This month, we remember the history of Pablo Abeita, Isleta citizen, governor, judge, judicial clerk, postmaster, store owner, and representative for Isleta on the All Pueblo Council of Governors.
Abeita was born in Isleta, New Mexico, on February 7, 1871, to a well-established family in Isleta; his grandfather Ambrosio lent $18,000 in gold to the United States government to pay back wages to Union troops defending New Mexico (Ebright, p. 4.) His family sent him to the local Jesuit school, and he attended St. Michael’s High School and College at Santa Fe; he was well educated formally, learned a few vocational tasks (blacksmithing), and was fluent in English, Spanish, Tiwa, Shiwi’ma (Zuni), and Towa. He married Maria Dolores Abeita when he was 17 and they had five sons. He won $50 in a local contest to name the KiMo movie theatre in Albuquerque. He ran a post office and a general store (p. 121). He worked as a typesetter for the Albuquerque Morning Democrat and this work made him knowledgeable about current events and led him to a habit of writing letters to the editor in the 1930s, advocating for Pueblo citizen issues of the day (Ebright, 19.) Starting in 1894, when he was 24, he served as Lieutenant Governor of Isleta several times throughout his adulthood.
One of his more significant accomplishments was serving as a judge in the Court of Indian Offenses. In April 1883, Secretary of the Interior Henry Teller established the court, as he thought it would further assimilate tribal members and eliminate traditional spiritual and cultural practices, the influence of spiritual leaders, and polygamy, and would change cultural practices about property rights. The courts were established gradually throughout the country, with a focus on tribes that did not have their own courts already. Vine Deloria observed that “the status of these courts was never very clear,…and they were described…as ‘mere educational and disciplinary instrumentalities by which the Government of the United States is endeavoring to improve and elevate the condition of these dependent tribes to whom it sustains the relation of guardian (Deloria, 115).” Deloria also pointed out that these courts were poorly funded (115). By 1910, the Pueblos of New Mexico were added to the program, and in 1913 Pablo Abeita was selected to serve as one of the three judges for the 19 pueblos; he served for ten years (Sando, 182.) Abeita used his position to resolve criminal, domestic, civil, property, inheritance, community work (cleaning the acequia), and truancy cases; unfortunately, his docket book has not been found (Ebright, 88.) Under the Court of Indian Offenses, Abeita decided property cases following New Mexico property law, whereas formerly pueblo governors “usually decided questions of inheritance according to tribal tradition” and inheritance issues were most controversial (Ebright, 93.) He also found and appointed the tribal policeman, after consulting with the local schoolteacher (Ebright, 88.) Judge Abeita performed nearly all the court roles; he issued summons, heard and recorded testimony in shorthand and later translated it from Tiwa, investigated cases when necessary, and issued rulings, all for the annual sum of 36 dollars per annum ($1,125 in 2024 money) (Ebright, 87.)
Around the same time that Abeita was working as a judge, he traveled to testify in Congress with several other Pueblo governors and chosen representatives. Abeita spoke unrestrainedly, and reportedly had a wry sense of humor and made his points with a “’quaint sarcasm’ (Sando, 184.)” He asked for land rights and established boundaries under the Federal government, not to be subject to the laws of New Mexico alone, and for sanitation access and no taxation. He said, “the taxation question; I could put an argument 2 miles long, and in the end I would conclude by saying that we ought to tax the white people for the land they took away from us instead of the white people taxing us for land they never gave, because what land we have at present is only what the white people did not appropriate (Pueblo Indians, p. 22.)”
Abeita met, spoke with, and welcomed several dignitaries to Isleta and New Mexico. He enjoyed saying that he “met each of the presidents of the United States from Grover Cleveland in 1886 and continuing through to the sitting president, Franklin D. Roosevelt.” He was the official interpreter when Albert I, King of Belgium, and Queen Elisabeth visited Isleta in 1919 (Sando, 183.) There is a story that when Theodore Roosevelt visited Albuquerque, he asked Abeita to smuggle him out of the hotel to visit Isleta Pueblo.
Abeita was elected the secretary of the All-Indian Pueblo Council on November 5, 1922. He traveled to Washington, D.C. to testify on behalf of Isleta and the Council several times (Sando, 183-184.) He hired lawyers to pursue land grants and correct surveys of Isleta’s eastern boundary, regaining land for the pueblo (Ebright, 125.) He advocated for legislation that would benefit Pueblo citizens and worked assiduously to prevent legislation that would have removed rights and lost resources for the Isleta and Pueblo people.
He continued to perform community work up until his passing in 1940 when local news announced that “the grand old man” of Isleta had passed. He was a towering figure whose contributions to his people and his region have left an impact.
Sources
E99.I8 E37 2023 Ebright, Malcolm and Rick Hendricks. Pablo Abeita : the Life and Times of a Native Statesman of Isleta Pueblo, 1871-1940.
KIE2812.H34 1966 Hagan, William Thomas. Indian Police and Judges; Experiments in Acculturation and Control.
KIE2812 .D44 1983 Deloria, Vine, and Clifford M. Lytle. American Indians, American Justice.
KF8540.A369 United States. Bureau of Indian Affairs. Rules Governing the Court of Indian Offenses.
KF26 .I45 1913b United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Indian Affairs. Pueblo Indians of New Mexico: Hearings before the Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate, Sixty-second Congress, Third session, on S. 6085… (see p 21-22 for Pablo Abeita’s testimony (PDF p 27-28))
E99.P9 S186 1991 Sando, Joe S. Pueblo Nations : Eight Centuries of Pueblo Indian History.
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