El Pueblo de Abiquiu Library Speaker Series - Witching Hour

Courtesy of Pueblo de Abiquiu Library & Cultural Center

This Sunday, October 26, the Pueblo de Abiquiú Library & Cultural Center (PALCC) welcomes author, Rick Hendricks, PhD, for their speaker series on “The Witching Hour” beginning at 3pm in the Parish Hall across from the Library in Abiquiú.  The event is free to the public.

His book, “The Witches of Abiquiú: The Governor, The Priest, The Genízaro Indians, and the Devil” finds itself at the center of a witchcraft outbreak similar to the events in Salem, Massachusetts. The book details events in Abiquiú between 1756 and 1766, focusing on both cultural and political dynamics that influenced the trials and accusations, with an emphasis on the role of local curanderos as well as Abiquiú’s broader Genízaro community.   There was a fine line between healing (curanderismo), and practices condemned as witchcraft (brujería).  It promises to be a historical and interesting hour with Dr. Hendricks.

Rick Hendricks, PhD, is the New Mexico State Records Administrator. He was NM State Historian from 2010 until 2019. He received his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1977 and his PhD from the University of New Mexico in 1985. He  studied the history of Spain in the Americas at the Universidad de Sevilla. Rick is a former editor of the Vargas Project at the University of New Mexico. After the conclusion of the Vargas Project, he worked at New Mexico State University, most notably on the Durango Microfilming Project, helping to produce and edit a 1,400-page guide to the collection. At NMSU, Rick also taught courses in colonial Latin America and Mexican history. He has written extensively on the history of the American Southwest and Mexico. He has written, cowritten, and coedited more than twenty books. Among his recent books are Pueblo Indian Sovereignty: Land and Water in New Mexico and Texas (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019) and Pablo Abeita: The Life of Times of a Native Statesman of Isleta Pueblo, 1871-1940 (2023) coauthored with his long-time writing partner, Malcolm Ebright, who passed away this year at the age of 93.