Pueblo uprising

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The Pueblo Uprising is a revolt of the Pueblo Indians in 1680 against the Spaniards in what was then the Spanish colony of New Mexico (Spanish: Nuevo México) , now New Mexico in the USA .

The reasons

At the beginning of the 17th century, the Spaniards began to systematically colonize their colony New Mexico in what is now the southwestern United States. Across the region, Spanish settlers established their haciendas on assigned land. According to feudal custom, these land certificates included the residents of the area and were expected to provide the patron with food and labor. As a result, individual pueblos rebelled again and again : Zuñi 1632, Taos 1639–1640, Jemez 1644 and 1647, and the Tewa pueblos 1650. There are undoubtedly other outbreaks of violent protests that went unmentioned in the Spanish reports because no one because of incompetence wanted to be removed from his post.

When residents of Acoma attacked a Spanish detachment of soldiers and killed 11 Spaniards, Governor Juan de Oñate reacted quickly and cruelly. He had the pueblo storm and burn down in 1598/1599. 500 men and three hundred women were killed and the survivors were sentenced to 20 years of forced labor. Every man over 20 had a foot cut off.

Governor Juan Francisco de Trevino arrested 47 Indians in a pueblo in 1675 on charges of practicing witchcraft . Four of them were then hanged in the plaza of Santa Fe . The rest were publicly flogged and released after serving prison sentences. If they returned to their evil practices, they were threatened with draconian punishments. Among them was a middle-aged Native American priest named Popé , a member of the San Juan of the Pueblo Ohke . Popé had opposed the monks' missionary work from the start.

Popé began to recruit like-minded Indians first in his own and then in neighboring pueblos. His sparkling speeches met receptive ears. At that time hundreds had starved to death because a seemingly endless drought had dried up the fields. The supply stores were empty and Apache raids decimated the already small herds of cattle, sheep and horses. Added to this were the Spanish demands for food and labor, together with the suppression of the old tribal religion, which led to increasing dissatisfaction. Never before had the Pueblo Indians been united under a single leader - but now, under Popé's leadership, they began to unite against the Spanish.

In the spring of 1680 about 2800 Spaniards lived in Santa Fe and on isolated haciendas in the valley of the upper Rio Grande . Antonio de Otermin was governor. The colonists' dream of quick fortune was over, but once they had settled, they could only leave the colony with royal permission.

The riot

Popé set the day of the uprising on August 13th and sent messengers to the chiefs of the pueblos. However, concerns arose to some of them, and they disclosed the impending revolt to Governor Otermin. When Popé found out about the betrayal, he moved it to the next day, August 10, 1680 .

At seven in the morning, Governor Otermin received a message that the Indians of Tesuque north of Santa Fe had killed the priest at his altar, destroyed the icons and burned the church. Other messengers reported that the missionaries from San Ildefonso and Nambe had been slain. The Church of San Juan was on fire. Remote Spanish haciendas mourned large numbers of casualties. Couriers arrived throughout the day - all the pueblos had risen. The churches were burned down and most of the priests and monks killed. As far west as Acoma, the Zuni and the Hopi villages, death and destruction prevailed.

On the evening of August 10th, all Spaniards in the area fled to Santa Fe. On August 13, the city was surrounded by rebellious Indians who, after brief, unsuccessful negotiations with the besieged, attacked. All day long, around 150 Spanish soldiers from the Santa Fe garrison fought in the fields in front of the city against the Indians, who were largely armed only with bows and arrows. The insurgents kept arriving until the only option left for the Spaniards was to retreat to the fortified city. The next day, 2,500 warriors had encircled Santa Fe. On August 16, they stormed the city and set it on fire, only the governor's palace remained intact. On August 18, Otermin and around 100 desperate Spaniards suddenly counterattacked. They were able to overpower some of the Indians and fight their way through an escape route. The Indians looked on from the surrounding hills as the surviving Spaniards withdrew from Santa Fe in two carts on August 22nd.

In October 1680 all refugees in El Paso gathered on the border in the south. Of the 2,800 Spaniards who lived in the land of the Pueblo Indians, nearly 2,000 had reached El Paso, the rest were dead or missing.

The consequences

Spain had seen other Indian rebellions in its nearly 200-year presence in the New World, but had never seen such anger. The reputation of the Spaniards was so bad that the Pueblo Indians destroyed everything of European origin after they were driven out. So bad was the reputation of the Catholic Church that Indian priests held rituals to defaptize the forced converts and thus free them from any evil influence, as they believed.

After suffering under Spanish rule, the Pueblo Indians now faced the tyranny of one of their own. Popé, the hero of the uprising, made himself governor of all pueblos. When Popé died in 1688 , his empire was weaker than ever. The Pueblo Indians managed to keep the Spaniards out of Nuevo México until 1692 , but then the collapse of the alliance paved the way for the reconquest of the entire region.

Nevertheless, the uprising of 1680 was a long-term success for the Pueblo Indians, because the Spaniards no longer tried to force their religion and culture on the Indians with such brutality as before the uprising.

See also: Timeline of the Indian Wars

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