After decades of criticism from Indigenous communities, the Golden-based Westernaires will end their program that teaches and portrays Native American dancing to Colorado youth, the horse-riding organization announced in an email over the weekend.
“This was not the boards (sic) preferred outcome, but it is necessary for the organization at this time,” the Westernaires said in an email to members on Saturday.
Representatives from the Westernaires did not respond to a request for comment from The Denver Post on Monday.
The Westernaires have been teaching horsemanship to kids in Colorado and performing equine entertainment with Wild West themes for more than 70 years, with a team of entirely volunteer staff dedicating time to the craft.
For decades, the organization’s romanticism of cowboys-and-Indians tropes — including a reenactment of the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn and white children dressed in Native-inspired regalia performing sacred Indigenous dances — has garnered protest and pushback from Native American communities.
When former Westernaires member Justice Maldonado first witnessed the organization’s portrayal of Native communities, the now-11-year-old Indigenous girl said she was “crying and hurt on the inside.”
“My family doesn’t participate in racism, and I knew my family would do anything to keep people from hurting us,” Justice said Monday.
She joined the Westernaires with her sister, Jamilah Maldonado, in 2022 when their grandmother, Marjorie Lane, signed them up. The family became advocates for educating the Westernaires and asking board members to stop the organization’s cultural appropriation.
The Westernaires’ email to members did not explain why the board had decided, as of February, to end the dance program or say whether the organization would continue performing its reenactment of the Battle of Little Bighorn — a major defeat of U.S. forces in what is now Montana that is also known as Custer’s Last Stand or, to Natives, the Battle of Greasy Grass.
It appears, though, that pressure from the National Western Stock Show played a part.
Stock Show President and CEO Wes Allison declined an interview with The Post on Monday. But Lane provided emails between Allison and herself in which the CEO said he had let Westernaires leadership know that “continued reenactments that were offensive could result in the group not participating in the National Western Stock Show.”
Last month, Denver City Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore invited Justice to speak at a council meeting attended by Allison, who was there for a proclamation honoring the 120th National Western Stock Show — which the Westernaires traditionally perform at.
Justice shared her story, describing how she and her family have asked the Westernaires to stop their Native programming, but said the organization wouldn’t listen.
Lane said she spoke to Allison at the council meeting and followed up, asking him whether he would allow the Westernaires to perform at the stock show if they continued their controversial portrayal of Native culture.
The Westernaires did not perform Native American dancing or reenact the Battle of Little Bighorn at January’s stock show, Allison told Lane in the emails.
“They have a show in October at the Event Center,” Allison wrote, referring to the Westernaires’ annual “Horsecapades” show. “We will add specific language to the contract that forbids them from such acts. I have tried to express my deep concerns and will follow through if they don’t comply. Please know that I take this very seriously and want you to know that I support you 100%.”
Gilmore on Monday praised the efforts of Justice and her family to bring change to the Westernaires.
“The commitment and continued work of the American Indian community, along with Justice and her family, created the momentum to make this change to stop the harm and disrespect that was occurring,” Gilmore wrote in an email to The Post. “I hope that instead of erasure, the Westernaires with reflection will choose to listen to members of the American Indian community and honor their experience and voices to bring people together through a truthful history to enact real change in our world today.”
Justice and Jamilah, who are members of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, told The Post on Monday they were proud of themselves and their grandmother for never giving up.
“My family did not say, ‘Oh well, they are not listening, so let’s stop the protest,'” Justice said. “What my family really said was, ‘This is not right. We need to do something, and we need to do it now.’”
The family loved the Westernaires’ horse-riding education and the friendships the girls made, but were shocked by the group’s performers imitating sacred Native dancing and acting out the Battle of Little Bighorn in a “cowboys vs. Indians”-style brawl that they said made a mockery of the genocide of Native people.
After a Post reporter asked about the Westernaires’ Native American representation in 2024, some of the organization’s leaders acknowledged it was time to change.
Volunteers who had been in the organization since childhood shared how their portrayals of Native Americans had gotten better over the years — no longer calling Native people “savages” in their historical reenactments or dressing the children up in long, black wigs, for example. They infused Native American education into the program, taking Westernaires kids to the site of the Sand Creek Massacre and having them research Indigenous culture.
However, the battle reenactment and Indigenous dancing continued. Lane and her grandchildren chose to leave the organization a year ago, but their activism persisted.
Indigenous activist Erlidawn Roy comes from the Meskwaki, Anishinaabe, Laguna Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo people. The Denverite advocated alongside Lane and her granddaughters for the Westernaires to change their Indigenous portrayals, saying the performances she saw were hurtful to the Native community.
“This feels like a win, finally,” Roy said Monday. “Hopefully, their youth can see this is harm being done by them dressing up in a costume and playing cowboys and Indians. We are living, breathing, different tribes represented, and here they are doing stereotypical damage.”
The Maldonado girls and their younger sister now ride horses elsewhere and have gone on rides with Native community members.
“I am not just a child, but I am a poet and a person that loves her culture and will do anything to stop people being racist to my culture,” Justice said. “It took the Westernaires three years to just make things right for three kids and a nice grandmother that cares about their culture. And now in 2026, my family got the changes that we have been waiting for a very long time.”
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