*Editor’s Note: The following story is part of a yearslong series chronicling the legacy of New Mexico’s Indian boarding schools. Reporter Jonathan Sims is a former appointed leader of the Acoma Pueblo and is himself a product of the Indian boarding school system, as were generations of his own family.

There haven’t been many changes at an Albuquerque park intermittently embroiled in controversy over the Native American students’ remains buried there, except for the recent addition of new fencing.

Now, tribal members are left wondering if and when city leaders might take action to honor those buried there and their ancestors.

The graves lay beneath 4-H Park, a small, triangular park behind the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center near 12th Street and Menaul Boulevard. Although 4-H Park may no longer be in the headlines, it is still very much on the minds of city leaders, community members and Indigenous people.

In 2021, just as U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland was rising to meteoric fame in her quest to restore Indigenous land rights, a mass grave of 182 children was found near a boarding school in British Columbia. The discovery sparked outrage and a movement across the U.S. and Canada.

Haaland launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative that year, a national effort to recognize the atrocities that occurred at many of these schools, with an emphasis on the cemeteries and burial sites near the schools.

Albuquerque made national headlines as part of that larger story when a handmade plaque tied to a tree at 4-H park commemorating dozens of unmarked graves of Indigenous children from Albuquerque Indian School (AIS) went missing. 

The city has recently installed fencing in the northeast area of the park to create a more permanent barrier for the area, although much of the park is still open to the public. A large tree within the fenced area has gifts and tokens left as memorials. A handwritten sign is posted that says “Native children from 1882-…. Who died. The burial site of Zuni, Apache and Navajo children from the Albuquerque Indian School rest here.”

City officials say they have been working with tribal organizations and community members to honor those who are buried there. 

“Our process aligns with the intent for the area to achieve the special protection and recognition it deserves,” City of Albuquerque Parks and Recreation spokesperson Emily Moore tells The Paper. “This is in order to serve as a place of reverence, education, and healing.” 

The city’s Intergovernmental Tribal Liaison Terry Sloan says the next steps for the park are in the works, but didn’t expand on specifics. 

“We’ll be planning a meeting with the public, including the North Valley Neighborhood Association. So we’ll give them an update,” Sloan says. “We’re contacting the tribes to let them know our current status and the next steps.”

Sloan adds that work is continuing via the city’s workgroup, the Commission on American Indian and Alaskan Native Affairs, and that they are making sure family shareholders who want to be involved can help strategize on the work ahead. Some of this work includes giving updates to Haaland’s working group.

All Pueblo Council of Governors Chairman James Mountain did not respond to requests for an interview before publication.

The updates to 4-H Park come after nearly a year of consultation with tribes. As former All Pueblo Council of Governors Director Teran Villa confirmed, data and results of a lidar — or laser radar — have been shared with these groups, but the council has not provided any official recommendations.

The Paper. requested those reports in 2023, but has yet to receive any communication from city officials regarding the public documents. 

The park is located in one of the fastest growing parts of the city, close to the Pueblo Cultural Center. Given the major development of the land near the park — now home to a Laguna Burger and a Starbucks — a new plaque and a fence may no longer suffice. 

As Sloan puts it, “We want it to be educational about what happened. Even building in a little outdoor auditorium, a learning place, you could have people come and talk or speak. So there are various designs and concepts we’ll be looking at as we move forward. We want everybody to be a part of this process. And then our next step is to work on securing funding for the design and development.”

The school

The area around the park was once home to the AIS, a government-run Native American boarding school that operated from 1881 to 1981. It was modeled after the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, using strict military-style schooling in its early days as a way to assimilate Native children into American culture. In the 1970s, the All Pueblo Council of Governors assumed control of the school, but enrollment continued to decline and the buildings were in disrepair. Many students were moved to the Santa Fe Indian School until AIS eventually closed in 1981. 

What remained were the graves of the Indigenous children who died while attending AIS. How many or which tribes the children came from is still unknown, and at present, there are no public plans to repatriate their remains. 

In 2022, the city commissioned a lidar report of the area beneath the park to determine where and how many graves remained. 

The city has not confirmed how many graves still remain beneath the park, but according to University of New Mexico Professor Dr. Ted Jojola, between 1883 and 1933, there were an estimated 60 to 100 graves in the AIS cemetery. 

Follow The Paper.’s ongoing investigation of New Mexico Indian Schools and how city and Tribal leaders respond to the discovery of a cemetery of unmarked graves buried beneath a city park. See the gallery of images and documents uncovered in our investigation at abq.news/indianschools