Kristen’s Reviews > New Mexico: An Interpretive History > Status Update

“Finally, in 1924, the matter was judiciously settled with passage of the Pueblo Lands Act which set terms for the eviction of—and in some cases, compensation for—squatters on patented Indian grants. The ancient land rights extended to the Pueblos by Spain were at last recognized as perfect and unimpaired.”

“In Congress, the Bursum Bill was recalled from the House by unanimous consent, with the explanation that its intent had been misrepresented to the lawmakers.”

The Pueblo spokesmen traveled across country accompanied by John Collier and carrying the venerable Spanish and Lincoln canes as symbols of their authority.

“Messages went out, just as they had 242 years before, at the time of the great Pueblo Revolt, summoning the Indians to unite. Delegations from each village came together at Santo Domingo, north of Albuquerque; they formed an All-Pueblo Council and pledged to use every resource available to defeat the Bursum Bill.”

It was the youthful and intense poet John Collier who learned of the onerous Bursum Bill before congress and sounded the alarm. With Taos Indian Tony Luhan, as his interpreter, Collier met far into the night with the Pueblo elders, explaining the full implications of Senator Bursum’s legislation.”

The Indians were delivered an additional blow by another provision of the bill proposing that future challenges to Pueblo water rights & land should fall under the jurisdiction of the unfriendly state courts…[the Pueblos] nearly missed hearing about the bill…In fact it seemed there was a deliberate conspiracy of silence on the part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to keep the measure quiet until it had become law

“In May of 1921, Fall asked Senator Bursum to draft a bill to resolve the land crisis. The final measure that emerged after much tinkering and revision was designed to confirm all non-Indian claims of title held for more than ten years prior to statehood in 1912.”

“The land base would have continued to erode had not the correct in 1913 reversed its earlier stand and ruled that the United States was in fact responsible for the welfare of the Pueblo people, just as it was for other Indian tribes in the country”

“The Spanish regime had diligently protected [the Pueblo Indian’s] property boundaries, upheld the doctrine that their lands were inalienable, and provided free legal services. Now the Pueblos found themselves thrown on their own meager resources and deprived of the supporting arm of the government.”

“Much of the reason resided in the continuing dominance of the Hispano population. Throughout territorial days, and indeed until the 1940s descendants of the colonial Spaniards constituted a majority of New Mexico’s people. In the other borderland provinces acquired from Mexico in 1848–Texas, Arizona, and California—the original inhabitants by contrast had quickly been swamped by incoming Anglo-Americans”