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Dr. Jerry Gonzalez
Indigenous Uprising
During the 1500’s, it seemed that Spain was conquering most of the Americas and
ultimately wanted to conquer its inhabitants. They had recently conquered Mexico and
assimilated the Aztecs and they seemed to be on their way to continue their reign of
northern territories. The Pueblo Revolt proved to be a testament to indigenous people
uprising against foreign rule and the imposing of foreign ideas. It is evident that
indigenous Indians did not fully embrace the Spanish conquest and revolted against their
suitors. This essay will review the Spanish conquest attempt on the Pueblo Indians, the
ideologies and treatment of the Spanish on the indigenous people, and the outcome of
such oppression and forced conversion of the Pueblo Indians, which resulted in the
Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
Before 1680, for 10,000 years, people had lived and died in the Rio Grande
Valley of northern New Mexico. In the beginning, they were nomadic hunter-gatherers,
living off the land as they travelled across it. Slowly, the people learned to farm, and
farming required staying in one location, so villages appeared. Men spent more time
farming than hunting and women spent more time grinding seeds than gathering berries.
Society began to organize. Religions formed, and these religions all held in common the
idea of living in harmony with each other, with the land and with the seasons. As life
prospered for the indigenous people in current day New Mexico, it was bound to change
and take a drastic toll on the Pueblo residents. Franciscan missionaries, ambitious
conquistadores, and profit-hungry entrepreneurs were lured into the Pueblo region of
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New Mexico. Juan de Onate, one of those missionaries, led a religious expedition and
established the first permanent Spanish colony in New Mexico in 1598. After settling in,
Onate and his men began to run out of food near the Acoma Pueblo and demanded food
from the inhabitants who declined and instead, killed 31 Spaniards. Because of their
disobedience, Onate attacked the Acoma Pueblo, captured it, and began his conversion of
the Pueblos. During the attack, more than 800 citizens died. The disturbance that
occurred at the Acoma Pueblo was a warning sign for Onate. His dream of a new world,
greater than New Spain, had vanished. In its place now stood a barren and impoverished
colony, a handful of Spaniards, and an overwhelmingly Pueblo majority. In a letter to
Don Luis deValesco from the notary for the king of Spain, it explains how the king has
given full control and provisions to Don Juan de Onate, (1595). The letter entails how the
king of Spain is “trusting you in a Christian manner” (Luis de Velasco, 1595), to take
control of the New Mexico region, as long as it is in the name of religion. The letter
continues by stating that the king has “name you as my governor and captain general,
chief, discoverer, and pacifier of the said provinces of New Mexico” (Luis de Velasco,
1595). The letter then states something that will give insight to the future treatment and
vision of what Spaniards believe the indigenous Indians should look and act like. In the
letter it states how the Spanish “should try to bring the natives of these provinces to you
and to induce them to hear the word of the holy gospel” (Luis de Velasco, 1595); and that
all Indians should convert to the catholic faith. It then ends by the king of Spain giving
freedom to Onate to “punish any rebels or those who overstep the bounds of his
authority” (Luis de Velasco, 1595). This letter is an indication to what the true meanings
of the Spanish were and how they were going to achieve them. It is evident that the
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Spanish were going to conquer the indigenous people and make them convert to their
religion, ideologies, and assimilate to their customs. The question in peril would be if the
Indians would succumb to these changes while still practicing their own beliefs and
customs.
The Spanish, while their conquering expeditions always believed them selves to
be superior and more advanced than the people they were conquering???. This was
evident throughout the first expeditions of the Americas and through the pueblo region as
well. They believed that because they were European and had more military advanced
weaponry, and their sheer appearance, that they belonged atop the human race. They
strictly showed this by oppressing the native people and stripping them of their beliefs
and customs. The Spanish would violently express their belief in wanting the native
Indians to convert to Catholicism and pay tribute to the Spanish for protection and saving
them from inferiority. Throughout the 1500’s, the Spanish had set a precedent of blatant
oppression forcing Native Americans into the encomienda system. This system was
employed during the Spanish conquests of the America’s and Phillippines; the purpose of
this system, acknowledged by the Spanish, was to assist the colonists in the
evangelization of the Natives. However the system also functioned as a way to enslave
the natives. The encomienda system in New Mexico allowed the Spaniards to seize a
portion (and usually far more than 10%) of every farmer's crop to support Spanish
missionary, military and civil institutions. Then there was repartimiento, which provided
forced Indian labor to work in Spanish fields and weaving sweatshops. Then there was
also the Inquisition: an all-out holy war on anything religious that was not Franciscan
Christian, which spanned the 17th century and, in New Mexico, provided lots of workers
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for the Spaniards by declaring many Indians heretics and witches and condemning them
to years of slavery. Examples of the tariffs that indigenous people had to pay, the unfair
labor and the encomienda system that was in place, was sent as a report in the form of a
letter by Francisco Martinez de Baeza, to Geronimo de Castillo who was a notary for the
king of Spain. The letter explains how the riches of the New Mexico area had not been so
profitable to the Spanish. De Baeza wants the indigenous people to “pay tithes and some
tributes” (de Baeza, 1639), for the Spanish having to take care of the Indians and them
being under Spanish supervision, to some extent. This also gives insight to the Spanish
believing that they are doing some sort of service by protecting the Indians from rivaling
Apaches. They also believe that if they pay tariffs, then the Spanish are being rewarded
by the Indians for civilizing, what the Spanish consider to be, a savage race. The letter
then continues to explain how the indigenous people pay with “hides, deer skins, cotton
blankets and products of the country” (de Baeza, 1639), because of their inability to pay
with currency. It is for that reason that the racherias, or villages, were not producing
much profit; the value of what the Indians had was at a very low cost. De Baeza then
suggests that by making the Indians pay a tariff, it had made the conversion and
assimilation of natives very difficult. It is apparent that the indigenous people were not
happy having to pay taxes and it made it tough for them to fully embrace their white
conquerors. De Baeza suggested that if they were relieved from their tariff duties than
they would convert more easily and would truly embrace the Spanish religion and
customs.
There was rebellion over the years. In 1630, the Zuni killed a couple of priests. In
1645, in Jemez, there was a revolt planned with the Navajo but after the first Spaniard
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died, the authorities moved quickly. Before it was over, 29 villagers had been executed
while many others were whipped and still others were sold into slavery. Another effort in
1650 got nine more men hung and many more sold into slavery for ten years.
In 1661, the leader of the Franciscans gave orders to the Spaniards to immediately
destroy any and all Indian religious objects they came across. This pushed the Indians
still closer to a breaking point. In 1670, there was a drought in the land. Because of the
Spanish taxes, the tribes had nothing stored up and many people died of hunger that year.
The next year brought an epidemic, possibly disease, which sickened both cattle and
people.
After three generations of oppression, in the spring of 1680, the Pueblo Indians
rose up to overthrow the Spanish. A religious leader from Taos Pueblo named Pope or
Popay, secretly organized a widespread rebellion to occur throughout the region on a
single day. Planning took shape silently during the summer of 1680 in more than 70
communities, from Santa Fe and Taos in the Rio Grande valley to the Hopi pueblos
nearly 300 miles west. On the night of August 10, 1680, Indians in more than two-dozen
pueblos simultaneously attacked the Spanish authorities. A force of 2,500 Indian warriors
sacked and burned the colonial headquarters in Santa Fe. By the time the revolt
succeeded, Indian fighters had killed more than 400 Spanish soldiers and civilians; which
included two-thirds of the Catholic priests in the region and had driven the surviving
Europeans back to El Paso. The revolt is briefly described in a document in which Indian
prisoner, Pedro Naranjo, depicts why the revolt took place and for what purpose was the
rebellion executed. Pedro describes how the native Indians “planned to rebel on various
occasion through conspiracies of the Indian sorcerers.” (Naranjo, 1680). Pedro then
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describes how on “summons of an Indian named Pope who is said to have
communication with the devil” (Naranjo, 1680), foresaw signs in an Indian temple. Pope
apparently saw fire being emitted from the extremities of the body of these figures. They
told him to make a cord of maguey fiber and tie some knots in which it would signify the
number of days the indigenous people must wait before the rebellion. Pedro continues his
confession by stating that the cord would be passed through all the pueblos of the
kingdom so that the Indians who agreed to join the rebellion would untie one knot in sign
of their obedience. The other knots that were left would indicate to the Indians how many
days until the rebellion. Pedro then confessed that two days before the rebellion was to be
executed, two Indian accomplices were imprisoned. Therefore for fear that the rebellion
would be discovered, the Indians prematurely carried out the revolt. Pedro then depicts
how Pope, “commanded all the Indians to break the land and enlarge their cultivated
fields” (Naranjo, 1680), which means that they would break from Spanish rule. Pedro
states that the religious oppression, and all that the Indians had endured, would be the
reason behind the rebelling.
Pedro ends his confession with stating that the Indians were then ordered by Pope
to break and destroy all images, temples, crosses, and other things of divine worship.
Pope then ordered the rebelling Indians to burn images and anything pertaining to
Christianity. Then they would be summoned to bathe in the rivers and wash away their
baptismal names and anything given to them in holy sacrament. Pedro describes how
Pope wanted the indigenous people to “return to the state of their antiquity” (Naranjo,
1680), and by doing so was for a better life. The interview then concludes with Pope
stating that by returning to their old ways and returning to their antiquity of living, that
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the Indians would have great harvest. For doing this, Indians would erect their houses and
enjoy abundant health and leisure.
So in conclusion the Indian leaders then restored their own religious institutions
and set up a government that lasted until 1692. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was the single
most successful act of resistance by Native Americans against a European invader. It
established Indian independence in the pueblos for more than a decade, and even after
Spanish domination was re-imposed, it forced the imperial authorities to observe
religious tolerance. So the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, proved to be a very important piece of
history in the history of the native New Mexico Indians. The revolt showed that though
the oppression of Spanish rule was strong, native Indians would rise together and rebel.
The revolt reviewed the Spanish conquest attempt on the Pueblo Indians, the ideologies
and treatment of the Spanish on the indigenous people, and the outcome of such
oppression and forced conversion of the Pueblo Indians, which resulted in the Pueblo
Revolt of 1680.
Galaab Gandaria
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Dr. Jerry Gonzalez
Bibliography
Lopez de Gaona, M. (1595, October 21). [Letter to Luis de Valesco]
Martinez de Baeza, F. (1639, February 12). [Letter to Geronimo de Castillo]
Naranjo, Pedo. "Coexistence and Conflict in the Spanish Southwest: The Pueblo Revolt
of 1680." Digit History. N.p., 1 Jan. 1680. Web. .
<http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook_print.cfm?smtid=3&psid=651>.
Barr, J. (2007). Peace came in the form of a woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas
borderlands. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Knaut, A. L. (1995). The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 : Conquest and Resistance in
Seventeenth-century New Mexico. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
de Martino, T. J. (2004). Rebellion's sword: The great pueblo revolt of 1680. (Order No.
1416975, California State University, Fullerton). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, ,
103-103 p. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/250704621?accountid=7122. (250704621).