WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.388 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:03.388 --> 00:00:10.180 align:middle line:90% 00:00:10.180 --> 00:00:11.030 align:middle line:90% Good evening. 00:00:11.030 --> 00:00:14.030 align:middle line:84% Thank you, everybody, for coming tonight. 00:00:14.030 --> 00:00:16.300 align:middle line:84% It's a beautiful evening and we're 00:00:16.300 --> 00:00:20.890 align:middle line:84% so blessed to have just a bit, a hint of rain 00:00:20.890 --> 00:00:25.180 align:middle line:84% after all these weeks of dust and that wildfire 00:00:25.180 --> 00:00:26.080 align:middle line:90% that was blowing. 00:00:26.080 --> 00:00:31.390 align:middle line:84% And so I'm sort of recovering from asthma 00:00:31.390 --> 00:00:33.760 align:middle line:90% that I developed here. 00:00:33.760 --> 00:00:35.140 align:middle line:90% Started last week. 00:00:35.140 --> 00:00:38.830 align:middle line:84% And so tonight, the fresh air and everything 00:00:38.830 --> 00:00:43.030 align:middle line:90% is very much welcome. 00:00:43.030 --> 00:00:48.520 align:middle line:84% Well, I was thinking about what I would read tonight. 00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:55.150 align:middle line:84% And I was tempted to read from my novella 00:00:55.150 --> 00:00:57.700 align:middle line:90% that I wrote in 2007. 00:00:57.700 --> 00:00:59.830 align:middle line:90% It's called Ocean Story. 00:00:59.830 --> 00:01:03.490 align:middle line:84% But it's a little x-rated and I didn't know how many 00:01:03.490 --> 00:01:05.349 align:middle line:90% kids would be here tonight. 00:01:05.349 --> 00:01:12.130 align:middle line:84% It's a little radical, and so I won't go there I 00:01:12.130 --> 00:01:14.770 align:middle line:90% offered it to Penguin. 00:01:14.770 --> 00:01:17.530 align:middle line:84% And they said they wanted it, but they didn't get around 00:01:17.530 --> 00:01:18.550 align:middle line:90% to publishing it. 00:01:18.550 --> 00:01:23.320 align:middle line:84% And I felt that what was in Ocean Story 00:01:23.320 --> 00:01:26.330 align:middle line:90% needs to be out in the world. 00:01:26.330 --> 00:01:28.810 align:middle line:84% So when Penguin said they wanted to wait 00:01:28.810 --> 00:01:34.090 align:middle line:84% until I had given them Blue Sevens, my novel that I just 00:01:34.090 --> 00:01:36.130 align:middle line:90% keep working away on. 00:01:36.130 --> 00:01:39.970 align:middle line:84% And I finally said to my agent, I need it to be in the world 00:01:39.970 --> 00:01:44.860 align:middle line:84% or I won't be able to work on Blue Sevens. 00:01:44.860 --> 00:01:47.060 align:middle line:84% So I said, I don't care about money. 00:01:47.060 --> 00:01:49.570 align:middle line:84% I said, it just has to be out there. 00:01:49.570 --> 00:01:55.413 align:middle line:84% So Ocean Story-- if you told me that this 00:01:55.413 --> 00:01:57.830 align:middle line:84% would happen a few years ago, I wouldn't have believed it. 00:01:57.830 --> 00:02:04.540 align:middle line:84% But Ocean Story right now is available only as an e-book, 00:02:04.540 --> 00:02:05.350 align:middle line:90% as a download. 00:02:05.350 --> 00:02:08.500 align:middle line:90% 00:02:08.500 --> 00:02:11.470 align:middle line:90% Amazon was looking for short-- 00:02:11.470 --> 00:02:13.390 align:middle line:84% actually, Ocean Story is a novella, 00:02:13.390 --> 00:02:16.060 align:middle line:84% so it's a short novel, a long short story-- 00:02:16.060 --> 00:02:19.780 align:middle line:84% but they were looking for short material for their Kindle. 00:02:19.780 --> 00:02:21.950 align:middle line:84% Of course, I don't even own one of those things. 00:02:21.950 --> 00:02:25.600 align:middle line:84% And I'm a great lover of books and physical books. 00:02:25.600 --> 00:02:29.800 align:middle line:84% But then I got to thinking about wanting the Ocean 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:31.940 align:middle line:90% Story to be in the world. 00:02:31.940 --> 00:02:36.100 align:middle line:84% And so that's how it has gotten into the world. 00:02:36.100 --> 00:02:37.720 align:middle line:84% And I was a little bit tempted, like I 00:02:37.720 --> 00:02:38.762 align:middle line:90% said, to read it tonight. 00:02:38.762 --> 00:02:43.270 align:middle line:90% But it's a little bit radical. 00:02:43.270 --> 00:02:44.680 align:middle line:90% And a little x-rated. 00:02:44.680 --> 00:02:47.800 align:middle line:90% And so we won't do that tonight. 00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:50.290 align:middle line:90% Maybe I should have. 00:02:50.290 --> 00:02:55.810 align:middle line:84% But there's enough here to stir up trouble in The Turquoise 00:02:55.810 --> 00:02:57.160 align:middle line:90% Ledge, probably. 00:02:57.160 --> 00:03:01.180 align:middle line:84% I know that members of my family, extended family, 00:03:01.180 --> 00:03:04.805 align:middle line:84% there are things here that they probably just as soon not think 00:03:04.805 --> 00:03:05.305 align:middle line:90% about. 00:03:05.305 --> 00:03:08.320 align:middle line:90% 00:03:08.320 --> 00:03:11.410 align:middle line:84% I think what I'll start out with right 00:03:11.410 --> 00:03:23.250 align:middle line:84% away then is a story that I had heard growing up. 00:03:23.250 --> 00:03:30.210 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lily always talked about Old Juana, 00:03:30.210 --> 00:03:32.130 align:middle line:90% the woman who raised them. 00:03:32.130 --> 00:03:33.960 align:middle line:90% She was Navajo. 00:03:33.960 --> 00:03:38.970 align:middle line:84% And she had been captured by the slave catchers. 00:03:38.970 --> 00:03:40.890 align:middle line:90% And she lived a very long time. 00:03:40.890 --> 00:03:43.410 align:middle line:90% She lived till around 1920. 00:03:43.410 --> 00:03:49.590 align:middle line:84% And as I was preparing The Turquoise Ledge, 00:03:49.590 --> 00:03:52.830 align:middle line:84% I wanted to have a section about the family 00:03:52.830 --> 00:03:58.080 align:middle line:90% and close members of the family. 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:05.760 align:middle line:84% So I asked my father again to tell me about Juana. 00:04:05.760 --> 00:04:10.050 align:middle line:90% And I received a terrible shock. 00:04:10.050 --> 00:04:13.500 align:middle line:84% So here I was, 60 years old and thought 00:04:13.500 --> 00:04:19.320 align:middle line:84% that I pretty much knew the family and the family history. 00:04:19.320 --> 00:04:22.810 align:middle line:84% But it just goes to show you, when it's something like this. 00:04:22.810 --> 00:04:31.680 align:middle line:84% And so I think I will start out then with this section. 00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:34.290 align:middle line:90% I might skip around. 00:04:34.290 --> 00:04:37.920 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, relating all of the different-- 00:04:37.920 --> 00:04:41.280 align:middle line:84% my family has just so many different branches 00:04:41.280 --> 00:04:48.430 align:middle line:84% and so forth-- sometimes it gets a little bit hard to follow. 00:04:48.430 --> 00:04:50.820 align:middle line:84% But what I really want to do was is 00:04:50.820 --> 00:04:54.120 align:middle line:84% to read to you about this discovery of mine. 00:04:54.120 --> 00:05:02.980 align:middle line:90% 00:05:02.980 --> 00:05:05.600 align:middle line:90% I'll just start it. 00:05:05.600 --> 00:05:06.910 align:middle line:90% It gets around to it. 00:05:06.910 --> 00:05:11.530 align:middle line:84% It gives you a little idea of my Grandma Lily's background. 00:05:11.530 --> 00:05:15.400 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lily, my father's mother, was born in Los Lunas, 00:05:15.400 --> 00:05:17.260 align:middle line:90% south of Albuquerque. 00:05:17.260 --> 00:05:20.650 align:middle line:84% She was a mix of Mexican, German, and English, 00:05:20.650 --> 00:05:23.380 align:middle line:90% and 1/4 Texas Indian-- 00:05:23.380 --> 00:05:26.200 align:middle line:90% she wasn't sure which tribe. 00:05:26.200 --> 00:05:29.680 align:middle line:84% Great Grandpa Zachary Stagner, Grandma Lily's father, 00:05:29.680 --> 00:05:33.340 align:middle line:84% ran away from his Texas family when he was 14 00:05:33.340 --> 00:05:37.420 align:middle line:84% and had no contact with them again. 00:05:37.420 --> 00:05:39.910 align:middle line:84% Our cousin Joanne, after much research, 00:05:39.910 --> 00:05:42.880 align:middle line:84% learned that Great Grandpa Stagner's mother 00:05:42.880 --> 00:05:46.420 align:middle line:84% was a Texas Indian named Rhoda Touchstone, who 00:05:46.420 --> 00:05:50.230 align:middle line:90% died in Sweetwater, Texas. 00:05:50.230 --> 00:05:54.010 align:middle line:84% I used to wonder why he ran away from home at 14. 00:05:54.010 --> 00:05:57.760 align:middle line:84% Was it because his father, Stagner the German, 00:05:57.760 --> 00:06:00.370 align:middle line:90% administered terrible whippings? 00:06:00.370 --> 00:06:02.770 align:middle line:84% Someone on Grandma Lily's side of the family 00:06:02.770 --> 00:06:06.370 align:middle line:84% had begun the practice of whipping young children. 00:06:06.370 --> 00:06:09.400 align:middle line:84% The Laguna Pueblo people, who never hit their children, 00:06:09.400 --> 00:06:11.590 align:middle line:84% were horrified at the terrible whippings 00:06:11.590 --> 00:06:16.600 align:middle line:84% my father gave my sisters and me when we were small. 00:06:16.600 --> 00:06:19.750 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lily was a beautiful young woman. 00:06:19.750 --> 00:06:23.470 align:middle line:84% But she must not have felt or realized her beauty. 00:06:23.470 --> 00:06:25.720 align:middle line:84% I remember all the black and white Kodak 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:29.020 align:middle line:84% snapshots and the Hopi basket with the grasshopper man 00:06:29.020 --> 00:06:30.190 align:middle line:90% pattern. 00:06:30.190 --> 00:06:32.440 align:middle line:84% Many of the photographs showed Grandma Lily 00:06:32.440 --> 00:06:33.820 align:middle line:90% when she was young-- 00:06:33.820 --> 00:06:37.870 align:middle line:84% with Grandpa Hank, but also with her younger sisters. 00:06:37.870 --> 00:06:41.410 align:middle line:84% There were snapshots of Grandpa Hank often posed 00:06:41.410 --> 00:06:43.420 align:middle line:90% beside fast cars. 00:06:43.420 --> 00:06:46.840 align:middle line:84% He wore stylish suits and was very handsome. 00:06:46.840 --> 00:06:52.090 align:middle line:84% And of course earlier, I explained that Grandpa Hank, 00:06:52.090 --> 00:06:57.880 align:middle line:84% Grandma Alma was his mother, and then Grandpa Marmon came out 00:06:57.880 --> 00:07:00.700 align:middle line:84% from Ohio, was a white man-- a Quaker, no less-- 00:07:00.700 --> 00:07:05.020 align:middle line:84% who came out from Ohio and married in. 00:07:05.020 --> 00:07:07.810 align:middle line:90% Sometime in the late 1950s-- 00:07:07.810 --> 00:07:10.240 align:middle line:84% was that one of the times she thought grandpa Hank 00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:12.010 align:middle line:90% was having an affair-- 00:07:12.010 --> 00:07:15.370 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lily took the Hopi basket full of snapshots 00:07:15.370 --> 00:07:19.480 align:middle line:84% and a pair of sharp scissors and carefully cut out her face 00:07:19.480 --> 00:07:21.670 align:middle line:90% from every photograph. 00:07:21.670 --> 00:07:24.490 align:middle line:84% If she appeared in snapshots with other people, 00:07:24.490 --> 00:07:27.100 align:middle line:84% the faces of the others were intact. 00:07:27.100 --> 00:07:30.400 align:middle line:84% Only her face was neatly excised. 00:07:30.400 --> 00:07:33.700 align:middle line:84% The faceless images were very strange. 00:07:33.700 --> 00:07:36.070 align:middle line:84% Without the face, the upright figure 00:07:36.070 --> 00:07:38.680 align:middle line:84% with the remaining top of the head and hair 00:07:38.680 --> 00:07:41.200 align:middle line:90% looked like a corpse. 00:07:41.200 --> 00:07:43.390 align:middle line:84% Recently, I learned something more about Grandma 00:07:43.390 --> 00:07:47.080 align:middle line:84% Lily's mother's people, our Los Lunas relatives-- 00:07:47.080 --> 00:07:51.070 align:middle line:84% and this is the Mexicanos side, the Romero family, 00:07:51.070 --> 00:07:52.570 align:middle line:90% the Los Lunas-- 00:07:52.570 --> 00:07:54.790 align:middle line:84% our Los Lunas relatives and their connection 00:07:54.790 --> 00:07:57.190 align:middle line:84% with the whippings of young children. 00:07:57.190 --> 00:07:59.990 align:middle line:84% All these years I thought I knew the whole story. 00:07:59.990 --> 00:08:02.200 align:middle line:90% But I was wrong. 00:08:02.200 --> 00:08:05.380 align:middle line:84% Long before I knew anything about the Indian slave trade 00:08:05.380 --> 00:08:08.530 align:middle line:84% in New Mexico, I'd heard grandma Lily stories 00:08:08.530 --> 00:08:12.400 align:middle line:84% about Old Juana, the Navajo captive who lived with them 00:08:12.400 --> 00:08:15.490 align:middle line:84% and cared for them when they were children. 00:08:15.490 --> 00:08:18.760 align:middle line:84% One Memorial Day when I was 12 or 13, 00:08:18.760 --> 00:08:21.760 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lily asked me to go with her to take flowers 00:08:21.760 --> 00:08:24.190 align:middle line:90% to Old Juana's grave. 00:08:24.190 --> 00:08:27.280 align:middle line:84% She told me Juana died around 1920, 00:08:27.280 --> 00:08:31.360 align:middle line:84% when she was more than 100 years old. 00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:34.120 align:middle line:84% We filled to clean coffee cans with water. 00:08:34.120 --> 00:08:38.020 align:middle line:84% Then we cut some roses and lilacs from Grandma Amu's yard 00:08:38.020 --> 00:08:42.039 align:middle line:84% because those were the only fresh flowers to be found. 00:08:42.039 --> 00:08:45.400 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lily drove us to the south side of Laguna village, 00:08:45.400 --> 00:08:48.430 align:middle line:84% and then down the old dirt road near the old bridge 00:08:48.430 --> 00:08:50.770 align:middle line:90% across the river. 00:08:50.770 --> 00:08:55.390 align:middle line:84% A low wall of black lava rock was partially 00:08:55.390 --> 00:08:58.360 align:middle line:84% buried in the pale gray river sand that 00:08:58.360 --> 00:09:01.000 align:middle line:90% covered an ancient floodplain. 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:05.110 align:middle line:84% In the corners of the wall, dry weeds, scraps of paper, 00:09:05.110 --> 00:09:07.960 align:middle line:90% and debris formed drifts. 00:09:07.960 --> 00:09:10.630 align:middle line:84% The graves were from the time when the Laguna people 00:09:10.630 --> 00:09:15.310 align:middle line:84% didn't use carved gravestones but flat pieces of sandstone 00:09:15.310 --> 00:09:19.450 align:middle line:90% or slate or black lava stones. 00:09:19.450 --> 00:09:22.690 align:middle line:84% I seem to remember the remains of a few wooden crosses 00:09:22.690 --> 00:09:25.610 align:middle line:90% scattered about. 00:09:25.610 --> 00:09:28.730 align:middle line:84% She hadn't brought flowers to Juana in a while. 00:09:28.730 --> 00:09:34.070 align:middle line:84% But then that year, for some reason, she decided to do it. 00:09:34.070 --> 00:09:36.800 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lily took a little while to get her bearings 00:09:36.800 --> 00:09:41.270 align:middle line:84% among the piles of stones and small dunes of sand that 00:09:41.270 --> 00:09:44.450 align:middle line:84% shifted in the graveyard with every wind. 00:09:44.450 --> 00:09:47.690 align:middle line:84% Then she located the five dark lava stones 00:09:47.690 --> 00:09:52.670 align:middle line:84% the size of cantaloupes that marked Juana's grave. 00:09:52.670 --> 00:09:55.880 align:middle line:84% I helped Grandma Lily clear away the tumbleweeds tangled 00:09:55.880 --> 00:09:57.230 align:middle line:90% with other debris. 00:09:57.230 --> 00:10:01.010 align:middle line:84% And she talked about Old Juana while we worked. 00:10:01.010 --> 00:10:04.100 align:middle line:84% Juana had been captured by Mexican slave catchers 00:10:04.100 --> 00:10:06.830 align:middle line:90% when she was just a little girl. 00:10:06.830 --> 00:10:10.010 align:middle line:84% Years later, when Lincoln freed the slaves, 00:10:10.010 --> 00:10:13.130 align:middle line:84% it was already too late for poor Juana. 00:10:13.130 --> 00:10:16.400 align:middle line:84% 30 years or more had passed, and she no longer 00:10:16.400 --> 00:10:18.260 align:middle line:90% spoke the Navajo language. 00:10:18.260 --> 00:10:22.280 align:middle line:84% And she did not know where she had been stolen from. 00:10:22.280 --> 00:10:24.110 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lilly gave me the impression 00:10:24.110 --> 00:10:26.210 align:middle line:84% Juana came to work for their family 00:10:26.210 --> 00:10:30.410 align:middle line:84% when she was an adult, after Lincoln's proclamation, 00:10:30.410 --> 00:10:32.090 align:middle line:90% because she had no place to go. 00:10:32.090 --> 00:10:36.110 align:middle line:84% And actually, it's the 13th Amendment-- 00:10:36.110 --> 00:10:39.080 align:middle line:84% rather than the Emancipation Proclamation, 00:10:39.080 --> 00:10:43.250 align:middle line:84% but the 13th Amendment that outlaws slavery, which 00:10:43.250 --> 00:10:48.800 align:middle line:90% was which was passed in 1865. 00:10:48.800 --> 00:10:51.650 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lilly said Juana was the one who really mothered 00:10:51.650 --> 00:10:54.710 align:middle line:90% them, not Great Grandma Helen. 00:10:54.710 --> 00:10:58.160 align:middle line:84% In her 80s old one I raised my Grandma Lily 00:10:58.160 --> 00:11:01.580 align:middle line:84% and all her sisters and brothers because Great Grandma Helen 00:11:01.580 --> 00:11:04.760 align:middle line:84% followed the practices of the wealthy Mexican women 00:11:04.760 --> 00:11:06.060 align:middle line:90% at the time. 00:11:06.060 --> 00:11:07.910 align:middle line:84% Which meant she took to her bedroom 00:11:07.910 --> 00:11:11.180 align:middle line:84% as soon as she was pregnant and did not leave her bedroom again 00:11:11.180 --> 00:11:14.060 align:middle line:84% until two months after the birth. 00:11:14.060 --> 00:11:16.790 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lily had 11 sisters and brothers, 00:11:16.790 --> 00:11:18.990 align:middle line:90% and two who did not survive. 00:11:18.990 --> 00:11:23.240 align:middle line:84% So Grandma Helen seldom left her bedroom. 00:11:23.240 --> 00:11:26.690 align:middle line:84% It was Juana who cared for them while their mother awaited 00:11:26.690 --> 00:11:27.770 align:middle line:90% another birth. 00:11:27.770 --> 00:11:30.395 align:middle line:90% Juana bathed them and fed them. 00:11:30.395 --> 00:11:33.950 align:middle line:84% Juana rocked them and held them when they were sick or scared, 00:11:33.950 --> 00:11:35.720 align:middle line:90% not their mother. 00:11:35.720 --> 00:11:40.040 align:middle line:84% Juana was in her 80s by the time Grandma Lily was born. 00:11:40.040 --> 00:11:42.890 align:middle line:84% I remember my Great Grandma Helen vividly. 00:11:42.890 --> 00:11:46.910 align:middle line:84% She always wore a long black cardigan over her black dress. 00:11:46.910 --> 00:11:48.770 align:middle line:84% And she rolled her own cigarettes 00:11:48.770 --> 00:11:52.400 align:middle line:84% from a bag of tobacco as she gossiped in Spanish 00:11:52.400 --> 00:11:56.570 align:middle line:84% with my grandma and her sisters Lorena and Marie. 00:11:56.570 --> 00:11:59.450 align:middle line:84% I don't remember her greeting us or hugging us. 00:11:59.450 --> 00:12:03.200 align:middle line:84% She hardly seemed to notice us great grandchildren. 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:07.280 align:middle line:84% She was so different from our beloved Great Grandma Amu 00:12:07.280 --> 00:12:10.730 align:middle line:84% that we children were a little afraid of her. 00:12:10.730 --> 00:12:15.410 align:middle line:84% Great Grandma Helen was born to Josephine Romero whose mother 00:12:15.410 --> 00:12:19.610 align:middle line:84% was a Luna, one of the founding families of Los Lunas, New 00:12:19.610 --> 00:12:21.380 align:middle line:90% Mexico. 00:12:21.380 --> 00:12:24.410 align:middle line:84% The Romeros were another founding family. 00:12:24.410 --> 00:12:27.590 align:middle line:84% Josephine Romero had married a Whittington, 00:12:27.590 --> 00:12:30.830 align:middle line:84% the son of an English merchant who 00:12:30.830 --> 00:12:34.040 align:middle line:84% married a daughter of the Chavez family. 00:12:34.040 --> 00:12:39.890 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lily always called her grandmother 00:12:39.890 --> 00:12:43.760 align:middle line:84% Josephine Romero "Grandma Whip" because she 00:12:43.760 --> 00:12:47.210 align:middle line:84% wore a black braided leather belt around her waist, which 00:12:47.210 --> 00:12:51.440 align:middle line:84% she could remove quickly to use as a whip for naughty children. 00:12:51.440 --> 00:12:54.260 align:middle line:84% My father remembers Grandma Whip, too. 00:12:54.260 --> 00:12:57.590 align:middle line:84% He said they called her Grandma Whip because as children, 00:12:57.590 --> 00:13:01.340 align:middle line:84% whenever they visited her, the first thing she did when they 00:13:01.340 --> 00:13:05.030 align:middle line:84% came into the house was to warn them not to touch anything 00:13:05.030 --> 00:13:09.440 align:middle line:84% in her house by saying, Grandma whip, Grandma whip if you 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:11.330 align:middle line:90% touch. 00:13:11.330 --> 00:13:14.690 align:middle line:84% The whippings that were part of child rearing in Grandma Lily's 00:13:14.690 --> 00:13:19.670 align:middle line:84% family included my father, and finally, my sisters and me. 00:13:19.670 --> 00:13:23.420 align:middle line:84% The whippings were a legacy from Grandma Whip and her family. 00:13:23.420 --> 00:13:29.480 align:middle line:84% So my suspicions, I still don't know whether Grandpa Stagner's 00:13:29.480 --> 00:13:33.680 align:middle line:84% father back in Texas, I had speculated 00:13:33.680 --> 00:13:35.750 align:middle line:84% that it might have come from that direction. 00:13:35.750 --> 00:13:41.030 align:middle line:90% But I found out differently. 00:13:41.030 --> 00:13:43.970 align:middle line:84% In 2006, I was asked to write a foreword 00:13:43.970 --> 00:13:47.150 align:middle line:84% to a book about a corrido or ballad that 00:13:47.150 --> 00:13:52.160 align:middle line:84% was composed in 1882 in the Mexican community of Cubero, 00:13:52.160 --> 00:13:53.630 align:middle line:90% near Laguna. 00:13:53.630 --> 00:13:55.940 align:middle line:84% The corrido was about a Mexican woman 00:13:55.940 --> 00:14:00.290 align:middle line:84% Placida Romero whose husband was killed, and she and her baby 00:14:00.290 --> 00:14:04.460 align:middle line:84% kidnapped by a band of Apache raiders. 00:14:04.460 --> 00:14:08.870 align:middle line:84% It is likely the Apaches chose the Cubero area deliberately 00:14:08.870 --> 00:14:13.760 align:middle line:84% because Cubero had long been the site of slave markets. 00:14:13.760 --> 00:14:16.880 align:middle line:84% Placida Romero was taken back to Chihuahua 00:14:16.880 --> 00:14:21.260 align:middle line:84% by the Apache warriors, where she was held for 49 days 00:14:21.260 --> 00:14:25.700 align:middle line:84% and so badly mistreated that the Apache women felt sorry 00:14:25.700 --> 00:14:29.990 align:middle line:84% for the Mexican woman and gave her clothing, food, and even 00:14:29.990 --> 00:14:34.100 align:middle line:90% a burro to aid her escape. 00:14:34.100 --> 00:14:36.500 align:middle line:84% Of course the ballad written afterward made 00:14:36.500 --> 00:14:40.220 align:middle line:84% no mention of the compassion and considerable bravery 00:14:40.220 --> 00:14:43.970 align:middle line:84% of the Apache women who helped Placida escape. 00:14:43.970 --> 00:14:48.140 align:middle line:84% That angered me because at the time they helped her escape, 00:14:48.140 --> 00:14:50.300 align:middle line:84% Apache women and children were being 00:14:50.300 --> 00:14:52.520 align:middle line:84% murdered by Mexicans and Americans 00:14:52.520 --> 00:14:56.780 align:middle line:84% alike for the bounty on their scalps. 00:14:56.780 --> 00:14:59.000 align:middle line:90% And this is the 1880s. 00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:02.480 align:middle line:84% Yet the Apache women who helped blessed escape 00:15:02.480 --> 00:15:07.770 align:middle line:84% did not let the genocide destroy their human decency. 00:15:07.770 --> 00:15:11.970 align:middle line:84% I wanted to put the incident into historical perspective. 00:15:11.970 --> 00:15:15.390 align:middle line:84% Placida Romero was captive for 49 days 00:15:15.390 --> 00:15:17.760 align:middle line:90% and then she got to go home. 00:15:17.760 --> 00:15:21.060 align:middle line:84% Juana was captive for almost 100 years 00:15:21.060 --> 00:15:24.120 align:middle line:90% and she never got to go home. 00:15:24.120 --> 00:15:26.730 align:middle line:84% To prepare to write about the captives, 00:15:26.730 --> 00:15:31.800 align:middle line:84% I reread LR Bailey's scholarly work, Indian Slave 00:15:31.800 --> 00:15:37.950 align:middle line:84% Trade in the Southwest, first published in 1964. 00:15:37.950 --> 00:15:40.860 align:middle line:84% Though I'd read it before, I'd conveniently 00:15:40.860 --> 00:15:44.460 align:middle line:84% forgotten some of the more horrendous details. 00:15:44.460 --> 00:15:47.040 align:middle line:84% The Spanish governors of New Mexico-- 00:15:47.040 --> 00:15:51.450 align:middle line:84% and of course, at that time New Mexico included Arizona-- 00:15:51.450 --> 00:15:53.490 align:middle line:84% the Spanish governors of New Mexico 00:15:53.490 --> 00:15:57.690 align:middle line:84% encouraged and participated in the Indian slave trade. 00:15:57.690 --> 00:16:01.380 align:middle line:84% It was their way of keeping the Pueblos, Navajos, and Apaches 00:16:01.380 --> 00:16:04.050 align:middle line:84% at war with one another so they would not 00:16:04.050 --> 00:16:08.970 align:middle line:84% unite against the Spaniards as they had in 1680. 00:16:08.970 --> 00:16:12.150 align:middle line:84% After the fur trade collapsed, the rendezvous 00:16:12.150 --> 00:16:15.420 align:middle line:84% held at river crossings from Taos to Tucson 00:16:15.420 --> 00:16:19.860 align:middle line:84% became slave markets where Indian captives were traded 00:16:19.860 --> 00:16:22.590 align:middle line:90% for whiskey and gunpowder. 00:16:22.590 --> 00:16:26.610 align:middle line:84% The captives were mostly young children, primarily young girls 00:16:26.610 --> 00:16:29.730 align:middle line:84% because they were less likely to try to escape. 00:16:29.730 --> 00:16:34.050 align:middle line:84% At the slave markets in drunken exhibitions, 00:16:34.050 --> 00:16:38.460 align:middle line:84% the slave traders raped the young Indian girls. 00:16:38.460 --> 00:16:41.790 align:middle line:84% The Catholic Church participated in the slave trade 00:16:41.790 --> 00:16:45.240 align:middle line:84% by possessing young Indian "servants"-- 00:16:45.240 --> 00:16:48.720 align:middle line:84% and that's in quotations-- for labor and by baptizing 00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:50.040 align:middle line:90% the captives. 00:16:50.040 --> 00:16:56.250 align:middle line:84% Baptismal records show that from 1700 to 1788, 00:16:56.250 --> 00:17:00.990 align:middle line:84% 800 Apache children were baptized as servants 00:17:00.990 --> 00:17:04.829 align:middle line:84% to the households of Spaniards in New Mexico. 00:17:04.829 --> 00:17:07.260 align:middle line:84% At the Catholic Church at Laguna Pueblo, 00:17:07.260 --> 00:17:10.560 align:middle line:84% baptismal records revealed that the Spanish rewarded 00:17:10.560 --> 00:17:14.099 align:middle line:84% the Pueblos, who accompanied them on military actions 00:17:14.099 --> 00:17:17.880 align:middle line:84% against the Navajos, with young captives. 00:17:17.880 --> 00:17:22.980 align:middle line:84% More money could be made from one slave hunting expedition 00:17:22.980 --> 00:17:25.440 align:middle line:84% of two or three weeks than could be 00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:28.800 align:middle line:84% made in one year of subsistence farming or ranching 00:17:28.800 --> 00:17:30.840 align:middle line:90% in New Mexico. 00:17:30.840 --> 00:17:33.810 align:middle line:84% When the US authorities took the New Mexico territory 00:17:33.810 --> 00:17:38.190 align:middle line:84% from Mexico in 1846, the US officials 00:17:38.190 --> 00:17:41.370 align:middle line:84% made attempts to stop the Indian slave trade. 00:17:41.370 --> 00:17:44.310 align:middle line:84% But the wealthy Mexican families resisted, 00:17:44.310 --> 00:17:49.800 align:middle line:84% and even the US authorities kept Indian "servants." 00:17:49.800 --> 00:17:52.200 align:middle line:84% When I reread Bailey's book, I came 00:17:52.200 --> 00:17:58.050 align:middle line:84% across the account of a young Navajo woman released 00:17:58.050 --> 00:18:00.180 align:middle line:84% by US soldiers from her captivity 00:18:00.180 --> 00:18:03.990 align:middle line:90% with a Mexican family in 1852. 00:18:03.990 --> 00:18:06.900 align:middle line:84% The young Navajo woman complained to the US military 00:18:06.900 --> 00:18:10.230 align:middle line:84% officers that the Mexican family stripped her naked 00:18:10.230 --> 00:18:12.570 align:middle line:90% and whipped her every day. 00:18:12.570 --> 00:18:15.870 align:middle line:84% Whipping slaves, it seems, was a common perversion 00:18:15.870 --> 00:18:19.350 align:middle line:84% among the founding families of New Mexico. 00:18:19.350 --> 00:18:21.210 align:middle line:84% I happened to mention to my father 00:18:21.210 --> 00:18:23.280 align:middle line:84% that I wanted to write about Juana. 00:18:23.280 --> 00:18:25.230 align:middle line:84% But I really didn't know for sure 00:18:25.230 --> 00:18:28.320 align:middle line:84% when or how she came to work for Grandma Lily's family. 00:18:28.320 --> 00:18:31.440 align:middle line:84% I had always kind of just had that assumption-- 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:33.630 align:middle line:84% that appears earlier in this piece-- 00:18:33.630 --> 00:18:38.370 align:middle line:84% that somehow, after slavery was outlawed, 00:18:38.370 --> 00:18:40.980 align:middle line:84% that she was set free by somebody else 00:18:40.980 --> 00:18:44.310 align:middle line:90% and then came to our family. 00:18:44.310 --> 00:18:47.370 align:middle line:84% That was when my father told me what Grandma Lilly never 00:18:47.370 --> 00:18:48.480 align:middle line:90% told me. 00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:52.380 align:middle line:84% My father told me so offhandedly, it angered me. 00:18:52.380 --> 00:18:55.740 align:middle line:84% I could tell he was ashamed, and the offhanded manner 00:18:55.740 --> 00:18:59.040 align:middle line:84% was his way to cover up his shame. 00:18:59.040 --> 00:19:02.790 align:middle line:84% Four young Navajo sisters were captured by the Spanish slave 00:19:02.790 --> 00:19:06.780 align:middle line:84% hunters during the Spanish governor's 1823 00:19:06.780 --> 00:19:11.130 align:middle line:84% military campaign against the Navajos in New Mexico. 00:19:11.130 --> 00:19:17.070 align:middle line:84% Juana, who was four or five, was the youngest. 00:19:17.070 --> 00:19:20.550 align:middle line:84% The four captives came into the possession 00:19:20.550 --> 00:19:23.220 align:middle line:90% of Grandma Whip's brother. 00:19:23.220 --> 00:19:26.490 align:middle line:84% Did he buy the young sisters from a slave trader? 00:19:26.490 --> 00:19:29.190 align:middle line:84% Or were they loot he got for volunteering 00:19:29.190 --> 00:19:32.880 align:middle line:84% to accompany the Spanish troops on the assault? 00:19:32.880 --> 00:19:34.980 align:middle line:84% Does someone owe him a gambling debt 00:19:34.980 --> 00:19:37.860 align:middle line:84% and give him the little girls in payment? 00:19:37.860 --> 00:19:41.940 align:middle line:84% Or were they a bribe to curry his favor? 00:19:41.940 --> 00:19:44.700 align:middle line:84% If Grandma Whip was quick to take off the leather 00:19:44.700 --> 00:19:47.220 align:middle line:84% belt to whip her small grandchildren, 00:19:47.220 --> 00:19:50.100 align:middle line:84% imagine what Grandma Whip's brother was like. 00:19:50.100 --> 00:19:52.230 align:middle line:84% He must have been the devil himself 00:19:52.230 --> 00:19:55.710 align:middle line:84% with a whip on the little Navajo girls. 00:19:55.710 --> 00:19:58.230 align:middle line:84% After he whipped the young Navajo girls, 00:19:58.230 --> 00:20:00.150 align:middle line:90% what other perversions? 00:20:00.150 --> 00:20:02.190 align:middle line:84% Was he one of those slave dealers 00:20:02.190 --> 00:20:05.010 align:middle line:84% who participated in the drunken public rapes 00:20:05.010 --> 00:20:08.600 align:middle line:84% of young Indian girls at the slave markets? 00:20:08.600 --> 00:20:10.700 align:middle line:90% His abuse was unbearable. 00:20:10.700 --> 00:20:15.920 align:middle line:84% So the three older girls poisoned their torturer. 00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:18.350 align:middle line:84% With the son of two prominent Los Lunas 00:20:18.350 --> 00:20:22.370 align:middle line:84% families dead at the hands of Indian servants, 00:20:22.370 --> 00:20:25.670 align:middle line:84% the local authorities could not afford delay. 00:20:25.670 --> 00:20:29.180 align:middle line:84% Copycats had to be discouraged immediately. 00:20:29.180 --> 00:20:32.720 align:middle line:84% The three young Navajo girls were hanged at once. 00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:36.410 align:middle line:84% Only the youngest Juana was spared. 00:20:36.410 --> 00:20:38.840 align:middle line:84% Did other wealthy families of Los Lunas 00:20:38.840 --> 00:20:42.980 align:middle line:84% send their Indian servants to watch the hangings that day 00:20:42.980 --> 00:20:44.840 align:middle line:90% as a precaution? 00:20:44.840 --> 00:20:48.860 align:middle line:84% Did they make little Juana watch her sisters die? 00:20:48.860 --> 00:20:52.610 align:middle line:84% Did Juana understand then that her last links to her family 00:20:52.610 --> 00:20:55.130 align:middle line:84% and people died with her sisters, 00:20:55.130 --> 00:20:58.862 align:middle line:84% and there would be no reunion for her? 00:20:58.862 --> 00:21:01.760 align:middle line:84% From her poisoned brother, Grandma Whip 00:21:01.760 --> 00:21:07.190 align:middle line:84% inherited the only remaining Navajo child to be her servant. 00:21:07.190 --> 00:21:11.510 align:middle line:84% Poor Juana came to be part of the strange cruel family 00:21:11.510 --> 00:21:14.750 align:middle line:84% of Grandma Whip and her husband, the Mexican 00:21:14.750 --> 00:21:18.260 align:middle line:90% with the English surname. 00:21:18.260 --> 00:21:20.510 align:middle line:84% Both my father and grandma Lily told me 00:21:20.510 --> 00:21:24.380 align:middle line:84% about the huge ring of keys Grandma Whip wore on the belt 00:21:24.380 --> 00:21:25.970 align:middle line:90% around her waist. 00:21:25.970 --> 00:21:30.500 align:middle line:84% Every door, every closet, every cabinet, every cupboard 00:21:30.500 --> 00:21:35.360 align:middle line:84% and drawer in Grandma Whip's house was locked at all times 00:21:35.360 --> 00:21:39.350 align:middle line:84% when they visited and needed sugar for their coffee grandma 00:21:39.350 --> 00:21:42.230 align:middle line:84% whip had to search among dozens of keys 00:21:42.230 --> 00:21:45.770 align:middle line:84% before she unlocked the cupboard with a sugar bowl. 00:21:45.770 --> 00:21:48.470 align:middle line:84% Grandma Lily said all the locks and keys 00:21:48.470 --> 00:21:50.240 align:middle line:84% were because Grandma Whip didn't want 00:21:50.240 --> 00:21:52.490 align:middle line:90% the servants to steal things. 00:21:52.490 --> 00:21:57.020 align:middle line:84% But maybe Grandma Whip wanted to make sure the rat poison stayed 00:21:57.020 --> 00:21:59.410 align:middle line:90% out of the sugar bowl. 00:21:59.410 --> 00:22:00.000 align:middle line:90%