Letters to bring past to life

FORT SUMNER - Long before the days of the internet, email and social media, people used good old handwritten letters to spread information.

Now 150 years later, some of the original letters from the Bosque Redondo reservation, with the help of some Fort Sumner High School students, will bring yesterday to life.

The "Summer Letters from the Reservation" event begins at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the Bosque Redondo Memorial.

Historic Site Manager Aaron Roth said he went through the memorial's 13,000-plus documents in its archives to find examples of life on the reservation during the summer months for thousands of Native Americans held there.

"When I was going through them I ended up with probably about 200 letters," Roth said. "What I was looking for was specific references to the weather, was there any rain? Were there any hardships to be felt? What different things would you have seen during that time? Were there attacks? And of course there were."

Roth said he ultimately settled on 21 letters, the majority of which will be read by 15 juniors and seniors from Fort Sumner High School who volunteered to take part in the event.

"I'm kind of curious to see how the students are going to present these perspectives because some students when they read things like this they take on the role so I'm curious to see how far students will go," Roth said.

Wendy Williamson, a counselor at Fort Sumner High School, said the students have been practicing their readings beforehand and she could see them physically taken aback after reading a letter that ended with a sentence about soldiers slitting the throats of children at the reservation.

"That's why I think it's such a great opportunity for our kids to get involved because of course with history in the classroom setting we don't always get the nitty gritty details and these letters are just full of this honest truth," Williamson said.

Roth said he appreciated the fact today's high school students will be getting a firsthand look at life for the Mescalero Apache and Navajo people living on the reservation, something that hasn't always been the case.

"It's nice to know that generations today we can share this history openly and learn from it still," Roth said.

Roth said the event will also include oral histories recorded in the 1960s by descendants of the Navajo and Mescalero Apache people in order to give the Native Americans' perspective of the reservation in addition the military's.

Admission to the "Summer Letters from the Reservation" event is free and it will begin with a meal of bratwurst, hot dogs, baked beans, potato salad and cookies to be served at 4:30 p.m. in the memorial's resource room.

Roth said around 5:30 or 6 p.m. attendees will move to the outdoor patio for the reading of the letters and the playing of the oral histories.

Roth said one of the three original copies of the Treaty of Bosque Redondo, which has been on display at the memorial since June, is still available for viewing but probably won't be for much longer.

"I'm hoping that people will get some perspective on what things were truly like in Fort Sumner in the summer months," Roth said. "It's difficult to imagine, and I don't think most people want to imagine what it was like. When you hear these letters it really puts you in the mindset of the times and I hope people take some of that home with them."