The Taos Pueblo triumphed because they refused to take the government’s money. In 1946, the Indian Claims Commission was created to settle Native land claims—but only with cash, not land. The leaders of the Taos Pueblo, whose ancestors had occupied the area for over 1,000 years, refused payment for their sacred Blue Lake, which had been taken by Theodore Roosevelt’s administration in 1906 and added to National Forest land for grazing, mining, logging, and stocking with fish for recreation.

Blue Lake is the Pueblo’s water source and its most sacred site, its cathedral. The Forest Service bureaucracy reduced all that to red tape, requiring the Pueblo to apply for permits weeks in advance for their own ceremonies. As Taos Pueblo Council Secretary Paul Bernal testified before Congress in 1969, “We are probably the only citizens of the United States who are required to practice our religion under a permit from the government. This is not religious freedom as it is guaranteed by the Constitution.”

In 1970, after 64 years of protest and lobbying, Congress returned 48,000 acres, including Blue Lake, to Taos Pueblo.[1] 

The pueblo itself, a multi-story adobe structure rising against the mountain sky, is the oldest continuously inhabited community in the United States. It has endured because the people persisted, and the land was never reduced to a price. Even now, with no electricity or piped water, the pueblo remains a place organized around what cannot be bought. Its people and its place are the same story.

Subscribe on Substack

Special thanks to Ellen Swain for suggesting Taos Pueblo.

Links:

• Taos Pueblo official site

  
  

• The Inside Story of the Return of Blue Lake to Taos Pueblo - Bobbie Greene Kilberg, New Mexico Jewish Journal, August 22, 2025

  
  

• The Milestone for Public Lands You’ve Never Heard of, and Why It Matters Today – Ernie Atencio, National Parks Conservation Association, December 15, 2020

  
  

• Taos Pueblo - UNESCO

This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.

Too many emails? To receive a weekly recap instead, please subscribe on my Substack blog. Instructions for turning on the weekly summary can be found here.

Have something you’d like me to consider for inclusion? Please feel free to leave a comment!

[1] “New Mexico’s Senator Clinton Anderson, a Democrat, opposed the return of Blue Lake to Taos Pueblo because of the opposition of ranchers, and he was threatening to vote against the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty – the ABM – if President Nixon continued with the recommendation to return Blue Lake to Taos Pueblo…The President instructed his staffer to tell Senator Anderson, ‘That his decision stands in support of Blue Lake and that, if Anderson did not like it, he could vote against the ABM, and he could go [4 letter word] himself.’” Account from Bobbie Greene Kilberg: https://www.nmjewishjournal.com/the-inside-story-of-the-return-of-blue-lake-to-taos-pueblo/