La Junta Indians
After suffering severe population losses through infectious disease, the Spanish slave trade, and attacks by raiding Apache and Comanche, the La Junta Indians disappeared.
The La Junta Indians lived on the terraces and used the floodplain for agriculture, fishing, hunting, and gathering wild foods.
[2] The abundant water, plant, and animal life attracted indigenous peoples to the La Junta region for thousands of years.
It may also have been influenced by Casas Grandes, a notable prehistoric Indian civilization of the late 14th century located 200 miles west in present-day Mexico.
Based on recent research of architectural styles and mortuary practices, scholars believe that the people of La Junta may have been indigenous to the area.
The settlements at La Junta apparently survived the drought, although changes in the types of dwellings occurred and distinctive, locally produced pottery became common—or more common.
Most of the pottery at La Junta from prehistoric times is Jornada Mogollon, but archeologists believe that it was imported by trading rather than locally produced.
[5] Research on bones and teeth indicates that the La Junta people continued to be dependent on hunting and gathering even after they became settled villagers and adopted agriculture.
As the La Junta people lived at a crossroads in the desert, they may have been different ethnic groups who spoke multiple languages.
For instance, the nomadic Jumano were frequent visitors and trading partners; they may also have been part-time residents of the area and were known to be ethnically distinct from the full-time villagers.
[7] Given the limited amount of land suitable for agriculture and the austere environment, scholars estimate a population of 3,000 or 4,000 people at La Junta.
They were sometimes collectively called Jumano, although that name may more properly apply to the nomadic buffalo hunters who also frequented La Junta.
"[10] These were likely the Jumano, buffalo-hunting Indians who lived further north and east along the Pecos and Concho rivers, and traded and wintered in the La Junta region.
The Spanish transported captured La Junta Indians to work as laborers in the silver mines of Parral, Chihuahua.
In the 17th century, the accumulated losses due to Eurasian infectious diseases, and Apache and Spanish raids caused the population to diminish.
When the Indians all over northern Mexico revolted in 1689 to protest the continuing slave trade, the missions in La Junta were closed.
Many of the survivors soon left the area, discouraged by the harshness of Spanish rule, continuing Apache raids, and a new threat from the Comanche, who had moved south from Colorado.
Some La Junta Indians were forcibly transported to work in the silver mines of Parral; others intermarried with Spanish soldiers and their descendants became part of the Mestizo population; and still others joined their former enemies, the Apache and the Comanche.
