By Simon Romero – NYTimes.com – Photo: Adria Malcolm for The New York Times.
Photo:The Caballeros de Vargas escorted a representation of the Virgin Mary on Friday at the Fiesta de Santa Fe, which for the first time did not include a re-enactment of the Spanish conquest.
Santa Fe, New Mexico — For as long as nearly anyone here can remember, Hispanic residents have donned the garb of conquistadors and European nobility once a year to celebrate the 1692 reconquest of New Mexico from Native Americans who submitted to the Spanish Empire after a grisly revolt. But after escalating protests by Native Americans who saw the re-enactment as a racist attempt to gloss over atrocities carried out by Spanish colonizers, the annual tradition known as the Entrada officially came to an end on Friday, replaced by a multidenominational prayer gathering to begin the annual Fiesta de Santa Fe.
