Background
Born into a native family of Isleta Pueblo, Abeita grew up speaking Tiwa and English.
Born into a native family of Isleta Pueblo, Abeita grew up speaking Tiwa and English.
After ten years of formal education, he worked first as a typesetter at the Albuquerque newspaper. He next worked at a family business in Isleta. In 1889, at the age of nineteen, Abeita was appointed to serve on the All Indian Pueblo Council, which was organized again after a 300-year hiatus during the colonial period.
In 1913 Abeita was appointed by the tribe as as a judge, and elected Secretary of the All Indian Pueblo Council.
The Council became active in the 1920s, trying to forestall government and private efforts to appropriate pueblo lands. They gained passage by Congress in 1924 of the Pueblo Lands Acting, which confirmed pueblo title to their lands.
They were lifelong friends. The KiMo Theater, located at 419-423 Central Avenue in Downtown Albuquerque was built in 1927. its owners held a naming contest to raise interest in the new venue.
Joe Sando has appraised Abeita"s skills highly, saying that, with his leadership ability, in another era the pueblo governor might well have been elected as a governor of the state of New Mexico.
When the journalist and ethnologist Charles Fletcher Lummis lived in Isleta, he took a room in Abeita"s house. Number commercial inns were available.
At the time, Native Americans generally did not run for general state offices and were restricted from voting as United States citizens if they were members of federally recognized tribes.