Great Pueblo Revolt

Acoma: City in the sky (double-click to enlarge)
Acoma

The Great Pueblo Revolt resulted from the Spanish inquisition's violent suppression of native religions, their brutal exploitation of Indian labour and frequent slave raids against the Apache and other tribes. Over 400 Spanish friars, troops and settlers were killed, and their missions burnt. Finally the Spanish were driven out of their colonial capital of Santa Fe and the administrations papers raked into a large bonfire before destroying Santa Fe itself.

The revolt had been organised by an Indian medicine man known as Pope, who the Spanish had flogged and driven out of San Juan for practising witchcraft (that is to say his native religion). At the appointed time, communicated via knotted cords, the pueblo Indians killed the friars, burnt the missions and turned on the Spanish troops and settlers. They then besieged Santa Fe together with their Apache allies demanding the release of all Indian slaves and Spain's abandonment of New Mexico, forcing the governor to flee.

Apart from the occasional Spanish raid, they would remain free for the next 13 years.

In 1693 Diego De Vargas, the new governor retook Santa Fe and began a war of attrition against the Pueblos. Those that submitted to Spanish rule had priests appointed to administer them, those that didn't were stormed, their women and children enslaved and the men shot or hanged. Many fled to the neighbouring Navajo and Apache lands for protection or to the Pueblos that held out against the Spanish. Although the revolt was finally put down in 1698, the Spanish were never able to fully subdue the Hopi again.

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