Tompiro Indians

The ruin known as Gran Quivira today but during Spanish times as Las Humanas – was the largest settlement and may have had a population of 2,000 people.

Thus, they were important traders and middlemen between the Plains Indians and the Pueblos of the Rio Grande Valley for salt and bison skins and meat.

The Tompiros also hunted small and large game in the region, especially deer, pronghorn, and rabbits and gathered wild foods, including pinyon pine nuts.

[7] In 1601, the founder of the colony of New Mexico, Juan de Oñate, retaliated for the killing of two Spaniards with a raid on the Tompiros that left, according to one account (probably exaggerating the feat of Spanish arms), 900 Indians dead and three Pueblos destroyed.

[8] The Tompiros were distant from the early Spanish settlements in the Rio Grande Valley and not until 1627 was a Catholic mission, headed by the Franciscan Fray Alonso de Benavides, established at Las Humanas.

The early days of Spanish settlement in New Mexico were characterized by bitter disputes between the civil authorities and the missionaries as each attempted to exert control – and exploit – the Pueblo Indians.

Aguilar was a Mestizo (part Indian) soldier from Michoacán, Mexico and he carried out the policy of Governor López forcefully.

During a bitterly cold winter when the Franciscans requested Indian assistance to gather firewood, Aguilar told them to burn the 600 wooden crosses they had collected for ceremonies.

The Franciscans took their grievances to the authorities in Mexico City and López and Aguilar were charged under the Inquisition of obstructing the spread of the Catholic faith.

"[10] Labor required of the Tompiro to build churches and to participate in Catholic religious ceremonies took time away from what the Indians needed to earn their uncertain living in a difficult environment.

Weakened by drought and disease, fractured by religious disputes, the Tompiros were also the closest and most vulnerable of the Pueblos to Apache raiders.