American Acoma
did the Acoma Native Americans have a Jewish leader?
Solomon Bibo (July 15, 1853 – May 4, 1934) was a Jewish trader in the American Old West who became governor of Acoma Pueblo, equivalent of the tribal chief. He was the only non-Indian ever to serve as a governor of an Indian Pueblo.
Bibo was born in Brakel, Westphalia, then part of the Kingdom of Prussia, to Isak and Blümchen Bibo; his father was a cantor. He was the sixth of eleven children. After the suppression of the liberal government in the mid-19th century, his older brothers Nathan and Simon left for the United States in 1866; he eventually joined them, moving on October 16, 1869 at age 16. He arrived in New York City and, after spending some time learning English on the East Coast, he moved out to meet his brothers in Santa Fe, then part of the New Mexico Territory. His brothers had established themselves as traders, initially using capital provided by the Spiegelberg family, a pioneer Jewish family that arrived with Stephen W. Kearny's army during the Mexican-American War. The Bibo brothers were able to establish stores at Laguna, Fort Wingate, Cebolleta, Bernalillo, and Grants. The brothers learned several Native American languages in addition to their German, Yiddish and English.
The Bibo brothers developed reputations for fairness in their dealings with the local Native Americans: they would sell the tribes' produce through their stores and supply US Army forts under contracts; in turn the Native Americans received fair prices and improved their farming techniques. The brothers also mediated land disputes between the tribes and the Mexican residents, and also tried to prevent Anglo-Americans from purchasing Indian land and below market prices; such stances did not endear them to these groups
In 1885, Solomon married an Acoma woman, Juana Valle, granddaughter of his predecessor as governor of the Acoma Pueblo. The couple was married twice: As there was no rabbi available in the territory, "Solomon Bibo de Cubero & Johanna (Juana) Valle del Acoma" had an Indian ceremony before a Catholic priest on May 1, 1885 at Acoma Pueblo and a civil one before a Justice of the Peace on August 30. The marriage made Solomon a member of the Acoma tribe. Juana was originally a Catholic, but observed the Jewish faith and raised her children as Jews. In 1898, wanting their children to receive a Jewish education, Solomon and Juana relocated to San Francisco, where he invested in real estate and opened a fancy food shop. Their oldest son was bar mitzvah at San Francisco’s Ohabei Shalome, and the younger attended religious school at Temple Emanuel.
In 1885, the Acomas elected Solomon Bibo as their new governor, the equivalent of the tribal chief. "Don Solomono", as he was known by the tribe, served as governor four times. The Acoma asked the United States to recognize Bibo as their leader and, in 1888, he was recognized as such by an agent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As governor, he helped install a modern education system and supervised the installation of first schoolteacher at Acoma and allowed a house of his to be used as the school for the first year before a government school opened in a building he owned; some students were sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.
Solomon Bibo died in 1934, Juana in 1941. Solomon Bibo, governor of the Acomas, America’s only known Jewish Indian chief, is buried with his Indian princess in the Jewish cemetery in Colma, California.
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