I visited the Cross of the Martyrs in Santa Fe recently. I lived in Santa Fe for several years, and I used to like to walk up the stairs there, to the cross, and look out across the city, especially near sunset. I hadn’t been back for years, and had forgotten about all the plaques lining the steps up to the cross, and what they said.

In 1680, the Pueblos, from Toas all the way over to Hopi, organized a brilliantly executed revolt against the Spanish colonizers. The uprising succeeded in ousting the Spaniards for a while, and 16 Spanish priests were killed in the process. These are the martyrs for whom the cross was erected. The Puebloans were angry about a lot of things: The Spanish had burned their cornfields, built churches in their villages, tried to stamp out their religion and had enslaved members of various tribes.

The text on the plaques at Cross of the Martyrs never acknowledge the Native American martyrs. In fact, it blames the revolt not on Spanish colonialism, but on drought. It serves to glorify conquest, imperialism and colonization, while demeaning the contributions of the indigenous people to the rich culture of today’s New Mexico. It’s the sort of historical distortion one finds all over Santa Fe, even as it capitalizes on the region’s Native American heritage.

These photos are my visual response to that distortion.

(Source: ginandgelato)