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Bernardo Gallegos' Research
Most of my current writing and research focuses on Indigenous narratives, especially those of slave descendants in New Mexico. I am currently working on a book on Indigenous Identities and Narratives, and another on Genizaros and their descendents. My own ethnic background is closely related to my research and much of my writing is autobiographical as it is historical. I am a mixed-blood (Coyote) of Spanish, Genizaro, and Pueblo Ancestry. All four of my Grandparents are mixed-bloods of the same background.Genizaros were a group of Indians whose descendents recently received state recognition as an Indigenous group by the 2007 New Mexico Legislature. Genizaros were Indian slaves who served in Spanish, Mexican, and American households, as well as some Pueblo Indians who moved into Spanish and Genizaro communities.
Most Genizaros were Navajos, Pawnees, Apaches, Kiowa Apaches, Comanches, Utes, and Paiutes who had been sold into slavery at a young age and functioned as servants and sheepherders. Almost all of the more recent Genizaros in fact were of Navajo ancestry, as the source for Indian slaves during the Mexican and early American period (1821-1880) was the Dine Nation. Throughout the past 300 years many Genizaros intermarried with people from the pueblos and with Spanish and others, thus there is a significant population of persons like myself in New Mexico. During the Spanish and Mexican periods our ancestors were among the founders of several communities on the periphery of New Mexico such as Tome, Belen, Abuquiu, Ranchos de Taos, and San Miguel del Bado.
We are not federally recognized and probably never will be, as we are not a tribe, just a group of slave descendants, much like African Americans today. Both of my families are from villages in the vicinity of Isleta Pueblo just south of Albuquerque. My paternal grandparents from Los Padillas were baptized in the Pueblo. My maternal family is from the Tome-Valencia settlements, which were described as follows by a Spanish Religious official (Fray Menchero)in the 1740s:
New Settlement of the Genizaro Indians
"This is a new settlement, composed of various nations, who are kept in peace, union, and charity by the special providence of God and the efforts of the missionaries,... the Indians are of the various nations that have been taken captive by the Comanche Apaches, a nation so bellicose and so brave that it dominates all those of the interior country...They sell people of all these nations to the Spaniards of the kingdom, by whom they are held in servitude, the adults being instructed by the fathers and the children baptized. It sometimes happens that the Indians are not well treated in this servitude, no thought being given to the hardships of their captivity, and still less to the fact that they are neophytes, and should be cared for and treated with kindness. For this reason many desert and become apostates. Distressed by this, the missionaries informed the governor of it, so that, in a matter of such great importance, he might take the proper measures. Believing the petition to be justified,...he ordered by proclamation throughout the kingdom that all the Indian men and women neophytes who received ill-treatment from their masters should report it to him, so that if the case were proved, he might take the necessary measures. In fact a number did apply to him, and he assigned to them for their residence and settlement, in the name of his Majesty, a place called Valencia and Cerro de Tome, thirty leagues distant from the capital to the south, in a beautiful plain bathed by the Rio (del) Norte. There are congregated more than forty families in a great union, as if they were all of the same nation, all owing to the zeal in the father missionary of Isleta, which is a little more than two leagues from there, to the north. This settlement dates from the year 1740. The people engage in agricultural and are under obligation to go out and explore the country in pursuit of the enemy, which they are doing withgreat bravery and zeal in their obedience, and under the direction of the said father they are erecting their church without any cost to the royal crown."(From: Hackett, Charles W." Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto." Page: 395.Vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute, 1937)
Tome was again mentioned in the following 1780 description of Genizaros:
"In all the Spanish towns of New Mexico there exists a class of Indians called genizaros. These are made up of captive Comanches, apaches, etc. who were taken as youngsters and raised among us, and who have married in the province…They are forced to live among the Spaniards, without lands or other means to subsist except the bow and arrow which serves them when they go into the back country to hunt deer for food…They are fine soldiers, very warlike…Expecting the genizaros to work for daily wages is a folly because of the abuses they have experienced, especially from the alcaldes mayores in the past…In two places, Belen and Tome, some sixty families of genizaros have congregated.(Morfi, Juan Agustin, " Account of Disorders in New Mexico in 1778." translated by Marc Simmons. Isleta, New Mexico: San Agustin Press, 1968.)
Bernardo Gallegos' Grandpa Henry Gallegos, with sons Bernardo III, Mario, and daughter Rosalea.
Bernardo P. Gallegos
Growing up in Albuquerque’s South and North Valleys during the fifties and sixties had a remarkable impact on the way I view and frame educational and social issues. I was raised by my maternal grandparents (Libradita and Amadeo Aragon) in Barelas (just south of downtown) among several cousins, aunts, and uncles who lived in the surrounding houses. As a result of my grandparents increasing health issues however, all three of us moved to my parents home in Atrisco, located across the river.
I attended catholic schools most of my life: Sacred Heart (1-5), St. Mary’s (9-10), and finally St. Pius High (11&12), where I graduated in 1969. After hanging out with hoodlums (who were very dear friends) for a good part of my adolescence, and getting expelled from a public school in the eighth grade, I got into sports and developed a new identity for myself. Upon graduating I received a football scholarship to Fort Lewis College of Colorado, where I started on the varsity my freshman and sophomore year.
After a painful disagreement with a new head coach hired at the end of my sophomore football season, I decided to leave Fort Lewis. I returned to Albuquerque and worked for several months as a coach at the Old Town Boys Club, where once again I was in the midst of a group of kids who were living in dire poverty. Actually I used to attend the Old Town Boys Club myself as a kid as my mother had a theory that it would keep me from hanging out with bad company in my neighborhood. It was a huge mistake. It took a few scuffles, a couple of black eyes and a lot of complaining, for her to be convinced that it was not a safe space for me. As a young adult and a coach however, my experience at the Boys Club was much different. I was now in a position of being a mentor to these kids, many who would be considered "gang-members," in today’s media environment. Actually they were very nice and respectable kids, who for the most part were dealt a bad hand through no fault of their own. My time there greatly impacted my thoughts on what was happening in the world at that time and would have a profound effect on my future academic work.
Fortunately, I had a friend and mentor who had been a football coach at Fort Lewis College during my freshman year and who was now coaching at the University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse. He convinced me to enroll there and play football. After a year as a red-shirt I had a second knee surgery and decided to call it quits for football. Moreover, all sorts of new and engaging ideas were swirling about my life in the form of social movements. The anti-war movement, the Black Movement, the American Indian Movement, the Puerto Rican and the Chicano Movements were in their heyday at that time. I became a sociology major out of a desire to make sense of what was going on around me. The bachelors’ degree in sociology that I earned in 1974 represented the beginning of a lifelong quest to make sense of my place in the world around me, and to attempt to represent and promote the interests of my community and family.
Upon my return to Albuquerque in 1974, I began work as youth counselor in an economically marginalized community adjacent to the community in which I grew up. I was eventually overwhelmed with the enormity of the problems that the kids were facing, and after the second violent death of one of my counselees under the age of 16, I left to become a teacher. After earning a teaching credential at the University of Albuquerque, I began my career in education. I was a middle school Humanities teacher for two years in Cuba and Belen New Mexico before completing a Masters Degree in Education in 1980. I enrolled in a Ph.D. program shortly thereafter and completed the degree in 1987.
It was a tumultuous time as my only daughter, Rosalea Luz, Anna Gallegos, who was born at the beginning of my Ph.D. program, experienced severe brain damage as a result of poor head control during childbirth, and other bad decisions by hospital staff. She lived out her short life blind, severely retarded, unable to fully move her limbs, and experiencing severe and frequent seizures. It was the most painful period of my life. Rosalea’s life left a huge mark on my psyche and has probably affected me in ways that I can’t even imagine (see photo on left). But I had also been blessed with Rosalea’s older brothers, Bernardo and Mario, and her half-brother Armando.
As an academic I have served as professor at California State University, Los Angeles, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Washington State University. Currently I am Vice-President for Development for the Indian Pueblos Federal Development Corporation, Hanu University Division in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
I attended catholic schools most of my life: Sacred Heart (1-5), St. Mary’s (9-10), and finally St. Pius High (11&12), where I graduated in 1969. After hanging out with hoodlums (who were very dear friends) for a good part of my adolescence, and getting expelled from a public school in the eighth grade, I got into sports and developed a new identity for myself. Upon graduating I received a football scholarship to Fort Lewis College of Colorado, where I started on the varsity my freshman and sophomore year.
After a painful disagreement with a new head coach hired at the end of my sophomore football season, I decided to leave Fort Lewis. I returned to Albuquerque and worked for several months as a coach at the Old Town Boys Club, where once again I was in the midst of a group of kids who were living in dire poverty. Actually I used to attend the Old Town Boys Club myself as a kid as my mother had a theory that it would keep me from hanging out with bad company in my neighborhood. It was a huge mistake. It took a few scuffles, a couple of black eyes and a lot of complaining, for her to be convinced that it was not a safe space for me. As a young adult and a coach however, my experience at the Boys Club was much different. I was now in a position of being a mentor to these kids, many who would be considered "gang-members," in today’s media environment. Actually they were very nice and respectable kids, who for the most part were dealt a bad hand through no fault of their own. My time there greatly impacted my thoughts on what was happening in the world at that time and would have a profound effect on my future academic work.
Fortunately, I had a friend and mentor who had been a football coach at Fort Lewis College during my freshman year and who was now coaching at the University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse. He convinced me to enroll there and play football. After a year as a red-shirt I had a second knee surgery and decided to call it quits for football. Moreover, all sorts of new and engaging ideas were swirling about my life in the form of social movements. The anti-war movement, the Black Movement, the American Indian Movement, the Puerto Rican and the Chicano Movements were in their heyday at that time. I became a sociology major out of a desire to make sense of what was going on around me. The bachelors’ degree in sociology that I earned in 1974 represented the beginning of a lifelong quest to make sense of my place in the world around me, and to attempt to represent and promote the interests of my community and family.
Upon my return to Albuquerque in 1974, I began work as youth counselor in an economically marginalized community adjacent to the community in which I grew up. I was eventually overwhelmed with the enormity of the problems that the kids were facing, and after the second violent death of one of my counselees under the age of 16, I left to become a teacher. After earning a teaching credential at the University of Albuquerque, I began my career in education. I was a middle school Humanities teacher for two years in Cuba and Belen New Mexico before completing a Masters Degree in Education in 1980. I enrolled in a Ph.D. program shortly thereafter and completed the degree in 1987.
It was a tumultuous time as my only daughter, Rosalea Luz, Anna Gallegos, who was born at the beginning of my Ph.D. program, experienced severe brain damage as a result of poor head control during childbirth, and other bad decisions by hospital staff. She lived out her short life blind, severely retarded, unable to fully move her limbs, and experiencing severe and frequent seizures. It was the most painful period of my life. Rosalea’s life left a huge mark on my psyche and has probably affected me in ways that I can’t even imagine (see photo on left). But I had also been blessed with Rosalea’s older brothers, Bernardo and Mario, and her half-brother Armando.
As an academic I have served as professor at California State University, Los Angeles, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Washington State University. Currently I am Vice-President for Development for the Indian Pueblos Federal Development Corporation, Hanu University Division in Albuquerque, New Mexico.