Using the case studies of Bandelier National Monument, Valles Caldera National Park and Los Alamos National Laboratory, this thesis explores colonial assumptions embedded in the various management decisions and philosophy of these spaces and their effects on Native religious freedom and expression. Native people get cast aside as these spaces prioritize an abstract notion of the "public good" over concrete and nearby native religious rights. The notion of public can include national security, wilderness conservation or cultural preservation yet natives and their religious freedom are damaged regardless of how the public good defense manifests itself. Through the creation and management of these federal spaces, nearby Pueblo groups have lost access to sacred areas, and lost the ability to represent their own sovereign spaces and stories. Examining these detrimental effects on religious freedom in these three federal spaces in New Mexico, this thesis will open a discussion to how Native people and federal spaces can best begin to correct colonial assumptions in these federal spaces as well as give natives the ability to represent themselves and assert their religious rights