A Celebration of Spanish Conquest Ends in New Mexico. Not Everyone Is Pleased.

SANTA FE — For as long as nearly anyone here can remember, Hispanic residents have donned the garb of conquistadors and European nobility once a year to celebrate the 1692 reconquest of New Mexico from Native Americans who submitted to the Spanish Empire after a grisly revolt.

But after escalating protests by Native Americans who saw the reenactment as a racist attempt to gloss over atrocities carried out by Spanish colonizers, the annual tradition known as the Entrada officially came to an end on Friday, replaced by a multidenominational prayer gathering to begin the annual Fiesta de Santa Fe.

“The Entrada grew into a wedge between us, exposing the deep wounds of colonialism,” said Regis Pecos, a former governor of Cochiti Pueblo, one of New Mexico’s 23 federally recognized tribes. Mr. Pecos, who negotiated on behalf of Native American leaders to end the pageant, added: “We know the reconquest was anything but peaceful. So why celebrate something so divisive?”

... historians have documented that De Vargas grappled for years with protracted resistance from various tribes. Trying to quell such defiance, his forces carried out mass executions of dozens of Native Americans in Santa Fe, not far from where the Entrada was long reenacted.

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