Center for Regional Studies presents a lecture by the 2025-2026 Post Doctoral Fellow Joe Ukockis.  

This lecture delves into a Spanish document from 1714 that details an investigation into a group of Faraon Apaches—women and men, elders and children—who were arrested in Pecos Pueblo. The governor solicited testimonies from each of the Apaches, offering a rare glimpse into the experiences and roles of women, children, and elders. The story tells us much about kinship and diplomacy in the face of Spanish attempts to destroy relationships between Indigenous peoples in New Mexico.

Joe Ukockis received his PhD in History from the University of New Mexico in Spring 2025 with a focus on Native history and Borderlands. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Center for Regional Studies, in which he is developing his book project. His work, based on his dissertation, explores the strategic relationships that Plains Ndé (ancestral Mescalero, Jicarilla, and Lipan Apaches) made with their neighbors across New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, Texas, and Coahuila from the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century.