By SHERRY ROBINSON
All She Wrote
The history police are at it again. Taos officials want to rename Kit Carson Park, and the president aims to scrub “propaganda” from the venerable Smithsonian. Freeing the historical record from uncomfortable facts doesn’t change anything.
I’ve written before that history isn’t pretty. History is what happened, good and bad. History has shaped where we are today. If we ignore history, it repeats itself until we citizens finally get it.
Kit Carson, one of New Mexico’s best known historical figures, was a scout, soldier, Indian agent, rancher and trader. In 1862 Gen. James Carleton ordered Carson to attack Mescalero Apaches, kill all the men and capture women and children. It was a brutal campaign, but Carson ignored the order to kill all the men, and the Mescaleros became the first occupants of the Bosque Redondo reservation on the Pecos River.
The next year Carleton ordered Carson to round up Navajos. Carson didn’t want to lead the campaign and tried to resign, but Carleton cajoled him into staying. In “Blood and Thunder,” author Hampton Sides describes how Carson grimly carried out the ruthless, scorched-earth campaign that Carleton demanded. After troops destroyed their crops, livestock and orchards, the starving Navajos surrendered.
Contrary to popular belief, Carson didn’t oversee the terrible Long Walk to the Bosque Redondo. He rode with the first group (there were many groups over several months) to the Rio Grande and then went home. Taoseños greeted him as a hero. Navajos and Hispanic settlers had fought each other for 200 years.
The poorly managed Bosque Redondo became a concentration camp overwhelmed by hunger and disease. Thousands died. In 1868 survivors were allowed to return home. The Taos Town Council wanted to rename the park in 2014, but it didn’t happen. The proposal has resurfaced. A committee has studied Carson and listened to guest speakers. I give them credit for tackling the question more responsibly than their neighbor down the road. In Santa Fe a handful of vandals tore down a public monument as the city’s mayor abdicated leadership. Subsequent city deliberations included not one historian.
Arguments for Carson: In his time he was a nationally known and respected citizen of Taos. His home near the plaza is on the Historic Register. “He was on the ‘right’ side of history at many times and in many places in his lifetime,” Hampton Side said. “He befriended many Indian tribes and was a sympathetic observer of Native American culture.”
Arguments against: His role in the Long Walk blights his legacy. As the author of two books about the Apaches, I can say that Kit Carson was hardly the worst villain in the Indian wars. And I applaud efforts to examine the Long Walk, especially the state’s exhibit at Fort Sumner Historic Site. The facility stepped up after some righteous prodding by Diné young people.
For years, the museum told only the army’s side of the story. In 1990 a group of teens stopped at the site’s prayer shrine and saw more about Billy the Kid than the Navajo experience. They wrote to the state: “We the young generation of the Diné were here on June 27, 1990, at 7:30 p.m. We find Fort Sumner’s historical site discriminating and not telling the true story behind what really happened to our ancestors in 1864-1868.” They asked the museum to display what really happened.
After several attempts, the site in 2021 opened a powerful new exhibit. The Bosque Redondo Memorial features life-size murals by Diné artist Shonto Begay. Historian Heidi Toth described its impact as “equal parts sad, uncomfortable, and inspiring.”
Manuelito Wheeler, director of the Navajo Nation Museum, has said he wants the truth of Bosque Redondo told “so America can know and so the world can know, but also, so that it won’t happen again.”
This kind of uncomfortable history is now under the gun at the venerable Smithsonian.
President Trump is exasperated at exhibits depicting “how horrible our Country is” and says he’ll do to museums what he’s done to higher education. Museums that don’t reflect his vision of history could see funding cuts and loss of nonprofit status. The park’s name change pales by comparison, but in either case it amounts to trying to sanitize the historical record. We all like an inspiring story, but history isn’t all Betsy Ross stitching the flag. The ultimate history lesson is to not repeat the mistakes of the past.