Weston Archuleta, right, administrative assistant with Native Bound Unbound, and his brother, Lukas Archuleta, record a conversation Saturday about their great-great-great-great-grandparents who were enslaved in the late 19th century in San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. Native Bound Unbound is a local project dedicated to collecting stories of Indigenous people impacted by slavery.
Naomi Love, left, bilingual mobile facilitator with StoryCorps, prepares to record a conversation between Weston Archuleta, right, administrative assistant with Native Bound Unbound, and his brother, Lukas Archuleta, on Saturday.
Weston Archuleta, right, administrative assistant with Native Bound Unbound, and his brother, Lukas Archuleta, record a conversation Saturday about their great-great-great-great-grandparents who were enslaved in the late 19th century in San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. Native Bound Unbound is a local project dedicated to collecting stories of Indigenous people impacted by slavery.
Throughout his life, Weston Archuleta said his family worked hard to cover up their ancestral ties to Indigenous people. He grew up hearing his family was Spanish but later learned he is a descendant of two enslaved Indigenous people.
He added he thinks it’s common for New Mexican families to ignore the “Native side” of their lineage in favor of fitting into the American mold.
“I think a lot of my family history was used as a point of shame, or a point of pride. … So to just have it be the truth, finally, and just have it out there is great,” Archuleta said.
The 32-year-old works as an administrative assistant for Native Bound Unbound — a multiyear project headed by former New Mexico state historian Estevan Rael-Gálvez to establish a centralized, online repository cataloging the lives of enslaved Indigenous people across the Western Hemisphere.
Archuleta’s work and family history intersected Saturday at Santa Fe’s School for Advanced Research. Through March and April, Native Bound Unbound has teamed up with StoryCorps — a New York-based nonprofit centered on preserving American stories — to record conversations between descendants of enslaved Indigenous people for preservation.
Estevan Rael-Galvez, director of Native Bound Unbound has his picture taken after recording with StoryCorps on Saturday.
Rael-Gálvez said the partnership will span several recording days in Taos, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, with 15 scheduled conversations taking place from mid-March through April 21.
The goal is for the conversations to be archived within the U.S. Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center and for them to be accessible through Native Bound Unbound’s digital archive once it is up and running.
“When [StoryCorps] called me recently and said ‘We’ve heard about Native Bound Unbound, could we collaborate?’ I was giddy,” Rael-Gálvez said. “I love them as a partner — I actually love their model.”
The StoryCorps model was on full display Saturday. Four conversations — including one with Weston and his brother Lukas Archuleta — were recorded, one of which saw Rael-Gálvez sit down with longtime friend Theresa Pasqual.
Pasqual serves as the director of tribal historic preservation for Acoma Pueblo, a community west of Albuquerque whose ancestors were enslaved by the Spanish in the late 1500s. She said her conversation with Rael-Gálvez touched on a young Acoma boy whose records post-enslavement were tracked down by Native Bound Unbound.
“For a brief moment — that acknowledgment that he survived. He survived; we know he existed; and even though his life must have been difficult, and he lived a life that was surrounded by that trauma of removal, I think there lies the resilience … that we hope and that we pray for,” Pasqual said.
Native Bound Unbound was brought to life by Rael-Gálvez after receiving a $1.5 million, three-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
However, Rael-Gálvez said he became intrigued by the enslavement of Indigenous people long before he started his work with Native Bound Unbound. He recounted a story he heard as boy about a young Navajo girl who was sold to a family in Abiquiú in the 1840s or 1850s — an ancestor on his mother’s side.
Naomi Love, left, bilingual mobile facilitator with StoryCorps, prepares to record a conversation between Weston Archuleta, right, administrative assistant with Native Bound Unbound, and his brother, Lukas Archuleta, on Saturday.
Rael-Gálvez said the girl’s blanket was passed down to him by his mother when he went off to college for protection, knowledge and strength.
This story — which is one of many regarding Indigenous enslavement in his family — is also but one drop in an ocean of narratives Rael-Gálvez is hoping to preserve.
He said Native Bound Unbound is a “hemispheric” endeavor, with researchers and volunteers in several U.S. states and different countries, and is likely a lifetime project, or at least one which will span multiple decades.
Rael-Gálvez said he hopes the digital repository — where all the information he and his expansive team collect — will be up and running in about a year.
“We recognize that it’s a monumental project and it will take a very long time for us to reach our goals. But … every day we move a little bit closer by gathering name by name, story by story,” he said.
