page_title: Pueblo Revolt
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Pueblo Revolt / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Early Native American tribal territories, in the present day Western United States.
context_page_description: The Pueblo Revolt of 1680—also known as Popé'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. The Pueblo Revolt killed 400 Spaniards and drove the remaining 2,000 settlers out of the province. The Spaniards reconquered New Mexico twelve years later.
context_section_description: For more than 100 years beginning in 1540, the Pueblo Indians 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 Vásquez de Coronado against the twelve or thirteen pueblos of Tiwa Indians, was particularly destructive to Pueblo and Spanish relations.
  In 1598 Juan de Oñate led 129 soldiers and 10 Franciscan Catholic priests, plus a large number of women, children, servants, slaves, and livestock, into the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico.  There were at the time approximately 40,000 Pueblo Indians inhabiting the region. Oñate put down a revolt at Acoma Pueblo by killing and enslaving hundreds of the Indians and sentencing all men 25 or older to have their foot cut off. The Acoma Massacre would instill fear of and anger at the Spanish in the region for years to come, though Franciscan missionaries were assigned to several of the Pueblo towns to Christianize the natives.
  Spanish colonial policies in the 1500s regarding the humane treatment of Indians were difficult to enforce on the northern frontier. With the establishment of the first permanent colonial settlement in 1598, the Pueblos were forced to provide tribute to the colonists in the form of labor, ground corn, and textiles. Encomiendas were soon established by colonists along the Rio Grande, restricting Pueblo access to fertile farmlands and water supplies and placing a heavy burden upon Pueblo labor. Especially egregious to the Pueblo was the assault on their traditional religion. Franciscan priests established theocracies in many of the Pueblo villages. In 1608, when it looked as though Spain might abandon the province, the Franciscans baptized seven thousand Pueblos to try to convince the Crown otherwise. Although the Franciscans initially tolerated manifestations of the old religion as long as the Puebloans attended mass and maintained a public veneer of Catholicism, Fray Alonso de Posada (in New Mexico 1656–1665) outlawed Kachina dances by the Pueblo Indians and ordered the missionaries to seize and burn their masks, prayer sticks, and effigies.  The Franciscan missionaries also forbade the use of entheogenic drugs in the traditional religious ceremonies of the Pueblo. Several Spanish officials, such as Nicolas de Aguilar, who attempted to curb the power of the Franciscans were charged with heresy and tried before the Inquisition.
  In the 1670s drought swept the region, causing a famine among the Pueblo and increased raids by the Apache, which Spanish and Pueblo soldiers were unable to prevent. Fray Alonso de Benavides wrote multiple letters to the King, describing the conditions, noting "the Spanish inhabitants and Indians alike to eat hides and straps of carts". The unrest among the Pueblos came to a head in 1675. Governor Juan Francisco Treviño ordered the arrest of forty-seven Pueblo medicine men and accused them of practicing "sorcery". Four medicine men were sentenced to death by hanging; three of those sentences were carried out, while the fourth prisoner committed suicide. The remaining men were publicly whipped and sentenced to prison. When this news reached the Pueblo leaders, they moved in force to Santa Fe, where the prisoners were held. Because a large number of Spanish soldiers were away fighting the Apache, Governor Treviño was forced to accede to the Pueblo demand for the release of the prisoners.  Among those released was a San Juan ("Ohkay Owingeh" in the Tewa Language) Indian named "Popé".
caption: The location of the Pueblo villages and their neighbors in early New Mexico.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Mac OS X 10.4.7 (8J135)", "Image DateTime": "2006:11:20 21:51:34", "Image Artist": "SIGRUN STRUNK", "Image ExifOffset": "184"}