Until the Land Can Breathe Again
Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . In downtown Santa Fe Plaza, surrounded by trees draped with Christmas lights, a plain woooden box squat oddly in the center. Here for the first time, on a short vacation, I found out from a local resident only two days ago what the box had replaced: an obelisk honoring Union soldiers, "heroes," according to the plaque, who died in battle with "savage Indians." In October 2020, after many peaceful protests and much foot-dragging by the mayor, Native activists and their allies took things into their hands and dragged down the obelisk with ropes and chains. Photo credit: Luis Sanchez Saturno / New Mexican file photo KRQE I was familiar with the image of the American Civil War as the war to end slavery. I was ignorant of the fact that Union forces consolidated Northern control over New Mexico by massacring its Native peoples and dispossessing them of their homelands. "When is an obelisk no