{El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail posted by the BLM @mypubliclands} This national historic trail commemorates the U.S. side of a route between Mexico City and Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo), NM. This trail is largely interpreted as a Spanish route used between the 1580’s and the 1880’s, used to maintain trade routes, spread Christianity, and generally maintain colonial rule over the region. However, before is was appropriated by Spanish conquistadors, it had been used by indigenous people for thousands of years as an important trade route into Central America. At it’s northern end it connects around fifteen Pueblo communities and passes through dozens of other indigenous lands on its way to Mexico City. The question I want to ask is, why is it the 300 years of Spanish conquest that makes this trail worth memorializing and not that thousands of years of indigenous cultural and material exchange and nation building? #NativeHistoryMatters #PublicLandIsNativeLand