Essay: The Pueblo Revolt

The Indians of Pueblo, gentle and placid, but uniquely lethal than any other group of Indians. In the fragile and sad chronicle of Europe’s conquest of the America’s, the Pueblo revolt is the most remarkable. In 1680, Pueblo Indians were able to throw their conquerors out of their territory and keep them at bay for a dozen years. Of course, the Pueblo Indians lost in the long run, just like any other colony, but the crude but carefully planned conspiracy with which they tormented their conquerors is worthy of praise. Indians had rebelled against white rule way before 1680. However, the only people who managed to regain their real freedom, albeit for some decades, were the people of pueblos. The Spaniards had conquered the Incas of Peru, who in their mighty ways were themselves lethal conquerors who amazed large chunks of land counting into thousands of square miles from their neighbors . The Spaniards had broken into the territory of and overpowered the Mexican Aztecs, equally famed for their exemplary warring skills. The Pueblo were docile and mild-mannered but stroke in unexpected fury, achieving what none of the other victims of Spaniard invasion could manage. There is a long history of Indian rebellion to white-skinned colonizers, but all fell to consistent wars of pacification. In exception, the Pueblo Indians were conquered and subjected to alien rule but in show of solidarity and might, drove the white men out of their territory. For an Indian American, this story is relevant and draws significance from thirty thousand years ago when the first band of Indian hunters settled in America, having traversed the 56-mile-wide Bering Strait located between Alaska and Siberia, and meandered down through Canada and US into Central and South America.
The Pueblo Revolt was a consequence of the Spaniard conquer of the Rio Grande region in 1598. Lead by the royal governor of the new province, Don Juan de Onate, the journey started in Mexico advancing north through Jamestown settlement in Virginia and landing of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in what is today the United States of America. Seven thousand heads of cattle, sheep, mules, goats, sheep jackasses; handful of Spanish troops for security, armor of metal and leather; eleven Franciscan friars chaplains for spiritual needs, they set forth across the barren desert and into the Rio Grade del North, that would lead them to their new territory . After a week of rest by the river, they head north towards the Rio Grande upstream to the pueblos, their final destination. It was on April 30, 1598, not distant from the future town of El Paso that the journey halted with Onate performing the ritual of taking over New Mexico. According to   one of the chaplains held high a cross and an aide gave the governor a legal deed that read; and a clerk recorded every word of the takeover. In God’s and King Philip II name’s Onate possessed “the land, people, mountains, valleys, rivers, pastures, waters, and meadows” three times. Apart from possessing the “land, cities, fortified and unfortified houses, pueblos, towns, minerals and fisheries” Onate declared a rule over “native Indians in every territory of Mexico with civil and criminals prerogative, right to live and die, leaves of trees and stone and sand of rivers ”.
The native Indians woke up to a new reality of inhumanity; being converted to Christianity by force and turned into slaves; those who questioned the gospel of Jesus or turned against the toiling in the plantations were punished with grueling death; the gods of Indians were forbidden; terror became the instrument of Spaniard rule and the land was ravaged by disease brought by aliens.  The Holocaust killed millions of people and the martyrdom of Indians under Spaniard rule remain to be one of the darkest moments in history. At the time Onate declared authority over Indians of pueblos, they were unaware that their freedoms had come to the end. The population of Indians at the time was almost twenty thousand, spread across sixty or seventy villages in a 350-mile stretch of the Rio Grande Valley . Every village lived on its own; different languages was the norm; every community had its own political structure, but life was much the same way everywhere. In numerous attempts, the Spaniards had tried to plant colonies among the pueblos, but had not achieved much. The Indians were cognizant of Spanish capacity for bloodshed and their incessant to replace their community with their own, but did not deem it a potential threat to their existence. When Onate finally set foot in El Paso, the Indian reception was amiable, without realizing that everything will change forever. The latest insurgency was different. Spaniards stayed and seized the Pueblo country, incorporating it into the Spaniard rule. Spanish troops wandered the entire valley; Spanish governor imposed the Spaniard rule; Spanish priest introduced Christianity. Though the magnitude of brutality with which the Spaniard imposed on Indians cannot be compared to that of Peru, New Mexico and West Indies , the suffering was all the same, toiling to build churches, working as slaves, and meeting death when they questioned the invaders. The Indians were treated to such brutality for eighty-two years until 1680 when the extraordinary happened.
Arguably, Onate’s main goal in colonizing New Mexico was economic – to discover gold and silver. The missionaries that accompanied the colonizers had a different mission of spreading Christianity through the gospel to the natives. Sooner than latter, the Pueblos were suffering under oppressive Spanish rule that forced them to toil in building houses and ploughing fields . They were also required to pay taxes and their religious beliefs were suppressed and punished. Though the Pueblo were peaceful people, the irony with which the Spanish treated lad to the revolutions. The Spaniards preached peace and practiced war, stealing food, and peering into the kivas with disrespect and disregarding their sacredness. The Spaniards demanded gold, but the Puebloans had not used any metals at all. It was not the fault of Pueblos not to have gold but the Spaniards did not understood. The Pueblos came to realize that the same Spaniards preaching peace and mercy also grew angry, threatened, chained their religious leaders, stole, and killed. They realized they are enemies that need to be driven out. Supporting the assertion that the Spaniards colonized Pueblos for economic reasons more than anything is the rebellion at Acoma. In 1598, Spanish soldiers seeking food found Acoma, yet they were treated fairly until they demanded grains from their stores, the much needed to survive the winter. The consequence was an altercation that resulted in the death of thirteen soldiers and their commander, Juan de Zaldivar, the nephew of the governor Juan de Onate. In retaliation, Onate dispatched 70 elite men to attack Acoma Pueblo, precipitating into a massacre and destruction of pueblo. The Acoma rebellion, not entirely forgotten was meet with increased demands by the Spaniards for food, clothing, and labor. The prohibition of the traditional religion exacerbated the dislike between Pueblos and Spaniards with the former increasingly dissenting baptism and conversion to Christianity while the latter baffled by the unwillingness despite the many mission they established.  Though relative peace prevailed between 1640 and 1650s, primarily attributed to the protection the Spanish offered the Pueblos against the Navajo and Apache attackers, several groups rebelled but contained by the well-armed and better-organized colonizers .
The changing environmental condition in the 1670s was a perfect recipe for the revolt. The draught that swept the region resulted in famine among the natives and prompted increased attacks from the nomadic tribes. The limited numbers of Spanish soldier’s means pueblos was not always protected. At the same time, the diseases brought by Spaniards ravaged the residents, decreasing their numbers significantly. These factors precipitated an increasing dissent on Christianity as the Pueblos sought answers from their religion. The wave of repression by the Franciscan missionaries to contain the renewed vigor towards the traditional Pueblo religion lead to the banning of Indian practices such as Kichina. Earlier, the missionaries had ignored the Pueblo rituals as long as the natives made an effort to attend mass. By 1675, the tension between the two groups peaked after Governor Juan Francisco Trevino ordered the arrests and prosecution of medicine men for practicing sorcery. The sentences included hanging, whipping, and prison terms. The action infuriated the Pueblo leaders that they attacked the prison, freeing the prisoners. Among the prisoners were medicine man by the name Ohkay Owingeh (Pope) that become the de facto planner of the revolution in 1680.
The Pueblo Revolt occurred in 1680 when the gentle and seemingly harmless Indians conspired into a sudden and violent attack against their oppressors. The revolt lead to slain of hundreds of Spaniards; thousands of others were fleeing to Mexico. Within a few weeks, the entire Spaniard Empire was swept clean off the aliens and for the next twelve years. The disregard for the religion and the culture of the Indian people by the Spaniards is the greatest inspiration for the uprising. Catholicism was forced onto Pueblos and their ceremonial kits (kivas) and sacramental tools (kachinas) destroyed. Since 1645, there were a more abortive uprising, and after every attempt, the medicine men were singled out for reprisal. Pope, Pueblo’s religious leader, tasked himself with commanding the tribal ancestors to restore the customs of natives. Pope organized the rebellion to occur in a single day throughout the province in spite the different dialects of the people. Pope coordinated the attack to take place at the same time despite the enormous distances between the communities. To solve the challenge of communication, the religious leader dispatched runners carrying knotted rope, each knot to be untied one day at a time and the last note would be untied on the material day, August 11, 1680. The Pueblo people comprised Keres, Tompiros, Tewas, Towas, Zuni, Piros, Navajos, and Apaches and despite language variations and distances between their neighborhoods, they have a sound form of communication and established relationships .
As Jack D Forbes documented decades ago , the people of the Southwest were not strangers to each other. Before the Spaniards, they had centuries to build relationships, customs, trade, and alliances with nomadic groups. Just as other horticultural communities, like the Caddo of East Texas and Huron of Georgia Bay that regularly interacted with nomads, Pueblo languages differed but so did Castilian, Portuguese, and Catalans. If conflict resulted in war, the people knew how to abandon their natural habitat and find refuge among the wanderers. Perhaps, the Spaniards might have intensified relationship among the Pueblos. So on the night of August 10, 1680, the Pueblos simultaneously revolted, taking hostage of the Spanish. A force of 8000 Pueblo soldiers attacked and burned the Spanish governor’s settlements in Santa Fe. Though the Pueblos understood that they outnumbered the Spaniard’s, they knew that they were organized, brutal and committed. The Spaniards had advanced weaponry including firearms and steel weapons, but their numbers discounted them.
It is argued by   the revolt was motivated by other external forces such as Apaches and Navajos who remained free of Spanish power. The natives understood the occurrences of other revolutions across the Great Southwest in the seventeenth century. Without a doubt, Pope and the planners of the revolt knew the success of the first resistance against Spanish contact in 1540 as well as other native resistances. With the realization that slavery and religious conflict were the most important aspect underpinning the southwest events, the Pueblo’s leader was motivated to seek independence just as Apaches and Navajos.
The consequence of the revolt was the death of 400 Spanish soldiers and 21 Franciscan friars and huge destruction. Approximately a thousand survivors fled to the governor’s palace in Sante Fe where the Indian warriors laid siege. The lack of basic suppliers drove them out of Sante Fe and into the El Paso del Notre, the current El Paso, Texas, to the rejoice of Pope who installed his rule in New Mexico. After the uprising, the Indian leaders installed their own government; they destroyed everything that was pro-Spanish and celebrated victory by washing off the stains of Christian baptism, annulling marriages, and defiling the Christian places of worship. Pope ordered every vestige of Spanish rule to be eradicated and penalized the Spanish language as well as Spanish tools such as a plow. Pueblo independence continued for a dozen years until shortly after the death of Pope in 1692 when New Mexico was reconquered by Diego de Vargas. The success of the Pueblo Revolution is the most celebrated resistance by Native Americans against the Europeans. Even though the native independence lasted for a short period, it set a precedent that is characteristic of the preceding conquest. The Spanish dominion was re-imposed in 1692, but the ruler was more sensitive to religious tolerance. Since the seventeen century, the Indian kiva and the Christian cross have co-existed side by side in Pueblo communities.
Historians have documented that the twelve years of Pueblo self-rule remained virtually blank . Pope’s commitment to return the natives to their original ways of life motivated the destruction of any record. The people knew the importance of records to the Spanish whom they had been under for eight decades. Subsequently, they destroyed any Spanish document and returned to their ancestral forms of life, consequently blinding conventional historical inquest. The only clear reconstruction of events after the rebellion seems to point to Po’pay rapidly dwindling power.
While the Pueblo revolt remains historically significant, it became short of what the Pueblo had hoped. The propulsion of the Spaniards did not bring peace or prosperity, neither did it ease the burden of the drought. Without the Spaniards, the Pueblo became the constant target of Apache and Navajo who intensified raids. Further, the disparate Pueblo tribes and the vast geographical area lighted up quarrels as to who would occupy the headquarters Santa Fe. Though Pope had imposed himself as the new ruler, many viewed him as a tyrant and ineffective leader that could not unite all the Pueblo post-independence. Likewise, those who had converted to Christianity faulted the ruler’s resolve to destroy every symbol of Spanish presence such as Christian relics; Pope declared “The God of Christians is dead. He was made of rotten wood” . The Pueblo communities differed in loyalty to their leader and even if the opposition to Spanish rule had given them to resolve to be united, the means to unity in the absence of the enemy was inexistent. The power struggles and the incessant attacks from the nomad tribes along with the seven-year drought weakened the Pueblo independence and set the stage for Spanish re-conquest.
The return of the Spanish in 1692 through a military conquest was not much pronounced like the former due in part to the secularized Spanish reign. They resorted to rule the Indians in enlightening form, viewing New Mexico, not as a threat but an ally to nurture relations with to protect the silver mines against the not so distant British and French. The association was cordial devoid of the self-sacrificing, martyrdom-seeking zealotry of the past decades.
Works Cited
Countryman, Edward. A People in Revolution: The American Revolution and Political Society in New York, 1760–1790 (1981)
Hackett, Charles. W. (editor) and Charmion Clair Shelby (translator). “Document AJ-009b: Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Otermín’s Attempted Reconquest, 1680-1682. .” American Journeys (1942): 232-253.
Preucel, Robert W. Archaeologies of the Pueblo Revolt: identity, meaning, and renewal in the Pueblo world. UNM Press, 2007.
Knaut, Andrew L. The Pueblo revolt of 1680: conquest and resistance in seventeenth-century New Mexico. University of Oklahoma Press, 2015.
Riley, Carroll L. Rio Del Norte: People of the Upper Rio Grande from Earliest Times to the Pueblo Revolt. University of Utah Press, 1995.
Wilcox, Michael Vincent, and Michael V. Wilcox. The Pueblo Revolt and the mythology of conquest: An indigenous archaeology of contact. Univ of California Press, 2009.
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