FAKE New Mexico History!!!!

There is one whole bunch of fake New Mexico history. A whole bunch. Most historical writers writing in the period when Americans started showing up in New Mexico (about 1810) to New Mexico statehood (1912) had a lot of incorrect information in their writings. This incorrect information was intentional due to American racism, dislike of New Mexicans etc., and/or  unintentional out of plain old American ignorance. But there is so damn much of it. New Mexican historical figures are discounted, disparaged or just plain ignored. And these "historians" were not all from the United States, some were our own people writing out of ignorance of their own history.

To illustrate this just think back to the books and movies of the period being discussed here. How many of these where the story is in New Mexico and there are no New Mexican Hispanos, none. It is as if we did not exist. This case is the same with New Mexican historians. Most all of them prior to the very last part of the last century or right now.

Why is that you ask? Why is my cutoff the last few years of the 20th century? I will tell you why. There are 2, 3, 4 or more major reasons why.

1. The internet age. Information can and is shared easily. Before this internet age all I could do was fume and rage when I read some historical garbage. That my friends is no longer the case. This weblog being a case in point.
2. New Mexicans are now doing their own research and can see for themselves the lies and distortions of our history by people, who for the most part despised us. We cannot avoid seeing this if you look around.
3. "Historians" of previous times did not anticipate people in the future (us) being able to do this type of research. They did not anticipate that their lies would be exposed. That is not to say that some of these "historians" did not believe the story line they were publishing.
4. Another reason is that historical documents written in Spanish and unavailable to earlier "historians" are being translated by a cadre of dedicated scholars working day and night. The original of these scholars was Fray Anjelico Chavez. New Mexicans owe him and current scholars a huge debt of gratitude.

Here is a good article that illustrates the ignorance and or racism of these early "historians". A good concise read. Click on the high lighted link below:

Office of the New Mexico Stat Historian