THE PUEBLO REVOLT BEGINS IN NEW MEXICO IN 1680

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, that began in New Mexico on a day like today in 1680.

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, also known as Popé's Rebellion or Po'pay's Rebellion, was an uprising of most of the indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, larger than present-day New Mexico.

Incidents of brutality and cruelty, coupled with persistent Spanish policies that stoked animosity, gave rise to the eventual Revolt of 1680. The persecution and mistreatment of Pueblo people who adhered to traditional religious practices was the most despised of these.

The Spaniards were resolved to abolish pagan forms of worship and replace them with Christianity. 

The Pueblo Revolt killed 400 Spaniards and drove the remaining 2,000 settlers out of the province. The Spaniards returned to New Mexico twelve years later.

For more than 100 years beginning in 1540, the Pueblo people of present-day New Mexico were subjected to successive waves of soldiers, missionaries, and settlers. These encounters, referred to as entradas (incursions), were characterized by violent confrontations between Spanish colonists and Pueblo peoples. The Tiguex War, fought in the winter of 1540-41 by the expedition of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado against the twelve or thirteen pueblos of Tiwa Native Americans, was particularly destructive to Pueblo and Spanish relations.

Following his release, Popé, the Tewa religious leader, along with a number of other Pueblo leaders, planned and orchestrated the Pueblo Revolt. Popé took up residence in Taos Pueblo, about 70 miles north of the capital of Santa Fe, and spent the next five years seeking support for a revolt among the 46 Pueblo towns. He gained the support of the Northern Tiwa, Tewa, Towa, Tano, and Keres-speaking Pueblos of the Rio Grande Valley. The Pecos Pueblo, 50 miles east of the Rio Grande pledged its participation in the revolt as did the Zuni and Hopi, 120 and 200 miles respectively west of the Rio Grande.

The Pueblos not joining the revolt were the four southern Tiwa (Tiguex) towns near Santa Fe and the Piro Pueblos south of the principal Pueblo population centers near the present day city of Socorro. The southern Tiwa and the Piro were more thoroughly integrated into Spanish culture than the other groups.

Popé then ordered the revolt to begin a day early. The Hopi pueblos located on the remote Hopi Mesas of Arizona did not receive the advanced notice for the beginning of the revolt and followed the schedule for the revolt.

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. A total of 400 people were killed, including men, women, children, and 21 of the 33 Franciscan missionaries in New Mexico.

In the rebellion at Tusayan (Hopi) churches at Awatovi, Shungopavi, and Oraibi were destroyed and the attending priests were killed. Survivors fled to Santa Fe and Isleta Pueblo, 10 miles south of Albuquerque and one of the Pueblos that did not participate in the rebellion.

By August 13, all the Spanish settlements in New Mexico had been destroyed and Santa Fe was besieged. The Puebloans surrounded the city and cut off its water supply. In desperation, on August 21, New Mexico Governor Antonio de Otermín, barricaded in the Palace of the Governors, sallied outside the palace with all of his available men and forced the Puebloans to retreat with heavy losses. He then led the Spaniards out of the city and retreated southward along the Rio Grande, headed for El Paso del Norte. The Puebloans shadowed the Spaniards but did not attack. The Spaniards who had taken refuge in Isleta had also retreated southward on August 15, and on September 6 the two groups of survivors, numbering 1,946, met at Socorro. About 500 of the survivors were Native American slaves. They were escorted to El Paso by a Spanish supply train. The Puebloans did not block their passage out of New Mexico.

The retreat of the Spaniards left New Mexico in the power of the Puebloans.

Popé was a mysterious figure in the history of the southwest as there are many tales among the Puebloans of what happened to him after the revolt. Later testimony to the Spanish by the Pueblo people was probably colored by anti-Popé sentiments and a desire to tell the Spanish what they wanted to hear.

More information: Indian Pueblo Cultural Center

You can kill a revolutionary
but you can never kill the revolution.

Fred Hampton