gas.

A: Yes. Ranchers are reporting damage to sites that can be traced to the movie crews that use the
area, and people-pressure will continue to increase as ranch land is converted to housing. On
one hand people need to be able to see these sites to appreciate and enjoy the importance of this
record of human history, but on the other, visitation results in the inexorable destruction of the
sites. The sad truth is that the best-preserved sites are those that have been carefully protected
by private landowners rather than those that are in public parks or monuments. ABOVE: Agnes Simms sketching rock art at the Galisteo Dike, 1946.

Neg. No. 67, Courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA).
Q: Are you against the current plans for oil and gas development? BELOW: Vandalism in the basin leaves its mark, from new images etched into rock
A: On a personal level, yes, in both predictable and complicated ways. I value the incredible to failed attempts to steal ancient drawings by chipping them from their boulders.
vistas of the Galisteo Basin. The isolation I feel when I’m working on one of the sites is refreshing.
Photographs courtesy of the Office of Archaeological Studies (MNM/DCA).
Roads, pump jacks, drilling rigs, and even houses would compromise that experience as well as
hasten the destruction of the sites themselves. However, I also recognize the selfishness inherent
in my opportunity to enjoy an experience that others can’t. I’m not sure how to cope with
the moral ambiguity of my privileged position. I wish there were a way to give everyone the
experience without degrading the resource.

Q: Isn’t development necessary and inevitable in the bigger picture of northern New Mexico?
A: I see the issue as a contrast between short- and long-term thinking. Although I’m not sure
why anyone should believe an archaeologist who predicts the future, I’m pretty sure that the
best long-term use of the land under present and future climatic and economic conditions
will continue to be low-impact ranching. Suburban sprawl is an inefficient use of energy and
The Galisteo Basin
even time, and I think our communities would be strengthened, socially and economically,
by bringing people back into town and preserving the outback. As for oil and gas, those
is analogous to
commodities will be far more important to us several generations from now than they are today. Bandelier National
Their extraction today would likely just encourage us to squander the energy unnecessarily in
an effort to maintain an ultimately unsustainable rate of consumption. Monument in
Q: Any last thoughts? terms of being a
A: There’s at least a little irony in that the ancient people of the Galisteo Basin struggled to
hang on to their way of life long after it was no longer possible. It’s unfair to call it “denial,” but mirror for human
hoping that the early sixteenth-century climate change wasn’t really happening simply set up
the Pueblo communities for a harder collapse when the change became real. The adoption of adaptation.
wheat, rye, sheep, and cattle from the Spanish delayed the collapse, but those additions to the
Pueblo economy were the short-term technological fix of the seventeenth century. It seems as
though today we can’t help but repeat that pattern of denial and looking for quick, short-term
fixes, even though we have fairly clear warnings from the past that crises are periodic rather
than unique events. n

E l P a la c io P r e s e n t s 13
 How
the West
Is One
The Aesthetic Tensions Behind
the Evolution of New Mexico Art

BY JOSEPH TRAUGOTT, PH.D.,

Curator of Twentieth-Century Art, New Mexico Museum of Art

O ver many decades, the New Mexico Museum of Art has used installations of the perma-
nent collection to highlight individual masterpieces from its holdings. The museum’s
current reinstallation of the collection takes an alternative approach. How the West Is One:
The Art of New Mexico uses the museum’s collection to reconstruct the history of New
Mexico art from the 1880s to the present.
How the West Is One illuminates the ways in which Native American, Hispanic, and
mainstream American aesthetic traditions intertwine and influence each other. The
oneness of New Mexico art represents the unique, unpredictable, often contradictory
unity that developed from cultural interaction in New Mexico. Ranging from tourist
items to internationally acclaimed works of art, these juxtapositions provide the essential
aesthetic tensions that have fueled the evolution of New Mexico art.
This history begins with the arrival of the railroads at the end of the nineteenth
Portrait of Dieguito Roybal, San Ildefonso Pueblo,
century and continues to the present. How the West Is One reconstructs the chronology
1916, by Robert Henri. Oil on canvas.
of New Mexico art and clarifies more than one hundred years of fusions among artistic
Gift of the artist, 1916.
perspectives and across cultural divides.
One example of this kind of cultural fusion occurred around the invention of
matte-on-black pottery by Maria and Julian Martinez, shortly after the New Mexico
Museum of Art opened on November 24, 1917. While the story of this invention usually
involves the artists misfiring a batch of polychrome pottery that resulted in the matte-on-

14 El P alacio Present s
black surface, the cultural dimension is usually overlooked. By
placing this innovation into the context of the Santa Fe-Taos Art
Movement, a totally different tale results.
During the early twentieth century, most people thought
that Native cultures would soon disappear through interactions
with mainstream American culture. Many arts, including
pottery making, weaving, and basketry had been replaced by
manufactured goods. Anthropologists sought to reverse this
trend by encouraging Native artists to recreate objects from the
past using designs that they considered to be “authentic.”
New Mexico Museum of Art director Edgar L. Hewett
created such a program around 1910 with artists at San
Ildefonso Pueblo. The Santa Fe Program, as he called it, had
multiple purposes: reviving Pueblo pottery making, encour-
aging experimentation with watercolor painting, and promoting
economic development in the pueblo. The project created a
social network institutionalized by the museum that included
artists, anthropologists, and buyers.
Another Hewett project from that same period intended
to make Santa Fe a cultural destination. Attracting artists to
work and live in northern New Mexico was a conscious part of
this economic development plan. Hewett called the European
American artists who traveled to the Southwest to paint the
region’s unique sights the Santa Fe-Taos Art Movement.
The modern artists and intellectuals who arrived in Santa
Fe during the mid-1910s strongly supported Hewett’s Santa
Fe Program. As the modern artists and intellectuals attended
pueblo dances and interacted with pueblo painters and potters,
they began to consider Native American objects and rituals in a
new way — as works of art, not artifacts or trinkets.
Much of the influence of the New Mexico Museum of Art
can be traced to the farsightedness of Robert Henri, the painter,
educator, and activist from New York City. Henri painted in
Santa Fe during the summers of 1916 and 1917 in a studio
provided by museum director Hewett behind the Palace of
the Governors. Henri aggressively opposed the conservative
European art academies that controlled museums in the early
twentieth century.
Henri encouraged artists to find their own style and subject
matter that would express an American culture in American
terms. His paintings of subjects such as Dieguito Roybal, a
drummer from San Ildefonso Pueblo, clarified a modernist vision
for the presentation of New Mexico imagery. Henri’s approach
emphasized the response of the artist to subject matter, not the
studied photographic realism of the academic painters.
By encouraging the arts community to think carefully
about exhibition policies, Henri made a lasting impact on the
activities of the New Mexico Museum of Art. Hewett adopted
Henri’s idea of an “Open Door” exhibition policy that allowed
any artist working in New Mexico to exhibit at the New Mexico
Museum of Art. This policy institutionalized a democratic
ideal that empowered individual opinions over critics serving
as tastemakers. The Open Door initiative attracted an influx
of nationally prominent painters. Modern artists, academic
painters, and European-trained illustrators swelled the ranks of
the Santa Fe-Taos Art Movement after World War I.
Robert Henri persuaded his New York colleagues George
Bellows, Randall Davey, and John Sloan to visit Santa Fe. As
leading New York “Independents”— artists who opposed the
strictures of academic painting, they found a supportive artistic
environment developing around the New Mexico Museum of
Art with its Open Door policy. While earlier Southwestern
paintings of ethnographic scenes and rituals centered on realist
descriptions of events, modernist paintings of pueblo rituals
centered on the artist’s reactions to the local scene.
Evocative, highly personal, and emotional responses to
New Mexico quickly dominated the paintings by the Santa Fe
modernists. John Sloan’s Ancestral Spirits captures his responses
to the activity of a pueblo ceremony as ritual clowns seem to
spill down the stairway leading from the rooftop entrance of
a kiva, a pueblo ceremonial chamber. Sloan’s layering of the
figures blends them into a single, abstracted, spiritual form.
B. J. O. Nordfeldt’s 1919 painting Antelope Dance synthe-
sizes Post-Impressionist style with ancient pueblo tradition.
Nordfeldt based his composition on Cézanne’s paintings
of bathers while simultaneously alluding to Paul Gauguin’s
Tahitian imagery. The use of repetition, contrasting geometries,
and complementary colors heightens the emotion of Nordfeldt’s
presentation. Antelope Dance preserves Nordfeldt’s visual
response to the pueblo lifeways that he thought would vanish
and maintains its affective power after more than seven decades.
Marsden Hartley played a major role in the interactions
between Native American art and mainstream American
painting. Hartley had been painting in Europe on the cusp of
World War I and was fascinated with images that symbolized
America. While visiting anthropology museums in Germany he
became interested in the design elements associated with Native
American objects and the idea of creating paintings that would
express an American, rather than a European, aesthetic.
Hartley returned to the United States after the war broke
out and continued his search for an authentic American style Marsden Hartley (left), Randall Davey (center),
of painting and truly American imagery. In pursuit of such and John Sloan (right) in the courtyard of the
an American art form, he took a painting trip to New Mexico Palace of the Governors at Fiesta, 1919.
during 1918–19. Hartley stayed with Mabel Dodge Luhan in Courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo
Taos when he first arrived in New Mexico and drew a series Archives (NMHM/DCA) Neg. No. 14232.
E l P a la c io P r e s e n t s 15

Evocative, highly
personal, and
emotional responses to
New Mexico dominate
paintings by the Santa
Fe modernists.
Our Washerwoman’s Family—
New Mexico, 1918, by Bert Geer Phillips
(1868–1956). Oil on canvas. Gift of Gov.
and Mrs. Arthur Seligman, before 1930,
to the New Mexico Museum of Art.
16 El P alacio Present s
of landscapes that captured the power of the northern New
Mexico landscape.
Hartley, however, did not get along with Taos. He felt
the academic painters who dominated the Taos scene were
presumptuous and condescending. This schism between
academic and anti-academic perspectives was a dominant
argument between the European American artists of the Santa
Fe-Taos Art Movement.
Academic painter Bert Phillips, a founder of the Taos
Society of Artists, epitomized the realist painting style that
Hartley rejected in Taos. At first his painting Our Washerwoman’s
Family appears as a charming scene. But just under the quaint-
ness of the subject, it alludes to the growing economic and
social tensions between the region’s artists and the locals
who posed, washed laundry, and did odd jobs for the region’s
artists. Hartley rejected the way the academic painters in Taos
superimposed academic painting styles from Europe on their
Native subjects. Hartley complained they sought to validate
their paintings by “attempting to apply the convention of Paris
or Munich or Dresden” to Southwestern subjects.
Hartley solved his problems with Taos by moving to Santa
Fe where he found kindred spirits in Santa Fe’s artistic and
intellectual community. Ethnomusicologist Natalie Curtis and
her husband Paul Burlin took Hartley to pueblo dances and
introduced him to Native lifeways around Santa Fe. Burlin and
Curtis formed an intellectual team that promoted the view that
Indian songs, stories, and dances are important forms of art.
The Indian’s Book, Curtis’ massive 1907 volume, recorded
music and stories from eighteen tribes to demonstrate the
universal creativity of Native American songs and rituals. Curtis
titled her book to express the idea that the singers were the authors
and that she had only facilitated the documentary process.
Hartley’s ideas about the aesthetics of pueblo rituals
paralleled Curtis’ attitudes. He clarified his thoughts in a series
of essays published in El Palacio and national journals. These
essays implied that Hartley developed his opinions about
Native dance on his own. But in reality, his essays gave voice to
aesthetic concerns that the modernist artists and intellectuals
in Santa Fe were already
actively pursuing.
Hartley’s painting El
Santo summarizes his search
for an American art form in
New Mexico. This painting
reflects the ideas contained
in his essays: that indigenous
objects from New Mexico
reflect the aesthetic ideals
of Pueblo society; that they
display an original American
aesthetic; and they exemplify
aesthetic sincerity.
El Santo does not
present quaint studio props,
as did the academic painters
from Taos. Instead, it is
modern art about indige-
nous art. Hartley painted the
Hispanic rendering of a saint, Navajo weaving, and Santa Clara
jar in terms of their inherent aesthetic and symbolic values in
their original cultural contexts. At the beginning of the twenty-
first century, this painting represents a concrete manifestation
of the abstract ideas contained in his essays.
Most importantly, the essays and paintings promoted the
idea that Native American dance and material culture should be
considered art, not curios or souvenirs. This growing attitude
among the European American artists of the Santa Fe-Taos Art
Movement set the stage for the positive reception and economic
success that Maria Martinez achieved through her matte-on-
black pottery beginning at the end of the 1910s.
The aesthetic openness that the modernists brought to Santa
Fe promoted Native innovation, in spite of the anthropological
interest in replicating the “pure” objects of the past. As a result,
when Maria and Julian Martinez invented their matte-on-black
style pottery in 1918 or 1919, these innovative works were
readily accepted by the modernist community of artists, philan-
thropists, and reformers who purchased these works of art.
Hewett exhibited this jar at the New Mexico Museum of
Art in the spring of 1920. El Palacio noted in the July 20, 1920
issue that “the New Mexico Museum of Art has an exhibit of
“seventeen of the most artistic pieces of pottery by Marie of
San Ildefonso which the museum has acquired for its collec-
tions.” The public’s receptivity to non-traditional pueblo forms,
designs, and techniques resulted from the interest in Native art
by the modern artists in Santa Fe.
The matte-on-black pottery by Maria and Julian Martinez
draw together important ideas that were associated with
Hewett’s Santa Fe Program and the Santa Fe–Taos Art Program.
These works exceed the craftsmanship of the historic past and
incorporate avanyu designs — images of sacred water serpents
copied from petroglyphs near San Ildefonso Pueblo. Matte-on-
black pottery found an unrestricted market among the region’s
modern artists and philanthropists as well as the museum itself.
Ironically, however, this invented pottery style challenged the
power of local anthropologists to determine what kind of Native
art was “authentic” and appropriate. The example of Maria and
Julian’s innovative pottery exemplifies the goals of the reinstal-
lation of the New Mexico Museum of Art collections, to present
the history of New Mexico art as a complex, unified tradition.
The reinstallation of the New Mexico Museum of Art’s
collection draws together aspects of New Mexico history that
are usually separated — academic painting, modern paintings,
native arts as art, economic developments, anthropological
attitudes, revivals of past styles, and assumptions that outsiders
could determine what constitutes “authentic” art. In this context,
the invention of matte-on-black pottery by Maria and Julian
Martinez offers a clear example of How the West Is One.
ON THE WEB: Marsden Hartley’s essays about the aesthetics of pueblo rituals,
originally published in El Palacio, are available as free downloads at elpalacio.org.
ON EXHIBIT: How the West Is One: the Art of New Mexico is a permanent exhibit at the
New Mexico Museum of Art. The Art of New Mexico: How the West Is One, by Joseph
Traugott, Ph.D., is published by Museum of New Mexico Press at
museumofnewmexicopress.com. How the West Is One is funded in part by an award
from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Ranch Gallery at double take

16”x20” Oil
“Still in Flight”
K.W. MOORE, SR.
505-820-6934

E l P a la c io P r e s e nt s 17
 A
RIVER
APART By Valerie K. Verzuh
Water is a rare and appeal to these buyers. For
essential element in america’s two hundred years the Pueblo
arid southwest. through this starkly pottery market has contributed greatly
beautiful land flow two major rivers—the to the continued vitality of village life by
Colorado river and the rio Grande—that shape bringing needed income to communities and giv-
the landscape and the distribution of indigenous villag- ing potters a way to support their families while living
es. Just a river apart, Cochiti and santo domingo are neigh- and working at home.
boring new Mexico Pueblos on the banks of the northern the materials, construction techniques, painted de-
rio Grande between albuquerque and santa Fe. the two signs, and intended functions of each piece of pottery made
communities share a ceramic tradition extending back al- in these two villages intimately reflect each community’s
most 1,500 years. For centuries, the women—and more social, religious, and institutional values as well as the land
recently the men of both Pueblos have made pottery for use that supports and nourishes them. the river that marks
in their homes and ceremonial spaces, and beginning in the physical division between Cochiti and santo domingo
the late 1800s, as tourist curios or art for elite galleries. also can be seen as shaping a metaphorical border between
Contemporary Pueblo ceramic wares, the result of cen- cultural insiders and outsiders and between the dissimilar
turies of a fluid and adaptive tradition, reflect diverse influ- responses of the two Pueblos to outside influences.
ences. Continual migrations necessitated variation in mate-
rials; dietary and household changes required functional Of Outsiders and insiders
shifts in shape and size; and a variety of markets—other Over the past two centuries, countless carefully con-
Pueblos, other native communities, Hispanic and euro/ structed ceramic pots from the Pueblos, isolated from
anglo-american villagers, and more recently, tourists and their original contexts, have become aesthetic and so-
prominent collectors—resulted in adaptations that would ciocultural specimens in art and anthropology museums

Far left: Cochiti dough bowl, ca. 1860,

artist unknown. Museum purchase, 45138.
Near left: Santo Domingo dough bowl,
artist unknown, ca. 1880–1900. Gift of
Byron harvey iii, 35755. Photographs by
addison Doty.

18 El P alacio P resent s
throughout the Western world. Historically, Western mu-
seums have preserved the material culture of the “ethno-
graphic other” as representative of dying cultures whose
histories they recreated in exhibitions and publications.
Over the past two decades, and notably since the passage
of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation
Act (NAGPRA), third- and fourth-world communities,
attempting to establish and maintain a sense of self and
Dorothy Dunn Studio students at the Santa Fe Indian School copying pottery designs in ceramic storage at the Laboratory of Anthropology,
ca. 1940. Courtesy of the Laboratory of Anthropology Archives. (MNM/DCA), 70.1/2276..
assert their social, religious, political, and economic rights
from within the dominant Western culture, have chal-
lenged the right of established institutions to control the
presentation of their cultural artifacts and community
identities. Such challenges by indigenous people, or cul-
tural “others,” have created a new dialogic paradigm that
today influences the presentation and interpretation of
cultural diversity in museums.
Many contemporary museums have begun to explore
the challenge to their authority through an interpretive the-
ory known as “multivocality,” which employs a multiplicity
of voices to construct interpretive narratives. In conven-
tional museum exhibitions, Western cultural points of view
take on a universal significance: historically, European and
American museums have presented the authoritative view
of the “expert” outsider looking in and “explaining” indige-
nous cultures. Typically, this approach portrays Pueblos and
other indigenous peoples as something out of the past and
fixed in time. On the other hand, the Pueblos themselves
preserve their histories through the dynamic processes of
telling and retelling myths and legends and the ceremonial
performance of ritual, song, and dance. They are actively
recording their histories upon the landscape with the settle-
ments and artifacts they have constructed and abandoned
during generations of migration and change. These indig-
enous “museums” of the Southwest were and are part of a
living landscape subject to time and environment, as well
as to the movements and interpretations of contemporary
Puebloans. Pueblo life in the historic period, as seen and
reported by outsiders, can be a series of facts, figures, and
dates; when related by insiders, the history of the Pueblos
contains their fears, hopes, and memories superimposed on
events and landscapes by their oral histories.
Multivocality’s impact on anthropological theory—and
thus anthropology museums—began in the 1980s following
the postmodern movement of the 1970s. Postmodern theo-
rists advocated bridging the gap between anthropologists
and their subjects by acknowledging the authority of the
perspectives of those they studied. Hypothesizing that each
of us interprets the world in a unique way—concordant with
our cultural background, the language we speak, and our
personal experiences—they disputed the anthropologist’s
E l P a la c io P r e s e n t s 19
ability to have objective and neutral knowledge of another Male figurine by Virgil Ortiz, Cochiti,
culture. Multivocality, as applied to museum anthropology, 1989. Rick Dillingham Collection, 54269.
promotes a plurality of voices in the presentation of knowl- Photograph by Addison Doty.

edge and provides a theoretical framework within which

anthropologists and their subjects—and museums and the
cultures they represent—participate in an exchange of per-
spectives and beliefs. Within this framework, multiple theo-
retical perspectives or narratives replace the anthropological
metanarrative—an abstract story or theory that purports to
explain all knowledge and experience. Because multivocality
emphasizes that there is no single “correct” viewpoint, it
is an avenue to recognizing and reconciling the contested
meanings that result from the convergence of indigenous
and Western humanities scholars, including anthropolo-
gists, historians, art historians, and museum curators.
Anthropological scholars who disagree with this ap-
proach argue that it abandons empirical data and scientific
method in favor of a humanist empathy with third- and
fourth-world peoples, the effect being a far too relativistic in-
terpretation of other cultures. In anthropological discourse
the efficacy of postmodernism and its offshoot, multivocal-
ity, in understanding human culture are part of an ongoing
debate apropos the designation of anthropology as a social political, and economic change. Competition for land be-
science or humanities discipline. tween the Pueblos, Hispanic communities, and new Euro/
Anglo-American immigrants put increasing pressure on
Of COntaCt and COmpetitiOn the indigenous populations; greater intrusions were made
At first contact with the Spaniards in 1540, the Pueblos, liv- on the Puebloans’ land base and water rights; and disas-
ing within the familiar landscapes of one culture, crossed trous disease epidemics that began with the first contact
a river to an alien, unfamiliar culture. For more than four with outsiders continued to cause population decline.
hundred years since then, pressures from Euro/Anglo- With the Spanish and early Euro/Anglo-American set-
American colonist communities have had a profound effect tlers, the Pueblos continued a traditional economic system of
on Pueblo life. Although scholars can identify substantial subsistence, barter, and exchange, trading pottery types spe-
outside influence on Pueblo material culture from 1540 to cifically developed for settler households—including pitch-
American rule in 1848, the lack of whole vessels available ers, cups and saucers, and candlesticks traded for the new
for study in museums and at universities precludes a de- consumer goods. With American rule came dependence on
finitive scholarly representation of Pueblo pottery during a new cash economy and manufactured goods, and Pueblo
this period. Because almost all of the
pueblos occupied since the Spanish When related by insiders, the history of the Pueblos
reconquest of the 1690s are alive
and vibrant villages today, archaeo- contains their fears, hopes, and memories superimposed
logical examples of whole pots from on events and landscapes by their oral histories.
the period are uncommon—pots
would have been used until no longer serviceable and then people became consumers instead of producers for the first
discarded in the village trash heap. Consequently, even time in their long history. American rule also brought the rail-
fragmentary vessels made between the conquest and 1879, road, then automobile travel, and with them a booming tour-
when museums began to collect and preserve them, are ist industry. Potters rethought the forms of their utilitarian
rare. One lasting document of this change commonly wares and developed new styles, such as figurines and min-
found in museum collections is the dough bowl. These iatures, for the burgeoning tourist market. Beginning in the
large bowls, used to mix and knead dough, were added 1920s, Santa Fe museum personnel—most significantly the
to the Pueblo potter’s repertoire with the early Spanish Museum of New Mexico’s Edgar L. Hewett and his colleague
colonist’s introduction of wheat farming to the Southwest at the Laboratory of Anthropology Kenneth Chapman—
Indians. (Dough bowls from Cochiti and Santo Domingo began developing initiatives to “improve” the craft they saw
are shown on the opening page.) as degraded by the introduction of tourist wares. Today we
American rule in 1848 accelerated the pace of social, find their influence in the judging of pottery at Santa Fe’s

20 El P alacio P resent s
 annual summer events, including the Southwest Association
for Indian Art’s Indian Market, the Eight Northern Pueblos
Arts and Crafts Show, and the Native Treasure Indian Arts
Festival at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture/Laboratory
of Anthropology. While these events promote “high-quali-
ty” pieces, contemporary potters throughout the Southwest
continue to produce a wide variety of wares, from pieces for
use in Pueblo homes and for community ceremonial events
to wares ranging from inexpensive tourist pieces to fine art.
Of Cur atOrs, COlleCtOrs,
and CatalOgs
If asked to describe museum collections in general, I would
use words like “isolated,” “esoteric,” or “inaccessible.” In
hushed galleries and the rarefied atmosphere of storage
vaults, among secreted rows of artifacts, we curators dwell
somewhere beyond time and place, sheltered by our notions
and nourished by abstractions. Within the museum, in the
collections, our connection to the communities we study are
artifacts, and we look to them for a connection to the cultures
and people we yearn to understand. Over time, however, cu-
rators, collectors, and the constraints of cataloging systems
have removed Pueblo pottery from its original contexts, all
too frequently losing sight of their indigenous identities in the
process. Because of this, today we cast an analytical eye on
the circumstances of collecting, the assumptions and motiva-
tions of curators and collectors, and the changing meanings
and values attached to Pueblo pottery in museum collections
over time and space. As a tool, theory helps us put a name
to what we observe and record the process and results of our
discoveries, and within the museum’s walls it is theory that
presides over the rows of artifacts. Those of us who work in
Southwestern regional museums find ourselves in a strange
and sometimes disturbing position as we live, work, and so-
cialize on a daily basis with the people we “study.” This con-
stant interaction requires that we rely not on our theories and
concepts alone but also engage with Pueblo points of view.
The Laboratory of Anthropology, which opened its doors
Jar by Santana and Crucita Melchor,
Santo Domingo, ca. 1976.
Rick Dillingham Collection, 54254.
Photograph by Addison Doty.
in 1931, was established as a field station that ethnologists
and archaeologists could use as a home base when working
in the Southwest, as well as a permanent facility that would
house their research field notes and collections. The Lab
and later its sister institution, the Museum of Indian Arts
& Culture, were conceived as places of learning where the
collections could be accessed for research by Euro/Anglo-
American and indigenous scholars and artists.
Curator Kenneth Chapman is primarily responsible for
building the foundation for the nearly 4,500 pieces in the
museum’s historic-period pottery collection. He used the 450
pieces in the Indian Arts Fund (IAF) pottery collection as a
base upon which to build a more comprehensive collection
(now at the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe). The
IAF consisted of a group of Santa Fe individuals, including
Chapman, who banded together in 1922 to improve Pueblo
pottery by creating a collection of excellent examples.
Over time the Lab’s collections grew in depth and
breadth through archaeological excavation and directed
purchases by museum curators from Pueblo community
members and traders or dealers, and through individual
donations. The greater percentage has been donated by
Santa Fe or New Mexico community members with a per-
sonal interest in Pueblo domestic and fine arts, or with an
interest in the preservation of traditional indigenous com-
munities. In the decades following “Chap’s” tenure, a suc-
cession of directors and curators at the Museum of Indian
Arts & Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology has added ar-
tifacts and layers of meaning to the founding collections.
The exhibition and catalog titled A River Apart are results
of that continued research and careful approach to collect-
ing; they feature the growing Cochiti and Santo Domingo
pottery collections, 473 pots divided almost equally between
the two Pueblos. Of that total, 311 are designated “artist un-
known”; 165 have known makers, and these are the work of
only 75 potters. The vessels date from the mid-nineteenth
century to the present, mostly from 1900 through 1950. The
collections consist almost exclusively of polychrome painted
pottery with few examples of utilitarian plain wares—a cu-
ratorial predilection that does not represent the percentage
of painted and plain wares actually in use at the Pueblos.
The exhibition and the catalog intend to explore what
one museum’s collection, with all its idiosyncrasies and
limitations, can tell us about Pueblo pottery; to explore the
differences between the pottery of two Pueblos; and to pro-
vide ways for people of all backgrounds to cross the river
between cultures. n
Valerie K. Verzuh, curator of Individually Cataloged Collections at the Museum of
Indian Arts & Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, is the exhibition curator and
editor of A River Apart: The Pottery of Cochiti & Santo Domingo Pueblos, with
essays by Verzuh, Bruce Bernstein, J. J. Brody, Antonio Chavarria, Chip Colwell-
Chanthaphonh, and Mateo Romero. The exhibition continues at the Museum of
Indian Arts & Culture through June 6.
E l P a la c io P r e s e n t s 21
 MATERIAL WORLD All in the Family at the Museum of International Folk Art

On our way out of the house to the I didn’t tell Poppy or Lala, but I’d recently pulled the old
Museum of International Folk Art’s pair of Joe Boxer jeans out from the recesses of my closet and had
the groin patched by a very kind seamstress. I had been inspired

new exhibit, Material World: Textiles by a recent visit to the Jean Shop in New York City, where I saw
celebrities paying $200 and up to have their Japanese denim

and Dress from the Collection, my stained, distressed, and punctured, not unlike my own fashion
understatement. I know very little about style, other than trends

thirteen-year-old daughter Poppy come and go and return again like the stomach flu, so I thought I’d
throw caution to the wind and let my freak flag fly (just a little).

stopped me. “Dad,” she said, Driving to Museum Hill, we stopped to pick up Poppy’s
friend Emily, who, upon entering the car, continued with the

frowning, “those pants look weird.”
“What do you mean?” I looked down at my (very) easy-fit jeans
covered in streaks of blue and white paint, holes the size of
peacoat buttons dotting the knees and cuffs. “I don’t look cool,
like an artist maybe?” I flashed her my used car salesman grin,
which she expertly ignored.
“Not really.” Her face winced as if in serous pain. “They’re too
big, for one thing, and they’re torn.”
My wife Lala came out from the bedroom to her uncool
husband’s defense. “Your friends pay to have holes in their
clothing. Your dad’s are real.”
“Well, whatever,” Poppy answered, which could have been
translated into so many unkind things that would bruise my
inner hipster.
fashion chatter. Her eighty-eight-year-old grandmother was
visiting for the holidays and could not believe anyone wore shoes
that weren’t made from leather.
“So my sister and I had to convince her,” Emily said excitedly
from the back seat. “We told her, ‘Grandma, people wear shoes
made from plastic,’ and she said, ‘All my friends wear only leather.’”
“How long did that go on?” I asked, recalling the time I
over-argued with my own father when he tried to pin the sins of
his generation on mine.
“A while. We said ‘plastic!’, she said ‘leather!’, until my dad
came in and ended the discussion on our side.” Emily’s victorious
smile filled my rearview mirror.
Even though the conversation moved to other important
items that fascinate thirteen-year-olds, like Sarah Jessica Parker
filming a movie in Santa Fe and having a mole removed (and,
according to the tabloids, keeping it), I thought it serendipitous

222
2 E l P a l a cFi oOP rLe sIe O
nts S HERE
material girls
By Robert Wilder Photography by Addison Doty

that we had already discussed textiles and dress before even
hitting the museum’s parking lot. The show’s premise is that the
best way to understand the myriad world cultures is through
textile art. Each of the 138 items chosen for the show tells a story,
and we were all excited to see every one of them.
“We are living in a material world, and I am a material girl,”
I sang (with apologies to Madonna) once I saw the colorful sign
inviting us into the show.
“Dad, please never do that again,” Poppy pleaded.
“Can’t say that I can make that promise,” I said, and meant it.
Fathers are born to embarrass their children.
Material World offers no prescribed way to wander,
which I enjoyed. After the welcoming entryway (painted brown
to showcase the striking colors of the exhibit), you could choose
to walk left or straight or right. Poppy and Emily went left, and as
any chaperones worth their salt would, we followed close behind.
Like many teenagers in an unfamiliar locale, they were cautious at
first, and when I asked Emily if she would wear that delicate black
Philippine blouse behind the glass, she declined on the basis that
it was “too old.” Poppy said she might wear the garment, woven
from the fiber of a relative of the banana, given the right occasion.
But both agreed that the skirt next to it would not work for either
rahat, or skirt, circa 1900 from Egypt or Sudan. The rahat was
worn by girls in the region who, once married, would exchange
it for a white cotton dress or veil. I thought better than to make a
wedding joke, given that my trousers had been established as an
easy target for public mockery.
The girls started warming up, as I knew they would. What
is so engaging about Material World is that you don’t need to be
Tom Ford to dig it. Visually, the different colors, patterns, and
textures are stunning. Emily paused at a coat made in Hokkaido,
Japan, around 1880. Being a text guy, I read that it was made
from elm bark and cotton, and employed embroidery and
applique techniques. I later read in the catalog that the elm bark
cloth is called attush, perhaps the most famous of all Ainu (an
indigenous, Caucasian-like ethnic group in Japan) textiles. Even Left to right:
though the designs, handed down from mother to daughter, have
no significance other than to beautify the garment and please Blouse (detail), Mindanao,
Philippines, Mandaya group,
the gods, Emily connected with the black blocks and geometric
abaca, cotton, ca. 1900, gift of
white lines. “It’s like a maze,” she said, her gaze unflinching.
Mrs. Gregg Ward.
That’s when I knew the show was a success: it stopped teenagers
dead in their tracks.
Coat, Hokkaido, Japan, elm bark,
cotton, ca. 1880, gift of Sallie
That’s when I knew the show Wagner.

one of them at any time in history.

was a success: it stopped
Blouse (detail), Sulawesi,
Emily forgot her glasses and, at first, believed that a stringy Indonesia, To Kaili group, cotton,
garment adorned with shells and beads was made mostly from paper, mica, 20th century,
human hair. Upon closer examination, we saw that it was a teenagers dead in their tracks. International Folk Art Foundation.

F O L I O SEl Palacio
H E R Presents
E 2233

Left to right:
Quilt (detail), Morristown,
New Jersey, cotton, 1870,
gift of Mrs. A. K. Montgomery.
Skirt (detail), Egypt or Sudan,
leather, shells, various beads,
ca. 1900, gift of Florence
Dibell Bartlett.
224
4 E l P a l a cFi o O
P rL
e s Ie nO
ts S
Curator Bobbie Sumberg may not agree with the
comparison, but Material World is like a chef’s tasting menu,
a tantalizing glimpse into the museum’s extensive collection
of textiles, stored in fifty-seven closets (they’ve counted) and
numerous trunks and drawers. A few days before the show’s
opening, I was lucky to get a tour with Sumberg of the bowels of
the museum, where the 20,000 textiles, ranging from household
items to elaborate ceremonial wear, are stored. Walking into the
storage room was like reexperiencing the final scene from Raiders
of the Lost Ark, where the bored warehouseman seals the wooden
box and pushes it down a long aisle in the enormous warehouse.
Sumberg, however, is neither bored nor boring, and I could
actually view the textiles firsthand without government clearance
or a permission slip from Steven Spielberg. Imagine row after
row of vibrant fabrics, rolled and wrapped and stored in long,
multitiered aisles. As Sumberg casually opened a white drawer, an
explosion of color would emerge—a blouse from Indonesia, say,
or a ceremonial bib from Norway. I didn’t want to leave that room
and suggested that Sumberg hold fund-raisers there.
As Sumberg opened a drawer,
an explosion of color emerged.
“Oh, we’ve been doing that for a while now,” she said, far
too kindly. My mistake was naive but honestly enthusiastic. I
thought I knew something about the folk art museum since it is
my family’s favorite. We’ve experienced the meditative (and often
dizzying) labyrinth out front; the Girard Wing and its staggering
amount of amazing miniatures; and the Neutrogena Wing and
all its cool exhibitions, such as Curiouser and Curiouser: A Walk
Through the Looking-Glass, where they created trippy pieces based
on Lewis Carroll’s books. Still, I never realized the extent and
history of the textile collection.
As Sumberg writes in Textiles: Collection of the Museum of
International Folk Art, the stunning book that accompanies the
show, Florence Dibell Bartlett donated her collection of art to
start the Museum of International Folk Art in 1953. Concerned
with collecting art that represented vanishing traditions, Bartlett
purchased Palestinian dresses in Jerusalem, textiles in Sweden,
Moroccan textiles and jewelry in North Africa, and Plains Indian
HERE
dresses in the United States. The museum has since built upon
this incredible foundation by adding more Palestinian dresses,
amulets, and hundreds of pieces from Mexico. Other acquisitions
include such major gifts as the Shook Collection from Guatemala,
3,000 textiles and costumes from the Girard Collection, and
1,500 textiles and costume parts donated by Lloyd Cotsen as
part of the Neutrogena Collection. I had no idea that the museum
holds the second largest group of Swedish textiles from before
1850 in the United States, or that, as a whole, its textile collection
is considered one of the finest in the world.
My own little collection of people learned so much
from the show. The pilgrimage vest from Japan highlights
how journeys to shrines and temples were documented using
stamps. Two altar cloths from Mexico illustrate the difference
between devotion in the rural home and the European influence
on Mexican urban life. I even got to embarrass the two teens
by pointing out a Nigerian undergarment worn by boys until
puberty. Lala and I also gained some tangential knowledge
triggered by pieces in Material World, ranging from details of
Poppy and Emily’s global studies teacher’s extensive tour of South
America to Emily’s love of flax seed on yogurt (after seeing a
garment made from flax).
Before we left, I asked the girls to choose their favorite pieces.
Emily’s was a red and white friendship quilt from Morristown,
New Jersey. “The red just really makes it pop,” she said, deriving
joy from the resonant colors and patterns. “Pop it like it’s hot?” I
asked, a lame joke referring both to a 2004 Snoop Dogg song and
a corny T-shirt we bought Poppy last year. Poppy chose as her
favorite a baby’s hammock from Colombia for its vibrant colors
and what I refer to as the “cuteness factor,” usually seen when we
encounter babies, puppies, and films involving talking babies and
puppies. Lucky for us, we have neither species in our home, and
Lala and I plan to keep it that way.
Leaving the museum, I couldn’t help but remember that
Poppy wanted to hit an Albuquerque mall to go shopping for more
modern textiles. I was glad that we had gone to Material World
first so we could intelligently discuss the cultural implications of
her purchases, and so I could get the chance to sing some more
Madonna songs in public.
ON EXHIBIT: Material World: Textiles and Dress from the Collection continues at the
Museum of International Folk Art through September 11, 2011.
 gallery & gifts

418 montezuma ave.

Santa Fe, NM 87501
505.989.1888
cv@onecarolineplace.com

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E l P a la c io P r e s e nt s 25
THE
PALACE OF THE GOVERNORS
in the Seventeenth Century
Palace of the Governors,
Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1868.
From a stereographic photo by
Nicholas Brown. Courtesy Palace
of the Governors Photo Archives
(NMHM/DCA), Neg. No. 45819.
226
6 E l P a l a cFi o O
P rL
e s Ie nO
ts S
I
BY JOSÉ ANTONIO ESQUIBEL
n the months leading to the opening of the New Mexico History Museum in summer 2009, El Palacio
devoted part of each of issue to exploring the state’s history through the research and insights of curators,
artists, collections managers, educators, and archaeologists. We called our series “A Place Like No
Other: Stories from the New Mexico History Museum.”
We began with the Palace of the Governors, today a key component of the New Mexico History Museum.
Despite scant documentation of life in Santa Fe in the mid-seventeenth century, historian José Antonio
Esquibel discovered numerous references preserved in the testimonies of witnesses or defendants in Inquisition cases
as recorded by Inquisition officials. From these references, Esquibel gleaned something of the vibrant life
in and around the Palace of the Governors from an era long past.
The correspondence reproduced on page 29 is Esquibel’s translation of a very rare
document that he uncovered in his research, a personal letter written by a prominent New
Mexican to a family member in Mexico City seeking political intervention on behalf of two
relatives arrested by the Inquisition. The letter was confiscated and censored (in passages
indicated by underline) by Inquisition agents. The people mentioned in the letter are also
referenced in the article. The photographs hail from a collection of the earliest known pictures
taken in Santa Fe.
HERE
A Villa of Adobe Houses
In the mid-1600s, daily life in the Villa de
Santa Fe centered about the plaza principal,
also referred to as the plaza real, the royal
plaza. To the east of the plaza, which appar-
ently stretched as far as the modern day area of
the Basilica of St. Francis, the main doors of the
Franciscan Convento de la Limpia Concepción
de Nuestra Señora de la Villa de Santa Fe
faced the plaza. The nearby parish church
was continuously in poor condition, and the
interior decorations were described as lacking
in comparison to some of the more richly
decorated Pueblo churches. It was common to
see animals in corrals around the church area.
The main doors of the Casa de Cabildo, the
town hall, faced the plaza, although there is
yet no firm indication as to the precise location
of this building. It may have been situated on
the south side of the plaza, across from the
Casas Reales de Palacio.
During this same time period, the Villa de
Santa Fe consisted of only thirty small houses
of adobe, nine of these belonging to widows
and the rest to male heads of households,
taxpaying citizens known as vecinos. Several
houses belonged to members of the promi-
nent Gómez Robledo family, including that of
Captain Francisco Gómez Robledo located at
one of the corners of the plaza real and which consisted of a main of the governor, cleaning the numerous rooms, washing clothes Interior hallway in the Palace of the Governors,
hall, three rooms, a patio, and a garden or small orchard. Toward the and linens, stocking goods in storerooms, tending to the orchard, Santa Fe, New Mexico, February 14, 1893.
south, the Rancho Ribado of the Durán family was situated along and preparing meals. Photo by Thomas J. Curran. Courtesy Palace

the Santa Fe River. Across the Santa Fe River lay the Barrio de San
Miguel, with a small chapel and nearby dwellings belonging mainly
to various Indian citizens.
Some of the Indian residents were Apache, some were Pueblo
Indians, and some were Indios Mexicanos, Indians from the Valley
of Mexico. One of the main employers of local Indians may have
been the obraje, the textile factory operated by Hernán Martín
Serrano, himself a man who was part Spaniard and part Tano
Indian. His obraje very likely produced products from wool, such
as socks, shirts, pants, and dresses for local and long-distance
trade. Of particular note is the fact that the primary tradesmen
of Santa Fe were Indian men who earned a living as blacksmiths,
carters, carpenters, wagon drivers, and masons, among other
trades. Those Indian women who worked tended to be cooks and
laundresses in the homes of vecinos, at the convento, or at the
Casas Reales de Palacio.
Amidst such hustle and bustle, imagine sitting in the Casas of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA),
Neg. No. 46776.
Reales de Palacio before an open window that faces the plaza on a
clear, cool spring day in 1660. What sights and sounds might you
Below: Probably Old Santa Fe Trail near Camino
see and hear? Perhaps you would be in the pieza de estrado, the
Lejo, Santa Fe, New Mexico, ca. 1886. Photo by
drawing room, where Doña Teresa de Aguilera y Roche, the wife of
Dana B. Chase. Courtesy Palace of the Governors
Governor Don Bernardo López de Mendizábal, receives her guest. Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), Neg. No. 112209.
To one side of the room is Doña Teresa’s writing desk. For some
curious and unknown reason, she keeps the middle drawer of the
desk locked and carefully guarded, never letting anyone but herself

A Center of Community Life

Of the principal structures within the Villa de Santa Fe, the Palace
of the Governors, or the Casas Reales de Palacio as it was familiarly
known, was apparently the largest, with as many as eighteen
rooms of differing sizes utilized for a variety of purposes. Notable
features of the Palacio structure included the outside parapets, a
tower, and the corredor grande de patio, the large corridor of the
courtyard. On any given day, numerous people moved about
the Palacio with dutiful intent, preparing official documents,
archiving papers, conducting politics, attending to the demands
E l P a la c io P r e s e n t s 27
Above, left: Bandstand on the Plaza, Santa Fe,
ca. 1886. Photo by J. R. Riddle. The sign in the
photograph says, “Every ounce of this fruit was
grown in Santa Fe County.” Courtesy Palace of
the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA),
Neg. No. 76049.
Above, right: Wedding portrait of unidentified bride
and groom, New Mexico, 1912. Photo by Jesse
Nusbaum. Courtesy Palace of the Governors
Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), Neg. No. 61806.
open that particular drawer. To another side of the room is Doña
Teresa’s altar with an image of Christ under a very high canopy, so
high that a ladder is needed to clean the top of the canopy.
As you look out of a window, you see the cottonwood trees of
the plaza offering shade to the passersby. The Indian woman, Ana
Velasco, is casually walking through the plaza toward the Casas
Reales de Palacio, where she works as a cook and laundress with
others such as the Apache women, Jacinta.
The alcalde ordinario, Captain Francisco de Anaya Almazán, the
younger, carries a cache of papers, heading at a hurried pace in the
direction of the Palacio in the company of the high sheriff, Captain
Juan de Mondragón. They meet up with the governor’s secretary,
Miguel de Noriega, just before approaching the Palacio, no doubt
seeking an audience with Governor López de Mendizábal to dis-
cuss a combination of political, economic, and military matters.
Juan Utaca, an Indian and the town crier, makes his way pur-
posefully across the plaza, returning to the Casas Reales de Palacio
after having read aloud a recent royal edict and posted copies on
the doors of the Casa de Cabildo and the parish church in addition
to the doors of the Palacio.
Doña Catalina de Zamora is approaching the main entrance of
the Casas Reales, no doubt to call upon her friend, Doña Teresa

Right: Patio (courtyard) of the Palace of Governors,

ca. 1912. Photo by Jesse Nusbaum. Courtesy
Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/
DCA), Neg. No. 61541.

28 El P alacio Present s
de Aguilera y Roche, to sip chocolate and perhaps listen to Doña
Teresa read from one of her books. The Palacio may have held a
particular sense of significance for Doña Catalina since it was on
the Palacio grounds that she and her husband, Captain Diego Pérez
Romero, were married in 1641.
A Triple Wedding
The eighth day of April 1641 was a particularly festive day at the
Casas Reales de Palacio. A triple wedding ceremony set the occa-
sion for the gathering of residents to witness the union of three
members of the Lucero de Godoy family with three members of the
Romero-Robledo family. These families ranked high among the few
prominent and politically influential kinship groups in New Mexico.
The fact that the wedding ceremony was conducted on royal govern-
ment property speaks to the level of their political influence.
Fray Juan de Vidaña of the Franciscan Order presided over
the ceremony, administering the sacrament of matrimony to the
three couples: Pedro Lucero de Godoy (b. 1600, Mexico City) and
his second wife Doña Francisca Gómez Robledo, Juan Lucero de
Godoy (Pedro’s son) and Doña Luisa Romero, and Doña Catalina
de Zamora (Pedro’s daughter) and Diego Pérez Romero. Following
the ceremonial words of the Catholic rite of matrimony, the three
couple gave the responses for sealing their vows.
The triple wedding is one
of numerous references to
the Casas Reales de Palacio
based on new research findings.
Among the official witnesses of this special occasion were Doña
Josefa de Zamora, also a daughter of Pedro Lucero de Godoy, and
her husband, Don Diego de Guadalajara. Although the specific
details of the marriage ceremony and any festivities to celebrate
the occasion are lacking from the historical record, we can imagine
that relatives and friends were present and that such a celebration
most likely involved the preparation and sharing of food. As late as
1662, several people recalled attending this event, which exemplifies
the central role of the Casas Reales de Palacio in the lives of the
residents of the Santa Fe.
The triple wedding is one of numerous references to the Casas
Reales de Palacio based on new research findings. These findings
identify at least eighteen rooms of the Casas Reales de Palacio for
the period of 1659–1663, each ranging in size according to func-
tion, as indicated by the distinctive terms found in the records,
such as sala, aposento, cuarto, and pieza. It is evident from the
newly uncovered accounts that the Palace of the Governors was
not merely a building for conducting the official business of royal
government, it also served as a center for social, political, and
economic activities of the residents of New Mexico. ■
About the author: José Antonio Esquibel researches and writes about the history of early
New Mexico families. He has contributed to several anthologies on New Mexico history
and has served as a research consultant for the Vargas Project (University of New Mexico)
and El Camino Real Project.
To see Esquibel’s sources for this story, and to read all stories in the series “A Place Like
No Other,” visit elpalacio.com.
Letter of Pedro Lucero de Godoy
doy to a Nephew in Mexico City
October 4, 1662, Santa Fe
My Dear Nephew,
All hours of the day are cut short and do not allow me time tim to read your letters in
ceiving and reading them, as well as the letters
accordance with the pleasure I take in receiving
from your brother,, cousins, and others of our house. This is more mor so knowing from them
of yourr good health and that of my brother, your father, and my nephews Juan and
Nicolás, to whom I send my regards through you. My dear nephew, myself, my your sister
and all of your cousinss remain with good health, thanks to God for f granting us all he
not
wishes; whose obligations we attend to with acceptance, notwithstanding the unpleasant
and dangerous hardships that aree accounted for very well.
thr
Not wishing to bore you with the details through this correspondence, I want you
situ
to know I have sent everything I know about the situation in a letter to my brother,
ving an extensive account, and as such I am asking you
Bachiller Diego Lucero, giving
to obtain all your influence and that of your friends
frie for assistance. Because my sup-
plication is not allowed directly to this tribunal, endeavor
en to inform those lords of this
holy and righteous tribunal and the lordd secr
secret consulters. Tell them this, that the poor
prisoners [Diego Pérez Romero and Francisco Gómez Robeldo] are short of learning
and have not left this realm, where they were born; the case having been opened against
them for having said some things.
In conclusion, they do not know anymore and have not obtained anymore than
serving God and our king in winning these provinces—they and their fathers and
grandfathers—and you can serve by means of your help and that of your activities and
livelihood. All is recorded for these lords in the inventory that is going with the embar-
goed papers, of which they have been advised by their procurator. And because I remain
very well informed, and your aunt and my mother-in-law, who implore you on their
behalf, know that one [of the prisoners] is my son-in-law and the other my brother-in-
law. Do not rest much in order to prevail in all that can be done.
Doña Francisca [Gómez Robledo] is sending you a painted elkskin and some socks and
gloves. She asks for your pardon for the small quantity of items, since the expense and
fees do not give occasion for more to be sent. May God improve your hours and grant you
many years, you to whom I entreat. I have entailed the aide of the señor fiscal who will
arrive shortly. I am well informed of everything from there [Mexico City] and from Spain.
Written in Santa Fe, New Mexico, October 4, 1662.
I kiss your hand, your uncle who esteems and loves you greatly.
*'(&" #%)'&" (' $"("!
El Palacio Presents 29
 By Shelley ThompSon
Soldiers on the parade

grounds at Fort Selden,

New Mexico, 1880s. Even

fewer troops garrisoned

at the fort in its later

years as the region

Dearest
quieted. Photograph by

J. R. Riddle. Neg. No.

014523, Courtesy Palace

of the Governors Photo

Archives (NMHM/DCA).

Annie leTTerS from forT Selden

S oldiers stationed at one of New Mexico’s forts in the mid-1800s experienced a

medley of emotions. Records of fort life indicate long periods of inactivity and
boredom punctuated by bursts of mayhem and terror. In between these ex-
tremes, men—and sometimes women, too—did what people often do in such circumstances:
they drank, smoked, gambled, fought, and messed around, wreaking personal havoc all too
human and all too final.
Some also passed the time by re-examining their beliefs and, in the process, found
themselves changed forever by their experiences.
So it was in the long days that turned into years at Fort Selden, one of a series of forts
established in New Mexico to protect American interests during a period of aggressive
expansion by trappers, settlers, miners, and merchants. Their shared destiny was resisted by
local Apache tribes. Though the coveted terrain over the valleys and mesas of southwestern
New Mexico was tough, the threats to the US Cavalry and Infantry were tougher still. Yet,
more harm was caused by the debauchery within than by Mescalero Apaches defending their
homelands and hunting grounds. According to post records, in the twenty-five years that Fort
Selden was active, only three soldiers were killed in action against Native Americans.
In collections at modern-day Fort Selden State Monument are copies of a remarkable To Annie
series of letters written by James Henry Storey that detail life at the western forts, 1862–67.
During Storey’s five years of US military service, assignments took him to Fort Leavenworth, ’Tissaid that “absence conquers love”
Fort Lyons, Fort Union, Fort Cummings, Fort McRae, and Fort Selden, where the lieutenant
composed many revealing letters and served at the same time with the famed Buffalo Soldiers
And though the world is wise
of the 125th. Andsay’s wisesayings every day
In 1998 Storey’s letters were provided to Fort Selden by a descendant, Priscilla G.
That we dare not despise
Maulsby of Alpine, Texas, who wrote: “The letters and papers tell a remarkable tale of a most
unconventional education during a turbulent period in American history. In reading Great- Yet I will prove this one is false
grandfather’s letters, I was struck by the amount of violence and, indeed, of human cruelty, he And by example show
saw first-hand at a very young and impressionable age.” (Records indicate that Storey, said to
have a light complexion, gray eyes, and light hair, may have lied about his age and may have
A loved One may be far away
been only fifteen years old when he enlisted). And love still stronger grows
The following selected excerpts are from letters to his sweetheart—Miss Annie Cheshire
of 1313 Fulton Avenue, Brooklyn, New York—for whom he had myriad nicknames and abid- Jas H. Storey
ing feelings. In written words Storey revealed himself to her as in no other correspondence. It
Camp Curtis Noyes
was to her he returned a changed man, save for his love for her.
Jamaica [Long Island, New York]
Jan 8th, 1863
ABOVE: Miss Annie Cheshire and James Henry "Harry" Storey.
—Found in an envelope marked “Our dear old Flag” that contained a piece of the flag
Images courtesy of Priscilla G.Maulsby of Alpine, Texas.
and a lock of light brown hair tied in a blue ribbon.

30 El P alacio P resent s
 Fort Cummings, New Mexico
August 20th 1866
My Dear Child;
I arrived here safely yesterday afternoon in the midst of a terrific thunderstorm. I
left my command when within ten miles of the post and although the storm was very
grand, as the lightning flashed and thunder rolled from peak to peak, I didn’t enjoy it
much. It is gloomy traveling in this country alone, especially during a heavy storm near
the dreaded Cooks Canyon where every few rods a pile of stones mark the resting place
of some poor fellow, a victim of the Apaches. Before me is the Scalp (used as a haversack)
covered with thick long black hair, Bow, Quiver, and Lance of an Apache Brave killed
by the Quartermaster of this post a short time ago. I intend to get the scalp if possible,
to send to the L. I. Historical Soc.—but I am afraid it would shock the “Lo the poor
Indian” fellows of the Society. I was a little on that style when I first came here, but I
have got bravely over that, and if they could see and hear what I have seen and heard
in this country, they would be of my mind. The seven hundred graves in this Canyon
speak louder than words. Two years ago, when this fort was established, the little plateau
within a mile was a perfect bone yard. I love Indians like the Devil. I have been kept
awake for two nights with my Carbine and Revolver by my side (sorry it was not Annie!)
and my pockets full of Cartridges. Raining like the very “Diabolo” (Mex. for deuce!) the
heavens (not starry either) for my canopy. Best fun I’ve had for a year! Who wouldn’t be
a soldier on the frontier! Fine place for a man with a large family, very healthy, although
“hair” is scarce. I prefer a wig in this place. I traveled from Selden to Cummings with
5 wagons and 19 Beef Cattle. Made the 65 miles in 24 hours, 40 miles without water.
Lost two head of Cattle on the way. The Indians scarcely ever attack during the night.
They are very superstitious. They say, “At night, the Evil spirit is abroad, the eye of the
Great Spirit is closed. He does not see them and they cannot succeed if the Evil spirit
is abroad.” Their time for attack or surprise is just before dark or about day break. But
I will close my Indian news. I know I have already wearied you, but I cannot write
“anything else” and I detest love letters (although I love to get them). Two more nights
with my saddle for a pillow and I will be home once more. I leave tomorrow before day
break for Selden . . .
Love and a kiss for Ma and Myra. Love and Regards to everybody.
With much love and any quantity of paper kisses
(very cheap) I am Darling Annie, Yours, Harry
• time to myself.
Fort Selden, New Mexico
October 3rd, 1866
Dearest Annie:
The stage arrived much sooner than I expected the other night and I was obliged
to complete my letter before I had half finished. I profited by your advice and wrote to
Enders today. I have had the “blues” today. The “crowd” were all on a spree day before
yesterday and had not recovered from the effects today, all inside, sick. I have felt lost
all day. I will have to go on the War path after “Poor I’s” in a few days or I shall have an
incurable fit of the blues. Nothing like a ten or fifteen days scout for that complaint . . .
The Commanding Officer is going on a sixty days scout in a few days. I expect to go
with the party. We will travel west by north and pass through a country of which little is
known. Trappers report that there is any quantity of Gold on a river, supposed to be the
Sacramento. Miners that went there, never returned, but we calculate to go there with
one hundred men, punish the Indians, and return (some of us). I like the idea of going
where the “pale face” has never been.
It is long after Taps, so I will close for tonight.
—“Buenos Noches” mi Caro Annie. Yours, Harry
• his wife to the States a week ago yesterday and applied for a bill of divorce. Yesterday morn-
October 4th, 1866
Dearest Annie,
I have just received your welcome letter of September 12th. Received no official news
or orders by this mail. You wish to know what I was on Court Martial for? Why to try
enlisted men for getting drunk, etc.—(the men, you must know, are not supposed to get
drunk) and sentence them to hard labor, imprisonment, or stoppage of pay.
Love to Ma, Jule, Radie, Myra, Maddie, Mrs. B—and Pa. Regards to everybody. I remain,
Ever Yours, Harry
Fort Selden, Territory of New Mexico
October 18th, 1866
My Dear, Darling Annie;
Your dear letters of September 23rd and 26th were received today. I humbly beg pardon
for my neglect in not writing last week, but much to my disappointment I received no letter
from my dear girl, so I vowed I would not write until I heard from her. Very ungenerous, was
it not? You cannot imagine how glad I was to receive your letters today. It is now quite late.
I have just escaped from some of the fellows, who are bound to have a time tonight. I have
taken off my blouse, put on my slippers, and seat myself to have a quiet smoke and chat with
my Darling, but what to say I cannot tell. Oh, Annie Dear, if I could but see and talk with you
for a few hours, what would I not give. I occasionally get disgusted with this life. You have no
idea, my dear child, what a life we lead. It is a continual round of dissipation. It is the only
pleasure!! we have (if it can be called a pleasure). I often
think if I could but see and embrace you once more,
I could die happy.
As you know, Annie Darling, I some-
times think I will never see your dear
sweet face again. I expect I will remain
in this country just long enough to
get knocked over by some [Indian]
in one of my rambling tours and that
will be the last of a sad Storey.
I have made two visits to Las Cru-
ces and La Mesilla since I last wrote. I
attended the church at Cruces on Sunday
last. Was introduced to the Padre (priest) who
by the way is quite a character, Sunday evening I
went to the Fandango and played Monte with him. Just
imagine a priest praising God in the morning, Sunday at that, and gambling in a public room
in presence of a crowd, Sunday evening. The old man is one of the most inveterate gamblers
in the Territory, his congregation think nothing of it.
We have had quite an exciting time during the last four or five days. We had a visit from the
Paymaster and as a natural consequence, gamblers flock around the post. Three men have
been shot in three days, two were buried yesterday. I have been on Boards of Survey for sev-
eral days and being junior member have to record the proceedings, which gives me but little
The Apaches stole a lot of horses yesterday one mile from the post. The Ute tribes have
declared war. They attacked Co. G 3rd Cavalry in the Raton Mountains near Trinidad a few
days ago. Loss 1 man killed and 2 wounded Cav. 13 Indians killed. The Utes are a power-
ful, well-armed and good fighting tribe. If our grand moguls do not make peace with them
and give them what they want, we will have such an Indian War as we have not had in this
century. Regards to everybody.
With much love and kisses without number,
I remain My Darling little Wife Ever your own, Harry
•
Fort Selden, New Mexico
October 23rd, 1866
My Dearest Darling Little Wife:
A horrible tragedy occurred at the post yesterday, which resulted in the death of two of our
Officers. You will remember I mentioned in a previous letter that while crossing the plains
I messed with Mrs. Warner, wife of Lieut. Warner of my Company. Warner suspicioned for
some time past that Lieut. Fred Hazelhurst of my Regiment was too intimate with his wife. He
watched them closely and found that his suspicions were but too true. He accordingly sent
ing Johnny (Warner) called me into his room, locked the doors and handed me three letters
addressed to his wife, written by Fred Hazelhurst, in which he calls her his darling Julia, and
says he will resign in January and meet her soon after. He denounced Warner and threatened
to ruin him. Warner seemed very much affected, said he had taken the letters from the mail
the night before and as my name was mentioned in the letters, asked my advice. I advised
him not to take any extreme measures in the matter and he promised me he would not, as the
letters would enable him to obtain a divorce without any trouble. (continued next page)
E l P a la c io P r e s e n t s 31
 He then went with me into my room and smoked for a few minutes. He then went out, saying he wished to see the Colonel. About 12-1/2
o’clock I heard several pistol shots next door in the Colonel’s quarters. As I was “Officer of the Day” I rushed out to ascertain the cause. Upon
reaching the door I saw Warner rushing out of the room, and Hazelhurst standing in the door with a pistol in his hand. Just as I reached him,
he fired. I pushed him aside and begged him to get out of the way as I feared Warner had gone out to attempt to again get into the room by the
back door. Hazelhurst exclaimed, “Oh my God, Storey, I am killed.” As he was able to stand without a support, I supposed he was not badly
hurt, so I went after Warner. Just as I turned the corner of the building, I came across him. Poor fellow, he was just breathing his last—shot
through the heart.
Hazelhurst lived until five this morning. I remained with him all night, poor fellow. The officers did not have much sympathy for him and
thought he had but got his deserts. I could not see the poor fellow die without a white face around him, so I remained with him to the last. Do
you blame me, Darling. He repented before he died and I think ’tis well with him.
Fred was but 23, a reckless devil may care fellow, and a better hearted fellow never lived. We have sat together at the mess table since we have
been at this post and I miss him very much. Warner was 28, a real good fellow but a man of no depth of mind. He had been Quartermaster and
Commissary of Subsistence at this post for five or six weeks. A lot of us were together a few nights ago. Warner gave the following as a toast:
Then stand to your glasses steady Here’s a health to the Dead already
This world is a world of lies Three cheers for the next man that dies.
Poor fellow, he little thought he would be the next one. We buried them this afternoon, side by side. I commanded the funeral escort for
Hazelhurst. A few yards march with muffled drums, three volleys over the graves, and that was the end of two men who might have lived for
years to come, but for the perfidy of one woman.

•
Fort McRae, New Mexico
October 13th, 1867

Company G, 8th Cavalry unit stationed

My Dear Friend Annie:
I left Selden for the States on the 7th inst. but on my arrival at Craig was ordered to take command of this deserted post, is it not too bad. at Fort Selden in Box Canyon, New

I expected to be in Washington on the 1st of December but it’s just my usual fortune to be disappointed. I arrived here on the 11th from Fort Mexico, 1871–3. United States Army
Craig. It is very lonely. I am the only Officer at the Post and my only associates are the Sutler and Hay Contractors. Signal Corps. Courtesy Palace of the
Fort McRae is a small post, about 45 miles south of Fort Craig, near the Rio Grande, built for the protection of the travel across the “Jornada
Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/
del Muerto” (Journey of Death). The springs here are known as the “Ojo del Muerto” (Spring of Death) and before this post was established
DCA), Neg. No. 155008.
many a poor fellow received his death wounds from “poor Lo” lurking in the thick Chapparal around the spring. I have twenty-three men,
eleven armed and equipped as Cavalry. Stray Indians are continually seen in the vicinity of the post.
Last night (Sunday, I believe!!), I had quite an exciting time. I had been reading until about 10 o’clock, when I thought the dogs were mak-
ing an unusual noise. I stepped to the door. After watching some time I saw two dusky figures crawling towards my corral. I quietly went to
the quarters and aroused the men. With four men I “crawfished” to the opposite side of the corral, but they were too sharp for me. They prob-
ably noticed my movements and made tracks for the canyon. Their moccasin tracks were plainly visible this morning. Several hundred captive
Navajos recently effected their escape from the Reservation at Fort Sumner; if they attempt to return to their country they will probably pass
through this Canyon (providing they can do so) so I have to be on the lookout continually—In a few days I intend taking a small party into the
next Canyon (4 miles) and attack a small party my men report having seen there day before yesterday.
My friend Lieut. Williams, 5th U.S. Infantry, was killed by Indians in Colorado a few days ago, poor “Holy Joe.” The last time we met, he
said he had a presentiment that he would be jumped by Indians. He little expected he would be so suddenly cut off, but such is a soldier’s life.
Today all is life and gaiety. Tomorrow we embrace mother earth.
. . . I expect to be relieved here before the 1st November, when I expect I will surely “strike the States Trail.” Do not answer this. It is very
doubtful where I will be, one month from this time. I will write occasionally, and keep you posted as to my whereabouts.
Love to Ma, Jule and Myra. Regards to all enquiring friends.
I remain Truly Your Friend,
J. Henry Storey

In December 1867, James Henry Storey (then at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas) was discharged from service and returned to New York. Priscilla G. Maulsby
writes in her preface to these letters: “Obviously the Storey story doesn’t end in 1867. James Henry returned to Brooklyn, where he continued his efforts to Shelley Thompson is director of the
secure an appointment to West Point. He appears to have worked briefly, and unhappily, as a printer; later, he became a records clerk for the Department Marketing and Outreach Departments
of Health. His pursuit of Annie was fortunately much more successful than his efforts to pursue a military education. They were married on July 21, 1870, at the Museum Resources Division.
in Trenton, New Jersey, and they lived for the rest of their lives in Brooklyn, where James Henry Storey had a career with the Customs Service, rising from She also is the general manager of El
Inspector to become Collector of Customs for the Port of Brooklyn.” Palacio and a longtime site steward for
Fort Selden was decommissioned twenty-three years later, but not before its soldiers saw action associated with Geronimo, in the final years of the Apache the Santa Fe National Forest and New
Wars; the early years of young Douglas MacArthur, whose father was commanding officer from 1884–86; and a reorganization and consolidation of six west- Mexico SiteWatch. Read more about
ern forts under the orders of then Lieutenant General William T. Sherman. The men there also served under a change in policy, the same one Lieut. Storey had Fort Selden in A Bridge to the Past:
attempted to implement and for which he once was chastised: Soldiers of Fort Selden were forbidden to frequent a nearby town to carouse and carry on in bad Special Anniversary Edition 1931–2006,
behavior unbefitting a military man. His victory and vindication came two years after he was discharged. A year later Harry married his dearest Annie. by Eliza Wells Smith. Notes from a re-
Storey’s devotion to Annie was matched by his willingness to again serve his country in times of war, though he was never recalled to duty. In 1898 he connaissance led by J. Henry Storey can
offered himself should volunteers be needed “in the event of war with Spain.” In 1916 Storey again volunteered and was thanked by the Adjutant General’s be found in the Winter 2008 archives at
Office, Albany, New York, for his “prompt and patriotic offer in response to the call for troops” should more be needed. n elpalacio.org

32 El P alacio P resent s
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