1 PETITION FOR FEDERAL RECOGNITION OF THE PIRO/MANSO/TIWA INDIAN TRIBE, PUEBLO OF SAN JUAN DE GUADALUPE LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO by Barbara E. Kauffman Allogan Slagle Stephen Conn Performed under ANA Grant No. 90NA0810/01 SUBMITTED TO THE PIRO/MANSO/TIWA INDIAN TRIBE, PUEBLO OF SAN JUAN DE GUADALUPE, LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO. JANUARY 1, 1992 PMT-PFD-V001-D0005 Page 1of273 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS I . INTRODUCTION 4 II. ORIGINS 8 III. MIGRATION TO THE MESILLA VALLEY, 1843 - 1914 34 IV. THE CORPORATION: A FAILED PARTNERSHIP, 1914 - 1947 81 V. DISSENSION AND REORGANIZATION 1948 - 1990 l4S ASPECTS OF PMT CULTURAL IDENTITY MODERN PMT SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, & POLITICAL ORGANIZATION GENEAOLOGIES AND MARRIAGE PATTERNS Yl. EVALUATION IN TERMS OF THE FEDERAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT CRITERIA 2J' REFERENCES 24<q APPENDICES Appendix A: Research Procedures and Researchers' Resumes Appendix B: Geneaologies Compiled by Anthropologist and Staff Appendix C: Supporting Documents PMT-PFD-V001-D0005 Page 2 of 273 3 LIST OF TABLES ("T1> Be APPl!'NDCOJ I. Piro/ Manso/ Tiwa Tribe and its El Paso Piro Origins II. San Juan de Guadalupe Tiwa's Ysleta Tigua [TIWA] Origins III. Known El Paso Piro Immigration to the Mesilla Valley IV. Known Ysleta Tigua Immigration to the Mesilla Valley V. Las Cruces Pueblo Intermarriage VI. Las Cruces Children Attending Indian School VII. Piro or Tigua Related Corporation Members VIII. Assignment of House Lots by Blocks, Indian Town of Guadalupe IX. Ancestry of 1971 San Juan de Guadalupe Tiwa Tribal Members X. Ancestry of Additional Tribal Members PMT-PFD-V001-D0005 Page 3 of 273 4 CHAPTER I: I. INTRODUCTION 1. History of the effort to obtain acknowledgement 2. Summary of procedures 3. Organization of the report 4. Summary of evidence 1. The Piro/Manso/Tiwa Indian Tribe, Pueblo of San Juan de Guadalupe (hereafter referred to as PMT) has sought Federal acknowledgement for many long and frustrating years. Their effort was underway in the 1960s and continues to the present day, involving at various times the efforts of several law firms, Native American assistance groups, anthropologists, ethnologists, and Tribal volunteers. The Piro/Manso/Tiwa Indian Tribe has sought acknowledgment through both the legislative process and through the legal process set forth in 25 CFR 83 and administered by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the late 1960s, the PMT began lobbying their Congressional Representative, Mr. Manuel Lujan, Jr., to introduce a bill into Congress that would grant the Tribe Federal Recognition. This action followed on the heels of the successful effort of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo in El Paso, Texas to gain a form of Federal recognition through the legislative process. On January 18, 1971, the Piro/Manso/Tiwa Tribe requested Federal acknowledgment for the Tribe. Then-Cacigue Vicente Roybal submitted a (pre-25 C. F. R. 54/ 83) petition letter with some exhibits to the U. S. Department of Interior BIA Area Office in Albuquerque, New Mexico [(Petition, January 18, 1971, San Juan de Guadalupe (Tortugas) Tewa Indian Pueblo, New Mexico, the Piro/Manso/Tiwa Tribe to U. S. Department of the Interior/ Bureau of Indian Affairs, Albuquerque Area Office, with Chronology of the Tewa (Tigua) Indian Pueblo of San Juan de Guadalupe (Tortugas), New Mexico]. The Tribe also submitted a request for support to Congressman Manuel Lujan of New Mexico. However, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, after looking over the proposed bill and supporting documents which the PMT had submitted to Representative Lujan in 1971, recommended that the bill should not be introduced because of its broad scope (Letter, March 11, 1971, Commissioner Louis R. Bruce to U. S. Representative Manuel Lujan), adding however that if the Tribe could not qualify for assistance under the Economic Opportunity Act, the BIA would have no objection to legislation similar to the Ysleta del Sur Act (82 Stat. 93), April 12, 1968, which had given limited recognition to Yselta del Sur Pueblo in order to make them eligible for programs under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (78 Stat. 508), and for state programs. Congressional delegation chose to accept this advice, and the bill died. (See facsimile of Bill). 2. In the mid-1970s the PMT engaged the legal firm of Nordhaus, Haltom and Taylor to prepare a petition for Federal Acknowledgement on behalf of the PMT-PFD-V001-D0005 Page 4 of 273 5 tribe. While a draft petition was completed in 1979, the Tribal Council was concerned about the quality and thoroughness of the document, and it was never submitted. In 1981, a grant from the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) enabled the PMT to resume the petition process. At this time, NARF engaged a team of researchers to work on gathering the ethnological and genealogical data necessary to complete the petition. A vast amount of historical, ethnographic, and genealogical data were gathered and a draft petition with supporting documentation was prepared by Dr. Terry Reynolds of NARF (Reynolds 1981). Mary Taylor supplied technical assistance based on twenty years' research in the Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, the Archives of the Archdiocese of Durango, the Archives of Janos, Carrizal Archives, the Ecclesiastical Archives of the Diocese of Chihuahua, and private historical archives in Chihuahua. Diana Vari provided general historical background information regarding the American Southwest and U. S. Indian policy. Terry Reynolds and Mary Taylor provided historical findings. The grant budget was, however, too small to enable the researchers to finish their research, and critical sections of the petition, concerning the modern sociopoli ti cal organization of the Tribe, were left unfinished (Materials from the previous work of these researchers have been incorporated, with additions and revisions and newly-discovered material, into the present petition). In 1988, the Piro/Manso/Tiwa Indian Tribe received a grant from the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) to complete work on their petition. Early in 1989, they engaged the services of Mr. Stephen Conn, a consulting attorney, Mr. Allegan Slagle, a consulting attorney and field anthropologist, and Batcho and Kauffman Associates, consulting anthropologists. This team has worked with the Tribe to prepare the present petition for submittal. Since several researchers had collected data and supporting documentation prior to the present team's engagement by the PMT, considerable groundwork had already been laid for the completion of the petition. These earlier consultants carried out extensive archival research in both English and Spanish language documents from the 18th through 20th centuries, prepared family history questionnaires and data sheets, compiled genealogical data, and carried out interviews with Tribal members and people in the Las Cruces area. In general, the Reynolds report ( 1981) provides an excel lent and detailed history of the PMT up to the time of World War II. However, due to funding constraints, it does not adequately address the modern sociocultural and political organization of the Tribe. Moreover, the prior ethnographic work in the region had focused on population groups tangential to the Pueblo Indian population in the Las Cruces area, particularly on residents of Tortugas, New Mexico, many of whom are not only not members of the Tribe, but lack American Indian descent or cultural affiliations (Hurt 1952; Loomis and Leonard 1938; Oppenheimer 1957). The publicly displayed cultural activities of the religious corporation created as an auxiliary to the Tribe in 1914, Los Indigenes de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, had been almost entirely expropriated by non-Indians, primarily second generation Mexican descendants, by the time of these studies (Beckett (1980, 1979, 1974). No extensive study of social or political organization of the PMT or its modern organization and composition existed. Some ethnographic research undertaken to establish the social boundaries of the present group performed earlier has been lost or otherwise become unavailable to the present project staff. PMT-PFD-V001-D0005 Page 5 of 273 6 the PMT. In addition, the present research team has focused on more fully documenting the social and economic pressures of the wider social system into which the PMT was and is linked. Examining the Tribe in the context of the dominant Hispanic/ Anglo social, political, and economic system helps to explain the individual and group decisions of the Tribe and its members as they have sought to preserve their cultural and tribal identity. Interviewers included Barbara Kauffman, Steven Conn, Allegan Slagle and Fred Almarez, who have conducted interviews and observed community activities from 1989 to 1991. Nuclear families were represented in the interviews, and often were questioned in a group setting. Most interviews are recorded on audio and 1/4" video/vhs formats. There were interviewees from, or associated with, Tortugas, Las Cruces, El Paso and California. Present and former ceremonial and administrative officers participated extensively in the process, as interviewees and as facilitators, particularly Mr. Lamberto Trujillo, the Tribal Secretary, and Louis Roybal, the Vice-Chairman. Most were conducted in English. The interview format covered: geneaological histories of interviewees and their households; the history of the PMT Tribe in the Las Cruces area; interactions of tribal members with each other and the Tribe as well as with other communities and governments (including other tribes). Follow-up interviews expanded on various topics or cross-checked information. Researchers attended tribal meetings and gatherings at the East Side Conununi ty Center near the heart of the core community in Las Cruces, at Picacho, at A Mountain and other sites, accompanied by tribal members, and in particular, officers of the tribal government. Videotape and audiotape records were made to document many of these inquiries. The investigators involved the Tribe and its members and all potential tribal (member) interviewees in the development of the research instrument and protocol and its administration, explaining in detail its purposes and procedures at meetings in 1989 and 1990.