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| Remarks at Capitol Rotunda |
September 22, 2005 |
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| Remarks of Congresswoman Heather Wilson
United States Capitol
September 22, 2005
On behalf of New Mexico’s delegation to the House of Representatives – Steve Pearce, Tom Udall and myself – welcome to our friends from New Mexico.
I would also like to recognize Jill Cooper, Tom Udall’s wife, for her work as a member of the Statuary Hall Commission. Jill, thank you for your work.
This is a special day and I’m glad so many of you have been able to come to Washington and be part of this celebration.
One hundred statues – two from each state in the union – help tell the history of this great nation to the two million visitors who come to the Capitol each year. They are statues of soldiers and priests, astronauts and inventors, statesmen and medical doctors.
Today, the likeness of Po’Pay joins them, completing the Capitol collection.
In 1598, Juan de Onate took formal possession of New Mexico for Spain. As I remind my Virginia colleagues, that was nine years before the English arrived at Jamestown.
Onate treated the Pueblo people brutally. They were required to work the fields in the Spanish land grants. They were forced to convert to Catholicism and were punished for practicing their traditional religion.
In 1680, Po’Pay led a rebellion against Spanish rule and drove the Spanish out of Santa Fe.
Po’Pay is not without controversy. But he changed the course of history in New Mexico.
When Diego de Vargas returned to New Mexico in 1692, the Spanish changed their approach to the Pueblo people. They created an Office of Indian Protection – a precursor of the trust responsibility we know today. They recognized the territorial integrity of the tribes and offered protection against outsiders. The Catholic priests returned with DeVargas, but they did not try to extinguish Pueblo religion, culture and ceremonies.
The legacy of Po’Pay is still with us today and is part of what makes New Mexico so different and so special.
We enjoy a blending of cultures respectful of each other unlike anywhere else in America.
You can see it in our food, in the music we listen to, in the way we dress on special occasions, in the jewelry we wear, the holidays we celebrate, in our art and our architecture.
Most state capitols, for example, have some imitation of the dome under which we stand. But in Santa Fe, the seat of our government is a Roundhouse – a kiva-like building with the House and Senate meeting below ground level.
Just a few miles north of my home in New Mexico, Sandia Pueblo recently built a new and very beautiful Catholic church oriented toward Sandia Mountain -- a very special place for the Pueblo.
There is a richness in cultural life, a respectfulness of many cultures in New Mexico that others could learn from.
Of the 100 statues in this collection, this is the only one created by a Native American artist – Cliff Fragua of Jemez Pueblo. Cliff, thank you for your beautiful work.
On behalf of New Mexico’s delegation to the House, we are pleased to accept this likeness of Po’Pay into the Statuary hall collection. |
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