Beating heart of the world : the Taos art colony, the Pueblo resistance, and the battle for Indigenous America / Steven L. Davis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Davis, Steven L., 1963- Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Indigenous peoples--New Mexico--Taos--Government relations--History.

Indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples--Civil rights--America.

Government, Resistance to--America.

Government, Resistance to.

Decolonization--North America.

Decolonization.

Pueblo of Taos, New Mexico.

Physical Description:

xviii, 331 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Albuquerque : High Road Books, [2026]

Summary:

"The fascinating true story of how Taos Pueblo's Indigenous people recruited members of the famous Taos art colony to help spark a movement for Native justice that reshaped the nation.When the first white artists arrived in Taos by horse-drawn wagons, centuries of military conquest and brutal government policies had pushed Indigenous people to the brink of collapse. New Mexico's pueblos had become some of America's last holdouts of traditional culture, resolutely preserving their sacred lands in the face of mounting pressure.Many of the free-spirited newcomers in Taos came to admire the pueblos' peaceful, communal societies and holy regard for the natural world. To these outsiders, pueblo civilization offered a marked contrast to America's record of endless war, hyperindividualism, and environmental destruction. Among those attracted to Taos was the "Queen of Bohemia," a wealthy New York heiress who dabbled in peyote and personified radical chic. Mabel Dodge Luhan fell in love with Taos Pueblo leader Tony Lujan and hoped to inspire an American spiritual renaissance based on pueblo values. She brought world-famous luminaries to Taos, including D. H. Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Carl Jung, along with the fiery social reformer John Collier. As the art colony gained international fame, the US government targeted the pueblos for extinction, moving to seize their lands and destroy their cultures. This same grim scenario had played out countless times before in US history. It seemed that nothing could stop the brutal crush of conquest. But the puebloans, who had once unleashed a fierce revolt against Spain in 1680, found a new way to fight back in the modern era. As master diplomats, they began recruiting the prominent creatives converging on Taos, shrewdly enlisting them as political allies. And these artists and writers, at a crucial moment in history, rose to join the pueblos and challenged their own culture's prevailing genocidal policies. Beating Heart of the World is the fascinating, fast-paced chronicle of a long-shot resistance movement that grew into a powerful national campaign for Indigenous justice. While a work of history, Beating Heart of the World speaks urgently to our own era as new resistance movements percolate-and as new generations increasingly look to ancient Indigenous wisdom to help guide sustainable pathways forward"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

We Didn't Know Taos

The Treasure at Blue Lake

The Naturalists

American Devils

Old-Fashioned Scalping Expedition

Bad Varmints

Culture Wars

A Strange Relationship

The Love Token

The Beating Heart of the World

The Reformer

The Plot Against the Pueblos

"Going Indian"

The Indispensable Villain

We Pueblo Indians Demand Justice

Sodom and Gomorrah of the Modern World

Superstitions

Mabeltown

The Double Cross

A New Course

Indian Detours

An Experiment Worth Trying

The Commissioner

The Indian New Deal.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780826369666

0826369669

OCLC:

1563978119

Publisher Number:

90104891917