Daniel Stange de Acatl
Posted February 26, 2026
First developments in the continental States
Donde se encuentran los pueblos originarios.
Along the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo) the Tewa and Tarahumara, among many other pueblos built great cities and routes between the Rockies and the Valle de México. Chaco Canyon is among the very ancient sites but most of our structures were made with natural recycling materials and without TLC they melt back into the natural environment. We never see modern film including the imaginative reconstructions that must have existed. And likely the early colonial Spanish invaders occupied their adobe and stone ceremonial centers and enslaved their youth to dismantle and reshape the early haciendas. Just like they had done in Tenochtitlan with the great pyramids that became the Catholic churches.
San Luis Colorado has a church that sits on the foundation stones that were placed in 1555, obviously an outpost of their exploration. Expansion is seldom educated from the south to the north. When Spanish had pushed beyond Guadalajara, by 1542, the next generation of explorers like Juan de Oñate who had already invaded Zacatecans with Nuño de Guzmán in 1530 began to make plans northward. The Chichimeca had many victorious battles to detain the expansion including the battle in Nochistlan in 1541 where the famous Pedro de Alvardo was killed. When Oñate invaded Zacateca, he and Guzman had 500 Conquistadors and 10,000 Native Tlaxcaltecan warriors. The ratio was always as such like Pedro de Alvardo’s force composed of only 450 Spaniards and 30,000 Aztecs.
In 1546, a rich Basque nobleman, Juan de Tolosa was shown the silver mines of present-day Zacatecas. The silver mines there are the most prosperous in the world still today. This silver rush spurs the further establishments and occupation of the Pueblo Native homelands and access to the River for transportation. The rich pueblo lands and agriculture skirting the Great River whose headwater is San Luis Valley Colorado obviously enticed the expansions. After the Spanish made financial arrangements with Guachichiles natives and Tepehuanes and ended the Chichimeca wars in 1589, they pushed in the Tigua and Apacheria north gentrifying Pueblos into Haciendas. Santa Fe was established in 1610 by Pedro de Peralta while the English colony invaders were freezing to death in their stick forts on the Atlantic seaboard.
In 1680, The pueblo revolt was able to expel Spanish authority all the way back to El Paso del Norte and further. But there was already old trade routes and Genizaro people had reoccupied the haciendas, so when Diego de Vargas returned in 1725, there was quick mission conversion and the resilience of native people adapted to colonial lifestyle. Especially with the new customs, tools and other trinkets the Europeans introduced, especially black powder for weapons and animal husbandry with sheep, pigs and chickens. The nomad buffalo hunters were keen to acquire easy arrow tips and metal knives, but the Spanish would not trade weapons unless they brought human babies for slavery. This practice fueled animosity between different tribal nations.
The Genizaro peoples soon outnumbered Spanish nobles and they built buffer towns like Mora, Abique, Gallinas and others to diminish the frequency or ferocity of Native rebellions. Tlaxcallan families were often migrated from southern México because they had converted to Catholic faith way back when Cortez fought in Texcoco. The Indigenous way of life is very spiritual, so the early Chicanos easily bonded with Catholicism and missionaries were able to disrupt ancestral networks. The church was involved with the sale of native children so intensely that there was evidence of a priest selling a native baby for $10 in 1952! The year my mother was born!
The 18th century was an explosive century of established southwestern expansion to the north and west to California. Northern California has an incredible long and sparse publicized colonial period with various interactions of migrating populations from Asian, African and Hindu tribes. By 1821 when a national identity was declared by the expulsion of Spanish soldiers and México continued the expansion of colonialism. But the essence of the people working the land were American Indians, whose customs, and values were evident in the quick desire of Tejanos to break away from México in the south.
This struggle coincided with the civil war United States and when the Mexican northern lands became US property in 1848 and the Genizaro people were given some autonomy they enjoyed a short period of comfort tending to local issues. Their pueblos were communal lands and though the Land Grants of the Spanish, that were supposed to be honored by the treaty of Hidalgo-Guadalupe; the people working the lands and building acequias were set upon by a new colonizer. The state of Colorado has its inauguration in 1876 but the land surveyors and county government taxation systems would not see any enforcement for another few decades.
In the San Luis Valley, when county lines were drawn and English Only documents and regulations were handed to the Chicanos; they were unaware of plans to uproot their hard-earned lands. The new hoard of Anglos began to buy out and force Chicanos off their lands so intensely that an advocacy union was formed to protect and fight for Mexican Americans. The taxes and influx of white immigrants required money, so Chicanos worked in expanded agriculture and mining ventures, but were abused regularly. La Sociedad Protección Mutua De Trabajadores Unidos – SPMDTU.org –formed in 1900 with Celedonio Mondragon and others in response to the abuse. People remember the acronym as Some poor Mexican Died tied Up! Because that was the reality of what was happening to our families. The Ludlow massacre was another fine example of American policy of those early 20th century progress times. Most of the victims were Chicano families.
Today, it is nearly impossible for Chicanos to not struggle because our entire history is seeded through the conflict of colonization. Fortunately, our essence remains Indigenous and culture is a lens through which we reflect upon the world. Chicano culture is so easily adaptable because it was a response to the imposition of foreign interests. It carries a spirit of freedom that cannot be purchased. It reflects a communion with the Lands of Anahiuac – North America, that we share with increasing BIPOC community members.
Chicano has become a way to acknowledge that distinct awareness and pride in the indigenous nature of our family. Many of us are still learning the histories and value of what our Native Ancestry bequeaths us. It is a vision of a new horizon that could help humanity find a better path forward.
Mexika Tiahui
Danny Stange de Acatl is a Denver Native and Cultural activist that serves his community on various levels.
