Leslie Marmon Silko:
One of the reasons I felt I must write the essays in this book was to remedy this country's
shocking ignorance of its own history.
U.S. history courses in elementary and secondary schools usually begin with the arrival of
the Englishspeaking Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock or, if the teacher is quite daring, with the
failed colony at Roanoke, Virginia- Yet the true history of the United States begins thousands
of years earlier with the stories of the paleo-Indian mammoth hunters on the plains of what
is now northeastern and north-central New Mexico. These ancestors of the Pueblo Indian
people did more than survive, they learned to thrive under the harsh conditions of the
southwest desert.
In 1540, when the Spaniards marched into what is now Arizona and New Mexico, they found
large, prosperous villages which reminded them of towns in Spain; and so they called the people
"indios pueblos"-"pueblo" is the Spanish word for "town." The "indios pueblos" did not take the
invasion of their land lying down- they resisted bitterly, and in 1680, they expelled the
Spaniards to El Paso for twelve years.
In 1689, to make peace with the Pueblos, the King of Spain recognized each of the Pueblos
as sovereign nations under international law Thus, the Pueblos of New Mexico (and Hopi of
Arizona) were acknowledged as nations by international law, almost one hundred years
before the United States even existed.
If our U.S. educational system actually gave students a complete history of this country,
a great deal of prejudice aimed at Native Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans,
and Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens might be ended as our school children began to understand
who really settled this country, and who really did the work of planting crops, mining ore,
and building cities and railroads.
Until the whole story of the origins of the United States of America is known, there can be
no justice, and without justice, there can be no peace.
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