Photography as Medicine - Russel Albert Daniels

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The Spanish enslavement of Indigenous peoples across the Southwest was an immense market in humans, second only to that of African Americans. Severed from their lands and cultures, how did some of them create a path forward? Who are the Genízaro? How can Catholicism and Indigenous traditions coexist, perhaps even synergize, in one community? And how can photography act as medicine?

Today we talk with documentary photographer Russel Albert Daniels. He begins with the incredible story of his great great Grandmother Rose, who was captured from her Diné homeland by a band of Utes and sold to a Mormon settler in the Uinta Basin. We will talk about how this story led Russel to the Genízaro people in northern New Mexico. This project titled "The Genízaro Pueblo of Abiquiú" is in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and can be viewed here. It's Part One of Russel's series exploring Native American slavery in the Southwest.

He is interviewed by Zion Canyon Mesa’s Ben Kilbourne.