WEBVTT

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So I had occasion last summer.

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I was invited by Sandra
Cisneros down to San--

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good old San Antonio to
her Macondo workshop--

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writing workshop.

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And there I met Deborah Miranda.

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And actually Deborah
reminded me that I'd

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met her a few years
before at Evergreen

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at one of Gail Tremblay's
summer sessions.

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And Deborah Miranda is from
one of the California mission

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tribes.

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And of course you know in
1700 there were a million--

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at least a million
California Indians

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and by 1900 there
were 25,000 left.

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And part of that had to do
with the mission system.

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So Deborah Miranda
is a wonderful poet.

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She teaches back in
Virginia somewhere.

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And we got to talking about
the book that she's working on.

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It's called Bad Indians.

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And it's a wonderful mixture
of sort of a family memoir.

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And one of the peculiarities--

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or not peculiarities, but
one of the interesting things

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was that in the 1920s
I believe it was,

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there was an
anthropologist and I'm

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going to say his
name is Stevenson.

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I should have written it down.

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But anyway there was an
anthropologist who focused

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on Deborah's--

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the band of Mission Indians
that Deborah's from.

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And this guy worked with
members of her family.

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And so Deborah
started doing research

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and got a hold of this
anthropologist's notes.

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And at the time this
anthropologist was

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doing this fieldwork
with the Mission Indians,

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all the other
anthropologists were like oh,

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why are you bothering with
those Mission Indians?

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They're just about extinct.

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And who's interested in them?

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And so actually for
years and years all

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of the stories and narratives
that he had collected

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were sort of just--

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no one had really
cared much about them.

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At least not in the
anthropology world.

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And so Deborah started
going into them

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because she knew that her--

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she had like a great grandpa
and different relatives that

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actually talked to this guy.

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So she was really
interested to see what

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her relatives had said to him.

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And so once she got
started, she started looking

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for other kinds of things.

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She decided well,
maybe I'll take a look

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because after all, the
mission system meant

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that the priests who were
in charge of the mission

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and the Indians who
belonged, like possessions,

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to these missions-- they
kept all these records.

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And of course, as I referred
earlier with the story

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in New Mexico, all of this
horrendous slave trading

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activity is
meticulously documented

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in Baptismal records.

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And so, of course, again
when Deborah Miranda

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started looking at the
records of the mission

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where her ancestors
and family had lived,

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she just found a wonderful--

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it was so complete and
it went all the way back

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to the beginning.

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And she happened
to tell me this.

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And I bring it up now
because it relates directly

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to this whipping-- this whipping
that seemed to go on here

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in the Southwest and that
was noted, as I said earlier,

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by that one Navajo captive
who complained about it.

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Deborah Miranda
discovered this--

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that once a year the priests
had to send a report.

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I think it was once
a year they had

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to send a report to the bishop,
who I guess was in Mexico

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City or something like that.

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And you know this
is way long ago.

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And there were six
questions that the priests

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had to answer-- had to
report on to the bishop.

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And among those questions
was this question--

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"Do your Indians
discipline their children?"

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And the attitude was
that one of the worst

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things about these Indians
was that they were just

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so kind to their children
and they just treated them--

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one of the quotes was
"like little idols"--

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that they just worshipped
their children.

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And so Deborah started reading
and in the first years when

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the priests report
comes to that question

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it says, oh these Indians,
they won't lay a hand

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on their children.

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They spoil them.

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It's terrible.

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We have to whip their
children for them.

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And so Deborah said you read
along and for about the first

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10 or 15, maybe first
20 years, that's

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a complaint-- that
the priests have

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to go and whip the children.

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But then after you
get about 30 years

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into these reports Deborah
said, well these Indians

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are improving.

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They still can't
bring themselves

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to whip their children, but
they bring their children to us

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so we can whip them.

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And then some years
go by Deborah says,

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and then finally
you get to the part

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where it says our Indians
are doing very well.

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They whip their
own children now.

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And she was
interested because she

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was interested in looking at
some of the origins of abuse

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to children and in thinking
about it in her family

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and so forth.

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But she shared
with me the results

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of this research, where it
was very much the Catholic

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Church and the
priests that demanded

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this-- that wanted this.

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And I then was able to
bridge or understand

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what all of these
accounts of all this

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whipping in the accounts of how
the Mexican families in the New

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Mexico territory treated
their Indian slaves

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and then of course,
this story that I just

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read to you about Juana.

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I had written a longer piece
that goes more into the Bailey

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book and sort of been hoping
that maybe the University

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of Arizona press can
republish the Indian Slave

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Trade in the Southwest.

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It's a very scholarly
book and you

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can see why it was
published in 1964

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and then it's been allowed
to go out of print, which

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is a pattern in this country.

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This country that has this
sort of amnesia when it comes

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to certain kinds of things.

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And I think it's a terribly--

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a terribly important book
to really understanding

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the history of the Southwest.

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Abiquiu, Taos, Tucson, El Paso--

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these little towns like
Cubero and Abiquiu's

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a small town now--

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they were the scenes of these
terrible, terrible slave

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markets.

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And there's a creepiness I
think that sometimes-- you

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can sometimes feel it here.

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I certainly feel it in Taos.

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Well why not Santa Fe and
Albuquerque, you can imagine.

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But this carried on
for such a long time.

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And even after 1865 when
the 13th Amendment was

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passed outlawing slavery,
Indian slavery was not outlawed.

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It was sort of winked at.

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And one of the
horrors of the 1871--

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where the good citizens of
Tucson went over to Fort Grant

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and massacred the defenseless,
unarmed Apache women

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and children--

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30 children were taken by
the good citizens of Tucson

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and sold into slavery in Mexico.

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This was in 1871.

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And when they held--

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there wouldn't have even
been a trial here in Tucson,

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but word got back
to the Northeast.

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And there was outrage in the
Northeastern part of the United

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States.

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And so they brought
the perpetrators

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to trial and of course,
they were acquitted.

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And the children that were
sold into slavery into Mexico--

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the Apache children-- were
never were never recovered.

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And part of the
sickness of it all

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is that Wasson Peak by my
house is named for John Wasson

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and he was one of the
organizers of the Fort Grant--

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Camp Grant Massacre.

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And the person that the
Carrillo school is named after

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was also on that terrible raid.

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So we live in a very,
very strange country.

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And I think this country
has always been like this.

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And I'm sad to say
that it hasn't--

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it seems to me in this regard
it hasn't changed at all.

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So anyway because this kind of
politics is just all around us

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all the time and
that we're reminded

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that nothing has changed.

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Nothing has changed
in 200 or 300 years.

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Not really.

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When I set out to write
The Turquoise Ledge,

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I wanted to be sure not to have
very much of what I was just

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talking about in there.

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And I realized that no
wonder I've always felt

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happiest with animals
and birds and snakes,

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because look at how human
beings treat one another.

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And so most of The Turquoise
Ledge then I decided

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would be devoted to the
beings and the things that

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give me the most happiness.

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And those are the wild things.

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And so now I want to give you
some relief from that unhappy--

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that unhappy thought.

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But one should always be aware.

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One should always be aware
that there's a great deal--

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that there's a
great deal yet still

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to be answered for in
this part of the country.

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So that's kind of the
background of my finding

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out that yes, I
have slave dealers--

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slave keepers-- in my family.

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I dare say I'm not the
only one here tonight.

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