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125 Epilogue ~1~ Let me close with an imagined narrative exchange between Esperanza López, or Hope, as my mother was renamed in grade school by los americanos, and Simon J. Ortiz, or Hihdruutsi, which is how the famous poet is known in Acoma. My mother has been sitting at the kitchen table—almost literally— for the few years I have been writing this book. She has read the Historia along with essays here and chapters there of nearly all I myself have read about this long poem. She will not read anything if I ask her to, but if I strategically leave books and papers lying about she will read until well past midnight. I know she will have an opinion on whatever she picks up. We have talked and talked about what took place in 1598 and in the years that followed Spain’s settlement in la nueva México.While she is proud of her Nuevomexicano heritage, my mother is angry at los españoles. Across the house from where I write about Villagrá’s poem in another room, I hear her say to herself, to the walls, to the past, and to me,“Pobre gente,¿por qué les hiciéron así? I am so ashamed of what happened there.” She tells me of her pride in New Mexico—“mi país”—but at the same time of her anger and chagrin at reading this epic story of a massacre “there.” She has visited Acoma during Christmas, when the pueblo is open to everyone and people are invited into individual homes to eat. She remembers the people she met as effusive in their welcome. I fill in the story.The Acoma people—those five hundred who survived—were forced down from the mesa and marched to what came to be called Santo Domingo Pueblo,where they were subjected to trial for treason and murder .“Treason?” she asks.“What did they do but defend themselves?” I tell her about the men who had their feet severed and the children who were 126 epilogue sent to Mexico. I read Oñate’s sentence to her.The look she gives when I finish is haunted, and haunting. She as much as orders me, “Print his order for everyone to know what he did.All these years I thought he was a good man, pero era muy estúpido y muy cruel.” Here, then, is the order Oñate delivered in February 1599. It stands in my book as another kind of commemorative against the regal bronzes. R In the criminal case between the royal court and the Indians of the pueblo and fortress of Acoma ...accused of having wantonly killed don Juan de Zaldívar Oñate,maese de campo general of this expedition,and Captains Felipe de Escalante and Diego Núñez, eight soldiers, and two servants, and of other crimes; and in addition to this, after Vicente de Zaldívar Mendoza, my sargento mayor, whom I sent for this purpose in my place,had repeatedly called upon them to accept peace,not only did they refuse to do so, but actually received him with hostility, wherefore, taking into account the merits of the case and the guilt resulting therefrom , I must and do sentence all of the Indian men and women from the said pueblo under arrest, as follows: The males who are over twenty-five years of age I sentence to have one foot cut off and to twenty years of personal servitude. The males between the ages of twelve and twenty-five I sentence likewise to twenty years of personal servitude. The women over twelve years of age I sentence likewise to twenty years of personal servitude. Two Indians from the province of Moqui who were present at the pueblo of Acoma and who fought and were apprehended, I sentence to have the right hand cut off and to be set free in order that they may convey to their land the news of this punishment. All the children under twelve years of age I declare free and innocent of the grave offense for which I punish their parents.And because of my duty to aid, support, and protect both the boys and girls under twelve years of age, I place the girls under the care of our father commissary , Fray Alonso Martínez, in order that he, as a Christian and qualified person, may distribute them in this kingdom or elsewhere in monasteries or other...

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