The return of Blue Lake

Available for over a year

In 1970, the Republican president Richard Nixon signed a bill returning a sacred lake to the people of Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. The lake, and surrounding land, had been taken from the Taos people in 1906 and turned into a national forest, even though it was central to their centuries-old cultural rituals and beliefs. The return of the lake was the first time the US government had given land back to a Native American community. Louise Hidalgo talks to Laura Harris and her mother LaDonna Harris, who with her senator husband helped the Taos people get the Blue Lake back. Picture: President Nixon signing the Blue Lake bill in the presence of Taos leaders, 15th December 1970 (Credit: UPI/Getty Images)