Sante Fe, NM:  In a stunning turn of events, Governor of the Northern Territories Juan de Oñate was recalled to Mexico City today by Spanish authorities for excessive violence and brutality against both Natives and colonists. Given the recent history of Spanish conquistadors – everything from DeSoto’s constant demand for young girls to Cortez caulking his canoes with the boiled fat of victims – Oñate put in some effort to be censored.

Former-governor Oñate’s family made their fortune in the slave mines of Zacatecas. After invading Pueblo land in 1598, Oñate called in all the Pueblo leaders, asking them to pledge allegiance to God and King Phillip of Spain or “be put to the sword and destroyed by fire” and their wives and children sold into slavery. He documented that they all, “of their own free will, wished to have Don Philip, our lord, as their king, and to render obedience and vassalage to him voluntarily, without compulsion from anyone.”

In his first year in office, 1599, Oñate famously captured Acoma Pueblo. After three days, the Spanish took over the city, killing hundreds in the process. At trial, the entire town was found guilty. All survivors from age 12 to 25 were sentenced to 20 years of slavery. The elders were sent to the Great Plains. The children were given to the priests and nuns. For at least 25 of the men, their right foot was cut off as part of their servitude.

That’s how an imaginary newspaper might have reported the departure of Governor Oñate. After a hearing in Mexico City, he was found guilty, banished from New Mexico for life, and returned to Spain.

In 1997, a statue honoring Oñate north of Santa Fe was vandalized; its right foot was cut off.

The shooter, the son of a local sheriff and former Republican candidate for Albuquerque City Council. On the police scanner, the cops called the militia “armed friendlies”.

Now, in 2020, after protests in Albuquerque left one man shot and in critical condition, city managers are removing the statue “temporarily”, declaring it a “public health hazard”.

The Pueblo still live at Acoma today; it is the oldest continuously inhabited town in the United States.

Acoma Pueblo, or Sky City, a fortress town on a mesa.