American Studies ETDs

Publication Date

Summer 7-15-2024

Abstract

This dissertation project explores hidden histories of the García/Espinosa/Sargent/Burns family in northern New Mexico/southern Colorado during the middle-to-late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries, and continuing into the present. The project, in part, focuses on prominent rancher, lawyer, landowner, and territorial representative of New Mexico and Colorado, José Victór García. García’s life and legacy is examined regarding the lesser-known story of his “ownership” of several enslaved Indigenous youths on his property in Conejos County, Colorado. The methodology of haunting is employed to expose complex histories of Indigenous peoples in the Southwest borderlands, and within a broader context of colonialism. Indigenous enslavement is considered a haunting after-effect of trauma. Indigenous land dispossession perpetrated by Hispano and Euro-American land speculators is also considered. Ultimately, haunting is countered via the Indo-Hispano concept of querencía (a sense of homeland) and the Indigenous concept of survivance (resistance to colonialism), thus providing a healing antidote to trauma.

Language

English

Keywords

haunting, trauma, survivance, querencia

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

American Studies

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

American Studies

First Committee Member (Chair)

Katheleen Holscher

Second Committee Member

Francisco Galarte

Third Committee Member

Kathy Powers

Fourth Committee Member

Antonio Tiongson

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