Jicarilla history lesson number 1

There is a lady named Clara who lives on the road between Lumberton and Dulce. Her kids went to school here and some of her younger grandkids are here now. One day she invited me in for coffee.

I heard about her education at an Indian boarding school. Those schools were part of U.S. policy to assimilate Indians--to civilize them. When Clara spoke in Jicarilla at her school, the only language she knew, her teachers locked her in a utility closet. She laughed about this lesson in civility, but she told me she would cry for hours as a little girl, feeling so stupid for not knowing English.

She showed me a picture of her mother and father and told me about her grandfather. Because her grandfather knew the Spanish language, he was part of the delegation that travelled to Washington to negotiate a reservation with the (I guess) Chester A. Arthur administration. Her grandpa translated Jicarilla to Spanish and another delegate translated Spanish to English.

The Jicarilla Indians were disappointed with the land they got in the deal. It lacked sufficient water. What it didn't lack, they learned many years later, was oil and gas.