This is the  moment to change the name of the Santa Fe shopping center known as the De Vargas Center.

When the shopping center formally opened in October 1973 after six years of planning, developer Nash Hancock said he selected the name because the site had been Diego de Vargas’ encampment in 1692. The Spanish colonial governor and his soldiers were on the spot to reconquer Santa Fe 12 years after the successful Pueblo Revolt. The uprising was the first time colonists were sent packing in North America, more than a century before Easterners would take up arms against the British.

The Santa Fe New Mexican celebrated the opening of the multimillion-dollar north-side mall by running news articles dotted with lofty prose. “Just as Rosario Cemetery Chapel honors the memory of Santa Fe’s heroine,” The New Mexican said, “so the neighborhood shopping center will display an appropriate marker and total edifice dedicated to the fearless leader who made New Mexico’s reconquest possible.”

The reconquest has long been portrayed as “peaceful.” In recent years, however, the public has developed a more nuanced understanding of de Vargas’s actions. Puebloans did die and others were enslaved during the reimposition of Spanish rule here. While the name de Vargas may be glorious name to some of our state’s residents, it is an anathema to our region’s first inhabitants.

The mall owners should follow in the steps of the Caballeros de Vargas, organizers of La Entrada, the annual reenactment of de Vargas’s re-entry into Santa Fe. Over the last few years, protesters brought attention to the inaccuracies of the event.

The shopping mall developer’s act of naming his place after de Vargas has commemorated the memory of the man for 57 years. In that time our understanding of the reconquest has changed. In recent years, all Americans have gained a more critical perspective on celebrating the past in monuments, the naming of places or commemorative events. In Santa Fe, the shopping mall is the last holdout in regards to de Vargas. The middle school named after de Vargas, which like the mall got a makeover, has reopened under the name Milagro Middle School.

It is time that the DeVargas Center name be dropped and replaced with another, more suitable name that celebrates unity, not division.

Adapted from article by James McGrath Morris published in the Santa Fe New Mexican, August 24, 2019.