Pueblo Revolt

[1] Incidents of brutality and cruelty, coupled with persistent Spanish policies such as those that occurred in 1599 and resulted in the Ácoma Massacre, stoked animosity, gave rise to the eventual Revolt of 1680.

In 1598, Juan de Oñate led 129 soldiers and 10 Franciscan priests, plus a large number of women, children, servants, slaves, and livestock, into the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico.

Oñate put down a revolt at Acoma Pueblo by killing and enslaving hundreds of the Native Americans and sentencing all men 25 or older to have a foot cut off.

After two days of warfare, almost 600 Acoma men, women, and children were seized and enslaved, with many being legally convicted and disfigured as punishment for crimes against the Spanish Crown.

With the establishment of the first permanent colonial settlement in 1598, the Pueblos were forced to provide tribute to the colonists in the form of labor, ground corn, and textiles.

[8] Although the Franciscans initially tolerated manifestations of the old religion as long as the Puebloans attended mass and maintained a public veneer of Catholicism, Fray Alonso de Posada (in New Mexico 1656–1665) outlawed Kachina dances by the Pueblo people and ordered the missionaries to seize and burn their masks, prayer sticks, and effigies.

[10] The Pueblos by and large resented the missionaries, with the Hopis in particular referring to Spanish priests as tūtáachi, "dictator and demanding person.

Fray Alonso de Benavides wrote multiple letters to the King, describing the conditions, noting "the Spanish inhabitants and Indians alike eat hides and straps of carts".

Governor Juan Francisco Treviño ordered the arrest of forty-seven Pueblo medicine men and accused them of practicing "sorcery".

Because a large number of Spanish soldiers were away fighting the Apache, Governor Treviño was forced to accede to the Pueblo demand for the release of the prisoners.

It becomes clearer to us why Po'pay was such a credible provocateur and why, over all of two dozen communities speaking six different languages and spread over a nearly 400-mile radius from Taos at one end to the Hopi villages at the other, he was eventually believed and respected if the information presented here about his likely identity as a revered Tewa is accurate.

Unfortunately, Fray Fernandao De Velasco was informed right away by Christian Indians that two Tewa young men had visited the war chief's house.

[20] On August 10, the Puebloans rose up, stole the Spaniards' horses to prevent them from fleeing, sealed off roads leading to Santa Fe, and pillaged Spanish settlements.

He assembled a force of 146 Spanish and an equal number of native soldiers in Paso del Norte (now known as Ciudad Juarez) and marched north along the Rio Grande.

With the threat of a Puebloan attack growing, on January 1, 1682, Otermin decided to return to Paso del Norte, burning pueblos and taking the people of Isleta with him.

In 1691 or 1692, a delegation of Pueblo men from Jemez, Zia, Santa Ana, San Felipe, Pecos, and several Tanos traveled to Guadalupe del Paso to negotiate with the expelled Spaniards.

[34] The Spanish return to New Mexico was prompted by their fears of French advances into the Mississippi valley and their desire to create a defensive frontier against the increasingly aggressive nomadic tribes on their northern borders.

He promised the 1,000 Pueblo people assembled there clemency and protection if they would swear allegiance to the King of Spain and return to the Christian faith.

It was the thirteenth town he had reconquered for God and King in this manner, he wrote jubilantly to the Conde de Galve, viceroy of New Spain.

De Vargas and his forces staged a quick and bloody recapture that concluded with the surrender and execution of the 70 Pueblo warriors on December 30, and their surviving families (about 400 women and children) were sentenced to ten years' servitude and distributed to the Spanish colonists as slaves.

[39][40] In 1696 the residents of fourteen pueblos attempted a second organized revolt, launched with the murders of five missionaries and thirty-four settlers and using weapons the Spanish themselves had traded to the natives over the years; de Vargas's retribution was unmerciful, thorough and prolonged.

Although the exact number of knots utilized is up for debate, (sculptor Cliff Fragua) believes that planning and informing the majority of the Pueblos must have taken many days.

The necklace he wears serves as a continual reminder of where life began, and he dresses in Pueblo style, with a loin cloth and moccasins.

[48] In 2005, in Los Angeles, Native Voices at the Autry produced Kino and Teresa, an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet written by Taos Pueblo playwright James Lujan.

Set five years after the Spanish Reconquest of 1692, the play links actual historical figures with their literary counterparts to dramatize how both sides learned to live together and form the culture that is present-day New Mexico.

He has been living in seclusion in the mountains for the entire time, observing the oddities of history as it has been shaped by the individuals he assisted in rescuing 331 years ago.

[50] In 2016, Jason Garcia (Okuu Pin-Turtle Mountain) created artwork to capture the ever-changing cultural landscape of Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico.

Garcia's art is influenced by Tewa traditional rites, customs, and storytelling, as well as 21st-century popular culture, comic books and technology.

A close examination of his "Corn Dance Girls" jar reveals a satellite TV antenna emerging from the Pueblo behind the figures.

A comedy about two Indigenous brothers living in Isleta Pueblo before, during, and after the revolt, the play asks, "When history is in the making, what do ordinary people do?".

The location of the Pueblo villages and their neighbors in early New Mexico.
Taos Pueblo served as a base for Popé during the revolt.
The Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, seen here in a 1930s postcard, was besieged by the Pueblo in August 1680.
The primary cause of the Pueblo Revolt was probably the attempt by the Spanish to destroy the religion of the Puebloans , banning traditional dances and religious icons such as these kachina dolls .
Statue of Po’pay by Cliff Fragua in the National Statuary Hall