In 2018, designer Ronald Rael (Born 1971, La Florida, Colorado; active Berkeley, California, and La Florida, Colorado) rescued an abandoned adobe home in Conejos, a town in the San Luis Valley region of southern Colorado, from the threat of demolition. Rael, a multigenerational native of the area, began an ongoing initiative to preserve the structure and uncover the decades of history that had transpired at the site.
Ronald Rael, Installation of “Casa Desenterrada/Exhuming Home” in Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Photo: Elliot Goldstein © Smithsonian Institution
The home was constructed in 1855, by former US soldier Lafayette Head, in an attempt to claim the Conejos Land Grant following his service in the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). Once a large, fortified adobe compound, the house served as his residence, his office as the first Lieutenant Governor of Colorado, and the headquarters of the Ute Indian Agency. Head served here as a US Indian Agent to the Tabeguache (Uncompahgre) Ute people, whose seasonal home was in Conejos.
In 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, Head was tasked by the US government with documenting the unlawful enslavement of Indigenous people in southern Colorado. He produced a census listing 149 names of children, women, and men who, through war or trade, had been abducted from their Native communities and forced into servitude in the homes of families in the region. Although Head publicly denounced this practice, he enslaved Indigenous laborers in his own home. These detribalized Indigenous people, who were referred to as Genízaros, would go on to form kinships among themselves or marry into other families within the local community.
For “Casa Desenterrada,” Rael exhumed a portion of the Ute Indian Agency that was demolished and buried in the 1960s, reconstituting the material to create the adobe bricks of this structure. A soundtrack whispering the names of 88 people enslaved in Conejos serves as a tribute to them and their descendants who continue to live in the San Luis Valley. The adobe bricks display the names of those listed in Head’s census, objects excavated from the site, and images of the people and buildings of Conejos. Rael includes blank bricks to signify the numerous enslaved people in the San Luis Valley who were never documented.
Adobe installation created with the support of Teddy Andriese, Emmanuel Carrillo, William Farmer, Ryan Gallegos, Michael Jiron, Rayoung Kim, and Elliott Surber.
Special thanks to Julie Chacon, Eric Carpio, Dawn di Prince, Kim Grant, Joanna Keane Lopez, Loretta Mitson, Katie Pearson, Christine Rael, Estevan Rael-Gálvez, Mattias Rael, Chip Thomas, Rio de la Vista Colorado Preservation Inc., History Colorado, the county of Conejos, the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area, Native Bound Unbound, and the University of California, Berkeley.
This installation is made possible with additional support from the Joan E. Draper Architectural History Research Endowment.