Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1890-07-19
THE SIEGE OF SANTA FE
By the Insurgent Indians of the Pueb
los in the Year 1880.
Specially prepared for the New Mexican
BY PROF. +. A. BANDEL1ER,
Member American Archaeological Institute

(Contlnued,l
On Tuesday, August 20, Otermin sailed
from the palace at dsybreak with 100 men.
THE INDIANS WERE TAKEN BY SURPRISE.
Only the day previous they had danced in
triumph in sight of the Spaniards, yelling
at the top of their voices that they would
soon have the besieged at their mercy.
The conflict was principally along what
now is San Francisco street, in the houses,
the gardens and alleys. The number OF
Indians reported killed, 800, is hardly ex-
aggerated. According to the statements Of
the insurgents themselves, forty-seven
were taken alive, hurriedly examined,
and then shot. AT IL o'clock a. m. all
was over. The rebels scattered and the
siege was raised. Over eighty horses and
number of fire arms, also provisions,
were captured. On the Spanish side some
loss was experienced, also the Maestro de
Campo Andres Gomez was killed and four
soldiers +; the number of wounded was
very considerable. Otermin himself had
received two wounds, and a bullet had
struck him on the breast, the thickness
of his buckskin cuirass arresting the force
of the missile.
The effect OF the sortie of the goth up
on the Indians was such as to cause them
to retire to their pueblos for the time be-
ing. 1t was one of those desperate efforts
that sometimes succeed, and again are
Just as likely to fail. Otermin had no other
alternative left it was matter of life and
death to him.
NOTWITHSTANDING THE VICTORY
it was plain that Santa Fe could no longer
be held. The fields adjacent to the town had
been ravaged by the foe. Supplies were
nearly exhausted at the garrison, and to
replenish the stores for time long enough
to enable the people to subsist until rein
forcements might arrive from Parral, de-
manded greater number of men than
OtermiL could dispose of. Offensive
warfare with the chief object of foraging
would be indispensable, and how could
the governor dispatch fifty men on such
expeditions when he had barely held his
own at Santa Fe with double that num-
Der. 1t might be alleged that twelve
years later Don Diego de Vargas overawed
and brought to submission the whole of
the pueblos with not more than 100 sold
iers, but the conditions were vastly differ
ent. Within the twelve years elapsing
between the outbreak and the first cam
paign of Vargas the Pueblo Indians had,
through shiftlessness, improvidence, in
tertribal warfare and hostility of the No
madio Indians,
LOST FULLY ONE-HALF OF THEIR NUMBERS.
They were discouraged aud weary
of independence, in fact, Vargas APP
peared among them Unexpectedly, and
they submitted for the time. On the
second return of Vargas matters took a
different aspect, and we may yet have to
tell the tale of the struggle, which he had
to 60 through in 1893 and 1894, while
having much larger force at his COM
mand. In 1880 the Pueblos numbered
about "a 900 souls, and they controlled
the live stock, the grain and food Of the
country. They might not have resisted
successfully in the open field even
the small force Otermin was able to send
against them, but they would surely have
cut him up in detail, worn him out in the
end. To get reinforcements from Chi.