Read Kachina and the Cross Online

Authors: Carroll L Riley

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BOOK: Kachina and the Cross
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Page 219
Saca of Taos, and Luis Cuniju of Jemezall of them pretty clearly war captains. Curiously, no specific individual from Pecos, whether religious or secular, was identified, though the religious leader Diego Umviro and a Captain Cachina were involved in the revolt of 1696. As of that time, Umviro was referred to as "the old cacique," and he might have been active in the 1680 uprising. Given the complex politics of the time and the tendency of a number of Pueblo leaders to switch from one side to the other, one wonders if Juan de Ye, who appears as a protege of Governor de Vargas in 1692, may not have been originally a Pecos war leader for the rebels. This was true of a number of other members of the rebellion; Bartolomé de Ojeda of Santa Ana, for example, changed sides after being wounded in Jironza's raid on Zia in 1689, not to mention Luis Tupatú, who had served as overall war leader. Unlike the Pueblo religious leaders, these were men who had important and positive values in Spanish eyes and who functioned easily in Spanish society. It seems unlikely that the religious leaders, once committed to the nativistic cause, had much tendency to change sides, and certainly little incentive to do so. The
capitanes de guerra
had something of value to bargain with, and a number of them found great personal profit in selling their military skills to the Spaniards, once they judged that victory against the resurgent Europeans was becoming increasingly chancy. Only in Hopi, which ruthlessly expunged its one Christianized pueblo, did the war leaders and the religious leaders manage to maintain a solid front against the Spaniards. And only the Hopi remained independent of Spanish rule.
Page 220
Chapter Thirteen
The Currents of War
In this book I use the Spanish terminology,
revolt
, since it is firmly fixed in the literature of the period. From the viewpoint of the Pueblos, however, this was no revolt but rather a reaction to a foreign invader, admittedly one whose invasion had taken place several decades before. For example, the modern Hopi see 1680 as the beginning of a war of liberation, not a revolt against constituted authority.
Although the Pueblo Revolt broke out in August 1680, it clearly represented at least some months of planning. The Spaniards were obviously becoming worried about the situation in New Mexico, thus the frantic attempts of the custodian and Franciscan procurator-general, Fray Francisco de Ayeta, to obtain more soldiers for the province. As described earlier, Ayeta in 1678 managed to bring approximately fifty (mostly convict) soldiers to New Mexico with horses and equipment, and in 1679 negotiated for an additional fifty soldiers to form a presidio in Santa Fe. This request gradually made its way through the Mexico City bureaucracy, eventually being referred to the Crown. In June of 1680, King Carlos II ordered the viceroy to take such steps as necessary to defend New Mexico, but by the time his directive reached New Spain, the rebellion was already underway.
But Ayeta's concerns over the safety of the province probably related more to the increasing pressures of nomads, especially Apaches, on New Mexico. Until disaster actually engulfed them, the Spaniards did not fully comprehend the real threat to their rule in New Mexico. And it was not only the New Mexico Pueblos who were planning action against the Spaniards; a number of other groups along the northwest frontier of New Spain were restless and would rebel in the 1680s. That the Pueblos did have military clout was demonstrated when Governor Treviño was forced to release the religious leaders arrested in 1675. But the colonists apparently learned nothing from that incident.
Page 221
It is hard to explain this bizarre denial of reality, which infected the whole power structure of the colony: missionaries, government officials, and military leaders. A large part of it must have been the Franciscans' belief in the efficacy of their missionization program. That a few evil old menthe hechiceros, or agents of the devilwere up to no good was well understood. Their influence clearly had led to the various outbreaks discussed in chapter 12. But the friars seemed to hold doggedly to the belief that the vast majority of the Pueblos were loyal Christians who would never desert their mentors in time of need. In individual cases, these gentle, passive souls might be led astray by diehard adherents of the old religion or by opportunistic Apaches. Their overall loyalty to Christianity, however, and to their missionary overlords could not be doubted. The Franciscans may have had a psychological need for such a belief, but why was it also accepted by the settlers and the governor? Various governors seem to have bought into this point of view, as did at least some of the major Spanish military leaders, especially Juan Domínguez de Mendoza. At least it led to relatively gentle treatment by the Spaniards of those Pueblo Indians captured after the revolt, and of Indian individuals and groups who deserted the rebel cause and fled to the Spaniards.
Treviño was replaced in 1677 by Antonio Otermín, who essentially followed the policy of his predecessors in office. That he and his military officers were woefully unprepared for the revolt seems clear enough, though Otermín acted with considerable skill and strategic good sense once the crisis arrived. But to what extent was Otermín himself responsible for the Pueblo Revolt? In his reports to the viceroy following the uprising, he takes no real responsibility for the events of August 1680, concentrating instead on his skill in holding the colonists together and on his successful retreat from Santa Fe. It was not until a century later that Fray Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, working in the archives in Santa Fe, focused attention on accusations by the Santa Fe cabildo, filed against Otermín following his replacement in the governorship by Domingo Jironza Pétriz de Cruzate. According to the cabildo report, Otermín had largely given up his authority over the province to his secretary, Maestro de Campo Francisco Xavier, described by the Pueblos as ''a man of bad faith, avaricious, and crafty." According to the cabildo, the Pecos Indians had warned Maestro de Campo Francisco Gómez Robledo (who spoke some Towa) about the coming uprising. Otermín had two messengers of the uprising arrested at Tesuque but ordered them put into prison until Xavier could interrogate them. Later, at least according to Escalante, the rebels besieging Santa Fe offered to call off the rebellion if Francisco Xavier was handed over to them, for he was the man "whose fault it is that we have risen, and we will remain at peace as before."
Page 222
Xavier, in 1680, was not only secretary of government and war and maestro de campo but also an alcalde ordinario. He had come to New Mexico at about the age of thirty as part of the military escort to López de Mendizábal. Xavier married Graciana Griego, daughter of Juan Griego II, the son of one of Oñate's original settlers, and he held a number of offices in New Mexico, serving, for example, under Governor Treviño as a leader in the actions against Popé and other traditionalist Pueblo leaders. The couple had six children, but Graciana appears to have died by 1680. In spite of the enmity of the Pueblos, Xavier and his children escaped to El Paso. Xavier went with Otermín in the 1681 attempt to reconquer the Pueblos but left for New Spain the following year. None of the other family members, except for a young granddaughter, ever went back to New Mexico. Two other Spanish leaders, Sargentos Mayores Luis de Quintana and Diego López Sambrano, were also implicated by Pueblo leaders as brutal in their treatment of the Indians. Neither man was allowed by Vargas to return to New Mexico during the reconquest in the 1690s. There seems to be reasonably good evidence that Xavier at any rate was often barbarous in his activities against the Pueblos.
As mentioned above, the Pueblo leaders had been planning revolt for quite some time. It was necessary to contact and enlist the aid of the religious leaders and, more important, the military leaders of the various pueblos. Because the Pueblo area extended for several hundred miles both east and west and north and south, and since the Indians primarily had to make contact by foot, the conspiracy must by necessity have taken time. It also had to be in the greatest secrecy, and this could not have been easy. In the most important pueblos there were mission stations, and numbers of Indians whose adherence to the new religion, Christianity, would have made them suspect. Even some of the leaders who would otherwise have been expected to support the revolt might be suborned by the missionaries or by their supporters. This does seem to have happened with one individual, Nicolás Bua, at some point before the rebellion began.
In the late summer of 1680 the various strands of the coming rebellion were brought together. All of the pueblos with the exception of the Piro were involved in the conspiracy, and contact was made with various Apache and Navajo groups as well. When the fighting began, it is not entirely clear to what extent the Apachean groups were involved, but they do seem to have joined the Pueblos at Taos. The Mansos were also alerted but delayed their involvement in the war for several years, failing to immediately attack the formidable Spanish force once it made good its escape to the El Paso area.
The method of signaling the final attack was later described to the Spaniards. Messengers carried knotted cords, a knot being unraveled each day until the chosen day. Whether this was true in all Pueblos or only in some is unknown,
Page 223
but a knotted cord, somehow signaling the day of the revolt, does seem to have been involved. What kind of cord is not certain: both a leather strap and a plant-fiber cord are mentioned, and perhaps different kinds of cord were used by different messengers.
In fact, Otermín had considerable warning of the revolt, which may originally have been planned for the morning of August 13. As said above, friendly Pecos Indians had warned Maestro de Campo Francisco Gómez Robledo (date not given), and on August 9, Otermín received letters from Taos informing him that a rebellion was to be launched on August 13. That same day, August 9, Otermín was told by certain of the Tano chieftains that two young runners, Catua and Omatua, had given them the same information. Catua and Omatua were arrested at Tesuque on August 9 and were found to have cords with two knots, signifying a revolt date of August 11. For some reason, the date seems to have been shifted at some point from August 13 to August 11. The capture of the two messengers triggered still another change of plan, and the leaders, operating probably in various pueblos, began to notify the Indians to rise at dawn on Saturday, August 10. Isolated outbreaks may have begun at Tesuque as early as the night of August 9. The outbreak flared as news spread up and down the Rio Grande, and up its tributaries, the Jemez and Puerco/San José Rivers. Jemez and Acoma were in revolt on August 10, but the time schedule in the westernmost pueblos of Zuni and Hopi is less clear. The rebellion in those outlying areas perhaps did not break out until August 11 or 12.
In retrospect, it seems fairly clear that the solid core and center of the rebellion consisted of the Northern Tiwa, Tewa, Towa, and the eastern Keresan Pueblos. Acoma, Hopi, and Zuni Indians also joined the revolt, although one Hopi town, Awatovi, had a strong Christian faction. On the other hand, there seems to have been dissension from the very beginning in the Tano pueblos. We know less about Pecosnot even the name(s) of the revolt leaders have survivedbut the subsequent history of the pueblo during the 1690s suggests that there was a strong pro-Spanish party there also. The Southern Tiwa were divided, with Puaray, Alameda, and Sandia taking part in the uprising, but Isleta, the southernmost Tiwa town, remaining in the Spanish camp. This may have been because of the large Spanish military presence there, Isleta being used as a headquarters by Alonso Garcia, lieutenant governor and commander of the Rio Abajo section of the province of New Mexico. Why the Piro pueblos were not invited to join the rebellion is not clear, but the Piro area had been under siege by Apachean groups for a decade or more. The Tompiro and the Tiwa towns bordering on the Estancia Valley were already deserted, or virtually so, at the time the revolt occurred.
Page 224
Even in the heartland there seem to have been pockets of disagreement with the Indian cause, not too surprising when the eight decades of intense missionization are taken into account. It was this ambivalence on the part of some of the Pueblos that likely forced Popé and/or the other native leaders to take strong, even savage, action against wavering or disloyal Indians.
In the first days of revolt the Indians killed a large number of Spanish men, women, and children both in the pueblos and at nearby estancias. Some 70 people were put to death in the Taos area, and more than 30 in the Tewa region. The Indians of Santo Domingo murdered all three of the friars at the Franciscan headquarters. Then, on an estancia between the two pueblos, Santo Domingo and San Felipe war parties slaughtered the sargento mayor, López de Mendizábal's old supporter Cristóbal de Anaya, his wife, several of his children, and othersa total of 12. A nearby estancia belonging to Agustin de Carvajál was raided, and Carvajál, his wife, his daughter, and another woman were killed. In the Galisteo region, four friars were killed, one being the guardián at Pecos, Fray Fernando de Velasco, who was visiting the Tano country.
In the entire province, some 380 Spaniards and 21 Franciscans were murdered. The bodies were usually stripped and sometimes mutilated. Incidents of torture of priests at Jemez, Zuni, and Acoma, and of a Christian mestiza woman at the latter pueblo were later reported, but to what extent the civilian population was subjected to torture or rape is not known. There were some captives. At Galisteo, for example, at least four women were taken captive. They included the daughter of Maestro de Campo Pedro de Leiva and three other women, probably the daughters of Joseph Leiva, who had an estancia in the Tano region. This particular group was killed later, apparently in revenge for the heavy Tano losses at the siege of Santa Fe. The Tiwa Indian Lucas, probably in late 1684, reported Spanish women and children living and being well treated in San Juan Pueblo.
Though we likely do not have a complete count, a few Spaniards, originally reported killed, clearly survived the revolt period. Vargas in 1692 lists a number of former captives who were being sent to El Paso to be cared for by relatives. One was Petrona Nieto, née Pacheco, with five daughters and two sons, three of the daughters having been born when she was in captivity at San Juan. José Domínguez Mendoza rescued his sister, Juana Domínguez, and her four daughters and a son. Also released were the wife and grown daughter of Pedro Márquez, and two daughters of José Nevares. Juana de Apodaca and a daughter and son, both probably born in captivity, were also rescued. Juana later married a black drummer and herald named Sebastián Rodriguez. In addition to these Spanish and mestizo captives, a mulatto woman named Maria was freed along with her three daughters and one son. A number of Pueblo Indians were
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