[4] The pueblo was constructed in a setting backed by the Taos Mountains of the Sangre de Cristo Range.

A long drought in the area in the late 13th century may have caused them to move to the Rio Grande, where the water supply was more dependable.

[citation needed] Throughout its early years, Taos Pueblo was a central point of trade between the native populations along the Rio Grande and their Plains Tribes neighbors to the northeast.

Around 1620, Spanish Jesuits oversaw construction of the first Catholic Church in the pueblo, the mission of San Geronimo de Taos.

[10] Reports from the period indicate that the native people of Taos resisted the building of the church and forceful imposition of the Catholic religion.

[15] Following the death of Bent and several other Americans, Col. Sterling Price, commander of the US forces based in Santa Fe, led an expedition against the insurgents, defeating them at the Battle of Cañada on January 24.

The rebels retreated inside Taos Pueblo, and Price bombarded the town and the church where the defenders were sheltering with artillery on February 3.

The Pueblo's 48,000 acres (19,000 ha) of mountain land was taken by President Theodore Roosevelt and designated as the Carson National Forest early in the 20th century.

It was finally returned in 1970 by the United States when the Republican Richard Nixon signed Democratic senator Fred Harris' Public Law 91-550.

[18] Blue Lake, which the people of the Pueblo consider sacred, was included in this return of Taos land.

[22] At the time of the Spaniards' initial contact, Hernando de Alvarado described the pueblo as having adobe houses built very close together and stacked five or six stories high.

Instead, access to rooms was through square holes in the roof that the people reached by climbing long, wooden ladders.

Engelmann Spruce logs (or vigas) supported roofs that had layers of branches, grass, mud, and plaster covering them.

[24] Since Spanish colonization, the native Taos people have resisted cultural change and influence with European ideas.

[25] Many ethnographers observe a high level of "interconnectedness and mutual dependence" between the Taos Pueblo and their surrounding land, where they derive many of their cultural traditions.

[26] In addition, the Taos Pueblo attribute great value to Blue Lake in regards to their "living culture and agricultural sustainability.

In the cultural fabric of the Taos Pueblo, the ethnographic data suggests that women are considered to be subordinate to men.

The Pueblo social structure is dictated by kiva memberships, and women are not allowed to take part in the rituals held in these sacred spaces because they "are not trained" to do so.

Supervisors teach trainees about traditional construction methods while rebuilding the majority of an 11-unit house which was in a state of near collapse.

They include the training of local people to manage their own property, as well as the establishment of partnerships with government and non-government entities.