On this date… August 10, 1680… New Mexico

After eighty years of living like serfs under Spanish domination, the Pueblo revolted.  Across a broad territory, they rose up on a single day, killed hundreds of Spanish priests and leaders, and sent the remaining two-thousand fleeing down the Rio Grande to today’s Ciudad Juarez.

Spanish sympathizers were killed immediately.  Churches were burned.  Kachina dances were revived.  And, most significantly, all that they harvested, whether it was maize or beans or cotton or squash or watermelons or cantaloupes, was theirs.

New Mexico was swept clean of Europeans for most of the next twelve years.  It was probably the largest indigenous revolt, in terms of duration, geographic scope, and degree of societal transformation, in the history of North America. Image

Hopi mural of the Pueblo Revolt 

A Tiwa man explained it the Spaniards:  “For a long time, because the Spaniards punished sorcerers and idolaters, the nations of the Tewas, Taos, Picurís, Pecos, and Jémez had been plotting to rebel and kill the Spaniards and the religious, and that they had been planning constantly to carry it out, down to the present occasion….  He declared that the resentment which all the Indians have in their hearts has been so strong… and that he has heard this resentment spoken of since he was of an age to understand.”

Sando, J.S. 1992.  Pueblo Nations.

Kessell, J.L. 1979.  Kiva, Cross, and Crown.

http://adamjamesjones.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/the-pueblo-revolt-of-1680-an-american-braveheart/

http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-009b/summary/

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/one/pueblo.htm

Unknown's avatar

About Stephen Carr Hampton

Stephen Carr Hampton is an enrolled citizen of Cherokee Nation, an avid birder since age 7, and a former resource economist for the California Department of Fish & Game, where he worked as a tribal liaison and conducted natural resource damage assessments and oversaw environmental restoration projects after oil spills. He writes most often about Native history and contemporary issues, birds, and climate change.
This entry was posted in On this date... and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.