New Mexico
and
the
PiMeria alta
The Colonial Period in The ameriCan SouThweST
edited by John G. Douglass and william M. Graves
New Mexico aND
the PiMería alta
New Mexico
PiMería alta
and
the
The Colonial Period in
The ameriCan SouThweST
edited by John G. Douglass and william M. Graves
UNiversity Press of coloraDo
Boulder
© 2017 by University Press of Colorado
Published by University Press of Colorado
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∞ This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
ISBN: 978-1-60732-573-4 (cloth)
ISBN: 978-1-60732-574-1 (ebook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Douglass, John G., 1968– editor. | Graves, William M., editor.
Title: New Mexico and the Pimería Alta : the colonial period in the American Southwest / edited
by John G. Douglass and William M. Graves.
Description: Boulder : University Press of Colorado, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016044391| ISBN 9781607325734 (cloth) | ISBN 9781607325741 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Spaniards—Pimería Alta (Mexico and Ariz.)—History. | Spaniards—Southwest,
New—History. | Indians of North America—First contact with Europeans—Pimería Alta
(Mexico and Ariz.)—History. | Indians of North America—First contact with Europeans—
Southwest, New—History. | Ethnoarchaeology—Pimería Alta (Mexico and Ariz.) |
Ethnoarchaeology—Southwest, New.
Classification: LCC F799 .N47 2017 | DDC 979/.01—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016044391
An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries
working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make
high-quality books open access for the public good. The open access ISBN for the PDF
version of this book is 978-1-60732-701-1; for the ePUB version the open access ISBN is 978-1-60732722-6. More information about the initiative and links to the open-access version can be found at
www.knowledgeunlatched.org.
Cover photograph, Ruins of a room block and the San Gregorio de Abó church at Abó Pueblo in
the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, by William M. Graves
To Jane Dempsey Douglass, Gordon Douglass, and
the late Ralph Douglass for their inspirational examples
and to Jill Onken for her love
and
To Helena Rodrigues and Matilde Graves
for their love and encouragement.
contents
List of Figures | ix
List of Tables | xiii
Foreword by David Hurst Thomas | xv
Preface | xxi
Acknowledgments | xxiii
1.
New Mexico and the Pimería Alta: A Brief Introduction to the Colonial
Period in the American Southwest
John G. Douglass and William M. Graves | 3
Part 1. the New Mexico colony: Native and colonist worlds colliding
2.
“The Peace That Was Granted Had Not Been Kept”: Coronado in the
Tiguex Province, 1540–1542
Matthew F. Schmader | 49
3.
Meeting in Places: Seventeenth-Century Puebloan and Spanish
Landscapes
Phillip O. Leckman | 75
4.
Hopi Weaving and the Colonial Encounter: A Study of Persistence
through Change
Laurie D. Webster | 115
|
vii
5.
The Pueblo World Transformed: Alliances, Factionalism, and Animosities
in the Northern Rio Grande, 1680–1700
Matthew Liebmann, Robert Preucel, and Joseph Aguilar | 143
6.
Comanche New Mexico: The Eighteenth Century
Severin Fowles, Jimmy Arterberry, Lindsay Montgomery, and Heather
Atherton | 157
7.
Aquí Me Quedo: Vecino Origins and the Settlement Archaeology of the
Rio del Oso Grant, New Mexico
J. Andrew Darling and B. Sunday Eiselt | 187
8.
Becoming Vecinos: Civic Identities in Late Colonial New Mexico
Kelly L. Jenks | 213
9.
Moquis, Kastiilam, and the Trauma of History: Hopi Oral Traditions of
Seventeenth-Century Franciscan Missionary Abuses
Thomas E. Sheridan and Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa | 239
Part 2. Divergent histories and experiences in the Pimería alta,
southern arizona
10.
Population Dynamics in the Pimería Alta, ad 1650–1750
Lauren E. Jelinek and Dale S. Brenneman | 263
11.
Missions, Livestock, and Economic Transformations in the Pimería Alta
Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman | 289
12.
Life in Tucson, on the Northern Frontier of the Pimería Alta
J. Homer Thiel | 311
13.
O’odham Irrigated Agriculture Response to Colonization on the Middle
Gila River, Southern Arizona
Colleen Strawhacker | 331
Part 3. Discussion and comparative viewpoints
14.
The Archaeology of Colonialism in the American Southwest and Alta
California: Some Observations and Comments
Kent G. Lightfoot | 355
15.
Materiality Matters: Colonial Transformations Spanning the
Southwestern and Southeastern Borderlands
David Hurst Thomas | 379
List of Contributors | 415
Index | 417
viii
|
Contents
figures
1.1.
Map of the American Southwest, including the approximate
location of both the Pimería Alta and the New Mexico Colony | 6
1.2.
Map of approximate early Spanish colonial routes through
modern-day Arizona | 13
1.3.
Map of approximate early Spanish colonial routes through
modern-day New Mexico | 14
2.1.
Approximate route of the Francisco Vázquez de Coronado
expedition, February 1540 to June 1542 | 52
2.2.
Map of Vázquez de Coronado’s “Tiguex Province” (middle Rio
Grande valley) | 54
2.3.
Sample of sixteenth-century metal artifacts recovered from Piedras
Marcadas Pueblo | 64
2.4.
Military-related metal sixteenth-century metal artifacts recovered
from Piedras Marcadas Pueblo | 65
|
ix
Sample of slingstones recovered from surface context at Piedras
Marcadas Pueblo | 68
LA 162’s location in the Middle Rio Grande Valley | 79
2.5.
3.1.
3.2.
3.3.
3.4.
3.5.
3.6.
3.7.
3.8.
3.9.
3.10.
3.11.
3.12.
3.13.
3.14.
3.15.
3.16.
4.1.
4.2.
4.3.
6.1.
x
|
Local watersheds and drainage systems in the vicinity of LA
162 | 80
North-south elevation profile of the Arroyo San Pedro
watershed | 81
Major Early Classic–period sites in the East Mountains | 83
Site map of LA 162 illustrating major divisions and roomblocks
identified by Nels Nelson (1914) | 84
Map of the seventeenth-century plaza group at LA 162 | 85
Rectilinear structure constructed in the southwest corner of
Paako’s seventeenth-century plaza | 89
Corrals erected within Paako’s seventeenth-century plaza | 91
Precontact- and contact-period Arroyo San Pedro community
settlement patterns | 94
Colonial-period water-management features at Paako | 95
Estimated precontact-period ceramic density along the Arroyo San
Pedro floodplain | 96
Estimated contact-period ceramic density along the Arroyo San
Pedro floodplain | 97
Density of major Middle Rio Grande pueblo sites during the Early
Classic Period | 101
Density of major Middle Rio Grande pueblo sites during the
contact and colonial periods | 102
Paako and neighboring communities at the beginning of the
contact period | 103
Paako and neighboring communities in the mid-seventeenth
century | 104
Map of Hopi Reservation | 117
Excerpt of map by Don Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, ca.
1760, illustrating the “Dress and Dance of the Indians of New
Mexico” | 126
Wàlpi kiva interior showing Hopi man weaving on a traditional
upright Pueblo loom, 1899 | 131
The Vista Verde Site (LA 75747), located within Rio Grande Gorge
at the confluence of the Rio Grande and the Rio Pueblo | 165
Figures
6.2.
Probable Jicarilla Apache rock art from the Rio Grande Gorge | 167
6.3.
Lightly abraded and pecked rock art at the Manby Trailhead Site
(LA 102341) | 167
6.4.
Map of the central tipi encampment (Area 6) at the Vista Verde
Site | 169
6.5.
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (detail of
Panel 2014-009A) | 171
6.6.
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (Panel
2008-353) | 171
6.7.
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (panel
2008-408A) | 172
6.8.
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (Panel
2008-374B, overlying graffiti removed) | 173
6.9.
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (panel
2008-298) | 174
6.10
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (Panel
2008-059, overlying graffiti removed) | 174
6.11.
A. Panel 2009-234 at the Vista Verde Site (overlying graffiti
removed). B. Rock art details from the Tolar Site, Wyoming (based
upon Loendorf and Olsen 2003) | 175
6.12.
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Rio Grande Gorge, just
north of the Vista Verde Site (Panel 2009-209) | 179
7.1.
Villages mentioned in the text | 190
7.2.
Changes in population growth rate from 1700 to 1900 using the
formula for exponential population growth | 192
7.3.
The expansion of the Vecino Homeland after Nostrand (1970, 1975,
1980) | 194
7.4.
Rio del Oso grant genealogy | 198
7.5.
Early and late component structures in the Rio del Oso Valley | 201
8.1.
Sample of twenty-five excavated Hispanic Sites | 220
8.2.
Pueblo potting areas | 222
9.1.
Hopi History Project Workshop with the Cultural Resources
Advisory Task Team (CRATT) of the Hopi Cultural Preservation
Office, Kykotsmovi, Arizona, October 21, 2009 | 247
9.2.
Katsina Buttes (Kaktsintuyqa), where Hopis performed ceremonies
in secret during the Franciscan mission period | 248
Figures
|
xi
9.3.
Ruins of mission church at Awat’ovi on Antelope Mesa | 252
10.1.
The Pimería Alta | 265
10.2.
O’odham distribution in the Pimería Alta as reported by Kino and
Manje | 268
10.3.
Pimería Alta sites and landmarks | 270
11.1.
Map of the Pimería Alta in the eighteenth century | 291
11.2.
Summary of zooarchaeological remains from Mission San
Agustín | 299
11.3.
Summary of zooarchaeological remains from Mission
Cocóspera | 299
12.1.
Map of the Pimería Alta | 313
12.2.
A Piman bean pot found in a trash-filled pit inside the Tucson
Presidio | 319
12.3.
Northern Puebloan ceramic sherds found in the Tucson
Presidio | 320
12.4.
Brightly colored Mexican majolica vessels were used by women at
the Tucson Presidio to serve meals | 321
12.5.
Religious medal and forty-four European glass beads found in a
soil-mining pit adjacent to the Tucson Presidio | 323
12.6.
Brass gunstock appliqués on an escopeta found in New
Mexico | 324
13.1.
Map of major Spanish missions and presidios in Arizona and the
study area of focus in this chapter | 333
13.2.
Settlement extent of O’odham villages along the middle Gila River
during the historic period | 339
13.3.
Population numbers of the middle Gila River Valley from historic
documents. | 340
13.4.
Map of middle Gila River historic canals and villages | 343
13.5.
Estimated irrigated acreage in the late historic period, select years,
1850–1921 | 346
13.6.
Grain production on Gila River Indian Community | 347
15.1.
Plan view of the Spanish mission at Abó (New Mexico) after its
first reconstruction circa 1652 | 395
15.2.
This mission bell was found at San Cristóbal Pueblo in New
Mexico’s Galisteo Basin | 400
xii
|
Figures
tables
5.1.
XRF provenience of obsidian artifacts found at revolt-era sites of the
Jemez Valley | 148
7.1.
Comparison of late colonial and Vecino occupations in the Rio del
Oso | 203
8.1.
Sample of Hispanic New Mexican sites | 218
11.1.
Inventories of livestock holdings at Pimería Alta missions and
presidios | 298
|
xiii
F o
r
e
w o
r
d
Columbian Consequences in
Quarter-century Perspective
david hurST ThomaS
John G. Douglass and William M. Graves, the editors of this volume, have told
me that the Columbian Consequences project served as a catalyst for the initial symposium entitled “Transformations during the Colonial Era: Divergent Histories
in the American Southwest,” subsequently published as this volume. They also
asked me to write a few words about the Columbian Consequences effort, from a
quarter-century perspective.
The roots of Columbian Consequences run back to the late 1980s, a time of considerable stress and not a little self-reflection in the Americanist archaeological
community. A decade of repatriation and reburial debate would culminate in the
1990 The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
legislation. Competing paradigms of processual and postprocessual archaeology
generated lively conversations about future directions of archaeological theory.
The rapid growth of applied archaeology (in the form of cultural resource management) tested the conventionally academic structure of the archaeological
profession. Long-standing issues of gender bias clouded archaeological interpretations of the past and the practice of archaeology in the present.
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c000
|
xv
With the Columbian Quincentenary just a few years off, the Society of
American Archaeology (SAA) puzzled its role in anticipating the inevitable events
that would surround the 500th anniversary of European–Native American interactions. I was a member of the Executive Committee of the SAA at the time,
and the president asked me spearhead the society’s efforts for observing the
Columbian Quincentenary.
Thanks to the support and encouragement of key SAA officers Don Fowler,
Prudence Rice, Bruce Smith, and Jerry Sabloff, we were able to develop a plan.
After exploring a number of options with the board, we settled upon a series of
topical seminars that we dubbed Columbian Consequences.
These nine public seminars, to be held over a three-year span, were designed
to generate an accurate and factual assessment of what did—and what did
not—transpire as a result of the Columbian encounter. We specifically tasked
ourselves to probe the social, demographic, ecological, ideological, and human
repercussions of European–Native American encounters across the Spanish
Borderlands, spreading the word among both the scholarly community and the
greater public at large.
Although sponsored by the SAA, the Columbian Consequences enterprise rapidly
transcended the traditional scope of archaeological inquiry, drawing together a
diverse assortment of personalities and perspectives. We invited leading scholars
of the day to synthesize current thinking about specific geographical settings
across the Spanish Borderlands, which extend from St. Augustine (Florida) to
San Francisco (California). Each overview was designed to provide a Native
American context, a history of European involvement, and a summary of scholarly research.
The structure was fairly simple. Each of three consecutive SAA annual meetings (in 1988, 1989, and 1990) hosted three Columbian Consequences seminars. The
resulting three volumes were published by the Smithsonian Institution Press,
which remarkably published each volume less than a year after the seminar
papers were presented.
The initial book, entitled Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish
Borderlands West (Thomas 1989), tackled the European–Native American interface from the Pacific Slope across the southwestern heartland to East Texas,
from Russian Fort Ross to southern Baja California. The archaeologists involved
addressed material culture evidence regarding contact period sociopolitics, economics, iconography, and physical environment. Other authors attempted to
provide a critical balance from the perspectives of American history, Native
American studies, art history, ethnohistory, and geography.
In the intermediate volume—Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the
Spanish Borderlands East (Thomas 1990)—nearly three dozen scholars pursued a
similar agenda across La Florida, the greater Southeast, and the Caribbean.
xvi
|
Foreword
Volume 3 of Columbian Consequences (Thomas 1991), entitled The Spanish Borderlands in Pan-American Perspective, explored Borderlands processes in action—past,
present, and future. The volume began with a look at previous Columbusrelated “celebrations,” particularly the Columbian Quatercentenary, manifest
as the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, which heavily impacted the next century
of Borderlands scholarship. Several authors explored Spanish mission strategies
across the Borderlands, particularly addressing various Native American survival strategies. Some participants also examined then-revolutionary approaches
to the demographics of European contact.
The Columbian Consequences enterprise was grounded in what I termed a “cubist” perspective (Thomas 1989), an argument for approaching the contact-era
past from multiple directions simultaneously. I believed that an analogy to the
early twentieth-century cubist movement was appropriate because of the way
the cubists deconstructed and invalidated the restrictive conventions that had
come to dominate Western art. Conventional canons of Renaissance art held, in
effect, that reality is best perceived from a single, time-honored perspective, tasking artists to perfect their craft for abbreviating three-dimensional visual realities
into artificial, two-dimensional art forms.
Cubists such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque broke with this European
illusionist tradition by arguing that one’s perspective can (and should) be shifted
at will. Questioning the pretense of absolute visual truth, cubists rejected classical norms for the human figure, refusing to paint their images as snapshots of
objects as they appeared momentarily to the eye.
Columbian Consequences was structured along cubist lines by approaching the
past from multiple directions simultaneously. Traditional Borderlands scholarship was viewed like the works of the Renaissance masters. Both involved a
snapshot-of-the-past approach, bent on capturing perceived reality from a single
perspective. Just as the Renaissance masters used light, color, and texture to generate their single-view imagery, Borderlands scholarship had long championed
special-interest groups, promoting and perpetuating their single-point version
of the “truth”—the way it really was. While not rejecting most conventional
Borderlands scholarship outright, we (like the cubists) argued that the past was
best addressed by fresh, sometimes conflicting, perspectives as well.
With this cubist imperative in mind, we scanned the Borderlands for participants who represented both traditional and novel perspectives, attempting
to augment conventional Borderlands scholarship with fresher insights from
historical archaeology, Native American studies, historical demography, and
ethnohistory. At its base, the Columbian Consequences seminars tried to serve as
an overarching mechanism for balance, criticism, and synthesis—reassessing
throughout the importance of recognizing multiple pasts and the necessity of
decoupling intellectual inquiry from its associated mythologies.
Foreword
|
xvii
The ninety-three chapters of Columbian Consequences enlisted a broad sweep
of scholarly opinions from a diverse range of disciplines. In all, there were 64
archaeologists, 11 historians, 9 physical anthropologists, 9 ethnohistorians, 6 cultural anthropologists, 5 art historians, and 3 geographers. Included in this group
were four archaeologists hailing from Latin America, two Native American
scholars, one Franciscan historian, and one Jesuit ethnohistorian.
Today, of course, looking back at the roster from a quarter-century perspective, our “diverse range” was disappointingly narrow, even parochial. Even at the
time, this shortcoming was apparent; as I wrote in 1992, “the results remain somewhat frustrating and dissatisfying. Any objective assessment of the Columbian
Consequences inquiry. . . . would point out that not only are the Native American,
Latin American, and Hispanic perspectives seriously underrepresented, but less
than one-third of the participants are women . . . despite our best efforts to elicit
an extended suite of opinion and perspective, the final result remains biased
toward white, Anglo, male scholarship” (Thomas 1992:615).
Further, like some of the cubist paintings themselves, the results of Columbian
Consequences were not uniformly pleasing or universally accepted by the public. Conventional Renaissance scholars had, to be sure, produced exceptional
artwork more pleasing to the eye than those of the cubists. Some readers of
Columbian Consequences were disappointed that the series did not produce a “definitive history” of Hispanic–Native American interactions across the Borderlands.
Grounded in the belief that multiple distinctive histories had played out during
the Columbian encounters, we explored the range and evolution of Hispanic
objectives, but also considered Native American counterstrategies for coping
with European intrusions. Some critics, more personally comfortable with their
own single-perspective histories, resented and protested the intrusion of such
collateral, sometimes contrarian viewpoints. Choosing diversity at the expense
of harmony, we broke ranks with traditional Borderlands historiography by
exploring non-Hispanic, nonwritten records of the past (including archaeology,
oral history, and tribal tradition). Some grumbled that arguments from oral history and tribal tradition were “out of place” in serious Borderlands scholarship.
The Columbian Consequences exercise highlighted some of the significant
obstacles remaining for minorities and women seeking to pursue careers in
scholarship—Borderlands or otherwise. The series sold pretty well, with Choice
magazine selecting Columbian Consequences volumes 1 and 2 as Outstanding
Academic Books of 1989 and 1990 (respectively). Recognizing the growing
tensions over repatriation issues and acknowledging the acute challenges
facing Indian people seeking higher education, all royalties from Columbian
Consequences were earmarked to establish the Native American Scholarship
Fund of the Society for American Archaeology. Since renamed the Arthur C.
Parker Scholarship, these funds have been augmented by royalties from dozens
xviii
|
Foreword
of additional archaeological books and continue to support archaeological training for Native American students.
The contributions in the present volume continue in the Columbian Consequences tradition. The editors emphasize that their intent was not an all-encompassing
overview of the American Southwest. They argue instead that this book is the
first since Colombian Consequences to address the broader themes of colonialism
in a number of case studies from the Greater Southwest. In his overview, Kent
G. Lightfoot (chapter 14) agrees these chapters underscore the promise of the
American Southwest for new directions in the archaeology of colonialism, particularly in exploring the distinctive historical trajectories that unfolded there.
He adds that the major advances in the archaeology of colonialism, as clearly
demonstrated in this volume, set the stage for another Columbian Consequences–
style synthesis and critique of the Spanish Borderlands.
refereNces citeD
Thomas, David Hurst, ed. 1989. Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish
Borderlands West. Columbian Consequences, vol. 1. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Institution Press.
Thomas, David Hurst, ed. 1990. Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish
Borderlands East. Columbian Consequences, vol. 2. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Institution Press.
Thomas, David Hurst, ed. 1991. The Spanish Borderlands in Pan-American Perspective.
Columbian Consequences, vol. 3. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Thomas, David Hurst. 1992. “A Retrospective Look at Columbian Consequences.”
American Antiquity 57 (4): 613–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/280825.
Foreword
|
xix
Preface
This volume began as an idea for a symposium at the annual meetings of the
Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in 2012. Both of us had been interested
in colonialism and colonial studies for quite some time, and we wanted to work
together on a personal research project. Billy had done research on and off in
New Mexico since his graduate school days, and John had been doing research
on the Mission period in California for a decade or so. John was particularly
interested in work that could widen his viewpoint on colonialism by studying
another area for a comparative perspective. As a result, we organized a symposium at the 2012 SAA meetings in Memphis entitled “Transformations during
the Colonial Era: Divergent Histories in the American Southwest.” It turned
out to be a very fun and stimulating symposium that brought together many
of the scholars who are currently engaged in colonial studies in the Southwest.
Immediately, we knew the symposium would be the foundation of a worthwhile edited volume. We are thankful that all of the original participants of the
symposium—save Jun Sunseri, who sadly had to bow out—agreed to be a part
of a book project. To round out the line-up of participants, we also asked David
|
xxi
Hurst Thomas to be a part of the project and to write a second comparative
chapter for the end of the volume. Dave graciously accepted, and his chapter
on the American Southeast (chapter 15) provides a wonderful complement to
Lightfoot’s comparative chapter on Alta California (chapter 14).
While Billy has worked in the American Southwest his entire career, John
is more of an archaeological “mutt,” having worked some in the American
Southwest, but also in California, in the Midwest, and in Mesoamerica. Because
of our different geographical foci and our different trainings and experiences, we
feel that we have complemented each other well in this project and have found
it very easy to exchange ideas and to write together. Our different backgrounds
and our different theoretical viewpoints have come together in unexpected ways.
We have learned much from each other, and even more from all of the contributors in this volume.
We ought to be clear that the content and topics that are contained in this
volume are in no way meant to be viewed as comprehensive of the wide breadth
of colonial studies in American Southwest archaeology. Rather, we included a
number of friends and colleagues who we felt would bring strong topical or
theoretical contributions to the project. There are a number of important scholars, research issues, and cultural groups that are not included in this volume for
one reason or another. Realistically, we tried to be as inclusive as possible while
keeping in mind our ultimate goal—to create something new and interesting
that would have comparative importance to the study of colonialism in archaeology more generally, but not something that would be too huge an undertaking
to pull off.
John G. Douglass
William M. Graves
Tucson, Arizona
xxii
|
Preface
acknowledgments
This volume had benefited from the hard work of many individuals. Foremost,
we thank each of the volume contributors. Their enthusiasm for the project,
perseverance, and excellent scholarship have allowed us to assemble an exciting
and thought-provoking volume, and we have enjoyed working with you all as
we moved from conference presentations to publication. We would like to thank
Statistical Research, Inc., for institutional support the volume received throughout the process of writing and editing. Graphic designer Jackie Dominguez
prepared Figures 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, and 5.1. Our families also need to be acknowledged,
as they lived the volume with us while we spent weekends and evenings working
on it, and we greatly appreciate their patience. And, finally, we thank the staff at
the University Press of Colorado for their assistance and guidance throughout
this project.
|
xxiii
New Mexico aND
the PiMería alta
o
n
e
New Mexico and the Pimería alta
A Brief Introduction to the Colonial Period in the American Southwest
John G. douGlaSS and william m. GraveS
iNtroDUctioN
The American Southwest is notable for its unique physical and cultural landscapes. From the low Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts to the vast uplands of
the Colorado Plateau to the Rio Grande valley and beyond, this region has witnessed a diverse and complex social history spanning more than 10,000 years.
For the vast majority of this long span, this history was a Native American history that reflected the diversity and complexity of the indigenous groups who
inhabited the region’s various landscapes. By the ad 1500s, the region was home
to hundreds of village settlement and scores of mobile hunter-gatherer groups
who spoke dozens of different languages—the direct ancestors of many of the
Native Americans who live in the Southwest today.
In 1539, the history of the Southwest was irrevocably altered with the arrival
of the first Spanish expedition, led by Fray Marcos de Niza (Bolton 1990). The
expedition was sent in advance of the Coronado expedition of 1540 by Antonio
de Mendoza, the viceroy of Mexico. Members of Niza’s group reached as far
north as the Zuni area, where a member of his party, Esteban de Dorantes, a
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c001
|
3
member of Pánfilo de Narváez’s failed 1535–36 expedition to what is now the
American Southeast, was killed by the Zuni (Bolton 1990:33–35; Riley 1999:29).
Encouraged by exaggerated reports of gold and the potential for wealth from
the Niza expedition, Mendoza organized a larger expedition and appointed the
governor of Nueva Galicia, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, to lead it (Bolton
1990; Riley 1999:30) (see chapter 2, by Matthew F. Schmader, this volume). In
the spring of 1540, Coronado and a group of over 300 soldiers, as well as numerous indios amigos—generally Nahuatl speakers and other indigenous conquerors,
primarily from central and western Mexico, who outnumbered the Spanish
many times over (including the Mexica, Tlaxcalteca, Oaxacan, and Tarascan cultures)—headed north from Compostela, the capital of Nueva Galicia, continued
along the western slopes of the Sierra Madre Occidental, continued through
the upland valleys of Sonora, and reached as far north as the Hopi Mesas and
the Grand Canyon (Bolton 1990). Over the next two years, Coronado’s forces
made contact with numerous Pueblos and Plains groups and reached as far east
as Wichita, Kansas. His well-documented encounters (e.g., Bolton 1990; Flint
and Flint 2005; Hammond and Rey 1940; Hartmann 2014) with Native American
groups mark the beginning of the colonial period in the Southwest—an era
characterized by what were often conflictive, violent, and tumultuous relations
that distinguish much of the more-recent history of the region.
Within the Southwest, colonial encounters and the processes of colonialism
played out in notably divergent manners through time and space. Colonialism
and the process of state expansion into new territories far from capital and
motherland have occurred for thousands of years across the globe (see chapters in Stein 2005). The Spanish intrusion into the Southwest was not the first,
widespread extraregional interaction witnessed by the inhabitants of the region.
However, similar to Mesoamerica (e.g., Matthew 2012), it was by far the most
far-reaching and influential in terms of dramatically altering the historical trajectories of both native and foreign cultures. For millennia, various cultural
groups in the Southwest had interacted with foreign societies and experienced
influxes of new peoples into the region. A good example of such interactions is
the widespread evidence for Mesoamerican influence in architecture, material
culture, and ideology among the Mimbres, the Mogollon, and the Hohokam,
and throughout the Ancestral Pueblo world seen in the centuries around ad
1000 (e.g., Creel and McKusick 1994; Di Peso 1974; Gilman et al. 2014; Harmon
2006; Schaafsma 1999; Somerville et al. 2010; Whittlesey 2004; Whittlesey and
Reid 2013). In this case, archaeologists are still sorting out what form these interactions took and how they were structured—for example, direct or indirect
interregional trade, population movement, diffusion of ideologies and cultural
traits, or some combination of phenomena—but the presence of strong cultural
ties between cultures of the American Southwest and of greater Mesoamerica
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John G. Douglass and William M. Graves
seem undeniable. The later arrival in the 1400s of Athapaskan speakers, the
ancestors of the modern Navajo and Apache, and the arrival of the Comanche
in the 1700s are other examples of interregional interactions, this time marking
the introduction of new cultural groups to the American Southwest (see, e.g.,
Wilshusen 2010:193).
Unlike these examples of extraregional cultural influences and movements
of populations into the Southwest, however, the arrival of Spaniards in the
1500s was clearly the most “foreign” intrusion into the region and would irrevocably alter the histories of both native and colonizer groups. The American
Southwest was the northern frontier of the Spanish Empire, and like Guatemala
on its southern edge, was a place of conflict, persistence, and ethnnogenesis (see
Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Hu 2013; Matthew 2012; Palka 2005; Rice and Rice
2005). The Spanish colonization of the Southwest was part of a hemispheric
approach to colonialism, one that bears striking resemblance to many other
examples of colonialism in both modern and ancient state examples (Alcock
2005; Brown 2013; Deagan 1995, 1997; Gosden 2004; Gosden and Knowles 2001;
Hart et al. 2012; Hartmann 2014; Hu 2013; Lapham 2005; Liebmann and Murphy
2010; Liebmann and Rizvi 2008; Lightfoot 2005; Lightfoot et al. 1998, Lightfoot et
al. 2013; Lydon 2009; Lyons and Papadopoulos 2002; Mathers et al. 2013; Matthew
2012; Oudijk and Matthew 2007; Mitchell 2013; Oland et al. 2012; Oliver 2010;
Panich 2013; Panich and Schneider 2014; Rice and Rice 2005; Riley 2001; Rojo 2001;
Scheiber and Finley 2011; Scheiber and Mitchell 2010; S. Schroeder 2010; Stein
2002; Stojanowski 2010; Thomas 1989; Trigg 2005; Tiesler et al. 2010; Voss 2008a,
2008b; Wade 2008). These examples show us that, through such colonial encounters, cultures undergo dramatic transformations in identity and social, economic,
and political relations, and that to understand such encounters, we must turn
away from simplistic models of colonialism drawn from world systems theory
or models of domination and resistance (see Gosden 2004).
The chapters in this volume focus on the two major areas of the American
Southwest that witnessed the most intensive and sustained colonial encounters: (1) the New Mexico Colony which extended from present-day northeastern
Arizona to north and central New Mexico; and (2) the Pimería Alta in the northern Sonoran Desert (Figure 1.1). The particular mix of players, sociohistorical
trajectories, and local and regional social relations within each area both led to,
and were transformed by, markedly divergent colonial processes. Understanding
these different mixes of players, history, and social relations provides the foundation for understanding the enormous changes wrought by colonialism in both
New Mexico and the Pimería Alta. Such an understanding also allows us to create
models of the colonial process that highlights processes of ethnogenesis and cultural transformation among and within the colonizing state, colonists, and Native
Americans, as well as a more realistic picture of power relations, autonomy, and
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fiGUre 1.1. Map of the American Southwest, including the approximate location of both the
Pimería Alta (below) and the New Mexico Colony (above) (after Majewski and Ayres 1997:fig. 4).
inequality among these groups. As a group, the chapters in this volume highlight
such transformations and relations and focus on the experiences, perspectives,
and actions of both Native Americans and European colonizers.
Native aMericaNs, coloNists, aND traNsforMatioNs
Gil Stein (2005:25–26) has recently argued that colonial encounters should be
viewed as having three participants: (1) the colonial homeland, (2) the colonies
themselves, and (3) the indigenous societies living within the established colonies.
This is a reaction to traditional views of the process of colonialism portrayed in
a binary way with two primary players: the active, dominant colonizer and the
passive colonized. One of the primary issues with this historical viewpoint on
colonialism is that it is unidirectional (change occurs from colonialist to native
peoples) and is, therefore, overly simplistic. Scholars today view colonialism as
being highly complex in the nature of social relations that existed among various
agents. In contrast, more traditional anthropological concepts such as “acculturation” and “assimilation” are unidirectional processes in which the passive
indigenous groups alter their cultures to incorporate behaviors, practices, and
material culture of the dominant colonizer (see Mitchell and Scheiber 2010:13–
14). In pluralistic communities such as colonies, however, there are much more
complex relations and interactions among different groups (e.g., Liebmann and
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John G. Douglass and William M. Graves
Murphy 2010). Without taking these complexities into account, there can be no
recognition or conception of individual or social agency (Van Buren 2010:158; see
also Hart et al. 2012; Lightfoot et al. 1998). Identifying social agency in colonial
studies is important because (1) colonial processes are always grounded in history, (2) social actors are knowledgeable about the structure of society, and (3)
the power and position of social actors vary (Mitchell and Scheiber 2010:16–17).
Rather than being a unidirectional phenomenon, cultural interaction in colonial
settings is better modeled as multidirectional, wherein cultural traditions evolve,
change, as well as persist in a variety of ways (e.g., Deagan 2005; Haley and
Wilcoxon 1997, 2005; Voss 2008a, 2008b). This is made abundantly clear by the
chapters in this volume, which show great variation through time by both native
and colonial groups in the American Southwest.
Colonialism is, at its essence, about unequal power structures (e.g., Gosden
2004; Hart et al. 2012). One important goal in the study of colonialism is to not
view colonialism as an event or a defining moment in history, but as a context
or a process in which one can view what Alexander (1998) originally referred
to as “cultural entanglements.” The resulting transformations, on the parts of
both indigenous and colonial cultures, must be seen as part of the long-term histories of those groups (Hart et al. 2012; King 2012). These aspects of long-term
histories affected and reflected the daily practice and general response of indigenous people to these newest foreign invaders to the Southwest (see Lightfoot
et al. 1998). Changes or continuity of traditions in the face of colonialism should
not be seen as an either/or situation, but rather as processes of responding and
adapting to newly emerging and evolving cultural surroundings (Lightfoot 2012;
Silliman 2009, 2012). Colonialism, in one form or another, was alive and well long
before Spaniards arrived in the Americas. As we discussed elsewhere in this chapter, the American Southwest was no stranger to new groups and foreign ideas
arriving from elsewhere and becoming incorporated into the cultural patterns
and social histories of the region. Whether prehistoric interactions between
the American Southwest and Mesoamerica were colonial in nature is debatable,
and certainly the Spanish entry was several orders of magnitude different from
anything seen previously, but it is important to acknowledge the nature of past
cultural connections. Similar extraregional interactions and influences, certainly
on a much larger scale, were present in central Mexico—from where Spaniards
and their indios amigos originated (King 2012; Matthew 2012).
While some scholars conceive of Spanish colonies as being occupied by
Spanish soldiers, settlers, and missionaries, it is clear from documentary and
genetic records (see, e.g., Johnson and Lorenz 2010 and Snow 1998, 2010) that
many colonies across North and Central America contained a mixture of peoples of different backgrounds that included many Mexican indigenous groups
(such as the indios amigos discussed elsewhere in this chapter). The colonial
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era in the American Southwest, as well as neighboring Alta California, offered
opportunities for colonists to reinvent themselves socially, away from the core
of the Spanish colonial political economy in central Mexico. In Alta California,
for example, colonists who in early censuses self-reported as being mulato or mestizo were later recorded as being of Spanish descent (e.g., Haley and Wilcoxon
1997, 2005; Voss 2005, 2008a). In one case, the 1781 census of the Pueblo of Los
Angeles classified fewer than 5 percent of its residents as being of Spanish decent;
just nine years later, nearly half of these same residents classified themselves
as Spanish (Pubols 2010:132). By 1790, census records in Alta California began
recording only two categories, gente de razón and indio, rather than the previously more complicated identity of race, thus creating a system that increasingly
helped to contrast colonists (who most likely were of indigenous descent themselves, albeit from Sonora, Mexico) with resident indigenous groups. As we see
in chapters by J. Homer Thiel (12), J. Andrew Darling and B. Sunday Eiselt (7),
and Kelly L. Jenks (8) in this volume, similar processes were occurring in the
American Southwest, as well.
As Spanish policies further and further restricted traditional subsistence
practices, political economy, and self-reliance, Native Americans created novel
solutions allowing the continuation of traditional practices and belief systems.
The process of identity transformation was a reflexive one in which identities
were transformed and communicated only with reference to previous identities
(Casella and Fowler 2005:4). While many scholars have referred to these transformations as ethnogenesis (e.g., Haley and Wilcoxon 1997, 2005; Voss 2008a, 2008b),
more recently Lee Panich (2013) has argued that these changes ought to be seen
within the long-term histories of the perseverance among indigenous groups,
rather than as “terminal narratives” (e.g. Wilcox 2009) of dramatic changes in
identity and group constitution.
It is clear that Pueblo groups, in particular, transformed aspects of their lives
and identities through the alteration of traditions. For example, the Hopi integrated many new concepts, material goods, and foods derived from colonists
into their daily life, while simultaneously and actively maintaining core aspects
of their culture (see, e.g., Laurie D. Webster, chapter 4 in this volume). In essence,
the Hopi offered Spanish missionaries what they expected, and then went on to
continue to perform traditional activities either in secret or after Spaniards left the
Hopi Mesas (Dongoske and Dongoske 2002). Some scholars have referred to this
as “passive” resistance (e.g., Adams 1989), while others have argued this was an
active response to colonization—“Hopification” as Hartman Lomawaima (1989)
has referred to it (see also discussion above of Brown’s [2013] similar concept of
“Pueblofication,” as well as Clark [2005, 2012]). To be sure, native resistance to
colonialism in the Southwest was multifaceted and reflected adaptations to the
new and emerging colonial reality (see Mitchell and Scheiber 2010:17–18).
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John G. Douglass and William M. Graves
While many Native American groups incorporated aspects of colonial material goods and iconography into their everyday life, the message conveyed by
those native people through the use of such items and images was not necessarily the same as when they were used by colonists. For the postrevolt period in
New Mexico, for example, Matthew Liebmann (2012a:138–141; see also Liebmann
2002) describes the creation of variations on the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe
in Puebloan portrayals of masked Pueblo dancers and the sun kachina (Frank
1998:46). In these cases, Pueblo artists appropriated and transformed Spanish
iconography and imagery for their own purposes and needs. Such appropriation
is an example of how Pueblo groups took, adapted, and used colonial symbols
“to forge their way in [a] new colonial world” (Silliman 2005:68). By studying how
agency and history combine to create new traditions that relate to particular
long-term histories and circumstances, one can begin to understand transformations in colonial settings (Mills 2008:261). These trajectories continued well past
initial colonial interaction in the American Southwest (see Liebmann [2012b])
and chapters by Thomas E. Sheridan and Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa [9], and
Colleen Strawhacker [13], this volume, for discussions of colonialism extending
into modern times).
It is through agency and shared histories that both colonists and indigenous
groups transformed and created new identities during the colonial era. The histories of these groups defined the meanings of places on the landscape, how
such places were used, and how people related to both these places and each
other. Following Pauketat (2001, 2003), these histories can be seen as intertwining and creating webs of relations that connected people to each other and to
their ancestors, and transformed the world around them during the colonial
era. The concluding chapters to this volume, by Kent G. Lightfoot (chapter 14)
and David Hurst Thomas (chapter 15), sum up these transformations in the
American Southwest and compare and contrast them both to themselves, as
well as to, respectively, Alta California and the American Southeast.
a PersPective oN coloNialisM iN the aMericaN soUthwest
The colonial encounters in the American Southwest comprised a complex
interaction involving multiple players and multiple agendas. Colonialism is
generally defined as a dual process involving the “attempted domination by a
colonial/settler population. . . . and the resistance, acquiescence, and the living
through these by indigenous people” (Silliman 2005:59). With regard to the initial Spanish incursions into the Southwest during the 1500s, many might offer
the view that resulting exchanges between indigenous groups and Spaniards
were examples of culture contact, as these were relatively short-term encounters (e.g., Silliman 2005, 2009). However, with the official settlement of the
New Mexico Colony in 1598, the policy of Spanish colonial domination became
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entrenched, and, to use Ferris’s (2009:168–70) terminology, continued to “creep”
forward (see Liebmann 2012a; Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa, chapter 9 in this
volume). Stephen Silliman (2005:62) puts it well when he states, “Colonialism
is not about an event but, rather, about processes of cultural entanglement,
whether voluntary or not, in a broader world economy and system of labor,
religious conversion, exploitation, material value, settlement, and sometimes
imperialism.” The establishment of missions, presidios, and other institutions
of the Spanish Empire (see chapters by Strawhacker [13], Thiel [12], and Barnet
Pavao-Zuckerman [11], this volume) formalized and structured relations with
native groups who had lived in the Southwest for millennia, and inevitably drew
cultures into a complex system of global colonial processes that transformed
both groups in ways not captured by simple acculturation models or conquest
narratives that have long dominated anthropological and historical thought on
colonialism (see Wilcox 2009).
Chris Gosden describes colonialism—and, in particular, modern European
colonialism—as a “total social fact” that has “infiltrated all areas of people’s lives
in all parts of the globe” (Gosden 2004:24; see also Gosden and Knowles 2001).
These statements capture the transformative nature of the colonial process for
all involved and highlight the roles of power relations, and social “creativity and
experiment” (Gosden 2004:25). The unfolding outcomes of colonial processes
were and are created by those who have both power and agency and are capable
of enacting change. The Spanish conquest of the Southwest can be modeled as
an example of Gosden’s (2004:24–30) terra nullius form of colonization. Spanish
colonizers would have viewed the cultural practices of indigenous groups as
socially or politically illegitimate and would have asserted a natural right to control land, resources, people, and labor and forced new political and economic
systems on native inhabitants. This colonization led to the transformation of
native cultures and the recreation of existing social relations between native
groups, as well as the death of many people through violence and the introduction of nonnative diseases (see Hull 2009:12–13; Ramenofsky and Kulisheck
2013). While Gosden’s classification of colonialism is useful, scholars such as
Spielmann and her colleagues have argued that he inadvertently deemphasizes
“the actions of the living” (Spielmann et al. 2009:103). In their case study from the
central New Mexico Salinas pueblos, Katherine Spielmann and her colleagues
demonstrate with archaeological evidence that there were diverse and varied
actions and reactions to colonization that were shaped by a combination of local
environments, histories within specific pueblos, gender, past and present subsistence strategies, and the specifics of the establishment of missions. As they and
others, such as Mark Mitchell and Laura Scheiber (Mitchell and Scheiber 2010),
remind us, gender, ideology, and political economy all played important roles in
guiding colonialism.
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John G. Douglass and William M. Graves
Despite such critique, Gosden’s terra nullius concept provides a framework that
allows us to recognize and begin to understand the roles that power and violence
played in the Southwest colonial encounter (Gosden 2004:114–52). Traditionally,
archaeologists and historians have tended to deemphasize violence and how it
was used as a means of domination, culture change, and the establishment of control in social and economic relations with indigenous groups (see Wilcox 2009). By
explicitly taking into account aspects of colonialism such as violence, the forcible
usurpation of land and other critical material resources, and the religious and racist policies that drove much of European colonialism, we can critically examine
indigenous resistance, culture change, and ethnogenesis within the colonial process. At the same time, though we do not wish to overemphasize violence by itself,
it was at times an empowering factor for Pueblo groups (e.g., Wilcox 2009). While
the violence of colonial encounters is undeniable (see chapters by Schmader [2],
and Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa [9], this volume, for example), the focus on
long-term histories, rather than on specific events, is also important to understanding its larger role and effect (Hart 2012:92; Silliman 2012:115). Colonialism in
the American Southwest is much more complex than the Grand Narratives of
domination and resistance (see Thomas [15] for a detailed discussion).
the New Mexico coloNy
In the following sections of this chapter, we briefly discuss the early colonial histories of the New Mexico Colony and the Pimería Alta to provide background
for the rest of the volume. While each area was settled by Spanish missionaries,
ranchers, and other colonists, their trajectories and individual histories are markedly different. We start with a discussion of the early history of the New Mexico
Colony. This discussion below is meant as a brief overview; for some discussion
of nuances, the reader is referred to the chapter by Thomas [15] in this volume.
the Pueblos and their Neighbors
At the time of the first Spanish incursions into what would become known as
the New Mexico Colony, the area was home to a diverse set of Native American
groups, intertwined by complex sets of social relations and rich histories of living
in the region that spanned thousands of years. Population estimates for the region
preceding the colonial period have been placed in the high tens of thousands (e.g.,
Barrett 2002; Riley 1999). Multiple Pueblo Indian groups were living in large, multistoried, multifamily settlements, each consisting of numerous roomblocks in a
vast area spread from the Hopi Mesas on the west to Pecos Pueblo on the east,
and throughout a large portion of the Rio Grande valley and its tributaries—from
Taos and Picuris Pueblos on the north to the Piro-speaking pueblos along the Rio
Grande near modern-day Socorro (Barrett 2002; Cordell 1991; Spielmann 1998).
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These Pueblo groups practiced irrigation and dryland farming and engaged in
complex systems of trade and exchange that involved the community specialization of products; the extraregional distribution of bison products, shell, and other
exotics; and the movement of raw materials (cotton, salt, obsidian, etc.) throughout the region (Shepard 1942; Snow 1981; Spielmann 1989, 1991; Warren 1969, 1979;
see also chapters in Spielmann 1998). By the end of the sixteenth century, it is
estimated that as many as 100 individual pueblos were occupied in the region, with
many having populations of 500 to 1,000 people (chapters in Adams and Duff 2004;
Barrett 2002; Graves 2002; Riley 1999). Pueblo groups spoke up to eleven distinct
dialects or languages: (1) Zuni, (2) Hopi, (3) the Western Keresan dialect of Acoma
and Laguna Pueblos, (4) Towa among the Jemez Pueblos and at Pecos, (5) Tewa
among the villages along the Chama River and down the Rio Grande to its confluence with the Santa Fe River, (6) a possible distinct Tanoan or Southern Tewa
dialect among the pueblos of the Galisteo Basin, (7) Northern Tiwa at Taos and
Picuris, (8) Southern Tiwa among the pueblos of the Albuquerque Basin and along
the eastern slopes of the Manzano Mountains, (9) Eastern Keresan among the villages of the lower Jemez River and along the Rio Grande to its confluence with
Galisteo Creek, (10) Tompiro among the Jumanos pueblos, and (11) Piro among
the southernmost pueblos along the Rio Abajo portion of the Rio Grande valley (chapters in Adams and Duff 2004; Cordell 1991; Eggan 1979; Hale and Harris
1979; Schroeder 1979). As well documented by over a century of anthropological
and historical study, the entire Pueblo world was marked by both similarities and
distinct differences in social organization, religion, economy, and political relations
(e.g., Dozier 1983; Eggan 1950; Fox 1967; Levy 1992; Ortiz 1969; Sando 1992; Spicer
1962; Whiteley 1988), and these differences and similarities appear to have characterized the Pueblo world at the time of initial Spanish contact (e.g., Adams and
Duff 2004; Barrett 2002; Graves 2002; Simmons 1979; A. Schroeder 1979).
In addition, there were a number of nonsedentary, primarily hunter-gatherer
groups who occupied those regions to the south, east, and north of the Pueblo
world. To the south lay the Mansos, who occupied areas in and around the Rio
Grande valley near El Paso (Benavides 1996; Beckett and Corbett 1992; Riley
1999). To the south and east were the Teya/Jumanos, who are considered to
have been Wichita- or Caddoan-speaking groups by many Plains anthropologists. Athabaskan-speaking Plains Apaches or Querechos also occupied areas to
the north and east of the Rio Grande at the time of Spanish contact (Bolton
1990; Riley 1999).
the early colony
After Coronado and his forces returned to Mexico in 1542, it would be another
four decades before the next Spanish incursion into what would become the New
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Map of approximate early Spanish colonial routes through modern-day Arizona
(after Majewski and Ayres 1997:fig. 2).
fiGUre 1.2.
Mexico Colony (Figures 1.2 and 1.3). As Linda Cordell (1991:27) discusses (see also
Gutiérrez 1991:45–46; Hadley et al. 1997; Kessell 1979; Polzer and Sheridan 1997;
Spielmann 1991), this hiatus can be attributed to the discovery of silver deposits in Zacatecas and the resultant shift in focus of colonial administrators from
further exploration to the exploitation of this particular resource. In 1581, the
expedition of Francisco Sánchez Chamuscado and Agustín Rodríguez entered
the region with the joint mandate of missionization and exploration for mineral
wealth (Barrett 2002:6; Bolton 1979 Cordell 1991:27; Hammond and Rey 1966).
After only a few months and not finding any mineral wealth to exploit, the expedition returned to Mexico, but without Fray Rodríguez and another Franciscan
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fiGUre 1.3. Map of approximate early Spanish colonial routes through modern-day New
Mexico (after Hartmann 2014:map 6; and Majewski and Ayres 1997:fig. 3).
priest, who stayed behind to missionize the native people. A year later, another
expedition was launched, led by Antonio de Espejo, to investigate reports that
Rodríguez had been killed. After confirming Rodríguez’s death, Espejo and his
forces traveled west to Hopi and the Verde River valley, and then returned to
Mexico, only spending five months in what is now New Mexico and Arizona
(Barrett 2002:6; Cordell 1991:27; Hammond and Rey 1966).
Nearly a decade later, the early 1590s witnessed two attempts to colonize
New Mexico that were not officially sanctioned by the colonial government of
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John G. Douglass and William M. Graves
New Spain and the Spanish Crown. In late 1590 / early 1591, Gaspar Castaño de
Sosa led a small group north to the Pecos River and then west into Pueblo territory (Barrett 2002:6; Cordell 1991:27; Hammond and Rey 1966). After only seven
months, this party was captured by forces led by Juan Morlete, who had been
sent to return the illegal expedition to the colony. A second unsanctioned expedition into New Mexico with the intent of establishing a colony was launched
in 1593 by two military captains, Leyva de Bonilla and Antonio Gutiérrez de
Humaña (Barrett 2002:6; Hammond and Rey 1966). Little is known of this expedition as all members except one were killed while exploring the Plains east of
the Pueblos along the Rio Grande (as reported to Juan de Oñate by the lone
survivor five years later).
In addition to providing much ethnohistoric information regarding indigenous Southwestern groups, these expeditions in the late 1500s also reflected
a renewed interest in colonizing the northern frontier of Mexico by both the
Spanish Crown and the administrators and leaders of the colonial provinces of
New Spain. In 1595, Juan de Oñate, the alcalde mayor of San Luis Potosí, was
granted the contract to launch an expedition to establish the Colony of New
Mexico (Hammond and Rey 1953; Riley 1999:42). Oñate, born around 1550 in
Zacatecas, was the son of the lieutenant governor of the colonial province of
Nueva Galicia (Riley 1999:40). After a significant delay due to changes in the viceroyalty of Mexico and considerations of competing applications by the Council
of the Indies, Oñate and his forces began the journey northward in early 1598
(Hammond and Rey 1953:309–14; Riley 1999:42–43). On April 30, 1598, Juan de
Oñate and his group stopped a few miles south of the Rio Grande and formally
established the Colony of New Mexico by decree; and, on May 4 the expedition crossed the river near present-day El Paso (Hammond and Rey 1953:16, 315).
These first colonists consisted of soldiers, Franciscan priests, servants, slaves,
and their families. The group may have totaled between 400 and 560 people,
including women and children (Cordell 1991:27; Riley 1999:46). On July 11 of that
year, Oñate established the first Spanish settlement in New Mexico named San
Gabriel across the river from the Tewa pueblo Ohkay Owingeh (the former San
Juan Pueblo) (Hammond and Rey 1953:17; Simmons 1991).The official colonial
capital would later be moved to the settlement of Santa Fe in 1610 by the second
governor of New Mexico, Pedro de Peralta (Cordell 1991:27).
Almost immediately, Oñate and his forces traveled to scores of pueblos
throughout the region to exact obedience to the Spanish Crown and colonial
authority. Oñate’s governorship lasted only until 1607, the year he resigned under
pressure from the Spanish Crown and the viceroy of Mexico (Hammond and Rey
1953:32). His tenure was marked by what were often brutal and violent dealings
with Pueblo groups throughout the colony and the forcible extraction of labor,
food, and other commodities from these communities (see chapters by Sheridan
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and Koyiyumptewa [9], and Webster [4], this volume). Oñate never found the
mineral wealth he sought in the new colony, and traveled as far east as Wichita,
Kansas, and as far west as the Gulf of California looking for riches and a route to
a Pacific seaport (Cordell 1991; Hammond and Rey 1953; Riley 1999:83–86). By the
end of Oñate’s governorship, the colony was considered a failure by the Spanish
Crown and colonial authorities in Mexico, and there was talk of abandoning the
effort (Riley 1999:86–87; see also Fontana 1994:79). In 1608 or 1609, Phillip III made
the colony a royal province with missionization and the conversion of indigenous
groups to Christianity as its principal objective (Hammond and Rey 1953:33–34;
Riley 1999:87). Moving forward, missionization efforts and the continued extraction of Indian labor, land, and resources by both mission and secular officials and
colonists became the main focus of the colonial effort.
Multiethnic Nature of the Colony
Although the first expeditions to New Mexico as well as the early colonists
are often described as Spanish, it is important to note that these early explorers
and colonists comprised diverse peoples from varied racial, ethnic, and socialstatus backgrounds, much like the native groups they encountered (see Severin
Fowles and colleagues, chapter 6 in this volume). The work of Kathleen Deagan
and Jane Landers (Deagan and Landers 1999) at Fort Mosé near St. Augustine,
Florida, provides a good example of the potential cultural and linguistic diversity of Spanish colonial communities and how social identities may have been
forged in settlements composed of individuals of many different traditions,
origins, and social statuses. It is important to remember that while there were
often clear or specific goals set by the Spanish Crown for the colonizing of the
Americas, there were many times diverse and at times conflicting interests and
goals of the members of these early expeditions and settlements themselves.
Thus, these early colonial encounters and the colonists involved must be viewed
as multiethnic interactions with the resulting colonial communities having been
pluralistic in their compositions.
The presence of indios amigos among many early colonial and military expeditions also illustrates the multiethnic or multicultural nature of Spanish colonial
encounters (see Schmader, chapter 2 in this volume). Alliances with native warriors such as these were used repeatedly by Spaniards to aid in conquering new
areas and putting down indigenous rebellions across the Americas. Guatemala,
for example, was conquered by a combination of hundreds of Spanish soldiers and thousands upon thousands of indigenous indios amigos consisting of
groups from central Mexico and Oaxaca (Asselberg 2008; Matthew 2007, 2012;
Oudijk and Mathew 2007). Indios amigos from central Mexico also accompanied
the Spanish to other areas of conquest further removed, including Peru and the
Philippines (Asselberg 2008; Richard Flint, personal communication, 2016).
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The Coronado expedition may have included up to 2,000 indios amigos.
Richard Flint (2008:10–12) argues that in helping to explore the northern frontier, those indios amigos on the Coronado expedition were at least partially
motivated by the Spanish policy of allowing native warriors to keep captives
captured in battle, or by the Spanish reduction of tribute obligations to native
central Mexican communities who provided soldiers for the expedition (see
Asselberg 2008 for discussion of similar Spanish colonial policies on the southern
frontier with Guatemala). In addition to indios amigos, there were also naborias
(also called auxiliares), who were generally laborers and former Indian slaves or
individuals from defeated populations (see Yannakakis 2011:656).
While some scholars have suggested that the principal indigenous military ally
with early Spanish expeditions to New Mexico were Tlaxcaltecas, because they
were early allies of Hernán Cortés and were enemies of the Aztecs, Richard
Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint (Flint and Flint 2005:165), David Snow (1998, 2010)
and William Wroth (2010) argue that they see little documentary evidence specifically identifying Tlaxcaltecas. Snow (2010:50–52; see also Snow 1998) does not
believe there were Tlaxcaltecas with the Coronado expedition, though he argues
that perhaps there were several with either Juan de Oñate in 1598 or Diego de
Vargas in 1693. Wroth (2010:176) argues that some scholars may have assumed
indios amigos on early Spanish expeditions to New Mexico were Tlaxcaltecas
since they helped the Spanish subdue northern Mexican indigenous groups,
which were referred to in Nahua as Chichimeca’. In addition, the Tlaxcaltecas
were known to head to the edge of the Spanish frontier and establish barrios
or communities; for example, Analco Araval in Oaxaca (see Yannakakis 2011 for
details) and also Coahuila and Nuevo León (Wroth 2010:176), among other locations. During this same general time period, the mid-1500s to mid-1600s, other
Spanish colonial settlements that contained barrios of indios amigos of various
central Mexican origin included the Guatemalan communities of Totonicapán,
Santiago, and Ciudad Viejo Sonsonate; San Salvador and San Miguel in modern
El Salvador; Ciudad Real in Chiapas; San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala at Saltillo;
Chalchihuites and Nombre de Dios in Durango; and Antequera in Oaxaca (see
Asselberg 2008:113; Matthew 2000; Snow 2010:51).
In any case, while in early expeditions only a few indigenous conquerors
may have stayed in what is now New Mexico (the few who stayed at Zuni, e.g.,
[see Flint and Flint 2005:166–67]), later indios amigos from central Mexico who
arrived at the New Mexico Colony founded a barrio community in Santa Fe
called Analco on the south side of the Santa Fe River. Wroth (2010:177) argues
that while Tlaxcaltecas residing in ethnic barrios in other portions of the Spanish
frontier edge gained special status and privileges (see also Snow 2010:49), those
indios amigos residing in the Barrio Analco were not granted the same special status and were, instead, a “service class assisting the Spaniards in various
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realms such as labor, herding, hunting, and artisanal vocations, which placed
them above the level of domestic servants and slaves, but below the level of
full autonomy which, on paper at least, existed for the Tlaxcalans in their settlements.” Indios amigos in Guatemala for generations after initial conquest also
had difficulty in obtaining certain rights or levels of status they had been led
to believe they would obtain for aiding the Spanish in conquering the area (see
Matthew 2012 for a detailed examination).
The frontier of the Spanish Empire, even at this early stage, was a place
for colonists to reinvent themselves, to create new identities (see chapters by
Darling and Eiselt [7], Jenks [8], and Thiel [12], this volume). For example, Flint
(2008:60; see also Flint and Flint 2005:166) states that when the Espejo expedition
arrived in New Mexico, it found indios amigos still living in the Zuni area who
had arrived with Coronado nearly forty years earlier. Stanley Hordes (2005:89)
has argued that a motivation of the unsanctioned Castaño de Sosa expedition
was leading persecuted crypto-Jews to “a secure haven in the far northern frontier.” Crypto-Jews were also part of the later expedition to New Mexico led by
Oñate, including some who had been a part of Castaño de Sosa’s failed expedition (Hordes 2005:111). Barbara Voss (2008a, 2008b) and others (e.g., Haley and
Wilcoxon 1997, 2005) have argued persuasively that in early overland expeditions to Alta California, from the moment many settlers left the confines of the
strict caste system in the colonial core, their identities were being transformed.
Settlers were able to refine and reinvent their identities in new surroundings
far from the colonial heartland. Frontier settlements generally provide useful
avenues for transformation of identity (see Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Rice
and Rice 2005; Matthew 2012). Similar motivations and similar transformations
and fluidity of identity must have characterized the colonization of New Mexico
over a century earlier.
Means of and Motivations for Colonization
The means of and the motivations for colonizing New Mexico fall into two
categories: (1) the desire for economic wealth and power, and (2) the Franciscan
missionary program. Initially, the primary motivation for attempts to colonize
New Mexico was the desire for mineral wealth. Early explorers and the early
colonists under Oñate’s governorship held out hope that the silver and other
mineral riches of the northern provinces of New Spain could be found along
the far northern frontier. As discussed above, these dreams were not realized
and the economic underpinning of this particular colonial intrusion would have
to be found elsewhere.
From the beginning of the New Mexico colony through the 1700s, the real
basis of the Spanish colonial economy lay in the colonists’ ability to control
and exploit land and the products and labor of Native Americans. The primary
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structural means by which this control was exerted were the encomienda and
repartimiento systems. The encomienda system refers to the practice of conferring control of specific lands to preferred subjects of the colony (Anderson 1985).
With this control came the right to exact tribute from indigenous groups living within and around the land grant (see Liebmann 2012b:32–33). Through the
encomienda system, Spanish colonists were able to take as tribute Indian lands,
labor, and food products and significantly “weakened the economic foundations
of Pueblo society” (Liebmann 2012b:33). The abuse of this system, its inherent
inequality, and the devastating effects it had on Pueblo economy and society
were apparent to both the colonial administration in New Spain and Franciscan
missionaries (Anderson 1985:360–61; Hammond and Rey 1953; Liebmann
2012b:32–33; Scholes 1944). Throughout the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish Crown
and viceregal administrators in Mexico enacted measures to control the granting
of encomiendas and the ability of encomenderos to exact tribute and labor from
Native Americans (e.g., Anderson 1985:355–57, 367). In the New Mexico colony,
clergy members protested the exploitation of Native Americans by encomenderos and the exacting of labor and tribute by governors and their administrators
(Anderson 1985:361, 364–66). However, such acknowledgment and denunciation
of the exploitation and inequity of the encomienda system did nothing to eliminate such practice.
Along with the encomienda system, the repartimiento system provided the
means for other early colonists to exploit Indian labor. Under repartimiento,
Spanish landholders could force Native Americans to work on farms and ranches
and to provide labor for other colonial pursuits (Anderson 1985:354; Liebmann
2012b:33–34). As Katherine Spielmann and her colleagues have shown, these
increased labor demands made of the Pueblos by Spanish colonists had deleterious effects on the health of Pueblo communities (Spielmann et al. 2009). Such
labor demands also took away from the labor necessary to produce food, and surpluses dwindled at pueblos throughout New Mexico in the century following the
first colonial encounters. An important component of the exploitation of Indian
resources and labor through the encomienda and repartimiento systems was the
harsh and sometimes violent tactics that Spanish colonists employed to exact tribute. Over the course of the seventeenth century, colonists increasingly employed
either threats of violence or direct violent actions in their efforts to take Pueblo
labor and commodities (Liebmann 2012b:34; see also Hadley et al. 1997:232).
Missionization and the conversion of Native Americans to Christianity can
be seen as both the primary means by which the colonial process was sustained
in New Mexico following the first decades of the colony’s establishment, and
the primary motivation for sustaining such colonial efforts (see Gutiérrez 1991).
Missionizing efforts in New Mexico began in earnest with the very first Spanish
expedition into the region by Fray Marcos de Niza in 1539. Despite the clear
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economic motivations behind the early colonial expeditions, proselytizing and
the conversion of native groups were always a major concern of the Spanish
Crown in all of its colonizing efforts globally.
In New Mexico, economic and missionizing motivations to colonize can
be seen as complementary. Both required the successful control over and
exploitation of indigenous labor and production to succeed, and the control
of indigenous populations was key to the overall colonial strategy (Galgano
2005:9). For the Spanish, the New Mexico Colony was fraught with difficult
transportation routes, geographically isolated colonial settlements, droughts,
and numerous autonomous native communities. As a result of these concerns
and priorities, the establishment of missions in native settlements was seen as
an important factor for success of the New Mexico Colony. In fact, given the
lack of mineral resources in New Mexico, missionization became the primary
function of the colony when it became a royal colony financed by the Spanish
Crown (see Liebmann 2012b:34–35). By the mid-1600s, nearly fifty Franciscan
priests were located in Pueblo communities throughout New Mexico, and the
program of church and mission construction was well underway (see Sheridan
and Koyiyumptewa, chapter 9 in this volume).
Spanish missions were constructed immediately adjacent to or within Pueblo
communities, at times incorporating kivas to metaphorically draw on the power
of traditional Pueblo religion the Spanish were attempting to simultaneously
alter (Gutiérrez 1991; see also chapters by Phillip O. Leckman [3], Lightfoot [14],
and Thomas [15], this volume). The overall agenda spearheaded by Franciscan
missionaries in the New Mexico Colony was to create “a program of religious
and social conversion calculated to undermine native institutions and sources
of cultural strength in order to make the Pueblo people into Catholics and
Spaniards” (Frank 1998:50). To do so, they had to confront and attempt to alter
the native political, social, and religious structures that lay opposed to their conversion (see chapters by Leckman [3], and Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa [9], this
volume). As a result, colonial Spanish religious structure was placed in such a
way to mediate that opposition while also attempting to overpower it. In the
Hopi village of Awatovi, for example, Franciscan priests filled in the village’s
kiva with clean sand and constructed the altar of the Mission church on top
(Dongoske and Dongoske 2002). Leckman, chapter 3 in this volume, describes
a possible similar situation at the Pueblo site of Paako. Other times, as in the
case of Abó and Quarai, while the missionaries supervised the construction
of church complexes, they allowed the construction of kivas adjacent to these
buildings (see chapter by Thomas, this volume for further discussion of this and
alternative viewpoints).
This may have been, according to Robert Galgano (2005:73–74), ways for friars
to “smooth” the introduction of Christianity to the native Pueblo populations.
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Missionaries may have wanted to encourage “a Christianity that allowed for local
flavor and permitted native expression” (Galgano 2005:75). However, it is clear that
most missions and priests in New Mexico actively discouraged the continuation of,
and tried to eradicate, traditional Pueblo religious rituals as part of their program
of conversion (see Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa, chapter 9 in this volume). At the
same time that Spanish religious institutions were created and imposed to negate
native ones, Spanish missionaries also attempted to destabilize the native spheres
of authority and leadership, as well as the sexual division of labor, both inside
and outside Pueblo households and communities (see insight into this process at
Hopi before and after conquest by Webster, chapter 4 in this volume). For example,
while the Spaniards introduced domesticated animals as a food source (see Yetman
1994), it had the indirect effect of aiding to negate the traditional role of the male
hunters (Frank 1998:51; Gutiérrez 1991:77; Pavao-Zuckerman 2011). In fact, many
roles that females had traditionally performed were now, under Spanish leadership,
afforded to males, and vice versa—activities such as weaving, hunting, community defense, and construction. Such dramatic shifts in the sexual division of labor
likely altered and destabilized central aspects of Pueblo society (Gutiérrez 1991:76).
Despite the convergence of motivations among secular Spanish colonists and
Franciscan missionaries, “the political climate of New Mexico was characterized by significant church-state tensions for much of the seventeenth century”
(Liebmann 2012b:35). Franciscans and secular colonists were often at odds for
control of indigenous labor and production, and such struggles and the deleterious effects of such tribute on Pueblo communities were main factors in the
mission program and the political power wielded by the Franciscan order in the
new colony (Gutiérrez 1991). In fact, high demands for tribute and labor from
Pueblos have been argued to be reasons why mission recruitment was relatively
strong in the early colonial period. For example, Andrew Knaut (1995:62–65)
argues that so much food tribute was commanded by Spanish troops in 1600
and 1601, on top of a drought, that Pueblos could not sustain themselves. Many
Pueblos had several years’ storage of corn which was demanded by colonial
administrators and encomenderos, leaving little remaining for those communities themselves. Much like later mission recruitment in Alta California in the
early nineteenth century, the increase in neophytes in New Mexico appeared
to partially be based on the needs of native populations for food, which missions could provide (see Hackel 2005, Larson et al. 1994, among others, for Alta
California parallels). By 1607, another enticement for mission recruitment that
resulted from the tribute demands made upon Pueblos was Spanish protection
from Athapaskan raiding (Knaut 1995:66–67). Raiding was a response to the colonists’ disruption of traditional trade networks, as well as the depletion, in part,
of Pueblo stores of food and products devoted to such trade in the past. In the
face of these difficulties, recruitment to missions can be seen as a reasonable
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response to ensure basic survival. As discussed below, however, such recruitment to missions many times did not equate to anything other than an outward
facade of compliance by Pueblo groups.
Native resistance and the Pueblo revolt of 1680
In 1680, the Pueblo Revolt forced Spanish colonists and missionaries out of New
Mexico (e.g., Hackett and Shelby 1942; Knaut 1995; Liebmann 2010, 2012a;
Liebmann and colleagues, this volume; Preucel 2002a; Preucel et al. 2002;
Silverberg 1970; Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa, chapter 9 in this volume; Spicer
1962; Wilcox 2009). This resistance to, and rejection of, Spanish colonial hegemony was one of the “pivotal events in Southwestern history” (Preucel 2002b:4)
and provides a context within which to understand issues of native autonomy,
power relations, domination and resistance, and processes of ethnogenesis and
cultural transformation in the New Mexico Colony. During the revolt, twentyone Franciscan missionaries—half of all Franciscans in New Mexico at that
time—were killed and 400 or so colonists lost their lives (Preucel 2002b:3; Yetman
2012:73). Many of the physical signs of Spanish colonialism—churches, missions, homes, and government buildings—were burned, otherwise destroyed,
or altered and subsequently occupied by Pueblo groups. Those colonists and
priests who did not die in the revolt fled to safety in El Paso. It would be twelve
years until Spanish colonists and missionaries returned and reestablished the
New Mexico Colony, along with a renewed military effort (see examples of
Spanish correspondence and analysis related to this in Hadley et al. 1997).
The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and its aftermath were important in several ways
(see chapters by Liebmann and colleagues [5], and Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa
[9], this volume). First, until August of that year, many of the Pueblos were
independent of one another, and while some were allied with one another, others were allied, at least tenuously, with Spanish colonists and thus against other
Pueblos. Through time, such tenuous alliances with colonists became more difficult and strained. The revolt joined together much of the Pueblo world against
a common enemy—the foreign invaders who had occupied their land for nearly
a century, demanded tribute, and served extremely harsh treatment against the
inhabitants of the entire region.
Second, the revolt appears to have wrought significant changes in Pueblo
identity and the social relations that existed among disparate Pueblo communities. Liebmann (2012a:147–58; see also Whiteley [2003] for a more longitudinal
view) argues that there was an emergence of a postrevolt pan-Pueblo identity, signified in part by changes in architecture and ceramic manufacture. For
example, after 1680, plain redware became popular throughout the northern
Rio Grande and was used in Jemez, Keres, and Tewa communities, as well as at
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Pecos Pueblo (Kidder 1936; Liebmann 2012b:149–50). Plain redware in the northern Rio Grande may have symbolized a spreading pan-Pueblo consciousness and
is similar to other undecorated redware from other portions of the Rio Grande
region that was produced before the revolt; such as Salinas Red from the Salinas
pueblos of Gran Quivira, Abó, and Quarai (Hayes et al. 1981:101). In addition,
after 1680, there appears to have been an emergent unity of design among different decorated pottery types across parts of the northern Rio Grande (Liebmann
2012b:153–56). Four motifs—feathers, hooked triangles, key motifs, and cap
steps or “sacred mountain” motifs—were adopted and commonly depicted on
decorated ceramics at Jemez and Keres communities and at Pecos, Acoma, and
Zuni, as well as among Tewa communities. The widespread use of these motifs
among Pueblo potters may have been the result of artists “downplay[ing] their
historical heterogeneity” (Liebmann 2012b:151), and could mark the unification
of different Pueblo identities. At the same time, see Liebmann and colleagues’
(chapter 5, this volume) study of Post-Revolt factionalism.
Across the Pueblo world, the manipulation and control over signs and symbols
(sensu Liebmann 2012b) played an important role in colonial resistance and the
preservation of native ideology and religious practice. Such manipulation and
control are most obviously witnessed in changes in the use and the depiction of
iconographic designs on pottery. Images such as feathers and stylized depictions
of birds, serpents, and masked figures—seemingly benign images to the Spanish
colonists and missionaries focused on eradicating Pueblo religious practices—
were representative of core elements of Pueblo religion associated with prayer
sticks, altar decorations, ritual costumes, or shields (Mills 2002:95). For example,
while feathers are seen in ceramics across the Pueblo world in the 1600s and later
in a wide variety of contexts, Barbara Mills (2002:95) argues that “similarities
at the regional scale in the use of feathers is quite striking and suggests a unity
that cross-cuts language groups and other important social differences among
the Pueblos.” In another example, Spielmann and her colleagues, argue that
radical design changes in the iconography of domestic pottery at Gran Quivira,
specifically among Tabira Black-on-white and Tabira Polychrome vessels, were
attempts by female potters to express important Pueblo ritual knowledge in
the face of active Franciscan suppression of such symbolism (Spielmann et al.
2006:640). Many new iconographic symbols introduced to the design of domestic black-on-white vessels—including masked katsina figures, feathers, possible
deities, and birds—were previously found only in kiva murals and other ceremonial contexts (see also Mobley-Tanaka 2002 for similar arguments). Spielmann
and her colleagues argue that different vessels, with distinct combinations of
icons and signs, could represent specific religious societies or rituals performed
at Gran Quivira (Spielmann et al. 2006:639). Through the production and decoration of these vessels, it was possible for religious knowledge to be conveyed
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and sustained clandestinely. Thus, it appears that ceramic decoration was an
important medium that played a crucial role in resistance to Spanish hegemony
and in the expression of complex messages and identities across the Pueblo
world, whether in secret or hiding in the open, both before and after the revolt
(see Mobley-Tanaka 2002).
the New Mexico colony Postrevolt
After several unsuccessful Spanish attempts at recolonization, Vargas led groups
of soldiers and colonists to reestablish the New Mexico Colony in 1692 and 1693
(Kessell and Hendricks 1992; Preucel 2002b). Through a series of brutal suppressions of Pueblo opposition over the next several years, he was able to exert
control over the colony once more (Hadley et al. 1997; Kessell and Hendricks
1992; Kessell et al. 1995, 1998; Knaut 1995:179–84; Liebmann 2012b; Preucel 2002b).
As the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in New Mexico apparently witnessed
a decrease in the level of violence in Spanish colonial policies and actions toward
native groups in New Mexico (Knaut 1995:184–85), the organized resistance to
Spanish colonial domination that characterized the latter part of the seventeenth century would not be seen again. Perhaps the centuries after the Pueblo
Revolt may be seen as exemplifying the transformative nature of the colonial
process (see Gosden 2004). As groups exerted agency, power, and their capacity
for social “creativity and experiment” (Gosden 2004:25), identities and relations
were transformed and, though they were clearly unequal in terms of power,
both colonists and Native Americans found themselves intertwined in an uneasy
relationship in a transformed world as the colonial encounter and their shared
history continued to “creep forward” (sensu Ferris 2009).
For example, during the eighteenth century, Pueblo and other non-Pueblo
native communities continued to culturally negotiate their relationship with
colonial powers and colonists (see chapters by Fowles and colleagues [6],
Liebmann and colleagues [5], and Webster [4], in this volume). Economically,
politically, and spiritually, native peoples were incorporated into aspects of this
new colonial society. Simultaneously, native peoples incorporated aspects of
newly introduced colonial traditions into their everyday life, though the meaning
and internal perception of these new traits were not necessarily what colonists
understood them to be (see chapters by Thomas [15], and Webster [4], this volume). Because the government in New Mexico was generally weak (see chapter
5, by Liebmann and colleagues, this volume), the colonial state had little ability
to “completely negate the power of Pueblo people to make choices about what
elements of the Spanish lifestyle they were going to accept or reject” (Brown
2013:15). In her recent examination of eighteenth-century interaction between
New Mexico colonists and native peoples, Brown (2013:17) has argued the power
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relationships between these groups, while unequal, allowed Pueblos to “dance”
with colonists and colonial powers, at times Pueblo groups being led, while at
other points native peoples leading this interaction. Much like Lomawaima (1989)
conceptualizes Hopification, Tracy Brown (2013:17–20) argues for Pueblofication,
in that Pueblo groups created new identities through allowing flexibility in
the incorporation of new traditions into their cultural matrix. Some concepts,
material goods, or traditions could be viewed as things easily discarded, while
others became wholly integrated into Pueblo society. As Brown (2013:168) notes,
“[Pueblos] expanded political, economic, and ritual traditions to meet demands
and burdens placed upon them by contact, and they also sometimes conformed
practices to Spanish expectations, especially when those expectations aligned
with their own practices and beliefs.”
Colonists, as well, adapted and transformed as time progressed in the New
Mexico Colony (see chapters by Darling and Eiselt [7], and Jenks [8], this volume). During the initial stages of colonization, everyday life must be met with
an open mind to survive, especially on the frontier. Rather than focusing economic output on one task, economic diversity was key for many (Trigg 2005).
While initial colonists identified themselves as Spanish (even if they were of
other descent), they slowly transformed themselves into New Mexican colonists.
Through time, that identity became more solidified, a pattern seen in other colonies as well (see Deagan 1997; Voss 2008a, 2008b), though there was an increasing
amount of interaction—social and otherwise—between these colonists and the
native inhabitants. Furthering this, it has been suggested that in rural areas, the
colonial economy was centered in Pueblo villages (see Trigg 2005:216). Soon
after reconquest, many of these colonists transformed their identities from colonists to vecinos (Hispanic citizens), which further differentiated them from native
peoples (Frank 2000; see chapters by Darling and Eiselt [7], and Jenks [8], in this
volume, for detailed discussions of the process and context of becoming vecinos
in late colonial New Mexico).
the PiMería alta
To the south and west of New Mexico, in the area of the northern Sonoran Desert
known as the Pimería Alta, sustained colonial efforts began in the late 1680s with
the establishment of a series of Jesuit missions by Father Eusebio Francisco Kino
(e.g., Bolton 1919, 1936, 1979). The term “Pimería Alta” hails from early Spanish
visitors’ (including Kino’s) distinctions between different dialects of the Piman
speakers. While the native speakers of this language referred (and continue to
refer today) to themselves as the O’odham, the Spanish used the term Pima and
therefore defined the Pimería Alta and Pimería Baja to distinguish the physical
boundaries of these languages and people (Fontana 1994:93). In this chapter, we
use a combination of both modern and colonial terms for native groups of the
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Pímeria Alta; examples of colonial names for these groups, some of which are
still used today, include Papago, Pima, Sobaipuri, Sand Papago, and Apache. In
what is now central Sonora, missions were established among the Yaqui in 1617
and among the Pima Bajo (Pimería Baja)] Eudeves, and Ópatas in the 1620s and
1630s (see Spicer 1962). Settlements in Sonora were first established around 1640
and were located along river valleys in the northeastern part of the present-day
state, to the south and east of the Pimería Alta. Missions expanded farther north
into the Pimería Alta in the late 1600s based on Father Kino’s plans to extend the
mission system to the Colorado and Gila rivers (Mirafuentes Galvan 1994:103;
see Spanish correspondence related to this dating from the 1700s for this region
in Polzer and Sheridan 1997). These missions in the Pimería Alta were maintained by the Jesuit order until 1767 and were then taken over by the Franciscan
Order when the Jesuits were expelled from the Spanish colonies across the New
World. During the Jesuit period, numerous missions were established, while during the subsequent Franciscan period, the Franciscans only established a visita
at Santa Ana de Cuiquiburitac to the northwest of Tucson, in 1811 or 1812. As in
the New Mexico Colony, the mission system in the Pimería Alta had two fundamental duties: to represent the Spanish Crown and convert native groups to
Christianity. Throughout their history, these missions relied on Native American
labor for economic support. As the Pimería Alta became more economically and
politically important to colonial efforts in the early 1700s, settlements and military posts called presidios were also established by colonial administrators, as
were mining enterprises and small support settlements (Donohue 1969; Kessell
1970; Officer 1987; Polzer and Sheridan 1997; Spicer 1962) (see chapters by Thiel
[12] and Pavao-Zuckerman [11], this volume). The first presidio in Sonora was
established in 1691 and had no fixed home base or facility. By the early 1700s, it
had become settled at the site of Fronteras in what is now Sonora. No other
presidios were established in Sonora until 1742, when garrisons were established
at Terrenate and Pitic (see Naylor and Polzer 1986 and Polzer and Sheridan 1997).
Native groups were quite diverse in the Pimería Alta and contrasted significantly in settlement patterns to indigenous groups in the New Mexico Colony
(see Lauren E. Jelinek and Dale S. Brenneman, chapter 10 in this volume, for a
detailed discussion of these groups; Seymour 2011, 2012). When Kino first passed
through the Pimería Alta, the area was inhabited by speakers of the Piman language, which is a Uto-Aztecan language. Kino referred to many of the various
groups as Pima, a term derived from the Piman word pimahaitu, meaning “nothing” (Doyel 1989; see also Fontana 1996). Groups inhabiting the Pimería Alta
included Pápagos (now considered a derogatory term for the Tohono O’odham);
Pimas, Sobaipuris, and Gileños (Akimel O’odham); Sobas and Areneños (possibly Hia Ced O’odham); and the Yuman-speaking Coco-maricopas and Opas
(Maricopas, or Pee Posh). Neighboring groups along the region’s periphery
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included Jocomes, Apaches, Yumas (Quechan); Quíquimas (Halyikwamai or
possibly Cócopas), Seris, Nébomes (Eudeves), and Ópatas (Doyel 1989:140–42;
Fontana 1996; Seymour 2011, 2012; Spicer 1962). Spaniards in general, however,
tended to combine these numerous groups into larger subgroups, likely due to
the mixing of populations brought about through Spanish and missionary influences (see Jelinek and Brenneman, chapter 10, this volume).
The timing of the colonial effort in the Pimería Alta is an important and
obvious difference when compared to that in New Mexico. Whereas the New
Mexico Colony was established in the northern frontier in 1598, nearly 100 years
passed before similar efforts were initiated in the Pimería Alta, although numerous previous Spanish expeditions had passed through the area. In the Pimería
Alta, the indigenous inhabitants of the region had long-standing knowledge of,
and experience with, Spanish colonizers as missions and colonial settlements
had been established to the south for generations (Spicer 1962).
Although one of the primary economic reasons for the initial interest in and
establishment of the New Mexico Colony was mining, it was the northwestern portion of New Spain, a region including the Pimería Alta, that was rich
in mineral resources (Spicer 1962; see Pavao-Zuckerman, chapter 11 in this volume). While the drive for mineral riches through mining and the conversion of
native groups to Christianity through missionization were both important components of colonization in the Pimería Alta, these two objectives at times lay at
odds with one another ( Jackson 1999:62–65). Jesuits believed strongly that forced
labor was counter to their conversion efforts. As missions were established in
the Pimería Alta, Father Kino specifically requested and obtained from Spanish
colonial officials a five-year exemption from recently converted Pima and other
indigenous groups being drafted for labor at nearby mines ( Jackson 1999:64). At
the same time, a royal decree arrived in New Spain ordering that recent converts
be exempt from forced labor for a period of twenty years.
The missionization of the Pimería Alta and the conversion of indigenous
groups to Christianity differed in some significant ways from efforts in the New
Mexico Colony. As described previously, missions, churches, and other religious
institutions in New Mexico were built within or immediately adjacent to settled
towns and communities. At times, churches were built on top of, or generally
incorporated, sacred indigenous religious architecture, creating complex relations between Christian and native religious practices. There were also heavy
tribute demands made by Spaniards on Pueblo communities. In Sonora and the
Pimería Alta, in contrast, differences in settlement patterns and sociopolitical
organization of groups strongly influenced the conversion efforts of the Jesuits
and created different strategies of missionization. For example, while missions
and Spanish towns were established near native villages in Sonora, if faced
with tribute and labor demands, entire villages may have simply fled the area
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(McGuire and Villalpando 1989:162). Unlike the New Mexico Colony, native villages and settlements in the Pimería Alta were less formal architecturally and
the inhabitants of settlements were generally more mobile. Rather than the
single- or multistory roomblocks, native residences were primarily individual
thatch- or brush-covered structures (Doyel 1989:142). While there was aggregation of settlement, many native inhabitants of the Pimería Alta lived in dispersed
settlements referred to by the Spanish as rancherías. Some native groups, such
as the Tohono O’odham, were known for a shifting settlement pattern of well
(winter) and field (summer) villages (Doyel 1989:141; Fontana 1996:20–23). As a
result, by the mid-1700s, some Spanish decisions regarding where to establish
new presidios had less to do with the location of native villages, and more to do
with other physical requirements, such as access to water and pasturage. In addition, in the case of the establishment of the presidio at Tubac, it also was based
in large part on symbolic meanings to the Spanish, as Tubac was the location
where the Piman leader Luis Oacpicagigua had surrendered to the Spanish after
the Upper Pima Revolt in 1751 (see Polzer and Sheridan 1997:407–42 for analysis
and Spanish correspondence related to this topic).
This more dispersed, less nucleated, nature of settlement that characterized
Sonora and the Pimería Alta would have allowed native groups greater freedom
to leave an area where Spanish missions or settlements existed or were being
established. For example, many Yaquis left southern Sonora in the 1740s and dispersed across the Pimería Alta following a Spanish repression of the Yaqui Revolt
of 1740. As the colonial agricultural economy expanded in the Pimería Alta, the
demands of missions and colonist for the limited arable agricultural land of the
region increased. As a result, through time there were fewer areas where native
agriculturalists were able to move. The rise of ranchos in the region (see PavaoZuckerman, chapter 11 in this volume) continued to increase the strain on land
for traditional activities. Groups practicing agriculture such as the Pima also
relied significantly on the collection of mesquite beans, cactus fruits, and other
native foods to supplement their crops (Doyel 1989:141).
By the end of the eighteenth century, roughly 100 years after the first establishment of missions and other colonial settlements in the Pimería Alta, the cultural
and physical landscapes had been significantly altered (see Strawhacker, chapter 13 in this volume). Periodic disease spread throughout the region, increasing
mortality among native populations, whether gentile or neophyte. In the southern Pimería Alta, along major drainages such as the Santa Cruz, what had once
been a landscape of dispersed, autonomous villages inhabited by diverse groups
was transformed into nucleated settlements of indigenous groups living within
or in close proximity to growing colonial settlements (see Doyel 1989:147–48).
At the same time, large portions of the greater Pimería Alta were essentially
unchanged by colonial intrusions. Tohono O’odham and Areneño groups were
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John G. Douglass and William M. Graves
still inhabiting nonriverine desert regions outside of the major drainages. Along
the northern edge of the Pimería Alta, Gileños and Cocomaricopas were living along the Gila River, essentially beyond the influence of Spanish missions
and settlement. As we discuss below, colonial transformations of social landscapes in the Pimería Alta were not met passively by their native inhabitants,
but rather occurred, in part, through a series of repeated acts of resistance and
rebellion against colonial powers. At the same time, there were uneasy, yet
seemingly positive, relationships between some native groups and colonists (see
Thiel, chapter 12 in this volume). In comparison to Pueblos or Seris and Yumas,
Pimas, for example, more readily converted to Christianity, allowing Spaniards
more access to labor required for mission and nonmission pursuits than in
other colonial situations. In return, Pimas had access to goods of Spanish origin,
such as horses and wheat, which were important in the colonial economy and
became especially important in native economies in the Pimería Alta at a time
when traditional subsistence practices were rapidly transforming (Ezell 1961:45;
1983:152–56). While alliances between native groups and Spaniards ebbed and
flowed continuously during this era, Pimas were generally viewed by Spaniards
as allies against their mutual enemies, the Apaches and Seris (Doyel 1989:148;
Sheridan 1999). As a result, Spaniards were able to turn one native group against
another based upon traditional (or more recent) animosities.
Native revolts and resistance in sonora and the Pimería alta
Much like the New Mexico Colony, there was resistance to and revolts against
the colonizing powers in this northwestern section of New Spain. Unlike the
New Mexico Colony, however, revolts in Sonora were less unified and were generally of smaller scale. To the southeast of the Pimería Alta in Sonora, news of
the Pueblo Revolt came relatively quickly, and settlers were concerned that a
similar type of uprising could occur along the northern frontier of New Spain
(Yetman 2012). Although the Jesuits had by this time established missions as far
north as the upper Río Sonora valley, and were just beginning their missionizing
efforts in the Pimería Alta, missionaries and colonists were under the constant
threat of attack by various native groups, including Apaches. As David Yetman
(2012:75) points out, the Apache had been helpful to Pueblo groups in accumulating information used in the revolt, and there was concern among Spanish
colonists in Sonora that they could conduct similar activities in the south to aid
in a rebellion. In addition, groups in Sonora and the Pimería Alta were generally
perceived by colonists as more nomadic compared to the more permanently
occupied Pueblo villages and therefore were viewed as members of potential
insurrections (Yetman 2012:77). Yetman (2012:118–21) has suggested that many
native groups in Sonora were inspired by the success of the Pueblo Revolt and
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strove to create their own unified attack against the colonists, but that there
was no unified plan across the many different language and cultural groups
in the region. Despite this lack of more widespread unification, alliances of
Janos, Jocomes, Sumas, Apaches, and Chinarras attacked and raided native and
European Christianized settlements during the 1680s and 1690s.
Significant uprisings and acts of resistance by native groups also occurred in
the Pimería Alta after Kino’s program of missionization was underway. Robert
Jackson (1999:89–95) concludes that in the Pimería Alta there were two generalized patterns of resistance among indigenous inhabitants: resistance by northern
Pimas associated with missions, and raids by Apaches and Seris on Spanish
settlements ( Jackson 1999:89; see also Jackson 1998). Two significant revolts by
baptized northern Pimas occurred in 1695 and 1751 (Fontana 1994:97–98). To the
south, the Seri had two significant revolts in 1748 and 1750 (Mirafuentes Galvan
1994). In the 1695 Pima uprising, a native Ópata overseer and his assistants were
killed at the mission of Tubutama, as were the newly stationed Jesuit priest
and his assistants at Caborca. The subsequent killing of Pimas by Spanish soldiers led to an even larger Pima uprising, resulting in the destruction of several
missions in the area (Polzer and Burrus 1971; Spicer 1962:124–25). The second
revolt, in 1751, resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people at the hands of the
Pimas—including colonists, Spanish sympathizers, and two missionaries (Ewing
1934:72–88). There were also subsequent and repeated raids by Pima, Seri, and
Apache groups against missions and other colonial settlements in the region.
The Spanish response to these revolts (including the establishment of the presidio at Tubac [see Polzer and Sheridan 1997]) may have inadvertently led to
increased raiding on colonial settlements, as these native groups remembered
the brutal retaliation of the Spanish, such as the Spanish matanzas (mass killings)
of native groups after the 1695 uprising (Fontana 1994:153). As Jackson (1999:91)
points out, these raids, while not unified like the 1680 revolt in the New Mexico
Colony, were “a serious challenge to the Spanish in Sonora [and the Pimería
Alta] as well and threatened the stability of the colonial order being created on
the frontier.”
However, as Jackson (1999:92) also points out, while raiding and the two Pima
rebellions in 1695 and 1751 were significant, Apache raiding across the northern
frontier, including the Pimería Alta, proved to be a much more constant and serious threat to Spanish colonial establishment efforts. While there were relatively
small numbers of colonists killed by Apache attacks compared to overall deaths
due to disease and other ailments, Apache raiding took significant economic
and emotional tolls on the native and nonnative residents of missions and other
colonial settlements ( Jackson 1999). Livestock raiding also led to significant
economic losses for colonial settlements. In response, by the mid- to late 1700s,
Spanish military units were more strongly positioned in the Pimería Alta to repel
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John G. Douglass and William M. Graves
these native attacks, with an increased reliance on establishing more presidios
(see Polzer and Sheridan, 1997; see also Thiel, chapter 12 in this volume).
coNtribUtioNs to the volUMe
This volume presents varied views and voices on the colonization of the
Southwest. Scholars demonstrate the intertwined relationships between cultural continuity and change during a time of immense upheaval in the region.
Chapters address aspects of everyday life and practices, and the interactions and
relations between colonists and Native Americans.
The volume is divided into three parts and is primarily organized around
geographic regions with chapters ordered roughly chronologically. After this
introductory chapter, Part I of the volume focuses on the New Mexico Colony.
Chapters in Part I discuss issues of factionalism and alliances; perspectives on
landscapes and mobility; social memory; the strategy of abandonment; production and consumption; indigenous and Spanish imperialism; warfare and
military strategies; and ethnogenesis, identity, and demography. In chapter
2, Matthew Schmader focuses on the initial Spanish expedition by Coronado
into New Mexico. Here, he details the expedition itself, including description of
the hundreds of indios amigos from central Mexico who accompanied Spanish
soldiers on this first large expedition to the American Southwest and Great
Plains. In addition, Schmader provides details of an important siege and battle
Coronado undertook at a Tiwa village site called Piedras Marcadas Pueblo to
offer a sketch of the types of brutality early native groups faced when encountering Spanish expeditionary forces. Next, in chapter 3, Philip O. Leckman explores
the interplay between Puebloan and Spanish conceptions of landscape and their
potential impacts on the early New Mexico Colony through a consideration of
seventeenth-century spatial organization and land use practices at Paako, a large
village and visita site. Here, Leckman discusses and analyzes the transformation
of the cultural and physical landscape in both Pueblo and Spanish settlements
and concludes there was a lack of penetration of Spanish religious beliefs and
customs among Pueblo groups. Hopi weaving traditions prior to, during, and
after the Pueblo Revolt is the topic Laurie D. Webster details in chapter 4. While
Hopi technology and materials involved in weaving changed during the colonial era, Webster documents how this evolution is connected to Hopi long-term
histories and how, even as it was transformed by colonial encounters, a weaving
tradition persisted.
In chapter 5, Matthew Liebmann and his colleagues discuss northern Rio
Grande Pueblo communities during the period immediately after the Pueblo
Revolt of 1680. Many Spanish records gloss over the complexities of the Pueblos’
alliances and factionalism; however, archaeological evidence documents enduring alliances among communities. Their contribution offers important insight
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into internal and external Pueblo alliances, rifts, and negotiations based on
fluid political and economic needs before and after the Pueblo Revolt. In chapter 6, Severin Fowles and colleagues delve into the Comanche presence in New
Mexico during the era of Spanish colonialism. Beginning in the 1740s, and lasting
over a decade, Comanche “imperialism” plays an important role in understanding the dynamic and complex multiethnic landscape the Spanish encountered in
the New Mexico Colony as well as the quick adoption and incorporation of new
technologies (such as equestrianism) into native cultural traditions. J. Andrew
Darling and B. Sunday Eiselt (chapter 7) and Kelly L. Jenks (chapter 8) explore
the concept of Spanish colonists in New Mexico becoming Vecinos, building on
the initial work done by Ross Frank (2000) on the concept (see also Trigg 2005).
This transformation of colonist identity in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
New Mexico has its origins in the late seventeenth century, when the concept
of vecino (a civic status) overshadowed caste and race. Both chapters discuss
the integrative processes and social transformation of late colonial New Mexico
related to becoming vecino. As Jenks (this volume) states, the ethnogenesis of
becoming vecino indicates that “the most salient aspect of Spanish colonial
identity in late colonial New Mexico was not Spanish identity but one’s residence and accepted membership in a Spanish colonial community.” Interestingly,
similar types of transformation took place in Alta California in the late eighteenth century with the creation of a Californio identity (see, e.g., Lightfoot
2005; Voss 2008a), which provided important integrative privileges to colonists
on the furthest edge of the Spanish frontier. Finally, Thomas E. Sheridan and
Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa in chapter 9 provide a unique perspective on past and
present understandings of the interactions between the Hopi and Franciscan
missionaries during the seventeenth century. These scholars compare and contrast Spanish historical records of Franciscan abuses at Hopi with recorded Hopi
oral traditions of the same events to explore and better understand what they
call “intergenerational memory of colonial trauma.” Their use and comparison
of both Hopi oral traditions and Spanish ethnohistoric documents offer new
insight into the connection between the colonial past and the present.
Part II of this volume details the colonial encounter in the Pimería Alta.
Topics discussed in this section include Native American population dynamics
of the region, military settlements and colonial strategies, ranching economies
and influences, and indigenous agricultural responses to colonialism. In chapter 10, Lauren E. Jelinek and Dale S. Brenneman focus on the Native American
demographic landscape during the early colonial era to provide insight into
native population diversity and interaction. Analysis of ethnohistoric and
archaeological data suggest that during the early period of Spanish contact,
there was an extremely diverse and varied cultural landscape and that different groups in the Pimería Alta interacted with each other a great deal. Next,
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John G. Douglass and William M. Graves
Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman in chapter 11 focuses on the economic transformation of the Pimería Alta during the colonial era. Part of her discussion delves
into the gradual, and patchy, transformation of native everyday life and activities
through missionization and other colonial structures. Overall, based on both
archaeological and ethnohistorical research, she argues that the introduction
of livestock into the area led to deleterious effects on the sustainability of traditional native subsistence strategies, and the co-option of native labor led to
profound effects on the daily life of the native populations. J. Homer Thiel in
chapter 12 offers insight into the everyday life and experiences of soldiers and
settlers at the Tucson presidio. Far removed from the comforts of home in what
is now Mexico, by the late eighteenth century, these colonists and settlers slowly
transformed their identities from those associated with race and caste, which
created distinctions among them, to other identities, which integrated them as
community members, much like similar processes in both California and New
Mexico during the same time period. Finally, in chapter 13, Colleen Strawhacker
explores the dynamic responses of the O’odham to colonialism through the
nineteenth century. Specifically, Strawhacker argues that during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, the O’odham intensified their use of irrigation agriculture to meet demands of missions and, later, market demands, both resulting
in relatively positive economic outcomes. Strawhacker also suggests that, like
Fowles and colleagues do for the Comanche (chapter 6), the adoption of new
innovations also led to changes in social structure. In the case of the O’odham,
it appears that centralization of leadership may have aided in the adoption of
intensive agricultural practices.
Finally, in the last Part III of the volume, Kent Lightfoot (chapter 14) and David
Hurst Thomas (chapter 15) provide discussion and commentary on the other
contributed chapters. Lightfoot and Thomas also compare the colonial encounters in the American Southwest to, respectively, Alta California and La Florida
(the American Southeast). These two discussants offer valuable comparative
perspectives with which to meaningfully contextualize the colonial process in
the American Southwest and further our understanding of this transformative
historical process that has created the Southwestern world as we know it today.
ackNowleDGMeNts
First and foremost, we would like to thank all the contributors to this volume for
offering detailed and informative insight into the nature of the colonial experience, from the perspective of both native and colonist. The topics they explore,
and the commentary they offer, inspired the topics we discussed in this chapter.
We thank the very helpful and thorough comments of Kathleen Hull (University
of California, Merced), Tom Sheridan (University of Arizona), and Dale
Brenneman (Arizona State Museum), as well as those of several anonymous
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peer reviewers; this chapter is much clearer because of their feedback. Any
bizarre twists of logic or errors in facts, however, remain our responsibility. Both
of us acknowledge and appreciate the support of Statistical Research, Inc., for
administrative and financial support related to this chapter and the volume in
general. In addition, John Douglass has been a Visiting Scholar in the School
of Anthropology at the University of Arizona during the writing of this chapter and appreciates the support he has received by colleagues there, as well as
University resources.
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P a
r t
1
the New Mexico colony
Native and Colonist Worlds Colliding
t
w o
“the Peace that was Granted had Not been kept”
Coronado in the Tiguex Province, 1540–1542
m aT T h e w F. S C h m a d e r
iNtroDUctioN
In the sweep of history, instances of first contact between indigenous peoples
and explorers from foreign lands form a dramatic and often tumultuous turning point in the lives and cultures of all participants. The “Age of Discovery,”
as characterized by European exploration and later by enterprises of colonial
expansion, is strewn with many examples of intercultural collisions. Across the
globe, from Africa to South Asia and later into Polynesia, native cultures were
permanently and usually negatively impacted. Perhaps nowhere was this page
of history more dramatically turned than in the events surrounding the exploration of the Fourth Part of the World (Lester 2009), or the “New World,” as it
came to be known.
Starting with Cristóbal Colón’s first encounters with native Caribbean
peoples, New World explorations based out of Spain and Portugal would unrelentingly range across the entire Western Hemisphere for all of the sixteenth
century. Historian Richard Flint (2008:206) notes that over 130 Spanish-led expeditions were conducted between 1492 and 1598 in the Americas, a summary that
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c002
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49
does not include the Portuguese enterprises. Considering the massive effort
and geography involved, native responses to European contact were by no
means uniform or passive. Noting that the Taíno peoples had destroyed Colón’s
first colony of La Navidad with a total loss of Spanish settlers’ lives, Matthew
Liebmann and Melissa Murphy (Liebmann and Murphy 2010:3) state that “this
was not an anomalous incident, but merely the first episode in a long pattern of
native opposition to Spanish colonialism that spanned more than three centuries
and ranged across two continents.”
This chapter explores the texts and contexts of one of the most significant of
the sixteenth-century Spanish explorations, the 1540–42 expedition into presentday northern Mexico and the American Southwest led by Francisco Vázquez de
Coronado (see chapters by Thomas E. Sheridan and Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa
[9], J. Andrew Darling and B. Sunday Eiselt [7], and Kelly L. Jenks [8], this volume, for discussion of later Spanish colonial texts). Expeditionary documents of
the Coronado exploration will be reviewed in detail to discern the range of reactions and responses elicited by native peoples when confronted with first contact
by foreigners. As Liebmann and Murphy (2010:4) observe, “Much of what we
think we know about native negotiation of Spanish colonialism is founded upon
modern readings of historical texts.” They point out that there were filters and
motivations of documentary writers that often underrepresented the “multitudes whose identities fell into the ambiguous interstices between Indian and
Spaniard” (Liebmann and Murphy 2010:4). This chapter attempts to fill out that
void by summarizing a variety of native tactics and strategies inferred from written eyewitness accounts of the Coronado expedition. By so doing, it affirms the
conclusions of Liebmann and Murphy (2010:6) that “the colonial landscape was a
patchwork of domination, resistance, accommodation, and negotiation as indigenous peoples exerted a variety of strategies” in response to colonizing efforts
and that “armed confrontation [was] but one of an array of strategies employed
by indigenous peoples in their interactions” with the Spanish (Liebmann and
Murphy 2010:4).
This chapter will focus the material consequences of what is described in
documents, attempting to more strongly bridge gaps that can exist between history and archaeology. As Liebmann and Murphy (2010:5) also note, “Archaeology
complements historical studies of post-1492 life in the Americas . . . in many
ways [more] . . . than that afforded by documents alone.” They go on to observe
that “many everyday acts of resistance leave no material signature” and that
“those that do leave material traces are often equivocal at best” (Liebmann and
Murphy 2010:6). Recognizing that documents do not account for much of what
is contained in the archaeological record, this chapter draws a more direct connecting line between the inferential nature of native actions in contact situations
and the specific material consequences of those actions. This will be done by
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examining the material record of one significant locality where first contact and
ensuing conflict occurred in the American Southwest.
the vázQUez De coroNaDo exPeDitioN
On February 22, 1540, one of the largest land-based explorations ever organized in the New World by the Spanish Crown (Schmader 2011:314–15; 2014:116)
departed Compostela, then the provincial capital of Nueva Galicia, and began
its fateful journey northward.1 Competitive rights to conduct the expedition
were granted to the viceroy of Nueva España, Antonio de Mendoza, and interest in the outcome was greatly anticipated (Hammond and Rey 1940:87). It had
been just twenty years since Hernán Cortés vanquished the Aztec empire and
fewer than ten years following the conquest of Peru by the Pizarro brothers in
the early 1530s. The short span from 1519 to 1539 witnessed breathtaking results
in Spanish imperial expansion, both in terms of huge land claims and physical wealth of gold, silver, and jewels to fill royal coffers. Expectation of finding
another great civilization to the north of Nueva España, and a final route to
the orient (Flint 2008:17–19), were piqued by reports of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de
Vaca, whose odyssey of survival in the mid-1530s along the United States–Mexico
border encountered evidence of settled lands (Goodwin 2008). In 1539, Viceroy
Mendoza sent a small party under Fray Marcos de Niza north as far as Cíbola
(now Zuni pueblo in New Mexico), and the outcome seemed encouraging that
another great civilization lay ahead (see John G. Douglass and Graves, chapter 1
in this volume).
To lead the larger exploration, Mendoza chose his twenty-nine-year-old governor of the province of Nueva Galicia, Captain General Francisco Vázquez de
Coronado y Luján (Hammond and Rey 1940:83–85). The expedition was not funded
by the Spanish Crown but rather was a private enterprise that cost its investors
nearly $20 million in present-day value of silver (Schmader 2011).2 Three primary
investors staked over $ $2 million each: Viceroy Mendoza, Vázquez de Coronado
(mostly from his wife Beatriz Estrada’s estate), and Aztec conquistador Pedro de
Alvarado shortly before his death in 1541. The average cost in cash and goods for
a captain was about $175,000 and the cost of an average foot soldier was $30,000
(S. Flint 2003:44–48). The assembled force grew in numbers as it proceeded northward from Compostela to Culiacán (Figure 2.1), eventually totaling 375 European
men-at-arms. Several women vital to the expedition are named in the documents,
and others, unnamed, surely went. Slaves and porters were important to the contingent, and many were attached to households (Flint 2008). Over 1,100 horses and
several thousand head of livestock supported the expedition.
Importantly, the force included at least 1,300 native Mexican indigenous soldiers (indios amigos or aliados) of mixed Tarascan, Tenochca, Tlatelolca, and
Mexica descent. It is possible that number could have been 2,000 or more (Flint
Coronado in the Tiguex Province, 1540–1542
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fiGUre 2.1. Approximate route of the Francisco Vázquez de Coronado expedition, February
1540 to June 1542, showing place-names mentioned in the chapter. Map by author.
2008:58–61). See chapter by Douglass and Graves, chapter 1 in this volume, on
overall make-up of troops heading both north and south during this period from
central Mexico). The salient fact is that three-fourths of the expedition were
native to central and western Mexico, and were not Europeans. Much of the
exploration’s provisioning did not include modern weaponry: it was outfitted
with just 21 crossbows, 25 arquebuses (primitive muskets), 60 swords, and 50 coats
of chainmail (Aiton 1939). The majority of soldiers used native weapons and
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Matthew F. Schmader
armor called armas de tierra, which “included cotton tunics, round shields, traditional feathered headgear, banners and other insignias; macanas (obsidian-edged
swords) clubs, lances, slings, and bows and arrows” (Flint and Flint 2005:138; also
see Flint 1997).
Numerous cultural groups were encountered as the expedition made its way
along the western coast of Mexico and then on a path mostly due north following the route taken earlier by de Niza (see Figure 2.1). By the time Vázquez
de Coronado reached Cíbola and the vicinity of Zuni, the pueblo people were
prepared but could not be certain if Coronado and his forces were coming to
avenge the killing of Estevan, de Niza’s charismatic Moorish guide (Goodwin
2008). Coronado was intent on reaching his perceived goal of a promising civilization with exploitable resources; further, his forces were strained, tired, and
hungry. Neither side accurately assessed the other and in the process of deteriorating communications, fighting broke out. This established a repeated pattern
of interaction between the expedition and the peoples they were to encounter,
as distrust would escalate into outright bloodshed numerous times in the ensuing two years.
The battle at the major Zuni pueblo of Hawikku was hard fought but brief.
New European technologies, tactics, horses, and likely the indios amigos themselves, overcame the Zuni defenders. Coronado was badly wounded early in
the conflict and had to be rescued by his captains, Hernando de Alvarado and
Diego López de Cárdenas (Hammond and Rey 1940:169, 181). The first meeting between natives and nonnatives, on July 7, 1540, did not set a precedent
for communication and diplomacy but instead had erupted into fighting and
casualties.
The expedition rested and reprovisioned during the summer months of 1540
while an advance scouting party under Alvarado pushed east past Acoma Pueblo.
By September 1540, Alvarado had led the first group of nonnatives to see the
present-day Rio Grande: “The Nuestra Señora river flows through a broad valley planted with fields of maize. There are some cottonwood groves. There are
twelve pueblos. The houses are made of mud, two stories high. The people seem
good, more given to farming than to war” (Hammond and Rey 1940:183). This
area was thereafter called the “Provincia de Tiguex” by Vázquez de Coronado
(Figure 2.2). It is situated north of and includes part of the present-day city of
Albuquerque, New Mexico.3
Alvarado continued eastward through the Galisteo Basin of New Mexico and
to the pueblo of Cicuye (Pecos) before arriving at the edge of the Great Plains.
There, he heard of possible riches even further east toward a land called Quivira
but by then Alvarado had to rejoin López de Cárdenas, who had begun to set up
winter quarters outside a major Tiguex village called Alcanfor (Hammond and
Rey 1940:218–20). Coronado arrived in the Rio Grande Valley later by way of a
Coronado in the Tiguex Province, 1540–1542
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fiGUre 2.2. Map of Vázquez de Coronado’s “Tiguex Province” (middle Rio Grande valley)
showing locations of known occupied pueblo villages at the time of contact in 1540. Illustrative
map by author showing settlements fifteen miles upriver of Albuquerque. © 2016 Society for
American Archaeology. Reprinted by permission from Advances in Archaeological Practice,
volume 4, number 1.
more southerly route (Sánchez 1988). By the time the entire force had reassembled, the especially harsh winter of 1540 had set in and the group was woefully
unprepared. Cold and hunger forced them to take over Alcanfor (Hammond and
Rey 1940:219).
Demands for food and clothing, imprisonment of native guides, and assaults
on pueblo women worsened relations. In retaliation, the pueblos stole horses
and killed several native Mexican guards. Tensions erupted into a battle at the
Tiguex pueblo of Arenal, after which more than 100 pueblo men were burned
at the stake. Any remaining Puebloan resistance consolidated at “the strongest” pueblo, called Moho, three to four leagues (13 to 16 kilometers, or 8 to
10 miles) away from Alcanfor. Vázquez de Coronado personally led the initial
assault on Moho, but it took a siege of fifty to eighty days to finally overcome the
village (Hammond and Rey 1940:360). Dozens more native people died in that
prolonged series of skirmishes. Coronado was never able to control worsening
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tensions during the winter of 1540–41, and permanent damage to Spanish-Native
relations had been done.
By the spring of 1541 Coronado hurriedly left the Tiguex Province for Pecos
Pueblo. Spurred ever eastward by stories, trickery, and hopes of fortune, the
expedition soon found itself on the edge of the Great Plains (Sánchez 1997:236).
There they noted its vastness, many tribes, and massive herds of buffalo.
Continuing on through the Texas panhandle, Coronado decided to send nearly
all of the expedition back to Tiguex while he and thirty-five others rode on,
possibly into Kansas before realizing they would never find Quivira (Sánchez
1997:244–48). Vázquez de Coronado was compelled to return for a second winter in the Tiguex Province in 1541–42 before retracing his steps back to Mexico
(Hammond and Rey 1940:28). Coronado’s return to Culiacán was not marked
by triumph. He did deliver his force with few casualties, though he never fully
recovered from a fall off his horse and died at the age of forty-four some dozen
years later (Bolton 1949:405).
Native resPoNses DeriveD froM exPeDitioNary DocUMeNts
Surviving documents of the Coronado expedition contain abundant contemporaneous material to inform about many events that took place (see chapter by
Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa, chapter 9 in this volume, for discussion of later
Spanish texts describing events at Hopi Mesa). These documents have been transcribed in and translated into several forms and versions (e.g., Flint and Flint
2005; Hammond and Rey 1940; Winship 1896). Perhaps the most complete eyewitness account was provided by a literate member of the expedition, Pedro de
Castañeda de Nájera, who wrote his recollections while in Spain twenty years
later, during the 1560s. A careful reading of Castañeda’s version of events reveals
a wealth of information about interactions between the expeditionary forces
and native peoples, and particularly about native responses to those fast-moving
circumstances. His account will be used as a primary source to analyze several
types of native responses to these rapidly changing situations. Other sources
used will include Vázquez de Coronado himself, as well as captain Hernando de
Alvarado and other anonymous texts from the time.
long-Distance information exchange
At the time of European contact, native networks of information exchange
appear to have been broad geographically, and knowledge of the expedition’s
movements was shared far ahead of its physical arrival. As Michael Wilcox
(2009:103) points out, the “Pueblos . . . had individual historical experiences,
protocols for communication, and trade relations with other ethnic groups in
the surrounding areas.” For example, Castañeda describes a delegation that
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came to Zuni from Pecos Pueblo, a distance of 190 miles away: “There came
to Cíbola some Indians from a pueblo of the province called Cicuye [Pecos],
distant seventy leagues to the east” (Hammond and Rey 1940:217). Information
of Coronado’s advance would have reached Pecos at least a week ahead to allow
for the travel time from Pecos to Zuni. The delegation intended to stave off the
eastward progress of the expedition, or at least befriend it ahead of time.
The residents of Cíbola made reference to “a settled area” thirty-five leagues
(ninety miles) to the west, which was the Hopi pueblos (Flint and Flint 2005:498).
Coronado describes a communication network made up of smoke signals to
warn of his advance and arrival: “From time to time the Indians sent up their
smoke clouds, which were answered from a distance with as much coordination
as we would have known to do ourselves. Thus, they were notified that we were
traveling and where we had reached” (Flint and Flint 2005: 257; Hammond and
Rey 1940:167).
Another example of information networks is provided by Castañeda. When
hostilities broke out later in the Rio Grande province of Tiguex, knowledge of
it was widely shared: “These [men] spread the news throughout the land, telling
how the peace that was granted them had not been kept. This resulted in great
harm later” (Flint and Flint 2005; Hammond and Rey 1940).
symbolic or ritualized behavior
Native reaction to foreigner interlopers sometimes translated into symbolic and
ritualized behavior. Castañeda describes how “their most reliable peace pact
consists in crossing their hands, and this peace they keep inviolable” and that
“they answered their signs for peace by similar ones, which consisted of making a
cross” (Hammond and Rey 1940:218; see also Flint and Flint 2005:399). When situations with the Coronado expedition became tense, the pueblo people pressed
their point through symbolic acts. At Hopi, leaders took corn meal and “they
drew lines and tried to prevent our men from crossing them” (Flint and Flint
2005:396; see also Hammond and Rey 1940:214).
Measurement and accounting of safe distances, in addition to lines not to be
crossed, were also kept. Castañeda says that a pueblo man “shot an arrow, which
landed at the foot of Don Lope’s horse. Putting another arrow in his bow, he
told him to leave or he would shoot to kill” and “when they saw that [Don
Lope] was in a safe place, they began to shout and howl and to send a shower of
arrows” (Hammond and Rey 1940:229–30; see also Flint and Flint 2005:405). The
symbolic effect of shouting and physical posturing was used as tensions built in
Tiguex: “Certain warriors . . . used to come out every morning to make a display
to frighten our army in some way” (Castañeda, in Hammond and Rey 1940:230;
see also Flint and Flint 2005:405).
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The pueblo people also seem to have held that new and mysterious animal,
the horse, with a sense of special power. At Zuni, Castañeda noted that “they
made their peace ceremonies by approaching the horses, taking their sweat, and
anointing themselves” (Hammond and Rey 1940:218; see also Flint and Flint
2005:399). Later, in the Tiguex Province, Puebloans targeted horses by stealing
a number of them. When Captain Diego López de Cárdenas went to investigate at a nearby village, he “heard a great shouting inside, with horses running
around as in a bull ring and the Indians shooting arrows at them” (Hammond
and Rey 1940:225; see also Flint and Flint 2005:403).
Spanish officials used their own ritual symbolism when they announced their
intentions to make the pueblo people vassals of the king of Spain. They read the
requerimiento, a proclamation recounting the history of the world, Spain’s rights
to lands in the New World, an ultimatum to submit to the king, and a directive to learn the ways of Catholicism (Flint 2008:109; Liebmann and Murphy
2010). The requerimiento was delivered to the pueblo people in highly formalized Spanish with no basic interpretation. The ritual symbolism of reading the
requerimiento prior to initiating any action must have seemed an odd device to
the pueblo people in terms of the theatrics involved. They, in turn, responded
with symbolism of their own: the Zunis “drew lines in front of [the friar], indicating that the army should not cross them [and] threw dirt in the air . . . They
were never willing to come in peace . . . nor did they stop shooting arrows”
(Castañeda, in Flint 2008:108–9).
trust and respect systems
Systems of trust and mutual respect seem to have been important for communication across Puebloan linguistic boundaries and as a means of diplomacy (see
Wilcox 2009:103–5). It is perhaps in this realm more than any other that Vázquez
de Coronado failed to realize the importance of compromise and restraint: had
he understood the significance of native respect systems, he might have avoided
many of the problems he ultimately faced. This is evident during the expedition’s initial stay during the winter of 1540–41 in the Tiguex Province of the Rio
Grande Valley. The expedition was poorly prepared for the high desert cold, and
was suffering from lack of food as well. Coronado was compelled to set up his
main encampment at the village of Alcanfor, in the northern part of the Tiguex
Province. It did not help that the pueblo’s “ill feeling was aggravated by the
general’s desire to gather some clothing and distribute it among the soldiers”
(Castañeda, in Hammond and Rey 1940:224; see also Flint and Flint 2005:402).
When Coronado instructed his men to go throughout the Tiguex Province
rather than to put too great a burden on one village, it worsened the situation.
“If they saw an Indian with a better [cloak] they exchanged it with him without
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any consideration or respect” and as Castañeda noted, “the Indians resented this
very much.” Another aggravating factor was the devastating effect that horses
and livestock had on the pueblos’ agricultural fields, which still had useful stubble (a winter fuel source) and possibly food at the end of the harvest season (Flint
2008; Wilcox 2009).
A crucial moment came when a pueblo man brought forth charges of an
attempted rape on his wife at the Tiguex village of Arenal. When this appeal for
justice went unheeded, “in the end he went away without getting any redress
for what he had demanded” (Castañeda, in Hammond and Rey 1940:225; see also
Flint and Flint 2005:403). In retaliation, the pueblo people then stole horses, an
act of defiance that demanded Coronado’s swift action. He called a council of
his leaders, decided on a course of action, and read the requerimiento to the village chiefs. When this attempt to achieve submission failed, Arenal was attacked.
After a short fight, the pueblo men surrendered by making the sign of the
cross. But the captives, believing they had surrendered in peace, were instead
rounded up to be burned at the stake and further serious bloodshed ensued
when they fought to save their lives. This series of horrendous events marked
a permanent turning point in relations, for as Castañeda stated, “this was the
beginning of the distrust the Indians had from then on for the word of peace.”
He goes on to state that “the Indians replied that they would not trust those who
did not know how to keep the word they had pledged . . . and that they had not
kept the peace” (Hammond and Rey 1940:227; see also Flint and Flint 2005:403).
Several months later, at the final standoff and siege of Moho Pueblo, all attempts
to ask for reconciliation went unheeded: “They paid no attention to the requisitions for peace made upon them, nor would they grant it” and “we were unable
to induce them to make peace” With a sense of finality, Castañeda notes that
“they did not want to trust people who did not keep their friendship or word they
gave” (Hammond and Rey 1940:228; see also Flint and Flint 2005:403–4).
Defensive tactics
Information about Puebloan defensive and offensive tactical organization is readily apparent in Castañeda’s narrative. He describes a defensive tactic at Zuni, in
which “these people waited in the open within sight of the pueblo, drawn up in
squadrons.” At Tiguex, the people had already begun to fortify their villages, as
captain López de Cárdenas “found the pueblos enclosed by a palisade.” Further,
“Cárdenas could do nothing because they refused to come out into the field, and
as the pueblos are strong, they could not be harmed” (Castañeda in Hammond
and Rey 1940:225–26; see also Flint and Flint 2005:403). When the men who had
surrendered at Arenal realized they were not prisoners but were in fact destined
to be burned alive, “about one hundred who were in the tent began to offer
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resistance and defend themselves with stakes which they rushed out to seize.”
Following the battle at Arenal, the remaining populace in the Tiguex Province
consolidated themselves at two villages in self-defense: “Most of the people of
these pueblos had taken refuge in these two places,” that is, the villages called
Moho Pueblo and Pueblo de la Cruz by the Spanish (Flint and Flint 2005:404; see
also Hammond and Rey 1940:228).
The critical confrontation occurred at the pueblo of Moho, where Coronado
himself led the first assault on the village. But as Castañeda describes, the assault
was repulsed, as “the enemy had been getting ready for many days and had so
many stones to hurl upon our men” (Hammond and Rey 1940:228; see also Flint
and Flint 2005:404). Coronado then elected to surround the pueblo and lay siege
to it, which lasted a period of fifty to eighty days. During the standoff there
were several skirmishes, but the provisioned village of Moho was caught short
of a most precious resource: “What troubled the Indians most was their lack
of water. Within the pueblo they dug a very deep well, but they were unable
to obtain water” (Castañeda, in Hammond and Rey 1940:229; see also Flint and
Flint 2005:404). Even the act of digging a well in the midst of a siege could be
regarded as an act of self-defense.
The last acts of self-preservation occurred when “the Indians decided to abandon the pueblo during the night, and they did so. Placing their women in the
middle, they set out.” But the escapees were discovered, and after a fight “they
fell back to the river, which was high and cold . . . few of the enemy escaped
death or injury” (Castañeda, in Hammond and Rey 1940:230; see also Flint and
Flint 2005:405). The siege had ended, yet “there were a few who remained in the
pueblo, and who resisted in one of the sections, but they were overcome in a
few days.”
offensive tactics
The pueblo people acted not only in self-defense to situations imposed on them
by the expedition, but they actively engaged in offensive tactics and strategies as
well. Vázquez de Coronado describes the first fighting at Hawikku: “The people
who were on the roof defending themselves had no difficulty at all inflicting the
injury on us that they had power [to do]. With an infinity of large stones they
hurled from the roof, they knocked me to the ground twice. If it had not been
for the excellent helmet I wore, I think the result would have been grim for me”
(Coronado, in Flint and Flint 2005:257).
Early in the expedition’s stay at Tiguex, “the men in the pueblo came out
to fight, shooting arrows and berating Alvarado, saying that he had broken his
word and friendship.” When the people of Arenal retaliated for the lack of justice sought in the attempted rape of a woman, a soldier “who was guarding
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the horses came bleeding and wounded, saying that the Indians of the land had
killed one companion and were driving the horses before them to their pueblos”
(Castañeda, in Hammond and Rey 1940:225; see also Flint and Flint 2005:403).
When Coronado then attacked Arenal, Castañeda recounts that “the defenders
wounded many of our men with arrows which they shot from the inside of their
houses” (Flint and Flint 2005:403; Hammond and Rey 1940:226).
The later siege and battles at Moho began, as noted above, with an assault
led by Coronado himself. But the initial attack did not go well for the expeditionary forces, because the pueblo people “had so many stones to hurl upon
our men that they stretched many on the ground. They wounded close to one
hundred men with arrows” (Castañeda, in Hammond and Rey 1940; see also
Flint and Flint 2005). Other attempts were repulsed when Coronado’s soldiers
“could not harm the enemy . . . because of heavy showers of arrows that soon
fell upon them” and because “they shot arrows from terraces with much shouting.” The pueblos inflicted significant casualties on the expedition, as “many of
our men came out badly wounded.” During one skirmish, “the enemy fell upon
them, killing a Spaniard and a horse and wounding others” (Hammond and Rey
1940:228–29; see also Flint and Flint 2005:404).
capitulatory behavior
A diplomatic tactic tried by several pueblos was to meet the strange newcomers with acts of capitulation. At Zuni, Castañeda notes that “the Indians gave
them some presents of dressed skins, shields, and head pieces” and that “they
presented a large number of turkey cocks, much bread, dressed deer skins, pinyon nuts, flour, and maize” (Hammond and Rey 1940:217; see also Flint and Flint
2005:398). When Alvarado reached Acuco (Acoma) on his way to explore the Rio
Grande Valley, the residents, he noted, “came to us in peace, although they could
have refused to do it . . . They gave us cotton mantas, [bison] and deer hides,
turquoises, [turkeys], and the rest of the food[s] they have” (Relación del Suceso
[anonymous text], in Flint and Flint 2005:499). When Alvarado reached Tiguex,
he describes how “the principales and people came from twelve pueblos. [They
came] in order, those from one [pueblo] behind the other. They walked around
our tent playing a flute, and an old man [was] speaking. In this [same] way they
came into the tent and presented me with food, mantas, and hides they were
carrying” (Alvarado in Flint and Flint 2005:305).
Upon their arrival in the Tiguex Province, “the Indians all came out peacefully, seeing that men who were feared in all those provinces were coming with
Bigotes,” a chief of Pecos captured as an expeditionary guide. When Hernando
de Alvarado’s advance scouting party arrived at Pecos, “the people came out to
meet him and their captain (Bigotes) with demonstrations of joy and took him
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into the pueblo with drums and fifes.” When it became clear that the entire
expeditionary force intended to overwinter in Tiguex, Castañeda states that “as
the natives had to provide quarters for the Spaniards, they found themselves
compelled to abandon a pueblo.” Consequently, “they did not take along any
belongings but their persons and clothing” (Hammond and Rey 1940:224; see
also Flint and Flint 2005:402). Following the brief fight at Arenal, the pueblo warriors understood that they were better off surrendering than having the whole
pueblo destroyed: “The natives soon laid down their arms and surrendered at
their mercy.” During the prolonged siege of Moho, “one day, before the pueblo
was taken, they asked for a conference.” Castañeda continues, “As they had
learned we did not harm women and children, they wanted to give us theirs”
(Hammond and Rey 1940:224; see also Flint and Flint 2005:402).
Deceptive tactics
Native use of deception was another apparently widespread stratagem. At
Moho, Castañeda describes how pueblo leaders “told [Cárdenas] that if he
wanted to talk with them, he should dismount and they would approach him
on foot to discuss peace.” Then, “when [Cárdenas] was close to them, they said
that they bore no weapons and that he should remove his” but as the pueblo
chief Xauian “embraced [Cárdenas] while two other Indians who had accompanied him drew two maces, which they had concealed behind their backs. They
struck [Cárdenas] two blows over the helmet so that they nearly stunned him”
(Hammond and Rey 1940:227–28; see also Flint and Flint 2005:404).
More covert forms of deception were practiced in an attempt to lead the
force away from the pueblo homeland. Vázquez de Coronado, in a letter to
the king, stated that “while I was overseeing the subjugation and pacification
of the natives of this provincial [of Tiguex], some native Indians from other
provincias beyond these gave me a report that in their land were much grander
towns and buildings . . . that there were lords who ruled them, that they ate
out of golden dishes” (Coronado, in Flint and Flint 2005:319). Coronado had
taken several captives who were forced to become guides. One of the captives,
El Turco, often talked about gold and riches to be found further to the east
in his native land called Quivira. El Turco “claimed that in his land there was
a river . . . two leagues wide, with fish as large as horses and a great number
of very large canoes with sails” (Castañeda, in Hammond and Rey 1940:236;
see also Flint and Flint 2005:408). El Turco made numerous references to precious metals including golden jingle bells and table service of silver and gold
plates in lands to the east. Ultimately, the Spaniards’ impatience for that form
of deception, which fruitlessly led them far onto the Great Plains, resulted in
their killing El Turco out of spite.
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organizational strategies
Native populations employed a broader strategy of organizational tactics in
response to contact. The disruption of intervillage relations within the Tiguex
Province forced groups to relocate: “They found themselves having to abandon
a pueblo and seek lodging for themselves in the other pueblos of their friends”
(Castañeda, in Hammond and Rey 1940:224; see also Flint and Flint 2005:402).
After the battle at Arenal had been fought and the numerous casualties inflicted
on that village, “most of the people of these pueblos had taken refuge in these
two places,” that is, the last remaining Tiguex villages called Moho and Pueblo
de la Cruz.
During the occupation of the Tiguex Province, Coronado sought allies outside
the area: “The general sent a captain to Zia, which had sent messages offering
submissions” (Castañeda, in Hammond and Rey 1940:233; see also Flint and Flint
2005:407). That strategy on the part of Coronado may have helped obtain badly
needed food, clothing, and supplies. But more important, it likely gained him
geopolitical intelligence and added relief by not creating an adversary of every
pueblo in the region. This informal allegiance with Zia may have also opened
access to sources of obsidian in the Jemez Mountains, which would have been
vital for provisioning native weaponry carried by the indios amigos. The Zias, in
turn, may have gained assurance that conflicts occurring in Tiguex would not be
repeated against them. In fact, the whole of the “Quirix Province” to the north,
as Coronado called them (i.e., the Keres-speaking pueblos of Santa Ana, Zia, San
Felipe, Santo Domingo, and Cochití), seems to have been politically united to
appease, rather than oppose, the expedition.
Once the Tiguex stronghold of Moho fell, and the resistance was broken, the
pueblo people had one last organizational choice to make: “The twelve pueblos
of Tiguex were never resettled as long as the army remained in that region, no
matter what assurances were given them” (Castañeda, in Hammond and Rey
1940:233–34; see also Flint and Flint 2005:407). The consequences of this decision
were powerful and long lasting. Several hundred Pueblo people were casualties
of direct hostilities in the Tiguex Province alone (Flint 2008). Each of the Tiguex
towns reported by Alvarado and other chroniclers was burned and left in ruin.
Moreover, the wrath unleashed upon the pueblo people by Coronado’s soldiers
left a deep scar of distrust and outright fear of the foreign invaders. In particular,
the clash in belief systems between native and Christian religions and exposure to new European thoughts would resonate into the next several centuries
(Preucel 2002; Wilcox 2009). Contributing factors such as disease and changes in
subsistence brought about by exposure to Old World plants and animals would
have a substantial and lasting effect.
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Physical eviDeNce of first coNtact
Today, the Tiguex Province, as named by Vázquez de Coronado’s expedition,
occupies a stretch of about twenty miles along the Rio Grande floodplain northward from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The “twelve villages” of Tiguex were evenly distributed on either side of the
river (Figure 2.2), and when Coronado decided to spend the winter of 1540, he
likely arrived at the north end of the province near Santiago Pueblo (opposite
the present-day town of Bernalillo). The twelve contact-period villages have
almost all been identified on the basis of ceramic evidence, but place-names
from the Spanish expeditionary documents—Alcanfor, Alameda, Arenal, Pueblo
de la Cruz, and Moho—have yet to be tied to specific sites with absolute certainty. For recent discussions of this topic, see Matthew Schmader (2011), Flint
(2011), and William Mathers (2011).
Investigations have been conducted at the largest of the Tiwa village sites,
called Piedras Marcadas Pueblo (“village of the marked rocks”) since 2007
(Schmader 2011, 2014, 2016a). Surface ceramics indicate an occupation from
ad 1300 until the early 1600s (Marshall 1987; Schmader 2011:347). Based on
remote-sensing studies, Piedras Marcadas is estimated to contain at least 1,000
ground-floor adobe rooms and several hundred more second- and third-story
rooms arranged in three apartment-like complexes or roomblocks (Schmader
2011, 2016a).
Electrical resistivity (ER) is the principal remote-sensing technique used at the
site. Surveys using ER of one hectare (2.5 acres) in the central portion of the
site reveal several hundred ground-floor rooms arranged in a rectangular layout,
surrounding an open interior plaza (Schmader 2014). Possible passageways are
found at the northwest and southeast corners of the plaza, along with a large
above-ground kiva built into the northern section of the roomblock, and an
underground kiva in the west-central part of the plaza.
Following ER studies, intensive metal detection conducted over a half-hectare
area (1.25 acres) has identified more than 1,000 sixteenth-century metal artifacts,
which are mapped in relation to subsurface adobe architecture. Metal artifacts
include many iron and wire fragments, unshaped lead blobs, and pieces of copper alloy sheet. Hardware includes wrought iron nails (Figure 2.3a), horse shoe
fragments, and pieces of chain. Personal items include clothing lace tags (aglets),
clothing fasteners, buckles, belt loops, and decorative medallions (Figure 2.3b,
2.3c, 2.3d, 2.3e, and 2.3f respectively). Military-related objects include chainmail,
lead musket balls, body armor, scabbard tip, copper crossbow arrow points
called “boltheads,” and the snapped end of a dagger (Figure 2.4a through 2.4h
respectively). Characteristic facet-headed wrought iron nails, aglets, and the
copper crossbow boltheads are precise diagnostics of the Coronado expedition
(Flint 1992; Schmader 2011:316–18).
Coronado in the Tiguex Province, 1540–1542
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fiGUre 2.3. Sample of sixteenth-century metal artifacts recovered from Piedras
Marcadas pueblo: (a) wrought iron facet-headed nail, (b) copper alloy clothing lace
tags ( “aglets”), (c) copper alloy clothing fastener, (d) copper alloy belt buckle, (e)
ornate copper alloy belt loop, (f) copper alloy medallion. Photograph by author.
fiGUre 2.4. Military-related metal sixteenth-century metal artifacts recovered from
Piedras Marcadas Pueblo: (a) iron chainmail link, (b) lead ball, for use in a musket,
or arquebus, (approximately .50 caliber), (c) lead musket ball, flattened from impact,
(d) copper sheet, probably used as body armor from interior of vest (note preserved
straw impressions), (e) copper alloy scabbard tip, (f, g) pure copper crossbow boltheads, (h) broken iron (or steel) dagger tip. Photograph by author.
Metal fragmentation, heavy loss and breakage of personal gear, and abundance of armaments and munitions indicate that Piedras Marcadas was the
scene of at least one or more intense fights between the pueblo’s inhabitants
and Coronado’s forces (Schmader 2016a, 2016b). The majority of sixteenth-century artifacts are found three centimeters to eight centimeters below present-day
ground surface; this shallow artifact depth indicates a relatively stable ground
surface. The relationship between metal artifact distributions and adobe walls
suggests several areas where fighting probably occurred (Schmader 2016a). For
example, some locations adjacent to walls contain numerous broken horseshoe
nails and lost personal items.
In turn, these site characteristics relate to descriptions found in the expeditionary documents. The documents describe how Coronado’s initial attack used
ladders to scale the walls, but that attempt was thrown back. Other areas fit
the description of the pueblos as having been “palisaded,” since normally open
passages were likely blocked off where the expeditionary forces may have tried
to gain access to the plaza. Exterior walls and passageways at Piedras Marcadas
contain high concentrations of broken material. Areas within the plaza contained a higher number of items such as lead musket balls, crossbow boltheads,
pieces of body armor and chainmail, and the broken dagger tip, which also indicates combat activity (Schmader 2011, 2016b).
Distributions of sixteenth-century metal artifacts may reflect Spanish military
tactics of the period and of the expedition. Potential multiple lines of attack
are consistent with some documentary descriptions, such as at Moho, where
several skirmishes are described. The presence of broken horseshoe nails is consistent with the use of horses in many aspects of fighting. The abundance of
broken items reflects the amount of high-energy activity, particularly fighting,
that occurred at close quarters (Schmader 2016b).
The documentary record is scanty, however, when it comes to the intriguing
topic of interactions or conflict between Mexican native indios amigos soldiers
and indigenous pueblo groups (Flint 1997, 2008:58). The unique circumstances of
the expedition represents one of the first significant contacts between so many
different native people from such a broad geographic area. In events leading up
to the battle of Arenal, the pueblo people killed fifty or sixty horse and pack
animals, and they “clubbed and killed four or five Nahua Indians” who had been
standing guard over the animals (Flint 2008:147). Castañeda notes that during the
battle at Arenal, the “mounted men, along with many Indian allies from New
Spain, built some heavy smudge fires in the basements [kivas] into which they
had broken holes, so that the Indians were forced to sue for peace” (Hammond
and Rey 1940:226; see also Flint and Flint 2005:402).
The site of Piedras Marcadas is significant because it contains material evidence of fighting between native Mexican soldiers and pueblo people. Small
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Puebloan “bird points” are found on the surface in proximity to sixteenth-century metal fragments. Numerous surface obsidian flakes, particularly within
the plaza, may be breakage debris from central Mexican macanas or macahuitls
(flake-edged wooden clubs; Schmader 2011, 2014). Other projectile points found
on the surface do not appear to have been made locally and could have been
imports brought by indios amigos (see Medrano Enríquez 2012).
Slingstones (Figure 2.5) are found outside the north and south walls of the
central roomblock and within the central plaza area. These stones range in
diameter from forty millimeters to 80 millimeters and often exhibit grinding
along their midlines, a characteristic that helps to distinguish them from ordinary river cobbles (Robert York, personal communication, 2012; see also York
and York 2011). Some stones may have been thrown by Puebloan defenders, as
described by “the many stones they had to hurl upon us,” but other stones may
have been thrown by indios amigos using more formal slings. It is unknown if
pueblos used formal slings at the time of contact (Robert York, personal communication, 2012).
Coronado expeditionary sites are quite rare. Only a handful have been found
in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Extant assemblages large enough to be
interpreted as battle sites include the Zuni pueblo of Hawikku (Damp 2005), and
Piedras Marcadas (Schmader 2016a, 2016b). The Piedras Marcadas assemblage
is the largest and most concentrated of the Coronado sites (Schmader 2011:322).
Evidence found at the site suggests that it is a “ground zero” location of the
first contact between native Puebloan peoples of the Southwest and a force of
foreign explorers.
coNclUsioNs
Events surrounding first cultural contacts and ensuing negotiations, accommodation, or conflict are complex and multifaceted. Present-day perceptions
of contact may suggest simple, finite, and short-lived events. But as these complicated historical episodes are examined more closely, it becomes clear that
all cultural contacts have causes, effects, consequences, and collateral impacts
that can involve many thousands of people over several centuries. The story of
first European and native Mexican contact with the peoples of the American
Southwest is a profound case in point.
The Vázquez de Coronado expedition’s political and economic failures were
so deep that it would take the Spanish Crown a full forty years before considering renewed attempts at exploring Nuevo México. By then, the focus would shift
from exploration to setting the foundation for eventual colonization (Hammond
and Rey 1966). It was not until 1580 that the next expedition, a small group led
by Francisco Chamuscado and Fray Augustín Rodriguez, would venture into
the northlands. A follow-up expedition, a larger effort led by Antonio de Espejo
Coronado in the Tiguex Province, 1540–1542
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fiGUre 2.5. Sample of slingstones recovered from surface context at Piedras Marcadas
Pueblo (diameters range from forty-five to eighty millimeters).
in late 1582, was intended to ensure the safety of two priests left behind at the
Tiguex pueblo of Puaray by Chamuscado and Rodríguez. Upon reaching Puaray
Pueblo, however, it was learned that the priests had been killed (Hammond and
Rey 1966:221).
The largest expedition after Coronado’s was organized by Gaspar Castaño de
Sosa, who, in defiance of the orders of the new viceroy, Luis Velasco, assembled
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some 200 men and women in an attempt to establish Nuevo México’s first colony
in 1590 (Hammond and Rey 1966:245–95). These unsuccessful attempts cleared
the way for sanctioning Juan de Oñate to establish the first real colony in Nuevo
México. Oñate entered Nuevo México in 1598 with 130 families and 400 soldiers,
the largest group to come north since Vázquez de Coronado nearly sixty years
earlier. The new colony was established at Ohkay Owingeh (Yunque-Yunque, or
San Juan Pueblo) and experienced so many difficulties that Oñate resigned his
post by 1607. Despite its rocky early beginnings, colonization was by then set in
place and events of the mid-seventeenth century would create strife and animosity culminating in the Pueblo Revolts of 1680–96 (see Liebmann and colleagues,
chapter 5 in this volume).
The dramatic effects of exploration, colonization, and missionization on the
native populations can be seen dramatically in the central Rio Grande Valley.
Beginning in 1540, Vázquez de Coronado’s Tiguex Province is described as
having twelve towns. The estimated population at first contact may have been
as high as 10,000 (Barrett 2002:12). In the Tiguex Province, the “twelve towns”
appear to have persisted until 1602, and the period of most rapid decline began
in the mid-1620s. By then, several of the larger Tiwa pueblos on the west side
of the Rio Grande, including Piedras Marcadas, already appear to have been
permanently unoccupied. Certainly by 1640, there appears to have been broadscale reorganization and abandonment of even more villages. Population
estimates of about 7,000 for sixteen to eighteen villages in the greater middle
Rio Grande Basin plummeted by 86 percent to 990 people at just five villages
by 1641 (Barrett 2002:64).
Significantly, no major southern Tiwa settlements seem to have persisted
on the west side of the river—a pattern that would continue until the Pueblo
Revolt—and just three centers of occupation were on the east side of the Rio
Grande: Sandia, Puaray, and Alameda. These three pueblos are mentioned consistently as the last, postcontact/prerevolt (ad 1598–80) villages disappeared in
the former Tiguex Province. The population level may have dwindled to several
hundred at the most. The final distribution of people took place as a diaspora
from the central Rio Grande area to the western pueblos of Zuni and Hopi at
the end of the seventeenth century.
There are numerous hypothesized factors for rapid population decline,
including disease, famine, drought, raids, tribute labor, forced relocation, and
disruption of trade and land relations. All likely contributed in some way to
the dramatic declines seen in the earlier part of the 1600s. Note that Wilcox
(2009) emphasizes site abandonment as a crucial social mechanism for selfpreservation and cultural survival. The long-term success of that strategy
is evident in the persistence and cultural resilience of the Pueblo peoples
throughout the southwest.
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Analysis of expeditionary period documents in this chapter suggests that precontact Puebloan peoples internally moderated and resolved conflicts through
the same mechanisms of symbolic behavior or mutual respect systems that
they tried on foreigners they encountered for the first time. They likely believed
these time-tested strategies would work, but when they did not, Pueblo peoples
could only resort to more intensified responses of defensive and offensive tactics,
deception, and ultimately to broader-scale reorganization. European expeditionary tactics of pitting indigenous groups against each other were similarly
unsuccessful when tried in the Puebloan world.
There is no general agreement among scholars as to the nature of interpueblo
relations just prior to the first expeditions into the American Southwest. The
emergence of warrior societies in the central Rio Grande Valley (Schaafsma
2002) suggests the institutionalized depth of social divisions among some Pueblo
groups. However, there is little physical evidence of actual hostility among the
pueblos during the time just before European contact. Architectural details show
that while plazas were enclosed, they were not completely barricaded. Defensive
locations were not constructed among the Rio Grande pueblos until the revolt
period (Wilcox 2009).
It was into this context of negotiated tolerance and potential friction in the
Pueblo world that the first expeditions arrived. The presence of a new “common
enemy” may have served to overcome inter-Puebloan differences and provide
a source of needed unity. The limits of that unity were tested to the greatest
extent when hard choices arose: whether to come to the aid of other pueblos
in need or under attack, or whether to acquiesce to the demands of foreigners
rather than face the ultimate wrath of resistance.
In the middle Rio Grande Valley, few pueblos offered help to the besieged
Tiguex settlements. This followed preexisting social (and ethnolinguistic) boundaries, particularly with Keres settlements to the north. Zia Pueblo elected to
protect itself from Coronado’s forces by offering aid and likely had little choice
in the face of events occurring just miles away. Even within the Tiguex Province,
villages seem to have been autonomous, resulting in nonprovision of aid to
other nearby pueblos in times of conflict. The exception to this seems to have
been when the remaining populace decided to assemble at the Tiguex village of
Moho for a final last stand against Coronado in early 1541.
Likely, there were complex pueblo-specific and interpueblo dynamics to
which each group had to respond individually or situationally. As suggested
elsewhere in this chapter, it appears that mechanisms to moderate the severity
of conflicts were socially and ritually institutionalized prior to the time of first
contact with outsiders. The fact that these mechanisms were used by pueblo
peoples against foreigners in the face of contact-related hostilities or conflictladen circumstances is of great interest.
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The seeds of the Pueblo Revolt were planted deeply and irreversibly by the
actions and events of the first contact between natives and nonnatives in the
American Southwest 140 years earlier. The initial breakdown in mutual respect,
followed by the resentful treatment of the Pueblo people, the destruction of
their villages, and the casualties suffered left scars that carried well past 1540.
Those deep scars were reopened by explorations in the latter part of the 1500s
and were certainly not healed by the many difficulties that came to pass throughout the seventeenth century. When the Pueblo Revolt did occur in 1680, it was
in many senses the inevitable outcome of forces set in motion during the first
contact with nonnative peoples on the Vázquez de Coronado expedition.
Notes
1. The definitiveness of this statement should be clarified in several ways. The
only other land-based expedition of comparable size from the time period was led by
Gonzalo Pizarro, who was sent by his half-brother Francisco Pizarro from Ecuador into
the Amazon Basin to find the “land of cinnamon.” Gonzalo Pizarro left Ecuador in 1541
with 220 Spaniards and about 4,000 Indian allies but within months, two-thirds or more
of the expeditionary forces had died. Rather than continue on, he left completion of
the exploration to Francisco de Orellana, who then got credit as the “discoverer” of the
Amazon River.
Other large expeditions that took place north of South America were all launched by
sea or were smaller. Thus, Coronado’s remains the largest land-based expedition with
the exception of the Pizarro-Orellana exploration, which was also not organized by the
Spanish Crown but rather by Francisco Pizarro himself (for a discussion of the 136 New
World expeditions that occurred in the sixteenth century, see R. Flint 2008:205–18).
2. Estimating current monetary values from the variety of medieval currencies is
notoriously difficult. Some estimates are based on the values of commodities, such
as the cost of a horse, while others are tied to salaries for certain jobs. The cost estimate for the Coronado expedition is based on information compiled by Shirley Flint
(2003), who estimated a value of 574,000 sixteenth-century silver pesos. Each silver peso
weighed an ounce, and so the base market value in precious metal is 574,000 times the
spot price per ounce of silver (which ranges from thirty dollars in early 2013 to twenty
dollars in early 2016).
This would generate a precious-metal cost value of the expedition at nearly $20 million, not adjusted for inflation. Inflationary costs over several centuries may drive the
actual value of the goods and services assembled and paid for on the expedition into the
hundreds of millions of dollars in today’s currency. As S. Flint (2003:52) points out, the
sum of 574,000 silver pesos was enormous: at nearly nineteen tons, it was almost three
times the amount taken by Cortés from his conquest of Tenochtitlan, and more than
Francisco Pizarro’s share of the legendary treasure ransom paid by the Inca emperor
Atahualpa.
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3. The twelfth pueblo is likely Isleta, located twenty-three miles south of Piedras
Marcadas.
refereNces citeD
Aiton, Arthur S. 1939. “Documents: Coronado’s Muster Roll.” American Historical Review
44 (3): 556–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1839903.
Barrett, Elinore M. 2002. Conquest and Catastrophe: Changing Rio Grande Pueblo Settlement
Patterns in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press.
Bolton, Herbert E. 1949. Coronado, Knight of Pueblos and Plains. Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press.
Damp, Jonathan E. 2005. The Battle of Hawikku: Archaeological Investigations of the ZuniCoronado Encounter at Hawikku. Zuni Cultural Enterprise Research Series No. 13.
Zuni, NM: Zuni Cultural Enterprise.
Flint, Richard. 1992. The Pattern of Coronado Expedition Material Culture. Master’s
thesis, Department of Behavioral Sciences, New Mexico Highlands University, Las
Vegas, NM.
Flint, Richard. 1997. “Armas de la Tierra: The Mexican Indian Component of Coronado
Expedition Culture.” In The Coronado Expedition to Tierra Nueva, edited by Richard
Flint and Shirley C. Flint, 47–60. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Flint, Richard. 2008. No Settlement, No Conquest: A History of the Coronado Entrada.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Flint, Richard. 2011. “Moho and the Tiguex War.” In The Latest Word from 1540: People,
Places, and Portrayals of the Coronado Expedition, edited by Richard and Shirley Flint,
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Flint, Richard, and Shirley C. Flint, eds. 2005. Documents of the Coronado Expedition, 1539–
1542. Dallas: Southern Methodist University.
Flint, Shirley. 2003. “The Financing and Provisioning of the Coronado Expedition.” In
The Coronado Expedition from the Distance of 460 Years, edited by Richard and Shirley
Flint, 42–56. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Goodwin, Robert. 2008. Crossing the Continent, 1527–1540. New York: Harper Books.
Hammond, George P., and Agapito Rey. 1940. Narratives of the Coronado Expedition, 1540–
1542. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Hammond, George P., and Agapito Rey. 1966. The Rediscovery of New Mexico.
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‘Rebels, Backsliders, and Idolaters’.” In Enduring Conquests, edited by Matthew
Liebmann and Melissa Murphy, 3–18. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research.
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Marshall, Michael P. 1987. An Archaeological Survey of the Mann-Zuris Pueblo Complex
(LA 290): A Southern Tiwan Settlement of the Middle Rio Grande District. Corrales, NM:
Cibola Research Consultants.
Mathers, William. 2011. “Tangled Threads, Loose Ends, and Knotty Problems: The
Place of Moho in Tiguex Archaeology, Geography, and History.” In The Latest Word
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Medrano Enríquez, Angélica María. 2012. Arqueología del conflicto: La Guerra del Mixtón
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Preucel, Robert W. 2002. Archaeologies of the Pueblo Revolt. Albuquerque: University of
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Sánchez, Joseph P. 1997. “A Historiography of the Route of the Expedition of Francisco
Vazquez de Coronado: Río de Cicuye to Quivira.” In The Coronado Expedition to
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Schmader, Matthew F. 2011. “Thundersticks and Coats of Iron: Recent Discoveries
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Schmader, Matthew F. 2014. “New Light on the Francisco Vázquez de Coronado
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Winship, George Parker. 1896. The Coronado Expedition, 1540–1542. Fourteenth Annual
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t
H
r
e
e
Meeting in Places
Seventeenth-Century Puebloan and Spanish Landscapes
PhilliP o. leCkman
iNtroDUctioN
[New Mexico] lies more than twelve hundred miles northward from Old Mexico, and six
hundred of these are desert, inhabited by innumerable Indians so barbarous and savage that
they are naked and have no houses or agriculture . . . But upon reaching the settlements of
New Mexico, there are people who wear clothes and shoes and who are excellent farmers.
—Fray Alonso de Benavides, Revised Memorial of 1634 (Hodge et al. 1945)
Beginning with the first Spanish entradas into New Mexico in the middle and
late sixteenth centuries (see Matthew E. Schmader, chapter 2 in this volume),
encounters with the Puebloan peoples of the northern Rio Grande Valley
presented Spanish explorers and colonizers with many seemingly familiar elements. The chronicler of early expeditions and the correspondence of the
colonial administrators that followed them repeatedly remark on what their
authors perceived to be the civilized aspects of sixteenth- and early seventeenthcentury Pueblo society, comparing them favorably to the communities of less
settled peoples they encountered elsewhere. They provide effusive discussions
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c003
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of the “attractive” masonry and adobe Puebloan villages, “their streets and
plazas well-planned and strong” (Hodge et al. 1945:47; Jojola 1997:180), which
early expeditions nicknamed after Spanish and Mesoamerican towns they felt
resembled them: Valladolid, Galisteo (Barrett 2002; Hammond and Rey 1966).
Beyond the villages themselves, the Spanish expressed awe for Puebloan irrigation systems, repeatedly remarking upon well-made canals and ditches “built as
if by Spaniards” (Hammond and Rey 1966:182, cited in Anschuetz 2003:1). At a
regional scale, Spanish accounts ordered the numerous villages and settlements
of the Puebloan world into “provinces” by language and geography, noting their
“capitals” and once again contrasting these settled regions with the domains
of less sedentary peoples beyond the borders of the New Mexico “kingdom”
(Hammond and Rey 1966; Morrow 1996).
But while plazas, irrigated fields, and ordered provinces resonated strongly
with seventeenth-century Iberian notions of community and landscape, the
perceived points of tangency described in early Spanish accounts were in
many respects based on fundamental misrecognitions (Lycett 2014). The
manifestations of these phenomena in the Puebloan Southwest were in fact
rooted in very different understandings of land use, landscape, and meaning,
drawing on equally extensive, but quite distinct, cultural and historical roots.
The impacts of this misperceived, partial tangency on land use and landscape
in seventeenth-century New Mexico were far reaching, informing colonial
Spanish policies and reactions at all levels. In some circumstances, the gaps in
understanding between Spanish and Puebloan concepts of plazas, towns, and
other outwardly shared phenomena provided a space for individual actors or
groups to define themselves in opposition to colonial religious and civil authority, or to redefine traditional Puebloan landscape practices to accommodate
a changing world. Frequently, however, the differences between Spanish and
Puebloan concepts of space, land use, and community imposed unintentional
hardships, as misperceptions of Puebloan landscapes based on their ostensible
Iberian analogues contributed to painful ongoing processes of culture contact
and change and aggravated existing pressures on Nuevo Mexico’s Puebloan
populations.
The interplay between Puebloan and Spanish concepts of space and landscape operates at a multitude of social and physical scales. The discussion that
follows is therefore multiscalar as well, structured in terms analogous to the
now-familiar Puebloan notion of nested spatial tetrads described by Alfonso
Ortiz (1969). As described by Ortiz and elaborated by others (Anschuetz 1998;
Fowles 2004, 2009; Snead and Preucel 1999; Tilley 1994), this four-part division of the physical, ideological, and ceremonial landscape entails a series
of “nested, but interrelated regions” (Snead and Preucel 1999:176) converging
inward from the sacred mountains conceptually bounding the Puebloan world
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to sequentially encompass the broader Puebloan landscape—the fields, shrines
and community lands of a particular village, the conceptual borders of the village itself, and, finally, the enshrined central spaces within the village, centered
on its plazas (Greene and Leckman 2011; Ortiz 1969; Snead and Preucel 1999).
This nested landscape is dotted with shrines delineating each set of conceptual
boundaries, as well as a series of sacred hills, caves, lakes, pools, and other features specific to each village.
While lacking the explicit ceremonial geography that bounds Puebloan plazas,
villages, and communities via shrines, sacred mountains, and other ceremonially resonant features, colonial Iberian conceptions of space were imbued with
a broadly analogous set of nested geographies. Idealized Iberian communities
were imagined as finite, formally constituted civic spaces, centered on a plaza
and its church (Crouch et al. 1982) and set within a bounded landscape of communal fields and pastures (Vassberg 1984; Melville 1997) that was in turn nested
within a series of broader geopolitical divisions: the province, the region, and
ultimately the larger colonial polity itself (Trigg 2005).
The obvious similarities between Puebloan and colonial Iberian conceptual landscapes, the equally significant differences and discontinuities these
external resemblances concealed and complicated, and the implications of
both similarities and differences for understanding the rapidly changing New
Mexico landscape of the seventeenth century are at the root of the discussion that follows. Drawing on data and analysis derived from recent fieldwork
conducted by the University of Chicago under the direction of Mark Lycett
(1997, 2002a, 2002b, 2004, 2005, 2014), the remainder of this chapter explores the
interplay between Puebloan and Spanish conceptions of landscape and their
potential impacts on the early New Mexico Colony through a consideration
of seventeenth-century spatial organization and land use practices at LA 162, a
large village and visita—or mission site without a resident priest—also known
as Paako, or San Pedro, located on the eastern flanks of the Sandia Mountains
(Lycett 2002a). Following the nested systems of community scale endemic to
both Puebloan and Spanish notions of space and place, the structure of social
space within Paako itself is considered first, with a particular emphasis on
the changing structure and function of the village’s plazas and other community spaces. Next, I address changing land use and landscape practices in
the immediate vicinity of the village, defined and occupied by community
fields, outlying farm camps, shrines, and other small structures. Finally, I consider the Paako community in terms of its broader regional setting, as defined
by the mutual conceptual world shared among Puebloan communities of the
northern Rio Grande Valley and, later, as formally delineated as the Spanish
colony of New Mexico.
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NatUral settiNG
Paako is located in an upland setting along the eastern margins of both the colonial and pre-Hispanic Pueblo worlds, along the eastern flanks of the Sandia
Mountains (Figure 3.1) rising east of present-day Albuquerque (Kelley 1982).
While the range’s dramatic, craggy western face dominates the middle Rio
Grande Valley skyline, forming a significant physical and cultural landmark
visible for many miles across the northern Rio Grande region (Greene and
Leckman 2011; Ortiz 1969:19), the eastern face is smoother and more gently sloping and supports large, continuous stands of relatively lush pine forest (Kelley
1982:5). This area is watered by a series of drainages that, while initially radiating
out from the base of the mountains in all directions, ultimately drain west to
the Rio Grande (Anschuetz 1984:120). The two largest of these eastern drainages
are Tijeras Creek, which runs south along the southern portion of the eastern
Sandias, then cuts west, delineating the range’s southern edge before emptying into the Rio Grande near present-day Isleta Pueblo, and the Arroyo San
Pedro, which drains the north-central portion of the Sandias, running north to
merge with the Arroyo Tonque some eighteen kilometers north of Paako near
the important precontact pueblo of Tunque, which gives the drainage its name.
From Tunque, this drainage system flows northwest, ultimately draining into
the Rio Grande at present-day San Felipe Pueblo. Paako is situated on the upper
reaches of the Arroyo San Pedro watershed, approximately seven kilometers
north of the forested divide separating it from the Tijeras drainage (Figure 3.2).
The site’s upland setting likely presented both challenges and opportunities to
its inhabitants. Elevations in the mountains ringing Paako range from 2,804 to
3,255 meters (9,200 to 10,678 feet) along the crest of the Sandias to 2,259 meters
(7,411 feet) at Monte Largo, the highest peak in the southern San Pedro Mountains
to the east of the site. Within the Arroyo San Pedro watershed, the topography
slopes gradually northward, with elevations ranging from approximately 2,175
meters (7,136 feet) along the divide with the Tijeras Arroyo watershed to 1,675
meters (5,495 feet) at the Arroyo San Pedro’s confluence with the Arroyo Tonque
(Figure 3.3). Paako itself is located at an elevation of approximately 1,980 meters
(6,496 feet).
National Weather Service climate data compiled for a rolling series of
thirty-year averages between 1961 and 2010 at the weather station at Sandia
Park, the nearest recording station to Paako, indicate an average frost-free
period ranging between 190 and 202 days, a sufficient period to accommodate
most historically and ethnographically documented southwestern planting
regimes (e.g., Muenchrath et al. 2002). Average Corn Growing Degree Day
(CGDD) heat units accumulated at Sandia Park over the same period for a
typical Puebloan growing season range between roughly 1,900 and 2,175, well
short of the average CGDD total required from planting to maturity by 123
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fiGUre 3.1.
LA 162’s location in the Middle Rio Grande Valley.
historical-period maize varieties grown out by archaeobotanist Karen Adams
and her colleagues (K. Adams et al. 2006:54) in a 2004–5 experimental study
(Van West and Cordell 2013). According to a recent climate study at Tijeras
Pueblo, however (Van West and Cordell 2013), Adams believes that some indigenous varieties of maize could, in fact, mature with only 1,900 to 2,100 CGDD
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fiGUre 3.2.
Local watersheds and drainage systems in the vicinity of LA 162.
heat units, a total well within the possible range at Paako. However, considerable annual variation exists, and the growing period in some years was likely
inadequate for crop production (Lycett 1997:13): according to Kurt Anschuetz
(1984:123), the shortest recorded period between killing frosts on record at
Sandia Park is only 87 days, in 1945.
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fiGUre 3.3.
North-south elevation profile of the Arroyo San Pedro watershed.
On the other hand, annual precipitation in the area averages roughly twenty
to thirty centimeters higher than average annual precipitation observed in the
Rio Grande Valley to the west. Likewise, the Arroyo San Pedro floodplain in the
immediate vicinity of the site is the largest expanse of relatively level quaternary floodplain soils in the overall East Mountain area, and one of the largest
such areas within the entire Arroyo Tonque watershed (Anderson et al. 1997).
Although the East Mountain region as a whole is characterized by soils considered marginal by modern agricultural standards (Anschuetz 1984:127–29),
floodplain soils in the vicinity of Paako exhibit the best mix of characteristics
among these (Hacker 1977; Hacker and Banet 2008). This is especially true for
the soil types along the San Pedro drainage in the immediate vicinity of Paako,
surrounding the Arroyo’s confluence with a large intermittent drainage approximately 1.25 kilometers north of the pueblo.
Finally, the San Pedro Spring, some 165 meters southeast of Paako, represents
one of the most reliable and highest-volume water sources in the area, allowing
a spring-fed segment of the Arroyo San Pedro to run perennially for distances
ranging from 3.5 to 6.6 kilometers depending on runoff or local precipitation
(Campbell Corporation 2000). According to available hydrological data (US
Geological Survey 2012), this represents one of the only perennial drainages in a
level, relatively low-elevation setting in the entire East Mountain region, and the
longest expanse of perennial stream—and one of only two total—in the entire
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Arroyo Tonque watershed. Together, then, the region in the immediate vicinity
of Paako combines many of the attributes necessary for the establishment and
maintenance of a successful community on both Puebloan and Iberian terms,
including relatively large, gently sloping expanses of comparatively fertile soils
and a reliable water source with significant, dependable outflows. And while
Puebloan agricultural camps and farmsteads of all periods were situated to
take advantage of these affordances, the small settlements of the seventeenth
century appear to have been located in particularly close proximity to the most
advantageous settings.
cUltUral settiNG
Although settlement along the eastern and southern flanks of the Sandia Mountains on at least a seasonal basis began during the Rio Grande Developmental
Period (ad 600–900) or earlier, the Arroyo San Pedro around Paako was relatively
thinly occupied until the late thirteenth century and early fourteenth century,
when a marked increase in site frequency and the advent of larger multiroom
pueblos may mark the first year-round settlement of the area (Anschuetz 1984;
Cordell 1979, 1980; Lycett 1997).
Certainly, site frequencies in the vicinity of Paako increase dramatically during
the early Rio Grande Classic Period (ca. ad 1310–1450), jumping from only six sites
with Rio Grande Coalition Period (ca. ad 1215–1310) materials to 105 sites with
evidence for Early Classic occupations (Gossett and Gossett 1990; Walley 2006).
Paako itself was initially settled at this time, as were the two other large, aggregated settlements in the East Mountain area, Tijeras Pueblo (LA 581) and San
Antonio Pueblo (LA 24), both of which were located within the Tijeras Arroyo
watershed, some 15 and 12.5 kilometers southwest of Paako respectively (Figure
3.4). Paako was the largest of these Early Classic Period communities, with at
least twenty-six roomblocks constructed and occupied between ad 1300 and 1425
(Lambert 1954; Lycett 1997, 2002a) and perhaps a thousand or more rooms (Eckert
and Cordell 2004). Early Classic Paako was organized into two architectural divisions separated by a small intermittent drainage, with at least eleven primarily
adobe roomblocks located in the H-shaped southern division around an enclosed
central plaza and several adjacent plazas, and fourteen masonry, adobe and mixed
masonry-and-adobe roomblocks in four adjoined plaza groups making up the
northern division (Figure 3.5) (Lambert 1954; Lycett 1997). The extensive Early
Classic occupation at Paako came to an end during the early fifteenth century, followed by an apparent occupational hiatus (Lambert 1954; Lycett 1997). This period
saw a decline throughout the East Mountain area: Tijeras Pueblo was also abandoned as a residential site during the first quarter of the fifteenth century, with
only San Antonio consistently occupied throughout the Classic Period (Akins
2004; Anschuetz 1984; Cordell 1980; Dart 1980; Lycett 1997).
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fiGUre 3.4.
Major Early Classic–period sites in the East Mountains.
After a hiatus of perhaps a century or less, a much smaller population returned
to Paako at the close of the sixteenth century or perhaps the earliest years of
the seventeenth. This occupation, which is associated with a decorated assemblage dominated by Glaze E and F types, had a much smaller footprint as well,
focused on a group of four masonry roomblocks surrounding a single plaza in
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fiGUre 3.5. Site map of LA 162 illustrating major divisions and roomblocks
identified by Nels Nelson (1914).
the pueblo’s northern division (Figure 3.6) (Lycett 1997, 2002a). Although the
documentary record surrounding LA 162 is sparse and somewhat ambiguous, a
sizeable pueblo located in approximately the correct geographic position was
repeatedly visited by sixteenth-century expeditions (Barrett 2002; Lambert 1954;
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fiGUre 3.6.
Map of the seventeenth-century plaza group at LA 162.
Lycett 1997). The name Paako appears in a list of East Mountain–area villages
paying tribute to Oñate in 1598 (Lambert 1954; Lycett 1997, 2002b), the basis by
which Adolph Bandelier, Marjorie Lambert, and other investigators attributed
it to LA 162. Colonial records from the early and mid-seventeenth century refer
to the establishment of a visita at a site called San Pedro, the granting of an
encomienda at this location, and its subsequent abandonment and resettlement
by mid-century (Lambert 1954:6). According to Lycett (2002b:68), no documentary evidence for residential occupation at San Pedro exists after the early
1660s. However, this place-name remained associated with LA 162 through the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (e.g., Eidenbach 2012:52–53), was applied
to Hispanic communities founded in the area beginning in the mid-nineteenth
century (Cordell 1980; Lycett 1997), and was the name used by Bandelier when
he visited the site in 1892 (Lange and Riley 1966:380–81).
villaGe sPaces: Paako aND its Plaza
Within both Puebloan and Iberian settlements of the seventeenth century, space
and place were conceptually and physically centered on open public plazas constituting important communal, extramural spaces, and venues for activities both
economic and sacred. Among the pueblos, as discussed above, public plazas
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were the sacred and symbolic centers of both the pueblo itself, the broader community lands encompassing it, and, ultimately, the cosmos. Physically embodied
by the earth navel shrines typically found at their centers, plazas were—and are—
the conceptual “center of centers” or “middle-heart-place” evoking the place of
emergence, concepts of male and female duality, and a complex, multilayered
system of dualities, oppositions, and directional associations (Fowles 2009; Snead
and Preucel 1999; Swentzell 2011; Wilson 2011). In the large, plaza-oriented towns
that emerged throughout the Puebloan region around ad 1275–1300 (Graves and
Van Keuren 2011), with one or more central plazas surrounded and enclosed
by roomblocks, plazas were also a primary focus of economic life, functioning as a shared community activity area, with many aspects of a household’s
daily round frequently carried out on the plazas themselves or on the shared
rooftops overlooking them. Plazas were and are also the primary venues for
dances, ceremonies, feasts, and other large-scale ritual performances integral to
community religious practices. In many pueblo communities, plazas are also the
locations of kivas, the semisubterranean ceremonial chambers where other rituals are conducted, often before an audience consisting only of initiated members
of religious societies privy to special ritual knowledge (Triadan 2006). As such,
plazas serve both to promote community integration through economic and
ceremonial activities shared among the village as a whole, and to serve as venues
for more restricted activities that enforce and reiterate community power relations and social norms (Graves and Van Keuren 2011; Triadan 2006).
Colonial Spanish rules for town planning, as codified by the 1573 Laws of the
Indies (Crouch et al. 1982), afforded plazas a similarly central role within an idealized colonial community. Drawn ultimately from Greek and Roman antecedents
as much as conventions of medieval Iberian town-building, these regulations
specify the plaza as the center of town life, “the point at which civic identity
was expressed” (Crouch et al. 1982:42), and the proper venue for a range of community activities, from fiestas and religious processions to markets and trade
fairs. Spanish plazas, like their Puebloan counterparts, were spaces intended for
the display and reinforcement of exemplary civic conduct. Unlike Pueblo plazas, however, plazas laid out in accordance with colonial Spanish ideals were
designed to highlight the civic and ceremonial trappings of the imperial state.
With building space along plaza edges designated for administrative structures
and the residences of the elite citizenry, the idealized Spanish plaza was above all
oriented around and toward the community church, prominently sited on the
plaza in a location selected for maximum visibility and authority (Crouch et al.
1982; Wilson 2011:21–22).
In seventeenth-century New Mexico, however, the idealized concepts of
Iberian town planning stipulated in the Laws of the Indies were formally enacted
only at Santa Fe, the colonial capital, and then only in an incomplete, attenuated
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sense (Crouch et al. 1982; Wilson 2011). Elsewhere in New Mexico the small population of secular Spanish settlers resided primarily in dispersed estancias often
occupied by fewer than twenty inhabitants including servants (Trigg 2005:90–91).
Like the similar farmsteads operated by Franciscan missionaries (Ivey 2005, 2006),
these dispersed settlements were typically situated adjacent to existing Puebloan
population centers and relied upon both the encomienda labor of pueblo inhabitants and the economic, agricultural, and social infrastructure afforded by the
pueblos and the Franciscan missions and residential/administrative complexes,
or conventos, that were constructed in the vicinity of many major villages by the
early 1630s (Ivey 2005, 2006; Lycett 2014; Trigg 2005). As many as twenty mission
complexes occupied by resident friars were established, with another ten settlements served by smaller, periodically visited visitas, and another nine fluctuating
from one status to the other (Lycett 2004, 2014).
In the absence of planned Spanish towns, pueblos and mission conventos
both became primary focuses for Spanish notions of civic structure and organization (Wilson 2011). The array of domestic, industrial, and religious structures
composing the convento were major centers of economic production as well
as religious and social indoctrination, “the single most important location of
colonial and indigenous contact” (Lycett 2002a:63). Even beyond the massive,
relatively lofty fortress-churches at their centers, the extensive, planned architectural complexes established at major mission sites such as Nuestra Senora
de los Angeles de Pecos (Ivey 2005) were monumental constructions at a scale
unprecedented in the Puebloan world, representing a mobilization of raw material, labor, and time that in and of itself must have constituted a fundamental
reshaping of Puebloan society (Lycett 2004:371–72). As elsewhere in New Spain,
seventeenth-century mission churches themselves were built for maximum
effect on their audiences, exploiting local topography (Lycett 2004) and natural light (Wilson 2011:22) to imbue church buildings with imposing power and
divine inspiration (Liebmann 2015).
In most cases, the large seventeenth-century convento complexes established
at major Puebloan population centers were placed at the margins of existing
pueblo communities, rather than within them (Ferguson 1996; Ivey 1988, 2005;
Jojola 1997:180–82; Lycett 2002a, 2004). Several authors have suggested that the
relatively isolated situation of such complexes illustrates the “contested nature
of the missionary enterprise” (Lycett 2004:371), with Puebloan leaders perhaps
offering resistance to the physical intrusion of mission infrastructure into more
integral village spaces (Ferguson 1996:117; Kubler 1940). Over time, however, the
economic, social, and political importance of major mission centers frequently
drew the indigenous communities surrounding them more tightly into their
orbits. The subsequent architectural histories of communities associated with
major mission complexes are diverse and complex, but in many communities an
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occupational shift occurred as some pueblo inhabitants relocated their dwellings
away from traditional village plazas and into closer proximity to the mission and
convento (Ivey 1988, 2005; Jojola 1997). The resurgence of extremely traditional,
archetypal forms of plaza-centered spatial organization in pueblo communities
established in the wake of the Revolt of 1680 may be seen in this context as an
effort to reclaim Puebloan understandings of plaza and village space from the
influences imposed by eighty years of mission-centered interaction (Liebmann
2006, 2012; Liebmann et al. 2005). Similarly, many villages reestablished by
colonial authorities after the Spanish Reconquest were organized around churchcentered plazas, imposing at least a physical accordance with Spanish concepts
of community space ( Jojola 1997:181; Liebmann 2012:215–16).
Beyond the Rio Grande Valley and the network of the missionized major village that were the primary focus of Spanish colonization and settlement, efforts
to impose religious architecture and other trappings of Spanish community
organization onto existing Puebloan public and community spaces were more
varied and met with mixed success. At Paako, the village layout that emerged
during the village’s initial fourteenth-century occupation exhibits most of the
hallmarks of other plaza-centered Pueblo towns of the period. Between the
site’s major north and south divisions, twenty-two roomblocks surrounded at
least eight or nine enclosed plazas. Where tested archaeologically, the plazas display features and artifacts suggesting their intensive use for a range of domestic
and public activities (Lycett 2002a, 2002b). Although the only kivas associated
with the early occupation identified to date are located within roomblocks
rather than at a subterranean level (Lambert 1954), available evidence suggests
public spaces were organized in accordance with Puebloan norms: at least one
potential plaza shrine, a group of large boulders located in the central plaza of
the south division’s main roomblock, was noted by Bandelier in the early 1880s
(Lange and Riley 1966), and may remain partially visible today.
As mentioned, the site’s seventeenth-century occupation had a much smaller
footprint than its predecessor, presumably reflecting a much-reduced local population. A single plaza in the site’s northern division was the focus of activity
during the period. Multiple test excavations conducted between 1996 and 2005
during University of Chicago investigations at Paako indicate its intensive use and
reuse during the colonial period, with multiple well-maintained plaza surfaces
associated with late glazeware ceramics and faunal evidence for goats, sheep,
horses, and other European domesticated animals (Lycett 2002a; Morrison, Cole,
and Lycett 2002). Features documented by excavations include possible jacal
structures, hearths, and small pits, indicating the continued economic use of at
least portions of the plaza in a manner consistent with earlier periods (Morrison,
Cole, and Lycett 2002). The persistence of traditional Puebloan ceremonial uses
of the plaza during at least the early portion of the colonial period is indicated
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fiGUre 3.7. Rectilinear structure constructed in the southwest corner of Paako’s seventeenthcentury plaza.
by the presence of at least two and probably three subterranean plaza kivas,
each apparently associated with late glaze artifacts and other historical-period
evidence (Lambert 1954).
As the colonial period progressed, however, evidence suggests the plaza’s
function changed. As recounted by Mark Lycett (2002a, 2004), a probable kiva
in the southwestern corner of the plaza was demolished, filled, and leveled, and
a rectangular, east-southeast-oriented structure measuring approximately fifteen meters by eight meters was constructed atop the resulting small elevated
mound (Figure 3.7). In its dimensions, placement, orientation, and construction, this structure is consistent with small seventeenth-century visitas from the
Zuni area, the Tompiro region, and elsewhere ( Johansen 2002; Lycett 2002a).
If this structure, which was associated with late glaze ceramics including a
candlestick fragment, is in fact the remnant foundations of a visita chapel, its
construction atop a probable kiva and its imposition into the center of Paako’s
main plaza suggests an attempt at a clear symbolic replacement of the architectural elements of one ceremonial system with another (see chapters by John G.
Douglass and William M. Graves [1], and David Hurst Thomas [15], this volume).
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Its placement also suggests that it was an attempt to subdivide and reconfigure
this public space akin to the similarly sited visita constructed at the Zuni pueblo
of Kechiba:wa, which Thomas Ferguson suggests was situated in the middle
of the site’s main plaza as part of an effort to supplant plaza-based ceremonial
activities (Ferguson 1996:118). If chapel construction at Paako did represent an
effort to transform a Puebloan ritual and public space into one organized along
Spanish lines, however, it seems to have been largely unsuccessful: the chapel
structure may never have been completed, and in any event its use seems to have
been short lived. Eventually, it may have been partially dismantled and incorporated into the postresidential corral network that ultimately consumed much of
the plaza (Lycett 2002a).
As efforts to reconfigure Paako’s plaza as a public and ceremonial space
organized along Spanish norms began and faltered, probably as the village’s
resident population declined (Lycett 2002a), an ultimately more comprehensive
transformation of the plaza in conjunction with novel Iberian economic and
subsistence activities proceeded alongside it. Artifact assemblages dominated by
seventeenth-century ceramics in association with animal dung and other evidence for animal husbandry, as well as a paucity of artifactual evidence from later
time periods, suggest that the repurposing of plaza space for animal penning
apparently began relatively early in the colonial period. Along the southern edge
of the plaza, data from test excavations includes evidence for the construction of
a series of enclosures associated with large deposits of animal dung, indicating
the use of this area for animal penning. Excavation evidence suggests the corral
network increased in size over time, perhaps as adjacent roomblocks ceased to
be residentially occupied as residential structures (Lycett 2002a; Morrison, Cole,
and Lycett 2002; Seddon 2002). Finally, a network of stone enclosures was built
that eventually incorporated as much as 40 percent of the total plaza for animal
pens, including the entire frontage of the plaza’s southern roomblock (Figure
3.8). As this stone corral complex was constructed at the very end of Paako’s
occupational sequence, Lycett (2002a) suggests it may indicate the site’s postresidential use as a logistical herding camp.
Simultaneous with the subdivision of Paako’s plaza by an expanding corral
network, a group of roomblocks at the southeastern corner of the plaza was
developed into a large, intensively used metal-smelting and metallurgical facility,
with evidence for a diverse range of activities, including charcoal production,
the preparation, smelting and assay of copper and lead ores, and the production
of copper ornaments, again within a broader artifact assemblage dominated
by seventeenth-century ceramics (Thomas 2008). In addition to requiring
fairly intensive labor and large quantities of wood to feed the production of
charcoal fuels, the production of precious metals at the smelting complex also
involved intense heat and the incorporation or production of numerous noxious
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fiGUre 3.8.
Corrals erected within Paako’s seventeenth-century plaza.
substances such as sulfur, copper sulfide, and lead slag (Thomas 2008). While
less extensive than the corral network, the presence of the smelting facility at
the heart of seventeenth-century Paako’s residential, social, and ceremonial
spaces was in many respects an even greater impact on the ability of these spaces
to function in accordance with Puebloan principals of village organization and
public space.
In summary, while Puebloan and Spanish attitudes toward village organization and public space in the vicinity of larger villages were focused on the
interplay between traditional Puebloan plazas and emerging public spaces
focused around the Spanish church and convento, changes within the historically
occupied plaza at Paako over the course of the seventeenth century indicate that
efforts to transform it into a public space ordered around Spanish religious architecture ultimately faltered. Instead, Paako’s plaza saw a transition from an open,
domestically, and ceremonially focused space into an economically focused one,
subdivided into discrete zones of industrial and pastoral activity. Such a transformation is not unusual: many ancestral sites residentially abandoned during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were eventually reconfigured into sporadically occupied herding camps for sheep and goats (Ferguson 1996; Lycett 1995;
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2002a) (see Laurie D. Webster, chapter 4 in this volume), and anecdotal and ethnographic evidence indicates the presence of Puebloan herders in residentially
abandoned areas of the Galisteo Basin into at least the early twentieth century
(Lycett 2002a).
coMMUNity sPaces
Just as they overemphasized the similarities between Spanish and Puebloan systems of community and public space within pueblos, Spanish accounts from
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries likewise overemphasize and misrecognize evidence for canal irrigation in the lands surrounding northern Rio Grande
communities (e.g. Anschuetz 1998, 2003; Cordell 1979; Levine and Anschuetz
1998; Lycett 2004, 2005, 2014; Wozniak 1987), reflecting the central role played
by acequia systems within Iberian concepts of agriculture and land use (e.g.,
Crouch et al. 1982; Rivera and Glick 2010; Vassberg 1984). Similarly, while Iberian
agriculture certainly incorporated dry-farming technologies alongside acequia
irrigation, Spanish documentary sources uniformly suffer from an apparent
inability to fully recognize other elements of Puebloan agriculture, particularly the extensive, dispersed systems of water-harvesting features designed to
maximize the diversity of ecological and topographical settings exploited for
subsistence purposes, thereby minimizing and spreading out the risk of precipitation or crop failure in any particular setting. Even when discussed, Puebloan
agricultural systems not tied to canal irrigation are frequently attributed to the
“natural” fertility of the land (Anschuetz 2003), while failure to engage in the kind
of intensive irrigation agriculture familiar to the Spanish is seen as evidence for
fundamental Puebloan shiftlessness (Hackett 1937; Hodge et al. 1945).
The notion of “community” and community lands superficially shared
between Puebloan and Iberian populations likewise masked extremely different
understandings of the appropriate structure and use of these communal spaces.
Spanish concepts of communal land use during the colonial period make a clear
distinction between fields and lands intended for grazing, emphasizing shared
pasturage, mobile herds, and the use of “fallow”—that is, untended—field systems for forage (Crouch et al. 1982; Melville 1997; Vassberg 1984). It is not clear to
what extent this land use system was implemented within Puebloan communities wholly or partially integrated into the seventeenth-century colonial system.
However, fragmentary documentary evidence indicates that both missionaries
and civil colonists maintained large herds of sheep, goats, and cattle by the middle decades of the seventeenth century, and that this rapidly expanding economy
was accompanied by disputes between civil and religious authorities over the
use of Puebloan labor (Baxter 1987; Hackett 1937; Hodge et al. 1945). In any case,
it is easy to see potential conflicts between Iberian notions of land use based
largely on the combination of livestock and acequia irrigation and Puebloan land
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use concepts based on extensive, dispersed agricultural systems, and to envision
some of the potential negative effects of such a conflict upon the latter.
On the whole, evidence suggests the economic and social landscape of the
community of field houses and agricultural camps surrounding seventeenthcentury Paako was, like the occupation of the seventeenth-century pueblo itself,
substantially smaller and less intensively occupied than the precontact antecedent whose footprint it occupied. In general, outlying sites and structures with
evidence for seventeenth-century occupation or use were much closer and much
more tied physically to Paako on the one hand and the reliable water and relatively optimal soils afforded by the Arroyo San Pedro and its floodplain on the
other. While structures and camps associated with the late thirteenth-century
to early fifteenth-century Arroyo San Pedro community stretched out along the
Arroyo floodplain, its tributaries, and adjacent slopes to distances of five kilometers or more, seventeenth-century settlement contracted to areas that were to an
almost complete extent no more than 1.5 kilometers from either the perennial
segment of the Arroyo San Pedro or from Paako itself (Figure 3.9). While this
settlement pattern represents a literal reoccupation of the core of the precontact
Arroyo San Pedro community, with nearly all field structures either located in
immediate proximity to or remodeled from their fourteenth-century antecedents, artifact patterns suggest this was likewise contracted, with a considerably
smaller spatial extent and a reduced occupational intensity.
As a spring-fed, perennial drainage with relatively regular, predictable flows
(Campbell Corporation 2000), the Arroyo San Pedro represents a setting where
the canal irrigation technologies available to Puebloan farmers during the precontact period might have been effective (Anschuetz 1998, 2003; Cordell 1979;
Eckert and Cordell 2004; Ford 1972). No direct evidence for such a system along
the Arroyo San Pedro has been documented to date, however, and given the heavily downcut nature of the contemporary drainage and the rather impermanent,
ephemeral nature of ditches, headgates, and most of the other archaeological
trappings of such a system, none seems likely to be forthcoming (e.g., Anschuetz
1998; Arbolino 2001). Neither is direct evidence available for any intensification
of irrigation or other agricultural technologies during the seventeenth century,
though several colonial-period features at Paako itself (Figure 3.10)—including
large berms erected across several intermittent drainages that cross the site, and
a relatively large reservoir adjacent to and potentially fed by runoff redirected by
the berms—could be interpreted as the remnants of a system for redirecting and
storing water to benefit agricultural fields located along several gentle slopes
adjacent to the pueblo (Lycett 1997).
However, evidence for domesticated European crops in Paako’s macrobotanical and pollen records is to date almost absent (Morrison, Arendt, and Barger
2002; Rozo 2012), suggesting agricultural production during the seventeenth
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fiGUre 3.9.
Precontact- and contact-period Arroyo San Pedro community settlement patterns.
century remained focused on the same species for which precontact Puebloan
agricultural systems were developed. The best indirect evidence for irrigation
along the Arroyo San Pedro during either the precontact or seventeenth-century
occupations at Paako may therefore be the settlement patterns evident for the
Arroyo San Pedro community itself: although the slopes and side drainages that
the distribution of sites and agricultural camps suggests were part of the subsistence landscape of precontact community likely represent a broader, more
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fiGUre 3.10.
Colonial-period water-management features at Paako.
diversified agricultural base than that attested to by seventeenth-century evidence, the perennial arroyo banks where seventeenth-century land use is focused
appear to have been used to an equally intensive degree during the fourteenth
and early fifteenth centuries as well (Figure 3.11 and Figure 3.12).
Seventeenth-Century Puebloan and Spanish Landscapes
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fiGUre 3.11. Estimated precontact-period ceramic density along the Arroyo San Pedro
floodplain, based on intensive survey and point location of all artifacts within the indicated survey area.
As discussed above, faunal evidence exists for the relatively vigorous adoption
of European fauna by Paako’s indigenous population (e.g. Sunseri and GiffordGonzalez 2002), including horses and sheep but consisting primarily of goats. In
contrast to the very limited evidence for the use and adoption of European food
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fiGUre 3.12. Estimated contact-period ceramic density along the Arroyo San Pedro floodplain, based on intensive survey and point location of all artifacts within the indicated
survey area
plants, European animal domesticates are fairly common within seventeenthcentury assemblages from Paako (Lycett 1997, 2002a, 2004, 2005, Sunseri and
Gifford-Gonzalez 2002). Limited evidence also exists to suggest environmental
change in the vicinity of Paako during the seventeenth century that potentially
Seventeenth-Century Puebloan and Spanish Landscapes
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97
relates to the impacts of livestock, including increased erosion and the appearance of Old World weedy taxa in the site’s pollen record (Morrison, Arendt, and
Barger 2002; Rozo 2012). These pressures may have disrupted dispersed agricultural systems reliant on water harvesting, adding to the factors influencing the
upper Arroyo San Pedro’s residents to refocus their agricultural and economic
activities on the best available agricultural lands and most reliable water sources.
However, it may also reflect the beginnings of a refocused subsistence strategy among Paako’s residents in which the diversification of subsistence risk and
investment previously reflected in extensive water-harvesting strategies and
the exploitation of dispersed, diverse ecological, and topographic settings was
gradually superseded by a dual risk-management strategy on the Iberian model,
pairing the use of novel technologies for agricultural intensification, such as acequia irrigation, with mobile subsistence resources in the form of goats or sheep.
To some extent, patterns present within archaeofaunal data at Paako suggest
that livestock at the site were primarily managed and used by Puebloan, rather
than Iberian populations, with butchering patterns and cooking strategies seemingly a continuation of pre-contact practices (Sunseri and Gifford-Gonzalez
2002). A similar pattern has also been noted at missionized villages in the southern Tompiro region (Spielmann et al. 2009).
The refocus of seventeenth-century agricultural land use along the Arroyo
San Pedro on easily accessible—and controllable, protectable, or fenceable—
floodplain lands located within minutes of the central pueblo may therefore
reflect the beginning of a changing system of landscape use and land tenure
that may ultimately have culminated in the abandonment of the settlement and
its postoccupational reuse as a sheepherding camp (Lycett 2002a; Seddon 2002;
Morrison, Cole, and Lycett 2002), as seen elsewhere in the Pueblo world as discussed above. Throughout the New Mexico Colony, sheepherding and the use
of remote sheep camps eventually developed into a parallel, but similarly motivated system of maintaining land tenure over valuable resources—such as the
San Pedro Arroyo and Spring—with similar goals and functions to the systems
of rotating sedentism discussed extensively by Anschuetz (1998, 2003, 2006) for
the Tewa Basin. While seventeenth-century herds were typically owned by missions or encomenderos rather than Pueblos, the mobility afforded by sheepherding
may have provided a vehicle for continuing patterns of circulation and dispersed
resource use within a Spanish colonial system that was otherwise suspicious of
Puebloan mobility and at least occasionally acted to constrain the movement of
Pueblo peoples beyond their villages (Hackett 1937:108, 111; Hodge et al. 1945:170).
If the sheep camp at Paako was in fact used by Puebloan herders after its residential occupation ceased, this perhaps served as a means of maintaining traditional
access to local resources in the face of a transformed land use system (Ferguson
1996; Lycett 2002a; Morrison, Cole, and Lycett 2002; Murrell et al. 2010) akin
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to similar patterns of focused reoccupation seen in prehistory on the Pajarito
Plateau and elsewhere (Kohler 1992; Van Zandt 1999).
While the dual influences of livestock grazing on the one hand and acequia
irrigation on the other may have contributed to changing uses and conceptions
of space and landscape within the seventeenth-century Arroyo San Pedro community, colonial Spanish attitudes toward sedentism, population mobility, and
the appropriate behavior of a missionized population may also have played a
role in the transformation of the community landscape. As Lycett (2004:364)
notes, the Franciscan mission system sought to “impose control over time, labor,
language, and learning,” introducing new rhythms and patterns of work as
well as a new series of economic activities linked to the mission economy and
intended to indoctrinate the mission’s charges into colonial systems of production. The presence of such attitudes and beliefs among New Mexico’s religious
and civil administrators likely discouraged traditional dispersed farming of the
sort discussed by Robert Preucel (1988), with farmers in residence at remote
camps for weeks or months. On a more local scale, they may also have encouraged a land use pattern focused on the day use of nearby agricultural camps,
with populations returning daily to residences in the pueblo (e.g., Bayer and
Montoya 1994). Certainly, the kind of precolonial land use pattern suggested for
at least some areas in the Arroyo San Pedro community, in which field houses
seem to have been the center of a full range of domestic and social activities that
ultimately included burial, does not seem consistent with the demands and goals
of a missionized landscape. Although Paako’s incorporation into the mission
system was apparently limited and temporally discontinuous, the close proximity of seventeenth-century agricultural camps to Paako and the relatively sparse,
spatially constricted ceramic assemblages associated with these camps may suggest the presence of some of these pressures.
the NortherN rio GraNDe worlD
Just as Spanish perceptions of Puebloan plazas, villages, and shared community lands assumed broad tangency between Spanish and Puebloan notions of
these phenomena, problematically overlooking the numerous functional and
conceptual differences separating them, so too did Spanish attitudes toward
the organization of the northern Rio Grande Pueblo world as a whole. Spanish
misperceptions of Pueblo sedentism—specifically, the failure to recognize the
importance of movement and migration as a land use strategy and as a process for
temporarily leaving stressed or unproductive areas to let them recover (Anschuetz
2003, 2006)—has already been discussed above. To Spanish religious and civil
authorities, the short- or long-term abandonment of large, seemingly permanent
residential sites was seen on the one hand as fearful flight or escape from colonial control (Hackett 1937; Hodge et al. 1945) and, on the other, as a cessation of
Seventeenth-Century Puebloan and Spanish Landscapes
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occupation and forfeiture of land rights, aggravating existing grievances and land
disputes between Pueblo farmers and colonists (Hodge et al. 1945:172).
Likewise, rather than understanding the various Puebloan-occupied areas
of New Mexico as a patchwork of numerous autonomous communities and
groups of communities, each roughly equivalent to its neighbors and relying
on similar mix of ecological zones and agricultural/gathering practices for
sustenance, Spanish explorers and administrators in New Mexico emphasized
linguistic and geographic boundaries to conceive of the Puebloan world as a
series of finite, bounded “provinces” (e.g., Flint and Flint 2005; Hammond and
Rey 1966; Hodge et al. 1945) that could be readily joined as a single political entity
under Spanish rule. Within this Kingdom of New Mexico, colonial administrators focused their efforts on defensible, more densely populated areas suitable
for a narrower range of subsistence strategies and centered on a finite network
of missions intended as focal points for population movement and economic
activity. Missionized communities also served as dispersal centers for new ideas
and technologies such as domesticated livestock or irrigation methods (Ivey
2005, 2006). Franciscan stores built up to guard against drought, crop failure, or
uncertainty (e.g. Hodge et al. 1945; Trigg 2005) also attracted immigrants from
outlying zones. Emphasis of the Spanish colony on borders and defense and the
resulting focus on Rio Grande Valley areas suitable for intensive irrigation aggravated this shift. With population movement into these areas accompanied by a
general apparent population decline (e.g., Lycett 1995), the shrinking number of
communities located in outlying areas became increasingly isolated.
If site densities are estimated among both major Early Classic (Figure 3.13)
and contact-period and colonial (Figure 3.14) Pueblo sites (Adams and Duff 2004;
Adler 1996; Barrett 2002), it is clear that Paako was always somewhat isolated
from nearby pueblos compared to sites in the Rio Grande valley to the west or
the Manzano Mountain and Tompiro areas to the south. No other major villages
are located within twelve kilometers of Paako during either period, as compared
to an mean nearest-neighbor distance of approximately eight kilometers among
major Early Classic pueblos, and only eleven kilometers even among the more
sparsely distributed pueblos occupied during the seventeenth century. That said,
at the beginning of its late Classic occupation, Paako was still bordered by the
major ceramic-producing village of Tunque roughly 18 kilometers to the north
and the still-occupied pueblo at San Antonio roughly 12.5 kilometers to the south.
At the beginning of the contact period, Paako remained at a crossroads of sorts,
lying adjacent to several major routes between regions—from the Rio Grande
Valley to the plains, from the Santo Domingo Basin and Galisteo Basin to the
southern Albuquerque Basin / Isleta area via the San Pedro, San Antonio, and
Tijeras Arroyos, or from the Santo Domingo Basin and Galisteo Basin to Tajique,
Chilili, Quarai, and other pueblos along the eastern and southern margins of
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fiGUre 3.13. Density of major Middle Rio Grande pueblo sites during the Early Classic Period.
the Manzano Mountains (Figure 3.15). By the mid- to late 1600s, however, Paako
lay far outside the major centers of occupation and corridors of movement, as
many Manzano and Tompiro sites and outlying Galisteo and Santo Domingo
Basin sites ceased to be occupied by residential populations. By the middle years
of the seventeenth century, the nearest occupied communities to Paako were
Seventeenth-Century Puebloan and Spanish Landscapes
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fiGUre 3.14.
Density of major Middle Rio Grande pueblo sites during the contact and colo-
nial periods.
apparently San Felipe, some thirty-two kilometers to the north and Isleta to the
southwest along the Rio Grande, at a distance of more than fifty kilometers
along likely travel routes (Figure 3.16). To the northeast, the nearest occupied
village in the Galisteo Basin after the contact-period abandonment of Pueblo
Blanco was San Lázaro, some thirty-five kilometers distant along likely routes.
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fiGUre 3.15.
Paako and neighboring communities at the beginning of the contact.
PerioD
This new isolation was aggravated by changing relationships with non-Puebloan
nomadic groups sparked by Spanish notions of bounded states and policies
toward “uncivilized” groups, especially in areas of cultural contact such as
Paako. On seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European maps (Eidenbach
Seventeenth-Century Puebloan and Spanish Landscapes
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103
fiGUre 3.16.
Paako and neighboring communities in the mid-seventeenth century.
2012), the East Mountain region sits upon a literal frontier, straddling the dense
mountain ranges separating the named, mapped settlements and missions of
the Kingdom of New Mexico from the surrounding tribal names of outlying,
unconquered indios bárbaros. According to site records maintained by the New
Mexico Cultural Resource Information System, four sites identified as Plains
Apache are located within sixteen kilometers of Paako, including one potential
Apachean site on the San Pedro floodplain within three kilometers of Paako
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(Walley 2006). Available documentation suggests these sites were more ephemeral and contained less material culture than adjacent Puebloan field houses,
attributes typical of sites associated with mobile groups (Seymour 2015, 2016).
The considerable differences in attitude toward Apachean groups and other
non-Puebloan nomads between Puebloans and the Spanish are well documented. Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the social and physical boundaries
between Pueblos and nomads were shifting, permeable, and contingent, with
beneficial trade relationships sealed by kin ties playing as large a role as violent raids (Brooks 2002; Forbes 1994; Hickerson 1994; Kelley 1986; Seymour 2015,
2016). With the onset of Spanish rule, civil and religious colonial administrators
attempted to firmly delineate social and physical borders between Puebloans
perceived as settled and sedentary and indios bárbaros in outlying zones (Brooks
2002; Forbes 1994; Weber 2005). While Franciscans such as Alonso Benavides
attempted conversions among nomadic groups on several occasions (Hodge et
al. 1945), Apacheans and other non-Pueblo nomads were more typically seen
as a significant threat, both in terms of the potential for raids and military
conflict as well as their possible appeal as a refuge for backsliders among or
incitement to newly missionized Puebloans (Forbes 1994). Policies intended to
restrict potentially harmful contacts thus exacerbated tensions between the New
Mexico villages and their former trading partners. The resulting conflicts were
extremely difficult for places such as Paako, and intensified pressures to either
relocate toward better-protected, better-supplied mission communities along
the Rio Grande, on the one hand, or abandon the northern Rio Grande region
entirely on the other (Brooks 2002).
From this perspective, the residential shifts of the later seventeenth century
from areas under environmental and economic stress and threats of violence
to locations with access to intensified agricultural methods, reliable stores, and
better and more numerous social and economic connections were probably
somewhat less negative within the mobile, shifting settlement framework of
the Pueblos (e.g., Anschuetz 2006) than they were within the sedentism-focused
paradigm employed by Spanish friars and colonial administrators and indeed,
by many modern authors. As discussed above, the new subsistence strategies
enabled by introduced technologies and domesticates—with intensified irrigation agriculture along the Rio Grande and other major streams coupled with the
socially acceptable mobility afforded by sheepherding in the traditional Spanish
mode—in many respects enabled continued ties to “abandoned” areas outside
the Rio Grande Valley.
coNclUsioNs
By 1776, when an expedition led by the Franciscan emissary Fray Francisco
Atanasio Domínguez made its way across New Mexico en route to California,
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the landscape Domínguez traversed was in many respects profoundly different
from that explored by the entradas of two centuries earlier. The account of
Domínguez’s journey details a greatly reduced number of Pueblo settlements,
each with its mission church and array of nearby irrigated fields (Domínguez
1956). Villages with access to good water for irrigation are described as larger and
more prosperous, their canal networks discussed in glowing terms. Conversely,
outlying communities without such resources, such as Zia, are described as
small and relatively poor. Pecos and Galisteo, the two remnant communities still
hanging on in outlying areas to the east of the Rio Grande Valley, are portrayed
in the direst terms, with dwindling populations living in constant fear of raids
from Comanches and other nomads and contemplating abandonment.
If the world described by Domínguez is in many respects one ordered in
accordance with Spanish attitudes and ideals on the colonial frontier, however,
numerous traces of older Puebloan traditions are also apparent. While villages
along the Rio Grande and other major streams are described as entirely dedicated to irrigation, for instance, the subsistence base for outlying communities
such as Jemez, Santa Ana, Acoma, or Zia are also said to include milpas fed by
floods or rainwater alone. In communities located sufficiently far from areas
of major Spanish settlement to retain a large land base free of major encroachments—such as Acoma, Jemez, or Zuni—Domínguez also describes remote
fields and outlying settlements, occupied seasonally to take advantage of opportune agricultural settings. Finally, despite the churches and missions he describes
in each community along his path, Domínguez describes Pueblo culture in general in a way that makes clear both the lack of penetration of Spanish religious
beliefs and customs even by the late eighteenth century and the relative resignation of Domínguez and other church leaders toward the persistence of pueblo
dances and other customs.
In the New Mexico Colony described by Domínguez, the misapprehensions
and misrecognitions of the early colonial period are perhaps not entirely resolved
in favor of one perspective or other, but joined and layered such that the forms
and attitudes of colonial Spanish culture are continually subject to reinterpretation in ways that retain space for Puebloan attitudes. On the one hand, for
instance, plazas and villages in many communities are reordered along a Spanish
model focused on prominent community churches, but these spaces also remain
central to Puebloan rituals and worldviews (Scully 1989; Swentzell 2011). If the
gaps in understanding between ostensibly similar aspects of Spanish and Pueblo
worlds aggravated the painful, often violent imposition of colonial values and
practices on seventeenth-century New Mexico, they also sometimes opened
routes for synthesis and experimentation, enabling the creation of spaces within
which Puebloan culture could survive and revitalize.
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ackNowleDGMeNts
Above all, I would like to thank the University of Chicago Field Studies Program
under Mark Lycett and Kathleen Morrison for providing me the opportunity
for research and fieldwork at Paako, and to the Campbell Corporation for the
opportunity to conduct archaeological survey and testing on the Arroyo San
Pedro floodplain. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Lycett and Dr. Morrison for their
years of encouragement and mentorship and their generosity in sharing their
own insights into the archaeology of seventeenth-century New Mexico. Thanks
are also due to my many colleagues at Paako over the years, especially Noah
Thomas, Jennifer Rozo, Peter Johansen, Sandy Morrison, Kelly Jenks, and Jun
Sunseri, and to my colleagues and mentors at Statistical Research, including
Robert Heckman, Brad Vierra, John Douglass, Billy Graves, Monica Murrell,
and Teresita Majewski. I am also grateful for the support and mentorship of
Paul and Suzanne Fish and Gary Christopherson at the University of Arizona;
to James Snead, Mark Allen, and Heather Atherton; and to Emily Jones, Kurt
Anschuetz, and Deni Seymour for conversations and scholarship that offered
valuable insight.
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F o
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hopi weaving and the colonial encounter
A Study of Persistence through Change
laurie d. webSTer
iNtroDUctioN
The Spanish colonization of New Mexico initiated numerous changes in the production of indigenous textiles and the use of native dress in Pueblo communities.
In Pueblo communities in and around the Rio Grande Valley, Spanish tribute
demands and the diversion of Pueblo labor and land to colonial projects led to
changes in the sexual division of weaving labor, the contexts and scheduling of
textile production, and regional patterns of textile exchange (Webster 1997, 2000,
2001). Far to the west of Spanish settlement, people in the remote Hopi villages
were also impacted by colonial tribute and labor demands, but they were able to
maintain their traditional organization of textile production and manufacture
and use of precontact styles of clothing through the colonial period and into
modern times.
What historical and social processes account for the persistence of Hopi weaving during the turbulent years of the Spanish colonial period? How did Hopi
people negotiate the adversities and opportunities of colonialism to ensure
the production of textiles into the postcolonial era? As noted by Leo Panich
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c004
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(2013:105) in his discussion of “archaeologies of persistence,” processes of continuity and change are not only entwined in many postcontact indigenous
histories, but often the social changes that arose from colonial interactions are
what enabled or facilitated continuity, resulting in what Neal Ferris (2009) and
Stephen Silliman (2009) refer to as “changing continuities,” or processes of continuity through change.
In this chapter, I use multiple lines of evidence from archaeological data,
Spanish documentary accounts, and Hopi narratives to explore the trajectory
of Hopi weaving during the Spanish colonial period and how it was reinterpreted and transformed, even as it was perpetuated (Panich 2013:106–7). After
providing an overview of the major Spanish colonial impacts on Pueblo weaving in general, and on Hopi weaving in particular, I explore the major changes
and continuities in Hopi textile production in the wake of Spanish contact and
the ways in which Hopi resistance, cultural practices, and cultural values contributed to the persistence of this ancient craft. Archaeological data from the
Hopi villages of Awat’ovi and Wàlpi serve as the main source of archaeological information for this study (Figure 4.1). Located at the eastern edge of the
Hopi Mesas on Antelope Mesa, Awat’ovi was the largest of the Hopi villages at
the time of European contact and a trade and communications portal with the
outside world (Dongoske and Dongoske 2002:116; see also Thomas E. Sheridan
and Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa, chapter 9 in this volume). After the establishment of the Awat’ovi Mission in 1629, Awat’ovi was also the base of Franciscan
operations at Hopi (Montgomery et al. 1949). Originally situated at the base of
First Mesa, Wàlpi village was the site of a visita during the mission period. After
the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, it was relocated to the top of First Mesa for increased
security. The documentary evidence used in this study comes primarily from
published Spanish colonial narratives and records (e.g., Hackett 1937; Kessell
1979; Scholes 1930, 1935, 1937, 1942), but because these data strongly privilege the
colonial viewpoint, I also consider more recent Hopi accounts derived from oral
tradition (Courlander 1971; Preucel 2002:7; Wiget 1982; Yava 1978; see also chapter by Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa [4], this volume).
coloNial iMPacts oN PUeblo weaviNG
labor: a brief overview
When the first Spaniards arrived in the northern Southwest, Pueblo weaving
was a rich and flourishing craft tradition. Precontact Southwestern weaving is
well represented by an extensive and diverse archaeological textile record (Kent
1983a; Teague 1998). These textiles are supplemented by fourteenth- through
seventeenth-century kiva murals that illustrate the use of similar garments in
ceremonies (Dutton 1963; Hibben 1975; Smith 1952; Webster 2007). Early Spanish
accounts from the period 1540–1610 describe the Piro and Tiguex (Tiwa) villages
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fiGUre 4.1. Map of Hopi Reservation. From Hopi Basket Weaving: Artistry in Natural
Fibers by Helga Teiwes (1996). © 1996 The Arizona Board of Regents. Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press.
in the Rio Grande Valley and the Hopi villages to the west as the major producers of cotton fiber and textiles among the Pueblos (Bolton [1908] 1963:146–47;
Hammond and Rey 1953:1014; Winship 1896:587). They also describe the spinning
and weaving of cotton textiles in kivas, identify Pueblo men as the principal
loom-weavers, and discuss the winter months, or the agricultural off-season, as
the time of year when most weaving activities took place (Hammond and Rey
1953:610, 627, 636, 645, 660; 1966:82–83; Winship 1896:521, 575).
After Spanish colonization, the encomienda and repartimiento systems (colonial systems of forced tribute and labor) were imposed upon the Pueblos, as in
other parts of New Spain, to channel tribute and labor to colonial purposes (see
John G. Douglass and William M. Graves, chapter 1 in this volume). Under the
encomienda, Pueblo households were forced to make twice-yearly payments of
woven cotton mantas (blankets), hides, or corn to their encomenderos (Hackett
1937:120; Snow 1983:350–351). Colonial governors also forced Pueblo people living
in and near the Rio Grande Valley to produce large quantities of woven and knitted textiles on their behalf (Kessell 1979:156; Scholes 1937:106). The vast majority
of these textiles were shipped south to markets in New Spain in exchange for
imported goods. During the late 1630s, one governor, Luis de Rosas, operated an
obraje, or weaving workshop, in Santa Fe staffed with Indian and Spanish labor
(Scholes 1937:117, 143–44, n. 6). A surviving 1638 trade invoice from this workshop
documents the shipment of more than 500 textiles to the mining and economic
center of Parral in southern Chihuahua, Mexico (Bloom 1935). The invoice lists
many types of fabrics, including nineteen pieces of sayal (coarse woolen sackcloth), each a hundred varas (approximately one yard) long, that could only have
been produced on the European treadle loom.1
Another governor, Bernardo López de Mendizábal, collected large quantities of woven blankets and hand-knitted stockings, an estimated 1,400 pairs
in 1661 alone, from the eastern Pueblos for export (Hackett 1937:153; Kessell
1979:177; Scholes 1942:48). Assisted by his alcaldes mayors (provincial magistrates),
Mendizábal distributed woolen fleeces from his flocks to various Rio Grande
Pueblo villages, returning within a specified period of time for the finished
goods, Most of this “production on demand” was scheduled to coincide with
the spring and fall shearing of the governor’s sheep (Kessell 1979:178; Webster
1997:153). Unlike precontact Pueblo textile production, which was performed
primarily by men in extramural kivas during the winter, at least some of this
tribute textile production was conducted by women, and probably children,
within households during the warmer months.2 The use of the upright loom
technology by women for tribute blanket production, if this was the apparatus
used, would have required not only a shift in male attitudes toward the use of
this technology by women, but also changes in the settings of this work and the
scheduling of female labor.
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Similar forced labor practices were engaged in by some Franciscan missionaries, who shipped Pueblo-made textiles south to Mexico in exchange for new
furnishings for their missions (Scholes 1930, 1935). By 1660, if not before, missionaries were exporting Pueblo-woven blankets and knitted stockings to Parral,
with much of the spinning, weaving, and knitting of these textiles performed
by Pueblo women (Bloom 1927:229). Pueblo men were also involved in these
activities, and in at least one mission (Isleta), were engaged in producing long
lengths of yardage on European treadle looms in weaving workshops (Hackett
1937:144, 213).
Although Pueblo people tended large flocks of sheep for the missionaries
prior to the Pueblo Revolt (see Phillip O. Leckman, chapter 3 in this volume),
these sheep were considered mission property, and their wool was doled out
sparingly (Hackett 1937:113, 191). Some Pueblo converts wore woolen cloth made
in the missions, but most mission-made woolen fabrics were intended for export.
All this changed after the Pueblo Revolt, when the Pueblos appropriated large
numbers of Spanish sheep, and their use of wool skyrocketed (Webster 1997).
Although Pueblo people increased their personal flocks after the reconquest,
they were also once again forced to produce textiles for the missions and the
Spanish civil authorities without compensation (Hackett 1937:448; Kelly 1941:66–
67). Only the Hopi villages, which permanently expelled Spanish authority in
1700, were exempt from these pressures (see chapters by Matthew Liebmann
and colleagues [5], this volume). Most of this eighteenth-century tribute production occurred at Acoma, Laguna, Zuni, Jemez, and in the southern Tiwa and Rio
Grande Keres villages in the southern and western portion of the New Mexico
Colony, where sheep and cotton were most plentiful (Hackett 1937:427, 471; Kelly
1941:76).3 Except for in a few middle Rio Grande Pueblo villages, weaving for
internal use dramatically declined among the eastern Pueblos by the mid-1700s,
and by the early 1800s many Rio Grande Pueblo people were wearing woolen
clothing imported from Acoma, Laguna, Zuni, and Hopi (Minge [1976] 1991:36;
Kessell 1980:246). Of all the Pueblos, only the Hopi villages were entirely selfsufficient in their use of both cotton and woolen textiles and producing both
types of fabrics for exchange by this time (Webster 1997:637–39).
coloNial iMPacts oN hoPi weaviNG
Although the remote Hopi villages were shielded from many seventeenth-century Spanish colonial pressures, they were not exempt from tribute demands on
weaving labor. In 1629, a church and convent were established at Awat’ovi and
a visita was constructed at Wàlpi. Soon after, additional churches and convents
were built at Oraibi and Shongopovi and another visita at Mishongnovi. By the
mid-1630s, the missionized Hopi villages had been given in encomienda and were
subject to the same textile tribute demands as Pueblo villages farther east. For
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example, a 1664 document describes the collection of an unspecified number of
mantas from Awat’ovi by its encomendera, Elena Gómez (Hackett 1937:243)
Another Spanish account describes the forced production of textiles for one
Hopi missionary during the 1650s. In a 1655 complaint registered by several
Hopi individuals before the custodián Antonio de Ibargaray, the administrative
leader (prelate) of the New Mexico Franciscan mission program, the guardián
at Jongopabí (Shongopovi), Salvador de Guerra, the guardian at Jongopabi
(Shongopovi), was charged with forcing residents to weave mantas of cotton
and wool and demanding “a stipulated number of finished pieces, regardless of
whether he gave them sufficient raw material, and stated that failure to produce
the required number within a certain time was punished by whipping” (Scholes
1942:12). Although Guerra subsequently admitted to using Hopi labor for the
weaving of mantas, he claimed not to have known that the quantities of raw
materials were inadequate, blaming “those who apportion it.” He also denied
setting time limits for the completion of the weavings. In a 1663 document, the
alcalde mayor of the Salinas Province, Nicolás de Aguilar, who had spent some
time at the Hopi Mesas, supported the Hopi claims, adding that the Hopi individuals who had lodged the complaint had been severely punished, one later
dying from his wounds (Hackett 1937:141). This testimony reveals that at least
one friar at Hopi requisitioned textiles from Hopi workers, imposed short-term
quotas on the completion of the finished textiles, and had mission representatives working on his behalf to distribute the raw materials, a strategy reminiscent
of that used by Governor Mendizábal and some Franciscan missionaries among
the Rio Grande Pueblo villages. The Guerra testimony also indicates that at least
some fiber supplies (i.e., those that were apportioned) were under the control
of mission personnel. It is reasonable to assume that if this activity was occurring at one Hopi mission, it probably occurred at others. This testimony fails to
specify what kinds of looms were being used to make these tribute mantas, but
no documentary or archaeological evidence has come to light to indicate the use
of European treadle looms at the Hopi missions.
The level of tribute textile production at Hopi probably was not constant,
but ebbed during lulls in missionary activity. For example, missionary activity
is known to have waned during the 1630s in response to violent uprisings and to
have relaxed again during the 1670s as a result of the drought, disease, famine,
and civil unrest that plagued most of the colony (Scholes and Adams 1952:28). In
1680, the Hopi villages joined with other Pueblo communities in a regionwide
revolt that resulted in the local destruction of the Hopi missions and the death
of the resident Franciscan priests and some converts (see chapter by Liebmann
and colleagues, this volume, for discussion of the Puebloan perspective on its
aftermath in other portions of the eastern Pueblo communities). Subsequent
Spanish attempts to reestablish the mission at Awat’ovi led to the destruction of
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the village in 1700–1701 by neighboring communities with the tacit support of a
traditional Awat’ovi faction (Whiteley 2002; Yava 1978:91–93). After this time, the
Hopi villages were free of direct Spanish administrative and religious control
(but see chapter by Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa [4], this volume) and any additional Spanish tribute demands.
coNtiNUity aND chaNGe iN hoPi textile ProDUctioN
I now examine the major changes and continuities in Hopi textile production
during the first century of colonization, from the establishment of the missions
in 1629 through the early decades of the post–Pueblo Revolt period. The major
changes were the adoption of wool, the knitting technique, and one or two
imported dyes; the adoption or expansion of embroidery; and shifts in the organization of weaving labor for tribute production, whereas the major continuities
were the continued production of cotton textiles and the use of traditional styles
of dress, and the perpetuation of a traditional organization of production for
the manufacture of native textiles (Webster 1997).
Most of the information about Hopi weaving for this period derives from
the archaeological excavations conducted at Awat’ovi and Wàlpi Villages (E. C.
Adams 1982; Montgomery et al. 1949; Smith 1972). The Awat’ovi data provide
information for the Franciscan, Pueblo Revolt, and early postrevolt periods
(1629–1700), the Wàlpi data for the eighteenth century (1700–1790). Awat’ovi and
its mission establishment were extensively excavated by the Peabody Museum
of Harvard in the 1930s (Montgomery et al. 1949; Smith 1952, 1972). Four decades
later, excavations were conducted in several closed-off rooms at present-day
Wàlpi Village (E. C. Adams 1982). Both excavations yielded abundant evidence
of textiles and other weaving-related information in the form of loom holes,
weaving tools, and sheep faunal remains ( J. Adams and Larson 1979; Kent 1979;
Olsen 1978; Webster 1997, 2000; Wheeler 1978). The adobe bricks used to build
the 1630s Awat’ovi Mission were another important source of information about
the early use of introduced fibers and dyes. Dissolved and then analyzed, the
bricks were found to contain cotton seeds, plant and animal fibers, cordage, and
other perishable materials that had been incorporated into the bricks as a binder
( Jones 1939; see also Webster 1997:270–71, appendix D).
the adoption of wool
The Hopi probably regarded wool as a precious commodity from the start. Not
only is it easier to raise a flock of sheep then to cultivate a cotton field, but wool
is easier to process, has greater warmth, and has a stronger affinity for dyes than
cotton. It also occurs in a variety of natural shades. Sheep were introduced to
the Hopi Mesas in 1629 with the establishment of the missions (Scholes 1930:100).
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When the Hopi missions were actively staffed, the mission sheep and their wool
probably came under Franciscan authority. But during those rare periods when
mission activity waned and the friars were absent, the Hopi would have had
direct access to these resources. Although the leaders of the Pueblo Revolt urged
their followers to reject all Spanish introductions after the Pueblo Revolt, the
Hopi, as well as all of the other Pueblos, seized control of the sheep left behind
after the expulsion of the Spaniards and never let go. Sheep raising was an important economic activity at Hopi after the revolt and into the following centuries
(E. C. Adams 1989:87; E. B. Adams and Chavez 1956:303; Bolton 1950:246; Coues
1900:361).
The main archaeological sources of information about the use of sheep and
wool at Hopi all come from Awat’ovi: Stanley Olsen’s (1978) faunal study of the
domestic sheep and goat remains (difficult to distinguish) in the Hopi village and
Franciscan mission complex, my reanalysis of the fibers in the mission bricks
that were used to construct the main church during the 1630s, and my analysis of the textiles from the mission burials, which largely postdate the Pueblo
Revolt, though some could have been casualties of that conflict (Montgomery
et al. 1949:97; Webster 1997). Domestic sheep/goat bones were recovered in significant quantities from both mission and village contexts. Olsen identified 17
percent of the faunal bone from the Awat’ovi Village as sheep or goat, much of
it butchered, and interpreted this to mean that, with the Franciscans’ permission,
the Hopis were able to supplement their native diet with the meat of these animals. In contrast, sheep/goat were found to constitute almost 40 percent of the
faunal bone from postrevolt contexts in the mission, which suggested to Olsen
that the Hopi’s use of these animals more than doubled after the Pueblo Revolt
(Olsen 1978:29–30). Elsewhere, I have argued that Olsen’s interpretation of the
use of sheep/goat within the Awat’ovi Village prior to the revolt may be inflated
because most of the butchered sheep/goat bone from the seventeenth-century
Hopi village came from the uppermost levels of fill and thus could also be postrevolt in age (Webster 1997:330–32).
Although cotton was more common than wool fiber in the mission bricks,
three were found to contain evidence of sheep manure or wool fiber, documenting the early presence of sheep at Awat’ovi (Webster 1997:317, appendix D). Of
the probable 27 native burials in the church, most of which are thought to date to
or postdate the Pueblo Revolt, 19 were associated with woolen plain-weave cloth,
warp-faced or warp-float belts, 2/2 (over 2, under 2) twill fabric, or embroidery
(Webster 1997:278–305, appendix C; 2000). Wool blankets served as the customary burial shrouds. In contrast, excavations in the seventeenth-century Awat’ovi
Village yielded only one example of a wool textile, a knitted legging, from a
structure that probably burned during the destruction of the village in 1700–
1701 (Webster 1997:201). Because conditions in the burned sections of the village
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favored the preservation of cotton (which carbonizes when burned), and conditions in the unburned mission favored the preservation of wool (which survives
better in open, unburned contexts than does cotton), it is not possible to compare the use of wool and cotton in the village and mission during the colonial
period from these data alone.
Several conclusions can be drawn about the use of wool at Awat’ovi from
the mission burials, however. First, by the time of the Pueblo Revolt, the people
of Awat’ovi were already using wool to produce traditional styles of garments.
Second, these woolen garments were being made by the same spinning and
weaving techniques used to weave cotton. Third, based on the diverse range of
woolen textiles recovered from the postrevolt burials, the Awat’ovi inhabitants
had probably been using wool for some time to meet their clothing needs.
The archaeological textile evidence from Wàlpi further corroborates the
extensive use of wool at Hopi during the postrevolt period. Most eighteenthcentury native textiles from Wàlpi are also made of wool. They include such
precontact types of fabrics as plain weaves, diagonal and twill weaves, and plaids,
and such precontact styles of garments as blankets, kilts, mantas, and warpfaced belts, as well as at least one Spanish-introduced style, weft-faced blankets
(Kent 1979). These patterns led Kate Peck Kent (1979:16, 38) to conclude that by
the early eighteenth century, wool had largely replaced cotton for textile use at
Hopi and was used for most articles of every dress, with cotton reserved primarily for articles of ceremonial significance.
the adoption of New Dyes
At least one and possibly two new imported dyes, both associated with the use
of wool, were used at Awat’ovi during the seventeenth century. A bright blue
wool yarn probably dyed with indigo was recovered from a postrevolt mission
burial, and an orange wool yarn possibly dyed with brazilwood was recovered
from one of the mission bricks (Webster 1997:288–89). Whereas the blue yarn is
almost certainly indigo-dyed, the source of the orange dye is more questionable.
(The dyes have not been chemically tested.) The fact that both yarns are z-spun
(slant from upper right to lower left like the middle of the letter Z) and appear to
have been spun with a native stick-and-whorl spindle suggests that the people of
Awat’ovi had direct access to the dyestuffs used to color them, even though no
archaeological evidence of preprocessed lump indigo or brazilwood sticks were
found. Because most of the woven textiles from Awat’ovi have discolored to a
deteriorated brown or a carbonized black, it is unknown whether any of these
fabrics were originally dyed.
Indigo and brazilwood were traded north from Mexico and brought to the
Southwest as part of the Spanish wool-weaving tradition, where they were
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widely used by New Mexican Hispanic blanket weavers. Reportedly, indigo was
the most common dyestuff imported into the colony, followed by brazilwood
(Bowen and Spillman 1979:208–9). Both dyes were used almost exclusively on
wool fiber (Webster 1997:576, 585–86). The earliest reference I have found to
their presence in New Mexico relates to Governor Mendizábal’s importation of
indigo and brazilwood for his commissioned weavers during the 1660s (Hackett
1937:254). It is reasonable to assume, however, that indigo was brought north
decades earlier by early colonists or via the mission supply service for coloring
the wool of Spanish sheep.
Although brazilwood is not known to have played an important role in Hopi
weaving, indigo was considered by the Hopi to be their most precious dye for
producing the symbolically important colors of blue and green (Colton 1965:50).
By the early 1700s, indigo was being regularly imported into the New Mexico
Colony (e.g., Ahlborn 1983:39, 47). By then, it was probably also traded to Hopi
via the Rio Grande Pueblos, a practice that continued into the early twentieth
century (e.g., Parsons 1936:1015). Eighteenth-century woolen fabrics from Wàlpi
indicate the extensive use of indigo by Hopi weavers by the early 1700s (Kent
1979:5). Cochineal, the important and expensive red dye derived from insects, was
apparently never used by the Pueblos to dye cloth. Instead, most Pueblo use of
cochineal involved the unraveling of commercially dyed imported wool fabrics to
acquire red yarns for embroidery or woven blankets (Kent 1983b:29). No raveled
red yarns were identified in the Awat’ovi or Wàlpi assemblages.
the adoption of knitting
Knitting is the only Spanish-introduced textile technique, with the possible
exception of embroidery, which is known to have replaced a precontact technique. Before Spanish contact, the Pueblos made their leggings by a process
known as looping. The transfer of knitting to the Pueblos is undocumented,
but it was most likely introduced by the missionaries or other Spanish authorities early on during the colonial period for the purpose of tribute production.
By the mid-1600s, Pueblo-made knitted wool stockings were among the most
common tribute products exacted from the Pueblos. By the time of the Pueblo
Revolt, knitting had largely replaced looping for the Pueblos’ own needs as well,
with most Pueblo leggings now made of wool rather than cotton (Webster
1997:611–12).
The Awat’ovi excavations yielded two examples of woolen knitting, both
probably the remains of leggings, one from a probable postrevolt funerary
context in the mission and the other from a late seventeenth-century room in
the Awat’ovi Village that also yielded an example of cotton looping (Webster
1997:301). The recovery of cotton looping and wool knitting from the same late
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seventeenth-century context suggests that the Hopi initially maintained strict
fiber associations with these techniques, working the introduced technique of
knitting with the introduced fiber of wool and the precontact technique of looping with the precontact fiber of cotton. All eighteenth-century leggings from
Wàlpi are knitted and made of wool (Kent 1979:32).
the adoption or expansion of embroidery
The timing of the appearance of embroidery in the Southwest is still open
to question. Embroidery involves the application of decorative yarns, usually through the use of a needle, to a finished piece of cloth. Although Kent
(1983a:183–91) considered some late prehistoric textiles to be embroidered, others have argued that these fabrics were decorated by a supplementary-weft
technique (“brocade”) in which decorative yarns were added during the weaving process (Teague 1998:87–88; Webster 2000:194–200). If Kent’s scenario is
correct, then cotton embroidery was largely replaced by wool embroidery
sometime during the seventeenth century. If the other scenario is correct, then
embroidery was probably introduced by the Spaniards through the missions,
and replaced supplementary weft early on as a method for decorating the
borders of native ceremonial textiles. Regardless of its origins, wool embroidery was practiced by the Pueblos during the seventeenth century, and it soon
became the most important technique for expressing Pueblo iconography on
cloth (Kent 1983b) (Figure 4.2).
The archaeological remains of embroidered textiles were recovered from
seventeenth-century mission burials at Awat’ovi, Zuni, and Jemez (Webster
1997:601–2; 2000:194–95, 198–200). All examples consist of the remains of woolen
embroidery yarns, sometimes associated with deteriorated background fabrics. The garments are very fragmentary but probably represent the remains of
embroidered kilts or mantas. At Awat’ovi, the remains of embroidered textiles
were recovered from four mission burials (Webster 1997:290–92, appendix C;
2000:194–95). Now a deteriorated brown color that may not represent their original shade, the woolen embroidery yarns consist of parallel strands worked back
and forth in a running stitch, some retaining the crimp of their original geometric designs. In all cases, the background fabrics to which these embroidery
yarns were applied either are highly degraded or have completely disintegrated,
making it impossible to determine whether the embroidery was inserted parallel to the warp or the weft.4 Microscopic examination of fiber samples from the
creases of the embroidery yarns suggests that most of these ground fabrics were
cotton, though at least one may have been wool. At Wàlpi, a well-preserved
example of brown wool embroidery on a white wool fabric was recovered
from an eighteenth-century context, indicating that white wool was sometimes
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fiGUre 4.2. Excerpt of map by Don Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, ca. 1760, illustrating the
“Dress and Dance of the Indians of New Mexico.” Situated on map near Zuni and “Moqui”
(Hopi), this illustration appears to show women wearing embroidered manta dresses and men
in embroidered shirts and kilts. From John Kessell, Kiva, Cross, and Crown: The Pecos
Indians and New Mexico 1540–1840, National Park Service, US. Department of the Interior,
Washington, DC, 1979.
substituted for white cotton as a background for early embroidered Hopi textiles. Other eighteenth-century examples of wool embroidery from Wàlpi were
applied to cotton cloth (Kent 1979:9–12, 17).
Mission-period Hopi textiles exhibit none of the Spanish stylistic changes
reported for some other types of material culture, such as pottery (E. C. Adams
1989:85; Mills 2008:256–57). While poor textile preservation undoubtedly provides
an incomplete picture, seventeenth-century Awat’ovi textiles appear to be devoid of
Spanish symbols, designs, or forms. The embroidery examples are too deteriorated
to determine their specific designs, but they are clearly geometric, not curvilinear
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or naturalistic like most mission-period Spanish designs (e.g., Montgomery et al.
1949:figs. 59–62). The floral motifs found on some later Acoma and Zuni women’s
embroidered wool mantas were never used on Hopi embroidered fabrics (Kent
1983b:pls. 12–15). The triangle-and-hook motif embroidered on an eighteenth-century fabric from Wàlpi (Kent 1979:9–10) is the exact same motif used to decorate
kilt borders in the late precontact Awat’ovi murals (Smith 1952:fig. 25) and used
on Hopi kilts and mantas today (Webster and Loma’omvaya 2004:84–87). Closely
tied to rain, clouds, and fertility in Hopi cosmology, the symbolism of these
embroidered designs may have gone unrecognized by the missionaries and other
Spaniards, who may have viewed them only as pleasant geometric decorations.
changes in the tools and organization of textile Production
Except for two minor additions—knitting needles and metal sewing needles—
the Pueblo loom and tool kit remained unchanged throughout the Spanish
period. Two possible metal knitting needles were identified in the Awat’ovi
assemblage, but the high value and relative scarcity of metal during the mission period suggests that most knitting needles used by the Pueblos were made
of wood (Webster 1997:313, 696). The only eyed metal (copper) needle found at
Awat’ovi, associated with a mission burial, bore traces of wool cloth or yarn on
its corroded surface, suggesting its use for wool embroidery (Webster 1997:313,
695). Despite the presence of metal needles at Awat’ovi, nearly all eyed needles recovered at Awat’ovi, as well as Wàlpi, were made of bone ( J. Adams and
Larson 1979:8; Wheeler 1978:56).
Spanish documentary sources do not address the organization of textile production at Hopi during the mission period, but I suggest that several changes
occurred, the first supported by archaeological evidence, the others inferred. The
first involves the transfer or expansion of traditional weaving practices from kivas
to houseblock religious rooms during the seventeenth century. Excavations at
Awat’ovi revealed the presence of loom holes in the paved floors of five Pueblo
V–period kivas (Smith 1972). One was immediately decommissioned when the
church was built over it, leaving four known kivas where weaving could have taken
place at Awat’ovi during the mission period. The extent to which these kivas were
in use during the mission period is still debated, however. Watson Smith (1972:67,
75) suggested they were abandoned between 1630 and 1680 under missionary
pressure, whereas Hopi oral traditions indicate their continued use (Courlander
1971:160). Although two of these kivas were in use when the village was destroyed
in 1700–1701, this could represent postrevolt reoccupation (Smith 1972:70, 75).
At this point, it is not possible to demonstrate the practice of weaving in kivas
during the mission period. However, loom holes were also identified in two
nonkiva settings at seventeenth-century Awat’ovi: Room 611, a large interior
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houseblock room with a paved floor in the seventeenth-century Hopi village,
and Room 463, a Hopi room within the mission complex that is considered to
postdate the revolt.5 Other than kivas, Room 611 is the only nonkiva context at
Awat’ovi where loom holes and pairs of loom blocks cooccurred.6 Elsewhere, I
have suggested that this room may have functioned as a religious room analogous to a kiva where communal activities, including weaving, were practiced
after missionary pressures forced the transfer of such activities from kivas to less
visible areas of the village (Webster 1997:310–11, 321–24). Two similar rooms were
identified at Hawikuh (Webster 1997:246, 310–11, 324). The presence of loom
holes with intact loom anchors in Hopi Room 463 in the postrevolt mission indicates that weaving was also being performed in nonkiva settings at Hopi by this
time. At Wàlpi, loom anchors set into the floors of eighteenth-century religious
rooms further substantiate that loom weaving was not confined to kivas after
the revolt, but was being performed in both kivas and other ritual settings
( J. Adams and Larson 1979:43–53).
The inferred changes in textile production during the mission period relate
to the production of textiles for tribute purposes. Elsewhere I have argued that
tribute production required changes in the gender composition of the weaving
labor pool and the settings of textile production (Webster 1997). Given the lack of
strong evidence for the use of the upright loom in houseblock rooms (except for
aforementioned Room 611) during the mission period, or in the mission complex
except after the revolt, the most parsimonious interpretation for the production
of tribute textiles on upright looms is that these fabrics were being woven in
kivas, if their use was permitted by the missionaries, in outdoor settings such as
plazas, or both. If most loom weaving for tribute production occurred in kivas,
then men may have been the primary weavers of tribute textiles at Hopi. If this
production was also occurring in households or outside, then any or all members of the household could have been involved, and women may have played
a greater role in their production. Since most tribute production in colonial
New Mexico reportedly took place during the warmer months after the spring
shearing (Kessell 1979:178; Webster 1997:153, 616), weaving easily could have been
performed in outdoor settings, where looms would leave little archaeological
trace. Other aspects of tribute textile production, including the processing of
wool fleeces into yarn and the knitting of stockings, were probably performed
by all household members, working outdoors or in households. Such activities
also would have left few archaeological traces.
continuity in weaving and spinning Practices
Precontact weaving and spinning technologies appear to have been maintained
at Hopi throughout the mission period. Only a few weaving tools survived at
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Awat’ovi, but they include a long weaving batten probably associated with the
use of the traditional upright loom, and several bone weaving tools, including
the serrated rib from a Spanish-introduced mule that could have served as a batten for a narrow loom (Webster 1997:311–12; Wheeler 1978:57, fig. 16a). No tools
associated with the use of European spinning wheels or treadle looms were
identified in the Awat’ovi or Wàlpi assemblages.
Excavations in eighteenth-century religious rooms at Wàlpi yielded a wide
assortment of weaving tools, including wooden battens, weaving combs, temples,
and shuttles associated with the use of the traditional upright loom ( J. Adams
and Larson 1979:43–53). The assemblage also produced several spindle whorls,
including a wooden whorl still attached to a spindle. All of these tools show continuity with precontact Pueblo weaving and spinning practices as well as those
employed by more recent Hopi weavers (Kent 1983b:27–29).
continuity in cotton cultivation
Although the cultivation and weaving of cotton declined throughout the
Pueblo world during the Spanish period (Webster 1997), it managed to persist
at Hopi. Early Spanish visitors to Hopi emphasized the intensive cultivation
of cotton in the Hopi villages and the extensive production of cotton textiles
(Hammond and Rey 1940:286; 1953:327, 1014; 1966:137, 190–93, 226). Fray Perea,
writing in 1629, observed that the Hopi “harvested much cotton” (Hodge et al.
1945:217), and his observation is corroborated by the considerable quantities
of cotton lint, fiber, and seeds incorporated into the Awat’ovi mission bricks
during the 1630s (Webster 1997:345). As elsewhere in the Pueblo world, cotton cultivation probably declined at Hopi during the seventeenth century as
a result of tribute production, the diversion of labor, and drought and crop
failures (Webster 1997:565–68). Yet, the archaeological record from Awat’ovi
and Wàlpi confirms the continued production of cotton textiles at Hopi during
the mission period.
Preservation issues make it impossible to quantitatively determine the extent
to which cotton was woven into textiles at Awat’ovi during the mission period.
Cotton and wool tend to preserve under very different conditions at open sites
(burned conditions favoring cotton, unburned conditions favoring wool), so the
cotton and wool data are irreparably skewed. Because preservation conditions in
the unburned mission strongly favored the preservation of wool, even if cotton
were present with the mission burials, it was unlikely to be preserved. Indeed,
microscopic cotton fibers were identified in the creases of several woolen
embroidery yarns, suggesting the use of cotton for the base fabrics, but the cotton textiles themselves did not survive. Only two unburned cotton textiles were
recovered from the mission, both associated with metallic pigments. Because
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metal acts as a fungicide on cellulosic materials, these pigments were directly
responsible for the cotton preservation.
The most diverse assortment of cotton textiles and raw materials from Awat’ovi—
carbonized plain-weave and looped fabrics as well as two dozen carbonized cotton
seeds—came from the still-occupied eastern section of the Hopi village (Test
46, Rooms 1 and 3), believed to have burned during the destruction of Awat’ovi
(Webster 1997:296–302, 316, 347–48, 691–92, 698).7 Although the use of cotton and
wool at Awat’ovi cannot be directly compared, this important late seventeenthcentury assemblage reveals the continued use of cotton textiles at Awat’ovi seven
decades after the introduction of sheep and wool (Webster 1997:347).
In contrast to conditions at Awat’ovi, most of the Wàlpi textile assemblage
was recovered from the innermost, dry rooms of the village where cotton, wool,
and other perishable materials were equally likely to survive. Therefore, it is
highly significant that only a few cotton cloth fragments were identified in the
entire eighteenth-century Wàlpi assemblage (Kent 1979), and only eleven cotton
seeds were recovered from pre-1840 contexts (Gasser and Scott 1981:130). Most
native textiles and yarns from eighteenth-century contexts at Wàlpi were made
of wool. Even though cotton continued to be grown and woven at Hopi during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, Hopi cultivation of
the crop began its decline in the 1600s (Bolton 1950:246; Brooks 1944; Thomas
1932:151). With this decline came the reservation of cotton for ceremonial textiles,
with wool becoming the primary fiber for everyday Hopi dress.
continuity in the organization of textile
Production for Native consumption
As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, early Spanish chroniclers writing
during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries identified Pueblo men as
the primary weavers and spinners in Pueblo society and reported that most of
this work took place in kivas during the winter months (Hammond and Rey
1953:610, 627, 636, 645, 660; 1966:82–83; Winship 1896:521, 575). Although Hopi
women undoubtedly played a role in tribute textile production during the mission period, the strong cooccurrence of loom holes with what are assumed to be
male-related ritual settings (kivas, religious rooms) at Awat’ovi and Wàlpi suggests that Hopi men resumed their highly gendered system of textile production
after the Pueblo Revolt, if it had ever changed at all.8 After that time, Hopi men
continued to dominate all aspects of textile production at Hopi except for the
manufacture of rabbit-fur blankets (Kent 1983b:90).
Archaeological loom-hole distributions at sites near the Hopi Mesas indicate
that loom weaving was primarily a kiva-based activity prior to European contact (Hargrave 1931; Smith 1972). A similar coassociation of loom holes with
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fiGUre 4.3. Wàlpi kiva interior showing Hopi man weaving on a traditional upright Pueblo
loom, 1899. Photo by H. S. Poley. Courtesy, Denver Public Library, Western History Collection,
call number P-99.
kivas is found at sites in the Rio Grande Valley and on the eastern periphery of
the Pueblo world after ad 1300. Archaeological and ethnological data suggest
that this close association of loom holes with kivas persisted only at Hopi and
perhaps Pecos Pueblo after the Pueblo Revolt (Webster 1997). When the first
Anglo-Americans visited the Hopi villages in the nineteenth century, kivas were
still the focus of most cotton spinning, embroidery, and weaving activities, and
most of these activities were being performed by men during the winter months
(Parsons 1936:372, 515, 967; see also Beaglehole 1937:23–31). This organization of
textile production persisted well into the twentieth century at Hopi and is still
practiced today with some modifications (Figure 4.3).
continuity in the Demand for hopi textiles and
the Intensification of Exchange
A demand for Hopi-made textiles was perpetuated during the mission period in
a number of ways. Both Hopi oral traditions and Spanish accounts relate that
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the Hopi performed their native dances periodically during the mission period.
Although the Franciscans apparently suppressed the kiva religion for a time,
Hopi oral traditions indicate the continued practice of kiva-based ceremonies
intermittently during this period (Courlander 1971:160). An undated comment
by France Scholes in the J. O. Brew papers at the Peabody Museum relates that
Diego Romero testified that the people of Awat’ovi were still openly performing
their ceremonial dances at the time of his visit with Governor Peñalosa, which,
according to Ross Montgomery et al. (1949:187), occurred in the spring of 1662.
Presumably, these ceremonies included the use of ritual regalia, which would
have maintained the demand for ceremonial textiles and encouraged their continued production.
Furthermore, the Awat’ovi mortuary evidence indicates that traditional
burial practices, which included the placing of feathered prayer sticks, food,
and native baskets with the deceased, continued to be observed during this
period. Native-woven textiles were the customary shrouds for most of the
mission burials, and at least four individuals were buried in decorated embroidered clothing, possibly their ceremonial kilts or mantas (Webster 1997:344).
By removing these items from active use, the inclusion of these native textiles in mortuary practice contributed to their continued demand (Webster
1997:548–49). Although Hopi men adopted Western styles of daily dress earlier
than women, especially when away from their villages, traditional handwoven
clothing derived from precontact garment styles was worn on a daily basis by
both Hopi men and women well into the late nineteenth century and early
twentieth century and is still worn in traditional ceremonies today (Kent
1983b; Webster 1997:534).
After the Spaniards were expelled and tribute demands lifted, Hopi weavers
were free to produce textiles not only for local consumers but for trade to outside communities. Much of this production was accomplished through the use
of newly controlled supplies of wool. After the reconquest, Hopi woolen textiles—and to a lesser extent, cotton ones—probably began entering the New
Mexico Pueblo villages in greater quantities. The Hopi also resumed the trade of
textiles to their nomadic neighbors (Beaglehole 1937:84). By the mid-nineteenth
century, Hopi was the principal supplier of cotton textiles and women’s woolen
manta dresses to the Rio Grande Pueblos, and by the end of the century, to Zuni
and Acoma as well (Webster 1997:639–43). This intensification of textile production ensured Hopi not only a pivotal place in the Rio Grande economic sphere,
but also regular access to desirable imports such as trade cloth and indigo dye
that entered New Mexico via the Camino Real and the Santa Fe Trail, as well as
imported goods from other pueblos, which served to maintain contacts in times
of stress (see also Lomawaima 1989:93).
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DiscUssioN
The geographical remoteness and marginal environment of the Hopi Mesas
played a pivotal role in shielding the Hopi people from many of the Spanish
labor demands experienced by Pueblo villages closer to the Rio Grande Valley.
Because of its considerable distance from the Rio Grande, Hopi was relatively
free of mission activity until 1629. The threat of Navajo and Apache raids in
the region further buffered the Hopi villages from frequent long-term contacts
with Spaniards (E. B. Adams 1954:4). Because the Hopi people, as a whole, were
never subject to major population relocations, forced to work on Spanish farms,
or encroached upon by Spanish settlements, they were able to maintain their
traditional territory and residence patterns, critical factors for the maintenance
of native identities during the colonial era (Gasco 2005:104; Lightfoot 2005:214;
Spicer 1962:576–77; Van Buren 2010:178).
The changes and continuities in Hopi weaving after European contact provide insights into some of the dynamic social processes through which the Hopi
negotiated the constraints and opportunities of the colonial period to insure the
persistence of this ancient craft (see Panich 2013). Like other Pueblo villagers,
The Hopi were not merely passive observers to the social disruptions and labor
demands wrought by Spanish colonization (see Liebmann 2010:200; Preucel
2002:22), but employed various actions and strategies, offensive and defensive, to
resist and ameliorate these conditions. Many of these responses directly affected
the trajectory of Hopi weaving during the Spanish period.
For example, documentary sources indicate that in 1655, several Hopi individuals made the long-distance journey to the provincial capital in Santa Fe to lodge
a formal complaint before the then-head of the New Mexico Franciscan program, Custodian Ibargaray, in regards to the forced textile labor practices of Fray
Guerra at Shongopovi discussed earlier in this chapter. This Hopi action led to the
removal of Guerra from his position later that year (Scholes 1942). Presumably, it
also resulted in a lessening of textile tribute demands at Hopi, at least for a time.
Two other offensive actions—the Pueblo Revolt and the destruction of
Awat’ovi—influenced the trajectory of Hopi weaving by returning autonomy to
the Hopi people and inaugurating a period of cultural revival (Whiteley 2002).
By essentially terminating the Franciscan mission program at Hopi, the Pueblo
Revolt gave the Hopi people unrestricted access to mission sheep and wool for
their weaving. Two decades later, the destruction of Awat’ovi brought an end
to Spanish authority at Hopi, and, as Whiteley (2002:161) has argued, issued in
“a full-blown revitalization and transformation of Hopi society,” which would
have included a renewed interest in the visible symbols of Hopi social identity,
including daily and ritual dress.
Less violent strategies such as passive resistance and skilled diplomacy were
used by the Hopi and other Pueblo people to avoid direct confrontation with the
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missionaries and other Spanish authorities (E. C. Adams 1989; Mobley-Tanaka
2002). For example, the feigning of conversion would have enabled Pueblo people to mask their secret observance of traditional rites and to conceal their ritual
paraphernalia (Knaut 1995). Participation in the mission program also provided
native people with regular access to favorable material goods—such as metal
needles, wool, and imported dyes—and the information needed to process them.
By taking a flexible approach toward Spanish material introductions, Hopi
weavers were able to integrate advantageous new raw materials, such as wool
and imported indigo dye, into the traditional textile repertoire without compromising ancient textile traditions or Hopi cultural values. Through a process that
Hartman Lomawaima (1989:97) has called “Hopification,” Hopi weavers incorporated advantageous Spanish introductions into Hopi life, imbued them with
Hopi values, and made them Hopi while maintaining the foundational elements
of Hopi weaving practice, just one way in which Hopi people used existing cultural values to negotiate the challenges of the Spanish colonial period (see further
discussion of the concepts of Hopification [Lomawaima 1989] and Pueblofication
[Brown 2013] in the chapter by Douglass and Graves, chapter 1 in this volume).
coNclUsioNs
The primary changes to Hopi weaving during the mission period were the adoption of wool and the knitting technique. There is no evidence in the Awat’ovi
assemblage for the use of introduced garment forms or the incorporation of
Spanish decorative symbols, except for the imported ecclesiastical garments
used by the friars and other church leaders. The Awat’ovi assemblage indicates
that by the time of the Pueblo Revolt, most weave structures and garments
made of cotton prior to Spanish contact were now made primarily of wool.
Sometime during the 1700s, Spanish-style weft-faced woolen blankets appeared
in the Wàlpi archaeological record (Kent 1979:13–14). Emulating a Spanish long,
narrow, banded blanket made on a European treadle loom, these Hopi-made
versions were woven on the traditional Pueblo upright loom and continued to
be made in this way into the twentieth century (Kent 1983b:42–44). All other
native-woven textiles in the eighteenth-century Wàlpi assemblage perpetuate
weave structures and clothing styles popular in the northern Southwest prior
to European contact. Similar textiles were made by Hopi weavers well into the
twentieth century, and many of these garments are still woven at Hopi for ceremonial use today.
Men are still the primary weavers in Hopi society, though women have begun
to play a greater role. Today, much of the weaving at Hopi takes place not in
kivas, but in households, classrooms, or other nonritual settings. No longer an
integral part of the Hopi male role, weaving is now practiced by fewer men,
some of whom specialize in the production of traditional textiles for sale to
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other Hopis or to people in other Pueblo communities. These changes in Hopi
weaving were not imposed from the outside, but are internal changes that began
in the early twentieth century as more men became involved in outside wage
work and, more recently, as young people have moved to the cities for educational and employment opportunities.
Despite these changes in the organization of textile production at Hopi, locally
made textiles continue to be woven and to play a critical role in the performance
of religious ceremonies, in the fulfillment of social obligations, and for marking
rites of passage such as initiations and weddings (Webster and Loma’omvaya
2004). Hopi weavers still use the same weaving technologies and weaving tools
developed a millennium ago by their ancestors. Because the raw materials have
changed and certain styles are no longer produced, the products now look a bit
different, but the process has endured. The trajectory of Hopi weaving after
European contact is a prime example of “changing continuities,” the persistence of a native craft through the negotiation, reinterpretation, and integration
of cultural knowledge and outside introductions to ensure the survival of an
ancient craft tradition.
Notes
1. The treadle loom is an industrial weaving machine capable of producing very long
lengths of fabric. During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, it was introduced
to many areas of New Spain, including Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, New Mexico,
and California, for the purpose of providing cloth for the Spanish colonies, much of
it supplied through tribute. Equipped with reed heddles, wide shedding devices (harnesses), foot pedals (treadles), and a rigid horizontal frame, the treadle loom is typically
wound with long lengths of warp, enabling weavers to produce significant lengths of
cloth within a relatively short period of time (Fisher 1979). In contrast, the traditional
Pueblo loom produces fabrics of a relatively short, fixed length, and its string-heddle
apparatus requires the expenditure of considerable time and effort (Kent 1983b:fig. 19).
2. In contrast to textile production in the Valley of Mexico during the Aztec and
early colonial periods, where women were the principal weavers of loom-woven textiles
in households for both domestic and tribute production (Brumfiel 1991), men are considered to have been the primary loom weavers in late pre-Hispanic times and at the time
of European contact on the Colorado Plateau, based on the ritual nature of many loomwoven fabrics, the presence of loom holes in ritual structures (kivas), and early Spanish
accounts about Pueblo male loom weavers.
3. For a revealing account of how these woolen textiles were requisitioned by the
governors and the impact of these activities on the Pueblos, see Charles Hackett 1937:484.
4. If the embroidery yarns were inserted parallel to the warp, as in more recent
Pueblo embroidered textiles, we could rule out any historical connection to the supplementary-weft technique.
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5. Information about these rooms comes from the artifact and room cards in the
Awat’ovi archives at the Peabody Museum, Harvard University.
6. The only settings at Awat’ovi where loom holes were identified were kivas, Room
611 in the Hopi village, and Room 463 in the mission. Another archaeological correlate of
weaving on the upright loom, the loom block (sometimes referred to as a warping block),
is a large stone block equipped with a hole or socket for accommodating a wooden bar.
Historically, loom blocks were used in groups of two or four to prepare the warp for
weaving or to frame-braid a sash. Therefore, at least two are required for textile production (Woodbury 1954:155–157). Loom blocks have a wider distribution at Awat’ovi than
loom holes, recovered from seventeen postcontact settings in the village and mission
(Webster 1997:308–11). Most of these features contained only one loom block, suggesting
their secondary use as seats or for other nonweaving purposes, Multiple loom blocks
were confined to seven seventeenth-century settings at Awat’ovi: three kivas and three
nonkiva rooms in the seventeenth-century Hopi village, the kiva under Church 2, and
a postrevolt room in the mission. All of the kivas that contained loom blocks also contained loom holes in their paved floors. In addition, Room 611 also contained both loom
blocks and loom holes. In contrast, none of the nonkiva domestic rooms that contained
two or more loom blocks also contained loom holes. Although Richard Woodbury
(1954:55) suggested that most loom blocks found in storage or living rooms at Awat’ovi
represented a secondary use of these objects, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the
single and multiple occurrences of loom blocks in domestic rooms of the seventeenthcentury Hopi village were related to the preparation of warp for textile production,
including the production of tribute textiles.
7. Jesse Walter Fewkes (1898:606, 619) and Smith (1972:69–73) suggest that these eastern rooms burned during the destruction of Awat’ovi. The Awat’ovi room cards at the
Peabody Museum indicate that the rooms that yielded the burned cotton remains (Test
46, Rooms 1 and 3) were domestic rooms.
8. My interpretation of Hopi kivas and religious rooms as male-related extrahousehold
ritual settings for textile production is based on early ethnographic accounts that describe
such settings as the focus of most communal cotton spinning, embroidery, weaving, and
ceremonial preparation activities by Hopi men (e.g., Brooks 1944; Parsons 1936).
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F
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v
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the Pueblo world transformed
Alliances, Factionalism, and Animosities in the Northern Rio Grande, 1680–1700
m aT T h e w l i e b m a n n , ro b e r T P r e u C e l , a n d J o S e P h aG u i l a r
iNtroDUctioN
Nine years after the famous Pueblo Revolt of 1680, a Zia war captain named
Bartolomé de Ojeda gave his Spanish colonial captors a rare glimpse into the
indigenous politics of New Mexico. “The Keres, Taos, and Pecos fought against
the Tewas and Tanos,” reported Ojeda, while “the Keres and Jemez finished off
the Piros and Tiwas.” The pueblo of Acoma had split into factions. The Zunis
battled the Hopis. Apaches “inflicted all the damage they could” at the pueblos
of their enemies. And the Utes “waged unceasing war upon the Jemez, Taos,
and Picuris, and with even greater vigor upon the Tewas” (Liebmann 2012:169;
Twitchell 1914, 2:276–77). In stark contrast with the unity that had characterized
the 1680 uprising, the pan-Pueblo alliance had fallen into disarray by the end of
the decade. The Pueblos were at war with one another as well as with their Ute
and Athapaskan neighbors. The former colony of New Mexico was in chaos.
Ojeda’s testimony emboldened the exiled Spaniards and set the stage for Don
Diego de Vargas’s reconquest campaign of 1692.
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c005
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More than three centuries later, Ojeda’s testament still raises intriguing questions regarding the events that occurred in New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt.
What happened to the pan-Pueblo alliance that facilitated the revolt? How did
the independent Native communities interact in the absence of a foreign colonial government? Was Ojeda’s testimony accurate? And how did the Native
political alliances, animosities, and factions forged during this period affect the
outcome of the Spaniards’ reconquista?
Historical documents relating to the postrevolt period in New Mexico are murky
at best. Texts produced by colonial officials (who were exiled in El Paso del Norte,
300 miles south of Santa Fe) provide only a few meager details regarding the events
that occurred among the Pueblos during the dozen years between the Pueblo
Revolt and the Spanish Reconquest. The testimonies of Pueblo captives suggest
that the organizer of the 1680 Revolt, the charismatic prophet and holy man from
Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo) known as Po’pay, was deposed in 1681 because
of his autocratic behavior (Hackett and Shelby 1942:2:274, 296; Sanchez 1983;
Liebmann 2012:79). Following the Spaniards’ ouster, Po’pay had reportedly toured
the pueblos in the manner of a Spanish governor and even exacted tribute from his
followers (Twitchell 1914:2:272; Kessell 1979:238). An alliance of Keres, Taos, and
Pecos Indians deposed Po’pay and installed Luis Tupatú of Picuris as leader. But
by 1688, Tupatú was also overthrown. Po’pay regained power, only to die shortly
thereafter and be replaced once again by Tupatú (Twitchell 1914:2:276). Apparently
leadership of the Pueblos was contested and particularly volatile during the dozen
years of Pueblo independence that followed the revolt.
Beyond these few scant details, however, historical texts are largely silent
regarding the years between 1680 and 1692 in New Mexico. After the Spaniards’
retreat, the documentary record concerning events in the Pueblo world is frustratingly mute. And for the most part, Native oral traditions regarding this era
have not been shared with outsiders (see Thomas E. Sheridan and Stewart B.
Koyiyumptewa, chapter 9 in this volume). Fortunately, the events that occurred
during this period left an indelible mark in the archaeological record. The things
Pueblo people designed, made, lived in, broke, and threw away provide a window into the dozen years between 1680 and the reconquista of the 1690s in New
Mexico, telling us what happened to the pan-Pueblo alliance that facilitated
the Revolt of 1680. In what follows, we examine changing relations within and
among six of the new, postrevolt Pueblo villages established in the wake of the
1680 uprising. We are particularly interested in the “social lives” of these communities. Who founded and lived at these villages? Who were their allies? Who were
their enemies? And how did the residents of each village choose to negotiate the
Spaniards’ return in the 1690s? We develop this archaeological history by combining information from Spanish colonial documents with the archaeological
record—particularly data from ceramics and lithics—to discover concordances
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and reveal contradictions. In the process, we demonstrate the ways that material
culture challenges and augments traditional historical accounts, ultimately providing a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the Pueblo Revolt period.
the Mesa villaGes
Postrevolt Pueblo Indians’ settlement patterns consisted of an extended network
of mission villages founded prior to 1680, mesatop redoubts and refugee communities (both newly constructed and reoccupations of older settlements), and
appropriated former Spanish colonial settlements. In the northern Rio Grande,
people constantly flowed back and forth between these different loci. Some eastern Pueblo individuals took refuge among the western villages of Acoma, Hopi,
and Zuni. Still others joined with the Apache and Navajo. These dislocations
mark an important moment in Pueblo Indian history, as they gave rise to new
social formations that continue to structure Pueblo Indian communities as we
know them today (Liebmann and Preucel 2007).
After taking ritual possession of Santa Fe in 1692, Vargas visited each of the
Pueblo villages to secure their allegiance (Kessell and Hendricks 1992:509). He
began with Cochiti Pueblo because it was the place where Antonio de Otermín’s
1681 abortive attempt at reconquest was turned back. Vargas relates: “It was an
established opinion that the surrender of the pueblo [Cochiti] would be a victory
of greater consequence and triumph than even that of the villa [of Santa Fe]”
(Kessell and Hendricks 1992:382–83). For this reason, the general was disturbed
to find many villages, including Cochiti, abandoned and their inhabitants living
in new mesa-top communities overlooking the Rio Grande Valley.
Over the past decade, the Rio Grande mesa villages have become the subject
of intensive archaeological investigations (Liebmann 2012; Liebmann et al. 2005;
Preucel 2000, 2002). We are currently analyzing ceramic and lithic data from six
of these villages, including Kotyiti (LA 295), Cerro Colorado (LA 2048), Patokwa
(LA 96), Astialakwa (LA 1825), Boletsakwa (LA 136), and Tunyo (LA 23). Ceramic
data is particularly important because it has the potential to reveal population
movements as well as trade and exchange relationships. Similarly, the lithic data
(primarily elemental signatures of obsidian attained through XRF analysis) can
indicate movements across the landscape and changes in lithic procurement
strategies. Here we provide results of our ceramic and lithic analyses from
Kotyiti, Patokwa, Boletsakwa, Cerro Colorado, and Astialakwa.
alliances revealed through ceramics
Our ceramic analyses seek to distinguish between pottery brought by the
migrants joining these new communities, the production of new pottery
by these migrants at these communities, and the trade of pottery between
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communities. Patricia Capone’s petrographic analysis of ceramics from Kotyiti
identified five different tempering materials in the Kotyiti glazewares: devitrified
tuff, crystalline basalt, igneous porphyritic felsite, vitric tuff, and latite (Capone
and Preucel 2002). The largest group, at 59 percent, is devitrified tuff. This result
is consistent with other studies (e.g., Warren 1976:B117, 1979:239) and almost certainly indexes ceramics that were locally produced at Kotyiti by Cochiti potters.
The second largest group, at 17 percent, is crystalline basalt. This material has
been called “Zia basalt” in the literature, and archaeologists generally assume
this to have been produced in the Zia district (Warren 1979). Two other materials, igneous porphyritic felsite and vitric tuff, account for about 10 percent each
of the Kotyiti glazeware assemblage. The latter may be locally produced. The
smallest group, at 3 percent, is represented by latite temper, which is characteristic of San Marcos Pueblo in the Galisteo Basin (Warren 1976:B132). San Marcos
people may have brought these ceramics to Kotyiti after the abandonment of
their village. Helene Warren (1979:239) found similar results when she examined
a sample from Kotyiti, which she interpreted as evidence for Galisteo refugees.
The ceramic assemblage at Kotyiti also contains significant information
regarding the local production of pottery by Tewa refugees. Capone’s analysis
of the Tewa wares identified only two kinds of temper: ash and devitrified tuff.
The dominant temper, at 65 percent, is ash. This material is not available in the
immediate vicinity of Kotyiti and likely derives from deposits in the Española
Valley. It is the dominant tempering material of the Tewa wares from Tunyo
(Black Mesa). However, a significant number of Tewa ware sherds from Kotyiti
(35 percent) contained devitrified tuff. As noted above, this material is locally
available and is widely distributed across the Pajarito Plateau. Given that this
is the dominant tempering material for the Kotyiti glazewares, this raises the
intriguing possibility that Tewa refugees lived at Kotyiti and made their own pottery using the local tempering materials. Vargas’s journals mention reports of
Tewa warriors convening at Kotyiti in 1693 (Kessell et al. 1995:410). The presence
of tuff-tempered Tewa wares suggests that their presence was not fleeting, but
in fact that Tewa people lived alongside their Cochiti hosts at Kotyiti.
After 1680, trade among many of the Pueblos increased. Villages that formerly
maintained a calculated social distance from one another now exchanged ceramics regularly. This shift in exchange networks is most clearly exemplified in the
ceramic assemblages of the ancestral Jemez villages of Patokwa (founded in
1681) and Boletsakwa (founded in 1683), which document dramatic changes in
trade with the neighboring Tewa-speaking Pueblos located to the northeast
(Liebmann 2012:150–51).
Prior to the 1680s the Jemez appear to have been a fairly xenophobic lot, at least
in terms of ceramic trade—and particularly in their relations with Tewa pueblos. Nonlocal ceramics appear in relatively meager amounts at prerevolt ancestral
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Jemez villages, with Tewa wares comprising just .1 percent of the ceramic assemblages from 1300 to 1680 (Elliott 1991:80; Liebmann 2012:156; Reiter 1938:189–92).
Stylistic studies of Jemez and Tewa wares support the notion that the Jemez had
remarkably little interaction with neighboring regions before 1680 (Graves and
Eckert 1998:276; Morley 2002:237–39). The few interactions that did occur were
probably bellicose. Relations between the Tewas and Jemez were reportedly so
hostile prior to the Pueblo Revolt that in 1634, one Jemez leader proudly wore
around his neck a string of human ears from the Tewa warriors he had killed
(Hodge et al. 1945:70). After 1680, however, the icy relations among Jemez and
Tewa peoples seems to have thawed. The number of Tewa wares increased dramatically in the assemblages of the Jemez pueblos (rising to 5.3 percent overall). In
fact, Tewa wares outnumber Jemez Black-on-white at Patokwa and Boletsakwa (a
result of the contemporaneous cessation of production of Jemez Black-on-white
following the 1680 Revolt, see Liebmann 2012:129–33, 149).
These patterns suggest that Jemez and Tewa people forged new relationships
in the wake of the revolt, presumably as a result of Po’pay’s unification of the
Pueblos in 1680. The Tewa Pueblos were uncompromising in their resistance
throughout the revolt and reconquest eras, maintaining stalwart ties with other
likeminded tribes during the Spanish interregnum (including the Jemez and the
Keres of Kotyiti). The Jemez people appear to have fostered an alliance with the
Tewas that was stronger in the sixteen years following the revolt than it had been
for three centuries prior to 1680. Thus the ceramic record calls into question the
notion that the Jemez were at war with the Tewas during the Spanish interregnum, as suggested by historical accounts (Kessell and Hendricks 1992:26). In fact,
in 1694 a coalition of Jemez and Tewa warriors attacked the Zias, demonstrating
that the strength of the Jemez-Tewa partnership endured nearly fourteen years
after Po’pay’s initial uprising (Kessell et al. 1998:320, 798).
The Jemez extended their alliances to other groups in addition to the Tewas
during this period as well. Vargas’s journals clearly state that Boletsakwa was
a multiethnic community, with the Jemez living there alongside allies from
Kewa (Santo Domingo Pueblo) (Kessell et al. 1995:416, 445; 1998:403, 406, 586).
“Apaches” (probably ancestral Navajo persons) were also lodged at Patokwa
alongside their Jemez brethren in 1692–93 (Kessell and Hendricks 1992:521–22).
And the population of Kotyiti comprised residents originally from Cochiti, San
Felipe, San Marcos, and (as noted above) likely some Tewa allies as well (Capone
and Preucel 2002).
alliances revealed through lithics
Ceramic production and trade weren’t the only change that occurred among
the Pueblos in the wake of 1680. X-ray fluorescence analyses of the obsidian
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table 5.1. XRF provenience of obsidian artifacts found at revolt-era sites of the Jemez Valley.
Numerals represent number of artifacts recovered from each site traced to that source.
LA No.
Site Name
Cerro
del
Medio
source
Cerro
Toledo
source
Paliza
Canyon
source
Bear
Springs
Peak
source
El
Rechuelos
Source
source
Unknown
N
(Total)
96
Patokwa
(1681–1716)
28
6
4
3
1
0
42
136
Boletsakwa
(1683–95)
24
10
14
6
0
0
54
2048
Cerro
Colorado
(1689–93)
31
6
2
7
0
0
46
1825
Astialakwa
(1693–94)
14
3
2
2
0
18
39
artifacts from Astialakwa, Patokwa, Boletsakwa, and Cerro Colorado document
concurrent shifts in patterns of lithic procurement during the era of Pueblo
independence that allude to the enduring bonds formed during this period as
well (Table 5.1). Most conspicuous is the lithic assemblage from Astialakwa,
which differs substantially from that of thirty-four other sites in the Jemez
region, including Patokwa, Boletsakwa, and Cerro Colorado. From the earliest
pre-Hispanic times through the 1680s, Jemez peoples obtained nearly all of their
obsidian from four local sources, with obsidian from the Cerro del Medio source
being the most prevalent in the assemblages of Patokwa, Boletsakwa, and Cerro
Colorado, and eighteen other ancestral Jemez sites.
However, after the return of the Spaniards in 1692 this pattern shifts. At
Astialakwa (founded and occupied between November 1693 and July 1694, see
Liebmann 2012:191), a substantial number of obsidian artifacts originated from
an unknown source that may be located in the Bearhead Peak area to the east
of the Jemez Province, a source not previously used by ancestral Jemez peoples
(Shackley 2005, 2012). At Astialakwa, 46 percent of the obsidian artifacts (n =
18) were manufactured out of this previously unknown source. Bearhead Peak
is an area sacred to the people of Cochiti, and this obsidian source is not only
the closest to Kotyiti, but it is farther from Astialakwa than any of the four primary obsidian sources that the Jemez used prior to the 1690s (specifically, the
Cerro del Medio, Cerro Toledo, Paliza Canyon, and Bear Springs Peak sources).
The most parsimonious explanation for the appearance of this new obsidian at
Astialakwa is that people migrating between Astialakwa and Kotyiti procured it
as they traveled between these villages. The most likely scenarios involve Jemez
warriors obtaining the this previously unused obsidian while traveling to aid in
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the defense of Kotyiti when it was attacked in April of 1694, Kotyiti warriors
bringing it to Astialakwa as they aided in the defense of that village when it was
attacked in July of that same year, or both. Either way, this conspicuous shift in
obsidian procurement is a material index of the alliances forged between the
Jemez of Astialakwa and the Keres of Kotyiti during the Pueblo Revolt era.
oN PUeblo factioNalisM
Bartolomé de Ojeda’s testimony suggests that the Pueblo world was not one of
unvarying alliances during the Spanish interregnum, however. Numerous lines
of evidence, from both documentary and archaeological data, suggest that factionalism was endemic to Pueblo communities between 1680 and 1694. Indeed,
Tewa anthropologist Ed Dozier notes that factionalism is a persistent condition
among contemporary Pueblo tribes. He links this phenomenon to the “authoritarian, totalitarian characteristics” of Pueblo societies, noting that “opposition to
the compulsory dictates of the Pueblo authorities . . . [has] resulted in frequent
factional disputes” from pre-Hispanic through modern times (Dozier 1966:175).
The study of Pueblo factionalism has a long history in Southwestern anthropology. Numerous scholars have reported on the prevalence of factionalism in
different Pueblo communities (Dozier 1966; Fenton 1957; Fox 1961; French 1949;
Pandey 1967; Whitman 1940, 1947). This research was part of a broader focus
on the adaptive role of temporary political conflicts on the survival of cultural groups. Commenting on the increasing importance of factionalism as an
anthropological concept in the late 1950s, Ted Lewellen (2003:104) noted, “It was
evident that in certain circumstances factions could be more adaptive than could
conventional politics in organizing and channeling political conflict, especially
during periods of rapid social change.” In some ways, this work can be seen as
a corrective to Ruth Benedict’s (1934) “culture and personality” thesis of Pueblo
people as “Apollonian,” passive, and peaceful.
More recently, scholars have reconceptualized factionalism as a dynamic social
process (Levy and Pepper 1992; Norcini 2005; Whiteley 1983, 1988). These studies
hold that factions are contingent political groupings centered on specific social
issues and based upon competition over new resources. Significantly, these scholars emphasize the agency of Pueblo people in assessing local political conditions
and charting their own futures. For example, Peter Whiteley (1983:41–44) has
shown that both of the factions associated with the famous Orayvi split sought
to resist oppression and acculturation by Americans. Similarly, Marilyn Norcini
(2005) has studied the political process resulting in the adoption of the 1935 Santa
Clara Constitution. She suggests that indigenous strategies have been underrepresented in the literature because of the neglect of local significance and meanings.
Archaeological studies have documented the existence of Pueblo factionalism
in pre-Hispanic and historical contexts alike (Herr and Clark 1997; Mills 2004).
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Van Dyke (2008:344) suggests that there were several decades of competition
between ritual leaders in Chaco Canyon that resulted in some moving to Aztec
to establish a new ritual center. Similarly, Wendy Ashmore (2007:194) speculates
that the collapse of Chaco was instigated by factionalism within a corporate
leadership organization. David Brugge (1969:191) links this pattern of factionalism to the historic period, arguing that “the effects of conquest, including forced
conversion and subjugation to white rule, did not ameliorate the condition in
any way, but supplied new issues around which the old factions could rally.”
From our perspective, the Pueblo Revolt period is a critical historical context,
ripe for the study of factionalism. While there is no question that factionalism is
endemic to many small-scale societies, we believe that there are important differences in the factionalism that emerged in precolonial and colonial situations. To
put it more clearly, Spanish colonialism raised the ante. As a complex system that
rapidly incorporated non-state actors into state-level societies, Spanish colonialism engendered new kinds of factions in its colonies in the Americas and beyond.
In the Southwest, it produced a variety of crosscutting social and political networks linking Pueblo and non-Pueblo, and Native and non-Native peoples.
Historical sources make clear the fact that Po’pay behaved increasingly despotically in the year following the famed Pueblo uprising (Liebmann 2012:77–79).
Such despotism is a factor specifically cited by Dozier in the fomenting of Pueblo
factionalism. It is easy to imagine other Pueblo leaders following Po’pay’s lead
during this period, as many of these leaders were likely part of his retinue before
he was deposed. At Patokwa, for example, a rift seems to have formed in the
community between 1681 and 1683. Ultimately the community split in two as a
result of this factionalism, with one group leaving Patokwa. This splinter group
traveled approximately ten kilometers to the east where its members founded
the new village of Boletsakwa. Tree-ring dates collected from the roof beams of
Boletsakwa confirm that the site was constructed in 1683 (Robinson et al. 1972:45).
The Jemez were not the only Pueblo group to split into factions in the wake
of the 1680 uprising. Factionalism seems to have characterized Isleta and Kewa
during this period as well (Hackett and Shelby 1942:2:357; Kessell et al. 1995:113,
416, 445). The divided nature of postrevolt Pueblos was most clearly evident at
Pecos, where a pro-Spanish faction had opposed a group of anticolonialists since
the time of Coronado in the 1540s. By the mid-seventeenth century the rift had
cleaved the residents of Pecos into two distinct settlements, with the Christian
contingent perching in the shadow of the mission church and the more conservative, “traditional” bloc remaining in the old north section of the village.
During the revolt the Christian citizens of Pecos smuggled the resident friar out
of harm’s way, while the “traditionalist” faction killed a second priest. Even with
their colonizers gone after the Revolt of 1680, Pecos remained a pueblo divided
(Kidder 1917, 1958:108; Kessell 1979:7, 26, 232–46).
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The factionalized nature of the Pueblos during the Spanish interregnum
was perhaps best summed up by a Tewa man from Tesuque Pueblo whom the
Spaniards captured in late 1681. When asked about the Pueblo peoples’ attitudes
regarding the possible return of their former colonizers, he confided that “they
were of different minds regarding it, because some said that if the Spaniards
should come [the Pueblos] would have to fight to the death, and others said
that in the end [the Spaniards] must come and gain the kingdom because they
were sons of the land and had grown up with the natives” (Hackett and Shelby
1942:2:235). Initially this incipient factionalism was based around pro- and antiSpanish contingents. But as time passed, these communal rifts were exacerbated
by the raids of Utes, Navajos, and Apaches (Liebmann 2012:95–98). As the testimony of another indio ladino (a Spanish-speaking Native who had been educated
in a mission by Franciscan friars) indicated to the Spaniards in the early 1680s:
“He said that it is true that there are various opinions among them, most of them
believing that they would have to fight to the death with the said Spaniards,
keeping them out. Others, who were not so guilty, said, ‘We are not to blame,
and we must await [the Spaniards] in our pueblos.’ And he said that when the
hostile Apaches came they denounced the leaders of the rebellion, saying that
when the Spaniards were among them they lived in security and quiet, and afterwards with much uneasiness” (Hackett and Shelby 1942:2:240). Such seems to
have been the case at the Jemez village of Patokwa, where tensions came to a
head in 1683. Ultimately the community of Patokwa cleaved in two, with one
group leaving to form the new settlement of Boletsakwa. The process of one village splitting into two (termed “schismatic factionalism”) appears to have been
a particularly common response to intra-Pueblo dissent in pre-Hispanic times,
when migration and settlement were unencumbered by the shackles of colonialism (Dozier 1966:172; Siegel and Beals 1960:394). Still, schismatic factionalism
has persisted among the Pueblos into modern times, exemplified in the famous
Orayvi split of 1906 at Hopi (Cameron 1999; Whiteley 1988, 2008). This pattern
was reestablished in the 1680s, when the dissident group from Patokwa split off
to found Boletsakwa.
animosities
The factionalism that was so prevalent within Pueblo communities in the wake
of the revolt was detrimental to the maintenance of the pan-Pueblo alliance
forged by Po’pay in 1680. Yet it paled in comparison with the disruptions caused
by the outright hostilities that developed between some of the Pueblos at this
time. Maybe the biggest rift formed between the Keres-speaking Zias and Santa
Anas with their Tewa neighbors to the north. Again, ceramics provide insight
into the relations among these groups both before and after 1680. The Zias seem
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to have maintained steady if not voluminous trade relations with the Tewas
prior the revolt, with Tewa wares comprising between 2 and 4 percent of prerevolt Zia ceramic assemblages (Ellis 1966:807–10). After 1680, however, this trade
ceased. While Tewa wares increased dramatically in the assemblages of the
nearby Jemez pueblos, at the Zia-Santa Ana refuge of Cerro Colorado, Tewa
ceramics are virtually nonexistent, composing just .1 percent (one sherd) of the
total ceramic assemblage.
Ceramic and documentary evidence suggests that the Zias and Santa Anas
became alienated from the Tewas by the late 1680s. Although we do not have
ceramic data to assess the relationship between these groups during the early
years of the revolt period (from 1680 to 1689), it appears that by the time the Zias
and Santa Anas were living at Cerro Colorado (1689–94) they were no longer
in regular contact with the Tewas, as evidenced by the nearly complete lack of
Tewa pottery found there. The cause of this rift is unknown, though it is tempting to speculate that the Zias’ lackluster participation in the 1680 uprising and
subsequent reluctance to follow Po’pay’s commands in the wake of the revolt
(leaving their church intact and not killing the priest) may have earned their
reprobation from the Tewas (Liebmann 2011:206–11). In fact, the Zias reportedly
offered their prospective obedience to the Spaniards just a year after the revolt,
in the event that the Spaniards would have been successful in reconquering the
region in 1681 (Hackett and Shelby 1942:2:387). This course of action would have
earned Po’pay’s reproach and was likely the origin of the rift between the Tewas
and the Zia and Santa Ana residents of Cerro Colorado.
coNclUsioNs
Spanish historical documents indicate that factionalism and hostilities erupted
among the Pueblos during the postrevolt period. However, our results reveal
that an enduring alliance existed among the Tewa, Jemez, and Keres of Kotyiti.
Much of the Tewa pottery at Kotyiti was likely made by Tewa refugees, some
of whom may have come with Juan Griego, a leader from Ohkay Owingeh.
The increase in Tewa pottery at the Jemez sites of Astialakwa, Patokwa, and
Boletsakwa indicates more frequent interactions between Jemez and Tewa people, if not the presence of actual Tewa people at those villages. Vargas learned
of this alliance during his siege at Tunyo. This coalition-of-the-unwilling also
included people from Kewa, and several accounts refer to Kewa people living
with the Jemez on the mesas (at Boletsakwa). These findings seem to contradict
Ojeda’s statements that “the Keres” were at war with “the Tewas” during the
late seventeenth century. Ojeda’s homogenization of linguistic-ethnic groups as
unitary federations glosses over the subtleties and nuances of these disputes. It
is true that friction, if not outright conflict, existed between the Tewas and some
Keres people—notably the Zias and Santa Anas. But the Keres of Kotyiti, as well
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as those living in the Jemez Province, were allies of the Tewas during this period.
While this superficial glossing could have resulted from Ojeda’s limited purview,
more likely it reflects the less-nuanced ear of a Spanish scribe who recorded the
gist of his testimony but omitted important caveats.
Other pueblos appear to have joined and left this coalition at various times
throughout the 1680s–90s. The Tano pueblos of San Lázaro and San Cristóbal
left the Ohkay (San Juan) people at Embudo to join the main Tewa force at
Tunyo. However, the San Felipe people at Kotyiti fell out with the Cochiti
leadership and left the community to build their own mesa village. Strong ties
persisted among many of the other Keres groups. Vargas was particularly worried that the Keres of Cochiti would succeed in enlisting the support of the
Keres of Zia, San Felipe, and Santa Ana (Kessell et al. 1998:138). Thus although
there was some inter-Pueblo conflict during the revolt era, the core of resistance—the Tewa/Jemez/Kotyiti alliance—appears to have persisted throughout
the Spanish interregnum.
To return to our original question, why did the pan-Pueblo alliance break
down after the Pueblo Revolt? In truth, the alliance didn’t so much break down
after 1680 as it was continually renegotiated by Pueblo leaders in response to
changing needs within each postrevolt community. The instability of centralized leadership is understandable since there was no Pueblo tradition of a single
supreme leader (Beninato 1990). The characterization of Po’pay as the primary
instigator served the Spaniards’ purpose of identifying a scapegoat, but it also
neglects the agency of other important leaders, such as Alonso Catiti, El Zepe,
Luis Cunixu, and Antonio Malacate. These individuals played key roles in the
planning and execution of the revolt. Significantly, these leaders made their own
decisions to ally with or oppose the Spanish colonizers during the reconquest.
Ultimately, those decisions shaped the course of the Spanish-Pueblo relations for
the next century and beyond.
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(LA 1825) Jemez. Valley, New Mexico.” Unpublished manuscript in possession of the
authors.
Siegel, Bernard J, and Alan R Beals. 1960. “Pervasive Factionalism.” American
Anthropologist 62 (3): 394–417. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.1960.62.3.02a00020.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. 1914. The Spanish Archives of New Mexico. 2 vols. Cedar
Rapids: Torch Press.
Van Dyke, Ruth M. 2008. The Chaco Experience: Landscape and Ideology at the Center Place.
Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.
Warren, A. Helene. 1976. “The Ceramics and Mineral Resources of LA 70 and the
Cochiti Area.” In Archaeological Excavations at Pueblo del Encierro, LA 70, Cochiti Dam
Salvage. Project, Cochiti, New Mexico, Final Report: 1954–1965 Field Seasons, edited by
D. H. Snow, B1–184. Santa Fe: Laboratory of Anthropology Notes, Museum of New
Mexico.
Warren, A. Helene. 1979. “Historic Pottery of the Cochiti Reservoir Area.” In Adaptive
Change in the Northern Rio Grande Valley. Archaeological Investigations. in the
Cochiti Reservoir, New Mexico, vol. 4, , edited by J. Biella and R. Chapman, 235–45.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico.
Whiteley, Peter M. 1983. Third Mesa Hopi Social Structural Dynamics and Sociocultural
Change: The View from Bacavi. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology,
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
Whiteley, Peter M. 1988. Bacavi: Journey to Reed Springs. Flagstaff: Northland Press.
Whiteley, Peter M. 2008. The Orayvi Split: A Hopi Transformation. Anthropological Papers
of the American Museum of Natural History, No. 87. New York: American Museum of
Natural History.
Whitman, William. 1940. The San Ildefonso of New Mexico. New York: D. AppletonCentury.
Whitman, William. 1947. The Pueblo Indians of San Ildefonso: A Changing Culture. New
York: Columbia University Press.
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comanche New Mexico
The Eighteenth Century
S e v e r i n Fow l e S , J i m m y a r T e r b e r ry,
l i n d Say m o n T G o m e ry, a n d h e aT h e r aT h e r T o n
iNtroDUctioN
Traditional accounts of the eighteenth-century world in the American Southwest
often make reference to “Spanish New Mexico.” Spaniards may have been wildly
outnumbered by the surrounding indigenous communities, and their political
control may have been patchy and tenuous. But this rarely prevents scholars
from drawing a circle around the region and labeling it Spanish. A European
colony, it is assumed, is still a European colony, even if it is a very small and
powerless one.
Increasingly, however, this position is coming under fire. Some of the strongest critiques have emerged within Pueblo communities, many of which now
openly reject the language of “Spanish conquest.” Europeans, they observe,
may have invaded the Southwest at the end of the sixteenth century—and
then again at the end of the seventeenth century following the Pueblo Revolt—
but they never “conquered” the region in any meaningful sense of the term.
With respect to the eighteenth century in particular, some Pueblo commentators are quick to point out that Spaniards were economically and militarily
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dependent on indigenous communities, with little actual power to impose their
will (see John G. Douglass and William M. Graves, chapter 1 in this volume).
Certainly the metal-clad immigrants from the south rattled their sabers, made
proclamations, and founded settlements (many of which, during the mideighteenth century, remained so weak as to be periodically abandoned), but
asserting dominance is not the same thing as achieving dominance. An aspirational colonialism is merely that. From this perspective, we are still looking at a
“Pueblo New Mexico” in which Europeans participated but as neither the sole
nor even the primary authors. Pueblo critics, in other words, are challenging
us to reimagine the eighteenth century as a time of indigenous history-making, the goal being to rewrite this early chapter of the “Historic period” as
a veritable “Pueblo V period,” that much neglected extension of the Pecos
Classification recently championed by Matthew Liebmann (2012a).1 Indeed, the
new trend among the Rio Grande Pueblos to formally reinstate indigenous
toponyms—to take down signs for “San Juan Pueblo,” for instance, and replace
them with signs for “Ohkay Owingeh”—might be interpreted as contributions
to this reimagining.
Historians, for their part, have also sought alternatives to Eurocentric accounts
of the colonial Southwest. Since the 1970s, contributors to the so-called New
Indian History have cast a spotlight on the perspectives and political agendas
of native actors in the tug-and-pull of colonial power struggles, redressing a
long-standing tendency to typecast American Indian societies as anachronistic obstacles to Euro-American progress whose primary discursive role was to
stand in for a primordial wildness that had no choice but to succumb to the
inexorable advance of civilization.2 Indeed, old myths of the vanishing Indian—
however much they still circulate in popular White discourse—are themselves
vanishing from much academic writing. And even if the narrative forms and
framing categories within the New Indian History remain decidedly EuroAmerican in their overall orientation (see Mihesuah 1998), there can be little
question that the attention to native protagonists offers an important rejoinder
to earlier accounts.
Nowhere is this more spectacularly evident than in contemporary commentary on the political history of the Comanches, that most notoriously militant
of Native American tribes. The Comanche past is extraordinary: at the start of
the colonial era, their ancestors were Shoshonean hunter-gatherers living in
small camps dispersed throughout northern Colorado and Wyoming; during
the final decade of the seventeenth century, they acquired horses and quickly
remade themselves into the most skilled equestrian warriors and long-distance
traders in North America; by the mid-eighteenth century, they had ousted the
Apache from the Southern Plains and emerged as a continental power; and into
the mid-nineteenth century, they were key players in an expanding regional
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economy of horses, slaves, hides, and guns that eventually extended from the
Canadian Plains deep into northern Mexico (see John 1996; Kavanagh 1996).
Unlike many other native groups, then, the Comanches have always been seen
as agents of Southwestern history in the nonnative imagination. However, until
quite recently their agency was inevitably written about as a wild barbarism
bent on destruction. Most historical commentary, that is, has portrayed the tribe
as possessing a negative agency that didn’t so much pursue goals as frustrate
those of others—foiling the northern expansion of Spain in the eighteenth century, upending the lives of Apaches and other native occupants of the Southern
Plains, and delaying the westward expansion of the United States well into the
nineteenth century. As the title of one early work put it, historians studied “The
Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement” (Richardson 1933).
The older specter of negative agency hasn’t gone away. On the contrary, the
most widely read recent history of the tribe is S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the
Summer Moon, a New York Times best seller that recounts Comanche history with
all the dark zeal for primitive violence that one finds in mid-twentieth century
Westerns such as The Searchers (1956, directed by John Ford). In Gwynne’s pen,
the Comanches transformed the Southwest into a veritable war zone, “an open
and bleeding wound, a smoking ruin littered with corpses and charred chimneys,
a place where anarchy and torture killings had replaced the rule of law, where
Indians and especially Comanches raided at will” (Gwynne 2010:3). No doubt this
remains the White public’s dominant image. But within contemporary academic
scholarship, the look of Comanche history is changing rapidly, primarily due to
the efforts of Pekka Hämäläinen, whose The Comanche Empire presents us with
a bold new vision of the Southwest in which the dominant actors were neither
Hispano nor Pueblo, but Comanche. “When Comanches subjected Texas and
New Mexico to systematic raiding of horses, mules, and captives, draining wide
sectors of those productive resources, they in effect turned the [European] colonies into [Native American] imperial possessions,” he suggests. “That Spanish
Texas and New Mexico remained unconquered by Comanches is not a historical
fact; it is a matter of perspective” (Hämäläinen 2008:5).
What are we to make of the fact that some historians now write of an eighteenth-century Comanche conquest of New Mexico—of a “Comanche New
Mexico,” as it were, rather than a Spanish or Pueblo New Mexico? How, in particular, are we to understand Hämäläinen’s provocative notion of a reversed
colonialism in which European colonists suddenly found themselves in the position of the colonized? And how, in the end, are we, as archaeologists, to respond
to the new vision of a veritable Comanche empire in the Southwest? How
indeed, when a century of research on the archaeology of colonial New Mexico
still hasn’t produced a single published example of a “Comanche” site in the
region?3 Could it be that we’ve simply missed the archaeological traces of an
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entire Native American empire that has been there all along, unacknowledged,
just beneath our nose?
There are many issues to deal with here, not least the notion of “empire” itself.
A number of historians have written loosely about a Comanche empire in the
Southwest, but Hämäläinen takes this idea seriously, and he does so for at least
three reasons. First, to speak of a Comanche imperial project is to radicalize the
question of native agency, pushing the agenda of the New Indian History to its
furthest extent. It is not just that Native Americans were actors who pursued
their own local goals in the face of European colonialism; now we are encouraged to imagine far bolder Native American actors with geopolitical aspirations
and strategies that rivaled and sometimes eclipsed those of Europeans.
Second, the notion of a Comanche empire further challenges us to expand our
understanding of “empire” as a cross-cultural analytical category. Clearly, the
Comanches were not attempting to build a regional polity following Roman or
Incan models. They were not, in other words, interested in conquering foreign
territories so as to turn them into Comanche provinces ruled by Comanche governors. “Their aim,” proposes Hämäläinen (2008:4–5), “was not to conquer and
colonize, but to coexist, control, and exploit. Whereas more traditional imperial powers ruled by making things rigid and predictable, Comanches ruled by
keeping them fluid and malleable.” If the Comanches can be said to have ruled
an empire, then it was more of an economic than a political empire. Thousands
of mounted Comanche soldiers regularly maneuvered throughout the Plains,
New Mexico, Texas, and northern Mexico to engage in a complicated and evershifting combination of diplomacy and warfare. But their goal was to extract
resources and maintain access to markets, rather than to obtain political subjugation. In this sense, one might draw a parallel with the so-called Mongolian
shadow empires of the Eurasian steppe (Barfield 2001), though Hämäläinen’s
central point seems to be that we should seek to understand the alterity of
Comanche political organization on its own terms, without reducing it to existing anthropological or historical models derived from other cultural traditions.
Third, and perhaps most important, the notion of a Comanche empire
pushes back against the persistent tendency to portray American westward
expansion during the nineteenth century as a civilizing process whereby order
was introduced into an organizational void. Indeed, Hämäläinen argues that
the regional might of the Comanches was actively forgotten precisely in order
to legitimize the American takeover of the West. The result was an insidious form of national amnesia that began to set in on the heels of the Treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and then, more deeply, after the Comanches
finally surrendered to the US military at Fort Sill in 1875. “Comanches ruled
the Southwest for well over a century,” concludes Hämäläinen, “but they left
behind no marks of their dominance. There were no deserted fortresses or
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decaying monuments to remind the [American] newcomers of the complex
imperial history they were displacing. Envisioning a new kind of empire, one
of cities, railroads, agricultural hinterlands, and real estate, Americans set
out to tame, commodify, and carve up the land . . . With each new layer of
American progress, the memory of the Comanches and their former power
grew dimmer” (Hämäläinen 2008:342). Again, his suggestion is that this erasure
of Comanche history has been an implicit part of America’s own imperialistic
project (see also DeLay 2008). Thus, by rereading colonial archives to bring this
indigenous empire to light, revisionist historians could be said to participate in
a broader postcolonial critique.
towarD aN archaeoloGy of coMaNche New Mexico
Our goal in this chapter is to explore how archaeology might contribute to this
revisionist effort. Whether or not one is willing to take the notion of a Comanche
empire seriously, there is no question that the tribe exerted a strong influence
on both native and nonnative communities across an impressive swath of North
America during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. And while historians’ reliance on written colonial archives may lead them to conclude that the
Comanches “left behind no marks of their dominance,” we take this apparent
invisibility as a beginning point for research—as an archaeological challenge to
uncover whatever material traces may still exist.
We are particularly interested in the Comanche presence in New Mexico during the early eighteenth century, at a time when the tribe was still developing its
equestrian adaptation and readying itself for a takeover of the Southern Plains,
which would become its base of operations for more than a century beginning
in the 1740s. During this formative period in the emergence of Comanche identity, the tribe’s relationship with the northern Rio Grande Pueblo communities
was vital. The Taos region, in particular, could be said to stand at the heart of
Comanche ethnogenesis. This was a region with extensive pasturage for large
herds of Spanish horses, which the Comanches’ relatives, the Utes, were poised
to acquire after the Pueblos drove the Spanish out in 1680. As the horse made its
way north through native trade networks into Comanche hands, new economic
and military potentials were unleashed. Within a generation, the distribution
of power in the northern Rio Grande was profoundly transformed. Returning
to the region at the end of the seventeenth century, the Spanish discovered that
both they and the Pueblo communities now had to contend with the repeated
invasions of a new kind of indios bárbaros: mounted nomads who could strike
with great speed and military agility over long distances.
The first potential written references to the Comanche appear on French maps
from the 1680s, during the period of Spanish exile. The French regularly reported
the presence of a group known as the Padouca at the northeastern edge of New
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Mexico, often in the vicinity of the headwaters of the Arkansas River, not far
from Taos. In later mid-eighteenth century documents, Padouca was clearly used
by the French as a term for Comanche—or perhaps for a particular Comanche
band—but historians have long disagreed over whether the earliest mentions of
“Padouca” might have instead referred to an Apache band or simply to those living
in the Arkansas headwaters region, regardless of language and culture (see Secoy
1951). We consider this as an open question, complicated of course by two of the
central facts of the colonial period: first, many indigenous identities were undergoing substantial transformation and, second, colonial authorities often knew
almost nothing about indigenous groups, particularly about the highly nomadic
groups whose home territories were far from colonial settlements.4
Some ancestral Comanches surely began to visit northern New Mexico during the late seventeenth century, most likely in the company of the Ute, whose
long history of occupation immediately northwest of Taos would have given
them both an intimate knowledge of the landscape and established access to
Pueblo trade networks. The subsequent ethnic divisions between various
Numic-speaking tribes (Ute, Paiute, Shoshone, Comanche, etc.) would have
then just been emerging, as the return of the Spanish to the New Mexico and the
spread of European technologies impacted native worlds throughout the region.
Indeed, while some archaeologists have sought to naturalize Comanche military
aggression—presenting it as a deeply precolonial pattern that was merely accentuated by the adoption of the horse (Sutton 1986)—Blackhawk (2007) makes
a compelling argument that Comanche ethnogenesis must be understood as
a complex response to a new landscape of colonial violence that rippled out
from Spanish New Mexico, creating new possibilities and economic rationales
for raiding and captive-taking.
Be that as it may, the greater Taos area was clearly a key locus of self-fashioning
for the Comanches at the start of the eighteenth century. The tribe’s early horse
herds were primarily obtained from this region. In fact, local Hispano oral traditions still include stories about how the initial Comanche herds were built up
through raids on settlements a short distance south of the modern town of Taos.
Insofar as the tribe’s historic identity is inseparable from an equestrian lifestyle,
one might say that Taos was where the Comanches truly became “Comanche.”
Full-blown Comanche militarism also saw its beginnings in the Taos region.
In 1706, en route to El Cuartelejo to retrieve the remnants of the Picuris Tribe,
Juan de Ulibarri stopped at Taos Pueblo and learned from the local leaders that
the threat of Ute and Comanche aggression was palpably felt. “They were very
certain that the infidel enemies of the Ute and Comanche tribe were about to
come to make an attack upon this pueblo,” Ulibarri wrote (Thomas 1935:61).
Marching a short distance northeast of Taos, Ulibarri also learned that combined Ute and Comanche attacks had taken a heavy toll on Apache settlements
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(rancherías). This marked the beginning of a drawn-out competition between
the Comanche and the Apache that would eventually lead to the latter’s retreat
from the Southern Plains.
Comanchería proper was more or less established during the 1740s. The
confederated Comanche bands, greatly enlarged by the influx of captives
and refugees, secured control of the Southern Plains’ vast grasslands, which
became the ecological foundation for the two cornerstones of the Comanche
economy: buffalos and horses (see Hämäläinen 2010). By mid-century, the
Comanche had split with their former Ute allies and assumed a position of
dominance across a large region from Wyoming down into northern Mexico.
Taos continued to serve as a strategic center for Comanche economic and
political ambitions, however, both as a major market—during the 1700s, the
Taos trade fairs were rivaled only by those at Pecos Pueblo—and as a target for
continued raids. “Whether they are at peace or at war,” wrote Fray Francisco
Atanasio Domínguez (1956:112) in 1776, “the Comanches always carry off all
they want, by purchase in peace and by theft in war.” The Comanches were so
comfortable navigating the Taos landscape during this period that they sometimes brought over a thousand horses from their herd to feed on the lush grassy
meadows near Taos Pueblo when the dry season limited pasturage on the
Plains (Domínguez 1956:111). In contrast, the vecinos living in the region were
notably constrained in their use of the landscape and its resources; throughout
much of the mid-eighteenth century, few had horses at all and the threat of
Comanche raiding forced most of the colonists to live within the walls of Taos
Pueblo for protection ( Jenkins 1966:98).
There is no question that the Comanches were regular visitors to the Taos
region during the critical period when they were emerging as a militarized equestrian society with regional economic ambitions. Hämäläinen (2008:83) goes so
far as to write of eighteenth-century Taos Pueblo as “a virtual Comanche satellite,” whose loyalties most frequently lay not with the Spanish officials but with
the powerful and wealthy Comanches who dominated trade in slaves, horses,
bison meat, and hides. If one is to talk of an emergent Comanche empire, then
Taos, it seems, should be viewed as a kind of imperial outpost. And yet, prior to
the research reported herein, no Comanche sites had been identified in the Taos
region despite many decades of archaeological survey.
Compare this situation with the great many Jicarilla Apache sites that dot
the Taos landscape (see Eiselt 2009, 2012, 2013; Girard 1986; Johnson et al. 2009;
Woosley and Olinger 1990). The Jicarilla’s presence is indeed strong and archaeologically visible. On the one hand, the Jicarilla’s heightened visibility is itself
linked to the influence of the Comanches, for it was only after the Comanches’
militarized thrust into the Southern Plains that the Jicarilla were forced to seek
permanent refuge in the northern Rio Grande. On the other hand, the Jicarilla
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displayed remarkable resilience. As Eiselt (2013) has carefully documented, they
developed a distinctive enclave economy focused on exchange of micaceous
pottery and upland resources, which served as important supplements to the
agricultural products of lowland Hispano and Pueblo communities. Reduced
mobility and the relatively liberal use of durable remains such as pottery, chipped
stone, and metal, as well as a strategic willingness to accept Christianity and to
appear in Catholic baptismal records—all of this enhances our archaeological
perception of the Jicarilla presence.
The Comanches, in contrast, have traditionally been viewed as the destroyers rather than the creators of sites. In fact, beyond their regular appearance
at Taos trade fairs, the most memorable Comanche incident in the region is
surely the 1760 attack on Taos Pueblo and its surrounding ranches, including
the Villalpando compound, the largest Hispano settlement near Taos. Shortly
afterward, Bishop Tamarón offered a brief report, observing that nearly 3,000
Comanches had besieged Taos, killing many, taking fifty-six women and children as captives, and leaving smoldering structures in ruin (Adams 1954:58;
Hämäläinen 2008:51–52). The large-scale attack was in response to a direct
insult: some months earlier, Taos had flaunted Comanche scalps in front of
a Comanche audience at one of the pueblo’s scalp dances ( John 1996:330).
Nevertheless, these sorts of incidents have left us with the impression that the
archaeological signature of the Comanches in the Taos region—were one to
go looking for such a thing—would primarily be found in the charred remains
of destroyed Hispano, Pueblo, and Jicarilla Apache sites. As in other parts of
New Mexico, “Comanche archaeology” continues to be understood primarily
in negative terms.
testiMoNy of the rio GraNDe GorGe
Recent surveys in the Rio Grande Gorge, just west of Taos, are beginning to
change this impression, however, bringing to light a previously unknown diversity of Comanche sites. The Rio Grande Gorge (Figure 6.1) is a rugged rift valley
filled with talus ridges, scree slopes, and cliffs that cut down sharply into the
Taos plateau. As such, it has remained largely unsettled, posing a major barrier
to movement in the region. But the gorge does have the advantage of being a
hidden subterranean space with occasional sediment-filled basins that are today
covered with weedy sagebrush but that prior to the ravages of late nineteenthcentury sheepherding would have been filled with grasses suitable for equestrian
camps. Indeed, anyone on horseback looking for a hideout while planning trading or raiding expeditions would have found a number of excellent options in
the gorge.
This is particularly true in the vicinity of the confluence of the Rio Grande
and the Rio Pueblo, where the gorge broadens somewhat and includes a great
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fiGUre 6.1. The Vista Verde Site (LA 75747), located within Rio Grande Gorge at the confluence of the Rio Grande and the Rio Pueblo—in easy striking distance of a number of
eighteenth-century Native American and European settlements.
series of secluded and easily defensible basins accessible via old trails that had
likely been in use for many millennia. During the eighteenth century, the Rio
Grande–Rio Pueblo confluence was also roughly equidistant from a number of
key communities in northern New Mexico—Taos Pueblo, Picuris Pueblo, Ohkay
Owingeh Pueblo, Embudo (present-day Dixon), Abiquiú—each of which could
be reached within a half day’s horse ride. What had previously been a kind of
interstitial no-man’s land between pueblo centers would have offered, during the
colonial era, a strategic location for mounted traders and raiders. As discussed
below, it is precisely in this location that the strongest evidence of a Comanche
presence has been found.
The first mounted tribes to camp in the Rio Grande Gorge appear to have
been the Jicarilla and Ute, both of whom were early converts to an equestrian lifestyle. Jicarilla sites dating from the seventeenth century through the
mid-nineteenth century are relatively easily identified by the presence of thin
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micaceous pottery and a light distribution of metal artifacts in association
with small tipi rings (2–2.5 meters diameter). Jicarilla rock art remains poorly
defined, but our research has suggested that it can be broadly characterized as lightly pecked with a frequent focus on shield-bearers, morning stars,
Mountain Spirit headdresses, horses, and the like (Figure 6.2). In fact, the earliest images of equestrian battles in the Rio Grande Gorge were probably created
by Athapaskan groups during the seventeenth century when the Apache and
Navajo posed the most significant military threat to both native and nonnative
communities. At the Lightning Arrow Site near the Rio Grande–Rio Pueblo
confluence, for instance, we have documented numerous pecked battle scenes;
most warriors are on foot, but there is at least one mounted warrior depicted
astride a “boat form” horse (Figure 6.2A), which James Keyser (1987) argues is
among the earliest horse forms in the Plains Biographic Tradition of rock art.
Significantly, three Jicarilla micaceous pot drops and one probable tipi clearing were located in close association with the pecked rock art at the Lightning
Arrow Site, strengthening the claim for Jicarilla affiliation. Indeed, this Apachean
rock art tradition appears to have continued well into the nineteenth century, as
evidenced by additional pecked battle scene images at another site in the gorge,
just to the south, that was explicitly identified as having a Jicarilla affiliation by
tribal consultants (Figure 6.2C).
The Ute occupation of the Rio Grande Gorge is more difficult to document,
though this is surely due to a lack of research attention rather than the absence
of Ute sites in the region (but see Montgomery 2015, in press). We know that at
the onset of Spanish colonialism, the Ute already had deep historical roots in
southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, a fact that is still commented
on at Taos Pueblo, where a long history of relations and intermarriage with the
Ute is quickly acknowledged. The nearest Ancestral Ute sites that have been
identified with confidence, however, are at the northern edge of the Taos region,
near the Rio Grande–Rio Hondo confluence, where pecked and abraded rock
art panels with distinctive iconography (e.g., oversized bears and elks, pluralities
of small quadrupeds, and almost Fremont-like anthropomorphs) are found in
direct association with brownware pottery (Figure 6.3).5
These traces of a late pre-Hispanic Ute presence are significant insofar as it
was the Ute’s familiarity with the Taos region that facilitated the Comanches’
entrance. Not only did the Comanches probably receive their first horses from
their Ute cousins, whose proximity to liberated Spanish herds during the Pueblo
Revolt era led them to be key middlemen in the early horse trade; the Ute are also
known to have regularly enlisted Comanche muscle in their raids on northern
New Mexico during the early eighteenth century. The Comanches’ perception
of the New Mexican landscape, in this sense, would have been initially guided,
quite literally, by the Ute.
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fiGUre 6.2. Probable Jicarilla Apache rock art from the Rio Grande Gorge: A and B: lightly
pecked rock art at the Lightning Arrow Site, near the confluence of the Rio Grande and the Rio
Pueblo (probably late seventeenth century); C and D: pecked rock art at the Pilar Morada Site
(LA 55948), near the confluence of the Rio Grande and the Arroyo Cieneguilla (probably late
eighteenth or early nineteenth century).
fiGUre 6.3. Lightly abraded and pecked rock art at the Manby Trailhead Site (LA 102341).
This panel and a cluster of others were found in association with brownware pottery, and are
likely affiliated with the ancestral Ute occupation of the Taos region.
One gets a good sense of this at the most impressive of the eighteenthcentury sites in the gorge: the Vista Verde Site (LA 75747) (Figures 6.1 and 6.4),
located directly opposite of the Rio Grande–Rio Pueblo confluence, quite
close to the Apachean material at the Lightning Arrow Site, discussed above.
The Vista Verde Site has been a focus of sustained research since 2008; it is the
largest site in the Rio Grande Gorge, with a striking density of rock art panels
encircling a large flat basin bounded by rugged basalt talus ridges. Archaic and
Ancestral Pueblo individuals visited the area for millennia, at least to a limited
extent, as evidenced by rock art and isolated projectile points. Extensive use of
the Vista Verde Site, however, appears to have only begun during the early colonial period. In the course of a magnetic gradiometer survey of the central basin
in 2009, for instance, a large buried feature (roughly twenty by fifteen meters)
resembling a horseshoe-shaped dance ground was located. The feature exhibits
a clear opening to the southeast and three pronounced dipole anomalies along
its northwestern edge that may represent bonfires, as well as evidence of at least
one large tipi ring in direct association a few meters away (Goodmaster 2011).
Subsequent conversations with consultants from the Ute Mountain nation have
suggested that this buried archaeological complex may be an early Bear Dance
ground, which the ancestral Ute are known to have constructed in the region
during the early colonial period (Terry Knight, personal communication, 2010).
If the Vista Verde Site was indeed an established gathering place in the Rio
Grande Gorge for the Ute, it makes sense that it would have been selected as a
base camp for combined forces of Ute and Comanche raiders during the early
eighteenth century. Surface mapping within the central basin immediately north
of the buried dance ground revealed the presence of a large encampment composed of two dozen or more tipi rings. The absence of micaceous pottery in
association with the tipi rings makes a Jicarilla affiliation unlikely, despite the
Jicarilla’s strong archaeological presence in neighboring portions of the gorge.
In fact, essentially no cultural artifacts—beyond the tipi rings themselves—seem
to have been left on the surface of the site; not even hearths were constructed
within the tipis, suggesting that this was a “cold camp,” similar to those created
by Plains warriors in advance of a raid.
Unlike the relatively ambiguous architectural and artifactual evidence at the
site, the hundreds of rock art panels that surround the tipi compound offer a
world of interpretive possibilities, insofar as those who camped there seem to
have been compelled to document their presence, often in extraordinary detail.
The rock art is unusual and diverges in both its technology and iconographic
content from prior traditions in the region. Almost all other local rock art is
pecked, for instance, the artists having used stone and, later, metal tools to break
through the dark patina of basalt boulders to expose the light interior. Indeed,
pecking characterizes all known Archaic, Pueblo, Jicarilla Apache, Ute, and
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fiGUre 6.4. Map of the central tipi encampment (Area 6) at the Vista Verde Site. The highlighted area presents the magnetic gradiometer detail highlighting the possible dance ground
and tipi complex at the southern edge of the encampment.
Hispano petroglyph traditions in this part of the Southwest (e.g., see Schaafsma
1992; Slifer 1998). The dominant rock art of the Vista Verde Site, in contrast, was
produced by lightly scratching and abrading with metal tools, leaving behind
glyphs that barely (if at all) break through the patina of the rock. The overall
result has little visual impact and is often impossible to see in direct sunlight, a
fact that has led the imagery to be overlooked by past researchers.
The relative inscrutability of the scratched rock art, however, provides an
important clue. Clearly, this is a technological tradition that did not develop
locally; it is very poorly adapted to hard basalt of the Rio Grande Gorge. The
most plausible interpretation is that it evolved in an area with softer rock, such
as the extensive sandstones of northern Colorado and Wyoming in the ancestral
Comanche territory, where the same artistic gesture using the same tools results
in a deeper and much more visible glyph: an “incised” rather than merely a
“scratched” icon, in other words.
The iconographic content of the images supports this interpretation nicely.
As should be evident in Figures 6.5–6.11, the rock art at the Vista Verde Site
depicts a wide range of Plains-style imagery including tipis, mounted horses,
battle scenes, horse raids, warriors, shields, parfleches, and more. Many of
the glyphs find parallels in Keyser’s (1987, 2004; see also Loendorf 2008) Plains
Biographic Tradition, which originated in the ancestral Comanche region and
was dominated by incised imagery on sandstone cliff faces. By the end of the
eighteenth century the Plains Biographic Tradition had spread across much of
central North America, from northern Mexico to southern Alberta—effectively
characterizing the area of regular Comanche incursions following their conquest of the Southern Plains in the 1740s.
Part of what makes the rock art of the Vista Verde Site so intriguing, however,
is that it appears to have been produced very early on in the development of
the Biographic Tradition by mounted warriors who were just beginning their
expansionist push into New Mexico. Rock art is notoriously difficult to position
temporally, but in this case we are assisted by two key details. First, the imagery includes abundant evidence of indigenous equestrianism, indicating that it
dates to a time after the Pueblo Revolt (1680–92), when Spanish horses first made
their way into native hands in significant numbers. Second, the Vista Verde Site
rock art also exhibits a near absence of gun icons, which is notable insofar as
later Biographic Tradition imagery typically displays guns prominently. During
the 1740s, French guns began to be widely traded among Plains tribes, and
colonial correspondence discussing the situation at Taos reported that visiting
Comanches were well supplied during this period (Twitchell 1911:440). Had guns
been present at the Vista Verde Site, we assume they would have been regularly
depicted, as was indeed the case in most subsequent Biographic Tradition imagery. This, then, provides us with a reasonable terminus ante quem.
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fiGUre 6.5.
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (detail of Panel
2014-009A).
fiGUre 6.6.
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (Panel 2008-353).
fiGUre 6.7.
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (Panel 2008-408A).
This conclusion is broadly supported by details from the panels that the
Comanche did create. Figure 6.5, for instance, is a detail from one panel at the
Vista Verde Site depicting a classic Plains scene: a group of mounted and pedestrian warriors are pursing three bison, just outside the detail in the lower right of
the panel. Seven of the warriors ride horses, their status being signified by long
flowing war bonnets. One of the mounted warriors is depicted with a shield
and buffalo horn headdress, a signature element of Comanche regalia. Below
them are five additional pedestrian warriors; each has his shield, one holds a club,
and three seem to wield lances. The combination of mounted and pedestrian
warriors might itself point to an early eighteenth-century date, but so too does
the most notable detail in this panel, namely, the body covering that shields a
number of the horses. Depictions of horse body armor have been previously
found in rock art at a handful of sites to the north of Taos in the ancestral
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fiGUre 6.8. Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (Panel 2008-374B, overlying graffiti removed).
Comanche territory of Colorado and Wyoming (Mitchell 2004), and this imagery speaks both to a Comanche affiliation (the Comanche were one of the few
tribes to armor their horses) and to the chronology of the Vista Verde Site generally. The Comanche produced and used thick sheets of bison hide as armor only
during the first half of the eighteenth century, mimicking the Spanish use of
metal horse armor. The last archival reference to this practice was in 1751 (Secoy
1951:532), after which the widespread availability of guns rendered the cumbersome hide armor an ineffective strategy of defense.
The chronological outlines we are left with—roughly ad 1700–50—effectively
bracket the early period of combined Comanche and Ute raiding in the northern Rio Grande valley.6 And as we have suggested, the influence of both tribes
might be read into the site: the location, perhaps, was selected by the Ute, while
the imagery bears strong Comanche influence. This, we think, is a reasonable
interpretation that is consistent with colonial records and local oral histories, as
well as with many details within the rock art itself.
Regarding the latter, it is worth highlighting one rock art panel (Figure 6.6) at
the Vista Verde Site in which certain noteworthy details lend additional support to
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fiGUre 6.9.
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (Panel 2008-298).
Scratched and abraded rock art from the Vista Verde Site (Panel 2008-059, overlying graffiti removed).
fiGUre 6.10.
fiGUre 6.11. A. Panel 2009-234 at the Vista Verde Site (overlying graffiti removed). B. Rock
art details from the Tolar Site, Wyoming (based upon Loendorf and Olsen 2003).
a specifically Comanche affiliation. The panel illustrates a tipi encampment under
attack. One can clearly identify a cluster of sixteen tipis as well the many mounted
warriors of the camp, all facing left. The aggressors are facing right, and among
them is a dominant warrior, leaping over a tipi at the top of the panel, his long
war bonnet flowing behind him. While we cannot identify the cultural affiliation
of the right-facing warriors, there are good grounds for identifying the aggressed
camp as Comanche. This is evident in certain subtle details, such as the way the
poles extended off the top of the tipi in two clusters—a distinctively Comanche
architectural pattern ( Jimmy Arterberry, personal communication, 2011)—as well
as the inclusion of a snake glyph in the lower center of the panel. Within the Plains
Sign Language system, the Comanches were known as the “Snakes”7 (Wallace
and Hoebel [1952] 1986:5), and here it seems the rock artist was making an explicit
effort to assert that the settlement under attack was specifically a Comanche camp.
The snake glyph, in this sense, served as a kind of signature.
the oNset of coMaNche iMPerialisM iN New Mexico
Accepting the interpretation of the Vista Verde Site as one of perhaps many sites
left behind by the Comanche during their period of early eighteenth-century
raiding, we stand in a strong position to explore the deeper logics behind
the emergence of Comanche “imperialism” in New Mexico, as proposed by
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Hämäläinen. The archaeological evidence on the ground may be paltry indeed;
this is to be expected insofar as the Comanche traveled light and purposefully
left behind few traces of their camps, in part to elude potential pursuers. But for
a brief period in the Taos region—early on in the tribe’s experiments with equestrianism, militarism, and regional economic involvement—rock art appears to
have served as a key cultural space where new identities were being worked out.
At a basic level, the rock art of the Vista Verde Site reflects a desire to archive
and assert the local visits of Comanche bands. Many hundreds of tipi glyphs
were scratched onto the rocks surrounding the central camp. In some cases, the
glyphs are simple triangles; a tipi with its smoke flap open might be all that
was represented, as if the artist was simply acknowledging his or her participation in an expedition to the northern Rio Grande Valley and nothing more.
In other cases, whole tipi encampments were depicted, giving us a potential
sense of the scale and organization of the expedition. One panel, for instance,
depicts twenty-five tipis (perhaps 150–200 people) organized into a broadly circular arrangement with mounted horses in the center (Figure 6.7). Interestingly,
this panel is positioned on the edge of the central basin of the Vista Verde Site,
where we have found evidence of a circular compound with roughly the same
number of tipi rings.
The tipi depictions reveal much more than simply the scale of encampments.
Many of the tipi glyphs are accompanied by images of tripods supporting shields
and feathered lances (Figure 6.8), signaling that an important warrior occupied
the tipi and was preparing for an impending battle. Within Comanche society,
shields were regularly hung outside warriors’ doorways to absorb the sun’s powerful medicine, thereby making them more effective on the battlefield (Wallace
and Hoebel [1952] 1986:251). The lance displayed its potency by the number of
feathers or scalps hanging from it, which served as a tally of the military accomplishments of its owner. Honorable Comanche warriors were obligated to fight
with a lance rather than a bow and arrow or a gun, for the lance necessitated
intimate contact with one’s opponent and, hence, greater bravery (Kavanagh
2008:267). Similar displays took place once the battle or raid was over. “A warrior returning from a successful raiding party,” recalled Comanche informants
in the 1930s, “set his lance upright before the door of his lodge with the scalps
of his victims dangling from it. No one except the owner could remove the
trophies. As in the case of the shield, tradition records that some lances had
power, and the lance carried by the leaders was a characteristic sign of office”
(Wallace and Hoebel [1952] 1986:111). We might go so far as to imagine that the
depictions of shields and lances in Comanche rock art followed a sympathetic
logic: beyond their role as signs of office for those residing in the tipis pitched
nearby, the images plausibly also functioned as iconographic extensions of the
warrior’s weaponry. Scratched onto the south-facing surfaces of dark black
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basalt boulders, the images of shields and lances would have absorbed the sun’s
potency on behalf of their prototypes all day long.
Militarism and the desire for public acknowledgment of bravery clearly preoccupied those camping at the Vista Verde Site. Tallies, seemingly archiving
particular warriors’ accomplishments, were added to the sides of both human
figures and their tipis; panels depicting horse raids offered records of the number of stolen horses; parfleche glyphs appear to have served as a means both of
identifying participants in a military expedition and of acknowledging the power
of the medicine bundles stored within them; and mounted warriors were illustrated with long flowing war bonnets, headwear adorning only those Comanche
men “whose military achievements entitled them to wear it” (Wallace and
Hoebel [1952] 1986:213) (see Figures 6.8–6.11).
One rock art image highlights this pattern with special clarity. Figure 6.11A
depicts a military engagement between two warriors, each probably serving as
a representative of a military group. On the left, a diminutive warrior in Pueblo
attire is perched with a simple D-shaped bow. A far more impressive Comanche
warrior with a headdress, recurved bow, and large body shield occupies the center of the panel. In the lower right, another warrior (possibly two) seems to be
covering the central warrior’s back. This much can be readily identified. When
viewed from within the Comanche iconographic tradition, however, a number
of additional details become significant ( Jimmy Arterberry, personal communication, 2011). The herringbone pattern between the two warriors, for instance,
emerges as another tally, quite likely of the number of successful arrows each
side shot in the altercation. Twenty-five arrows of the dominant warrior’s
group seem to have hit and killed an opponent; only seven such arrows are tallied for his adversary—little question, then, which side was victorious. Indeed,
the Comanche’s success was further indexed by the tangle of scratched lines
falling away from the dominant warrior’s bow, which can be read as signifiers
of the many bows that were broken by the Comanche in the course of the battle. Moreover, in the faintly scratched lines at the upper right of the panel, we
can now squint and see the image of a bear—that most powerful of species—
lending its spiritual assistance to the central warrior. The vague and sketchy
rendering of the bear was probably an intentional iconographic strategy of
depicting the bear’s spiritual status (again, Arterberry, personal communication,
2011), but later rock art gives us a sense of what was intended. Two probable Comanche panels at the Tolar Site in Wyoming, for example, offer more
detailed renderings of individuals with similarly positioned bear glyphs (Figure
6.11B) (Loendorf and Olsen 2003). The bear glyph in the Vista Verde panel may
be largely illegible by comparison, but there is no ambiguity regarding its link
to the central warrior, for the artist has scratched a line connecting the warrior’s shoulder and the bear’s head. Indeed, five lines in the panel were included
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to establish biographic connections in this way: each warrior is connected to his
arrow tally, and the central warrior—in addition to being connected with his
spirit bear—has lines linking him to his allied shield-bearer as well as to his tally
of broken bows (see Figure 6.11A).
Other rock art panels depict the fray of battle much more vividly as a swirl of
gestural lines. Figure 6.12 is the tracing of a panel a short distance north of the
Vista Verde Site. Here we encounter a chaotic tangle of traces, within which as
many as seven stylized horses can be identified. The riders of some are missing
or indistinct, but others clearly include riders bearing shields and wielding lances
or clubs. Lines extend out from each warrior to touch or strike combatants. In
the case of the warrior just above the center of the image, two lines extend
down to touch a combatant in the lower right of the panel, and additional lines
extend out from his lance or club to strike the figure in the upper right, the latter of whom almost seems to have exploded from the blow. The image, in this
sense, anticipates the well-known Plains tradition of counting coup, in which
one of the most prestigious acts of bravery involved confronting and touching
an opponent on the battlefield (Lowie [1954] 1982; Mishkin 1940). Such acts were
the raw material out of which leaders were made within historic Comanche
society. Indeed, the Comanches typically counted coup before going into war
(Wallace and Hoebel 1986:252), which may explain why so many rock art panels
were created at the Vista Verde Site. Gestural images likely provided important complements to the oral narration of acts of military bravery (Fowles and
Arterberry 2013).
What is perhaps most remarkable about the images at the Vista Verde Site,
then, is that they collectively point to the presence of a highly developed military
culture at an early date. Again, the images were probably created during the first
half of the eighteenth century, only a generation or two after the Comanches
had acquired the horse. And yet, the tribe was already committed to the new
world of indigenous imperialism that would characterize Comanche life on the
Plains for over a century beginning in the mid-eighteenth century.
There is a sense in which the encampment at the Vista Verde Site even anticipated the spatial strategies the Comanches would so effectively deploy at the
height of their regional ambitions. As many have observed, the special genius of
Comanche geopolitics stemmed from the tribe’s ability to transform a former
periphery—the Southern Plains—into an interregional center place, shifting
the political and economic gravity toward the intersection of various European
and Native American polities. In doing so, the Comanches benefited immensely
from the colonial rivalries between the Spanish and French, just as they profited
from their ability to extract the resources of Texas and northern Mexico for
trade in the markets of New Mexico and the Northern Plains. The Comanches
were, in this sense, self-fashioned arbiters of in-between places.
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fiGUre 6.12. Scratched and abraded rock art from the Rio Grande Gorge, just north of the
Vista Verde Site (Panel 2009-209).
At the Vista Verde Site, a similar spatial logic prevailed. Tucked away within
the Rio Grande Gorge, the site occupies a rugged landscape that was peripheral
to Pueblo and Hispano centers in the region. In fact, our surveys have suggested
that the site was situated in a transitional area where shifts in late pre-Columbian
rock art and a local concentration of Pueblo shield-bearers mark the presence of
an ethnic boundary—a “no man’s land” of sorts—between the traditional territories of Taos Pueblo to the northeast and the Tewa pueblos to the southwest.
The Comanche appear to have inserted themselves precisely into this interstitial
space during the early eighteenth century. From there, they were well poised to
engage multiple local communities: trading with some, simultaneously raiding
others, and all the while remaining hidden away in a subterranean canyon. The
occupants of the Vista Verde Site, then, were playing out in microcosm what
would become a truly continental strategy following the Comanches’ takeover
of the southern Plains.
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coNclUsioN
The study of Comanche archaeology—in New Mexico but also throughout the
American West—remains in its infancy with its most exciting days still to come;
of this, we are quite convinced. Intellectually, we find ourselves in a moment
when historians have recently awakened to the remarkable scope and savvy of
Comanche politics, offering bold new visions of the tribe’s regional influence
that archaeologists have not yet even attempted to trace on the ground as a
material phenomenon. How are we to respond? What are we to do when historians write of an entire indigenous empire in the middle of North America that
has completely escaped archaeological detection?
Quibbling over definitions of what an empire is—and whether the Comanches
should be considered one—would be a narrow and unproductive response, we
suggest. Indeed, the traditional understanding of Comanche history has been
hamstrung precisely by the tendency to impose preconceived notions of what
an expansionist polity “should” look like, as well as by our heavy reliance on
colonial documents authored by the Comanches’ European or Euro-American
opponents. As recent work by Hämäläinen and others has so ably demonstrated,
much can still be accomplished through revisionist study of the existing historical archives, but archaeologists have a great deal to contribute as well, particularly
insofar as they offer the possibility of building new archives composed of evidence authored by the ancestral Comanches themselves. Alternative archives of
this sort have always been a core commitment of historical archaeology, and our
research at the Vista Verde Site follows closely in this tradition. The scratched
images of Comanche militarism in the Rio Grande Gorge offer a rare glimpse
of what the early eighteenth-century social and political landscape looked like
from an indigenous perspective. They provide us an opportunity to imagine
a Comanche New Mexico, counterbalancing dominant accounts of Spanish colonial New Mexico. We hope it goes without saying that this in no way denies
the necessity of continuing to imagine yet other New Mexicos: Pueblo, Apache,
Navajo, Ute, Genizaro, Mestizo, and so forth. The goal is to proliferate such
perspectives, rather than limit them.
Regarding Comanche history in particular, three principal conclusions have
emerged from our study. First, the rock art imagery clearly reveals that the reorganization of Comanche society around equestrianism and the new logics of
tallying military honors occurred with remarkable speed. Within a generation
of acquiring the horse, the Comanches had developed elaborate new cultural
norms for building social prestige—which is to say that the Comanches were
unquestionably a “hot” society, fully aware that they were making history. As the
Comanche cultural critic Paul Chaat Smith has put it, “Contrary to what most
people (Indian and non-Indian alike) now believe, our true history is one of constant change, technological innovation, and intense curiosity about the world.
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How else do you explain our instantaneous adaptation to horses, rifles, flour,
and knives?” (Smith 2009:4). We expect other archaeological sites to emerge that
demonstrate an even older stage of development, but to our knowledge, the
imagery at the Vista Verde site currently provides some of the earliest archaeological evidence of counting coup (broadly conceived) in North America, most
other documented examples having been dated to the period after ad 1750 (e.g.,
Keyser 1979; Parsons 1987).
Second, new systems of prestige appear to have gone hand in hand with new
strategies regarding how to maneuver at a regional level. We know a good deal
about Comanche movements during the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries following the tribe’s conquest of the Southern Plains, based upon both
oral history and written colonial documents. Again, the Comanches were infamous arbiters of intermediary zones, playing various nations off one another to
great economic and political effect. Our evidence from the Vista Verde Site suggests that such tactics did not emerge out of the blue, however. On the contrary,
the Comanches were already developing their basic geopolitical strategies in the
northern Rio Grande during the early eighteenth century.
Finally, we take it as quite significant that despite having documented hundreds of scratched rock art panels at the Vista Verde site, including dozens of
images of military conflicts, only one panel thus far includes an image of a
European. When battle scenes were depicted, they inevitably featured altercations between opposed Native American warriors instead. Bearing this in mind,
one might speculate that the main occupation of the site was actually somewhat
earlier than we have proposed—perhaps during the Pueblo Revolt period itself,
when the Spanish were in exile—rather than shortly after the reconquest. We
interpret the absence of nonnative subjects in the Vista Verde rock art differently,
however. It provides, we suggest, a useful reminder that while our written histories privilege interactions between Europeans and Native Americans, the truly
consequential political relations for most communities in the colonial Southwest
were between indigenous nations. And it is in this sense that we might look to
a time and place like the northern Rio Grande during the eighteenth century
and begin to imagine a very different sort of colonial setting, one in which the
Comanches stood in the position of the expansionistic polity and in which local
residents—native and nonnative alike—were forced to adapt to the politics of
these powerful interlopers.
Notes
1. For other archaeological efforts to foreground native agency in accounts of the
eighteenth century, see Sunday Eiselt’s (2012) study of the Jicarilla Apache settlement
of the northern Rio Grande Valley, as well as Michael Wilcox’s (2009) and Matthew
Liebmann’s (2012b) studies of Pueblo reinvention during the Spanish colonial period.
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2. For critical discussions of the New Indian History, see Ned Blackhawk (2005), William
T. Hagan (1997), and Daniel K. Richter (1993). For exemplary recent examples of such historical revisionism in the American Southwest, see Blackhawk (2006), James Brooks (2002),
Brian DeLay (2008), Ramón Gutiérrez (1991), and Pekka Hämäläinen (2008).
3. The published literature on Comanche archaeology is minimal. No monographlength studies exist, and only a few articles (notably, Mitchell 2004 and Newton 2011)
explicitly address Comanche sites.
4. “Komántcia” as an ethnonym appears to have originated as a Ute term, referring
to “anyone who wants to fight me all the time” (Opler 1943:156). While the Ute often collaborated with the Comanches during the early eighteenth century, the relationship was
clearly fraught and broke down entirely in the 1740s. Spanish use of the term “Comanche”
to describe the Eastern Shoshone groups who had migrated onto the Southern Plains
was probably inherited from the Ute.
5. Dennis Slifer (1998) notes that ancestral Ute rock art in southern Colorado, immediately to the north, was frequently executed in red pigment, but no such pictographs
have been located during our survey of the Rio Grande Gorge.
6. It also precludes the possibility that other Plains groups—notably the Kiowa and
Pawnee—were the authors the Vista Verde rock art. The Kiowa and Pawnee both have
a long historical presence in the Rio Grande Valley. A Pawnee individual was baptized in
New Mexico as early as 1702; an elderly Kiowa woman was buried at Isleta in 1727; and
after 1730, dozens of individuals from both tribes came to be baptized by Spanish missionaries in New Mexico. These, however, were all individuals who entered New Mexican
society as captives, victims of the eighteenth-century wars in which the Comanche
played a defining role. In contrast, the first church burial records documenting deaths at
the hands of either Kiowa or Pawnee raiders in the Spanish colony itself do not appear
until the start of the nineteenth century (Brugge 1965), well after the Vista Verde rock art
was produced.
7. The Comanche were one of a number of Shoshonean groups referred to as the
“Snakes”; however of those groups, only the Comanches were known to have been regular visitors to the Taos region during the early eighteenth century.
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Hoebel, Waldo R. Wedel, Gustav G. Carlson, and Robert H. Lowie. Lincoln: University of
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Keyser, James D. 1979. “The Plains Indian War Complex and the Rock Art of Writingon-Stone, Alberta, Canada.” Journal of Field Archaeology 6 (1): 41–48.
Keyser, James D. 1987. “A Lexicon for Historic Plains Indian Rock Art: Increasing
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Keyser, James D. 2004. Art of the Warriors: Rock Art of the American Plains. Salt Lake City:
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Liebmann, Matthew. 2012a. “The Rest Is History: Devaluing the Recent Past in the
Archaeology of the Pueblo Southwest.” In Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring
Prehistoric/Colonial Transitions in Archaeology, edited by Siobhan M. Hart, Maxine
Oland, and Liam Frink, 19–44. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Liebmann, Matthew. 2012b. Revolt: An Archaeological History of Pueblo Resistance and
Revitalization in 17th Century New Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Loendorf, Lawrence L. 2008. Thunder and Herds: Rock Art of the High Plains. Walnut
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Loendorf, Lawrence L., and Linda Olsen. 2003. “The Tolar Petroglyph Site.” American
Indian Rock Art 29:1–10.
Lowie, Robert H. [1954] 1982. Indians of the Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
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Mihesuah, Devon A., ed. 1998. Natives and Academics: Researching and Writing about
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Mishkin, Bernard. 1940. Rank and Warfare among the Plains Indians. Monographs of the
American Ethnological Society III. New York: J. J. Augustin.
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Mitchell, Mark D. 2004. “Tracing Comanche History: Eighteenth-Century Rock Art
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Montgomery, Lindsay. In press. “When the Mountain People Came to Taos: Ute
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Richardson, Rupert Norval. 1933. The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement: A
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S
e
v
e
n
Aquí Me Quedo
Vecino Origins and the Settlement Archaeology
of the Rio del Oso Grant, New Mexico
J . a n d r e w da r l i n G a n d b . S u n day e i S e lT
Yo me quedo a cantar con los obreros en esta nueva historia y geografía
(Here I stay to sing with the workers in this new history and geography)
—Pablo Neruda, Victor Jara, and Patricio Castillo (1974),
from the song “Aquí Me Quedo” (authors’ translation)
iNtroDUctioN
For some historians, the fascination with Hispano culture in New Mexico
begins with the simple, demographic proposition that these communities
constitute a unique cultural group, formed from centuries of isolation on
Spain’s northern frontier (Nostrand 1970, 1975, 1980). Richard Nostrand based
his interpretation of Hispano exceptionalism on cultural traits and demographic data, identifying in the process a geographic culture area he called the
“Hispano Homeland,” a concept that drew immediate criticism from borderlands scholars. Appropriately called the Hispano-Homeland debate, scholarly
discourse focused on the twin issues of ethnicity and frontier isolation in the
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c007
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cultural emergence of New Mexican Spanish-speaking populations (Frank
1996; Rodríguez 1986). For Nostrand’s detractors, the Hispano Homeland was
a fabrication; a myth of Spanish purity spun from the threads of American
ethnoclass interests (Blaut and Ríos-Bustamante 1984; Hansen 1981). For
his supporters, the unique demographic and historical trajectories of New
Mexican populations and the benefits of the Homeland thesis for comparative
and analytical research were significant (Hall 1984; Meinig 1984; Simmons et
al. 1984). The debate ultimately reached an impasse, leaving a new generation of scholars to reframe it altogether. Following the prevailing interactionist
view of ethnicity at the time, Sylvia Rodríguez (1986) argued that the HispanoChicano identity of New Mexico was produced, not through isolation, but
through its many entanglements with outsiders past and present. Ross Frank
presented a combined historical and economic perspective, locating the genesis of the distinctive vernacular expression of Vecinos and Vecino culture
under the colonial, socioeconomic policies of the Bourbon monarchy in Spain
(Frank 1996). John Van Ness (1987b) argued that the rural agropastoral village
tradition contributed decisively to the evolving contemporary Hispano identity of the region.1
“Homeland” evokes a political concept of shared mother country, native land,
land of birth, and, by implication, a certain priority of place or possession.
“Ethnogenesis” refers to the appearance of new ethnic groups (or group identities), based on a recognizable, coherent system of shared beliefs, practices, and
material systems, in an area where they did not exist before. Both concepts
are cited in discussions of Vecino origins in the northern Rio Grande region,
but they mostly refer to shifting states defined by new frontier boundaries
and political borders or configurations of material culture and social practice.
While the value of these ideas should not be downplayed, they may not prove
entirely satisfactory for archaeologists who seek to understand social change
as a process.
“Aquí me quedo”—“here I stay” or “here I remain”—is a phrase heard throughout Latin America (and frequently seen on restaurant marquees and hotel
billboards) that offers a different perspective. Immortalized as a Chilean protest
anthem in the 1970s, the phrase evokes a sense of belonging and a defiant attachment to place.2 As a construct or metaphor of the Hispano Homeland in New
Mexico, it speaks to the transformation of the Spanish colonial population into
an endemic one, a decolonization, but only after its initial expulsion during the
Revolt of 1680 and the subsequent Reconquest in 1692. In the eighteenth century,
the reconstituted Spanish colony encompassing the northern Rio Grande above
Santa Fe was reestablished on a slate that for the most part had been wiped
clean by the Pueblo Revolt. A new administration moved quickly to consolidate its frontiers, to establish and protect new settlements from warring Plains
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nomads, and to make the colonies economically viable. It took nearly a century
to achieve. However, with independence looming, an era of postcolonial decolonization was about to begin.
“Aquí me quedo” is a sentiment that contemporary Hispano New Mexicans
can relate to, as the descendants of Spanish colonists and Native and genízaro
ancestors.3 For the purposes of the following discussion, the phrase also serves
to contextualize an archaeological consideration of the origin of New Mexican
Vecino society, specifically in the northern Rio Grande, in ways that help to elucidate and explain the transformation of this late colonial society into an endemic
community decades before Mexican independence in 1821.
who were the veciNos?
Prior to reconquest, the term vecino referred to a person’s racial status in the institutionalized Spanish regimen de castas, a system well suited to perpetuating the
separation of colonizer and colonized or conqueror and conquered. However,
after the 1790s, being vecino conferred civic status under Spanish law regardless
of racial background or heritage ( Jenks 2011, and chapter 8 in this volume). One
simply had to own land, which was a significant issue in establishing an individual’s calidad, or status in legal proceedings (such as marriage declarations and
property exchange). The qualities of being a Spanish citizen no longer served
as the legal means of racial segregation for the purposes of regulating marriage
(miscegenation) and position relative to the Spanish Crown. Instead, it became
an instrument of social integration within communities of vecinos, and a framework for emergent, corporate landholding that promoted endogamous unions
among property owners of mixed heritage (Eiselt and Darling 2014).
The sharp rise in the vecino population beginning in the late eighteenth
century was an obvious measure of the prosperity wrought by the Bourbon
reforms. However, few archaeological treatments have focused on the materials and settlement changes that must have accompanied the transformation of
late Spanish colonial society into the Hispano social formation known as Vecino
(but see Jenks, chapter 8 in this volume). This chapter describes the emergence
of the Vecino cultural pattern from the 1730s to the 1830s using archaeological
and ethnohistoric materials from the Rio del Oso Valley above Española (Figure
7.1). The Rio del Oso grant was settled by the first generation of reconquest
españoles in 1734 and again in the 1810s by some of their ethnically mixed descendants. Archaeological components are distinctive and mark the shift from a late
colonial (postreconquest) settlement pattern to Vecino as it appears in the northern Rio Grande. This analysis suggests that shifting relations between vecino
families through marriage and filial ties with property—not status or race—conditioned endogamous unions among Vecinos in the settlement of new lands and
ultimately contributed to the decolonization of the region.
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fiGUre 7.1.
Villages mentioned in the text.
the DeMoGraPhic rise of veciNos
Ross Frank (2000) and others (Bustamante 1982; González 1969; Swadesh 1974)
relate the economic ascendancy of Hispano villages in Spanish Colonial New
Mexico to an emergent self-identity that increasingly differentiated vecino “citizens” from their Indian neighbors.4 Economic advancement was stimulated
even further with the establishment of the Bourbon monarchy in Spain during
the early 1700s, whose economic reforms rippled throughout the Spanish colonies. In New Mexico, the Bourbon reforms helped to secure the province from
warring Plains tribes and provided a market structure that could circulate wealth
and capital throughout the colonies while generating taxes owed to the Spanish
Crown (Frank 2000). Some of this wealth went directly into Vecino households, but it also provided many opportunities for New Mexican settlers and
local heads of household to become legally recognized as Vecino. In addition
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to receiving land and money for military service, Vecino families provided livestock, meat, agricultural produce, salt, tobacco, and textiles for distribution to
pacified tribes. Government purchases greatly stimulated the growth of vibrant
cottage industries in weaving, carpentry, and blacksmithing that by the 1790s
quickly became hallmarks of a distinctive Vecino material culture and lifeway
(Dickey 1949; Frank 2000).
But the reforms did more than that. They laid the foundations for a demographic
rise that was unparalleled in the American Southwest. A close examination of
the years prior to the nineteenth century reveals the dynamic cycles of growth
and decline leading up to this steady and rapid rise in population, and calculated
growth rates put these apparent fluctuations into perspective (Figure 7.2). The
New Mexico settlements experienced the greatest rate of population growth
in the 1750s, rising to 7 percent. This type of growth far exceeds the biological
capacities of settled agricultural communities (Chamberlain 2006), but can be
attributed to a colonial pattern in which cycles of growth and decline are tied
to enslavement (as a means for augmenting population), raiding, and disease.
Oscillating demographic rise and decline reached a low point in the 1760s, when
the colonial population actually fell by 2.6 percent, only to recover at a paltry 0.2
percent during the following decade.
After the 1790s, this trend reversed. The annual population growth rate stabilized and began to rise steadily between 2.3 and 1.8 percent per annum over the
next 100 years. Unlike the marked fluctuations that characterized most of the
eighteenth century, the post-1790s growth rate is consistent with natural population growth in stable agricultural communities (Chamberlain 2006). More
important, the 1790 census marks the first time that the settler and casta (ethnically mixed and detribalized) populations turned the demographic corner, rising
sharply from 14,416 in 1790 to 56,223 by 1850 (almost tripling in sixty years). This
inflection coincides with the initiation of what may be called a Vecino phase of
material culture and settlement in the northern Rio Grande (Eiselt and Darling
2014).5
New laNDs, New laND GraNts
Population change is reflected in the expansion and contraction of Vecino territory through time, a reflection not only of demographics but also geopolitics and
raiding. During the first forty years after the reconquest, settlers were distributed
in only three villages—Santa Fé, Albuquerque, and Santa Cruz de la Cañada—
with individual estancias and ranches lining the low-lying farmlands of the Rio
Grande. The sharp rise in annual population growth in the 1740s necessitated
the first wave of settlement expansion. Overcrowding and poverty among the
colony’s freed and enslaved population compelled Spanish authorities to establish
eleven new community grants from 1740 to 1765, providing land ownership and
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Changes in population growth rate from 1700 to 1900 using the formula for exponential population growth: P(t) = Poert; where P(t) = the amount of population at time t, Po =
initial amount of population at time t = 0, r = growth rate, and t = time.
fiGUre 7.2.
access to legal vecino status and social mobility to hundreds of genízaros. The
ancestral make-up of these villages and grants was highly diverse, demonstrating
the polyethnic roots of Vecino society (Brooks 2002).
The sharp drop in the population during the 1760s and 1770s at the hands of
Comanche and Athapaskan raiders forced the abandonment of many of these
settlements and a corresponding decline in land ownership over the same period.
Some villages, such as San José de las Huertas and San Miguel de Carnué, were
never reoccupied. In other cases—as in Abiquiú, Ranchos de Taos, and Las
Trampas—settlers sought temporary protection in the larger villas or nearby
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Pueblos. Land ownership expanded again on a grand scale following the execution of Spanish treaties with the Comanche, Jicarilla, Navajo, and Ute tribes
in the late 1780s, leading to the establishment of the highly integrated multicommunity settlement pattern described by John Van Ness (1991) and others
(Kutsche and Van Ness 1981; Quintana 1991; Snow 1979; Weber 1979).
Land requests show a comparable pattern over the same period (Snow 1979).
Roughly 20 to 25 requests were made every decade from 1699 to about 1775, followed by less than 10 requests per decade from 1775 to 1819, indicative of early
eighteenth-century attempts by colonial residents to subjugate and occupy
new territory but with little success due to raiding and disease. In contrast, the
Mexican territorial period (1821 to 1849) witnessed a dramatic increase, including fifty applications for lands in unoccupied locations during the 1820s alone.6
Nostrand (1970, 1975, 1980) mapped the Vecino homeland in the northern Rio
Grande using census data from the 1850s and 1900s, demonstrating the dramatic
expansion of villages and corporate land holdings to the north, south, east, and
west from a central core area of population (Figure 7.3). Kenneth Weber (1979)
also identifies a “splinter-diffusion” or “hiving off ” pattern of internal colonization as new lands became available for settlement.
veciNo settleMeNt PatterN
The settlement pattern and cultural ecology of land grants demonstrate the
transformation from the late colonial (settler) to Vecino period. Prior to the 1790s,
private (noncommunity) grants were awarded almost exclusively for the pur poses
of grazing livestock. These were large, 10,000 to 30,000 acre parcels, comparable in
size and purpose to the peonias, or foot soldier grants, given to settlers or colonists
to occupy new lands. Such large allotments were generally made when intensive
development of a region was not possible due to low population densities and
tribal raiding. Historical documents indicate that many of these mercedes were
not occupied on a permanent basis, even though they might contain log cabins
and corrals built by the settlers or their servants (Van Ness 1987a:162). The owners
of the grant or their representatives used the land through transhumant grazing
practices to fulfill the minimal requirements of legal ownership. An important
consideration in awarding a grant was the ability of the petitioners to occupy and
hold frontier lands against hostile tribes (Van Ness 1987a:166). To accomplish this,
they had to have access to resources and personnel. Consequently, most grants
were awarded to the leading citizens of the region, many of whom were the
settlers of the reconquest or their children. Tenure rights were vested in kindred
families that were usually (but not always) represented by male heads in whose
name the grant was made. The extended family units of the grant (including the
servants) constituted the basic corporate, social, and economic units for livelihood and inheritance (Van Ness 1987a:166–67).
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fiGUre 7.3. The expansion of the Vecino Homeland after Nostrand (1970, 1975, 1980). The
1700s to 1780s boundaries are approximated from historical documents.
Fifty or sixty years after the reconquest, colonial populations fell back into
more defensible communities, and large areas of land and certain land grants
appropriated on the return of the Spanish were abandoned. Populations declined
dramatically, and, teetering on the brink of survival, they concentrated in a few
remaining fortified settlements. This trend reversed itself in the later part of the
eighteenth century. Populations rebounded, year-round settlements appeared
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along tributary streams, and land grant cooperatives adopted mixed economies
that relied on stock raising, farming, and trade (Van Ness 1991).
The rancho was the most prevalent settlement pattern at this time. In its
general usage, the term rancho implies a small rural property managed by
individual families or groups of coresident families for the purpose of subsistence-level farming or ranching, but in its more specific usage refers to the area
of settlement within the grant rather than the entire grant. Rancho households
within grants typically consisted of the members of an extended kin network
who resided in clustered structures, located within or among individual farm
lots (called lineas). Household facilities and buildings included mud-and-thatch
(jacal) structures and adobe houses. Dried foods were stored in ceramic vessels, adobe bins, or wooden bins that were placed in a dispensa, or storage shed,
attached to the main residence. Grain, farm implements, and fodder were stored
in a fuerte, or thick-walled stone structure (Wozniak et al. 1992:153). Other storage facilities included subterranean soterranos and raised platforms (tapeistes).
Together these closely spaced domestic structures comprised an extended family household compound.
The typical land grant of the later period delineated an area in which the
residents selected parcels of irrigable land (the lineas, or long lots) that were
privately owned and could be sold after a period of occupation (Westphall
1983). The occupants managed a shared ditch system and were required to act
as stewards of the watershed commons (Crawford 1988; Rivera 1998; Swadesh
1974:32). The commonwealth or shared portions of the grant, typically situated above the acequias and cultivated bottomland, were communally owned
and managed for hunting, herding, and wild plant and timber harvesting. The
acequia and long-lot agricultural complex promoted and protected regional
biodiversity by creating a patchwork of habitats linked by crosscutting irrigation corridors (Peña 1999). Farming in this context did not end at the edge of
the field. Rather, the farm was part of an ecological system that was embedded
in a larger nexus of cultural and biological interactions that promoted regional
biodiversity (Eiselt 2013).
the DocUMeNtary history of the rio Del oso GraNt
Archaeological demography provides some of the best evidence for the emergence of an endemic growth pattern in Vecino populations. Our example comes
from the Rio del Oso Valley above Española (see Figure 7.1). Spanish settlers first
occupied the valley soon after the Spanish reconquest. Juan Manuel de Herrera,
and Rosalía Valdez (with her two sons Juan Valdez and Ignacio Valdez), and several other petitioners were granted a tract of land encompassing approximately
10,000 acres in 1734.7 Soon after, Roque Jacinto Jaramillo also joined the grant.
Herrera was Jaramillo’s contemporary and father-in-law; Jaramillo married
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Herrera’s second daughter, Juana. These individuals were the children of the
reconquest, inhabitants of Santa Cruz de la Cañada who had come with their
parents from Mexico City, Zacatecas, and the El Paso exile colony to resettle
New Mexico. Vargas recruited Jaramillo’s father, a brick mason, in 1693 from
the largely Spanish artisan class in Mexico City (Kessell et al. 1998:223). Roque
was around eleven years old at the time of the trip (Kessell et al. 1998:247).
Rosalía’s father, José Ruiz, was born in Oviedo, Spain. Accompanied by his wife
and two children, he traveled with the original colonists in 1696 and became the
Sargento Mayor (Sargent Major) at Santa Cruz where Rosalía was born around
1700, but he was later killed at the Zuni Mission while singing a hymn in the
church after mass. Juan Manuel de Herrera’s mother and stepfather, likewise,
lost both of their spouses in the Pueblo Revolt, but joined their families in marriage, after retreating to the El Paso exile colony (Kessell et al. 1998:1144; 1995:43).
The settlement of El Paraje Rio Oso, as it was then known, was small in its
early stages. The 1744 census by Fray Miguel de Menchero indicates that together
the Rancho de Chama and Rio del Oso settlements maintained only eleven to
seventeen families (Hackett 1937:399; Jones 1979:123), not enough to ward off a
devastating attack by the Utes that occurred in 1736. Nearly all of the settlers
abandoned their ranches, but Jaramillo and Herrera stayed, reaffirming their
interest in the grant in 1746, and possibly moving their headquarters downstream.
Further depredations by the Comanche and Utes in 1747 prompted most of the
early settlers of the Abiquiú area to flee once again. Nevertheless, Jaramillo persisted, purchasing shares from the others who abandoned the grant citing the
lack of sufficient water and farmland. Shortfalls in water and real estate may
only be partly true. Jaramillo used the Rio del Oso as pasturage for his cattle,
and his children built structures and were farming in the valley in 1762; but, their
presence also was short lived. Jaramillo lost his claim to the grant soon thereafter,
having become entangled in an unrelated dispute over the adjoining Vallecitos
grant. The Rio del Oso grant reverted to public domain in 1763 and was held in
trust by Juan José Lobato, alcalde mayor (municipal magistrate) of Santa Cruz de
la Cañada, for the next fifty years.8
On October 5, 1810, José Antonio Valdez along with ten other heads of household requested a new grant in the valley.9 Some thirty years later this grant was
reaffirmed by the alcalde of Santa Cruz de la Cañada in 1840. José Ramón Vijil
(justice of the peace for the district of Santa Clara) surveyed the area in August
to put the settlers in possession of the land. Vijil’s 1840 report provides the only
existing description of the Rio del Oso grant and its inhabitants during the nineteenth century.10 By the 1870s, the settlement had acquired a name. An 1877 map
drafted by G. M. Wheeler of the US Army Corps of Engineers shows the village
of San Lorenzo and related houses midway up the valley (Wheeler 1877).
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GeNealoGy of the rio Del oso GraNt
The US Court of Private Land Claims extinguished the title to the Rio del Oso
grant in 1893 (Swadesh 1974:212), effectively ending the historic occupation, but
leaving us with a number of unanswered questions. Were any of the later grant
occupants related to the first settlers? If so, then how did kinship condition occupancy and ownership of the Rio del Oso lands? Are phases of occupation (the
first of which is clearly derived from the reconquest) reflected in the archaeological record of the valley and, if so, how did they change through time? Using land
grant documents and baptism, marriage, and death records, we reconstructed
the genealogy of the grant and traced the family histories of eight out of eleven
of the nineteenth-century petitioners.
Figure 7.4 renders the grant genealogy in simplified terms beginning with the
first settlers of the de Vargas reconquest on the left. These individuals were the
parents of the eighteenth-century Rio del Oso grant residents or owners. José
Antonio Valdez, the main petitioner on the 1840s grant, was the third son of Juan
Bautista Valdez (Van Ness 1980:11). The parents of Juan Bautista are currently
unknown, but he appears to have grown up in the Rosalía Valdez household,
after she left the Rio del Oso and took up residence at the Plaza Colorada near
Abiquiú. Juan Bautista founded the community of Cañones to the west of the
Rio del Oso grant in 1807. Jose Antonio’s sister, Antonia Rosa Valdez, in turn
married José María Ortega. He and his brother San Juan (both petitioners on the
grant) were born in Chili to the east, at the mouth of the Rio del Oso. The parents of the Ortega’s maternal grandmother are currently unknown. Cristóbal
and Juan Pedro Herrera were brothers as well and were related to Juan Manuel
Herrera, Roque Jaramillo’s partner and son-in-law. Juan Manuel was Cristobal
and Juan Pedro’s great-uncle on their father’s side. The great-grandfather of Juan
Cristobal and Polito Lobato, also brothers, was Juan José Lobato, the alcalde
mayor who exterminated the Herrera-Jaramillo holding in 1763. Their mother
also is currently unknown.
The grant genealogy is revealing with respect to marriage patterns and land
acquisition. First, the Rio del Oso grant was resettled in 1810 by sets of siblings,
either brothers or brothers and sisters, who could claim lineal descent from one
of the original landowners (Herrera, Jaramillo, or Valdez). The sisters drew
spouses from families that were unrelated to the original three lines (the Vijils
and Ortegas), but the lands where they grew up bordered or were in close proximity to the Rio del Oso grant. The Ortegas could claim ties to the adjoining
Mestas grant to the east (which encompassed the neighboring settlements of
Chili and La Cuchilla at the mouth of the Rio del Oso), and the Valdez family
occupied the Cañones region to the west. These ties would have facilitated innumerable resources and cooperation across the boundaries of the grant for social
events, trade, and herd management.
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fiGUre 7.4. Rio del Oso grant genealogy. Rounded rectangles represent the males, and the ovals
represent the females in lines of descent. Marriage is indicated by overlap in polygons of different
shapes, and siblings are marked in the nodes of branches labeled “Sib.” Shaded polygons indicate
the residents or owners of the Rio del Oso grant during the late colonial and Vecino periods. The
demographic rise of Vecino populations are graphed relative to the genealogy of the grant.
What remains to be fully deciphered, however, is the occupational hiatus of
the Rio del Oso Valley between 1760 and 1810, effectively skipping the second
generation after the reconquest from the terminal late colonial through the
Bourbon reform period. The presumed grandchildren or great-grandchildren
(third and fourth generations) of the original reconquest settlers reestablished
the Rio del Oso Valley settlement by the early 1800s. This reoccupation is consistent with the population boom that marks the appearance of Vecino settlements
throughout the northern Rio Grande. However, little is known of the parents
and grandparents of these sibling sets that reoccupied the Rio del Oso during
the Vecino period.
One possible explanation lies in the high frequency of captives and Indian
adoptions in the reconquest households of the 1740s, especially on rural land
grants, where the availability of labor was key to survival.11 The gaps in the Rio
del Oso lineages may suggest the incorporation of unidentified Indian children
and/or children of mixed heritage into Spanish households. Nevertheless, the
anonymity of these individuals, particularly by comparison with the record of
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the preceding generation of reconquest españoles and subsequent generations of
Vecinos, seems particularly telling.
Indian or mixed-blood adoptions could undermine subsequent claims to
lands or grants based solely on direct lineal descent. However, complementary
or advantageous marriages among siblings during the expansion of the Vecino
homeland also could bolster land claims and serve to consolidate corporate
landholdings and kinship alliances that crosscut grant (and family) boundaries.
Such alliances provided a clear mechanism for the hiving-off process or pattern
of splinter-diffusion described by Weber (1979:81) by which daughter villages
were created from mother villages, thereby expanding Vecino occupation into
neighboring grants in outlying areas. This is easily recognizable in the archaeological evidence produced by a full coverage survey conducted in the Rio del
Oso, as follows.
the archaeoloGical recorD of the rio Del oso GraNt
Archaeological research on ranchos involves a survey of the entire grant so that
contemporary features can be identified and settlement patterns and household
organization can be reconstructed (Church 2002; Galindo 2004:195). Survey coverage of the Rio del Oso meets these requirements. The combined efforts of
multiple researchers have documented nearly the entire Rio del Oso grant and
the lower reaches of the Rio del Oso Valley watershed (Anschuetz 1993, 1995;
Gadd 1988, 1989a, 1989b; Jeançon 1911, 1912; Vierra 1980). Research also has identified a large Jicarilla Apache presence in the valley dating to the mid-1800s (Eiselt
2012).
Two occupations define the Spanish and subsequent Vecino record. The early
component pertains to the Jaramillo-Herrera grant and consists of three household complexes surrounded by hundreds of meters of rock walls on the south
side of the drainage. Two of the household complexes are located at the village of Pesede’uinge (a Classic Period Pueblo site), and the third is positioned
upstream in an area used previously for late prehistoric farming. Settlers built
the extensive network of walled terraces from rock scavenged from Puebloan
structures and features. This includes prehistoric grinding stones, grinding slicks,
and cupule boulders. The walls are substantial, one meter in width at the base
by fifty centimeters in height in many places, and are constructed of large boulders that would have required draft animal transport. Most of the walled areas
are located on the second and third terraces above the valley floor, in areas that
would have required rainwater farming to be productive, further supporting the
contention that they likely served as enclosed pastures. The total area includes
nearly seventy acres of walled terraces.
The household complexes of this early period of historic occupation are simple, consisting of a single linear room block associated with an horno (earthen
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oven) and torreón (guard tower), a plan that is repeated at all three sites. Figure
7.5 (top) illustrates the typical roomblock arrangement. Prehistoric groundstone
and cobble clusters or scatters also are common in the vicinity of structures,
but artifacts are rare. Occasional historic plain or micaceous sherds are all that
remains. Horno foundations are rounded to subrounded in outline and are
approximately one to two meters in diameter and two to three cobble courses
in height. The stonework for the structural foundations is, however, distinctive,
being made with carefully laid masonry composed of locally acquired angular
rock with well-dressed (flat) interior and exterior facing. While no rubble core is
evident between the parallel rows, the presence of possible adobe melt toward
interiors of structures suggest that the walls built above the foundation were
composed of either adobe brick or jacal, consisting of small posts and thatch
covered with an adobe plaster. The quality of the masonry is distinctive for the
late colonial period and is clearly distinguishable from the later Vecino structures
that feature loosely laid stone foundations with aboveground, post-and-adobe
construction. The lack of structural mounds suggests that building materials
were removed and reutilized after abandonment. Structures range in size from 7
to 10 meters in length by 4 to 5 meters in width and show evidence of an interior
wall that divides the building into two rooms. Their locations on the edges of
valley terraces overlooking the Rio del Oso provide for easy access to live water
sources below, adjacent flat-top mesas, and vistas up and down the valley.
The proximity of these late colonial occupations to late Pueblo (possibly
revolt period) settlements also suggests that their placement was strategic. This
includes not only the symbolic reoccupation of Puebloan settlements but also
the availability of ready-made construction materials and preexisting structures
that could be reused by the Spanish settlers. This pattern of occupation and
reuse has been documented elsewhere in the northern Rio Grande (Snow 1976)
and can include the modification of existing prehistoric structural mounds for
animal pens, habitation, cultivation or grazing.
Torreones also may have been refurbished from Puebloan structures, kivas,
or circular stone shrines. The largest of these at Pesede’uinge measures seven
meters in diameter at the base. Jeançon (1912:29–30) noted the lack of apparent
kivas at Pesede’uinge, and argued that the torreón seemed to be built up from the
foundation of a kiva with cobbles held in place by adobe cement. The structure
stood approximately two meters high in 1912 and still contained several vigas in
the roof.
The nineteenth-century occupation of the valley is very different. This occupation consists of one large, multidwelling settlement, identified as San Lorenzo
on historic maps, and three additional household complexes located at some
distance including structures, livestock pens, and early-component rock-lined
fields. San Lorenzo household complexes display a “classic” nineteenth-century
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fiGUre 7.5. Early and late component structures in the Rio del Oso Valley. Top: eighteenthcentury structure from LA 299 (Pesede’uinge). Bottom: nineteenth-century household complex
from LA 90870.
structure described in ethnohistoric documents as a small linear or L-shaped
roomblock adjoining a substantial stone fuerte (storage facility) and surrounded
by a rock-lined courtyard with external trash accumulations (Wozniak et al.
1992) (see Figure 7.5). The concentrated accumulation of artifacts at the site in
middens associated with structures suggests permanent, year-round occupation. Structures are smaller and less substantial jacales with expedient stone
foundations. Unlike the earlier occupation, sites are located on both sides of
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the drainage in areas relatively devoid of prehistoric Pueblo architecture (none
of the nineteenth-century occupations are situated on top of Pesede’uinge or
prehistoric habitation sites).
The later occupants also made greater use of the valley as evidenced by
isolated sheep herder structures, wagon roads, trails, and Hispanic rock art
downstream. Torreones and hornos are not part of this record, and sites are
not situated on strategic overlooks. Moreover, artifacts show the integration of Native American material culture into men’s and women’s activities.
This includes evidence for small amounts of plain (grayware) and micaceous
ceramic production;12 the use of expedient stone tools for cutting and as gunflints; the utilization of milling equipment scavenged from Puebloan sites; and
the production of tinworks including frames, nichos (household alters), and
cone tinklers, or ornaments that Jicarilla women used to decorate their clothes.
Additional evidence for regular trade with Indian people includes Tewa plainware and decorated ceramics, Jicarilla micaceous cookware, and metal arrow
points also obtained from the Jicarilla.
Unlike the earlier residents, whose settlements were positioned to defend
against Ute and Comanche attacks, the residents of San Lorenzo carried on a
brisk trade in metals and ceramics with the Saitinde band of the Ollero, a subdivision of the Jicarilla Apache, who also occupied the valley starting in the mid-1800s
(Eiselt 2012; Eiselt and Darling 2012). Jicarilla encampments are located on the
north side of the valley and overlap the boundaries of the grant. These settlements represent several extended families of around forty to fifty people. The
Gojia, an annual Jicarilla gathering and foot race, was celebrated at the mouth
of the Rio del Oso prior to the fall hunt in the Jemez Mountains, which brought
additional families and neighboring Tewa people from Ohkay Owingeh to trade
(Eiselt 2012).
late sPaNish coloNial aND veciNo settleMeNt
PatterN iN the rio Del oso valley
In summary, the settlement pattern of the early and late occupational components of the valley reveal a marked archaeological contrast (Table 7.1). Created
by the children of españoles from Mexico City, Zacatecas, and the El Paso exile
colony, the late Spanish colonial occupation exhibits a settlement pattern that is
quasi-military or defensive in nature, situated on top of Pueblo archaeological
sites, and focused on exploitation of the valley for large-scale livestock management and farming. Settlement was equally strategic and expedient, taking
advantage of the readily available building material provided by recently (and
perhaps forcefully) abandoned Tewa structures, as well as preexisting field and
irrigation systems, which when left fallow would have sustained ample forage
for the grazing of livestock.
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table 7.1. Comparison of
late colonial and Vecino occupations in the Rio del Oso.
Settlement index
Late colonial (settler)
Vecino
Occupation
Defensive and exploitive
Integrated and interactive
Location
On top of prehistoric Pueblos and
on strategic overlooks
Scavenging from prehistoric Pueblos,
strategic access to resources
Architecture
Walled terraces, torreones, and
hornos
Courtyards, storage, corral, and
herding facilities
Artifacts
Low surface-artifact densities, shortterm superficial occupation
High artifact densities, long-term
highly integrated occupation
Interactions
No evidence for Native American
materials and practices.
Ample evidence for Native American
trade materials and practices.
The early eighteenth-century Spanish colonial occupation was short lived, and
the valley remained unoccupied for nearly fifty years due to Ute and Comanche
raiding, though use of the Rio del Oso Valley as a pilgrimage route and travel corridor by Tewa and Athapaskan populations likely continued. In the final decades
of the eighteenth century, the new Vecino population that emerged reestablished
and occupied former Spanish land grants prior to expansion into previously
unoccupied areas. The new settlement pattern lacks the defensive posture and is
more fully integrated into the surrounding landscape and engaged with Indian
neighbors, including the semisettled Saitinde band of the Jicarilla Apache. The
later grant emphasized an integrated subsistence-settlement economy with significant Indian input into technology and trade, and unlike the earlier colonial
occupation, the Vecino settlement of San Lorenzo was located away from the
late prehistoric or early historic Pueblo archaeological sites. While even the settlement of San Lorenzo did not survive, other Vecino settlements persist until
the present day and have done so since the initial expansion of Vecino population beginning in the late eighteenth century.
“aQUí Me QUeDo”
This chapter proposes that the permanent, “Hispanic” occupation of the Rio
del Oso Valley and many other areas like it in northern New Mexico was
the result of Vecino population growth and settlement expansion beginning
approximately 100 years after the Spanish reconquest. This was accompanied
by material and sociocultural practices visible in the historical and archaeological records. “Aquí me quedo” provides the metaphor for the transformation of
a people who were formerly citizens of Spain into a cohesive, endemic society
that was increasingly less dependent on the administrative and religious apparatus embodied by the Spanish Crown. The penitente, who assumed responsibility
for maintaining the rituals and beliefs of the secularized and disenfranchised
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Catholic Church in colonial New Mexico, offers an obvious example of the
decolonization process that signaled a break with Spanish authority decades
before Mexican independence. However, this was not the only institution. The
system of mayordomos, acequia associations, and other religious, political, and
even quasi-military organizations also served to establish the Vecino community and to assume local authority.
Genealogical reconstruction speaks to the gradual decolonization of the
northern Rio Grande region, in particular the transformation of the Spanish
colonial status system from one that intentionally segregated Spanish reconquest settlers from nonlanded genízaros and Indians to the more inclusive system
in which all individual landholders were considered Vecinos regardless of, or
perhaps in spite of, family bloodline.
The temporary abandonment of the Rio del Oso Valley from the 1760s to the
early 1800s by Spanish settlers is an especially critical time in the transformation
of colonial society. It may also serve as a prime example of a broader pattern of
partial abandonment of lands during Ute and Comanche hostilities, and the concentration of survivors in defensible towns and settlements. This set the stage
for the initial breakdown in Spanish institutions including the arcane and untenable regimen de castas, after it became necessary to replace lost family members
with adopted captives or individuals of mixed ancestry.
The land negotiations that led to the Vecino reoccupation of the Rio del
Oso after 1810 also suggest that genealogical reckoning by Vecinos purposely
emphasized descent from late Spanish colonial land grant founders, while
simultaneously suppressing Native or genízaro ancestry. This had little to do
with matters of race or denial of certain details of descent. Instead, it was
necessary for new marriages to perpetuate the family and consolidate existing
landholdings on the basis of ancestral ties to original landholders and grant
recipients. Historians recognize this but the implications have not been appreciated sufficiently in archaeological investigations. Current chronologies, for
example, still use historical events, such as Mexican independence in 1821 or the
American invasion of the 1840s, as benchmarks for culture change. However it
is clear that many of the sociocultural transformations indicative of the new
Vecino community in the northern Rio Grande precede these events by years
or even decades.
the hoMelaND revisiteD
We have characterized the Spanish Colonial to Vecino transition as a “decolonization” with certain implications for population dynamics and the occupation
of new lands. Slavery and miscegenation were driving forces in the population
dynamics of the late colonial period along with disease and deaths due to raiding. Frontier violence along with customs of marriage and inheritance that
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segregated populations limited the stability and longevity of land holdings. This
is reflected not only in the abandonment of villages and land grants, but also
in the occupations themselves—the locations, structure, and content of archaeological sites that were defensive, quasi-militaristic, and that appropriated the
Puebloan landscape.
After 1790, Vecino status shifted from the strictly legal definition that existed
nearly 100 years earlier. The demographic collapse of the eighteenth century that
followed the Comanche raids and a series of epidemics generally undermined
local, colonial systems of class and status that served to distinguish Vecinos from
naturales. The Bourbon reforms stimulated a significant increase in endogamous
marriages among property-owning Vecinos of mixed heritage, which in turn,
served to concentrate wealth and property within a new ethnic group. By the
early 1800s, Vecinos were marrying within landholding groups in order to extend
control over territory and integrate the economies of neighboring grants. Filial
ties with property conditioned the emergence and consolidation of an endemic
Vecino population with connections to a deeper Indian heritage. When viewed
demographically, the need for favorable endogamous unions to consolidate and
hold property promoted the process of Vecino decolonization. The archaeological record reflects this process and the material connections to Indian neighbors
that resulted.
In short, the Rio del Oso Valley provides a compelling case study, demonstrating an important but overlooked body of data (kinship) and the demographic
processes responsible for changes in land tenure and the hiving-off of new settlements. Hispanic settlement of the Rio del Oso includes late Spanish colonial and
Vecino occupations that are clearly discernable in the archaeological record, and
the genealogy of the grant demonstrates the connections between them.
Richard Nostrand’s Homeland Thesis was a milestone in studies of Southwestern cultures, sparking a debate that still influences borderlands scholars
today. Efforts to locate the source and nature of New Mexico’s Spanish-speaking
population have identified two axes of interest—cultural interactions and connections to the land—both emphasizing place-based, civic identities that are
unique to New Mexican Hispanos. However, it is also understood generally that
historical efforts of the Bourbon state to make the colony economically viable
also contributed to its transformation.
“Aquí me quedo,” or “here I stay,” is more than a simple reference to a protest
song made famous throughout Latin America. It is a metaphor through which
Vecino origins in northern New Mexico may be better understood. “Here I stay”
appeals to the notion of a people and a homeland that was quickly subsumed by
the American invasion following Mexican independence but only after Vecino
society emerged as a persistent indigenous community.
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Notes
1. For editorial consistency we use the term “Hispano” rather than “Hispanic” following Adrian Bustamante 1982; Charles Carrillo 1997; Richard Nostrand 1980, 1992; Rodríguez
1986; Van Ness 1987b, 1991. We acknowledge that the terms “Hispanic” and “Hispano”
are not interchangeable but refer the reader to these authors for further nuanced discussion of the differences.
2. Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, memorialized the phrase in the song, “Aquí Me
Quedo,” the music for which was composed by Victor Jara (with Patricio Castillo). It was
recorded in 1973 and was released in 1974 on the album Manifiesto following the deaths of
Neruda and Jara.
3. Genízaro was a specialized ethnic term used by the Spanish to designate the mixed
progeny of Indian captives, who were born free but, having been raised in the Spanish
milieu, had lost their tribal identity, customs, and language (Chávez 1979:198).
4. In early eighteenth-century parlance the term vecinos referred to Spanish neighbors
as opposed to naturales, who were “uncivilized,” presumably unbaptized, Pueblo Indians.
In its most basic form, a Vecino was a tithes-paying settler with an established household
and the legal right to marry other settlers. For non-Vecinos, becoming Vecino required
a change in legal status that was based on land ownership and economic achievement.
Eligibility also was determined by adherence to the Catholic faith and by behaving like
fellow colonials. After reconquest, the system became more relaxed. Indian, ethnically
mixed, and genízaro individuals could achieve Vecino status through Plains Indian trade
and warfare, which brought them the necessary economic success, independent of their
position in the local expression of the regimen de castas (Bustamante 1991).
5. See Sunday Eiselt and Andrew Darling (Eiselt and Darling 2014) for additional
analysis of this demographic pattern.
6. Land ownership was also facilitated by the 1822 Plan of Iguala, which extended
Mexican citizenship to all individuals regardless of their ethnic or economic consequences. The new administration, eager to secure the loyalties of the population under
Mexican rule, further undertook a broad program of reaffirming titles to grants during
the 1840s.
7. Vincento Jirón and Joseph Gomes were additional associates. Jirón and Ignacio
Valdez likely never settled on the grant.
8. Frances Swadesh (1974:212) points out that as the ranking civil servant of this district, Lobato frequently took possession of lands that were forfeited by settlers during
Indian raids, and later placed settlers in possession of lands that were claimed in his
name. Although it is unclear whether Lobato actually occupied this grant (as required by
Spanish law), he did sell portions to neighboring landowners. A certain amount of land
speculation therefore clouds the history of the Rio del Oso valley and its relation to the
larger Lobato grant that encompassed it.
9. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, Vol. 1, SG 59 Roll 31, Case File 112, State Record
Center and Archives, Santa Fe.
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10. An excerpt: “proceeding to divide them from east to west in the area of the houses
to some with a greater number of varas than others so that the width of land is not
equal and to each is as follows: Cristoval Herrera 287, José Antonio Valdez 287, Cristoval
Lobato 115, Seberino Valerio 115, Miguel Mariano Chavez 115, Jose Ramon Vijil 115 (a short
piece given in this intermediate area without owner since it is considered unusable), and
follows Jose Maria Ortega 115, San Juan Ortega 230, Francisco Gallego, 115, Juan Pedro
Herrera 115, Polito Lobato 230. The uplands of this grant being left without division as far
as where one cannot see the source of water for the main acequia [canal], for from there
all that is irrigated they divide in equal parts as if they were legitimate heirs of that site,
being preferred in distributing without title the said Valdez and the rest who make primary use with these and others that the ditch provides, and who work in maintaining the
entire said acequia. They agree unanimously that some of the said donors [shareholders
or associates] would do their part for whatever reason, this being the primary title of the
aforementioned Valdez. The boundaries of this land being distinguished on the north
by the canyon of the Almagre, on the south by the upland adjacent to the river, on the
east where the arroyo of the Almagre empties, and on the west the rim of Ute Mesa.”
Translation by J. Andrew Darling; for the original Spanish, see Eiselt (2012).
11. The Mestas grant provides an example. Juan de Mestas established the settlement
of La Cuchilla at the mouth of the Rio del Oso in the early 1730s (Swadesh 1974:33). In
1808 Manuel Mestas, a famous genízaro who had served the Abiquiú settlers as a Ute
interpreter, was a private landowner at La Cuchilla. Several other residents of the same
surname were listed at Abiquiú, including Guadalupe Mestas, who was married to José
el Apache in the 1780s. Swadesh (1974:43) states that these families may have been relatives of Manuel Mestas, or they all may have acquired the surname through service to
the Mestas family of La Cuchilla. Given that 73 percent of the captives during the early
to mid-1700s were Apache (Brugge 1985), the likelihood that at least some of the Vecino
residents of the lower Chama (including the Rio del Oso) during the nineteenth century
had Athapaskan or Ute blood cannot be discounted.
12. See discussions of Vecino micaceous ceramic production in Carrillo (1997) and in
Eiselt and Darling (2012).
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Quintana, Frances L. 1991. Pobladores: Hispanic Americans of the Ute Frontier. Aztec, NM:
Frances Leon Quintana.
Rivera, José A. 1998. Acequía Culture: Water, Land, and Community in the Southwest.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Rodríguez, Sylvia. 1986. The Hispano Homeland Debate. Working Paper Series No. 17.
Palo Alto, CA: Stanford Center for Chicano Research, Stanford University.
Simmons, Marc, Fray Angelico Chavez, D. W. Meinig, and Thomas D. Hall. 1984.
“Rejoinder.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 74 (1): 169–71. http://dx
.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1984.tb01443.x.
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Snow, David H. 1976. Archaeological Excavations at Pueblo del Encierro, LA 70, Cochiti Dam
Salvage Project, Cochiti, New Mexico: Final Report 1965–1965 Field Seasons. Laboratory of
Anthropology Notes 98. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico.
Snow, David H. 1979. “Rural Hispanic Community Organization in Northern New
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Swadesh, Frances L. 1974. Los Primeros Pobladores: Hispanic Americans of the Ute Frontier.
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Van Ness, John R. 1980. “The Juan Bautista Valdez Grant: Was It a Community Land
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John R. Van Ness, 141–216. New Mexico Land Grant Series. Albuquerque: University
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Van Ness, John R. 1991. Hispanos in Northern New Mexico: The Development of Corporate
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e
i
g
H
t
becoming vecinos
Civic Identities in Late Colonial New Mexico
k e l ly l . J e n k S
iNtroDUctioN
The New Mexico Colony, founded in 1598, is both the oldest and arguably the
most remote Spanish colony in the American Southwest, factors that likely contributed to the emergence of a distinctly New Mexican cultural identity during
the late colonial period (1692–1821). Throughout its long history, generations
of colonists from New Spain—many of whom were of mixed ethnic heritage
(Snow 1996)—interacted closely and constantly with a variety of indigenous
groups residing within and around the colony (Brooks 2002; Swadesh 1979;
Trigg 2003; Trigg and Gold 2005). These colonists adopted elements of indigenous architectural traditions (Boyd 1973; Bunting 1976; Kubler 1990), subsistence
practices (Dunmire 2004; Trigg 2005), and craft technologies (Dick 1968; Moore
1992), and exploited existing indigenous trade networks to supplement their
supplies of food, cooking ware, clothing and bedding material, and domestic
labor (Eiselt 2006; F. Levine 1991; Snow 1983). Pigs did not fare well in the harsh
climate, thus, sheep and to a lesser extent goats and cattle formed the basis
of an emergent herding economy (Baxter 1987; Dunmire 2013). Relationships
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c008
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between male colonists and local, indigenous women were exceedingly common, and while these relationships ranged in character from brutal enslavement
and rape to church-sanctioned marriage, most unions produced children of
mixed ancestry and variable legal status. Thus, by the late eighteenth century,
New Mexico’s Spanish colonial population could be characterized as a multiethnic “menagerie of frontier peoples” (C. Carrillo 1997:25), many of whom
had little or no Spanish ancestry.
Between circa 1785 and 1810, the New Mexico colony experienced rapid economic and population growth culminating in what many scholars have come to
view as a cultural fluorescence (Boyd 1974; Brooks 2002; C. Carrillo 1997; L. Frank
and Miller 2001a, 2001b, 2001c; R. Frank 1991, 2000; Swadesh 1974). In order to
expand and protect its territory, colonial authorities granted lands along the
frontier to groups of applicants, many of whom were of indigenous or mixed
heritage and lacked the wealth or status to purchase lands nearer to the colonial
core. These settlers pushed the boundaries of the colony beyond the middle
Rio Grande Valley by establishing numerous rural villages far north and south
along the Rio Grande, northwest along the Chama River, and east along the
Pecos River. In order to obtain the supplies and protection necessary to survive in these peripheral spaces, the colonists sought out and established trading
relationships with members of neighboring indigenous groups—especially the
Comanches, Apaches, Navajos, and Utes (C. Carrillo 1997; Eiselt and Darling
2012; R. Frank 2000; Kutsche et al. 1976; Swadesh 1974; Van Ness 1979). Blending
local and imported traditions, colonists developed unique forms of craft production, syncretic religious practices, and a distinctive regional dialect. Within
this context, colonists increasingly identified themselves in legal documents as
Vecinos (literally, “neighbors”), employing a term that “denoted both a cultural
and civic identity, rather than caste or race” (Nieto-Phillips 2008:38). Their strong
preference for this term suggests that the most salient aspect of Spanish colonial
identity in late colonial New Mexico was not Spanish ethnicity but one’s residence and accepted membership in a Spanish colonial community. This chapter
explores the significance of Vecino identity in New Mexico and considers how it
was manifested in the spatial organization and material remains of village sites
during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
UNDerstaNDiNG aND DefiNiNG civic
iDeNtity iN coloNial New Mexico
Vecino derives from vecindad, a Castilian term dating to the medieval period
when Christians began to reconquer and resettle lands previously occupied
by the Moors. Within this context, vecindad referred to the various rights and
responsibilities shared by members of these new Christian communities, which
often included rights to common lands and natural resources and obligations to
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construct, occupy, govern, and protect the settlement (Herzog 2003). This concept accompanied Spanish colonists into the Americas and eventually into New
Spain’s northern frontier, where the derivative term vecino was used to identify
colonial citizens who inhabited, maintained, and defended colonial settlements
and, thus, were entitled to exercise their rights to grants of property and access
to common lands (Guerrero 2010; Gutiérrez 1991; Herzog 2003).
The use of Vecino as an identifier in legal records in colonial New Mexico
increased in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth, eventually superseding the use of the casta, or racial categories, that dominated records earlier
in the colony’s history (R. Frank 2000; Gutiérrez 1991:191–94). This same period
also witnessed an expansion of colonial efforts to establish settlements in the
north and east, a task that royal authorities achieved by issuing grants of land
along these frontiers to applicants of varied ethnic backgrounds, many of whom
lacked the social or economic capital to purchase lands in more desirable locations within the colony. Granting lands (and the civic rights and obligations
reserved for landowners) to individuals of primarily indigenous ancestry transformed these “Indians” into Spanish colonial citizens and likewise transformed
colonial citizenship into something a little less “Spanish.” Thus, as the colony
became increasingly dominated by and dependent on multiethnic settlements
along the frontier, New Mexicans began to recognize civic status and practice as
more important than ethnic heritage ( Jenks 2013b). And, this emphasis on and
expression of Vecino identity would continue to grow even during the Mexican
period (1821–46) (Gutiérrez 1991:table 5.1), encouraged by further expansion of
the colony through communal land grants and by the new government’s legal
abolition of racial categories.
This growing emphasis on civic identity also is evident in other parts of
New Spain during the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth, though
the context and specific character of these identities vary by region. The terms
vecino, vecinos de razón, and gente de razón were used in the colonial settlements
of Arizona and California to describe individuals mostly of non-European
ancestry who were subjects of the Spanish Crown (Guerrero 2010:5–7). Many
of these individuals were (or were closely related to) presidio soldiers, and
by highlighting their civic status these terms served to distinguish them from
neighboring populations with similar ethnic backgrounds but dissimilar loyalties and lifestyles (Guerrero 2010:7, 12; Jenks 2013a). At the presidio of San
Francisco in northern California, Barbara Voss and others have examined
archival and archaeological evidence of the creation of another civic identity—
Californio—that united a small but diverse group of colonists and soldiers
by emphasizing their shared affiliation with the colony, which set them apart
from the local Native population (Smith-Lintner 2007; Voss 2005, 2008). Both
of these examples differ somewhat from Vecino identity in New Mexico,
Civic Identities in Late Colonial New Mexico
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which developed among farmers rather than soldiers and thus emphasized
the village over the colony ( Jenks 2011a). Nevertheless, the proliferation of
these civic identities during this period seems to reflect a wider shift in identity
politics in New Spain.
Civic identity was an important organizing principle for the colonists, and it
is equally important to contemporary archaeologists as we attempt to understand what constituted a “Spanish” way of life in colonial settlements that
were occupied extensively—sometimes exclusively—by individuals of mixed
and indigenous ancestry. In investigating this specific kind of civic identity, it is
important to understand that, during this period, Vecino identity was thought
of less as a legally ascribed status than as a process and performance—an identity that was earned through displays of commitment to the community and
enacted in daily practices associated with Vecino identity. As Tamar Herzog
(2003:42) says of vecindad in eighteenth-century Castile, “People are citizens by
virtue of their activities, and they lose their condition as citizens if they fail to
enact the citizen role. Status is thus socially negotiated and socially recognized.”
This explanation of Vecino identity lends itself to interpretation through the
archaeological theory of practice, which borrows from Pierre Bourdieu (1977)
and Anthony Giddens (1979) in viewing routine activities within a structured
space as simultaneously constructing and expressing underlying cultural values
(e.g., Clark 2005; Lightfoot et al. 1998), including those associated with notions
of “good” and “bad” citizenship. Viewed through this lens, continuity or change
in these daily practices may be seen as evidence of the evolution of these cultural values in response to internal or external stimuli.
I draw on practice theory to identify and interpret evidence of Vecino identity
at a sample of excavated Hispanic New Mexican sites occupied at various times,
and in various places, in the former Spanish colony. The term “Vecino” expresses
close physical proximity to other persons, typically in the form of shared residence within a neighborhood. Thus, the spatial organization of Hispanic villages
structured Vecino identity in both a literal and figurative sense. Similarly, Vecino
identity was expressed through the act of being a vecino of a particular community—participating in the routines and rituals of daily life within that village.
Because Vecino identity was defined by one’s residence and participation in a
New Mexican Hispanic village, analyses of the historical, material, and spatial
records of village life at Hispanic New Mexican sites dating to the late colonial
period can be used to derive, inductively, the processes involved in the construction and expression of that identity.
Finally, social identities gain meaning and shape through comparison and
contradiction with “others,” and Vecino identity is no exception. Civic identity
peaked in importance in New Mexico during a period of regular interactions
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between an increasingly rural Hispanic village population and various neighboring nomadic tribes, and was sustained as relations with these tribes were
gradually supplanted by relations with American traders, soldiers, and ranchers.
The significance of community membership and residence for Vecinos, therefore, likely derived in part from the absence or relative unimportance of village
life for nomadic Indians and early American populations, who at various times
were the enemies or economic allies of Vecino communities. In this way, an
examination of Vecino identity requires some consideration of the social and
economic context of these communities, and an appreciation of how the identity was shaped not only by what villagers did, but also by what they chose not to
do. The remainder of this chapter explores, through the comparison of archaeological assemblages from Hispanic New Mexican sites, what it meant to be a
Vecino within this Spanish colony, how this civic identity varied across space,
and how it evolved over time.
excavatiNG veciNDaD: iDeNtifyiNG aND
exPloriNG reGioNal PatterNs
I reviewed and compared archaeological data from twenty-five New Mexican
Hispanic sites in order to identify broad patterns of behavior shared by Vecinos
and to interpret apparent variations in these patterns (Table 8.1 and Figure 8.1).
I have organized these sites by region and present them in roughly chronological order, with the expectation that much of the variation between sites can
be understood as the result of shared environmental context and settlement
history. Most of the regional categories are self-explanatory, though it is worth
explaining that Rio Arriba, Rio Medio, and Rio Abajo are local terms that refer
to the upper, middle, and lower portions of the Rio Grande Valley, and divisions between the three are marked by the mouths of the Jemez and Puerco
Rivers.
It would be difficult, if not impossible, to compare data from all of these sites
using quantitative measures, as different archaeologists focused on different
attributes and too many variables and categories are involved. Therefore, these
comparisons are largely qualitative, focusing on observed differences in the patterns of archaeological data. I include plaza communities and isolated ranch sites
in the sample, but have excluded colonial-period cities (Santa Fe, Albuquerque,
Santa Cruz, and El Paso) because data from these sites are likely to be anomalous. There is some bias toward sites in the Rio Arriba, owing to the relative
abundance of cultural resource management (CRM) projects conducted in this
region and the ready availability of contract reports produced by the Office of
Archeological Studies. Likewise, sites located in present-day Colorado are likely
underrepresented, as site reports are more difficult to obtain.
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table 8.1. Sample of
County
Hispanic New Mexican sites.
Site Name(s)
Date Range
Source
Rio Medio and Rio Abajo Regions
Valencia
Valencia (LA 67321)
1700–ca. 1850
(Akins 2001; Brown and Vierra 1997;
Mensel 1996; Wiseman 1988)
Bernalillo
San Antonio de Los
Poblanos (LA 46635)
1710–1830
(Rudecoff 1987a; Rudecoff and
Carrillo 1987)
Bernalillo
Tijeras Arroyo Hacienda 1720–1846
Site (LA 140040)
(Hurt et al. 1980)
Bernalillo
San José de Los Ranchos 1730–1904
(LA 46638)
(Condie 2007; Rudecoff 1987b;
Sargeant 1985)
Sandoval
San José de las Huertas
(LA 25674)
1764–1838
(Atherton and Rothschild 2008;
Brody and Colberg 1966; Crane and
Wenzel 1991; Ferg 1984; Rothschild
and Atherton 2004)
Sandoval
Ideal Site (LA 8671)
1835–65
(Brody and Colberg 1966; Crane and
Wenzel 1991; Ferg 1984)
Sandoval
Rio Puerco Site (ENM
198)
1800s
(Haeker 1976)
Socorro
Paraje de Fra Cristóbal
(LA 1124)
1857–1924
(Boyd 1986)
Rio Arriba Region
Santa Fe
Trujillo-Romero Site
(LA 6579)
1750–1821
(Maxwell et al. 1998; Wiseman 1996)
Santa Fe
Santa Fe River Site 16/4
(LA 16769)
1750–1850
(Crane and Wenzel 1991; F. Levine et
al. 1985; Payne 1999; Toll 1985)
Taos
Ranchos de Taos (LA
8976)
1770s–present
(Eiselt and Darling 2012; Gonzalez
2007)
Rio Arriba
Los Luceros / La
Soledad (LA 37549)
1775–1912
(Snow 1999)
Santa Fe
Vicente Valdez Site (LA
4968)
1830–70
(Boyer et al. 2001; Moore 2000)
Rio Arriba
Parker Borrego
1830–80
(Eiselt and Darling 2012; Peles 2010)
Chama River Region
Rio Arriba
Santa Rosa de Lima de
Abiquiú (LA 806, LA
6602)
1700–early
1900s
(C. Carrillo 1978; Eiselt and Darling
2012; Moore et al. 2004)
Rio Arriba
La Puente (LA 54313)
1700–early
1900s
(Betram 1990; Boyer 1992; Moore et
al. 2004)
Rio Arriba
Las Casitas (LA 917)
1750–1870
(Eiselt and Darling 2012; Quintana
and Snow 1980; Sunseri 2009)
continued on next page
table 8.1.—continued
County
Site Name(s)
Date Range
Source
Rio Arriba
Trujillo House (LA
59658)
1840–94
(Betram 1990; Betram et al. 1989;
Moore et al. 2004)
Rio Arriba
San Lorenzo Ranch
1800s
Sites (LA 12272, LA
90870, AR-03-10-06-1573,
AR-02-10-06-1574)
(Eiselt 2006; Eiselt and Darling 2012)
Pecos River Region
San Miguel
San Miguel del Vado
(LA 2734)
1790s–present
(Hurt 2002; Jenks 2011b, 2011b,
2013b; Neasham 1940)
San Miguel
El Cerrito (LA 101030,
LA 84318)
1820–early
1900s
(Boyd 1971; Hannaford and Severts
1996; Townsend 2004; Windes 2011;
Windes and Bagwell 2004)
San Miguel
José María Martínez Site
(LA 99029)
1850–1970
(Moore 2003)
Guadalupe
Los Ojitos (LA 98907)
1860s–1940
(Gray and O’Mack 2008; Hanson et
al. 2010; Jenks 2009; O’Mack 2006)
Chaves
Ontiberos Site (LA
27573)
1903–8
(Oakes 1983)
Purgatoire River Region (Colorado)
Las
Animas
La Placita (5LA6104)
1880s–90s
(Clark 2003, 2005, 2012; Clark and
Corbett 2006; Clark and Wilkie 2006)
rio Medio and rio abajo regions
Archaeologists have conducted excavations at a number of Hispanic sites in the
Middle and Lower Rio Grande Valley area, including the plaza communities of
Valencia, San Antonio de Los Poblanos, San José de Los Ranchos, and San José
de las Huertas; a small hamlet that developed around the Paraje de Fra Cristobal;
and three isolated ranchos (see references in Table 8.1). The site of Valencia is
situated south of Albuquerque and east of the Rio Grande along the Camino
Real. Colonists settled the neighboring plaza communities of Los Poblanos and
Los Ranchos in the early eighteenth century on the east bank of the Rio Grande
just north of Albuquerque. Frequent floods caused most residents to abandon
these plazas by the early twentieth century. The site of Las Huertas is located
just north of Las Huertas Creek (a tributary of the Rio Grande) near the presentday town of Placitas. The ranch sites are spread across the region: one east of
Albuquerque along the Tijeras Arroyo, one south of Las Huertas on the Las
Huertas Creek, and one on the Rio Puerco in Navajo territory in the west. The
last and latest of the sites in this sample, Paraje de Fra Cristobal, was settled in
the mid-nineteenth century east of the Rio Grande and about seven miles downstream from the ruins of Fort Craig.
Civic Identities in Late Colonial New Mexico
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fiGUre 8.1. Sample of twenty-five excavated Hispanic sites: (1) Valencia, (2) Los Poblanos,
(3) Tijeras Arroyo, (4) Los Ranchos, (5) San José de las Huertas, (6) ENM 198, (7) Ideal Site,
(8) Trujillo-Romero, (9) Santa Fe River Site 16/4, (10) Los Luceros, (11) Ranchos de Taos, (12)
Vicente Valdez, (13) Parker Borrego, (14) La Puente, (15) Santa Rosa de Lima, (16) Las Casitas,
(17) Trujillo House, (18) San Lorenzo Ranch Sites, (19) San Miguel del Vado, (20) El Cerrito,
(21) José María Martínez, (22) Los Ojitos, (23) Ontiberos, (24) Paraje de Fra Cristóbal (25) La
Placita. (The tables are organized by area and date, while the map numbers are assigned
based on proximity.)
Most of these sites produced numerous faunal remains, with sheep/goat
bone dominating the collections followed by cow, pig, and chicken. Eggshells
were identified at several sites, as were examples of wild game species (especially mule deer). Paraje de Fra Cristobal in the south was the only site in this
sample to produce rabbit bones (Boyd 1986). Butchery marks were observed
at several sites, most often on sheep/goat bone, and archaeologists interpreted
these marks as evidence that these animals were raised and butchered at those
sites (Boyd 1986; Rudecoff and Carrillo 1987). New Mexican ceramics also were
abundant, often being dominated by locally made utility wares such as Carnue
Plain and Plain Black. Decorated wares included Isleta Red-on-tan; Tewa Series
Polychrome; Puname-area polychromes; Ranchitos and Santa Ana Polychrome;
and a few decorated wares from Acoma, Laguna, Zuni, and Hopi. The most
abundant wares were typically those produced by nearby Pueblos, thus wares
produced by Northern Tewa potters (e.g., Tewa Polychrome) were more common in the north while wares produced by Keresan potters—especially those
in the Puname region—were more common in the middle (Figure 8.2). New
Mexican ceramics were least common at Paraje de Fra Cristobal, which, in
addition to being occupied later than the other sites, also was located some considerable distance from Pueblo potting communities (Boyd 1986).
All of the sites in this sample produced some historical-period artifacts,
though these were most abundant in sites with twentieth-century components (e.g., Los Ranchos and Paraje de Fra Cristobal). Mexican majolica and
Euro-American white-bodied tableware sherds were present at most sites, and
porcelain was present at a few. Lithic artifacts were relatively rare, often consisting of expedient tools, gunflints, strike-a-lights, and a few groundstone
artifacts. Botanical remains identified included maize, beans, peaches, and
melon, as well as wood charcoal fragments mostly from riparian and low-elevation species.
rio arriba region
Excavated Hispanic sites in the Upper Rio Grande region include the plaza communities of Ranchos de Taos and La Soledad, a small hamlet identified as the
Vicente Valdez Site, and three ranchos (see Table 8.1). Ranchos de Taos, which
was founded in the eighteenth century and is still occupied today, is located south
of Taos along the Rio Grande del Rancho River. The remains of La Soledad
are situated along the Rio Grande underneath a rural hamlet near the town of
Alcalde. The Vicente Valdez Site is a loose cluster of eight colonial-period structures situated on the east bank of the Rio Tesuque. Once again, the ranch sites
are spread across the region, with one located north of San Juan Pueblo on the
Rio Grande, one just north of the Vicente Valdez Site on the Rio Tesuque (north
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fiGUre 8.2.
Pueblo potting areas.
of Cuyamungue Pueblo), and one on the east bank of the Santa Fe River west
of the city of Santa Fe.
In contrast to the Rio Medio, the most abundant artifacts from Hispanic sites
in the Rio Arriba appear to be New Mexican ceramics, which often outnumber materials from other material categories. Utility and decorated wares (likely
produced by Northern Tewa potters) and micaceous wares (likely produced by
Jicarilla Apache potters) dominate these ceramic collections. Common utility
wares include Plain (Kapo) Black, Plain Red, Tewa Micaceous, and Sangre de
Cristo Micaceous, while decorated wares include Tewa Polychrome Series, Red
Mesa Black-on-white, and a little Puname Polychrome. Once again, the type
and distribution of New Mexican ceramics seem to reflect local market availability. Faunal remains are the second most common artifact, and while fewer of
these collections have been analyzed, the most commonly identified species are
sheep/goat and cow. Ax-cut butchering marks were observed at two sites, one
of which also produced bones with saw marks (Peles 2010). Many sites produced
small quantities of Mexican majolica sherds, while Euro-American white-bodied
wares were recovered from sites occupied after the opening of the Santa Fe Trail
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Kelly L. Jenks
in 1821. Lithic artifacts were relatively rare. Botanical remains identified at these
sites include maize, peach, and beans, as well as watermelon, piñon, pistachio,
plantain, wheat, orange, lentil, plum, and pepper.
chama region
Archaeologists have conducted excavations at several Hispanic sites in the
Chama River region (west of Rio Arriba), including the plaza communities
of Las Casitas, La Puente, and Santa Rosa de Lima de Abiquiú, as well as a
few small ranch sites (see Table 8.1). Las Casitas was a fortified, plaza-centered settlement occupied primarily by genízaros, a term commonly used to
describe the free descendants of Native American captives. The settlement
was established above El Rito, a tributary of the Chama River. The site of
Santa Rosa de Lima is situated immediately south of the Chama River just east
of Abiquiú, while La Puente, located several miles east, probably represents an
earlier incarnation of that community. Sunday Eiselt has identified and investigated several small ranch sites associated with the old community of San
Lorenzo, all located along the Rio del Oso, another tributary of the Chama
River ( J. Andrew Darling and B. Sunday Eiselt, chapter 7 in this volume; Eiselt
2006). Contract excavations also have been conducted at the Trujillo House
site located just west of Santa Rosa de Lima (Betram 1990; Betram et al. 1989;
Moore et al. 2004).
Analyses of faunal bone recovered from these sites identify the remains of
sheep/goat (dominant in the Mexican and American periods); cow (more common in the Spanish period); and smaller numbers of equid, pig, dog, and chicken
bones. Several sites produced mule deer bones, and small numbers of bear,
rabbit, bison, antelope, turkey, cougar, and badger bone were recovered from
either Las Casitas (Quintana and Snow 1980; Sunseri 2009) or La Puente (Betram
1990; Boyer 1992; Moore et al. 2004). Chop marks were observed on most of the
domestic animals (including horse) and on most of the large game at Las Casitas.
Eggshell, likely from chicken eggs, also was recorded at La Puente. New Mexican
ceramics were abundant at all sites, and most seemed to include a mix of utility wares produced by Northern Tewa, Jicarilla Apache, and Hispanic potters
(Eiselt and Darling 2012). Common utility wares include Plain Black (Tewa and
Hispanic), micaceous wares (Tewa and Jicarilla Apache), and Plain Red (Tewa).
Decorated wares include Tewa Polychrome Series, Casitas Red-on-brown, San
Juan Red-on-tan, and a few Puname-area Polychromes.
Lithic artifacts are surprisingly common at Hispanic sites in the Chama
region, and include debitage (byproducts of stone tool production), expedient
tools, groundstone, ceramic polishing stones, and strike-a-lights, most produced
using locally available materials. Historical-period artifacts recovered from these
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sites are diverse, and include Euro-American white-bodied tableware fragments,
clothing fasteners, and comb fragments. Only the site of La Puente produced
majolica (a few dozen fragments [Moore et al. 2004]), and tin tinklers and
tin scraps (suggesting tinworking) were found at the ranch sites around old
San Lorenzo (Eiselt 2006; see also Darling and Eiselt, chapter 7 this volume).
Botanical remains include maize, peach, squash, apricot, and chili pepper, as
well as wood charcoal produced from riparian and lower-elevation species (especially piñon and juniper).
Pecos and Purgatoire river regions
Relatively less archaeological work has been done at Hispanic sites located east
of the Rio Grande Valley. Hispanic settlements in the east were established relatively late, mostly in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, in
territories previously explored by New Mexican bison hunters (cíboleros), participants in the Plains trade (comancheros), and shepherds. Archaeologists have
conducted test excavations at the late Spanish colonial plaza communities of
San Miguel del Vado and El Cerrito, the American-period hamlets of Los Ojitos
and La Placita, and a couple of isolated ranch sites (see Table 8.1). The late
eighteenth-century village of San Miguel was established just west of a natural ford (vado) in the Upper Pecos River as it flows out of the Sangre de Cristo
Mountains and onto the plains. El Cerrito was a later, smaller settlement located
about thirteen miles downstream from San Miguel on the same Spanish colonial
land grant. Hispanic homesteaders founded Los Ojitos in the 1860s and 1870s
south of Puerta de Luna along a bend in the Pecos River. Archaeologists have
investigated several Hispanic sites along the Purgatoire River in present-day
Colorado (e.g., R. Carrillo et al. 2003; Church 2001, 2002); however, only the site
of La Placita, an illegal plaza settlement dating to the late nineteenth century,
is included in this sample. Finally, test excavations have been conducted in a
midden associated with the José María Martínez Site—a ranch located along
the Pecos River upstream from San Miguel—and at the Ontiberos site—an early
nineteenth-century Hispanic ranch house and dugout located west of Roswell
in southeastern New Mexico.
Faunal remains recovered from the eastern sites exhibit considerable variation, with more sheep/goat bone recorded for the earlier settlements of the
Upper/Middle Pecos and more cow bone identified in the later sites in the north
(La Placita) and south (Ontiberos). Small quantities of pig, equid, chicken, and
dog bones were identified, along with wild species including mule deer, elk,
bison, turkey, and fish. Eggshell, likely from chickens, was recorded at several
sites. La Placita and Ontiberos produced butchered remains of cottontail rabbits and jackrabbits, suggesting that these animals were either raised or captured
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and then butchered at the site (Clark 2003, 2012; Oakes 1983). Saw marks appear
more frequently on cow bones, suggesting that some of these derive from
cheap stew cuts of meat purchased by the residents, whereas chop marks identified on sheep/goat bone likely resulted from butchering the animal at home.
New Mexican ceramics were relatively abundant in sites near the Sangre de
Cristo Mountains, where the most commonly identified types were Sangre de
Cristo Micaceous, Plain Black, Plain Red, and Tewa Polychrome Series, though
a few Puname-area Polychromes also were recorded. New Mexican ceramics
were less common along the Middle Pecos and wholly absent at La Placita and
Ontiberos—later sites located far from any indigenous potting communities.
Historical-period artifacts commonly recovered from these sites include sewing equipment, clothing fasteners, and Euro-American white-bodied tableware
fragments. Canning jars were present at sites established during the American
period (Los Ojitos, Ontiberos, and La Placita), but are conspicuously absent
from the assemblages of sites established during the Spanish or Mexican periods. Lithic artifacts were rare, consisting mostly of debitage and expedient tools
produced using local materials. Analyses of macrobotanical remains recovered
from the New Mexican sites reported maize, beans, peach, cherry, squash, and
apricot. La Placita, in contrast, produced only wild plants such as piñon and
Chenopodium seeds.
what Does it Mean to be vecino?
Certain characteristics are shared by most or all of the Vecino sites described
above. Not all villages were laid out in the same manner, but most contained
a Catholic church or chapel in a central location, and some Catholic materials or features are documented at most sites. Domestic architecture typically
consisted of a hybrid of Spanish and Pueblo traditions, made up of linear
arrangements of habitation, storage, and animal rooms/corrals often clustered together or organized around a central patio. Structure walls could be any
combination of adobe and stone, though high stone foundations were more
common in flood-prone areas. Most structures had flat, Pueblo-style roofs and
dirt/puddled-adobe floors, sometimes covered with linoleum or milled lumber
as these materials became available. Rooms were multipurpose with few interior features (corner fireplaces, niches, storage pits) and could be readily altered
to serve the needs of the season or to accommodate new goods, animals, or
family members.
Archaeological evidence of the raising of sheep and goats for their wool, milk,
and meat is extremely common. It is also evident that cattle ranching, while less
common, was practiced in all regions and time periods. Smaller numbers of animals often were kept for subsistence purposes, such as pigs and chickens (mostly
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for their eggs), and equines were used for agricultural labor and transportation.
Most Vecinos grew garden vegetables, fruit trees, and some crops—especially in
the productive floodplains of the Rio Grande—and common cultigens included
maize, peaches, squash, chilies, and beans. Wheat and corn were staple crops,
according to records of that time, though most of the archaeological evidence
for these crops is indirect, consisting of ovens (hornos) for cooking wheat bread
and manos and metates (especially in the northwest) for grinding corn. Grist
mills (molinos) constructed along the acequias ground the wheat harvested by
community members into usable flour (e.g., Gritzner 1974). Unfortunately, these
features have received less study than the communities themselves. Wild animals were sometimes hunted, probably as much for the hides as for their meat;
however, in most cases it appears that they were hunted opportunistically to
supplement local supplies, and wild resources seldom appear in contexts where
they would have been difficult to obtain.
Stock animals frequently were butchered at the household level, often
through use of metal axes to produce roast or stew-sized cuts and breaking
open the cranium to harvest the tongue and brain. Meat could be prepared
in pit roasts or stewed in earthenware pots with chilies or other vegetables.
Surplus meat and plant food were commonly preserved through drying, even
after the introduction of American canning technology, and part of the popularity of stews in New Mexico probably derives from a tradition of working
with dried food. Groundstone and griddles, while sometimes present, were
less common in Vecino assemblages than expected. It may be that cornmeal
products (tortillas, atole) were less fundamental to Vecino cuisine than they
were to the diets of their Pueblo neighbors and/or that corn was more often
used as animal fodder.
Artifacts relating to the manufacture and maintenance of cloth/clothing are
present at all of these sites, and evidence of limited metallurgy is common
as well. The leather clothing and commercial exports described in historical
accounts are not especially apparent in the material record, perhaps because
these items were generally obtained in trade from nomadic Indian groups or
perhaps because the material correlates that I seek (metal and lithic scrapers)
are not the best or only correlates of this activity. Evidence from all sites indicates that Vecinos were active participants in local trade networks, regularly
bartering with neighboring indigenous communities and occasionally traveling to regional trade centers (e.g., Santa Fe) in order to reach a broader market
for their goods. The church also likely facilitated social and economic interactions, drawing rural settlers to the nearest parish church for religious holidays,
and inviting neighboring communities to enjoy food and entertainment at the
annual feast day celebration.
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regional variants and change over time
While Vecino sites have much in common, some general differences can be
observed between sites located in different regions or occupied at different times
(see Darling and Eiselt, chapter 7 in this volume). A variety of social and economic factors influenced village layout, and some settlements—especially along
the Chama River and the Middle Pecos—appear to have been more dispersed.
Frances Swadesh (1974) suggested that this pattern in the Chama River area was
deliberate, making it easier for settlers to conduct illicit trade with indigenous
neighbors and making their properties less appealing to potential Indian raiders. Environmental conditions also may have played a role—especially for the
Middle Pecos settlements—as the narrow, flood-prone river valley and difficult
terrain would have made it particularly difficult for residents to travel back and
forth from a central village to their allotted agricultural lands.
Faunal assemblages were surprisingly small in the Las Huertas grant sites
(San José de las Huertas and the Ideal Site). Documentary and oral history indicate that these settlers raised sheep and goats (Atherton and Rothschild 2008;
Rebolledo and Márquez 2000), so the lack of faunal bone may simply be a
product of excavations focusing on interior spaces. Rabbits appear in the faunal
assemblages of several sites, but only contributed significantly to the local diet at
La Placita (in southeastern Colorado), which also is the only village that appears
not to have cultivated crops. A greater diversity of crops (including sugar cane)
could grow in the lower latitudes of the Rio Medio and Rio Abajo; however, this
diversity is not readily apparent in the botanical remains described above. Many
more lithic artifacts have been recovered from sites in the Chama River area than
in any other region, and include greater numbers of expedient tools, gunflints
or strike-a-lights, and groundstone. This region also has more evidence suggesting local craft production, both in the form of tinworking (Brown et al. 1978:138;
Darling and Eiselt, chapter 7 in this volume; Eiselt 2006) and ceramic manufacture (Brown et al. 1978:58–59; Eiselt 2006; D. Levine 1990, 2004; Olinger 2004).
The most obvious differences between Vecino sites are found in patterns of
nonlocal goods, reflecting the approximate areas of different local and regional
trade networks that existed within New Mexico. Local trade networks are most
apparent in the assemblages of New Mexican ceramics. The New Mexican
ceramic assemblage from the single Vecino site in the Rio Abajo region was
dominated by wares likely produced by Southern Tiwa potters at Isleta or Isleta
del Sur (see Figure 8.2). Decorated/polished wares produced by Keresan potters
at Santa Ana and Zia and Western Keres potters at Acoma and Laguna occurred
most frequently in Vecino sites in the Rio Medio region. Vecino sites in the north
were supplied mostly with decorated/polished wares produced by Northern
Tewa potters and micaceous utility wares produced in and around the Sangre
de Cristo Mountains (mostly by Jicarilla Apache potters). In addition, sites in the
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northwest (Chama River area) contained greater numbers of locally produced
polished black wares, and sites in the far north (Taos) and far east (Pecos River)
contained greater numbers of Apachean micaceous ceramics. Vecino sites
located far away from Pueblo or Apache communities—that is, the Ontiberos
Site and La Placita—did not possess New Mexican ceramics.
Regional trade networks are most apparent in the assemblages of historicalperiod artifacts. Majolica and Mexican glaze ware ceramics are the most obvious
Mexican imports, and these items appear consistently—if not in great numbers—
at sites along the Camino Real. Fewer (if any) majolica/Mexican glaze ware
sherds were recovered from sites outside of the Rio Grande Valley, including at
relatively populous sites like San Miguel del Vado. The purchase and resulting
presence of majolica ceramics could indicate greater wealth or social status, or a
desire to project a more Spanish identity (see Snow 1993). However, it is unlikely
that the absence of these ceramics outside of the Rio Grande Valley reflected
differences in ethnicity or class (with genízaro buffer settlements being excluded
from the Mexican trade), as San José de Las Huertas began as a genízaro buffer
settlement and produced dozens of Mexican ceramics. In most cases, differences in the prevalence of Mexican imports within the Vecino assemblages likely
reflect differences in access to the Camino Real trade. American imports seem to
have penetrated more deeply into the countryside, appearing in the assemblages
of most sites occupied after 1821. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine how
the distribution of American goods might have changed over the course of the
territorial period, as the date ranges for sites often are based on the prevalence of
American imports. (Thus, there is a fair amount of circular reasoning involved
in making the observation that American imports are available everywhere after
the train arrived in 1880.)
As the previous statement suggests, some of the differences between the
assemblages of Vecino sites may reflect change over time rather than (or in
addition to) regional differences. Animal husbandry practices are remarkably
consistent; however, the introduction of American cattle from the Central and
Southern Plains and the growth of the cattle industry around Las Vegas do
appear to have influenced sites along the Pecos River. Horticulture likely was
similarly affected, as the demand for fodder increased and the availability of
cheap grain imports—especially wheat—made it easier to change crops. Bone
saws first appear during this period, and the rise of a butchering industry likely
responded more to the demands of an Anglo market (including soldiers) than
to the needs of Vecinos, though some this saw-cut meat did make it into Vecino
homes. Band saws also changed the timber industry, bringing more milled lumber into Vecino villages and homes.
Clothing manufacture and maintenance remained important throughout
time; however, in earlier sites this may be expressed more in wool shears, weaving
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equipment, awls, and leather-working tools (scrapers), with later assemblages
more likely to include scissors, needles, buttons, and beads. Flaked glass items
may be more abundant than flaked stones in the later assemblages, especially in
areas where the local stone is not as sharp or easily modified as glass (e.g., San
Miguel del Vado and Los Ojitos). Finally, American land-use laws restricted the
landholdings of older communities while the new Homestead Acts influenced
the arrangement of new settlements. In most cases, the loss of the common
lands drove members of older land grant communities into the labor force
to compensate for the loss of grazing lands and timber. Those who sought to
establish new communities were forced to deal with an American public land
grant system that used an arbitrary grid to measure out equal sections of land
that, because they ignored local geography, varied tremendously in available
resources and agricultural productivity (see Church 2002).
In sum, Vecino identity drew on a common set of beliefs and routine practices,
many of which emphasized social integration and economic interdependence.
These values are apparent in the corporate structure of the villages and in the
spiritual, familial, and economic ties between community members and between
communities. At a regional level, the emphasis on economic interdependence
linked Vecinos to neighboring Native communities, whose differing values and
practices influenced the development of Vecino identity in those regions, thus
creating interesting regional variants.
coNclUsioNs
The concept of Vecino identity—a civic identity defined by one’s residence and
accepted membership in a Spanish colonial community—is intriguing, particularly for those studying cross-cultural interaction and identity formation.
Historical archaeologists are often frustrated by their inability to distinguish
ethnic groups along cultural frontiers because these groups often shared overlapping territories, performed many of the same tasks, and used materials that
were produced by or circulated among all of them. To further complicate matters, these groups often intermixed and intermarried, raising children of mixed
heritage (e.g., Cordell and Yannie 1991). The conscious adoption of Vecino
identity by New Mexican colonists moved the focus away from ethnic divisions
and toward shared practices, allowing us to recognize the creation of this new
civic and cultural identity (Nieto-Phillips 2008:38) and investigate how vecindad
helped to integrate a multiethnic, multicultural population.
Archaeologists working in culture-contact zones tend to fixate on the ethnic component of these relations, deriving “ethnicities” from historical-period
notions of race or caste, and expecting that cross-cultural interactions would
have led to an exaggeration of ethnic differences (Barth 1969), some of which
will be visible in the archaeological record as “ethnic markers.” Often times,
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this is the case. Ethnicity, however, is not the only axis of social identification,
and sometimes—especially along colonial or national frontiers—civic identity
becomes the more important organizing principle of a population. Amidst
the many studies of creolization (e.g., Cusick 2000; Dawdy 2000; Deagan 1973;
Worth 2012) and ethnogenesis (e.g., Anderson 1999; Hill 1996; Lightfoot 2005;
Voss 2008) along colonial frontiers, this examination of Vecino identity serves as
a reminder that diverse frontier populations often came together as communities, and membership in a community could be just as—or more—important
than affiliation with an ethnic group. Thus, there is something valuable to be
learned from focusing less on the attributes that divided colonial populations
and more on the practices that united them.
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Moore, James L. 2003. Occupation of the Glorieta Valley in the Seventeenth and Nineteenth
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Neasham, Aubrey. 1940. “Special Report on the Proposed National Historic Site of San
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Moquis, Kastiilam, and the trauma of history
Hopi Oral Traditions of Seventeenth-Century Franciscan Missionary Abuses
ThomaS e. Sheridan and STewarT b. koyiyumPTewa
iNtroDUctioN
On November 7, 2002, soon after Moquis and Kastiilam: The Hopi History
Project began,1 Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa of the Hopi Cultural Preservation
Office interviewed vice-chairman of the Hopi Tribe, Elgean Joshevama, in his
office in Kykotsmovi, Arizona. Stewart was there to record Hopi oral traditions
Vice-Chairman Joshevama had heard about the Kastiilam, the Spaniards who
conquered and missionized the Hopis between 1629 and the Pueblo Revolt in
1680. “The information that I heard about came from not a lot of discussions,
because apparently this was an issue that was very difficult to talk about, and so
people were not very willing to even say too much about what happened then,”
Vice-Chairman Joshevama responded. “But I sense that it was an important time
to Hopi because of the disruption of our lives and how it later on impacted our
lives. And even today, I think, we’re still struggling with some of those issues
that, that the Spaniards inflicted on us.”
As the interview proceeded, Vice-Chairman Joshevama reflected on his work
at the Hopi Guidance Center with Hopi children who had been sexually abused.
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c009
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“And, and as I was working with them I was curious to see how these victims of
abuse had a lot of feelings. And, these feelings included anger,” he continued. “A
lot of feelings of being sad, sometimes some signs of depression, some signs of
helplessness, guilt.” Vice-Chairman Joshevama went on to say:
And, and the more I worked with them trying to help get them past these kinds
of feelings, trying to help with what they had been going through, to get them to
a point where they might now be able to talk about it easier, the more I began to
think that these children were showing me, and showing us who were working
with them, to me were similar to the way that we in the villages were behaving too.
We had a lot of suspicions of each other. We were angry at each other. We
weren’t very happy. We were sad sometimes and a lot of times these kinds of feelings of anger, sadness, would come out in different ways in our villages. And, then
I recalled this part of our history that something happened to us a long time ago,
and in particular, that period between about 1630 and 1680 when the Spanish were
here and from the stories that we learned, they forced our people to do things that
was against our way of doing things. (Sheridan et al. 2015:236)
Spanish conquest and missionization were profoundly traumatic for the Hopis,
shaking the very foundations of Hopi society and provoking Hopis to carry out
acts of violence that still haunt them today. The Franciscans never asked, “Could
we be your guests here,” Vice-Chairman Joshevama observed:
They just simply intruded into Hopi lives and then enslaved us, slaved our people,
and then subjected Hopi to a very foreign way of life. But Hopi, all this time, had
already had its own way of life. We had our own initiations, we had our own rituals, we had our own ceremonies, we had own spiritual beings that we would talk
to and pray to those. And, then here comes a foreign intruder and totally tells us
that that’s not right. This is the way your life has to be lived. And, so they forced
that kind of idea or that concept on us. And, when any time anybody does that to
somebody, it’s, it’s going to create a lot of feelings. It’s going to create anger but at
the same time fear because what can you do about it when these people have the
might of the weapon, the modern weapon at the time, and that they could kill
you without any kind of respect given to whether you agree with them or not.
See they, they just took completely away our freedom to live the kind of life
that we had up to that point. So, those were the things that I thought about when
I saw the similarities between the victims of sexual abuse of children, and then
when I look at our villages and how they were behaving, and that behavior was
pretty much the same as what these children were showing as victims of abuse.
And, I concluded then that we, we must have been victims of abuse at some point,
and that’s when I thought back on our history and I thought of that period. That’s
when this abuse happened to us. (Sheridan et al. 2015:237)
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abUsive GUests: fraNciscaN MissioNaries oN the hoPi Mesas
Like the other Pueblo peoples in southwestern North America, the Hopi Indians
first encountered Europeans in 1540, when Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s
expedition passed through the region like a brief but brutal plague. Spanish
accounts of this initial contact between Kastiilam and Moquis, the latter the
term the Spaniards used for Hopis, paint a relatively benign picture of the interactions. More than four centuries of Hopi oral traditions, in contrast, report
that Coronado’s soldiers destroyed a Hopi village (Sheridan et al. 2013; Sheridan
et al. 2015). For the next nine decades, contact between Hopis and Spaniards
was intermittent, but in 1629, the governor of New Mexico led six Franciscans
and thirty soldiers to establish missions among the Ácomas, Zunis, and Hopis.
The leader of the Franciscans, custodio Padre Fray Esteban de Perea, claimed
that the Ácomas and Zunis welcomed the Spaniards. But the Hopis at Awat’ovi,
the easternmost Hopi pueblo on Antelope Mesa, received them “with some
coolness” because an “apostate Indian of the Christian pueblos” had told them
that the Spaniards “were coming to burn their pueblos, rob their haciendas, and
behead their children.” The Franciscans later accused Hopis at Awat’ovi of poisoning their first missionary, Padre Fray Francisco de Porras, in 1632.2
Despite Hopi resistance, however, Franciscan missionization proceeded.
Missionaries established cabeceras (headquarters) with resident priests at
Awat’ovi on Antelope Mesa, Songòopavi on Second Mesa, and Orayvi on Third
Mesa, with visitas (subsidiary churches) at Wàlpi on First Mesa and Musangnuvi
on Second Mesa. The primary purpose of the religious mission in New Spain
was to convert Native peoples to Roman Catholicism and transform them into
vassals of the Spanish Crown. This usually involved prohibiting people from
practicing their own religious ceremonies and beliefs. At Awat’ovi, for example, the sanctuary of the mission church—that most sacred of Catholic ritual
spaces—was constructed on top of a perfectly preserved kiva (Montgomery
et al. 1949). Building the church above one of the Hopis’ sacred underground
chambers proclaimed that the Christian God was superior to Hopi gods, that
Christian sacred spaces were submerging Hopi sacred spaces.
Conquest and colonization took an unrelenting material toll on the Hopis
and other Pueblo peoples during the seventeenth century as well. Demands for
labor and tribute under both missions and the encomienda system, which granted
prominent Spaniards the right to extract foodstuffs and textiles from Pueblo
households, increasingly burdened the Pueblos as their populations plummeted
because of Old World diseases. At the beginning of the seventeenth century,
when Juan de Oñate’s expedition was establishing the colony of Nuevo México,
Elinore Barrett (2002:64) estimates, there were about eighty-one occupied pueblos along the Rio Grande and its tributaries. That number had plummeted to
about thirty-one when the revolt broke out eight decades later. Her figures do
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not include either Zuni or Hopi communities. Population figures are more difficult to calculate because not all rooms in a pueblo may have been inhabited at
any one time. Spanish observers provided population figures, but those were
no more than educated guesses, colored by where the Spaniards went and for
whom they were writing. Barrett (2002:65) speculates that there may have been
perhaps 60,000 Pueblo inhabitants when Oñate arrived. By 1678, that number
had dropped to 17,000. She argues that the greatest losses of both pueblos and
people took place in the late 1630s and early 1640s, when smallpox decimated the
Pueblo world (Barrett 2002:78). More recent studies contend that even greater
declines occurred after 1650, with another wave of disease ravaging the Pueblos
in 1671 (Liebmann 2012:40)
Climate change compounded epidemics. In the mid-1660s, the third worst
drought between ad 622 and 1994 seared the northern Southwest (GrissinoMayer et al. 1997; Grissino-Mayer et al. 2002; Parks et al. 2006). It was a cold
drought, with cooler temperatures reducing the growing season for corn, the
staple of Pueblo peoples. In the words of Carla Van West and her colleagues,
“These harsh conditions initiated around 1664 and continued, almost unbroken,
through 1678” (Van West et al. 2013:8). For three straight years—1667, 1668, and
1669—summer monsoons failed to moisten the parched fields of the Salinas
pueblos, forcing their abandonment over the next decade. The Piro pueblos of
the southern Rio Grande Basin also drained away. The smallpox epidemic of the
early 1640s had savaged the southern Pueblos most, causing the abandonment
of eleven of 14 Piro pueblos and five of 11 Salinas pueblos (Barrett 2002). Drought
provided the coup de grâce three decades later.
The same drought that afflicted the Pueblo World in New Mexico withered
crops on the Hopi Mesas. From 1650 to 1680, the Palmer Drought Severity Index
(PDSI) for the Southwest was negative, indicating poor conditions for agriculture
for all years except seven; between 1664 and 1670, the drought was particularly
harsh, with negative PDSI ranging from –1.632 in 1666 to –3.303 in 1668 (Cook 2000).
An even more sensitive indicator of agricultural conditions on the Hopi Mesas
is the PDSI for the month of June, when the all-important spring crops were ripening. Between 1660 and 1679, June PDSI was negative for fourteen of twenty years;
from 1666 to 1670, June PDSIs reveal why famine stalked the Hopi pueblos as one
dry year slid into another: 1666 (–2.232), 1667 (–3.407), 1668 (–3.542), 1669 (–1.095),
1670 (–4.954).3 What little household surpluses were left after the demands of
missionaries and encomenderos had been met would have been quickly exhausted.
The final blow may have been a hard freeze during the growing season in the
summer of 1680, as evidenced by a “frost ring” in the tree-ring chronology for the
San Francisco Peaks and other sites in western North America. “Given that bristlecone pines in the Rocky Mountain region put on new growth from late June to
late August or early September (Salzer 2000:92), we suspect that this destructive
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frost took place at a point in the corn-growing season when it was too late to
replant at lower elevations,” Van West et al. (2013:9; italics original) surmise. “The
frost-damaged section of the SFP ring of 1680 is located within or near the latewood rather than the early wood. It is likely that this destructive freeze took place
in early August during a year and a multiyear interval of exceptional cold. Our
guess is that this ‘event’ was a contributing factor in the timing of the revolt.”
It is a truism in the social sciences that there are no “natural disasters.” Mission
and encomienda exacerbated cold and drought, grinding the Hopis and their
Pueblo neighbors down. During these decades when famine and abuse haunted
the Hopi mesas, many Hopis who may have converted to Christianity returned
to the beliefs of their ancestors. Similar patterns of nativistic resistance and
rebellion aggravated by drought wracked colonial Sonora in the mid-eighteenth
century as well (Brenneman 2004; Sheridan 1999). Hopis and other Pueblo
peoples were forced to carry out their religious ceremonies in secret, far from
the prying eyes of missionaries. “Whose religion had been taken away? Whose
ceremonies had been stamped down?” Vice-Chairman Joshevama asked rhetorically. “It’s no wonder that we understand that in order for a Hopi person, or
a Hopi people to do something that would bring back those kinds of things
that had been important to them, that they had to steal themselves away in
secrecy” (Sheridan et al. 2015:238). Later in the interview, he added, “So that they
would not forget. So that they could maybe teach the younger ones who might
have been there with them those kinds of things that they needed to have them
remember” (Sheridan et al. 2015:239).
the iNvestiGatioN of PaDre fray salvaDor De GUerra
When we began the Hopi History Project, Hopi colleagues, teachers, and elders
expressed a great deal of interest in how Spanish colonial officials and missionaries portrayed colonial abuses. They wanted to see how those representations
articulated with, or silenced, the Hopi people’s long memory of missionary
abuses during the seventeenth century prior to the Pueblo Revolt. One case in
particular captured their attention because of its horrific details.
In 1655, a Hopi named Juan Xiveni appeared before Padre Fray Antonio de
Ybargaray, the custodio of New Mexico. As custodio, Ybargaray was the highestranking Franciscan in charge of New Mexico’s missions. Xiveni represented the
Spanish-appointed Hopi gobernador (governor) of Orayvi and its naturales, or
native inhabitants. They sent him to lodge a formal complaint against Padre
Fray Salvador de Guerra, missionary in the pueblo of Orayvi on Third Mesa,
“because of the terrible and inhuman punishments that [Guerra] has given to
some natives, whipping them extremely cruelly in all parts and limbs of their
bodies, and afterwards scalding them and anointing them with boiling turpentine.” Ybargaray, Guerra’s superior, took the charges seriously enough to travel
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to the Second Mesa village of Songòopavi and conduct a formal investigation,
which is how and why the case made its way into the Spanish colonial record
(see Sheridan et al. 2015).4
Guerra’s worst abuse involved a Hopi named Juan Cuna, whom Guerra
had caught in an unspecified “idolatry.” During the first stage of the investigation, Ybargaray heard the testimonies of three Hopis from Orayvi—Joseph
Ocheguene, a fiscal (native official who carried out the policies of the gobernador) and two capitanes de guerra (war captains) from Orayvi: Francisco Quera
and Juan Cocpi. All three confirmed that Guerra kicked and punched Juan Cuna
just outside the door to Orayvi’s mission church until he was “bathed in blood.”
Then, inside the church, Guerra tied Cuna to a ladder and whipped him severely
“on the back, belly, and all of the other parts of his body.” Finally, the Franciscan
“scalded him from head to foot with a large lump of turpentine, and he burned
him with it.” After these grisly punishments, Cuna and “other idolaters” were
dispatched to Awat’ovi under the charge of Joseph Ocheguene and other Hopi
fiscales. Cuna died, “unconscious and speechless,” along the trail between
Orayvi and Songòopavi.
Guerra denied that he kicked or punched Cuna, stating that he only gave him
a slap on the face from which “six or seven drops of blood came out of his nose.”
He admitted to having Cuna tied up and whipped, but claimed that he did not
do the lashing, that “the lashes did not exceed twenty, and he gave him no lashes
on the belly.” As for the turpentine, “seeing that [Cuna] was old and sick, he had
thrown on him no more than ten or twelve drops, and not all [over] his body, as
the witnesses state.” Guerra then accused fiscal Joseph Ocheguene of whipping
Cuna to death because he “did not want to walk.”
In light of Guerra’s testimony, Ybargaray ordered Ocheguene, Quera, and
Cocpi to ratify their statements. Ocheguene could not be located because
Franciscan lay brother Fray Pedro Moreno, who “loved him well,” had told
Ocheguene to hide because of Guerra’s counteraccusations. So Ybargaray took
Moreno’s testimony. Moreno stated that Ocheguene only hit Cuna “with a
switch or branch on the legs so that he would move along.” Quera and Cocpi
swore that their original statements were true and also testified that Ocheguene
did no harm to Cuna.
While at Songòopavi in June, Ybargaray also investigated other charges against
Guerra brought by Hopi leaders from Orayvi, Songòopavi, and Musangnuvi. The
Hopis said that Guerra “compelled them to make many cotton mantas, for which
the aforesaid father would give them half the cotton that was necessary to finish
them. And the harshness of the aforesaid father obliged them to finish [the mantas] with cotton they had in their homes within eight days. Because of this rush,
they could not plant their cotton [fields] or cultivate their milpas [corn fields].” As
to his “harshness,” the Hopi officials accused Guerra of “whipping them terribly
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and giving them up to forty and fifty lashes, and scalding and smearing them with
burning-hot turpentine.” Ybargaray took the testimonies of nine Hopis who confirmed those charges. Guerra denied them. Ybargaray called the Hopis back in
again, and they all ratified their original charges. They also declared that Guerra
was only entitled to less than a third of the mantas he demanded of them.
Mission Indians were supposed to supply their missionaries with food, cloth,
and other basics. These provisions were in addition to the annual stipend the
missionary received from the Spanish Crown. But missions were not parishes,
and the Franciscans were not secular clergy who could own property or receive
benefices. Nor could they charge mission Indians for administering the sacraments to them (Farriss 1968; Taylor 1999). Franciscans such as Guerra tried to
justify the extraction of mantas from their neophytes by claiming that it was in
the support of the mission, not the missionary. But Guerra clearly violated the
moral economy of the Hopis by forcing them to produce an excessive amount
of mantas at a time when they needed to plant their fields.
The investigation then moved to Santo Domingo, where, in July, Ybargaray
and five other Franciscans found Guerra guilty of killing Cuna and the other
charges. Clearly shocked by his behavior, they concluded that Guerra not only
had to be removed from Orayvi but sent to Mexico City as well. Ybargaray and
the others therefore sentenced Guerra to seclusion in the convento, or priests’
residence, at the mission of Quarai until he could be deported to Mexico City
for punishment by Franciscan superiors of the Provincia de Santo Evangelio.
Guerra was also prohibited from saying mass or administering the sacraments.
But Guerra may never have traveled to Mexico City. In 1659–60, he was stationed at Taos. A year later, he was posted to Isleta. In 1661, he served at Ácoma
and then at Jemez, where he was notary to Fray Alonso de Posada, comisario
of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Scholes 1945). During the 1660s, Guerra
was Posada’s right-hand man during his crusade against governors Bernardo
López de Mendizábal and Diego de Peñalosa (Scholes 1942). Guerra remained
at Jémez at least until 1668, when he described himself as “preacher, difinidor
actual, commissary of the Santa Concordia, secretary of the Holy Custodia of
the Conversion of San Pablo of New Mexico, and minister-guardian of the congregation of San Diego de los Jemez” (translated by Scholes 1929:196). In 1672, he
was in charge of the supply train itself (Bloom and Mitchell 1938). Guerra’s fall
from grace was short indeed.
the tortUre aND Death of sitkoyMa
Most Hopi oral traditions of missionary abuses are generalized accounts. The
most common concern having to haul beams for mission churches from distant
mountains or of priests abusing Hopi women, often after sending their husbands
away to fetch water from distant springs. Occasionally, however, precise details
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emerge. One afternoon in October 2009, during a three-day workshop with
members of the Hopi Tribe’s Cultural Resources Advisory Task Team (CRATT;
Figure 9.1), Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation
Office, led a field trip to a natural amphitheater in the mountains south of Third
Mesa known as Katsina Buttes. There, while talking about how Hopis had to
hold their ceremonies in secret during the mission period, Kuwanwisiwma gave
another version of what may have been Juan Cuna’s punishment. Four years
later, on October 19, 2012, Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa recorded Kuwanwisiwma’s
narrative of the incident at greater length (see Sheridan et al. 2015).
After discussing the “pretty systematic . . . suppression of Hopi religion,”
including the burning of Hopi paraphernalia and altars “necessary to conduct
ceremonies and initiate members,” Kuwanwisiwma talked about how the missionaries were called away from the Hopi missions to attend a meeting in Santa Fe:
So one individual by the name of Sitkoyma from Orayvi thought about quickly
sponsoring a katsina Home Dance—we call it Nimàntikive—and that was because
his son had recently married and had gone through the Hopi wedding ceremony
so I guess you would think that at least those kinds of ceremonies were not forbidden by the church.
And as he looked throughout the village of Orayvi and other villages, he
knew that other traditional weddings had also been completed. But because the
katsina ceremonies were never completed, they could never conduct the Home
Dance, which is a really major part of the Hopi wedding ceremony. There’s many
things that occur between both sets of the family and, particularly—and of the
ceremony—there’s an exchanging of different kinds of personal vows between
the bride and husband. And, you know, of course, because the katsinas were forbidden, none of the brides that had gone through—over a period of years—never
completed that part of the Hopi wedding ceremony. So, he thought that maybe
he could take advantage of the absence of the priest, the church and the military
to quickly conduct—sponsor and conduct—a katsina ceremony, Home Dance, so
that that last piece of the ceremony would be offered to the couple and then subsequently work towards concluding the Hopi ceremony.
So he probably sought advice and got support, and they say that it was out of
season—the katsina season had ended—but he took that opportunity to quickly
call together some people. Men and I’m sure women, and said this is what I want
to do. And that was to hold a katsina ceremony and Home Dance for his new
bride, his new daughter in law. So they said that they quickly convened out of
season—and yes, they still remembered the Home Dance songs—so they quickly
put together their own types of paraphernalia and then because they really didn’t
want to have a big, big public show because they were afraid that would be very
well be immediately known by the Spanish priest and the military, they took
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fiGUre 9.1. Hopi History Project Workshop with the Cultural Resources Advisory Task
Team (CRATT) of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, Kykotsmovi, Arizona, October
21, 2009. Photograph by T. J. Ferguson).
Katsina Buttes (Kaktsintuyqa), where Hopis performed ceremonies in secret during the Franciscan mission period. Photograph: by T. Sheridan.
fiGUre 9.2.
refuge in what we now call Katsina Buttes or Kaktsintuyqa. So that’s where the
men practiced the katsina Home Dance and then when they were ready then they
announced it and Sitkoyma, Sitkoyma was the guy in charge of it (figure 9.2).
And so he invited other villages that if in fact they were able and willing. He
invited all the brides that had gone through the ceremony to go there so that they
could conclude a part, and part of the last parts of the Hopi wedding ceremonies.
So they say that brides from throughout the mesas, they’d accept the invitations,
so the dance was held. And we now call it over in the Hopi Buttes area about
maybe half an hour away from Old Orayvi due east, we call it now that whole
landscape Kaktsintuyqa but we also call this one alcove that they used as a plaza we
call it Tipkya and Tipkya is a very important place in a village and that’s where the
final Home Dances are danced—where the bride is shown publically to everybody,
the audience. So that’s what happened. They danced the Home Dance and then
towards the evening, all the brides were dressed up in their robes and then they
were presented to the people witnessing it and then of course to the katsinas, the
katsina spirits. So that’s what happened and of course everybody I’m sure with
that happening and then ending successfully, everybody liked all of our dances,
was pretty happy about it.
After returning from Santa Fe, however, the priest at Orayvi found out about
Sitkoyma’s sponsorship of the forbidden Home Dance. Hopis referred to that
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missionary in particular, and missionaries in general, as Tota’tsi: Kuwanwisiwma
defined Tota’tsi as “a spiritual person that you can never ever please and if you don’t
please him, Tota’tsi will do whatever it can to get its way.” The missionary ordered
Sitkoyma to be arrested and interrogated. Then, in Kuwanwisiwma’s words:
The Tota’tsi told the military to announce and also make sure that on a particular
day he wanted all of Orayvi to converge on the plaza. So that’s what happened.
It was announced that on a certain day no one would be allowed [to leave] the
village and the military of course I’m sure, made sure of that. I’m sure they had
units watching the village outside the village, making sure. And what the Tota’tsi
now had decided was that because he [Sitkoyma] was convicted of violating this
decree of the ban on Hopi ceremonies that he had to be publically punished and
that was the intent of having the whole village come to the Orayvi plaza where
when Sitkoyma got there, the posts had already been put into the plaza there and
he was led there and then tied there with his frontal body tied, strapped. Hands
were tied. And then he was tied to this post. So the priest, they say, who was fluent in Hopi, then announced the charges, the conviction and now the punishment.
So the punishment was flogging by horsewhip. So that’s what happened with the
whole village present there. The priest and the military commander ordered the
whipping of Sitkoyma.
So he received some initial slashes they say and of course quite literally the
horsewhip with the amount of force landing on human skin simply cut it open.
And there were more slashes they say until Sitkoyma, because of the amount of
whipping he took, was literally covered in blood from throughout his body and
they say he was screaming. The point was that if there were any further violations
of different kinds of decree, such as the one that Sitkoyma and others violated,
this would be the kind of punishment that they would receive.
So while Sitkoyma was still strapped there, still alive, then Tota’tsi then ordered
the military, I guess, to show Sitkoyma and the village really what he meant when
he said you will suffer the consequences if you dare violate church and military
decrees. So what he ordered then was to have the military people pour turpentine
on Sitkoyma, on his wounds. And you can imagine what Sitkoyma was going
through. So based on the turpentine and everything else that happened, they say
that Sitkoyma died there in Orayvi plaza still strapped you know to the post that
was there in the village. And so when you look back to that incident you can see
probably the kind of horrific trauma the whole village witnessed and suffered.
And also what Sitkoyma also went through. (Sheridan et al. 2015:173–74)
the PUeblo revolt aND the DestrUctioN of awat’ovi
The torture and death of Sitkoyma, may have been one of the tipping points that
pushed the Hopis to rebel. Kuwanwisiwma continued:
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So one Hopi informant said that was what Sitkoyma went through—what he did
and was killed there—the decision on whether to join the Pueblos in the revolt
was being debated and the Hopis being pacifist people, against the taking of life,
were not really wanting to participate in the Pueblo Revolt that the Pueblos were
planning. But they say that when the Hopi chiefs and leaders witnessed this thing
of Sitkoyma, that’s when Orayvi said, “We will participate in the Pueblo Revolt.
We just simply need to get rid of the church and the military.” And when Orayvi
decided to do that then because it was one of the biggest ceremonial centers,
largest in population, very influential, then that’s where other Hopi villages, particularly Songòopavi, Musangnuvi, Wàlpi, and Awat’ovi, decided to join Orayvi in
the Pueblo Revolt (Sheridan et al. 2015:178–79)
We do not know if the torture and death of Sitkoyma were the same incident
as that of Juan Cuna. Some of the details are different, particularly the location
of Sitkoyma’s death in the Orayvi plaza. Juan Cuna supposedly died on the trail
to Awat’ovi. The possibility that more than one Hopi individual was killed by
whipping and scalding with turpentine would only strengthen our contention
that missionary abuses profoundly traumatized the Hopis and drove them to
rebellion. If Sitkoyma and Juan Cuna were one and the same, however, Hopis
waited twenty-five years to throw off the Spanish yoke.
What we do know is that rebellion was simmering throughout the Pueblo
world long before the coordinated uprising of August 10, 1680. After the revolt
erupted, Sargento Mayor Diego López Sambrano stated that he had witnessed
sorcery, rebellion, and punishment for “more than forty years” since the administration of Governor Fernando de Argüello (1644–47), “who hanged, and lashed,
and imprisoned more than forty Indians” (Hackett and Shelby 1942:2:298–99).
Pueblo peoples, including the Hopis, clearly had been contemplating rebellion
for a very long time.
During the early days of the revolt, the Hopis killed the three missionaries
stationed among them. In Fray Padre Silvestre Vélez de Escalante’s “Extracto
de Noticias,” written nearly a century after the revolt, the Franciscan chronicler
includes the interrogation of a Pueblo rebel named Bartolomé de Ojeda, who
was captured during Governor Domingo Jironza Pétriz de Cruzate’s siege of the
pueblo of Zia in 1689. Ojeda provided an account of the missionaries’ execution:
This fatal news [the murder of Padre Fray Agustín de Santa María by the Zunis]
reached Moqui, and the Moquinos immediately undertook to kill the friars who
administered them. And they were Father Fray José de Espeleta (he had been a
missionary for 40 years), Fray José Trujillo, and Fray José de Figueras. An Indian
named Francisco, also a Moquino, whom Father Espeleta had reared, defended
them. And seeing this, the apostate rebels said to him: “Now you must kill them
yourself, and if not, we must kill you.” In order to save his life, although against his
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will, he gave up the charitable office of advocate for the three blameless priests, and
agreed to be their executioner. They placed the three friars together as a target (for
their rage) and Francisco, impelled by fear, went on shooting at them with a musket until all three died of the bullet wounds. Then some compassion entered them,
which could also have been a horrible manifestation of such execrable evil at seeing
the three bodies stretched out, and they carried them to a church and burned them
in it. The same Moquino Francisco related this long afterwards to this witness,
Bartolomé de Ojeda, with tears in his eyes. (In Sheridan et al. in prep.)
Francisco was the same Francisco Espeleta who served as chief spokesperson for the Hopis who refused to allow the Franciscans to return in 1700. He
also may have organized, if not masterminded, the destruction of Awat’ovi in
late November of that same year. If Bartolomé de Ojeda’s account of young
Francisco’s reluctance to kill his namesake is accurate, Espeleta must have had a
radical change of heart over the next two decades of Hopi independence. Taught
to read and write by his namesake, Fray Padre Espeleta, whom he killed during
the Pueblo Revolt, Espeleta emerges from Spanish pages as the foremost opponent to the Franciscans. Wily, intransigent, and fluent in Spanish, he embodies
Hopi resistance to the Spaniards.
During his reconquest of the Pueblo world, Diego de Vargas visited Awat’ovi,
Wàlpi, Musangnuvi, and Songòopavi, where the Hopis appeared to “reconcile”
themselves to God and king (see Sigüenza y Góngora 1693). But that was just an
example of one Hopi strategy: to tell the Spaniards what they wanted to hear
so they would go away. When the Franciscans returned to stay, Hopi resistance
hardened. The rejection of the missionaries appears unequivocal everywhere
except Awat’ovi in José Narvaez y Valverde’s account, written in 1730 (see
Sheridan et al. in prep.).
The standard interpretation of the destruction of Awat’ovi is that Espeleta and
other Hopi leaders razed the pueblo and killed its men because its inhabitants
had invited the Franciscans to return (Figure 9.3). Adolph Bandelier (1892:372)
provides one of the first and most detailed published accounts of it—an account
that largely shaped subsequent non-Hopi understandings of the event: “In the
meantime, Ahua-tuyba [Awat’ovi] had virtually become again a Christianized
pueblo. In the last days of the year 1700, or in the beginning of 1701, the Moquis
of the other pueblos fell upon the unsuspecting village at night. The men were
mostly killed, stifled in their estufas [kivas], it is said; the women and children
were dragged into captivity, and the houses were burnt.”
Hopi accounts paint a much more complex picture, one in which leaders
of important ceremonial societies at Awat’ovi were spared in order to keep
those societies from dying out. There were also accusations of witchcraft and
disorder (koyaanisqatsi) at Awat’ovi and a desire to wrest control of important
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fiGUre 9.3.
Ruins of mission church at Awat’ovi on Antelope Mesa. Photograph by T.
Sheridan.
initiation societies such as the Wuwtsim, which originated there, from Hopis
who were considered to be corrupt (Curtis 1922; Courlander 1982; Malotki et
al. 2002; Sheridan et al. in prep.; Whiteley 2002). Anthropologist Peter Whiteley
(2002) argues that the Hopis in 1700 were engaged in a cultural revitalization
movement that was redefining what it meant to be Hopi. Like other Pueblo
peoples, the Hopis had endured decades of forced labor and religious persecution. Some may have converted to Christianity; others were compelled to
attend mass and allow their children to be baptized. But the Spaniard’s God
had not brought them prosperity. Instead, pestilence and drought stalked the
land. Hopis conspired with the other Pueblos to kill their missionaries and drive
the Spaniards from their homelands. When the Spaniards returned to Nuevo
México, many Tewas, Tiwas, Tanos, Jemez, and Keresans sought refuge on their
mesas. Those desperate, uprooted people must have stiffened Hopi resistance.
Never again, they may have told one another as they revived their ceremonies.
Never again would the katsinam or the corn mothers be driven away by the
gray-robed Franciscans.
Whatever their motivations, however, the destruction of one of their own
communities and the killing of their own people still sear Hopi memories
today. The covenant that the Hisatsinom (Hopi ancestors) made with Màasaw,
Guardian of the Fourth World, required them to be a humble, peaceful people.
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As Vice-Chairman Joshevama explained, “We have this basic value of respecting
all forms of life. Human life is respected. Animal life is respected. The spiritual
life, the plant life. All of these are respected. And, that’s what our ceremonial
events are based on” (Sheridan et al. 239). The forced labor, the suppression of
their religion, the sexual exploitation of their women, and the shocking brutality
of a Padre Fray Salvador de la Guerra—all drove the Hopis to kill their missionaries during the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and then, twenty years later, to destroy
the village of Awat’ovi itself to prevent the missionaries from returning. “But
what they left us though was with the consequence,” Vice-Chairman Joshevama
observed. “They left us with us having to deal with the guilt of destroying our
own people. And, then the anger we have to deal with of those who survived it,
the survivors of Awatovi probably felt a lot of anger. And, what do they do with
that anger? A lot of it is suppressed” (Sheridan et al. 2015:242).
historical traUMa, social MeMory, aND
healiNG the soUl woUND
Vice-Chairman Joshevama was expressing what a growing number of researchers and clinicians have observed among American Indian and Alaskan Native
(AIAN) peoples: “historical” or “intergenerational” trauma (Duran and Duran
1995; Brave Heart–Jordan 1995, Brave Heart 1999a, 1999b, 2000; Brave Heart
and DeBruyn 1998; Duran, Duran, and Brave Heart 1998). Maria Yellow Horse
Brave Heart, a pioneer in the identification and treatment of historical trauma,
defines it as the “cumulative emotional and psychological wounding, over the
lifespan and across generations, emanating from massive group trauma experiences” (Brave Heart 2003:7). Examples of historical trauma experienced by
AIAN peoples include “community massacres, genocidal policies, pandemics
from the introduction of new diseases, forced relocation, forcible removal of
children through Indian boarding school policies and the prohibition of spiritual
practices” (Begay 2012:11). For the Hopis, those systematic assaults began in 1540
when, according to Hopi oral traditions, Coronado’s soldiers destroyed a Hopi
village on Antelope Mesa (Sheridan et al. 2013; Sheridan et al. 2015).
Substance abuse is one of a “constellation of features” Brave Heart describes
as “historical trauma response (HTR).” Others self-destructive behaviors include
“suicidal thoughts and gestures, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, anger, and
difficulty recognizing and expressing emotions” (Brave Heart 2003:7). One of the
consequences of such trauma—a consequence Vice-Chairman Joshevama himself acknowledged—is “historical unresolved grief,” which may be “impaired,
delayed, fixated, and/or disenfranchised” (Brave Heart 2003:7). Unlike posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), historical trauma is collective rather than
individual, passed down from one generation to another. Research on survivors of the Jewish Holocaust (Fogelman 1988, 1991; Yehuda 1999; Kidron 2003),
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African Americans (Cross 1998; Eyerman 2002), and Cambodian refugees (Sack
et al. 1995) identify similar patterns of what many Native Americans call the
“soul wound.”
The two volumes of Moquis and Kastiilam: The Hopi History Project tell
the story of that trauma, and the Hopis’ resistance to it, from both Hopi and
Spanish points of view. For nearly 500 years, the story has been overwhelmingly one-sided. Historians and anthropologists have relied upon documents
written by representatives of the Spanish Empire. Hopi voices have been
silenced, ignored, or relegated to “myth.” Those of us on the project have
attempted to restore a balance to the historical record by presenting not only
Spanish documents about the Hopis but interviews with Hopi elders about the
Spaniards carried out by members of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office.
We argue that these Hopi oral traditions are living records of the past that
have just as much, if not more, scholarly validity as the letters, court records,
and reports of Spanish officials and Franciscan missionaries. Both are lines of
evidence—“texts” in the parlance of literary and cultural criticism—that need
to be interrogated. Both have their strengths and limitations that need to be
understood.
The testimony of the Vice-Chairman Joshevama offers a historical memory
distinct from colonial documentary representations in content, form, and voice.
As noted at the beginning of this chapter, the abuses of the missionaries were
“very difficult to talk about, and so people were not very willing to even say too
much about what happened then.” In other words, the Spanish presence in the
Hopi pueblos was still a sensitive subject more than 300 years later.
The vice-chairman’s testimony also reveals that some Hopi memories of
trauma are grounded in a generalized identity of descent; no particularities are
mentioned. Instead, Hopis are referred to as a single group who suffered and were
abused by Spaniards. Other narratives such as Leigh Kuwanwisiwma’s narrative
about Sitkoyma reference specific persons, places, events, landscape features, or
supernatural beings (Whiteley 1988, 1998), often foregrounding clans or villages
rather than the Hopi Tribe, which in many respects was a creation of the Indian
Reorganization Act of 1934. The juxtaposition of Kuwanwisiwma’s very specific
account with more general stories of missionary abuse suggest the depth, richness, and diversity of Hopi narratives about the past. There is no single Hopi
oral tradition about the Kastiilam. On the contrary, Hopi chronicles about the
past are like underground rivers that flow together and break apart, surfacing
only when the moral topography of speaker and audience comes together and
the narratives issue forth as small springs.
Accounts such as that of Vice-Chairman Joshevama also meld past and present
together in a way that fosters an “imagined community” based on the intergenerational memory of colonial trauma. A frequent use of “we,” “our people,” and
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“our way of life” reflects this sense in the vice-chairman’s testimony. Moreover,
this generalized identity of descent emphasizes, and is reinforced by, disruption
and interruption. In the words of Vice-Chairman Joshevama, the missionaries
“didn’t ask, ‘Could we be your guests here?’ They didn’t ask if they could build
the churches or their missions in our villages.” On the contrary, “They just simply intruded into Hopi lives and then enslaved us, slaved our people, and then
subjected Hopi to a very foreign way of life. But Hopi, all this time, had already
had its own way of life.” The disruption and interruption of the “Hopi way
of life,” then, is remembered as more than simple transgressions or individual
acts of violence on the part of the colonizers. On the contrary, the Spaniards
attempted to destroy or transform many domains central to the social reproduction of the Hopi people: their subsistence activities, their spiritual practices,
their gender relationships, and their political organization. “And, when any time
anybody does that to somebody, it’s, it’s going to create a lot of feelings,” ViceChairman Joshevama noted. “It’s going to create anger but at the same time
fear because what can you do about it when these people have the might of the
weapon, the modern weapon at the time, and that they could kill you without
any kind of respect given to whether you agree with them or not” (Sheridan et
al. 2015:237).
Along with anger and fear, an even more powerful trope of guilt also emerges.
Although the Hopis rebelled by carrying out their rituals in secret, and by participating in the Pueblo Revolt, they had to destroy the village of Awat’ovi to keep
the missionaries from reestablishing missions among the Hopi and suppressing
the Hopi way of life once again. “They never returned to have that, have that
influence again. But what they left us though was the consequence. They left
us having to deal with the guilt of destroying our own people. And, then the
anger we have to deal with of those who survived it, the survivors of Awat’ovi
probably felt a lot of anger. And, what do they do with that anger? A lot of it is
suppressed” (Sheridan et al. 2015:242). Past injustices continue to cause contemporary ills.
Missionary abuses during the 1600s and the destruction of Awat’ovi in 1700
remain open wounds among the Hopis today. The enduring experience of these
emotive memories accounts for the Hopi Tribe’s response to a formal apology
for past abuses issued by the Diocese of Gallup. When Bishop Donald Pelotte, a
Native American whose father was of the Abenaki/Algonquin Nation, met with
Hope Tribe members in 2000, he reported, “They are still cautious and uncertain about efforts at reconciliation. Nonetheless, they are open to allow[ing] us
to prove that we are indeed serious about healing the past by asking us for support of their efforts to have justice regarding treaty rights, land and water rights,
education, housing, health care, social services, training in jobs, and the use of
sacred lands” (Pelotte 2000). The Hopi Tribe also replaced Columbus Day with
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Hopi Independence Day—August 10, the anniversary of the outbreak of the
Pueblo Revolt—as a paid tribal holiday.
Nevertheless, Hopis still debate whether or not those memories should be
exhumed. Perhaps because of his experience dealing with sexually abused
children, Vice-Chairman Joshevama believes that the traumatic past has to be
confronted:
How can we do a healing from that event, from those events? How can we heal?
So, what they did, what the Hopi did, start doing from that point is they just
took those kinds of feelings and put them under here, stash it away somewhere
else, but you know what happens when you stash something, you hide it. At some
point it starts to creep back out and it surfaces. And that, that’s what happens.
And that’s what’s happening even to this day. And then the younger people would
learn from this, they carry it on. And it’s like telling our children that this is the
way you’re going to have to be because this is what somebody did to your family
a long time ago instead of saying, “We need to talk about this and let’s, let’s try to
find a way to resolve it so that we don’t carry it onto the next generation.” To me,
that’s the step we need to take. And that’s what I have been hoping can happen,
that people can understand and, and not practice that kind of generational abuse.
(Sheridan et al 2015:243)
Notes
1. The Hopi History Project is a formal collaboration between the University of
Arizona (UA) and the Hopi Tribe. Its goals are to tell the story of relations between
Hopis and Spaniards during the period when the Spanish Empire was attempting to
incorporate the Hopi people into its colony of New Mexico. Researchers at the UA’s
Southwest Center, School of Anthropology, and Arizona State Museum have selected,
transcribed, translated, and annotated Spanish documents about the Hopis, whom the
Spaniards called Moquis. The Hopi Cultural Preservation Office of the Hopi Tribe has
interviewed Hopi elders to gather their oral traditions about the Kastiilam, the Hopi
term for Spaniards. The results will be published in two volumes by the University
of Arizona Press. The project has been partially funded by a series of grants from the
National Historic Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) and a Collaborative
Research Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
2. Padre Fray Estevan de Perea’s Account of the Grand Conversion of New Mexico,
1632 (Sheridan et al. 2015), Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Papeles de Jesuitas,
Tomo 86, fol. 578. Our translation is from a transcript by historian Herbert Eugene
Bolton. Charles Lummis published an English translation in Land of Sunshine, November
and December, 1901. Lansing Bloom made slight revisions and published his version in
New Mexico Historical Review 8:211–35, 1933. A third translation appeared in Hodge et al.
1945:210–221).
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3. Southwest Paleoclimate Project, June PDSI, Hopi Mesas, AZ. Courtesy of Dr.
Jeffrey Dean, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona.
4. Archivo Histórico-Nacional, Inquisición 1729, exp. 2, n. 3, ff. 34–38, 44–51. Madrid,
Spain.
refereNces citeD
Bandelier, Adolph. 1892. Final Report of Investigations among the Indians of the
Southwestern United States, Carried on Mainly in the Years from 1880 to 1885, Part II.
Cambridge, MA: John Wilson and Son University Press.
Barrett, Elinore M. 2002. Conquest and Catastrophe: Changing Rio Grande Pueblo Settlement
Patterns in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press.
Begay, Tommie. 2012. “Toxic Stress: Linking Historical Trauma to the Contemporary
Health of American Indians and Alaskan Natives.” PhD dissertation, Department of
Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson.
Bloom, Lansing, and Lynn Mitchell. 1938. “The Chapter Elections in 1672.” New Mexico
Historical Review 13 (1): 85–115.
Brave Heart, Maria Yellow Horse. 1999a. “Gender Differences in the Historical Trauma
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P a
r t
2
Divergent histories and
experiences in the Pimería
alta, southern arizona
t
e
n
Population Dynamics in the
Pimería alta, ad 1650–1750
lauren e. Jelinek and dale S. brenneman
iNtroDUctioN
The demographic landscape of the Pimería Alta—the Spanish term for the
Northern Pimas, or O’odham, and their collective territory during the sixteenth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries—has been widely debated by historians
and archaeologists alike. Published histories have primarily focused on the processes and consequences of Spanish colonialism, drawing few conclusions about
the relationships among distinct groups outside of the colonial sphere of influence (e.g., Bannon 1955; Bolton 1908, 1919, 1921, 1930, 1936, 1990; Dobyns 1959;
Kessell 1970, 1974, 1976; Manje 1954; McCarty 1976, 1997; Nentvig 1951; Pfefferkorn
1949; Polzer 1971, 1976; Smith et al. 1966). Archaeological interpretations have
likewise emphasized Spanish installations, such as missions and presidios, and
indigenous acculturation rather than native population diversity and interaction (e.g., Barnes 1971, 1983; Barton et al. 1981; Beaubien 1937; Chambers 1955;
Cheek 1974; Ciolek-Torrello and Brew 1976; DeLong and Miller 1936; Elson and
Doelle 1987; Fratt 1981, 1986; Haury and Fathauer 1974; Horton 1998; Huckell
and Huckell 1982; Olson 1985; Pinkley 1936; Robinson 1963; Robinson and Barnes
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c010
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263
1976; Shenk et al. 1975; Sugnet and Reid 1994). Compared with most current
interpretations of available archaeological data for the Spanish contact and colonial periods, the documentary record paints a much more dynamic picture of
populations constituting or bordering the Pimería Alta.
Reports of Jesuit missionaries and Spanish authorities describe ethnically
diverse groups with shifting alliances and a far-reaching exchange system,
whereas past analyses of archaeological data have provided few indications of
population differentiation. To examine the complex relationships among neighboring groups during this volatile period, we have adopted an ethnohistoric
approach, wherein multiple lines of evidence are evaluated and compared to
construct a regionally specific historical narrative (W. Wood 1990). New research
among seventeenth- and eighteenth-century documents, combined with a
reanalysis of archaeological data, provides fresh insights into the dynamics of
this social landscape during a time when the ancestral boundaries and interrelationships of modern tribes were in constant flux.
the PiMería alta, archaeoloGical traDitioNs,
aND a history of early sPaNish coNtact
The geographic land base of the Pimería Alta, situated mostly within the northern Sonoran Desert, extends across the present-day international border between
southern Arizona and northwestern Sonora. Stretching westward from the
margins of the Sierra Madre foothills to the Gulf of California, and northward
from the Río Magdalena-Concepción drainage to the Gila River (Figure 10.1),
it spans multiple biotic subregions, as north-south-trending mountain ranges
separated by basins and through-flowing drainages descend and become more
widely spaced in the east-west transition from semiarid desert uplands to arid
coastal plain. The range in elevation and intermittent nature of river stretches
and arroyos create distinct ecological settings with considerable differences in
temperature, rainfall, stream flow, soils, plants, and wildlife, offering a remarkable diversity of resources available for food, shelter, medicine, and fiber, with
the greatest abundance and widest variety in the higher elevations to the east
(Dimmitt 2000). Differential access to these resources shaped patterns of foraging, planting, and settlement among the peoples of the region and influenced
their interactions (Brenneman 2004).
Prior to ad 1450, during the fourteenth century and early fifteenth, this geographic expanse was both a borderland and a heartland for several distinct,
widespread archaeological traditions, including the Patayan, Trincheras, and
Hohokam. The Patayan complex overlapped the western third of the region,
with boundaries extending west into the California deserts and north to the
Grand Canyon. This complex is primarily defined by a paddle-and-anvil buff ware
ceramic tradition with distinctive rim forms (McGuire and Schiffer 1982; Rogers
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Lauren E. Jelinek and Dale S. Brenneman
fiGUre 10.1.
The Pimería Alta.
1928, 1936, 1945; Schroeder 1952, 1957, 1958; Waters 1982). Bordering the Patayan
area on the south was the Trincheras tradition, which encompassed the entire
Río Concepción-Magdalena drainage and extended to the Río Sonora in the east.
It is characterized by decorated Trincheras Purple-on-red specular ceramic types
and terraced hillside sites known as cerros de trincheras (Bowen 1976; Downum
2007; Downum et al. 1993; Fish et al. 2007; Gallaga and Newell 2004; McGuire
and Villalpando 1993; Villalpando and McGuire 2009). The northern boundary of the Trincheras region overlapped with the Hohokam tradition, which
extended east toward New Mexico and north along the Verde River. Red-on-buff
and red-on-brown decorated ceramics, irrigation agriculture, and participation
in the long-distance exchange of shell and turquoise are indicative of this widespread archaeological tradition (Dean 1991; Downum 1993; Doyel 1987; Doyel et
al. 2000; Doyel and Plog 1980; Fish and Fish 2002; Fish et al. 1984; Fish et al. 1992;
Harry 2003). The last phase of the Hohokam sequence was punctuated by a
shift in mortuary practices, population aggregation into larger settlements, construction of platform mounds, and the introduction of polychrome ceramics
Population Dynamics in the Pimería Alta, AD 1650–1750
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classified as Roosevelt redwares. The spread of this ceramic tradition, especially
Salado polychromes, occurred throughout the Southwest (Clark 2001; Dean
2000; Loendorf 2001; J. Wood 2000).
European explorers and missionaries during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries found the region inhabited by scattered groups of O’odham speakers
who interacted with each other and with several other linguistic groups living
at the region’s margins. Much of our information about the distribution of peoples in and around the Pimería Alta, as well as their interrelationships, derives
from accounts of missionaries who took up residence and explored among the
O’odham beginning in the late seventeenth century. Earlier encounters between
northern O’odham and Spaniards were sporadic and yielded few descriptions. The 1539–42 expeditions of Fray Marcos de Niza and Francisco Vázquez
de Coronado brought Spaniards no closer than the southeastern fringes of
O’odham territory and produced accounts with ambiguous information regarding ethnic identifications and precise locations (Bolton 1990; Flint 2008; Flint and
Flint 1997, 2005; Hartmann 2011; Hartmann and Hartmann 2011; Reff 1991). More
useful are the chronicles from the Colorado River explorations of Hernando
de Alarcón in 1540 (Flint and Flint 2005) and Juan de Oñate y Salazar in 1604–5
(Hammond and Rey 1953; Sheridan et al. 2015), which provide descriptions of several groups whose names correlate with historically known River Yuman tribes,
and possibly an O’odham community living on the Gila River near its confluence with the Colorado. Populations living along this western margin of the
Pimería Alta were described in greater detail, as were the complicated political
alliances among each group that had resulted in substantial population movements prior to the arrival of these expeditions.
As the northernmost frontier of Sonora, the Pimería Alta was on the periphery
of Spanish colonial settlement in the Americas until the end of the seventeenth
century. Missionary efforts and Spanish colonization began in northeastern
Sonora during the 1640s and involved limited contact with northern O’odham
until the 1670s–80s, when mining discoveries drew settlers northward, near the
southeastern fringe of O’odham territory. By the mid-1680s, enterprising ranchers were running cattle as far north as the southern slopes of the Huachuca
Mountains and as far west as the upper Santa Cruz River. Documents from this
period provide our first glimpses of the easternmost O’odham, but it was not
until the 1687 arrival of the Jesuit missionary, Father Eusebio Francisco Kino,
that a more complete picture of the Pimería Alta began to emerge (Bannon 1955;
Burrus 1971; Kessell 1970, 2002). Kino set out to expand the Jesuit mission among
the O’odham and by 1700 had systematically traversed the entire region, founding twenty-five mission communities in the south and east and traveling along
all major drainages to the Colorado River and Gulf of Mexico (Bolton 1919;
Burrus 1971; Manje 1954). For two decades following his death in 1711, however,
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a shortage of missionaries confined evangelical efforts to the southern portion
of the Pimería Alta. Spanish colonial settlement in the region began in the 1720s,
with families arriving to occupy the fertile San Luis Valley along the bend of the
Santa Cruz. Isolated mining camps were soon established in the uplands to the
west, and the extraordinary discovery of silver chunks and slabs southwest of
present-day Nogales in 1736 drew many more gente de razón (literally, “people of
reason”) with the promise of quick wealth. By the Pima Revolt of 1751, indigenous populations of the broader region had been acquiring European trade
goods, encountering ranchers and miners, and exposed to epidemic diseases for
some time, with Spaniards residing as far north as Guevavi and Tubac, northwest in the Arivaca Valley, and west along the Río Magdalena and the Río Altar
(Hadley and Sheridan 1995; Kessell 1970, Officer 1987).
Kino and his frequent traveling companion, Captain Juan Mateo Manje, identified several groups of O’odham-speakers: Pimas, who inhabited the upland
watersheds of the Sonora, San Miguel, Magdalena, Altar, Santa Cruz, and San
Pedro Rivers; Sobaipuris, who occupied the middle Santa Cruz and middle to
lower San Pedro River Valleys; Gila Pimas (or Gileños), along the Gila River; Sobas,
who farmed along the lower Río Altar at Oquitoa and downstream along the Río
Asunción, as well as ranging the desert regions to the south, west, and northwest
of the Asunción; and Papagos, in the desert interior regions west of the Santa
Cruz and south of the Gila (Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico [AGN], Favores
Celestiales de Jesús y de María SS.ma y del Gloriosíssimo Apostol de las Indias San
Francisco Xavier, Misiones, legajo 27, ff. 1–433; AGN, Segunda Parte, Luz de Tierra
Incógnita . . . desde Fines del Año de 1693 hasta el de 1721, Historia, legajo 393,
ff. 47–95v) (Figure 10.2). In addition, numerous other populations inhabited the
peripheries of the Pimería Alta, including Ópatas, Janos, Jocomes, and Apaches to
the east, and various Yuman groups to the west. The basis upon which chroniclers
distinguished among O’odham groups is not clear, though it seems likely that
dialect and self-identification were factors. Manner of subsistence apparently was
not, as members of the same group might reside in large, permanent or semipermanent settlements and practice agriculture, or range as small, mobile rancherías
to forage the region’s diverse plant and animal resources.
research MethoDoloGy
Examining population interaction and demographic change among the populations in and bordering the Pimería Alta during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries requires an ethnohistoric approach from a regional perspective. New research among Spanish colonial documents has centered on texts
containing information about the O’odham and their neighbors, with preference
given to eyewitness observations penned by individuals possessing firsthand
experience of the region. The selection of documents includes histories, letters,
Population Dynamics in the Pimería Alta, AD 1650–1750
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fiGUre 10.2.
O’odham distribution in the Pimería Alta as reported by Kino and Manje.
reports, maps, and testimonies (Spanish and indigenous) prepared by missionaries, military officers, and civil authorities. Most inform the published secondary
works—narrative histories and ethnohistories—also used in this study and several have been published as transcriptions or in English translation, but many
others have not yet been published. Care has been taken to work from microfilm
or photographic copies of Spanish archival originals whenever possible. Despite
the valuable insight into indigenous population dynamics that contemporary
colonial documents provide, however, they allow partial views at best, filtered
through the often distorted lens of European perspectives.
The archaeological record offers an important, additional source of data to help
expand our view. Archaeological remains dating to the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries were reexamined to identify spheres of interaction between
distinct groups. Research primarily focused on attributes associated with projectile point and ceramic manufacture and style, specifically rim construction, rim
thickness, and neck height. Absolute dating of sites from this period is imprecise,
due to pronounced de Vries effects on the radiocarbon curve beginning around
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ad 1450. De Vries effects refer to short term, high-frequency variations in radiocarbon activity that are measured in tree rings. These radiocarbon anomalies appear
as wiggles on the radiocarbon curve, resulting in multiple possible intercepts and
a wider date range. Nevertheless, many sites have been assigned relative dates
based on the presence of Spanish trade goods or specific artifact types. A reanalysis of archaeological data demonstrates that groups living in the heart of the
Pimería Alta had a lengthy history of interaction with peoples inhabiting the eastern and western peripheries. The following is a summary of the ethnohistorical
and archaeological evidence of these interactions.
PiMería alta: easterN sPhere
ethnohistoric evidence
Documents from the 1640s offer the earliest references to the O’odham of the
Pimería Alta, calling them Hímeris—a term derived from the site of Ímuris in the
upper Río Magdalena Valley, where Spaniards probably first encountered them
(Archivo Histórico de Hacienda, México [AHH], Carta de Cornelio Guillereagh al
Padre Visitador Alvara Flores de Sierra, 30 de marzo, 1673, Temporalidades, legajo
278, exp. 13; Biblioteca Nacional de México [BNM], Memorial de Fray Thomás
Manso, Año 1646, 05–08). This name was also initially applied to O’odham living
near Bacoachi, in the area near the headwaters of the Río Sonora (AGN, Carta
Anua de 1653, Misiones, legajo 26, f. 153v) (Figure 10.3). By the 1680s, however,
“Hímeris” fell from use and was replaced with “Pimas” with reference to the
rancherías of Cananea and Huachuca,1 near the headwaters of the San Pedro
River, as well as those occupying the upper watersheds of the Río Magdalena
and the Santa Cruz River as far north as Guevavi (AHH, Certificación de Joseph
Romo de Vivar, Temporalidades, legajo 278, exp. 22; Archivo de Hidalgo del Parral,
Chihuahua [AHP], Causa Criminal contra un India llamado Canito, microfilm
1686B, exp. 19). Sobaipuris enter the written record as “Pimas of Quíburi,” identified as such in the 1686 criminal trial case against a Pima leader known as Canito.
As yet unfamiliar to settlers, these Pimas were regarded as a group apart, more
closely associated with the place of Quíburi on the middle San Pedro than with the
other Pimas. Four years later, Sonora’s chief magistrate, Captain Blas del Castillo,
distinguished Sobaipuris by that name from Pimas and Sobas (AGN, Carta al
Gobernador Isidro Pardiñas Villar de Francos, Junio 15, Provincias Internas, vol.
30, ff. 267–75), and in 1692, Kino linked the Sobaipuris with the Río “de Quíburi”
(San Pedro River). His reference in 1699 to two of the Gileño villages as Sobaipuri
signals a possible connection between the two groups (AGN, Favores Celestiales,
Misiones, legajo 27, ff. 14, 33).
The ease with which O’odham messengers moved throughout the region as
they carried word about Kino’s comings and goings suggests friendly interaction
among most groups. For example, Kino was at the Pima village of Tucubavia,
Population Dynamics in the Pimería Alta, AD 1650–1750
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Pimería Alta sites and landmarks (some sites are plotted according to their locations on historic maps because they have not been relocated).
fiGUre 10.3.
on the upper Río Altar, when Sobaipuri and Pima messengers from Bac and
Tumacácori, respectively, arrived to invite him to visit their rancherías on the
Santa Cruz River in 1691 (AGN, Favores Celestiales, Misiones, legajo 27, f. 9). In
1698, the leader of the Sobas in the Caborca region sent word to Kino at San
Andrés, a Gileño village near the confluence of the Gila River with the Santa
Cruz, that he would meet him and guide him through all the coastal rancherías
(Archivo General de Indias, Seville [AGI], Diario por el Capp.n Diego Carrazco,
Audiencia de Guadalajara, legajo 134, ff. 13–26v). Similarly, while at San Marcelo
de Sonoyta (just below the present-day international border) in 1700, Kino
received a cross sent by a Gila Pima leader near Casa Grande (AGN, Favores
Celestiales, Misiones, legajo 27, f. 59).
Not all interactions were amicable, however. The Sobas were traditional
enemies of the eastern Pimas, tenuously reconciling with them only through
the efforts of Kino. Several years prior to the priest’s 1687 arrival, some Sobas
had killed the leader of Cosari (Dolores), on the upper Río San Miguel (AGN,
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Favores Celestiales, Misiones, legajo 27, ff. 14–14v). In 1695, a Pima governor
from the ranchería of Tucubavia, at the headwaters of the Río Altar, affirmed
that the Sobas downstream, though O’odham, had always been enemies (AHP,
Testimonio de autos de guerras fechos por los capitanes Juan Fernández de la
Fuente, Don Domingo Terán de los Ríos y Don Domingo Jironza Petriz de
Cruzate . . . Año de 1695, microfilm 1695, ff. 111v–112). Sobas appear to have been
more closely affiliated with Areneños (Sand Papagos, or Hia Ced O’odham) to
the north and northwest, and with coastal Pimas Bajos to the south, who, Kino
observed, came to help harvest crops at Caborca (AGN, Favores Celestiales,
Misiones, legajo 27, ff. 12v, 15, 175–175v). Tensions also appear to have existed
among the Sobaipuris, according to Manje, who in 1697 was told by the Sobaipuri
leader of Quíburi that his people had recently abandoned several villages a few
leagues north because a falling out with their more northerly relatives farther
downstream had led to some deaths (Bancroft Library [BL], Photostat of the
Linga Manuscript, Bolton Papers I, item 203). There are some indications this
rift may have resulted from Spanish colonial influences, however (AHP, Autos de
guerra, microfilm 1695, ff. 28–31v).
Relationships between eastern O’odham and Ópatan groups to the south
and east, though obscured by Spanish colonial influences, appear to have varied
by river valley. The first colonial encounter with Hímeris took place in 1645, in
the vicinity of the upper Río Magdalena rather than along the Río San Miguel,
where settlers had already taken up residence (BNM, Manso Memorial, 05–08;
Yetman 2012). This suggests that the Río Magdalena Pimas, at least, maintained
a prudent distance from their Eudeve neighbors until missionaries persuaded
a ranchería to relocate to the San Miguel five years later, in 1650 (AGN, Carta
Anua, Misiones, legajo 26, f. 134v).2 Near the headwaters of the Río Sonora, however, Hímeris were reportedly allied with the northern Ópatas of Bacoachi as
they resisted Jesuit entry into that village in 1649 (AHP, Autos f hos en razon
de la entrada de Cucuribasca y Buchibacuachi, en la Provincia de Sonora . . .,
Microfilm 1649A, exp. 14; Yetman 2012). Four years later, a Hímeris ranchería was
settled at Bacoachi, likely drawn southward by the Jesuit mission established
there, and the Pima village of Mototícachi was reported as a few leagues north
of the Ópata settlement in 1684 (AGN, Carta Anua, Misiones, legajo 26, f. 135v;
AHH, Certificación de Joseph Romo de Vivar, Temporalidades, legajo 278, exp.
22). In 1686, a Pima leader nicknamed Canito, from that same general region,
confessed to inciting Janos, Jocomes, and Sumas to attack and raid Christian
villages, both Ópata and Spanish, in the neighboring Teuricachi Valley to the
east, an act pointing toward existing tensions between the easternmost Pimas
and Ópatas of that valley and perhaps linked to long-standing hostilities among
the Ópata groups themselves (AHP, Canito, microfilm 1686B, exp. 19; Bannon
1955). Two years later, Ópatas stoked Spanish fears of Indian revolt by accusing
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seven Pimas from Mototícachi of having previously attacked the Teuricachi
Valley and planning yet another attack; their allegations led to the destruction
of Mototícachi (AHP, Causa criminal contra Nicolás de Higuera por homicidios
perpetrado en las personas de algunos indios de Nación Pima, microfilm 1688C,
exp. 130). In 1695, Pima resentment of the Ópata overseer at Tubutama and his
harsh treatment of the Pima residents resulted in the death of that overseer as
well as two other Ópatas, triggering an uprising along the Río Altar-Concepción
drainage (BNM, Inocente, Apostólica y Gloriosa Muerte de V. Pe Francisco
Xavier Saeta de la Compañía de Jesús, ms. 1118, ff. 155v, 156–157r).
The documentary record suggests an amicable relationship existed between
Sobaipuris and several hunter-gatherer groups to their east prior to direct
Spanish influence. Canito alleged in his 1686 confession that the Pimas of
Quíburi lived in great friendship with the Janos and Jocomes, having relocated
to Quíburi from the area of Cuquiárachi, northwest of the Teuricachi Valley
(AHP, Canito, Microfilm 1686B, exp. 19). In 1692, Captain Francisco Ramírez de
Salazar led a party of settlers to the San Pedro River Valley in pursuit of horses
purportedly stolen by Sobaipuris in the company of Janos and Jocomes. He did
not find the horses, but ended up taking several Sobaipuris to meet Kino, who
visited their valley soon after in response (AHP, Testimonio de Autos que se
remite al Gov.or y Cap.n gl. del Parral . . . Año de 1692, Microfilm 1692A, no. 1).
This episode apparently marked a turning point in the Sobaipuri relationship
with their eastern neighbors, for in 1695, General Juan Fernández de la Fuente
learned from a Chinarra captive that an alliance of Janos, Jocomes, Sumas,
Mansos, and Chinarras was friendly with the Apaches inhabiting the northern side of the Pinaleño Mountains, and that all had become hostile to the
Pimas because the Pimas fought against them as auxiliaries of Spanish forces
in the Teuricachi Valley. The alliance was also “in a state of hostility” with the
Sobaipuris, who had sided with the Pimas (AHP, Autos de guerras, microfilm
1695, ff. 28–31v).
archaeological evidence
The suite of diagnostic artifacts associated with Sobaipuris was first formally
articulated by Di Peso (1953) in his monograph on excavations at Santa Cruz de
Terrenate (AZ EE:4:11[ASM]) and Santa Cruz del Pitaitutgam (AZ EE:8:15[ASM]).
Di Peso argued that he had relocated the protohistoric Sobaipuri rancherías of
Quíburi (AZ EE:4:11[ASM]) and Santa Cruz de Gaybanipitea (AZ EE:8:15 [ASM]).
Subsequent evaluation of his claims has demonstrated that whereas he did locate
and excavate the ruins of the presidio of Santa Cruz de Terrenate, it was not
the location of the Sobaipuri settlement of Quíburi (Gerald 1968; Lyons 2004;
Seymour 1989; Sugnet and Reid 1994). It has also been suggested that Di Peso
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mistook Santa Cruz del Pitaitutgam for Santa Cruz de Gaybanipitea (Seymour
1989, 2011; Vint 2007).
Di Peso identified two ceramic types that he associated with Sobaipuris (Di
Peso 1953). He defined the first, Sobaipuri Plain, as a thick-walled plainware
exhibiting a rim coil and a carbon core. Di Peso considered this ware similar to Papago Plain and argued that it was probably manufactured after 1700.
Stephanie Whittlesey (1994) has argued that the Sobaipuri Plain vessels identified at Terrenate may have been manufactured by presidial soldiers rather than
Sobaipuris. Whetstone Plain, the second type defined by Di Peso, was found
in significantly lower quantities than Sobaipuri Plain at both Terrenate and
Pitaitutgam. Whetstone Plain ceramics were manufactured with the paddleand-anvil technique and are characterized by mixed angular and rounded sand
inclusions without a carbon core. They exhibit a hand-smoothed surface lacking striation marks or polishing. Di Peso noted that the temper may contain a
few mica particles. Whetstone Plain vessel forms are dominated by globular jars
with straight or recurved rims, but bowls exhibiting straight or slightly recurved
rims are also present. These ceramics lack a rim coil and range in thickness from
0.20 to 1.30 cm, with an average of 0.30 cm.
Subsequent refinements of the Whetstone typology by W. Bruce Masse
(1981:37) describe Whetstone Plain as characterized by a bumpy appearance
and a sandy finish caused by paddle-and-anvil thinning and hand finishing. The
sherds range in color from reddish to grayish brown, and carbon streaks are
rare. Vessel walls average from four to six millimeters thick, and common vessel
forms include globular or ellipsoidal jars with slightly outflaring rims and vertical necks and small bowls with outflaring rims. Deni Seymour (2011) provides
the most recent description of Whetstone Plain, defining it as a fine-pasted ware
with minor voids from the unintentional inclusion of minor fragments of vegetable material. These ceramics lack a carbon streak but may have gray cores.
Paste color ranges from tan to brown, and sherds are usually not fire clouded.
Vessels are often thin walled, though some fragments of storage vessels and jars
can be thicker. Jars are the most common vessel form, but bowls are also present.
Based upon surface treatment, Seymour suggests that Whetstone Plain can be
subdivided into four varieties, including matte, smoothed, wiped, and slightly
polished. She has argued that the Whetstone Plain typology is too inclusive
and incorporates a wide range of ceramic types (Seymour 2011:216). Whetstone
Plain has been identified at numerous sites in the San Pedro and Santa Cruz
River Valleys, the traditionally accepted Sobaipuri territory, but it has also been
reported as far north as Picacho Peak and as far south as the Altar River Valley,
and as such, may not necessarily be a diagnostic Sobaipuri artifact type (e.g.,
Dart 1989; Heilen and Reid 2006; McGuire and Villalpando 1993; Wallace and
Homlund 1986).
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In order to establish a baseline for comparisons with other assemblages,
eight reconstructed vessels and fifteen rim sherds were reexamined from the
Terrenate assemblage, while seven rim sherds were examined from Pitaitutgam
(for additional information on the following analyses see Jelinek 2012). Material
from Terrenate was predominately sand tempered, but one rim sherd contained
a combination of sand and sherd temper. Three sherds contained carbon streaks
and one specimen exhibited a rim coil; it is possible these sherds were merely
mislabeled, however, because they more closely resembled Sobaipuri Plain. Rim
thickness ranged from 0.46 to 0.99 cm, with an average of 0.68 cm. Material
from Pitaitutgam was sparse. Of the seven rim sherds present in the assemblage
from this site, one was a Roosevelt Redware and two exhibited such a large
quantity of micaceous schist that they closely resembled Gila Plain, a Hohokam
plainware. The four remaining plainware sherds were sand tempered and lacked
a carbon core. One sherd exhibited a rim coil and rim thickness ranged from 0.51
to 0.87 cm, with an average of 0.61 cm.
A survey conducted along the middle Río Altar in Sonora resulted in the identification of several sites associated with O’odham groups during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. The ceramic assemblages recorded at these sites fit
within the acceptable range of variation to thickness, color, rim morphology, vessel form, and surface treatment associated with Whetstone Plain, though they
exhibited a greater degree of mica in the temper than samples from the comparative collections. Randall McGuire and María Elisa Villalpando Canchola (McGuire
and Villalpando 1993) suggested that the Altar Valley ceramic assemblages fall
within the larger category of Whetstone Plain, the ceramic type largely associated with Sobaipuris, but further analysis may identify different varieties.
An Upper Piman assemblage in the eastern Pimería Alta exhibits some similarities with materials from the Río Sonora, which was occupied primarily by Ópatas.
Excavations at England Ranch Ruin (AZ DD:8:129 [ASM]), an Upper Piman site
along the middle Santa Cruz River, yielded two types of plainware. The first was
identified as Trincheras Plain based on the presence of pronounced incised wiping striations. The second, more common type was a relatively thick plainware
with coarse temper and minor wiping striations. David Doyel (1977) concluded
that this assemblage cannot be reasonably equated with either Sobaipuri Plain
or Whetstone Plain, two types usually associated with Sobaipuris; W. Bruce
Masse (1981), however, suggested that both types in this assemblage are similar
to sherds found near Mission San José de Baviácora, along the Río Sonora.
Much of the evidence for interaction between Sobaipuris and the nomadic
groups that dotted the eastern frontier of the Pimería Alta—including the
Jocomes, Janos, Mansos, Sumas, and Apaches—derives from documents.
Archaeological evidence of mobile groups is often difficult to identify because of
the ephemeral nature of their habitations; however, Seymour (2009) has begun
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examining these sites in the eastern Southwest. Western Apache material culture is better known and documented in Arizona (Ferg 1987, 1992), though not
necessarily at Sobaipuri and Upper Piman sites. Recent research at Santa Cruz
de Gaybanipitea, the ranchería where the Sobaipuris defeated the Apaches and
their allies in a contest between chosen warriors, may shed more light on this
issue (Seymour 2014).
PiMería alta: westerN sPhere
ethnohistoric evidence
Kino’s explorations revealed various connections between O’odham and Yuman
speakers to the west. Among the Gileños near the Gila–Santa Cruz river confluence, in 1694, he learned of Cocomaricopas and Opas living downstream,
and he talked with Pimas who spoke both languages well enough to allow
him to construct a vocabulary (AGN, Favores Celestiales, Misiones, legajo
27, f. 13). In subsequent visits to the Gila River, Kino and Manje observed that
Cocomaricopas were related by marriage with Pimas, with several rancherías
below Gila Bend inhabited by both peoples, many of whom knew both languages (AGN, Favores Celestiales, Misiones, legajo 27, ff. 29, 31, 53; Biblioteca
Nacional, Madrid [BN], Relación ytineraria del nuevo descubrimiento . . . a
descubrir las nuevas naciones Cocopas, Yumas, y Pimas desde 7 de febrero hasta
14 de marzo deste presente año de 1699, ms. 3165, ff. 182–195v). Pimas may have
resided even farther downstream almost 100 years earlier, judging from the
Oñate expedition’s encounter with four or five Oseca/Osera/Osara rancherías
on the Gila side of the Gila-Colorado River confluence. There, inhabitants spoke
a language similar to Tepehuan, part of the Tepiman family of languages that
included O’odham (AGI, Relación de Fray Francisco de Escobar, 1605, Audiencia
de México, legajo 20). Fashioning mantas of cotton and wearing their hair in
the same fashion as the Gila River Pimas described by Russell (1975:158–59) in
the early twentieth century, they may have been Gileños, Papagos, or Areneños
(Akimel, Tohono, or Hia Ced O’odham, respectively). Population movements in
the lower Colorado and Gila River Valleys appear to have been influenced by several factors, including shifts in the Colorado River delta and resulting cycles of
water infill and recession of Lake Cahuilla over several centuries, the decline of
Hohokam civilization and dispersal of formerly aggregated settlements, and the
spread of European diseases (Sheridan et al. 2015:103). These movements probably triggered the hostilities among Yuman speakers remarked upon by Alarcón
and Escobar, which continued into the mid-nineteenth century and frequently
involved O’odham (Flint and Flint 2005; AGI, Escobar Relación, México, legajo
20). Kino observed that the Pimas and Cocomaricopas had a history of warfare with the Yumas (Quechan) farther downstream (AGN, Favores Celestiales,
Misiones, legajo 27, f. 31v).
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That the connection between O’odham and Cocomaricopas also extended
southward is indicated by Manje’s observation that Pimas at San Marcelo de
Sonoyta had detailed information concerning waterholes and the route northward to the Gila River Cocomaricopas (BN, Relación itineraria 1699, Ms. 3165,
f. 185v), and Father Juan María Salvatierra commented upon Cocomaricopas
“mixed with” the Pimas at Sonoyta when he traveled there with Kino and Manje
two years later (AGN, Relación itineraria de Juan María Salvatierra, 1701, Historia,
legajo 21, f. 123v). Four Cocomaricopas traveled southward to the O’odham
village Kino called San Francisco del Adid, in the Papaguería west of Bac, to
see and speak with Kino in 1699 (AGN, Favores Celestiales, Misiones, legajo 27,
f. 34v). More than forty years afterward, Father Jacobo Sedelmayr confirmed
that Cocomaricopas were related by marriage with Pimas, whom they called
Papagos, and that many Pimas lived among the Cocomaricopas, fluent in both
languages. By this time, according to Sedelmayr, the Cocomaricopa nation had
extended its reach eastward to just beyond the confluence of the Salt and Gila
Rivers (AHH, Carta al reverendo padre provincial Mateo Ansaldo, Octubre 25,
1742, Temporalidades, legajo 17, exp. 42).
Another O’odham-Yuman relationship was observed between the Pimas of
the westernmost desert—probably Areneños—and Quíquimas (Halyikwamai or
possibly Cócopas) of the Colorado delta. Salvatierra reported that the coastal
area south of the delta was populated by Pimas mixed with a branch of the
Quíquimas, and that the Pimas who lived in that dry desert region just east of
the coast were familiar with the Quíquimas and their lands (AGN, Relación
itineraria, Historia, legajo 21, f. 128v). This relationship had some longevity,
as indicated by Alarcón’s comment that his interpreter—likely a Uto-Aztecan
speaker from farther south in Mexico—could understand the language spoken
by some people among the “Quicamas” (Flint and Flint 2005:197). The connection did not extend to the Pimas of Sonoyta, who had been at war with the
Quíquimas, according to Salvatierra, and who tried to impede Spanish communication with them (AGN, Relación itineraria, Historia, legajo 21, f. 125).
archaeological evidence
The western portion of the Pimería Alta has long been considered a borderland
between both Patayan and Hohokam archaeological traditions and Yuman
and O’odham speakers. Excavations at Ventana Cave (AZ Z:12:5[ASM]), a large
rock-shelter situated in the Castle Mountains in the Papaguería (a Papago subregion in the west-central part of the Pimería Alta), yielded one of the longest
records of habitation in the Southwest (Haury 1950). Assemblages recovered
from the upper levels at Ventana Cave were characterized by triangular projectile points with concave bases; Papago plain and Papago redware manufactured
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during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and a few nonmicaceous, wellsmoothed, thin-walled ceramics manufactured using the paddle-and-anvil
technique. These nonmicaceous wares exhibited attributes consistent with
both Lowland Patayan and Upper Piman manufacturing strategies, suggesting frequent interaction between these groups. Given this region’s history as a
contact zone for Yuman and O’odham speakers, it is not surprising that ceramics from this area would exhibit a mixture of attributes consistent with two
different groups.
In the Sierra Pinacate, a volcanic region in northwest Sonora characterized by
sparse vegetation and an extremely arid climate, several assemblages dating to
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries exhibit a mix of Lowland Patayan and
Upper Piman material culture. Ceramic assemblages are predominately characterized by Lowland Patayan buffwares; however, projectile point styles mirror
those used by O’odham speakers, specifically Sobaipuris who occupied territory
farther east. Julian Hayden (1967) and Paul Ezell (1955, 1963a) argued that the
Pinacate was likely occupied by Areneños who spoke an O’odham dialect, but
acquired and used Lowland Patayan ceramics.
A mixture of Lowland Patayan and Upper Piman ceramic attributes was
noted in several ceramic concentrations found associated with talus pits in the
Tucson Basin (Madsen 1993). Although these ceramic assemblages shared more
similarities with Papago plainwares, the long chimney-style necks and partially
obliterated rim coils are reminiscent of attributes associated with Lowland
Patayan ceramics along the Gila and Colorado Rivers. The lack of carbon
streaking and associated European material culture suggests that these ceramics
roughly date to 1450–1775.
Ceramic assemblages recovered from lands belonging to the Ak-Chin Indian
Community, dating from 1400 to 1850, share similarities with both Lowland
Patayan and Upper Piman assemblages. The initial analysis by William Deaver
(1990) identified two ceramic complexes: Complex I contained ceramics with
folded rims, stucco finish, and Red-on-Buff decoration, whereas Complex II
lacked these attributes. A reanalysis of this typology by John Cable (1990) suggests that Complex I, which exhibits folded rims and decorated ceramics, was
the earliest to appear. Cable’s findings did not support the stringent division
in ceramic complexes proposed by Deaver, however. He encountered folded
rims and a stucco finish in both Complex I and II assemblages, implying that
the largest qualitative difference between these two types lay in the presence of
decorated ceramics. Cable (1990) concluded that the ceramic chronology demonstrated a progression away from Lowland Patayan attributes, characterized by
a decrease in folded rims and the discontinued use of painted decoration. After
these attributes were discontinued, the ceramics more closely resembled wares
found among Sobaipuris and Upper Pimas.
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syNthesis aND coNclUsioNs
As the above discussion illustrates, different groups inhabiting and bordering the
Pimería Alta interacted with each other to a considerable degree. O’odham and
Cocomaricopa messengers reportedly traveled widely and freely throughout
the Pimería Alta (AGN, Favores Celestiales, Misiones, legajo 27, ff. 1–433). Pima
knowledge of travel routes and water-holes in Cocomaricopa territory, the presence of Cocomaricopas among the Pimas of Sonoyta, and the probable presence
of Pima rancherías near the Colorado-Gila confluence all serve as testimony to
the long-standing relationship between these two peoples (BN, Relación itineraria
1699, Ms. 3165, ff. 182–195v; AGN, Relación itineraria, Historia, legajo 21, f. 123v;
AGI, Escobar Relación, México, legajo 20). These interrelationships are also visible
in the archaeological record. The presence of ceramic attributes associated with
both Lowland Patayan and Upper Piman styles on the same vessel, exemplified
in assemblages recovered from both the Tucson Basin (Madsen 1993) and Ventana
Cave (Haury 1950), provides additional evidence of these ties. To the south and
east, the identification of Whetstone Plain ceramics—a type generally associated
with Sobaipuris—at Upper Piman sites in the Altar Valley may indicate that Pimas
and Sobaipuris interacted with each other through either the exchange of vessels or intermarriage, wherein spouses introduced distinct ceramic-manufacturing
practices to their community (McGuire and Villalpando 1993). Likewise, the similarity between ceramics found at England Ranch Ruin on the Santa Cruz River
and those found at sites in the Río Sonora may indicate the movement of populations or trade items between these two regions (Doyel 1977; Masse 1980).
Social alliances between groups inhabiting the Pimería Alta are well established in the documentary record. Pimas living along the Gila River intermarried
with the Cocomaricopas, and several rancherías below Gila Bend were multiethnic communities in which inhabitants spoke both O’odham and Yuman
languages (AGN, Favores Celestiales, Misiones, legajo 27, ff. 1–433; BN, Relación
itineraria 1699, Ms. 3165, ff. 182–195v; AHH, Carta 1742, Temporalidades, legajo
17, exp. 42). The Areneños and Quíqimas engaged in a similarly close and longstanding alliance in the Colorado delta region (AGN, Relación itineraria, Historia,
legajo 21, ff. 105–135; Flint and Flint 2005). The mixture of Yuman (ceramics) and
O’odham (projectile points) material culture found at archaeological sites in the
Sierra Pinacate (Ezell 1955, 1963a, 1963b; Hayden 1967) reinforces the extent and
nature of alliances described in the documentary record.
Although colonial chroniclers—especially Kino—generally described the
Pimas as peaceful, social conflicts among these groups were remarked upon as
well. Hostilities among the populations living along the Colorado River were
frequent. Pimas, in their alliance with Cocomaricopas, had a history of warfare with Quechans. The Pimas of Sonoyta had a contentious relationship with
the Quíquimas, to whom the Areneños were closely connected, and attempted
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to impede Spanish contact with them. Sobas, though O’odham speakers, were
the traditional enemies of eastern Pimas, and appear to have been more closely
linked with Areneños and with coastal Pimas Bajos (AGN, Favores Celestiales,
Misiones, legajo 27, ff. 1–433; AGN, Relación itineraria, Historia, legajo 21, ff. 105–
135; AHP, Autos de guerra, microfilm 1695, ff. 28–31v).
As with the Sobas discussed above, the conflicts documented between groups
in the Pimería Alta were complicated, varied, and rarely clear cut. Relationships
between eastern O’odham and Ópatan groups appear to have varied by river
valley. Pimas and Ópatas were reportedly involved in an alliance resisting Jesuit
entry into Bacoachi in 1649, but Pimas and Ópatas on the Río Magdelena avoided
each other until 1650 (AHP, Autos, microfilm 1649A, exp. 14; AGN, Carta Anua,
Misiones, legajo 26). Pima raiding of Ópata and Spanish colonial villages in the
Teuricachi Valley (AHP, Higuera, microfilm 1688C, exp. 130) was one of several
events that increased tensions among these groups, and Pima-Ópata antagonisms
contributed to the death of three Ópatas at Tubutama in 1695 (BNM, Muerte de
Saeta, ms. 1118, ff. 155v, 156–157r). Relationships between Sobaipuris and the Janos
and Jocomes to the east appear to have initially been amicable (AHP, Canito,
microfilm 1686B, exp. 19), but were radically altered when Ramírez de Salazar
took several southern Sobaipuris to meet Kino (AHP, Autos de guerra, microfilm
1692A, no. 1). The ensuing alliance between Spaniards and southern Sobaipuris
may have been the root of tensions with Sobaipuri communities to the north
(AHP, Autos de guerra, microfilm 1695, ff. 28–31v; BL, Linga Ms., Bolton Papers I,
item 203), as southern rancherías gained easier access to valuable Spanish goods
and attracted raids from their former allies.
O’odham-speaking populations commonly interacted among each other
and with multiple non-O’odham groups during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and
eighteenth centuries. Documentary, archaeological, and oral historical data
bear testimony to the dynamic interplay of alliances, conflicts, and interactions
among these groups over time. The distribution of ceramic attributes accords
with documentary reports that O’odham coresided with Yuman-speaking populations along the northern and western boundaries. There also appears to have
been considerable interaction among O’odham groups of the San Pedro, Santa
Cruz, and Altar River Valleys given that Whetstone Plain has been found at sites
throughout much of the Pimería Alta. Archaeological evidence of possibly amicable interaction between O’odham along the Santa Cruz River and Ópatas near
the Río Sonora accords with ethnohistorical evidence for early alliances between
easternmost O’odham and Ópatas at the Sonora’s upper reaches, though documents suggest that other interactions between O’odham and Ópatas were often
quite hostile. Further ethnohistorical research using multiple lines of evidence
to re-create shared historical narratives will help to clarify the variability in relations among these groups over time.
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Notes
1. Although Herbert Bolton (1936:269) believed Huachuca to be situated on Babocómari Creek, Kino’s maps place the village farther south, near the headwaters of the
San Pedro River (Burrus 1965).
2. Linguist David Shaul (in Yetman 2010) has suggested that the Eudeve language
represents a Pima adaptation to Ópata, which implies an earlier pattern of coresidence
and/or intermarriage among Pimas and Ópatans along the upper Río San Miguel and
the lower Río Moctezuma. The Pimas involved were likely Nébomes, or Pimas Bajos
(Pennington 1980).
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e
l
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v
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Missions, livestock, and economic
transformations in the Pimería alta
barneT Pavao-ZuCkerman
iNtroDUctioN
Among the changes wrought by the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, the
impact of introduced Eurasian livestock stands out as particularly far-reaching in
space and time. The introduction of Eurasian domesticated animals was transformative for the environments, economies, sociopolitical interactions, cuisine,
technology, and many other aspects of the daily life of Native Americans. And,
the success or failure of domesticated livestock shaped the unfolding of the
European colonial process throughout North America (Pavao-Zuckerman 2000;
Pavao-Zuckerman and Reitz 2006:52). While not universally successful, Eurasian
livestock in the southwestern region of North America paved the way for successful Spanish colonialism, and eventually formed the foundation of several
important economic interactions in the region.
In the Southwest, Spanish colonial missions most often served as the vehicle
for the introduction of livestock and for the transformation of Native American
daily life. All Spanish colonial entities—secular, military, and religious—sought to
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establish economies based on animal husbandry and the exploitation of domesticated animals; however, missions were particularly well suited to the ranching
enterprise. Spanish policies of reduccíon, or the physical resettlement of Native
American communities at missions, served both to provide a captive audience for
efficient proselytizing and amassed a large labor pool in support of various mission economic enterprises, including livestock ranching. Native American labor
was co-opted by missionaries into European-styled intensive agriculture and
animal husbandry with the goal of establishing and maintaining self-supporting
agrarian communities (Radding 1997; Sheridan 1988). Agricultural surpluses
were expected to fulfill the needs of the missions and to provide material support to nascent Spanish secular and military settlements in the region. While
grains, particularly wheat, were usually the most important commodities, missions also served as important sources of livestock and livestock products. This
was particularly the case in the Pimería Alta (Figure 11.1), the region encompassing present-day northern Sonora (Mexico) and southern Arizona (United States),
where warm and dry environments could support large herds of cattle and sheep
(Pavao-Zuckerman 2000; Pavao-Zuckerman and Reitz 2006).
MissioNizatioN aND the iNtroDUctioN of
livestock iN the PiMería alta
Missionization of the O’odham people in the Pimería Alta began in the late
seventeenth century with the travels of Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, the
Italian Jesuit missionary (see Lauren E. Jelinek and Dale S. Brenneman, chapter 10 in this volume). Kino embarked on his missionization efforts among the
O’odham in the 1680s; however, Spanish settlement and proselytization among
the Ópatas and the “Pimas Bajas” was unfolding at the southern border of the
Pimería Alta from the early seventeenth century, particularly in association with
mining activities (Spicer 1962). And Spanish colonialism in the Puebloan region
of the northern Southwest was long underway by the time Kino arrived in the
Pimería Alta.
At the time of missionization, the O’odham were seminomadic horticulturalists. While the O’odham developed sophisticated irrigated-agricultural systems,
it is estimated that 80 percent of their yearly diet was contributed by wild
resources collected during seasonal movements across the landscape (Radding
1997:49–50). During the winter months, O’odham farmers moved to aggregated
upland camps near permanent water sources where they hunted and gathered
wild foods. Communities dispersed somewhat during the summer agricultural
season, as households moved into desert lowlands to take advantage of floodwater irrigation brought on by the summer rains. O’odham children were tasked
with guarding crops from animal thieves, and no doubt honed their hunting
skills by picking off would-be crop-stealers for dinner (Radding 1997). “Garden
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fiGUre 11.1.
Map of the Pimería Alta in the eighteenth century.
hunting” by O’odham children (or adults) was likely an important source of
protein during the summer months. This practice was very common among
Hohokam farmers who lived in the region until around ad 1450 (Dean 2005,
2007; Szuter 1991), and no doubt continued with the O’odham. The seasonal
movements of the O’odham people were largely structured by the availability water, a limited resource in the Sonoran Desert (Dobyns 1976:9). Winter
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settlements were placed near perennial streams or springs, and summer agricultural settlements were located near arroyos that could, when flooded by
rainwater, be manipulated with ditches and brush fences to irrigate agricultural
fields. Seasonal mobility, and the fluctuations in community size, also served to
insulate O’odham communities against hostilities by other indigenous groups.
Missionization and Spanish colonialism were ultimately transformative of
O’odham lifeways, but this transformation was patchwork, gradual, and reciprocal. The earliest impacts of European colonialism felt in the region were no
doubt biological—the introduction of zoonotic epidemic diseases and Eurasian
domesticated plants and animals. While very little direct evidence exists for
the impact of epidemic diseases on O’odham people prior to the arrival of
missionaries and written documents, several smallpox epidemics affected the
southwestern region of North America prior to the mission period, including
in 1520–24, 1592–93, 1602, 1646–48, and 1662–63 (Dobyns 1983:15). Other diseases
also swept through the region, including measles, influenza, bubonic plague,
diphtheria, typhus, and possibly cholera (Dobyns 1983). These epidemics continued in the mission period, with records of burials in church documents often
exceeding the numbers of baptisms. Although Kino established missions at existing O’odham villages, these populations quickly dwindled as a result of disease,
and outlying Native American communities were often resettled at struggling
missions to bolster neophyte populations. Despite these resettlement efforts,
indigenous populations at missions throughout the Pimería Alta continued to
see precipitous declines throughout the eighteenth century (Dobyns 1963), a testament to O’odham cultural resilience.
While diseases likely impacted O’odham ancestral communities prior to the
arrival of missionaries, most Eurasian animals and crops were unknown in the
region until the mission period. Indeed, the region was devoid of domesticated
animals throughout the pre-Hispanic period, with the exception of domesticated dogs and, briefly, turkeys. The history of ranching in the Pimería Alta
begins with the sixteenth-century Spanish entradas by Coronado and Oñate.
These entradas may have accidentally introduced one or more Eurasian animals
to the region, but it is unlikely that any escapees survived Native hunters or the
southwestern climate for very long.
The first intentional introduction of Eurasian livestock in the Pimería Alta
occurred in the 1680s with the journeys of Father Kino. Kino, however, was preceded by horses, which appear to have spread from settlements to the south or
possibly from the Spanish colony in New Mexico prior to his arrival. Captain Juan
Matheo Manje, who accompanied Kino, noted that horse raiding was already a
problem for the Native American communities they encountered (Burrus 1971;
Sheridan 1988). Horses, apparently, spread independently and in advance of the
spread of European colonialism.
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As he traveled throughout the region, nominally establishing missions, Kino left
behind wheat, cattle, and other small livestock, presumably with some instructions on what to do with the alien creatures and crops. Winter wheat had an
almost immediate impact on indigenous life in the region—it was adopted by
O’odham farmers soon after its introduction by Kino. The crop yielded a harvest
of grain during spring, a traditionally lean time of the year, and was therefore an
attractive addition to the traditional O’odham agricultural regime (Sheridan 1988).
The fate of the Eurasian animals deposited in the upper reaches of the
Pimería Alta by Kino was less rosy. It is difficult to imagine that Kino was able to
provide enough instruction during his brief visits for Native peoples to take up
husbandry—particularly given that animal husbandry of large hooved animals
was entirely unknown in North America. In some areas, cattle and other livestock were successfully introduced (Radding 1997; Sheridan 2006), but Eurasian
livestock introduced into the northern reaches of the Pimería Alta around the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were probably hunted more
than husbanded, and disappeared soon after Kino departed (Spicer 1962:546). It
was not until the establishment of permanent missions with resident priests that
sustained herds of livestock were present on the landscape. Priests were resident
at some missions by the second quarter of the eighteenth century, but some missions did not see a permanent presence until the late eighteenth century. Even
when resident priests moved in, however, efforts to introduce livestock and coopt Native labor for their care were not always successful. Livestock were not
universally welcomed by Native people, and indigenous perceptions of livestock
were often quite negative. The sharp-hooved, hungry, and thirsty animals represented a threat to both drinking water and agricultural fields and they scared
off wild game. Documentary records indicate that Native peoples complained
vociferously about the deleterious effects of the alien animals (Dobyns 1976;
Radding 1997:171, 252, 254). The negative effects of cattle ranching were similarly
felt in Alta California, where the loss of traditional hunting and gathering lands
to livestock grazing forced many Native Californians onto the missions in search
of food (Hackel 2005:71; Lightfoot 2005:86–87). It is not surprising, then, that
attempts to expunge Europeans from the region by Native groups were often
accompanied by the slaughter of livestock. During the Pima Revolt in 1751, the
priest at Mission San Xavier del Bac reported that mission property including
livestock was destroyed (Dobyns 1976:6, 14).
The establishment of European-style agriculture and animal husbandry was
not possible without the co-option of Native lands, and Native labor. Land under
the control of missions was technically the property of the affiliated Native
community, an arrangement that reinforced the transitional nature of missions (Weber 2005:107). Missions were never intended to be permanent entities,
but were a means to establish European-styled (but still self-sufficient) Native
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American agricultural communities that were then converted from missions to
secular parishes. Until that time, a portion of mission land was planted under
the direction of the priest, and the remaining lands were distributed among
Native households.
Native American converts provided all labor for mission lands—and mission
agricultural yields were the product of Native labor. Missionaries employed several strategies to amass labor at missions in the region. Missions were usually
established within O’odham communities to take advantage of the proximity
to existing labor. As local populations dwindled from diseases, Spanish policies
of reduccíon resettled more distant Native American populations at the mission.
Neophyte communities were intended to be permanently settled, year-round
agrarian communities, and missionaries discouraged Native people from leaving the mission for any reason. Prohibitions on seasonal movements to exploit
wild resources kept labor, and souls, close by. Mission labor systems were generally structured so that all adult males worked three days on mission crops
and animals, and three days on their own flocks and fields (Sheridan 1988). For
their labor, Native laborers received rations from the mission’s crops and stores.
Mission surplus was used as insurance against famine, as well as to support nonIndian mission personnel. Surplus was also used to generate income though
trade with other colonial entities, such as presidios, mining communities, and
other secular colonies (Radding 1997:67–68).
Pimería Alta missions did not exist in a vacuum. By the time Kino established
his first missions in the late seventeenth century, Spanish colonial influence
was already well established among the Ópata and other groups in the Pimería
Baja, and several mining communities and secular ranches were operating at
the southern edge of the Pimería Alta, within traveling distance of O’odham
communities. Missionization unfolded almost simultaneously with secular colonization and militarization in the northern Pimería Alta. By the mid-eighteenth
century, missions comprised merely one part of a complex network of colonial
settlements, including privately owned ranches, mining camps, presidios, and
secular communities.
All of these entities created opportunities for the sale of mission goods, including husbandry and agricultural surplus. Livestock emerged as an important link
connecting the missions to a regional and emerging global economy. The ultimate success of livestock in the region is due in great part to the co-option of
O’odham labor and to a climate that is amenable to Eurasian livestock; however,
the growth of ranching also occurred in response to the development of other
colonial industries.
The growth of herds also had unintended consequences, including the creation of “24-hour, one-stop shops” for Native groups who adopted raiding as
a strategy for economic survival during the colonial period. Large, permanent
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communities with growing herds of livestock were attractive targets for raiding.
Mission livestock supported not only the colonial regime, but provided a handy
and predictable resource for many raiding parties.
By the late eighteenth century, livestock was the foundation of three key
economic processes in the region: ranching, rendering, and raiding. Livestock
ranching became a primary economic strategy for the self-sufficiency of Spanish
colonial missions, and in support of future colonialism. Rendering of mission
livestock created animal products for a regional market in support of other
colonial enterprises, including mining. And mission herds were a primary target of raiding that supported an entirely separate, illicit, regional economy. In
concert with documentary evidence, zooarchaeological data from two Pimería
Alta missions—San Agustín de Tucson (Pavao-Zuckerman 2010, 2011b; PavaoZuckerman and LaMotta 2007; Thiel and Mabry 2006) and Nuestra Señora del
Pilar y Santiago de Cocóspera (Kessell 1970; Martínez 2005; Pavao-Zuckerman
2008, 2011b)—can illuminate the role of introduced Eurasian livestock and
O’odham labor in these three primary economic interactions: ranching, rendering, and raiding.
PiMería alta zooarchaeoloGy
Excavations at Mission San Agustín de Tucson were carried out by Desert
Archaeology, Inc. as part of the City of Tucson’s downtown revitalization project (Thiel and Mabry 2006). These excavations yielded a large assemblage of
zooarchaeological remains from seven features dating to between 1795 and
1820 (Cameron et al. 2006; Pavao-Zuckerman and LaMotta 2007). Father Kino
established the San Agustín Mission in the 1690s within an existing community
of O’odham farmers living along the Santa Cruz River in what is now downtown Tucson, Arizona (Dobyns 1976:4). For much of the eighteenth century,
San Agustín was a visita, serviced by the priest at the nearby head mission
(cabecera) of San Xavier del Bac. San Agustín became a full-fledged mission with
its own resident priest only after the expulsion of the Jesuits (and the arrival of
the Franciscans) in 1767. It was only after the arrival of Franciscan missionaries that livestock herds took off—under the intermittent Jesuit presence, herds
were slow to grow. The arrival of the Spanish garrison to Tucson in 1776, less
than a decade after the arrival of the Franciscans, introduced a new market for
livestock. Mission herds were large enough at that time to furnish the newly
established presidio with livestock (see J. Homer Thiel, chapter 12 in this volume). By the turn of the nineteenth century, documentary records indicate that
livestock herds were thriving (Dobyns 1976).
Excavations at Mission Nuestra Señora del Pilar y Santiago de Cocóspera were
carried by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (Sonora, Mexico)
(Martínez 2005). Like San Agustín, Cocóspera was established by Kino among a
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group of O’odham ranchería settlements. It was initially established as a visita in
the 1690s and was serviced by the clergy at a nearby head mission. Below, I use
the general term “mission” to refer to both San Agustín and Cocóspera, although
they are more accurately described as visitas, for at least most of their history.
Livestock were more successful at Cocóspera than at San Agustín, and herds
grew faster—at the turn of the eighteenth century, the neophytes at Cocóspera
maintained around 500 head of cattle (Pickens 1993:43). Unfortunately, as a result
of this success, the mission was frequently a target of livestock raiding.
In the zooarchaeological analyses below, three quantitative indices common
to zooarchaeological analyses are employed. The first, NISP, or the number of
identified specimens, is a count of the number of bone fragments, exclusive
of mending pieces. This index is highly influenced by fragmentation, which
is especially problematic for large-bodied taxa, whose skeletons tend to break
into more fragments. In highly fragmented assemblages, larger-bodied taxa may
appear more common in the archaeological assemblage than they were in the
“death assemblage.” The second, MNI, or the minimum number of individuals,
is in part used to overcome some of the biases inherent in NISP. This method
estimates the minimum number of individual animals that must have contributed a zooarchaeological assemblage, and is based on paired elements, portions,
and age, when possible. The measure tends to inflate the importance of rarer
and smaller-bodied taxa, particularly in smaller assemblages. Like NISP, MNI
is also affected by fragmentation. A high rate of fragmentation tends to lower
estimates of MNI. Third, biomass, which is based on bone weight, can be used
in concert with NISP and MNI to overcome some of the problems encountered
with fragmentation rates. Biomass is an estimate of the meat that may have
been contributed by a given taxa. It is based on established ratios of bone-tomeat weights derived from modern experimental studies on animal carcasses
(Reitz et al. 1987). While all of these indices are problematic when used on their
own, together they provide a more complete and accurate depiction of animal
use in the past.
raNchiNG
Although Kino’s initial attempts at introducing livestock met with mixed success,
documentary records indicate that by 1701 the five missions established by Kino
collectively held approximately 4,200 head of cattle ( Jordan 1993:142). As Kino’s
brief visits were replaced by permanent missionaries, livestock continued to gain
a foothold in the region, despite continued conflicts between Native farmers
and the introduced animals. During the 1751 Pima Revolt, and the many smaller
uprisings that preceded it, livestock were slaughtered alongside priests and in
the company of the destruction of Catholic ritual objects, no doubt because the
animals were viewed as symbols of Spanish oppression (Perez 2003).
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Despite, or perhaps because of, this resistance, the growth of herds was
patchy: at some missions herds grew quickly; at others, herds remained small
until the late eighteenth century. This growth contrasts somewhat with that
of ranching in Alta California. Missionization in the latter region was later,
beginning in 1769, but introduced Eurasian livestock (and plants) exploded on
the landscape (Hackel 2005:68–70; Lightfoot 2005). California missions maintained ranchos in the hinterlands, where cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and pigs
were raised (Lightfoot 2005:57). Although the growth of herds was uneven
across the Pimería Alta, mission inventories indicate that livestock holdings
increased markedly at most missions throughout the eighteenth century
(Table 11.1). Mission herds consisted predominantly of cattle (Bos taurus) and
sheep (Ovis aries); many missions also maintained much smaller herds of
goats (Capra hircus) (Dobyns 1976; Kessell 1970; McCarty 1976). Documentary
records suggest that the ratio of cattle to sheep declined through the eighteenth century. In 1737, cattle outnumbered sheep 3 to 2 at Missions Guevavi
and Bac, while in the 1760s, the animals occurred in roughly equal numbers
at Guevavi, and sheep outnumbered cattle at the Bac Mission (Kessell 1970:197,
199, 200–201, 204).
Zooarchaeological evidence from Mission San Agustín and Mission Cocóspera
confirms that ranching was a predominant economic activity at both missions,
with primary reliance on cattle (Figures 11.2 and 11.3) (Pavao-Zuckerman 2010,
2011a, 2011b; Pavao-Zuckerman and LaMotta 2007).
At Mission San Agustín, the NISP and biomass of cattle remains far exceed
all other taxa combined, and exceed those values for caprines (sheep and goats)
by 3 to 1. At Mission Cocóspera, cattle dominate both by measures of NISP
and biomass, although equal minimum numbers of caprine and cattle individuals are estimated. It should be noted that while sheep and goat skeletons
are notoriously difficult to distinguish, the documentary record suggests that
sheep were more numerous than goats, and the latter were not always present in mission flocks. In 1737, herds at Missions Guevavi and Bac each boasted
approximately 150 sheep and 50 goats. By 1761, goats were absent from both
missions (Kessell 1970:197, 200–201). And, while very few caprine specimens in
the zooarchaeological assemblages are identifiable to species, most identifiable caprines are attributed to sheep. Given these observations, it is safe to
assume that a majority of the remains identified only as inclusive in the subfamily Caprinae are, in fact, sheep.
While the data do suggest that the mission ranching strategies were focused
primarily on cattle, there are several reasons why the data likely overemphasize
the role of cattle relative to sheep. The large discrepancy between cattle and
caprine in terms of biomass is largely attributable to the greater body size (and,
therefore, bone weight) of cattle versus caprines. In addition, because cattle
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table 11.1. Inventories of
livestock holdings at Pimería Alta missions and presidios.
Cattle (%)
Sheep
Mission/
presidio, year
N
%
N
%
Total
Mission Guevavi
1737
1761
248
890
62.3%
55.2%
150
723
37.7%
44.8%
398
1,613
Mission Bac
1737
1765
240
487
61.5%
47.6%
150
536
38.5%
52.4%
390
1,023
Missions Bac and Tucson
1819
5,700
89.1%
700
10.9%
6,400
Tucson Presidio
1804
3,500
57.4%
2,600
42.6%
6,100
Tubac Presidio
1804
1,000
16.7%
5,000
83.3%
6,000
Source: from Dobyns (1976), Kessell (1970), and McCarty (1976).
bones are larger than caprine remains, the former tend to break into more fragments, resulting in an inflated NISP.
Finally, sheep were raised for wool, meaning that many animals lived well
into adulthood. Cattle, on the other hand, were exploited primarily for butchery
products such as meat, hide, and tallow (Pavao-Zuckerman 2011b). The discrepancy between herd sizes as reported in written documents and the proportions
of these animals in the zooarchaeological assemblages likely reflects a reduced
life expectancy for cattle—cattle were killed younger, and in greater numbers,
resulting in a much larger archaeological population than actually lived on the
landscape at any given time.
Mission ranching strategies may have served to complement the ranching
strategies of other nearby colonial enterprises, including presidios. Research by
Dan Broockmann (2007) on zooarchaeological remains from the Tucson Presidio,
located across the river from Mission San Agustín, suggests that caprines, including sheep, were more common at the presidio than at the mission. And, an 1819
census of the missions at Bac and Tucson indicates that cattle outnumbered
sheep and goats by 9 to 1 (Dobyns 1976:51), while at the Tucson Presidio, the
proportion of sheep to cattle was roughly equal, with cattle contributing only
a slight majority (McCarty 1976:90). At the Tubac Presidio, located about fortyfive miles to the south, sheep outnumbered cattle 5 to 1 on the 1804 inventory
(McCarty 1976:85), indicating an even stronger emphasis on sheepherding at
the presidio. Tubac was located just three miles from the closest mission, at
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fiGUre 11.2.
Summary of zooarchaeological remains from Mission San Agustín.
fiGUre 11.3.
Summary of zooarchaeological remains from Mission Cocóspera.
Tumacácori. Given close proximity and interaction, it is possible that presidios
and missions opted for complementary specialization of husbandry strategies in
terms of the proportion of cattle versus sheep.
Documentary evidence suggests that cattle herds were not closely managed—
the animals were probably primarily free-ranged and perhaps semiferal (Dobyns
1976; Jordan 1993; Radding 1997). A 1761 inventory at Mission Guevavi, located
about sixty miles south of Mission San Agustín reported that over 800 head of
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cattle were “on the range,” while less than 60 were housed in branding pens
(Kessell 1970:200).
Age at death data within the zooarchaeological assemblages suggest that a
typically “optimized” husbandry strategy was practiced at both missions. Zooarchaeological evidence indicates that a majority of cattle were slaughtered
when they were between the ages of two and four (Pavao-Zuckerman 2010;
Pavao-Zuckerman and LaMotta 2007). At this age, cattle reach adult size, and
additional inputs into the animal do not result in additional consumable meat or
animal byproducts (Dahl and Hjort 1976). A few animals at both missions, however, were allowed to reach an older age—these were perhaps animals used for
traction (such as oxen), breeding, or dairying. While evidence for age at death in
the caprine assemblages is scarce, it is telling that only a single caprine specimen
in either assemblage was juvenile at the time of death. These animals were likely
kept longer for their wool.
Documentary evidence suggests that cattle slaughter was a seasonal activity
that took place in October or November when cooler temperatures meant that
meat could be preserved by drying before spoiling (Pfefferkorn [1795] 1949:99).
The Jesuit priest Ignaz Pfefferkorn recorded that meat from the fall slaughter
was dried and served as a staple protein, often rehydrated in soups (Pfefferkorn
[1795] 1949:100). Fresh meat was probably only seasonally available at the missions. In 1758, the priest (with limited medical training) at nearby San Ignacio
recorded the death of a neophyte who died, he concluded, of an intestinal blockage from overindulgence of fresh beef during the fall slaughter (Stiger 1758). For
the sin of gluttony, she was denied the sacraments of death.
reNDeriNG
Although mission herds were clearly an important source of meat (in dried
form) that fed the neophyte community throughout the year, zooarchaeological and documentary evidence also suggest that mission herds were managed for
the extraction of nonmeat products, such as hide and tallow, as was common
in Alta California (Dallas 1955; Gust 1982; Hackel 2005; Lightfoot 2005; PavaoZuckerman 2011b).
Zooarchaeological assemblages from both Mission San Agustín and Mission
Cocóspera are highly fragmented (Pavao-Zuckerman 2011b). Roughly 90 percent of medium and large mammal specimens from both missions were broken
into fragments of less than four centimeters—a degree of fracturing that is not
typical when carcasses are butchered solely for meat. And, it appears that much
of this breakage at both missions occurred perimortem—in other words, when
the bones were still fresh (Pavao-Zuckerman 2011b).
This pattern of bone breakage is consistent with other zooarchaeological
assemblages believed to have been rendered for tallow or bone grease (Binford
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1978; Mateos 2005; Outram 2001, 2002). While this pattern is cross-cultural
(Binford 1978; Logan 1998; Manne and Bicho 2009; Mateos 2005; Munro and
Bar-Oz 2005; Peale 1871; Reitz 1986; Yellen 1977; Zierhut 1967), the written record
provides a local description of tallow rendering in the Pimería Alta during the
mid-eighteenth century:
Now the animal is skinned, the fat and tallow removed . . . Fat is melted and preserved in bladders, the largest intestines of cattle, or in earthen pots. . . . Those
who slaughter several cattle at one time throw all the bones and marrow into a
kettle full of water, cook them, and skim off the fat floating on top . . . Tallow
is either kneaded together after all fibres have been separated from it by much
pounding, or it is melted. In this condition it is kept until candles are made or soap
is boiled. (Pfefferkorn [1795] 1949)
As has been the practice in human societies for millennia (Burnham 1978), the
bones from the butchered carcass are placed in boiling water and the fat (tallow) is skimmed off the top. However, Pferfferkorn’s ([1795] 1949) description
of tallow rendering omits the critical step of bone fracturing, a stage in tallow
rendering that is abundantly visible in the archaeological record at both of the
Pimería Alta mission sites discussed here.
Historically, tallow was used in the manufacture of food-grade greases, soaps,
candles, and industrial lubricants (Burnham 1978; West 1949). While these materials were important for household and mission use, candles and industrial
lubricants were particularly important to the mining industries in the southern
reaches of the Pimería Alta. Tallow candles were the only source of illumination available to the mines, and tallow was the only widely available industrial
grease (Bloom 1935; Sheridan 1988; West 1949:64–65). In the mid-eighteenth century, tallow was in such high demand that rendered grease from cattle carcasses
was worth more than the living animal, and the price of tallow was highest near
the mines (Pfefferkorn [1795] 1949:198–200). Documentary evidence from colonial-period New Mexico indicates that Spanish laws regulating intercolony trade
were relaxed to permit the free flow of tallow candles to the region’s mines (Trigg
2005; West 1949). Cattle hide was also in high demand by the mines, as it was
used to make bags for hauling mineral ore. Unfortunately, any skinning marks
are obscured by the high degree of fragmentation (Pavao-Zuckerman 2011b).
The importance of animal products in the Pimería Alta economy is not
unique. In Alta California, mission ranchos served as vast factories on the hoof
for the production of hide and tallow. So much tallow and hide was rendered
from Alta California herds that the meat from the slaughtered carcasses was
often just left to rot (Dallas 1955:25–26). Tallow and hides from California were
shipped to Mexico City where they were redistributed for various uses, including for mining. In Alta California, hide processing is archaeologically visible in
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the presence of tanning vats, as well as hide scrapers (beamers) made from segments of cattle ribs (Deetz 1978). No such architectural or artifactual evidence
from the Pimería Alta is known to support the hypothesis that tallow and hide
were important trade commodities in this region. It is possible that the scale of
hide processing was much greater in Alta California than in the Pimería Alta;
however, archaeological investigations in the Pimería Alta have focused primarily on central mission compounds, rather than the surrounding landscapes,
where evidence for rendering and hide processing are most likely to be found. In
the Pimería Alta, missions and mines were located in close proximity, a unique
situation in North America (West 1993:60). Mining communities were largely
dependent upon local production of foodstuffs and materials, particularly hide
and tallow, resulting in a strong economic link between mines and livestock
ranching. Pimería Alta missions, with established herds and a captive labor force,
were particularly well positioned to take advantage of this market. Many of the
economic strategies employed by missions were no doubt influenced by their
economic relationship with the mines, and missions ramped up production of
agricultural surplus and livestock products to meet mining demands.
raiDiNG
The introduction of livestock provided additional sources of food and raw materials that supported a well-developed “official” regional economy, but the herds
also quickly became targets of Apache raiding, leaving the O’odham people,
missionized or not, vulnerable. It is argued that livestock raiding was “the most significant economic catalyst for cultural interaction in the post-contact Southwest”
(Record 2008:74). The “unofficial” raiding economy in many ways dwarfed the
impact of sanctioned economic interactions in the region. Raiding, and the threat
of raiding, was truly transformative of Native American and Spanish colonial life.
Indeed, Apache raiding may have more significantly altered the daily life of the
O’odham people than Spanish colonialism itself (Record 2008:84).
Apache raiding, generally in response to food shortages (Basso 1971:16), began
in earnest in the mid-1600s, and spread with Spanish colonialism and Eurasian
livestock. By the mid-eighteenth century, Apache raiding intensified to the point
that the region was in chaos (Record 2008:79), and it continued throughout the
latter half of the eighteenth century ( Jordan 1993:143). Intense raiding lead to the
abandonment of many cattle ranches, and livestock herds shrunk considerably
in the wake of raids. The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 furthered this decline,
and it was not until the 1790s that herds regained their numbers.
Although more study is needed, documentary evidence suggests that missions
modified their ranching strategies in response to intensified raiding, particularly
by shifting the species composition of mission herds. While sheep and cattle
were usually introduced in roughly equal numbers, the proportion of sheep in
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the Pimería Alta generally declined ( Jordan 1993). By the 1760s, sheep were rare
in many parts of Sonora, both because shepherding is labor intensive compared
to cattle ranching, and because the fluffy animals are more easily caught in the
thorny Sonoran Desert scrub ( Jordan 1993:142). In New Mexico, however, sheep
were often preferred by secular colonists because the animals were more difficult for raiding groups to run off than cattle (Merrill 1994:137; Weber 1992:310).
Wool was no doubt an important resource for local consumption in the Pimería
Alta, but a wool-based textile industry never developed to the extent that it did
in the Puebloan region—Sonoran herds were small, and wool textile production occurred primarily for household consumption, not for export (Pfefferkorn
[1795] 1949: 102–3).
While sheep may have declined in some parts of Sonora, inventories of livestock holdings at various missions in the Pimería Alta (see Table 11.1) suggest
that the proportion of sheep actually increased from the 1730s to the 1760s, just as
raiding intensified (Dobyns 1976; Kessell 1970; McCarty 1976). The presence of
thriving cattle herds at Mission Cocóspera made the community the target of
raiding by hostile Native American groups, and the mission was attacked repeatedly throughout its occupation (Martínez 2005). Interestingly, sheep were more
common at Mission Cocóspera than at Mission San Agustín. This may have been
an adaptive response to managing risk during a volatile period in the mission’s
history.
In contrast, the cattle-dominant zooarchaeological assemblage from Mission
San Agustín dates to the turn of the nineteenth century, during a hiatus in intensive raiding activity (Record 2008:81). Data from an 1819 inventory of livestock in
the combined herds at Mission San Agustín and the nearby Mission San Xavier
del Bac indicate that cattle outnumbered sheep by 9 to 1. During peaceful times,
it may have been possible for missions to intensify cattle ranching and reduce
investment in the more labor-intensive husbandry of sheep.
coNclUsioNs
Throughout North America, European colonialism was predicated on the successful introduction of Eurasian livestock that had the potential to transform the
daily life, economies, and environments of Native peoples. This was particularly
the case at Spanish missions, where clergy were responsible for establishing and
maintaining self-supporting agrarian communities by co-opting Native American
labor into European-styled intensive agriculture and animal husbandry. Native
laborers were also expected to produce a surplus that could fulfill the needs of the
missions, and provide material support to nascent Spanish secular and military
settlements. Pimería Alta missions were particularly well suited to the ranching
enterprise; they were located in an environment that was amenable to livestock ranching, among Native communities who ultimately provided the labor
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for ranching and in proximity to other colonial entities with demands for both
domesticated animals and livestock products. In concert with documentary evidence, zooarchaeological data from Mission San Agustín de Tucson and Mission
Nuestra Señora del Pilar y Santiago de Cocóspera indicate that introduced
Eurasian livestock, particularly cattle, served as the foundation for several central
regional economic interactions, including ranching, rendering, and raiding.
Mission ranching activities were supported on the backs of Native laborers.
The co-option of Native labor by missions had profound effects on the daily life
of the O’odham at missions. Policies of permanent residency, reduccíon, and
the three-day labor (plus one day of worship) requirement conflicted with traditional practices of seasonal mobility to exploit wild resources. The introduction
of domesticated livestock, the labor demands of ranching, and restrictions on
traditional hunting practices no doubt all came with implications not just for
workloads, but the division of labor within O’odham communities.
Wild game was not entirely abandoned, however, as wild species are found
in both zooarchaeological assemblages. Many of these species may have been
caught in agricultural fields, perhaps by young hunters sent into the fields to
protect crops from hungry pests. However, some game animals, such as deer,
were no doubt captured some distance from the missions. In writing, priests
disapproved of hunting trips that took neophytes away from the missions (and
therefore away from their influence) (Dobyns 1976:24), but wild game remains
were found within the mission compounds at both sites, suggesting that priests
derived some benefits from these activities, including access to fresh meat and
a wider variety of foods than was otherwise available. Mission priests in Alta
California were equally disproving of traditional hunting pursuits by Native converts, but were also equally happy to partake of the fruits of neophyte fishing
expeditions, particularly on Fridays (Lightfoot 2005:98). Ironically, the involvement of O’odham people in livestock ranching may have decreased their access
to fresh meat, except through what was captured through “garden hunting.”
Cattle were primarily free-ranged, and rounded up by Native laborers usually
only once or twice a year, particularly in the fall, for slaughter. This may have
been the only time that fresh beef was available, as most was dried for later consumption. O’odham children, who protected crops from animal pests, may have
contributed more fresh meat to the diet than the vast mission herds.
Native labor also supported not just production of meat protein for local consumption, but also the rendering of tallow for candles and industrial lubricants
that fed the demands of nearby mining enterprises. The impact of this additional
labor demand on O’odham daily life and division of labor is not fully understood, but it was no doubt substantial. Paradoxically, while missions and mining
enterprises were often in competition for Native labor and colonial resources,
the mining communities in the southern Pimería Alta were dependent upon the
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local production of foodstuffs as well as raw materials, including hide and tallow.
Mines were an important source of wealth for the Spanish Crown, so much so
that normal restrictions on intercolony trade were lifted so that missions could
fulfill the material needs of the mines (West 1949). However, this aspect of the
relationship between missions and mines in the region is illuminated only by the
zooarchaeological record (Pavao-Zuckerman 2011b), as written documents are
relatively silent on the role of animal products in intracolony trade (West 1949).
As a result of this relationship, the co-option of Native labor at missions ultimately supported a regional economic system that enriched the colonial regime.
Thriving herds made missions the target of livestock raiding by hostile groups,
and the zooarchaeological and written records give some insight into how missions may have managed herds in response to the stresses of livestock raiding.
Ranching strategies were always diversified, but the documentary record suggests that under normal conditions, cattle were the preferred ranch animal in
the Pimería Alta, as they were less labor intensive and easier to manage in the
Sonoran thorn scrub. During times of intensified raiding, however, it appears
that sheep, which were more resistant to raiding, and easier to corral, took on
greater importance.
Zooarchaeological and documentary evidence demonstrate that introduced
Eurasian livestock not only transformed Native environments and daily life, but
served as the catalyst for social and economic interactions in the Pimería Alta.
Eurasian livestock and Native labor connected missions to a broader regional
and global economy, both sanctioned and illicit, and ultimately supported the
Spanish colonial endeavor. Far from isolated frontier outposts, missions were
surprisingly interconnected to regional and global colonial enterprises, and
responded dynamically to economic opportunity, and economic stresses.
ackNowleDGMeNts
The research presented above was carried out primarily in the Stanley J. Olsen
Laboratory of Zooarchaeology, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona,
where the author served on the faculty until shortly before the publication of
this contribution. Identification and analysis of zooarchaeological remains from
Mission San Agustín were completed by Vincent LaMotta and the author, and
were funded by Desert Archaeology, Inc. Many thanks to Desert Archaeology,
Inc., Homer Thiel, and Jonathan Mabry for the opportunity to examine these
materials, and to Vin for his hard work on this project. The author is also very
grateful to Júpiter Martínez (INAH-Sonora) for access to the zooarchaeological
materials from Mission Cocóspera—identification and analysis of these materials was carried out by the author. Dale Brenneman (Office of Ethnohistorical
Research, Arizona State Museum) provided much appreciated assistance in navigating the ethnohistorical literature. Figure 11.1 was drafted by Ashley Blythe
Missions, Livestock, and Economic Transformations in the Pimería Alta
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and modified by the author. Additional support for the analysis of zooarchaeological materials was provided by Marilyn Malone, Fran Hodgins, Rachel Diaz
de Valdez, and Felicia Durso. A version of this paper was presented at the 2012
Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Many thanks to three
anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the edited volume.
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life in tucson, on the Northern
frontier of the Pimería alta
J. homer Thiel
iNtroDUctioN
In 1879, Francisco Solano León was called to testify at a trial by lawyers seeking
to understand whether a land grant was valid. He was asked, “Do you know
what became of the archives of the Mexican Justice of the Peace of Tucson?”
and answered, “They were taken to Imuris, in the District of Magdalena, Sonora,
Mexico, and thereafter I do not know what became of them” (United States
Court of Private Land Claims, 1879, 4:117–121, Special Collections, University of
Arizona, Tucson). This and other losses of military, civil, and church archives of
Tucson has hindered modern Tucsonans from understanding many aspects of
their community’s rich history. Today, many residents know little of the city’s
Spanish mission and presidio past.
Archaeological research, conducted in the last twenty years by Desert Archaeology, Inc., and the nonprofit Archaeology Southwest (formerly the Center for
Desert Archaeology), has helped fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge of
Tucson’s early history (Thiel 1996, 2004, 2005, 2008a, 2008b; Thiel et al. 1995;
Thiel and Mabry 2006). Excavation work has uncovered architectural remains
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c012
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along with a number of trash-filled pits and middens that have yielded artifacts
and food materials. Documentary research has uncovered new information in
archives in Spain, Mexico, California, and Arizona. As a result of this research,
the biographies of several hundred Tucson Presidio families have been compiled, the northeast corner of the presidio and the mission gardens have been
re-created for a historical parks, and a better understanding of daily life within
the presidio has been developed.
the PiMería alta
The Pimería Alta was the northern lands of the Spanish Empire in what is
now northern Mexico and the American Southwest (Figure 12.1). The region is
mountainous in places, mostly desert, with occasional oases where water can be
obtained close to the surface. In the seventeenth century, the region was sparsely
occupied by Native Americans living in small settlements called rancherías. Pima
or O’odham residents practiced subsistence agriculture while continuing to
hunt wild game and collect wild plants (Officer et al. 1996).
Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, a Jesuit priest, was the first European to extensively explore the Pimería Alta (see chapter by Lauren E. Jelinek and Dale S.
Brenneman, chapter 10 in this volume). He was tasked with establishing missions and visitas, or smaller satellite churches. Native Americans were expected
to settle permanently at the missions, convert to Catholicism, and become productive members of the new society—raising crops, providing labor, and helping
protect the missions against other hostile Native Americans (Polzer 1998).
Kino’s endeavors resulted in the establishment of over twenty missions at
existing Native American settlements before his death in 1711. The missions
were slow to develop: the distance from Mexico City and the lack of rich natural resources resulted in little attention being given by the Spanish government.
The Jesuit mission church at San Xavier del Bac was finally completed in the
1750s, only to see the Pima Revolt of 1751 empty the area of Spaniards. When
they returned they constructed a presidio fortress at the village of Tubac, situated north of the Mission of Tumacacori and south of Bac. The presence of
Spanish soldiers allowed for the return of Catholic clergy to Bac, and afterward
the Spaniards had a relatively good relationship with the local O’odham and
Pima (Officer 1989).
the saN aGUstíN MissioN
Father Kino visited the O’odham village of S-cuk Son in the late 1690s. The
village name, roughly translates to “at the base of the black,” the black referring to the volcanic mountain immediately west of the village. The bedrock
of the mountain forced the Santa Cruz River to the surface, and the residents
of the village ran small irrigation ditches to fields of maize, beans, and squash.
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fiGUre 12.1.
Map of the Pimería Alta (prepared by Catherine Gilman, Desert Archaeology,
Inc.).
Kino brought Old World crops, including wheat and fruit trees, as well as cattle,
horses, and sheep, to the villagers (Polzer 1998).
Kino selected the village to be a visita of Bac, to the south. The missionaries also planned on opening a trade school to teach the local O’odham crafts,
including tanning leather and pottery making, though these endeavors apparently never panned out. The village was occasionally visited by the Spanish
priest, but it was not until 1771 that a church, San Agustín, was constructed there,
fulfilling the promise made decades earlier by Kino (Dobyns 1976). Throughout
the course of its occupation, the San Agustín Mission had problems maintaining
a stable population. Contemporary missions throughout the Pimería Alta and
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Alta California faced the same problem, a result of periodic epidemics of smallpox and other European diseases, as well as high child mortality ( Jackson 1998).
Malaria was also a problem in Tucson (Mabry and Thiel 1995).
the PresiDio saN aGUstíN Del tUcsoN
In August 1775, an Irishman named Hugo O’Conor, a captain in the Spanish
military, selected the location of the new Presidio San Agustín del Tucson on
a terrace overlooking the Santa Cruz River floodplain, a short distance east of
the San Agustín Mission. He had been tasked to examine the physical locations
of the line of presidio forts extending from Louisiana westward to California,
studying each existing fortress to identify deficiencies in its construction and
location. Some forts were selected by him for closure, and new locations for presidios were identified. O’Conor’s mission was to define the northern boundaries
of the Spanish Empire in the New World at a time when other colonial powers
were expanding their territorial claims. In the Pimería Alta, conflicts with indigenous Native American groups had to be addressed, and the placement of forts
was crucial to providing protection for settlements to the south (Santiago 1994).
During O’Conor’s travels, he stopped at the Presidio of Tubac. He found a
fortified captain’s house surrounded by other dwellings, storehouses, and stables.
O’Conor was skeptical that it was defensible against hostile Native American
attacks (Santiago 1994).
In the 1770s, the Spaniards were allied with the peaceable O’odham speakers,
who lived in small settlements along the Santa Cruz and San Pedro Rivers in
southern Arizona. The Spaniards and O’odham were allied against the Apache,
who lived primarily in the mountains to the north and regularly traveled south
to raid their neighbors in search of livestock, foodstuffs, goods, and captives
(Officer et al. 1996). The Apache were heading south, deeper into Sonora, raiding missions, ranches, and mining communities occupied by the Spanish and
their Native allies.
O’Conor decided to move the garrison at Tubac. In 1776, sixty soldiers and
their families arrived in Tucson from Tubac and built a wooden palisade. Only a
handful of these soldiers had been born in Spain; the rest were second- or thirdgeneration (or more) residents of communities along the northern Spanish
frontier. The men enlisted for ten-year intervals, often reenlisting at the end of
their service since work as a soldier was the only occupation in the region that
came with regular pay. Some of the men rose through the ranks, either from
family connections or through demonstrated ability, while others served as foot
soldiers, spending their spare time raising crops on the Santa Cruz River floodplain. Surviving records indicate that many of the men participated in dozens of
expeditions against the Apache. Some would eventually receive invalid pensions
as a result of wounds received during these raids. Most would remain in the
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community after retiring from the military, and in the coming years, their sons
would in turn enlist in the military (Thiel 2008c).
The basic outline of early Tucson history can be assembled from surviving
records. However, these records fail to provide other kinds of information that
can be derived from archaeological excavations. In the remainder of this chapter,
I examine both documentary and archaeological evidence of the early presidio
and mission history of Tucson. What was life like for the soldiers and civilians
who lived at the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson? How did the residents of
Tucson cope with their isolation and obtain the items that they needed to negotiate day-to-day existence? Research conducted over the last twenty years can
begin to answer these and many other questions about daily life in early Tucson.
bUilDiNG a fortress
O’Conor’s placement of a fortress within the Tucson Basin helped close off the
route along the Santa Cruz River used by Apache raiders and protected travelers
heading north to the Gila River, while providing an easy base for excursions out
into Apache territory. A secondary purpose was to solidify the Spanish claim to
the region as British and Russian explorers journeyed up and down the Pacific
Coast of California, though this was never tested in the Pimería Alta (Officer
1989:50).
The Tucson Presidio was one of many Spanish settlements in the Pimería Alta.
To the south were other presidios, as well as Catholic missions, ranches, mines,
and Native American communities. These were scattered sparsely across the
landscape, usually along permanent water sources that allowed cultivation of
agricultural fields (Officer et al. 1996; see also chapters by Jelinek and Brenneman
[10], and Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman [11], this volume). The lack of readily available water sources, as well as the presence of hostile Native Americans, limited
the number and size of settlements. At times, conflicts, primarily with the
Apache, caused many settlements to be abandoned (Officer 1989; Santiago 1994).
The presidio in Tucson was constructed from locally available materials.
Initially, a wooden palisade was constructed, probably of cottonwood and willow trees cut along the Santa Cruz River (Dobyns 1976:60). In May 1782, a large
Apache attack nearly succeeded in overwhelming the poorly defended fort. The
firing of a cannon by Commander Allande surprised the attacking warriors and
apparently ended the battle (McCarty 1976:44). Afterward, ongoing efforts to
complete surrounding adobe walls were accelerated, and their construction
was completed by the middle of 1783. Three-meter-tall walls enclosed a space
measuring about 204 meters across, with large towers on two opposing corners. Archaeological remnants of the adobe foundations indicate that they were
fashioned from adobe bricks alternating with layers of puddled adobe that was
poured in place to hasten construction (Thiel and Mabry 2006). Soil was mined
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from the exterior of the fort, creating a shallow ditch along the exterior base of
the walls, helping to increase their elevation and retard water erosion of their
bases. Soil-mining pits were also located on the adjacent floodplain (Thiel 2008a).
These soil-mining pits were then used for trash disposal and were the source of
much of the archaeological materials recovered during the presidio excavations
(Thiel 2008b; Thiel and Mabry 2006). Cattail pollen was recovered from the adobes, indicating that water was drawn from the irrigation canals on the floodplain
for construction purposes (Thiel et al. 1995).
The interior of the presidio’s walls was lined with dwellings, stables,
storehouses, and granaries, with a church centered along the east wall. The
commandant’s residence was located near the center of the fort, adjacent to
a plaza where soldiers drilled. These structures were also built from adobe
bricks, most set directly on the ground surface (Thiel et al. 1995). Pine trees
for roof vigas were cut on the Santa Rita Mountains, about sixty-five kilometers to the south. Two large meteorites were also found in the Santa Ritas
in the 1820s and were transported back to Tucson where they were used as
blacksmith’s anvils (Willey 1987). Cattle hides served as door coverings, and
dwellings lacked window glass. Given the small available workforce, it seems
likely that at least some of the labor to construct the presidio was conducted
by local Native Americans.
the PeoPle of the PresiDio
About sixty soldiers and their families were the first residents of the presidio.
Spanish officials were very interested in racial classifications, and this was the
case early on in the fort’s history. Among the initial inhabitants were twelve
Spaniards (of Spanish ancestry), ten coyotes (of Spanish and Native American
ancestry), three moriscos (of African and Spanish ancestry), and one mulatto (also
of African and Spanish ancestry) (Dobyns 1976:153). Enlistment records indicate
continued use of such racial categorization into the 1790s, but afterward race
classifications largely disappear from documents generated at the presidio.
Population counts were collected in censuses during the years the presidio
was occupied, though these often failed to include local Native Americans. In
1797, there were 295 people present: 101 soldiers, 110 family members, and 84
other civilians (Collins 1970; Dobyns 1972). In 1831 there were 465 residents of
the presidio, 193 in civilian households and 272 in military households (McCarty
1981a, 1981b). In 1848, 760 people were counted (Officer 1989:214). An 1851 cholera
epidemic killed 122 residents of the community (Officer 1989:387).
After about 1800, few of the newly recruited soldiers came from outside
Tucson. Instead, the sons of presidio soldiers were enlisting. No women were
arriving from outside the community. As a result, only a handful of potential
spouses were available for each man or woman in Tucson. Most residents were
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of mixed-race ancestry, and people were compelled to not take into account a
person’s racial background when looking for a husband or wife within the small
community (Thiel 2008c). An identical, concurrent pattern of upward movement and abandonment of the caste system also took place in California (Haley
and Wilcoxon 2005; Voss 2005). Despite the lack of eligible partners, one custom
did remain—residents did not marry local Native Americans.
Native aMericaN iNteractioNs
Tucson has been the home of Native Americans for over 4,000 years. The Santa
Cruz River floodplain was the location of irrigation agriculture for the last 3,200
years (Thiel and Mabry 2006). When Father Kino visited the Native American
village of S-cuk Son, he was impressed by the potential of its agricultural fields.
Hugo O’Conor probably viewed this Native American community as a source
of potential labor and its agricultural lands as a source of food.
The San Agustín Mission village was primarily occupied by local O’odham. In
1762, the Sobaipuri Pima moved from their villages along the San Pedro River to
the mission to escape Apache attacks (Officer 1989:40). The mission population
fluctuated due to losses from disease and emigration to other communities. An
1801 census lists 190 Papago, 25 Pima, and 6 Gileño residents living at the mission (University of Arizona Main Library, Parish Archives of Sonora and Sinaloa,
Mexico, Microfilm 811, reel 3). Crops and livestock raised by the mission community were sold to the presidio at a reduced cost (McCarty 1997). Smashed cattle
bones found at San Agustín indicate tallow production was taking place, the
product likely sold to the military or to miners working to the south, useful for
greasing wooden wagon axles and the pulleys used to haul ore from mine shafts
(Pavao-Zuckerman 2011, and chapter 11 in this volume).
The San Agustín Mission residents and their relatives at Bac often teamed up
with the Spaniards in raids against their traditional enemy, the Apache. The Apache
frequently attacked O’odham villages in search of food, livestock, goods, and captives. After the arrival of the Spaniards, they frequently attacked the presidio and
its nearby fields, killing residents and running off livestock. This antagonistic relationship intensified after the construction of the new presidios at Terrenate and
Tucson, and the Spaniards often sent out parties to hunt down and kill Apache in
their homes in the mountains north and east of Tucson (Officer 1989).
In 1792, the Spanish government agreed to provide a group of Apache with
food, clothing, and tools in exchange for a guarantee that they would live
peaceably at the presidio. The manso Apache settled northwest of the fort and
maintained a fragile truce with the local O’odham (Dobyns 1976:98; McCarty
1976:61–63). The Manso Apache served as a conduit of information, warning the
fort when they heard that their mountain relatives were planning raids (Officer
1989; McCarty 1997).
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Presidio residents traded extensively with the local O’odham and the Manso
Apaches. Besides labor, the Native Americans offered firewood, hay, wild game,
and gathered foodstuffs including cactus fruit, saguaro syrup, and mesquite flour.
Residents of the fort could also obtain these items through their own efforts,
though it made more sense to rely on the Native Americans. When recovered
from archaeological deposits, the exact origins of these items are impossible to
determine; a plausible explanation, however, is that they were derived through
exchange with Native Americans.
In contrast, it is easy to recognize local pottery traded by Native Americans
to the fort residents. The Sobaipuri Pima manufactured vessels with a distinctive folded rim. Local O’odham began to add manure to pottery by the 1820s,
resulting in a black core that allowed water to slowly seep through the vessel,
evaporating on the exterior and cooling the vessel contents (Fontana et al. 1962).
These characteristics make remains of these products relatively easy to identify
in the archaeological record. One of the problems faced by the people of Tucson
was the difficulty and cost of importing metal cookware. Iron or brass cooking
pots were heavy; expensive; and, when broken, hard to replace. There is no evidence for the production of ceramic vessels by the Spaniards living in the presidio.
As a result, O’odham potters at San Xavier del Bac produced and traded to the
Spaniards bean pots, which were used for cooking stews and soups, and large
bowls, which were used for serving (Figure 12.2). Native Americans also began
creating two new vessel forms based upon Spanish prototypes. Flat ceramic
comales were used as replacements for iron tortilla griddles, and ceramic mugs
replaced copper chocolatero pots (Heidke 2006). Both were important to Tucson
residents, with wheat tortillas and hot, frothy chocolate beverages representing
high-status, culturally significant foodstuffs for the soldiers and civilians living
within the fortress walls. Chocolate was sent up to the Tucson Presidio in hard
blocks. It was a luxurious necessity, a comfort food in difficult times often fed to
the sick and one that melted in Tucson’s fierce summer heat (Cabezon et al. 2009).
In exchange for these items, the presidio residents offered fabric, brass buttons and buckles, beads, religious medallions, manufactured clothing, blankets,
weapons, ammunition, and tools to their Native American allies. Examples of
some of these trade goods have been found at the contemporaneous O’odham
sites of Guevavi Mission, the San Xavier Mission, and the San Agustín Mission
(Robinson 1963; Seymour 2012; Wasley 1956).
In 1795, the Tucson Presidio commander, José de Zúñiga, led an expedition to
New Mexico, stopping at the Zuni villages about 300 miles to the north (Officer
1989:68). It seems likely that the soldiers traded items to the Zuni in exchange
for a few black-on-white or polychrome ceramic vessels, fragments of which
have been found in the presidio (Figure 12.3). The vessels would have contrasted
sharply with the red ware and plain ware vessels produced in the Tucson area. A
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fiGUre 12.2. A Piman bean pot found in a trash-filled pit inside the Tucson Presidio (photograph by Homer Thiel).
small number of Puebloan ceramics from Arizona and New Mexico have been
found at most of the Spanish sites in southern Arizona, and are also found at
some late prehistoric- and historical-period Native American sites (Ferg 2004).
In addition, a limited amount of trade appears to have taken place between the
Native American communities; however, the scale and scope of this exchange
are not currently well understood (see chapter by Jelinek and Brenneman [chapter 10 in this volume).
PresiDio Material cUltUre
Where did residents get the other items they needed for day-to-day living? The
residents of the presidio manufactured only a few items in Tucson. For example, an 1804 report lists only serge fabric and wool blankets produced locally
(McCarty 1976:85). The nearest stores where goods could be obtained were in
Arizpe. Materials and goods purchased in Arizpe would have been carried north
about 230 kilometers by freight wagons and pack trains to the presidio company store and the privately run store at the presidio. An 1804 report explicitly
states that no goods were received from San Blas, which supplied the majority of goods obtained by presidios and missions in California (McCarty 1976:85;
Perissinotto 1998:18). Supplies were also ordered annually from Mexico City and
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Northern Puebloan ceramic sherds found in the Tucson Presidio (photograph by
Robert Ciaccio).
fiGUre 12.3.
were brought north by agents to Arizpe. Soldiers were expected to purchase
their own uniform, weapons, and horses, as well as whatever household goods
they could afford (Sugnet 1994:21).
Soldiers traveled to Arizpe monthly to collect the fort’s payroll and bring back
supplies (Thiel 2005). Few records survive to tell what items were brought back
to Tucson. Wax (probably for candles), soap, and chocolate were available at the
company store (McCarty 1976:89–90). The Gach store records list a few items
sent to Tucson, chief among these was chocolate (Sugnet 1994).
The most common manufactured Spanish goods recovered at the presidio
are fragments of colorful majolica dishes made in Mexico (Figure 12.4). Bowls
and plates were apparently preferred, with only a few pieces of cups identified.
The dishes found in early archaeological contexts are mostly in blue-on-white
patterns, some with images of birds in the center of the vessel. These were
probably designed to resemble Chinese porcelain or Dutch Delftware vessels.
After about 1800, polychrome vessels, with elaborate green and yellow floral
sprays or multicolored dots on a light blue background, became popular (Lister
and Lister 1982).
Why carry these fragile dishes hundreds of miles to the north from pottery factories to the isolated frontier fortress? Analyses of records for majolica imported
into Alta California suggests these were relatively inexpensive and were likely
not high-status goods (Voss 2012). For the women of the Tucson Presidio, the
symbolism of these vessels was likely a factor. It is easy to imagine that the 100
or so adult women living in Tucson would have wanted to serve meals from
the same types of dishes that their mothers and grandmothers had used back
in communities to the south in Sonora and further into Mexico. Dining from
majolica dishes was something that respectable families did. Majolica is not common at eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Native American sites, with only a
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Brightly colored Mexican majolica vessels were used by women at the Tucson
Presidio to serve meals (photograph by Homer Thiel).
fiGUre 12.4.
handful of fragments recovered from the nearby contemporaneous San Agustín
Mission (Thiel 2006). At the San Francisco Presidio, uniformity in food preparation and service also took place, both to minimize cultural differences among
the residents and to set themselves apart from local Native Americans (Voss
2005), and a similar situation may have existed at the Tucson Presidio.
Other items originating from Mexico that are known to have been brought to
Tucson included sturdy glazed cooking bowls, horse gear, and some goods that
have left no physical traces, including cloth and blocks of chocolate. Collections
at the Arizona Historical Society and the Arizona State Museum in Tucson have
numerous examples of bridles, stirrups, and spurs found by ranchers out in the
deserts throughout southern Arizona (Thiel 2006). Each presidio soldier was
expected to have several horses and a pack mule, and horse gear was likely occasionally lost during expeditions or while managing the presidio’s large herds of
cattle, horses, and sheep.
Some goods were manufactured in Europe and brought on ships to Mexico
then carried north. These included weapons (muskets, pistols, lances, cannons,
and ammunition), exotic food stuffs (olive oil, wine, and spices), cloth, buttons,
buckles, books, religious paraphernalia, beads, and fine-toothed bone combs
(Di Peso 1953).
Clothing-related artifacts found at the presidio include a few brass buttons,
some clothing buckles, and beads. One account described how the poorest
Sonoran residents wanted to dress above their class (Pfefferkorn 1949:287–88).
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Presidio-era documents indicate that each soldier was required to purchase a
complete uniform each year and that most owned only a single set of clothes.
Members of the Mormon Battalion, who marched to the community in 1846,
reported that they traded thread, cloth, and buttons to eager Tucson residents
for food (Officer 1989). One might expect to find some of these clothing items in
burials in the presidio cemetery. This cemetery is located on the east side of the
fort around and beneath the presidio chapel and was in use from roughly 1776
to the 1850s. Burials from the cemetery were excavated in 1969 and 1970 by the
Arizona State Museum and in 1991 by Desert Archaeology, Inc. (Thiel et al. 1995).
Most interments were wrapped in shrouds, as seen by pins or brass staining,
and only a handful of buttons were recovered. It is likely that clothing was so
valuable that it was passed down to family members rather than buried with the
deceased. Pieces of copper wire were found near the heads of two children in
the cemetery, and excavations at the nearby National Cemetery, used from the
late 1850s to 1875, revealed that many children were buried with wreaths made
from artificial flowers attached to a copper frame. This represents the Catholic
tradition of Los Angelitos (“the little angels”), emphasizing the purity and innocence of children, who went directly to heaven at death, bypassing purgatory
(Heilen et al. 2010; Thiel et al. 1995:111, 115).
Religious artifacts are occasionally found at Spanish-era sites in southern
Arizona. A religious medallion and forty-four small glass beads were found in a
soil-mining pit next to the Tucson Presidio. The medallion bore the embossed
inscription “Corazon de Jesus y de Maria” (the “Heart of Jesus and Mary”) and
was worn by followers of Saint Juan Eudes (Thiel 2008b:65–66) Most of these
religious artifacts were likely made in Europe. In contrast, the carved statues of
saints often found in the missions in southern Arizona were likely constructed
in artisan’s studios in Mexico.
Although presidio soldiers carried weapons as part of their daily routines, and
weapons are frequently mentioned in contemporary documents, only a trigger
guard and a ramrod holder have been found in the Spanish-period deposits excavated within the Tucson Presidio (Brinckerhoff and Chamberlain 1972; Thiel
2006). In contrast, during the 1950s excavations at the contemporary Terrenate
Presidio, located to the east on the San Pedro River, numerous gun parts were
found that were left behind in 1781 when the fort was abandoned due to incessant Apache raids (Di Peso 1956). Gunstock brass decorations that would have
adorned the wooden stocks of muskets were found in several rooms. In the
early 2000s, Archaeology Southwest developed a public outreach and education program called the Coronado Project. As part of this project, they held
a series of events, called “Coronado Roadshows” (Thiel 2006). At these events,
Archaeology Southwest staff invited residents of Arizona and New Mexico to
bring in Spanish-era artifacts in for identification and discussion (Thiel 2006).
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fiGUre 12.5. Religious medal and forty-four European glass beads found in a soil-mining pit
adjacent to the Tucson Presidio. Photograph by Robert Ciaccio.
At one of these events, a man from New Mexico brought in a Spanish escopeta
that had been found in a crack in a cliff face in the 1940s (Figure 12.6). The musket was perfectly preserved, with the leather wrapping of the gunflint still in
place, and elaborate brass appliqués attached to the stock. It is likely that the
soldiers at Tucson had similar weapons and that the brass decorations found at
the Terrenate Presidio would have adorned firearms used at that fort in a manner very similar to the weapon shown in Figure 12.5.
Spain cut off trade relations with Mexico after that nation achieved independence in 1821. England then became an ally of Mexico and a new source for
trade goods. It had been suspected that soldiers at Tucson used British-made
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fiGUre 12.6.
Brass gunstock appliqués on an escopeta found in New Mexico. Photograph by
Homer Thiel.
Brown Bess muskets, but evidence was lacking until the excavation in 1999 of
the Francisco Solano León farmstead, located a few hundred meters to the
northwest of the presidio. León served in the Mexican military in the 1840s and
1850s, and an English-made Brown Bess trigger guard was found in a soil-mining
pit next to his home (Thiel 2005).
Gun flints used in flintlock muskets and pistols had traditionally been manufactured in France. At times, these were difficult to obtain or perhaps too expensive
to purchase. Enterprising soldiers or civilians in Tucson made their own from
locally available chert. Those flints that were worn out were then reused as
strike-a-lights (Sliva et al. 2008).
The overall lack of metal artifacts in Presidio-era features and deposits suggests that recycling of iron and brass items was important. Other recycling
was discovered when excavations inside the Presidio blacksmith shop, located
on the west side of the fort just south of the Main Gate, led to the discovery
of four pieces of prehistoric groundstone on the shop floor. The presidio is
built atop a prehistoric site dating to the Early Agricultural and Hohokam PreClassic Periods (ca. 400 bc to ad 1150). When examined under a microscope,
traces of copper were found pounded into the surface of the groundstones.
The blacksmith was using the prehistoric tools, working on the surface of his
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meteorite anvil, to turn scrap metal into useful items for the presidio residents
(Heidke et al. 2004).
After 1821, a small number of transfer-printed ceramics began to arrive in the
community from England (Thiel 2005). Decorated with romanticized scenes of
faraway places—including cathedrals, bridges, forests, and people—they were
basically the only source of information about what the outside world looked
like. There were few books in the community, and probably the only illustrated
ones were religious texts and songbooks housed at the Catholic churches in the
presidio, at the Mission of San Agustín, or at the San Xavier Mission. These
were likely largely unseen by the general public. Paintings and statues held in
churches were at least visible, but provided little information about contemporary fashions or the outside world. Clues about the use of such ceramics can
be gleaned from the excavations of the León family farmstead (Thiel 2005).
Excavation of the home yielded brightly colored transfer-print dishes. One can
imagine Ramona Elias de León, whose husband, Francisco Solano León, served
at the presidio in the 1840s and 1850s, serving her guests hot chocolate in her
decorated cups from England, and family friends and presidio personnel eagerly
examining the clothing styles and architecture depicted on the vessels.
The farthest trade items brought into the Tucson Presidio were fragile
Chinese porcelain cups, carried by vessels from China to Manila and from
Manila to Acapulco on the western coast of Mexico, and then carried north on
pack trains to the presidio (Robinson and Barnes 1976:161). Only a few pieces of
the delicate porcelain have been found in Tucson, suggesting it was a rare luxury
item, perhaps used by the better-paid military officers (Barnes 1983).
coNclUsioNs
Life in the Tucson Presidio was harsh and unpredictable. The military and civilian
residents of the presidio had to learn to adapt to the challenges of the Sonoran
Desert, the isolation due to their position on the northern frontier, and frequent
conflicts with the Apache that created problems with the movement of goods
(see Pavao-Zuckerman, chapter 11 in this volume). In response, residents appear to
have followed a conservative and frugal approach to life. The material culture and
food remains that are found at the presidio indicate practicality, the retention of
customs in a new community, and the opportunities presented by a close relationship between the presidio soldiers and civilians and local Native American groups.
When possible, local resources were exploited, especially for building materials and foods, bulky items that would have been impractical to move long
distances. The presidio residents offered manufactured goods to O’odham and
Apache in exchange for firewood, fodder, foods, ceramic vessels, and information. Money paid by the Spanish or Mexican government to the fort or earned
by presidio soldiers was used to purchase necessities from distant shops, things
Life in Tucson, on the Northern Frontier of the Pimería Alta
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such as arms, ammunition, and clothing, along with a few luxury items such as
chocolate and spices. Majolica dishes, which today might seem to be a luxury,
were likely viewed as a necessity by presidio housewives, needed to express family roots deeper into New Spain and Mexico. The distance to stores, the dangers
and difficulties inherent in transporting goods, and their high cost led to a frugal
existence, one where recycling and reuse was an everyday activity. For eighty-one
years, residents of the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson endured the harsh conditions of the Sonoran Desert, and while many left for Mexico after the arrival of
Americans in 1856, many also stayed and continued on within the community.
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Robinson, William J., and Mark R. Barnes. 1976. “Mission Guevavi: Excavations in the
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t
H
i
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e
e
n
o’odham irrigated agriculture response
to colonization on the Middle Gila
river, southern arizona
Colleen STrawhaCker
iNtroDUctioN
Colonization has been shown to have sweeping effects on indigenous households in different parts of the world, including Sub-Saharan Africa, Mexico, the
southeastern United States, and the southwestern United States, where many
of these indigenous groups are subsistence farmers (e.g., Netting et al. 1989;
Pavao-Zuckerman 2007; Pavao-Zuckerman and LaMotta 2007; Spielmann 1989;
Spielmann et al. 2009; Stone 1994; VanDerwarker et al. 2013). Previously, much
of the research regarding colonization focused on the destructive effects that
colonization had on indigenous subsistence farmers, including the decimation of population due to introduced diseases, the acculturation of indigenous
groups into the colonial regime, and the loss of agricultural biodiversity as indigenous farmers increased their focus on introduced cash crops (e.g., Bolton 1919;
Corkran 1967; Hackenberg 1962; Russell 1908; Swanton 1998). In recent decades,
however, archaeologists and ethnographers have shown how indigenous communities frequently act as dynamic responders, not passive recipients, to these
colonizing groups, sometimes resulting in significant economic success for them.
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c013
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“Economic success” here is defined as an indigenous group being able to maintain economic independence from colonizing groups (DeJong 2009; Kowalewski
2006; Netting et al. 1989; Pavao-Zuckerman and LaMotta 2007; VanDerwarker
et al. 2013).
While valuable research has been done on the impacts of Spanish colonization on indigenous southwestern populations (e.g., Pavao-Zuckerman and
LaMotta 2007; Pavao-Zuckerman 2011; Sheridan 2006; Spielmann et al. 2006,
2009; Tarcan 2005), their groups of focus, including the Salinas pueblos along
the Rio Grande and O’odham groups in extreme southern Arizona, were under
the direct control of the Spanish missions, resulting in forced tribute payments
and new subsistence strategies. The O’odham along the middle Gila River, however, provide an interesting counterpoint to this research. During the 1700s and
early 1800s, the majority of Spanish population and influence was restricted to
extreme southern Arizona, mostly focused in areas south of Tucson (Figure 13.1),
where missions, such as San Xavier del Bac and Tumacácori, exerted control over
indigenous populations in the region (Bolton 1919; see also Lauren E. Jelinek and
Dale S. Brenneman, chapter 10 in this volume).
Due to fear of Apache raiding along the middle Gila River Valley, the Spanish
never missionized the middle Gila River, and the Gila O’odham remained peripheral to colonial developments in the Pimería Alta (Wells et al. 2004; Wilson 1999),
leading to differences in the economic development between the O’odham along
the middle Gila River and indigenous groups in other parts of the Southwest.
The Gila O’odham, then, represented a frontier for the Spanish moving into the
Pimería Alta. Despite being a frontier region, however, historic documents indicate that the Gila O’odham were actively trading with the Spanish to the south,
mostly through other indigenous groups in the Pimería Alta (Dunne 1955; Ezell
1961), but because they were never missionized, they were not subject to tribute
payments to the Spanish (Wilson 1999). Thus, research on the Gila O’odham reactions to colonization can help clarify how groups changed in contexts in which
indigenous groups were not under direct control of their colonizing groups.
The O’odham along the middle Gila River also had access to plenty of irrigable land and perennial water, unlike their indigenous neighbors to the south,
allowing for productive agricultural land and the potential to irrigate, like their
Hohokam ancestors (see Woodson 2010 for extensive background on prehistoric
irrigation agriculture along the middle Gila). The Hohokam built the largest irrigation system in the New World north of Peru prior to Spanish contact, which
resulted in the production of prodigious amounts of surplus for these desert
dwellers. Uncertainty exists concerning the relationship between the prehistoric
Hohokam and the historic O’odham in the Phoenix Basin, and archaeological
evidence from the period after the Hohokam collapse (ca. 1450) and before first
contact with the Spanish by Eusebio Kino in 1694 is scant (Loendorf 2010).
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fiGUre 13.1. Map of major Spanish missions and presidios in Arizona and the study area
of focus in this chapter. Note the isolation of the Gila River Indian Community from Spanish
settlements.
Despite the uncertainly in connection between the Hohokam and O’odham,
historic documents can provide insight into how the O’odham altered their
agricultural system in response to colonization. These documents indicate
that throughout the 1700 and 1800s, the Gila O’odham adapted to incoming
Spanish and American groups in ways that resulted in great economic success
(DeJong 2009). Historic documents are replete with numerous accounts of how
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the Spanish and, later, Americans relied on the agricultural production of the
O’odham for food and materials (e.g., Dobyns 1961). How, then, did the O’odham
adapt their agricultural system to the influx of new people, crops, and markets into the
middle Gila River? Using demographic, archaeological, and historical data from
Spanish and American sources, I argue in this chapter that the O’odham successfully intensified agricultural production throughout the 1700 and 1800s to meet
the market demands of incoming Spanish missionaries and American explorers,
resulting in great economic success for the O’odham.
The middle Gila River is now managed by the Gila River Indian Community
(GRIC; Figure 13.1) providing an excellent opportunity to study the social and
ecological effects of the transition from subsistence agriculture to a market
economy during the historic period, because the Gila O’odham provide (1) a
case study of direct versus indirect colonial impacts on economic strategies,
(2) an example study of agricultural intensification in a colonial context, and
(3) a reimplementation of strategies of intensification from their prehistoric
Hohokam ancestors. With the city of Phoenix rapidly growing outward into the
desert formerly managed by the Hohokam and now the O’odham, the GRIC
has prevented urbanization along the middle Gila River, preserving archaeological resources that can be linked to historic sources to understand the economic,
social, and environmental dynamics during colonization. The chronology used
in this chapter is based on major external events that affected O’odham economic strategies. The early historic, or Spanish/Mexican period, ranged from
1684 to 1848. The late historic, or American, period began in 1848 (Wilson 1999).
coloNizatioN aND the iNteNsificatioN
of resoUrce ProcUreMeNt
Archaeologists working in the US Southwest have documented how indigenous
communities adapted to Spanish colonization, including patterns of agricultural intensification, increased animal procurement and processing through the
adoption of livestock, and changing crop and, thus, diet diversity (see chapter
by Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman, chapter 11 in this volume; Pavao-Zuckerman
and LaMotta 2007; Sheridan 1988, 2006; Spielmann 1989; Spielmann et al. 2009;
Tarcan 2005; Trigg 2003, 2005). In the northern Southwest, for example, Carmen
Tarcan (2005) studied how hunting and diet changed among the Zuni throughout the historic period. The Spanish introduced grazing animals, such as sheep
and goats, that the Zuni rapidly adopted, according to zooarchaeological
evidence. Tarcan (2005) also found, however, that high amounts of native animals—deer and antelope—were also found in the zooarchaeological assemblage.
Tarcan (2005) argues that while the Zuni readily adopted Spanish animals, diet,
and technologies, the Zuni also strove to maintain traditional indigenous hunting practices by continuing to hunt deer and antelope.
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In southern Arizona, near Tucson, Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman and Vincent
LaMotta (Pavao-Zuckerman and LaMotta 2007) argue that the O’odham actively
resisted adopting Spanish-introduced livestock during the first part of Spanish
missionization. The O’odham around these missions actively slaughtered livestock and refused to participate in their care. They explain, “the O’odham may
have viewed the introduction of livestock as a threat to traditional lifeways and
intentionally destroyed the animals to repulse that threat. The O’odham had
no prior experience with domesticated livestock, and animal husbandry makes
demands on labor, scheduling, infrastructure, and land use that were entirely
novel to O’odham households” (Pavao-Zuckerman and LaMotta 2007:259).
While the O’odham in this part of the Pimería Alta eventually adopted livestock
husbandry, especially cattle, it is clear that they actively attempted to maintain
indigenous subsistence strategies during Spanish colonization.
This O’odham group was under the direct control of the Spanish and were
compelled to pay tribute and to change subsistence strategies in response to direct
Spanish demands. The O’odham along the middle Gila River, however, were
never under the direct control of the Spanish and were not subject to tribute payment, leaving them free to economically respond to colonization. How, then, did
O’odham alter their agricultural system with Spanish colonization? Here, I focus
on one specific strategy incorporated by the O’odham in response to colonization:
the intensification of agriculture in response to introduced market economies.
The intensification of agriculture is defined as any attempt to add more labor to a
field in order to increase agricultural production for a given field area. Strategies
to intensify agriculture include terracing, multicropping, addition of fertilizer, and,
most importantly for the middle Gila River, the construction of infrastructure,
such as irrigation canals (Boserup 1965; Erickson 2006; Netting et al. 1989).
aGricUltUre, ecoNoMic DeveloPMeNt, aND laNDUse iNteNsificatioN oN the MiDDle Gila river
To address how O’odham agriculture changed during Spanish and American
colonization, agricultural intensification is analyzed through archaeological, historic, and ethnographic evidence on the middle Gila River during the historic
period (1694–1950). These data indicate that with challenges such as variable
streamflow, low annual precipitation, and colonization, the O’odham nonetheless created a highly productive agricultural system that created surplus for
barter and the market likely using strategies employed by their ancestors—the
Hohokam—prehistorically.
I argue in the following sections that the O’odham intensified agriculture as
they adopted Old World crops, such as wheat, with the introduction of a market
economy with the entrance of the Spanish in the region in the late 1600s. In
order to measure the intensification of agriculture during the historic period,
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I analyze historic sources from Spanish missionaries (the early historic period,
1697–1848) and the US explorers and military (the late historic period, 1848–1950)
to document an increase in population density (with the combination of settlement extent and demographic estimates), the adoption of intensive irrigation,
and an increase in maize and wheat yields. These measures indicate that with
increasing population density and access to market demand, the O’odham intensified agriculture by adopting intensive irrigation to produce crops to sell to
Spanish and American incomers. Other researchers (DeJong 2009; Doelle 1981;
Rice et al. 1983; Wilson 1999) have assembled many of these numbers, but their
calculations are checked, when possible, and restructured for the purposes of
this chapter. These documents provide data on where settlements are located,
population size, irrigated acreage, and the amount of crops produced in certain
years, and can provide insight into the level of aggregation and crop production
over time, both of which are important indicators of agricultural intensification.
agricultural and economic Growth during the Protohistoric
(1450–1694) and the early historic Periods (1694–mid 1800s)
The collapse of the prehistoric Hohokam cultural system ushered in the
Protohistoric Period (ca. 1450 to 1694) on the middle Gila River. The Protohistoric
Period has been little studied by archaeologists due to the scarcity of archaeological materials, probably due to small and scattered populations at this time
(see Jelinek and Brenneman, chapter 10 in this volume; Loendorf 2010; Wells,
Loendorf, and Woodson 2004). Early historic observers in the region doubted the
relationship between the substantial archaeological remains left by the Hohokam
and the small populations remaining on the landscape during the early historic
period (Fewkes 1912; Russell 1908). Due to the differences in the archaeological
record between the Classic Period Hohokam and the Protohistoric O’odham,
some researchers speculated that the Hohokam and the O’odham were distinct cultural groups (e.g., Russell 1908). However, most O’odham have long
claimed continuity with the Hohokam, despite the uncertainty in the archaeological record (Loendorf 2010). Recent archaeological and historic research has
taken a more nuanced view of the processes affecting historic populations and
has strongly demonstrated continuity in artifacts, most specifically lithics and
ceramics, between the prehistoric Hohokam and the historic O’odham (Doelle
2002; Loendorf 2010; Wells et al. 2004).
The small, dispersed O’odham populations occupying the middle Gila River
Valley were first recorded by Father Eusebio Kino, who arrived in the region
in 1694 (Bolton 1919). For information dating back to the arrival of Kino little
remains in the archaeological record , so limited archaeological investigation
has been done and we are largely reliant on historic Spanish documents for
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information about the O’odham interactions with the Spanish. (Wilson 1999).
While Kino recorded little about the agricultural systems of these Protohistoric
populations, he documented five to seven ranchería villages spread out along
the middle Gila River with no supravillage organization (Winter 1973). With the
entrance of Kino also came many Spanish-introduced crops and goods—such
as the horse, wheat, and metal tools—which the Gila O’odham acquired shortly
after Kino’s arrival, though it remains unknown when exactly the O’odham
were first introduced to these technologies and resources (Dunne 1955 documents extensive use of these goods in the mid-1700s).
Shortly after the arrival of Kino and throughout the 1700s, Apache raiding
of O’odham villages increased throughout the 1700s. The introduction of the
horse allowed the Apache to more efficiently steal from the O’odham (Rice et
al. 1983; see also chapters by Pavao-Zuckerman [11], and J. Homer Thiel [12], this
volume). Kino noted many instances of early Apache raiding throughout the
Pimería Alta (the middle Gila River represented the extreme northern section
of this region), but raiding did not become an issue on the middle Gila until
after his arrival. With the increase in Apache raiding, the O’odham were forced
to move their rancherías toward the center of the valley, aggregating in defense
against the mobile Apache (Hackenberg 1962; Rice et al. 1983). The danger of
raiding also prevented the Spanish from missionizing the middle Gila River, but
did not prevent the Spanish from trading with the O’odham through other indigenous groups who entered the middle Gila River to assist with seasonal harvests
(Dunne 1955).
In 1821, Mexico gained independence from Spain, ending Spanish control of
the Pimería Alta, but little changed for the O’odham on the middle Gila River
and their interactions with the Spanish and Mexican colonizers (DeJong 2009;
Wilson 1999). The mid-1800s, however, brought many changes at different scales
to the middle Gila River. During the Mexican American War, the US federal
government took control of the middle Gila River in 1846 and increased the military presence in the region. This amplified military presence led to a decrease in
Apache raiding in the mid- to late 1800s, allowing for more people to enter the
region. In 1848, gold was discovered in California and the Southern Trail was
established through the middle Gila leading to an estimated 60,000 people moving through the region from 1849 to 1851 (Dobyns 1961). These new American
explorers relied heavily on the O’odham along the middle Gila, and the O’odham
responded by further expanding their irrigated acreage and increasing emphasis
on wheat production. In 1854, the Gadsden Purchase officially made the territory
south of the Gila River to today’s border with Mexico part of the United States.
In 1859, the federal government established the first reservation in Arizona—the
Gila River Indian Community—officially recognizing the Gila O’odham as a
native group in the region (Wilson 1999).
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Over the course of these external changes in the 1700 and 1800s, the O’odham
adapted to Spanish and American introductions of new crops and goods,
Apache on horseback raiding their villages, and colonizers needing access to
food sources. Regardless of these rapid social changes, this time was a period
of great economic success for the O’odham living along the middle Gila River,
as they sold a surplus of crops to the influx of newcomers, who created a new
demand for wheat. These incoming groups relied on O’odham agricultural success, and the intensification of agriculture proved to be an economic boon for
the O’odham during this time. In the following sections, I argue that during
the historic period (1) settlement patterns and demographic estimates indicate
increasing population density, (2) increasing population densities led to the creation of a tribal government, allowing for a cooperative structure necessary for
a complex irrigation system, and (3) intensive irrigation agriculture and wheat
were adopted to meet the demands of a market economy. These factors denote
that O’odham agriculture shifted from subsistence-based agriculture, of a kind
largely practiced by their ancestors prehistorically, to a more intensive, cashbased agricultural system in response to the introduction of market economies.
Increase in Population Density
One of the main drivers of the intensification of agriculture and land use is
increasing population density (Boserup 1965; Netting 1993). To argue this process occurred on the middle Gila, I use data on the settlement extent of historic
rancherías and demographic estimates during the historic period. Consequently,
O’odham agriculturalists most likely intensified agricultural production to maintain previously high yields of agricultural crops on a smaller extent of land. The
increase in population density also had important implications for the ability to
create a tribal government and to construct and manage a large-scale irrigation
system.
Figure 13.2 shows the extent of Pima settlement along the middle Gila River
from 1702 to 1877. Glen Rice and colleagues (1983) previously compiled these data
(from Ezell 1961 and Hackenberg 1962) to show the level of aggregation across
the middle Gila River during the historic period. The extent of settlement (in
miles) shows how much of the landscape along the middle Gila River was occupied during a given year, and thus provides insight into the level of aggregation.
For example, a larger extent of settlement indicates that the settlements were
more dispersed across the landscape.
As Figure 13.2 shows, the extent of settlement decreased throughout the historic period, as O’odham villagers aggregated together in response to increased
Apache raiding. This process continued until the late 1800s, when extent expanded
again in response to the loss of water upstream and the reduction of Apache raiding due to the presence of the American military. Although settlement extent
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Settlement extent of O’odham villages along the middle Gila River during the
historic period.
fiGUre 13.2.
shrank throughout the historic period, population data are needed to confirm
that population numbers remained the same on a smaller extent of land, indicating an increase in local population density. For example, settlement extent could
be shrinking due to a loss of population from Spanish-introduced diseases, resulting in extensive mortality for indigenous groups across the Americas.
Figure 13.3 shows the best estimates of population during the historic period
and tells a complicated story of demographic highs and lows (Bell 1869; Dunne
1955). These numbers were drawn from estimates in Spanish diaries and, later, US
censuses, so they reflect rough estimates of population numbers and not exact
counts. Population appears to undergo demographic shifts over the historic
period, though it is unclear whether these shifts are real or a product of imprecise
estimates made by incoming explorers. Overall, however, the data on both settlement extent and population indicate that population density increased during the
historic period, especially from the initial population observed when the Spanish
first arrived in the late 1600s, until population loss in the late 1800s due to the
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Population numbers of the middle Gila River Valley from historic documents
(compiled by Doelle [1981] from Spanish diaries and American censuses).
fiGUre 13.3.
reduction of water on the middle Gila River. With population increasing to 4,000–
6,000 people after initial Spanish observations, the O’odham still fell victim to
diseases introduced by the Spanish (see Garcés 1965 for documentation of vomiting and fevers), but the population lost from disease was replaced by in-migration
from other indigenous groups, such as the Cocomaricopas, who sought refuge
with the Gila O’odham from the Apache (Bolton 1919; Doelle 1981, 2002).
Regardless of these shifts, population appears to have generally increased
throughout the historic period, resulting in increased population density. Many
authors cite different reasons for this increasing aggregation. Rice and colleagues (1983) argue that this aggregation is intrinsically linked to Apache raiding,
and statements made in early Spanish documents strengthen this argument.
Jacobo Sedelmayr, a Spanish missionary, for example, describes unpopulated
stretches, or buffer zones, upstream and downstream from the core of O’odham
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settlements along the Gila River to protect themselves against the Apache in
the mid 1700s (cited in Dunne 1955). The aggregation across the landscape is
also correlated with increased production of wheat, but that increase in wheat
production is likely a product of the aggregation, not the cause, with a greater
population density allowing for available labor to construct irrigation canals.
Regardless, the aggregation of population to the center of the GRIC could have
occurred for defensive or economic reasons and resulted in a population density
increase, allowing for the creation of political structures necessary for an intensive irrigation system.
Development of a Tribal Government Necessary for Intensive Irrigation
Population growth and aggregation had important implications for tribal life
and leadership during the 1700s. Numerous studies of prehistoric Hohokam irrigation systems indicate that a multivillage organizational system was needed to
adequately distribute water and to maintain and construct canals (e.g., Howard
2006; Hunt et al. 2005; Woodson 2010). Without a cooperative or organizational
structure, large-scale canal systems would not have been economically viable.
Indeed, Kyle Woodson (2003) argues that the lack of an irrigation canal system
when the Spanish first arrived was not due to a lack of knowledge of irrigation.
Instead, he maintains, low population density and the lack of a centralized tribal
government restricted the ability of the O’odham to cooperatively organize a
large-scale irrigation system.
In 1694, prior to the aggregation in the mid-1700s, Father Kino observed no
centralized authority above the village level (Bolton 1919). By the mid-1700s, new
aggregated settlements along the middle Gila River had created a centralized
tribal authority, which had not been previously documented during the historic
period (Bolton 1919; Ezell 1961; Winter 1973). It appears that a new leader of this
centralized tribal authority grew out of the previous position of “war chief,”
but the beginnings of this tribal leadership remain unknown (Winter 1973). The
creation of this position and a tribal council, however, indicates changing social
relationships among the previously scattered rancherías. This centralized tribal
authority, led by one man known as “Crow Head,” organized the middle Gila
villages, and Joseph Winter argues, “the growing need for cooperation necessitated by raiding, and possibly by irrigation, fostered the rise of the tribal leader
and the tribal council” (Winter 1973:74).
As Winter (1973) suggests, the centralization of leadership, by providing a
framework of cooperation for developing more complex agricultural systems,
may have been instrumental in the (re)adoption of irrigation among the middle
Gila villages, which is documented in historic observations at that time, and the
increased production of agricultural crops (Hunt et al. 2005). Thus, the creation
of a tribal authority, likely growing out of increasing population density from
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the aggregation of settlements, allowed for the creation of cooperative agreements for the successful management of a large-scale irrigation system during
the historic period, leading to the intensification of agriculture in response to
new market-economy demands.
Expansion of Intensive Irrigation and the Adoption of Wheat for a Market Economy
The use of new strategies, including the adoption of large-scale irrigation, to
increase agricultural production is another key indicator of the intensification
of land use. Early Spanish documents provide important insights into agricultural production along the middle Gila River during the early historic period
(e.g., Bolton 1920; Dunne 1955). While they do not provide specific quantities
of harvested crops on a defined plot of land, their descriptions are essential to
understanding how the intensity of agriculture across the landscape changed
during the historic period. These documents provide background concerning how agricultural strategies changed and intensified during the historic
period with the construction of large-scale irrigation systems, evidence of
the entrance of the O’odham into the market economy, and data that the irrigated acreage expanded and agricultural yields increased throughout this time.
These documents indicate that, during the historic period, the O’odham went
from cultivating maize, beans, and squash for subsistence purposes without
irrigation to cultivating sizeable tracts of mostly wheat (and some maize) with
large-scale irrigation systems for sale to the Spanish and the Americans. All
of these lines of evidence indicate that agriculture intensified throughout the
historic period.
After the prehistoric Hohokam canal system fell into disuse in the mid-1400s,
no canals are known to have been constructed anywhere in southern Arizona
from about 1450 until 1744 (Bolton 1919; Wells et al. 2004; Wilcox 1981; Woodson
2003). Historians argue whether O’odham groups were even practicing irrigation
when the Spanish first arrived (Castetter and Bell 1942; Ezell 1961; Hackenberg
1962; Winter 1973). Spanish missionaries briefly mentioned an irrigation agricultural system on the middle Gila River during the mid-1700s (Dunne 1955; Ezell
1961), but these documents are notoriously unreliable as they rarely focus on
the agricultural system of the O’odham. Kino briefly mentioned fields of maize
along the middle Gila River in 1697, but did not record the use of irrigation
canals (Bolton 1919). In fact, most of the statements made by Kino and one
of his traveling companions, Manje, in documents from the late 1600s indicate
that no canals were observed at all. While they did not specifically mention
irrigation on the middle Gila River, Manje wrote this observation when their
expedition had subsequently made it farther west to the Cocomaricopas areas
along the Colorado River: “I do not doubt that by constructing irrigation canals
they could cultivate much more land, but these natives do not use canals to
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fiGUre 13.4.
Map of middle Gila River historic canals and villages (aggregated through time).
irrigate their lands; they simply wait for the water and with the great flood the
river banks are inundated, and when the flood goes down they plant some of
the bends and low spots” (Burrus 1971:438). This statement has led many authors
to believe that Manje never observed canal use during his travels throughout
southern Arizona (Doelle 1981; Wilson 1999; Winter 1973). Regardless of the
uncertainty in the use of irrigation canals at Spanish contact, it appears that
the O’odham were practicing extensive agriculture of maize, beans, and squash
without the use of intensive, large-scale irrigation systems evident later in the
historic period (Figure 13.4).
By the time Sedelmayr, arrived on the middle Gila in 1744, one O’odham village out of the seven known to exist at that time was growing Spanish-introduced
wheat with river-fed irrigation (Dunne 1955; Ezell 1961). Interestingly, the other
villages still cultivated the traditional crops of maize, beans, and squash without irrigation at this time. Sedelmayr documented that the Gila O’odham also
produced a considerable surplus, necessitating the use of labor from Tohono
O’odham to the south to assist with seasonal harvests. The Tohono O’odham,
who were in much greater contact with Spanish missions to the south, ultimately
acted as trade brokers between the Gila O’odham and the Spanish, facilitating
the trade of agricultural surplus and the increasing initiation of the Gila River
O’odham into the emerging colonial barter and cash economy.
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By the 1770s, this picture of the O’odham agricultural system had changed
significantly, and land use continued to intensify. A mere twenty-six years
after Sedelmayr documented his travels, in 1770, another Spanish missionary,
Francisco Garcés (1965), observed that wheat rivaled maize as the major crop
being grown by the Gila O’odham and that all villages were growing crops with
an irrigation system. When Juan Bautista de Anza entered the region in 1776, all
O’odham villages were growing wheat with irrigation agriculture, indicating a
rapid shift from maize to wheat production in the mid- to late 1700s, though
maize continued to be cultivated in some fields (Ezell 1961; Winter 1973). Anza
writes, “The fields of wheat which they now possess are so large that, standing
in the middle of them, one cannot see the ends, because of their great length.
They are very wide, too, embracing the whole width of the valley on both sides”
(Bolton 1920:179). Anza, like Sedelmayr before him, also documents the use of
Tohono O’odham labor to assist with the harvest of surplus agricultural production and to act as trade facilitators between the Spanish and the O’odham living
along the Gila River.
The continued construction of irrigation canals and the adoption of wheat
by the O’odham continued through the early and mid-1800s. The mid-1800s
was a time of great economic and agricultural growth for the O’odham, as
the risk of Apache raiding decreased and the numbers of outsiders entering
the region increased. Because of this increasing demand for food from Spanish
explorers and the United States military, the O’odham appear to have been fully
committed to cash and barter economies by 1850 (Doelle 2002; DeJong 2009;
Wilson 1999). Although details of this transition from the barter only to the
cash and barter economy remain unclear, the O’odham appear to have shifted
from focusing on producing agricultural crops for their own consumption
to obtaining goods and other foods in exchange for their crops. Spanish and
American colonizers, entering an unfamiliar environment, depended on the
O’odham to provide them with food, leading the O’odham to produce crops
for the market for which the O’odham received horses, metal agricultural tools,
and other goods.
David DeJong (2009) undertook an analysis of agricultural data collected by
the US. Bureau of Indian Affairs from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, documenting the expansion of agriculture and the continued widespread adoption
of wheat. Along with showing the increase in farmed acreage in the mid-1800s,
DeJong (2009) also documented major changes in crop production. First, the
selling of maize to the US military decreased over time and remained secondary to wheat production. The O’odham likely grew more wheat in response to
increased demand from the US military. Second, the total cultivation of crops,
especially wheat, increased during the mid-1800s, similar to the increase seen in
cultivated acreage (DeJong 2009:7).
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Figure 13.5 shows the amount of acreage farmed in select years from 1850 to
1921, and Figure 13.6 illustrates changes in wheat and maize production along
the middle Gila River by O’odham groups between 1887 and 1899. For the first
part of the period, the acreage of agricultural land increased, and the cultivation
of maize decreased over time and was secondary to wheat production by the
mid-1800s. These increases in irrigated acreage and wheat production during the
early and mid-1850s is linked to higher demand and opportunities resulting from
the influx of Anglo-American explorers and the military, who needed foodstuffs
in this new environment (DeJong 2009; Wilson 1999). This increase in irrigated
acreage and wheat production changed, though, with the decrease in water
availability in the Gila River. In the late 1860s, non-Native Americans moved into
regions upstream, drawing water off the river for their own irrigated fields. By
the 1880s, the agricultural productivity of the middle Gila became severely limited due to lack of water, as reflected in the decreased amount of agricultural
productivity and irrigable land used during these years (see Figures 13.5 and 13.6).
Regardless, the data from the Bureau of Indian Affairs indicates that wheat was
rapidly adopted, and maize was essentially abandoned at this time due to the
low amount of corn being sold on the market (though it was still likely being
grown by the O’odham, for subsistence purposes, which is not reflected in documents of crop sale to non-Native Americans).
It is likely, however, that the O’odham continued to cultivate maize and
wheat during different times of the year. Some researchers have argued that
wheat was rapidly adopted into the O’odham agricultural calendar for two
reasons: (1) newcomers in the region provided a strong demand for the crop,
and (2) wheat grew well in the winter months of southern Arizona, while
maize grew well in the summer months, the two grains perfectly complementing each other in the O’odham agricultural calendar (Castetter and Bell 1942;
Doelle 1981, 2002). Based on these sources, the O’odham planted the first crop
of wheat in December in dedicated fields for wheat; a second crop of maize,
beans, and squashes in early March; and a third crop of maize in July (Castetter
and Bell 1942; DeJong 2011; Southworth 1919). Indeed, many ethnographic and
historic sources in the early to mid-1900s also document the O’odham using
traditional digging sticks to monocrop maize and wheat in separate fields and
during different seasons of the year, though these observations occurred after
the loss of water on the Gila, which drastically changed the O’odham’s ability to participate in market exchange (see Castetter and Bell 1942; Ezell 1961;
Russell 1908).
coNclUsioNs
Historic and ethnographic sources document a wide variety of changes to
the O’odham agricultural system throughout colonization during the historic
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fiGUre 13.5. Estimated irrigated acreage in the late historic period,
select years, 1850–1921 (adapted from DeJong [2009:7]) (* indicates
that numbers were listed as “less than” plotted number).
period. In this chapter, I argued that increases in population density, the creation
of a political structure to allow for cooperative irrigation, and the adoption of
a large-scale canal system and production of wheat indicate that the O’odham
intensified agriculture throughout the historic period in order to meet the market demands introduced by the Spanish and American colonizers. The initial
aggregation of O’odham settlements and the introduction of new crops and
technologies in the mid-1700s set into motion a complex series of decisions,
including the creation of a tribal council, the expansion of agricultural production, the construction of new canals to open more acreage for farming, and the
addition of wheat into the O’odham agricultural regime.
The 1700s and early 1800s were a time of great economic success for the
O’odham, as they actively participated in a market economy, trading their agricultural crops for colonial wares, including metals, from non-Native Americans
entering the region. This economic success exploded over the following decades,
as records show the O’odham were selling record quantities of crops to travelers
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fiGUre 13.6. Grain production on Gila River Indian Community (adapted from DeJong
[2009]; source: US Bureau of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs [Pima Agency], 1887–1925).
and military from the United States (DeJong 2009). Interestingly enough, the
O’odham had freedom to adapt to colonization due to the lack of direct Spanish
influence and control over the region. The O’odham along the middle Gila River
responded to the Spanish colonial regime by maintaining agricultural strategies
that had been used by their prehistoric ancestors, the Hohokam, for centuries.
Later, to participate in, and meet the demands of, new markets, they turned
to traditional practices, including the reintroduction and expansion of irrigated
agriculture.
This economic success changed, however, with the loss of water along the
middle Gila River in the late 1800s due to non-Native American farmers moving upstream and diverting water for irrigation in areas such as Coolidge and
Florence in eastern Arizona. With the loss of water, the O’odham faced mass
poverty and starvation. Because agricultural production was greatly reduced at
this time, the O’odham resorted to a number of strategies to avoid these fates,
including relying on federal food donations (DeJong 2009), moving upstream of
designated reservation areas to try to capture irrigation water before the river
dried up (DeJong 2011), harvesting mesquite along the river to sell as firewood
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to the city of Phoenix (Bigler 2007; DeJong 2011), and migrating to Phoenix to
obtain available service jobs (DeJong 2011). Despite these efforts, the loss of
water resulted in extreme poverty. While the O’odham along the middle Gila
River experienced great economic success for the first periods of the colonial
era, the increase in population upstream resulted in devastation to O’odham
economic and agricultural success—a legacy that persists today.
ackNowleDGMeNts
This research would not have been possible without the support of many people
and organizations. This chapter represented one part of my dissertation, which
was guided by an incredible supportive committee, including Kate Spielmann,
Peggy Nelson, Jon Sandor, and Sharon Hall. This research was undertaken in
conjunction with the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project (P-MIP) under funding
from the Department of the Interior, US Bureau of Reclamation, under the
Tribal Self-Governance Act of 1994 (P.L. 103-413), for the design and development
of a water delivery system using Central Arizona Project water. Support from
many people at the GRIC Cultural Resources Management Program—including Kyle Woodson, David Wright, Chris Loendorf, and Craig Fertelmes—made
my fieldwork possible.
Financial support for this research and related laboratory analyses was provided by multiple sources, including the including the Central-Arizona Phoenix
Long-Term Ecological Research Project (NSF Grant Number BCS-1026865), the
Graduate and Professional Students Association at Arizona State University, the
School of Human Evolution and Social Change, the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the Coupled-Natural Human
Systems Long-Term Vulnerability and Transformation Project (NSF Grant
Number ARC-1104372), and the IGERT in Urban Ecology Program (NSF Grant
Number 0504248).
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P a
r t
3
Discussion and
comparative viewpoints
F o
u
r t
e
e
n
the archaeology of colonialism in the
american southwest and alta california
Some Observations and Comments
kenT G. liGhTFooT
iNtroDUctioN
The chapters in this book present a fresh, state-of-the-art perspective on the complex histories of native and colonial entanglements in the American Southwest
using diverse data sets, including archaeological materials, historical sources,
and native narratives. In exploring various theoretical questions and methodological approaches to the study of colonialism, the authors examine the
complicated social, political, and economic relationships that transformed the
Southwest beginning with the Coronado expedition in 1540–42 and continuing
through Spanish and later Mexican colonization from the late 1500s to the mid1800s. The case studies focus on two primary areas: the New Mexico Colony,
which encompassed present-day northeastern Arizona to north and central
New Mexico, and the Pimería Alta, in the northern Sonora Desert of southern
Arizona and Sonora Mexico.
In commenting on these chapters, my purpose is not to impart additional
information or historical content on the events and processes of colonialism
that unfolded in these two areas, which is superbly done in the introduction
DOI: 10.5876/9781607325741.c014
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(chapter 1) and other chapters in the book. Rather, my purpose is to comment
on the chapters from the vantage point of someone who not only has some
familiarity with Southwestern archaeology dating back to my graduate student
days at Arizona State University in the 1970s, but who has now been working
in the adjacent California region for the last twenty-five years. Thus, my goal
is to compare the chapters in this book with developments taking place in the
archaeology of colonialism in Alta California, and, where appropriate, across
the broader Spanish borderlands of North America.
My task is greatly facilitated by John Douglass and William Graves, who present an exceptional introduction to the broad sweep of humanity that engulfed
the Southwest during three centuries of Spanish and Mexican colonialism. They
not only present a succinct and readable account of the events and processes
of colonialism in the New Mexico Colony and Pimería Alta, but they interpret
these developments building on the latest theoretical advances in the archaeology of colonialism. As John G. Douglass and William M. Graves emphasize
in chapter 1, the multiethnic, polycultural, and multifaceted political relationships that unfolded in the American Southwest resulted in trajectories of both
cultural change and cultural persistence that are still evident today. This introductory chapter (along with others in the book) accentuates why the American
Southwest is such a superb place to undertake research on colonialism. The
region stands out because of its cutting-edge archaeological investigations,
its long tradition of notable research in colonial history, and the potential to
undertake collaborative research with multiple tribes who have powerful and
relevant oral traditions concerning past colonial engagements. Consequently,
the American Southwest offers a fantastic opportunity to compare and contrast
the practices and processes of colonialism in the broader Spanish borderlands of
North America, including Florida, Texas, northern Mexico, Baja California, and
Alta California.
In reading and commenting on the chapters, I am struck by both the similarities and differences in how colonial entanglements unfolded in the American
Southwest when compared to Alta California. Both areas were explored by the
Spanish Crown beginning in the early decades of the 1500s, but while the New
Mexico Colony and the Pimería Alta were populated by foreign intruders beginning in the 1590s and late 1600s, respectively, Alta California was not settled by
Spanish colonists until 1769. The Franciscan order administered and staffed the
Catholic missions established in both the New Mexico Colony and Alta California,
as well as in the Pimería Alta when the Jesuits were expelled in 1767. However, the
missionaries and other colonists interacted with a diverse range of native societies
characterized by distinctive political economies, including complex hunter-gatherers in coastal California and nomadic hunter-gatherers and settled agrarian
communities in the American Southwest. It is from this comparative perspective
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encompassing similarities and differences in the colonial entanglements in the
American Southwest and Alta California that I comment on the chapters.
My commentary on the chapters addresses four major themes. The first
theme examines early encounters that unfolded between native peoples and
Spanish explorers in the American Southwest and Alta California. The second
theme is the continuation of exemplary archaeological studies of colonial settlements—particularly presidios and missions—that are providing new insights
about the colonists and their interactions with indigenous populations. The
third theme concerns the recent trend of emphasizing native political economies and indigenous landscapes in understanding the processes and outcomes
of colonialism in the Spanish borderlands. The final theme addresses the importance of studying the archaeology of the recent past to better understand the
legacies of colonialism and how they have shaped our contemporary humanenvironmental interactions and the identity, composition, and political influence
of modern communities.
theMe oNe: early coloNial eNcoUNters
Early Spanish explorations of both the American Southwest and Alta California
have received considerable attention by colonial historians over the years (Bolton
1916; Hammond and Rey 1940; Quinn [1542–43] 1979e; Wagner 1924). These studies make it very clear that while both regions were first explored by Europeans in
the 1500s, how these expeditions were mounted, supplied, and ultimately interacted with indigenous populations differed dramatically. In reading the chapters
in this volume, I am struck by how the distinctive outcomes of these initial colonial encounters may have fostered long-term consequences in the kinds of social
relationships and antagonisms that unfolded in later colonial times.
Mathew E. Schmader (chapter 2) presents a provocative analysis of the Coronado Expedition of 1540–42 based on his recent archaeological investigations
and a critical reading of relevant ethnohistorical sources. His study describes
how the expedition was funded, who participated in it, and the various interactions and negotiations that took place with Southwestern indigenous peoples.
He emphasizes that the majority of the expedition comprised indios amigos
warriors from central and western Mexico (peoples of Tarascan, Tenochca,
Tlatelolca, and Mexica descent) who were equipped with their traditional
armor and weapons. Schmader’s insightful analysis of the expedition’s documents reveals common patterns in how southwestern peoples negotiated with
the Spanish and Native Mexican intruders, including their use of long-distance
information networks to keep abreast of the expedition’s movements; ritualized practices in dealing with foreigners (such as orations, food giving, etc.);
and various defensive, deceptive, and offensive tactics to thwart the advancement of the foreign intruders.
Archaeology of Colonialism in the American Southwest and Alta California
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The Coronado expedition, consisting of 375 European men-at-arms, at least
1,300 Native Mexican warriors, an unknown number of women and various
camp followers, and thousands of head of livestock, lived off the land by trading,
stealing, or taking by force food and goods from native southwestern communities. It is clear from Schmader’s chapter (2) that this practice, combined with the
abuse of indigenous women and other hostilities, fostered a recurrent pattern of
brutal and violent colonial encounters that sometimes escalated into armed confrontations and pitched battles. The latter is exemplified by the archaeological
investigation of Piedras Marcadas Pueblo in New Mexico, where a suite of lowimpact geophysical and surface collection methods are delineating the spatial
distribution of features and artifacts across the pueblo site. The spatial analysis
of artifacts, including sixteenth-century Spanish military objects (musket balls,
chainmail, boltheads, etc.), Mexican arms, and Puebloan projectile points, is providing new insights into the strategies of armed conflict that took place between
Coronado’s men and the Pueblo warriors.
Thomas E. Sheridan and Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa (chapter 9) present
another important study of early native encounters with Spanish colonists from
a different vantage point—tribal oral traditions. The Hopi History Project, a collaborative venture of the University of Arizona and the Hopi Tribe, is collecting
Hopi accounts of their interactions with early Spanish explorers and colonists,
many of which have been orally transmitted from one generation to the next
over more than four centuries. The Hopi Tribe has a long and lucid memory of
these early encounters, including Coronado’s army destroying a Hopi village in
1540, which was evidently not described in any known Spanish accounts of the
entrada. However, many of the recollections pertain to the early mission period
(pre–Pueblo Revolt), when, beginning in 1619, the Franciscans established missions in several Hopi villages. The oral narratives highlight the maltreatment of
the Hopi people by Coronado and the later missionaries, including the physical
abuse of some men and women, and how these colonial entanglements created
significant disruptions in their tribal lifeways, cultural practices, and religious
activities. While I will return to this notable chapter below, it is clear that more
than 400 years after their first encounters with the Spanish, the intergenerational
traumatic memory of these events have left deep scars among the Hopi people.
The broader implications of Schmader’s (chapter 2) and Sheridan and
Koyiyumptewa’s chapters (chapter 4) is that the early show of force and brutality
by Coronado and his army in 1540–42, which appears to have been reintroduced
by some early missionaries in their interactions with local Indian communities
in 1600s, set the tone for antagonistic and distrustful relations between tribal
groups and Spanish colonists for decades to come.
In comparing these early encounters with those in Alta California, a very different picture emerges. The initial exploration of Alta California, which took
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place during the period of 1542 to 1603, was undertaken by four Spanish (Cabrillo,
Unamuno, Cermeño, Vizcaíno) and one English (Drake) maritime expeditions
whose ships made periodic landfalls for short durations in coastal places inhabited by native communities (Bolton 1916; Quinn 1979a, [1584–85] 1979b, 1979c,
1979d, [1542–43] 1979e, [1584–85] 1979f; Wagner 1929). With the exception of these
landfalls, the sailors remained on their ships and lived primarily off provisions
stored on board. Consequently, a different rhythm of encounters transpired in
which California Indian delegations would typically meet the maritime explorers as they landed, greeting them with long orations and gift giving of food
and goods that were performed according to ceremonial and honorific protocols
(Lightfoot and Simmons 1998). In turn, the explorers exchanged ship’s biscuits,
clothing (hats, shirts), cloth, and glass beads to the Indian leaders, and performed
public masses on the beaches.
Although some abuses took place in the early encounters in Alta California,
particularly when sailors stayed in port for any length of time, these coastal
interactions rarely led to armed confrontations, raids, and battles, which appear
to have been a common occurrence in the American Southwest. How these
different kinds of early encounters may have influenced and structured later
colonial relationships in both regions is a topic deserving future investigation.
But while Native Californian tribes have intense memories of the later Franciscan
missionaries and Spanish colonists, I am not aware of any extant oral traditions
concerning the 1542–43 Cabrillo voyage. This contrasts sharply with the Hopi’s
recollections of the dreadful consequences of the 1540 Coronado expedition that
transpired more than 400 years ago. It seems clear that the colonial enterprises
in the American Southwest and Alta California got off to very different starts.
theMe two: research oN coloNial
settleMeNts—PresiDios aND MissioNs
Several chapters in the volume detail recent archaeological investigations of
the Tucson Presidio ( J. Homer Thiel [chapter 12]) and Pimería Alta missions
(Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman [chapter 11]), and ongoing studies of Hopi Indians in
Franciscan missions (Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa; Laurie D. Webster [chapter
4]). They are part of a venerable legacy in the American Southwest of undertaking scholarly archaeological investigations of colonial settlements that examine
interactions with indigenous populations. In discussing this work in relation to
Alta California, it is important from the outset to understand how this tradition
of scholarly research differed from the trajectory of less rigorous, restoration
projects that took place during the formative years of California archaeology.
As vividly described by David Thomas (1991a), the influence of Helen Hunt
Jackson’s 1884 novel, Ramona, and the initiation of Mission Revival architecture
shortly thereafter excited a flurry of major restoration projects at colonial-age
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buildings throughout California. Many of the Franciscan missions had been
neglected and pilfered in the postmission years, but the majority had been
reclaimed and maintained by the Catholic Church since their return by the
US government in 1862. By the early 1900s a series of restoration projects were
initiated with archaeology serving primarily as a handmaiden for local church
groups, historical societies, and restoration architects who were attempting
to reconstruct the original appearance of crumbling mission quadrangles and
other historic adobe buildings. Unfortunately, as Thomas details, most of these
early restoration ventures were based more on a romanticized view of a mythical Californio past than detailed, rigorous academic investigations, which led to
many inaccuracies and architectural whimsies.
Early historical archaeology in the American Southwest followed a more
scholarly trajectory under the auspices of the School of American Archaeology,
later renamed the School of American Research (now known as the School for
Advanced Research), and other institutions whose research programs were geared
toward the study and preservation of Spanish-era buildings and sites rather than
in their reconstruction per se (Cordell 1989:32–33; Thomas 1991a:138–39). While
relatively few well-documented archaeological studies of Spanish missions
and ranchos took place in Alta California prior to the 1960s (for exceptions, see
Bennyhoff and Elsasser 1954; Neuerburg 1987; Treganza 1956; Whitehead 1991),
many of the leading archaeologists working in the Southwest participated in the
excavation of Spanish-era sites in the early twentieth century (Brew 1937; Kidder
1916, 1924; Montgomery et al. 1949; Nelson 1916; Smith et al. 1966; Toulouse and
Stephenson 1960; Vivian 1964). Much of this early interest stemmed from the
development of early chronologies, since the Spanish occupations provided discrete time markers for dating ceramic seriations (Cordell 1989:32; Wilcox 2009:162).
The academic nature of early archaeological work in the American Southwest
was probably also influenced by land ownership. While many of the Spanish
sites in California are now situated in or near heavily urbanized coastal cities,
southwestern colonial places (outside of Tucson and Albuquerque) tend to be
found in rural areas on federal lands or on (or near) extant Indian reservations.
The research protocols and oversight that were employed to work on colonial
sites on federal lands and Indian reservations in the American Southwest appears
to have differed markedly from those that transpired on private lands in coastal
California prior to the 1960s, when many imaginative restorations of Spanishera buildings took place.
Archaeological research of colonial settlements accelerated throughout the
Spanish borderlands beginning in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s with the growing
sophistication in the theory and method of historical archaeology, as well as
the increased funding for colonial archaeological research provided by cultural
resource management legislation and the Columbian Quincentenary (Deagan
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1983; Farnsworth 1987; Greenwood 1975; Hester 1977; Hoover 1979; Larsen 1990;
Lycett 1995; McEwan 1993; Thomas 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991b; Thomas et al. 1978).
Thus, I believe the exemplary chapters in this volume have benefited greatly
from the solid foundation of colonial archaeology in the American Southwest
that has developed over the last century, as well as by recent advances in the field
of historical archaeology.
Homer Thiel (chapter 12) presents a succinct overview of twenty years of
research at the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson undertaken by Archaeology
Southwest and Desert Archaeology. His chapter contextualizes the historical
importance of the Tucson Presidio in the Spanish colonization of the Pimería
Alta. The extensive ethnohistorical and archaeological investigations have
resulted in a wealth of information about the presidio—how it was built over
time, the spatial layout of the community, and the kinds of relationships the
colonists had with nearby indigenous populations. A significant contribution of
this work is elucidating the social interactions and exchange networks that the
presidio community maintained with local O’odham peoples, Mexican towns,
and the broader world through the study of a diverse range of material goods
recovered from archaeological contexts, including indigenous pottery vessels,
majolica dishes, transfer-printed ceramics, buttons, buckles, beads, and so on.
The long-term, intensive investigation of the Tucson Presidio provides an
excellent opportunity to examine the similarities and differences of presidio
communities elsewhere in the Spanish borderlands. Thiel (chapter 12, this volume) notes that some of the cultural practices revolving around food set the
Tucson colonists apart from local native people. A similar observation has been
made in archaeological investigations of the contemporaneous San Francisco
Presidio in Alta California (Voss 2005, 2008). This observation raises the question
about whether similar processes of ethnogenesis that bonded the members of
the presidio community together in San Francisco, but distinguished them from
local Ohlone Indians, may have been unfolding in Tucson.
Pavao-Zuckerman in chapter 11 examines the zooarchaeological remains from
recent excavations at two missions—Mission San Agustín de Tucson, located
across the river from the Tucson Presidio, and Mission Nuestra Señora del Pilar
y Santiago de Cocóspera in northern Sonora. She focuses on the importance of
animal husbandry, specifically the production of cattle and sheep, as a lynchpin
in the colonial regional economy. Not only did the cattle offer sustenance for
the mission community, but dried meat, hides, and tallow (as evidenced by the
heavy fragmentation of the cattle bone) provided much needed food and goods
to the nearby presidio, rancho, and mining communities. She also emphasizes
how livestock played a critical role in the raiding economy of the Apache groups
that terrorized both O’odham and colonial settlements alike in the Pimería
Alta region. Interestingly, the proportion of sheep and cattle found at colonial
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settlements in the Southwest probably varied given local environmental factors,
economic incentives, and raiding intensity, with cattle increasing in numbers
during peaceful times.
Douglass and Graves, Pavao-Zuckerman, and others in this volume highlight
several salient differences in the history of missionization between the American
Southwest and Alta California. First, most missions in the Southwest were
generally established in extant Indian communities. In California, local huntergatherer polities were relocated to central locations where mission complexes
were established. Second, as discussed by Pavao-Zuckerman (chapter 11), while
the Indian neophytes in Pimería Alta labored in mission agrarian and craft enterprises three days a week, they were allowed to work their own fields for another
three days each week. In contrast, California Indian neophytes worked exclusively on mission economic enterprises throughout the workweek, and they did
not control their own fields or agrarian products. A third significant difference is
the scale and intensity of raiding in the American Southwest by various nomadic
groups (e.g., Apache, Navajo, Comanche), which provided a powerful reason for
some agrarian communities (O’odham, Pueblo peoples) to decide to enter into
alliances with the Spanish. This was never a major factor in the Alta California
missions. Finally, the encomienda and repartimiento systems used to exact tribute
and labor from settled communities in the American Southwest by Spanish colonists in the seventeenth century were never formally instituted in Alta California.
While future comparative work still needs to be undertaken to understand
how these differences influenced the processes and outcomes of colonial entanglements in the American Southwest and Alta California (Lightfoot, Panich,
Schneider, Gonzalez, et al. 2013), it is clear from this volume that the potential
of some Southwestern tribes to remain in their ancestral lands in extant villages
did not lessen the trauma and stress of colonization, particularly in the 1600s
and 1700s. The Hopi History Project makes this point crystal clear (Sheridan
and Koyiyumptewa [chapter 9]). Missionary abuses involving corporal punishment, such as those recorded by the colonial government concerning Padre Fray
Salvador de Guerra, are still very much remembered by the Hopi.
Webster’s stellar study of Hopi weaving (chapter 4) dovetails nicely with
the points made by Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa. She shows how the abusive
demands for textiles by colonial agents through the encomienda system, as well
as by some missionaries, resulted in forced labor practices that involved major
transformations in the organization and composition of textile work groups. For
example, an increasing number of women worked on cloth production outside
of kivas, where men had traditionally woven cotton textiles. Colonialism also
resulted in the increasing use of wool, new knitting techniques, and the adoption of imported dyes. Significantly, Webster’s painstaking analysis demonstrates
that despite the excessive textile demands of colonial men, such as Padre Guerra,
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in the 1600s; the Pueblo Revolt; and the painful destruction of Awatovi, many
continuities were maintained in the production of Hopi textiles, particularly in
the weaving of cotton goods for ceremonial use within the Pueblo communities.
theMe three: coloNialisM iN iNDiGeNoUs laNDscaPes
A recent development in the archaeology of colonialism is the study of native
political economies and understanding how they shaped the direction, intensity,
and kinds of colonial interactions that unfolded (Lightfoot, Panich, Schneider,
Gonzalez, et al. 2013; Oland et al. 2012; Panich and Schneider 2014; Rubertone
2000; Scheiber and Mitchell 2010; Silliman 2009). Spanish exploration and
settlement across the North American borderlands took place in indigenous
landscapes populated by diverse polities who had participated for centuries in
complex systems of exchange, political alliances, social relationships, ceremonial associations, and raiding/warfare. How native peoples chose to negotiate
and interact with colonial intruders was influenced greatly by these extant social,
economic, and political relationships. Individuals, families, or entire polities
might decide to ally with the Spanish based on the perceived advantages that it
might provide them in regards to their access to new kinds of goods, protection
from enemies, and providing competitive advantages over political factions. The
creation of these new alliances, in turn, would have rippling effects across the
landscape that might lead to antagonism and conflict among other rival social
entities. Lee Panich and Tsim Schneider’s (Panich and Schneider 2014) edited
book on the archaeology of Spanish borderland missions makes many of these
points in a series of case studies that demonstrate the crucial insights that can
be derived by analyzing colonial settlements as embedded places within broader
indigenous landscapes.
In reading the chapters in this volume, I believe that archaeologists in the
American Southwest may be at the forefront in examining how native political
economies and indigenous landscapes influenced the practices and processes of
colonialism. In contrast to the archaeology of Alta California, where these kinds
of studies are relatively recent (e.g., Bernard 2008; Gonzalez 2011; Hull 2009;
Panich 2010; Peelo 2009; Russell 2011; Schneider 2010), there is a longer tradition
in the American Southwest of emphasizing native influences in colonial entanglements and how they impacted local histories. I suspect this may date back
to those formative studies in Arizona and New Mexico involving the construction of ceramic chronologies using colonial-era sites and materials. Interestingly,
this work was not conducted by scholars who specialized in Spanish historical
archaeology per se, but rather by anthropological archaeologists interested in
the culture history of indigenous societies that transcended both prehistory and
history (e.g., Kidder 1924; Nelson 1916). Furthermore, the study of Spanish missions that are situated within contemporary Pueblo communities or on lands
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controlled or overseen by tribal entities or federal agencies has probably influenced a more native-oriented inclusion in the research designs and protocols
of Southwestern archaeologists in a manner that differs substantially from the
history of research in the urbanized areas of coastal California.
Archaeologists now working in the American Southwest forefront native
agency, cultural practices, and political relationships in the investigation of
colonial-era revolts, food ways, regional exchange systems, regional settlement distributions, and the spatial organization of village sites (Liebmann 2012;
Liebmann and Preucel 2007; Lycett 2014; Mills 2008; Preucel 2002; Spielmann et
al. 2009; Spielmann et al, 2006; Wilcox 2009). Phillip O. Leckman’s contribution
on the seventeenth-century Puebloan landscape (chapter 3) is an important contribution to this corpus of work. He discusses how Spanish settlements (missions,
visitas, and estancias) were embedded within a Puebloan landscape of nested
spatial tetrads composed of fields, shrines, and community lands of villages,
which in turn were organized by plazas, roomblocks, and kivas. Significantly,
the Spanish founded their convento complexes and Catholic churches and
chapels, not in the central core of the villages, but in their margins—which
is suggestive of the power Pueblo people maintained in controlling space in
colonial contexts. Leckman’s chapter details the fundamental misrecognitions
that the Spanish made in their interpretation of the built landscapes of Pueblo
communities, and how this influenced the nature of colonial entanglements
that unfolded over time. His analysis of the seventeenth-century archaeological remains at Paako illustrates how the foreign intruders attempted to co-opt
the Pueblo landscape through the construction of a chapel (which was not finished), the destruction of at least one kiva, and the alteration of the Pueblo
plaza into corrals and a metal-smelting facility. However, despite the various
changes initiated by the missionaries, Leckman shows how a Puebloan sense of
space and landscape was sustained within indigenous communities and in their
broader hinterlands.
Other chapters in this volume illustrate the importance of analyzing colonial entanglements based on an understanding of indigenous political alliances,
trade connections, factionalism, and antagonisms in the broader region. Lauren
Jelinek and Dale Brenneman (chapter 10) highlight how the American Southwest
is ideally suited for this kind of analysis given its long, rich history of archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic research. They demonstrate how previous
studies of ceramics and exchange, in combination with relevant ethnohistoric
sources, can be employed to build a better understanding of regional-scale
social and economic interactions in the Pimería Alta prior to and during colonial
encounters in 1600s and 1700s. Their overview provides insightful information
on the political alliances and antagonisms of various O’odham- and Yumanspeaking groups through time and space.
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Studies of the Pueblo Revolt (1680) and its aftermath exemplify some of the
most sophisticated research in North American archaeology today that is examining how native political relationships influenced the historical trajectory of
colonial interactions across broader indigenous landscapes (e.g., Liebmann 2012;
Liebmann and Preucel 2007; Preucel 2002; Wilcox 2009). Matthew Liebmann,
Robert Preucel, and Joseph Aguilar’s chapter (5) is a continuation of this fine work.
Here they explicitly examine the alliances and factional rifts that existed between
northern Rio Grande Pueblos before, during, and after the Pueblo Revolt. They
ask an intriguing question—what happened to the Pan-Pueblo alliance that
forced the Spanish out of the northern Southwest? In employing a sophisticated
research program to address this question that scrutinizes the archaeological
assemblages from Rio Grande mesa villages, they show how detailed petrographic and geochemical analyses of lithics and ceramics can reveal population
movements, exchange relationships, political alliances, and factionalism. Their
findings raise red flags about traditional interpretations concerning rifts that supposedly took place among some groups based on traditional historical sources.
For example, they found evidence that an enduring coalition was maintained
between the Tewa, Jemez, and Keres of Kotyiti. But their research also suggests
that other Pueblo groups were continually negotiating their participation in this
coalition as the political relationships of the indigenous landscape continued to
change during the period of 1680–1700.
The provocative chapter by Severin Fowles, Jimmy Arterberry, Lindsay
Montgomery, and Heather Atherton on the Comanche expansion into the
New Mexico Colony (chapter 6) highlights the importance of undertaking
archaeological research in the broader hinterland of indigenous landscapes well
beyond the placement of colonial settlements. In presenting a succinct update
on Comanche research in western North America, they highlight the impact
that Pekka Hämäläinen’s (2008) book, The Comanche Empire, has had on colonial
scholarship given its far-reaching implications for understanding the nature and
power dynamics of indigenous and colonial relationships in eighteenth-century
and early nineteenth-century interactions in the Southern Plains. They note that
despite the importance of the Comanche in structuring Spanish movements,
settlement distributions, and alliances with other native groups in northern New
Mexico, very little is known about Comanche archaeology. In part this is because
the Comanche traveled light and left few identifiable materials behind. But as
Fowles and colleagues emphasize, it is also because archaeologists have not been
very proactive in their study of Comanche archaeology. They describe recent
fieldwork in the Rio Grande Gorge region west of Taos where archaeological
remains of Jicarilla Apache, Ute, and Comanche peoples are being detected.
At the Vista Verde Site, where a possible buried dance floor and tipi rings are
being mapped, a series of spectacular panels of etched rock art have now been
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recorded. The art style resembles the Plains Biographic Tradition that is found in
ancestral Comanche territory in northern Colorado and Wyoming.
Fowles and colleagues’ chapter emphasizes that archaeological research of
indigenous landscapes is crucial for understanding how native peoples maintained their cultural lifeways and values in the face of colonialism. In the case of
Comanche ethnogenesis that unfolded in the Spanish borderlands, this involved
cultural innovations and reorganizations that transformed local groups into
formidable equestrian military forces. While traditional cultural values were
maintained and built upon as evident in the rock art and spatial patterning of
archaeological materials, the Comanche adopted horses, guns, knives, and flour
into their dynamic way of life.
Similar kinds of research projects are now underway in Alta California. Well
beyond the Spanish presidios, ranchos, and missions, archaeological investigations are revealing how native peoples maintained their cultural values and
practices while transforming themselves in the face of colonial entanglements.
The most innovative work is now focusing on refugee sites where people
attempted to keep a low profile from Russian and Spanish colonists (Bernard
2008; Schneider 2010; Schneider et al. 2012). Similar to Comanche sites, these
archaeological places tend to be difficult to detect as they are located in concealed places and typically contain relatively few material remains. Furthermore,
it is now apparent that California Indians often reused ancestral places that
had spiritual meaning and offered excellent vantages for harvesting traditional
resources. Consequently, distinguishing these historical contexts from earlier
precontact deposits can be challenging, particularly if relatively few introduced
foods or goods were intentionally used at these sites (see Graesch et al. 2010;
Schneider 2010).
theMe foUr: the leGacies of coloNialisM
The archaeology of the recent past has much to contribute to our understanding
of the legacies of colonialism and their impacts on our modern world. As outlined elsewhere, the archaeology of the last two or three centuries can be of great
importance to many descendant communities immersed in the contemporary
politics of indigenous landscape management practices, cultural heritage issues,
identity inquiries, tribal territorial boundaries, federal recognition, and repatriation (Flexner 2010; Hart 2012; Lightfoot, Panich, Schneider, Gonzalez, et al. 2013;
Mrozowski et al. 2009; Panich 2013). The archaeology of the recent past can be
extremely challenging, however, given the increasingly polycultural and multiethnic construction of local communities and households who differentially
participated in the global market economy and increasingly incorporated massproduced goods and foreign foods into their lives. This is particularly true during
the height of American repression in the western United States in the mid- to
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late 1800s, when many people of color had to disperse, hide, or even change their
outward identities to endure (Heizer and Almquist 1971; Lightfoot 2006:281–84).
In coastal Alta California, these later historical indigenous archaeological sites
are often difficult to detect given the propensity of Native Californians to keep
a low profile, such as in refugee sites discussed above, or when they were integrated (hidden) within more complex urbanized environments.
The recent past that transcends earlier colonial times and the present is crucial
for understanding how descendant communities negotiated with the emerging modern world and devised strategies for survival and persistence (Panich
2013; Silliman 2009). It is also a critical time for understanding how long-term
human-environmental interactions, as instituted by indigenous populations
in precolonial and colonial times, underwent significant modifications and
transformations with the growth of industrialized farming and ranching that
continue to shape our modern landscapes in many rural areas (Lightfoot, Panich,
Schneider, Gonzalez 2013; Mrozowski 2006). Several chapters in this volume
make significant contributions to the growing corpus of archaeological research
on the legacies of colonialism in the American West.
Colleen Strawhacker (chapter 13) presents a case study of how the O’odham
people along the middle Gila River in southern Arizona participated in the
emerging market economy of the 1700s and 1800s through agricultural intensification. Her broader project is examining how irrigation economies influenced
the people and lands of the Middle Gila region in the longue durée—beginning
with the prehistoric Hohokam communities and continuing with the later
O’odham farmers. Strawhacker’s chapter focuses on how the O’odham chose to
intensify wheat production by initially selling their produce to Spanish colonists,
and later to American settlers and the US Army until water was cut off to their
irrigation system by upstream farmers in the 1870s. Strawhacker’s analysis suggests that an understanding of the agrarian practices of the ancestral Hohokam
was retained by the O’odham, and that this knowledge was probably tapped into
when they chose to intensify their output from irrigation agriculture. Her project has tremendous potential for examining the social and ecological impacts
that agricultural intensification has had on a local region spanning prehistoric,
colonial, and later historic times.
I am currently participating in a similar kind of project that is examining the
long-term implications of changing human-environmental relationships in precolonial, colonial, and modern times on the central coast of Alta California. But
rather than the irrigation economies of the Hohokam and O’odham peoples,
this study is examining the advent and modifications of hunter-gatherer landscape management practices, particularly that of prescribed burning to enhance
the productivity, diversity, and sustainability of economic plants and animals
exploited by local groups. Our interdisciplinary research team is examining
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how these indigenous management practices underwent transformations in
colonial times, and how colonial and later American government prohibitions
outlawing fires ignited by California Indians have had a detrimental impact on
the health and vitality of coastal grassland and woodland habitats in recent
years (Cuthrell 2013; Cuthrell et al. 2012; Lightfoot, Cuthrell, Boone, et al. 2013;
Lightfoot, Cuthrell, Striplen, et al. 2013). As Strawhacker (chapter 13) and our
ongoing project demonstrate, there is much promise for archaeologists to evaluate contemporary environmental issues in the American West through detailed
historical-ecological studies that incorporate landscape management practices
of the recent past with those from earlier colonial and precolonial times.
Two complementary chapters by J. Andrew Darling and B. Sunday Eiselt
(chapter 7) and Kelly L. Jenks (chapter 8) explore identity construction and the
creation of multiethnic communities in the New Mexico Colony during the
1700s and early 1800s. Both chapters illustrate nicely that the creation of the
Vecino identity was not based on ethnicity per se, but rather on how people
lived—their place of residence and accepted membership in a Hispanic corporate community as tax-paying, property-owning Catholic families. Darling and
Eiselt present a succinct historical overview on the demographic rise of Vecino
communities as part of the Bourbon reforms initiated to protect the northern
Spanish frontier from nomadic Indian raiders and other European colonial ventures in the late 1700s. By receiving land grants and support for military service,
Vecino families populated the Rio Grande Valley in increasing numbers after
1790. In undertaking a synthesis of archaeological research in the Rio del Oso
land grant, the authors show how significant transformations took place over
time from the defensive, segregated nature of early colonial sites to the more
open, integrated Vecino settlements where membership was based on property
ownership and marriage associations rather than ethnic relationships.
In her detailed examination of twenty-five sites along the Rio Grande Valley,
Jenks (chapter 8) discusses the similarities and differences across both space
and time in Vecino villages with regard to their spatial layouts, food way, trade
practices, and corporate organizations. She emphasizes the difficulties of
defining clear-cut “ethnicities” in these late colonial settlements using archaeological materials. She makes an excellent case for why a practice-oriented
approach provides a more effective way to analyze late colonial communities.
It is through the study of shared practices of space, food, material goods, and
economic practices that archaeologists can understand the composition and
identify of Vecino villages.
The chapters by Darling and Eiselt and Jenks on the construction of Vecino
villages in the Rio Grande provide a nice model for examining the creation
of Californio communities in Alta California that also emerged in the late
1700s and 1800s. The latter involved a process of ethnogenesis that emphasized
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Spanish ancestry and common cultural practices among a diverse group of people from Sonora, Sinaloa, Baja California, and Alta California. While Barb Voss
(2005, 2008) completed a cutting-edge study on the emergence of Californio
identities in the Presidio of San Francisco from 1776 to 1821, detailed archaeological investigations of the Californio experience has not been well developed
outside the presidio context. While considerable work has been done over the
years on rancho archaeology—in the early years through the restoration of
adobe structures and then later by Cultural Resource Management (CRM) projects—there have been few syntheses that pull this material together to examine
the rise of Californio communities and their relationship to indigenous populations (but see Farris 1997, 1999; Silliman 2004). The Darling and Eiselt chapter,
provides an excellent example of how to synthesize the indigenous and colonial
archaeological remains from one land grant into a research program. Jenks
offers a nice model for undertaking a regional-scale comparative analysis of
the spatial layout, architecture, food ways, and artifacts from a range of colonial sites dispersed across a broad area. The archaeology of colonialism in Alta
California will benefit greatly by similar synthetic overviews that integrate
together various kinds of indigenous and colonial sites recorded by CRM projects and other archaeological investigations within the territories of specific
Californio ranchos.
coNclUsioNs
The chapters in this book highlight why the American Southwest holds such
promise for undertaking innovative and leading-edge research in the archaeology
of colonialism. For more than a century, a cadre of exceptional archaeologists
have made significant contributions to our understanding of the precolonial
and colonial histories of the region, providing an extraordinary database for
examining cultural change and persistence that transcends the last 500 years.
The American Southwest is also well known for its strong tradition of scholarship in colonial history and ethnography. Most important, Southwestern tribal
nations retain long and vivid memories of colonial entanglements going back to
the Coronado entrada that offer a much-needed native perspective to the study
of colonialism. As demonstrated in this book, scholars can employ these different evidentiary sources to evaluate diverse questions concerning the practices,
processes, and outcomes of colonialism from the initial stage of exploration,
through the early phases of Spanish and later Mexican occupation, and into the
American period and contemporary times.
In reading the chapters in this book, I am convinced that the American
Southwest has an important role to play in broader, comparative studies of colonialism, particularly in examining distinctive historical trajectories that unfolded
in the Spanish borderlands of North America. In comparing the contributions
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in this book to my understanding of the colonial history of Alta California, I
conclude with four observations.
First, while much scholarship has focused on documenting the initial encounters between Spanish explorers and indigenous populations throughout the
American borderlands, much less work has been expended on considering the
long-term implications of these early engagements. The exploration programs
initiated by the Spanish Crown in the American Southwest and Alta California in
the 1540s differed dramatically. As detailed by Schmader (chapter 2), the overland
Coronado entrada into Arizona and New Mexico lived off the land, appropriated native provisions and goods, brutalized local communities, and engaged in
armed conflict with several tribes. The Cabrillo voyage to Alta California maintained stores on the ships, interacted with indigenous populations for relatively
short durations during landfalls, and, for the most part, maintained relatively
peaceful relations with local groups. The question I raise, particularly after
reading Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa’s chapter (9), is how did the distinctive
outcomes that took place during these initial colonial encounters affect native
memories and influence the social relationships and negotiations that took place
later when the Spanish returned to settle both areas.
Second, the archaeological investigations of presidios and missions in the
American Southwest, as exemplified in Thiel (chapter 12) and Pavao-Zuckerman
(chapter 11), present the opportunity for comparing how the colonist’s cultural
practices and lifeways, as well as their relationships with indigenous populations, developed in different areas of the Spanish borderlands. I have long been
intrigued by the distinctive Franciscan mission policies for working with different kinds of indigenous populations, in particular how the process of native
resettlement (reducción) was implemented among settled agrarian populations
and hunter-gatherer societies. However, as Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa (chapter 9), Pavao-Zuckerman (chapter 11), and Webster (chapter 4) illustrate, the
ability of some Southwestern tribes to remain in their homeland villages did not
reduce the trauma and stress of colonial occupations.
Third, the recent trend of examining the practices, processes, and outcomes
of colonialism from the perspective of native political economies and indigenous landscapes may have stronger roots in the American Southwest than
elsewhere in the Spanish borderlands. I believe this may stem from the seminal
early work of anthropological archaeologists examining colonial-era sites from
the perspective of indigenous culture history and chronology rather than as
historical archaeologists who specialized in Spanish colonial history. The chapters in the book exemplify this fine tradition of placing at the forefront native
agency and history in the archaeology of colonialism. Leckman (chapter 3)
demonstrates how a Puebloan sense of landscape and space was maintained
in the Rio Grande Valley in the face of Spanish colonialism, while Jelinek and
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Brenneman (chapter 10), Liebmann, Preucel, and Aguilar (chapter 5) show why
the Southwest is such an exceptional place to study the importance of native
political alliances, social relationships, ceremonial associations, factional groups,
and antagonisms for understanding the kinds of colonial entanglements that
unfolded. Fowles, Arterberry, Montgomery, and Atherton in their presentation of Comanche archaeology (chapter 6) highlight the critical importance of
undertaking archaeological research in indigenous landscapes many kilometers
from missions, presidios, and rancho homesteads.
Fourth, we need to invest more time and energy in the study of colonial
entanglements in the more recent past. The period spanning the last two or three
centuries is crucial for understanding the creation of our contemporary world
and how the legacies of colonialism have influenced our interactions with the
environment and the identity, composition, and political relationships of modern communities in the American borderlands. Most of our research on Native
American societies still focuses on precolonial and early colonial sites when specific groups can be identified and studied in the archaeological record. It is a
much more difficult task to entangle and investigate indigenous archaeological
remains from other peoples in late colonial times. Several chapters in this book
make considerable progress in our study of the archaeology of the recent past.
Strawhacker (chapter 13) presents a research program for examining long-term
environmental changes associated with irrigation agriculture that transcends precolonial, colonial, and recent times. Darling and Eiselt’s (chapter 7) and Jenks’s
(chapter 8) investigation of the creation of Vecino villages in the Rio Grande in
the late 1700s and 1800s provide an excellent roadmap for examining the construction of similar communities elsewhere in the Spanish borderlands.
Finally in closing, it is clear given the major advances taking place in the
archaeology of colonialism as amply demonstrated in this book that another
major synthesis of Spanish borderlands scholarship is now needed. The last
great overview—the seminal Columbian Consequences volumes—has been on
the library shelf for more than twenty years. But I will leave this to my able colleague David Hurst Thomas to ponder . . .
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Materiality Matters
Colonial Transformations Spanning the Southwestern
and Southeastern Borderlands
david hurST ThomaS
iNtroDUctioN
While preparing these comments, editors John G. Douglass and William M.
Graves shared with me Kent Lightfoot’s (chapter 14) enlightened comparison
of the Southwestern papers in this volume with the Alta California experience.
These fortunate circumstances afforded me the chance to tailor-make my own
contribution in complimentary directions.
I was assigned to draw some parallels and contrasts between the chapters
in this book addressing the colonial Southwest and comparable histories now
emerging from the Mississippian Southeast. It is my pleasure to do this and
because Lightfoot has already commented in detail on the individual chapters, I
will frame my own discussion as a more generalized theoretical conversation—
drawing upon the themes and specifics of the southwestern chapters, to be sure,
but also developing related themes about the importance of materiality and
agency as it played out in the “practical politics” of both colonial encounters
(after Silliman 2001).
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This discussion is informed by Igor Kopytoff ’s (1986:66–67) advocacy for constructing the cultural biography of things, interrogating objects in ways akin to
asking questions of people—inquiring about the relevant possibilities for understanding status, temporality, and cultural context. Where did something come
from and who made it? How far did its use life go? What are its expectations
for the future? What are the ideal expectations for this thing? Are there various
life stages of this object, and what are the cultural identifiers associated with
these? Does a thing’s usage change with age? Is there an expected time when the
thing is no longer useful? What is its afterlife? William Walker and Lisa Lucero
(Walker and Lucero 2000:12) expand these concepts by distinguishing between a
biographical approach to artifact genealogies from the more inclusive concept
of genealogies of practice (see also Joyce and Lopiparo 2005). Viewing “things
as historicized traces of practices” ( Joyce 2012a), objects can be animated from
static to active through “object itineraries” that emphasize motion and interaction, fragmentation and accumulation—tracking objects moving through time
and space, as they entwined with people and places (see also Joyce and Gillespie
2015). Object agency can indeed be archaeologically accessible, and Walker and
Lucero (2000) have incorporated agency theory to examine how artifact life
histories, ritual, and politics intersect. With this in mind, I will present a comparative inquiry into the biographies of public architecture and singularized objects
from the Southwest and Southeast.
PUeblo coloNial worlDs
Neither the Spanish colony in New Mexico nor that in La Florida was self-sustaining, because both outposts were significantly underwritten by the Spanish
Crown, at least partly for strategic purposes. Following standard sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century colonial practice, missionaries were stationed near the
principal indigenous settlements closely associated with a frontier garrison; inevitably, the proximity of soldiers to the native populations created problems with
political meddling, distribution of supplies, and harassment of local women. But
Franciscans from both corners of the Spanish Borderlands articulated the critical
importance of saving Indian souls if the colonies were to remain in business (see
Liebmann 2012:34–35; Riley 1999:86–87; Thomas 2014, 2015).
franciscan Missions in the american southwest
Initial prospects for missionization in the Southwest must have seemed bright.
“For Franciscans, who insisted that Indians live like Spaniards and tried to congregate them into towns if they did not, the apartment-dwelling Pueblos seemed
a godsend” (Weber 1999:4). The Spanish called these apparently permanent
towns—and the people who lived there—los pueblos, to distinguish them from
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the more mobile Apache and Navajos (Thomas 2013a, 2013b; see also Phillip O.
Leckman, chapter 3 in this volume).
Hispanic optimism was quickly shattered by the realities of fluid Pueblo
settlement strategies, often involving annual cycles of seasonal dispersal and
aggregation, with households frequently relocating among villages. This was
a problem for Franciscans seeking full-time sedentary populations, preferably
under the control of a single political leader. Juan de Oñate complained about
the lack of solid decision making and governance within Pueblo society: “In
government they are free, for although they have petty captains, they obey them
badly and in very few things” (quoted in Bolton 1908).
Oñate had put his finger squarely on a dilemma that would bedevil top-down
Hispanic colonial thinking for centuries: Who, exactly, are the Pueblo leaders?
Who, exactly, makes the decisions? Who, exactly, has the power to negotiate
commitments? Where, exactly, does the leadership hierarchy reside? Answering
these questions is critical for understanding how and why Spanish and Pueblo
trajectories intertwined.
Decision-Making, factionalism, and social agency
Pueblos lived as autonomous villagers, with their decision-making process ramified through differential access to esoteric knowledge and ceremonial objects,
social duties, and family/lineage alignments, and inequities in wealth and power
(Brandt 1994; McGuire and Saitta 1996). “To the extent that the Pueblos are govern at all,” cautions John Ware (2002:94), “they are governed by hierarchies of
priests—members of secret sodalities who exercise authority over the ritual, and
in many communities, the mundane aspects of everyday life.” At least among
the Hopi, society (sodality) chiefs had a considerably more important role in
political life than conventional ethnographies allow—they were not subservient assistants to village chiefs, but instead independent participants with the
groups of decision makers, with village chiefs being merely “first among equals”
(Whiteley 1988).
Lee Panich, arguing for “archaeologies of persistence,” emphasizes the
variability in how native communities negotiated their colonial world (Panich
2013:17). Matthew Liebmann, Robert Preucel, and Joseph Aguilar (chapter 5 in
this volume) highlight the pervasive factionalism in Pueblo societies. Citing
Edward Dozier (1966), they stress an “endemic … inherent opposition” to the
compulsory dictates of Pueblo authorities leading to the extraordinary level of
intracommunity friction before, during, and after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
At the core of the Pueblo Revolt were the northern Tiwa, Tewa, and Towa
and the eastern Keresan Pueblos. Acoma, Hopi, and Zuni also joined in, though
at least one Hopi town (Awat’ovi) had a strong Christian faction (Brooks 2013;
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Thomas 2014). The southern Tiwa were divided. The southernmost Pueblos, the
Piros and Tompiros, refused to follow along. And even in the heartland of the
rebellion, pro-Franciscan factions persisted, leading Po’pay and his colleagues to
take sometimes savage actions against those perceived to be wavering or disloyal
to the cause (Riley 1999:222–24). As Liebmann, Preucel, and Aguilar (chapter 5
in this volume) argue, the pan-Pueblo alliance “didn’t so much break down after
1680 as it was continually renegotiated by Pueblo leaders in response to changing
needs within the postrevolt community.”
Thomas E. Sheridan and Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa (chapter 9 in this volume)
likewise underscore the importance of social agency, local histories, and Pueblo
factionalism in their assessment of long-term oral accounts of Franciscan
“abusive guests.” Emphasizing the constellation of factors that triggered the antiSpanish rebellion at Hopi, these authors craft narratives from both indigenous
and Hispanic sources, stressing that each perspective has “strengths and limitations that need to be understood.” Whereas conventional accounts have long
privileged the friction caused when the pro-Catholic faction invited Franciscans
to return to Hopi after the Pueblo Revolt, Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa argue
that Hopi accounts paint a much more complex picture (see also Whiteley 2002).
Regardless, the end result was Pueblo factionalism at its worst—“destruction of
one of their own communities and the killing of their own people still sear Hopi
memories today.”
Pro- and anti-Franciscan factions arose in most Pueblo communities, though
the precise histories of each are difficult to discern. William Merrill (2009:130)
emphasizes that some indigenous Pueblo practices have similarities and parallels
to the Catholic rites introduced by Franciscans during colonial times. There is
also considerable evidence that power imbalance and gender inequality helped
spawn the resulting factions in colonial Pueblo societies. James Brooks (2013:754)
argues that Franciscan Catholicism provided a counterbalance to the Katsina
religion. Young single males—accorded lower rank and status than the headmen
of the medicine societies, sodalities, and Katsina societies—formed the core of
neophyte Franciscan enlistees throughout several Pueblo communities.
Katsina ritualism predominantly enhanced masculine ritual power, and in
most manifestations, provisions were made to include young males in the ritual
organization, to be formalized at puberty. Women were prohibited from acquiring Katsina knowledge among the eastern Pueblos, at Zuni and to some degree
at Hopi. The Pueblo Revolt further reflected the chasms separating traditionalists from those drawn to Catholicism, pulling not only on religious sympathies
but also “the inequities in power that had crosscut Pueblo society for generations” (Brooks 2013:756). Women likewise did not rank high among Po’pay’s
priorities for the new Pueblo world. It is small wonder that women in particular
were attracted to a Franciscan catechism that honored the lives and suffering of
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female saints. As Liebmann (2002, 2012:136–42) notes, during the post-Revolt era
in the Rio Grande area there are repeated representations of the Virgin Mary in
rock art associated with refugee pueblos.
The Pueblo world was structured in ways fostering factionalism and resistance to top-down changes ordered by Spanish colonial authorities (including
members of the Franciscan order). The resulting conflicts reflect a pervasive
social agency that privileged decisions by factions of actors who were simultaneously operating within contemporary colonial contexts, yet making critical
decisions for the future. While such social agency can indeed involve innovation
and change, there are also options to reiterate (in whole or in part) what was
done in the past ( Joyce and Lopiparo 2005:368–70).
MississiPPiaN coloNial worlDs
Comparing the Pueblo and Mississippian worlds, it is difficult to overemphasize
the deep-reaching contrasts in decision making and social agency. Hernando de
Soto’s expedition was structured along medieval lines of Hispanic honor and
hierarchy, with social status determined by a complex system of racial gradients
and classifications (Hudson 1997:10; Thomas 2013a, 2014). These sixteenth-century
Spaniards noticed immediately how closely Southeastern Indian societies were
“structurally similar to their own society . . . some Indians possessed more social
honor than others” (Hudson 1997:17, 23). The Spanish newcomers knew intrinsically how such hierarchies operated and they insisted that negotiations proceed
strictly between paramounts, with everyone else expected to fall in line.
“Inequality was institutionalized in the Southeast” (Hudson 1997:17). The
Muskogean-speaking descendants of pre-Columbian powerhouses at Etowah,
Moundville, and Ocmulgee lived in what John Swanton (1922:84) termed “a kind
of confederacy” built upon relatively short-term and brittle federations of chiefdoms characterized by long-distance trade networks and centralized leadership
(G. Jones 1978:179; Worth 2002, 2013a, 2013b). These contact-period Mississippian
polities were long committed to maintaining hereditary birthright based on
genealogical distance from a single noble ancestor. Dominants belonged to a privileged chiefly class, enjoying great status and wealth. Mississippian subordinates
supplied the labor and material resources to underwrite this hereditary inequality
(and in the case of the conscripted draft risked their lives in chiefly warfare).
As a result, Pueblo-style factionalism was not manifest in La Florida, and there
was no Mississippian equivalent to the “endemic” and “inherent opposition” to
Pueblo authorities (Dozier 1966). In the Southeast, disputes within individual
lineages were handled internally, and between-lineage misunderstandings were
handled by the caciques (locally termed micos) and other mechanisms of chiefly
governance (which varied considerably in terms of centrality and power).
Individual chiefdoms identified closely with their micos and were protective of
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chiefly authority. At least one of de Soto’s prisoners committed suicide rather
than betray his mico (Hudson 1976:223, 233). When irreparable disputes arose
between towns and lineages, they sometimes split to acquire distinctive social
identities, each with its own ceremonial center and ritual practices. Sometimes
chiefdoms fused, but in other cases they maintained separate council houses
(Blair and Thomas 2014).
In short, the inherently segmented sociopolitical structure of southwestern
Pueblos often resisted the sweeping changes brought about by colonial authority. In contrast, Mississippian long-term hierarchical and authoritarian structure
was vastly more compatible with the sixteenth-century Spanish colonial system
imported to the deep American South.
franciscan Missions in spanish florida
In the wake of the Hernando de Soto, Tristán de Luna, and Juan Pardo entradas,
the major chiefdoms of the deep interior collapsed into the “Mississippian shatter zone,” where the remnants would be spared direct or sustained contact with
Europeans for more than 130 years (Ethridge and Shuck-Hall 2009). A wholly
different scenario played out in La Florida, where (with rare exceptions) the soldiers and friars stuck close to the Atlantic coastline and Apalachee Province to
the southwest. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés established La Florida in 1565 as a strategic Spanish foothold to stave off further French settlements and to safeguard
the fleet of the Indies through the Bahama Channel as the treasure-laden ships
sailed back to Spain. This strategic significance ultimately ensured a relatively
stable source of royal funding, but it also required that Spanish colonists in St.
Augustine rely heavily on local Native American populations to buffer against
interruptions in external supply lines.
From the outset, Spanish colonists were dependent on the human and natural
riches of La Florida. With both slavery and abusive treatment of indigenous people explicitly banned, Menéndez de Avilés and his successors were constrained to
ensuring good treatment for indigenous peoples, acting with explicit permission
from all Native leaders. This is why the Europeans colonizing Spanish Florida
elected to become active participants in indigenous political dynamics, bolstering and reinforcing the political power of traditional Indian leaders. Hereditary
chiefs retained considerable internal autonomy over secular matters and ruled
using traditional lines of authority.
The seventeenth-century economy of Spanish Florida evolved into an exchange
network through which Native populations channeled their surplus food (primarily maize) and labor into colonial St. Augustine. Several indigenous Timucua,
Mocamo, and Guale caciques elected to pledge allegiance and obedience to
Spanish officials; others did not. Those siding with the newcomers annexed a
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powerful military ally in the Spanish garrison at St. Augustine. These Native paramounts not only generated new markets for their agricultural surplus, but they
also gained access to new tools and technologies to improve their yield.
Clearly, Franciscan friars in both Spanish Florida and the American Southwest
served as face-to-face primary agents of directed social change, but the two mission systems were vastly different. Amy Turner Bushnell has long argued that the
mission in Spanish Florida “was no theocracy. It was a fully functioning Native
town governed by an interlocking set of hereditary and elected native leaders”
(Bushnell 1994:28; see also Bushnell 2014). John Worth (2013a) takes things a step
further, arguing that Franciscan friars stationed in La Florida functioned in a
manner analogous to the modern Peace Corps, granted voluntary admittance
into Native American communities to assist in the transition to a new order.
While Franciscan missionaries remained at the head of the new church, they did
so only within the context of chiefly authority, accepting the continued practice
of ancient indigenous Mississippian religion alongside new Christian rites.
The friars occupied unique new roles in the hybrid colonial context of La
Florida, operating as cultural facilitators to help bridge the realities of preColumbian and colonial Spanish practice. Franciscans assumed economic
responsibilities (especially involving intensified agricultural production), negotiated new roles for the military, and interceded at times on behalf of the mission
Indians (often shoring up traditional Mississippian hierarchies). By accepting
conversion to Christianity and accepting resident Franciscan friars within the
local community’s jurisdiction, native chiefs could retain authority reckoned
through ancient Mississippian hereditary bloodlines, while still drawing on the
largesse of the Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown.
Social agency is evident in all quarters. Franciscans assigned to La Florida had
to accommodate religious practices other than those they knew previously or
necessarily condoned. At times, they objected and resisted. The Mississippian
micos and populace tolerated living conditions that differed from their longterm community practices from before. At times, they also objected and resisted
as well. But it is clear that Spanish colonial functionaries and hereditary Mississippian nobility alike enjoyed “considerable room for individual interpretation”
(Worth 1998:124)—practical politics and social agency in action (see also Blair
2015a, 2015b; Blair and Thomas 2014; Bushnell 2014; Thomas 2014, 2015).
Tribute, Materiality, and the Trappings of Chiefly Power
In the transition from entrada to permanent colonization, as elsewhere in the
New World, the Spanish crafted ways (some legal, some not) to extract tribute and exploit the indigenous populations. The encomienda (in which trustees
held a specific number of Natives in trust) and the repartimiento de indios (which
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distributed Native men to work on a rotating basis for the public good) were the
favored “legal” institutions. Some Spaniards also turned to the patently illegal
practice of taking Indian slaves—rarely among mission Indians (their labor was
exploited in other ways), that is to say, seizing “pagans” beyond the expanding
rim of Christendom (Weber 1994:124–29; see also Brooks 2002).
Tribute in the American Southwest was basically a one-way street, with Pueblo
households assigned the burden of producing foodstuffs and textiles for the newcomers (see Laurie D. Webster [chapter 4], this volume). By contrast, Atlantic
coastal Mississippians had paid and received tribute for centuries, and Guale
households knew no other way. Mississippian micos held important offices in
local political and religious hierarchies, with tangible social, political, and economic advantages. While inherited status was a necessary condition for leadership,
micos found themselves constantly required to shore up their power base through
effective manipulation of ritual, access to scarce trade items, and hospitality.
These paramounts had long maintained large-scale, regional systems of tribute, traveling extensively to conduct war, diplomacy, ritual, and participate in
complex, rank-enhancing marriage alliances. The trappings of chiefly office
included clothing, adornment, and regalia—long staples in the Mississippian
world well before European contact (Worth 1998:12–13). The preexisting emphasis on appropriate chiefly attire and the exchange of exotic luxury items such as
conch shell, polished greenstone, high-quality chert, and native copper were particularly important between neighboring chiefdoms in transactions that were
more symbolic than economic.
The colonial system in Spanish Florida reinforced such long-standing Mississippian power structures by channeling access to indigenous land and labor
through hereditary chiefs. By participating in the external colonial Spanish markets, traditional Guale leaders transformed agricultural surpluses, land, and
labor—all commodities under their control—into military backing and, perhaps
more important, the symbolically charged Spanish goods, including cloth, tools,
and beads. In this way, the caciques positioned themselves to receive tribute from
both the Spaniards and their own people. “In effect, Spanish Florida became a
sort of modified paramount chiefdom through which the chiefly matrilineages
of destabilized chiefdoms bolstered their own internal power by subordinating
themselves to the Spanish crown” (Worth 2002:46; see also Pearsall 2013).
The pivotal importance of material goods and native labor thus carried over
from precontact to colonial times, with selected micos now enjoying exclusive
access to new tribute items and prestige items to enhance their chiefly authority
(Hall 2009; Francis and Kole 2011:91). To illustrate:
•
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Early in the colonial era, gifts to caciques included fine woolen friar’s cloth,
oriental cotton cloth, pressed linen, stockings, silk buttons and braids, Chinese
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taffeta, and even firearms such as arquebuses (despite Spanish colonial prohibitions elsewhere; Worth 1998:24).
• Fray Francisco de Ávila was taken captive during the Guale Uprising of 1597; his
ransom consisted (almost entirely) of ritually charged items of symbolic tribute: six knives with yellow handles, three bundles of glass beads, six hatchets,
one dozen iron axes, four muskets, and a single white blanket (Francis and Kole
2011:table 6).
• In the 1670s, Governor Hita Salazar reported that the Indians preferred to be
paid weekly by items of European manufacture, which he judged to have curiously low monetary value—hawks bells in two sizes, knives with black or white
hafts, blue or multicolored beads, sheet brass, lengths of blue or red cloth,
razors, and scissors (Bushnell 1994:122).
The Spanish often scoffed at these tribute items as simply trifles and trinkets being circulated among naive indigenous leaders. But to the Mississippian
micos and those they ruled, these “trinkets” were not merely tokens of Spanish
largess. In many ways, such gifts “represented the ‘cement’ for the colonial system, providing local and regional caciques with visible symbols of chiefly rank
and status by way of access to exotic Spanish clothing, food and other items.
Chiefs who failed to return from St. Augustine with such gifts might have been
far less likely to overlook the more insidious consequences of missionization”
(Worth 1998:137).
In effect, these knives with special handles, the lengths of blue and red cloth,
and multicolored beads had become sanctified and ritualized out of the Spanish
world of commodities and into the Mississippian realm of priceless non-commodities.
Kopytoff (1986:64–68) terms this process “singularization,” reflecting the need
for societies “to set apart a certain portion of their environment, marking it
as ‘sacred.’” Through ritual practice, such commodities became “singularized”
because they no longer belonged to the usual economic sphere. Such symbolically sacred things include public lands, monuments, state art collections,
paraphernalia of political power, royal residences, chiefly insignia, and ritual
objects. As noncommodities, they are “priceless” “in the full possible sense
of the term, ranging from the uniquely valuable to the uniquely worthless.”
Symbolic authority typically asserts itself by reserving and exercising the right
to “singularize” objects through an extension of sacred power as projected onto
“sacralized objects . . . [and] biographies of things can make salient what might
otherwise remain obscure” (Kopytoff 1986:67, 73–75).
The centrality of tribute items and their role in maintaining the Mississippian
chiefly order contrasts vividly with the intra-Puebloan factional egalitarianism
that characterized the American Southwest. Paramount chiefs of La Florida
competed with one another—sometimes violently—to enter into the Franciscan
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mission system; by courting the Hispanic newcomers, they defined novel ways
to maintain and continue their Mississippian practices—employing ostentatious
displays of wealth and status items to reinforce their hereditary status. Oddly
enough, the Franciscan mission system provided Mississippian polities a way of
projecting past practices into an uncertain future.
the Guale revolt of 1597
Fray Gerónimo de Oré was not in La Florida in late fall 1597, when Guale Indians
burned the churches of coastal Georgia and murdered five Franciscan friars
stationed along the coast. But Oré’s (1619) remarkable Martyrs of Georgia chronicled the details of this bloody indigenous revolt against the Spanish and long
remained the authoritative voice of the 1597 unrest.
Until very recently, Borderlands historiographers have been unanimous in
accepting Oré’s reading of this event as a violent indigenous revolt against
Spanish rule—basically an unsuccessful southeastern rehearsal of the Pueblo
Revolt that would play out eight decades later. Virtually all modern treatments
of the 1597 unpleasantness emphasize Franciscan interference in Guale affairs
and missionary opposition to the practice of polygamy (Pearsall 2013). This
historiography singles out a Guale Indian named Don Juan as the principal
leader against the Spanish, and in most recent accounts of the episode, it is
simply referred to as “Juanillo’s revolt” (e.g., Gannon 1965; Hoffman 2002;
Lanning 1935).
Extensive new documentary and archaeological research has demonstrated
that the Guale uprising of 1597 was not an indigenous rebellion against Spanish
authority at all (Blair and Thomas 2014; Francis and Kole 2011; Thomas 2013a,
2013b; see also Pearsall 2013; Worth 2002, 2013a, 2013b). Instead, the root cause
of unrest actually reflects the underlying tensions and conflicts between indigenous chiefdoms competing for favored status within La Florida. The Spanish
colony at St. Augustine had morphed into another powerful Mississippian
chiefdom, simultaneously allying with, and competing against, existing Guale,
Mocamo, and Timucua chiefdoms. To maintain hegemony during the late sixteenth century, paramount Guale chiefs had become dependent not only on
alliances and tribute relationships from lesser Guale polities, but also support
from the Spanish government.1
comparing the Guale and Pueblo revolts
Dozens of Franciscans were martyred in the Pueblo and Guale uprisings, but they
perished for very different reasons. The Pueblo Revolt was about overt rejection
of forced conversions and tribute demands, crosscutting existing communities
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of practice and involving many different kinds of people. The friars became the
focus of the violence because the conflict was aimed at driving the Spanish away
forever. These events “ultimately created a Pueblo people, who had not existed
as such prior to the revolt . . . both women and men helped to create this new
world out of old forms” (Pearsall 2013:1026).
By contrast, the social agency and materiality that powered the Guale
Rebellion of 1597 reflect an internecine struggle about chiefly power (whether
mico or Franciscan), a conflict between embattled paramounts locked in bloody
traditional warfare. The friars were caught in the middle because the conflict
centered on retaining and enhancing favored-nation status within the Franciscan
mission system. Coercion and involuntary constraints certainly existed within
the missions of Spanish Florida, but such had been the reality for subordinates
living in the Mississippian world centuries before the Spanish entradas. In La
Florida, both colonists and indigenous people had joined into a social, economic,
and political hierarchy that bore considerably more similarity to Mississippianstyle chiefdoms than Spanish settlements in the rest of the New World.
Social rank and status remained primary among the Guale people, including
those neophytes living in the Franciscan missions of La Florida. The specific
conditions that ignited the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 did not exist in Spanish Florida,
because of the direct and highly public continuities of precolonial practices. This
Spanish colonial–Mississippian hybrid continued to provide the external support
necessary to maintain the authority of hereditary chiefs, who kept clinging to
time-worn vestiges of traditional rank and privilege “even in the face of near
total demographic collapse—along with English-sponsored raids—surviving
missions retreated into the shadow of St. Augustine . . . [and] chiefly lineages
still survived. Ultimately, the Spanish colonial strategy served to preserve these
ancient social systems in a way unparalleled by other forms of European interaction” (Worth 2002:59).
architectUre as social aGeNcy
The colonial period of New Mexico has long been approached from perspective
of informed (if occasionally heavy-handed) readings of textual evidence from
the colonial era. So viewed, the Spanish colonial period witnessed a nearly complete disruption of Puebloan society—a landscape in which virtually all Pueblo
Indians became Christians, fully subjugated by Franciscans until a handful of
rebels and troublemakers touched off the unpleasantness of 1680. This view
was fostered by France Scholes (1937, 1942), among many others, and continues
to be articulated by those who tended to accept the documentary evidence at
face value (Ivey and Thomas 2005). As Sheridan and Koyiyumptewa (chapter 9
in this volume) emphasize, sometimes these documents can be accurate and
sometimes they are not.
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In fact, several contributors to this volume argued that simple European
domination/indigenous resistance models of colonialism must be replaced by
agent-centered and practice-based approaches (see also Blair 2015b; Blair and
Thomas 2014; Panich 2013:108–9). Matthew Liebmann and Melissa Murphy
(Liebmann and Murphy 2010:7, 17–18) highlight problems with the previous
“Grand Narratives” constructed centuries after the fact and viewing Spanish colonialism in the Americas as a “clash of cultures.” They persuasively argue that
modern discourse must transcend these “oversimplified notions of domination
and resistance [implying] seemingly self-evident notions of (dominant) cores
and (dominated) peripheries, active colonizers and passive colonized and the
false dichotomy of indigenous survival versus extinction.” These authors likewise criticize the recent generation of so-called resistance studies as flattening
out the past, granting social agency to indigenous resistors, but denying equivalent agency to the colonizers. Liebmann and Murphy (2010) call for “bottom up”
considerations of colonization, with an explicit recognition of individual and/or
collective actions for all players in the colonial communities of practice.
To bring this conversation back to materiality, it is useful to examine object
agency as expressed in the architecture of ritual. Although ritual behavior can be
everywhere, some ritual practices operate at scales more archaeologically visible
than others (Mills and Walker 2008:22). Here, I will isolate several such “ritually charged” spaces in the colonial Southwest and Southeast, paying particular
attention to the choices being made about reiterating the past or choosing not
to do so ( Joyce and Lopiparo 2005:368).
Colonial architecture juxtaposes ritually charged spaces in new contexts. The
Spanish colonial use of space was constrained by the utopian Ordinances of
the Indies, guidelines for town planning in the New World (though rarely practiced on the Iberian Peninsula). Leckman (chapter 3 in this volume) explores
how Spanish colonial spatial perceptions played out at the archaeological site
of Paako, where the Ordinances provided a bridge for incorporating the basics
of Iberian town planning with long-term indigenous secular (and sometimes
ritual) architectures.
Situated within this larger framework, Franciscan custom involved longestablished architectural conventions that generally played out, in one form or
another, in the missions of the Spanish Borderlands, with the entire mission
complex—not just the church and friary, but also the offices, storerooms, workshops, sheds, barns, pens, herds, and fields—becoming virtually a self-contained
community. This was certainly the intent of the design, derived from over 800
years of monastic tradition and four centuries of Franciscan development.
The Franciscan plan varied considerably in medieval Europe and in renaissance Mexico. Individual friars traveling into the Spanish Borderlands carried
with them accumulated monastic experiences. Franciscan friar’s practice, then,
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reflected a degree of social agency in constructing their generation of mission
architecture and in the way in which the Catholic rituals would be conducted—
based on personal experience in the churches attended as a child, the mission
colleges, and the other missions visited, all of which molded idealized plans in
the minds of a friars, influencing what was built at the new missions.
The missions of La Florida reflect a hybrid blend of Franciscan and Mississippian spaces. At Mission San Luis de Talimali archaeologists discovered a huge
council house (buhio) capable of seating 2,000–3,000 people inside (McEwan
2014a, 2014b; Shapiro and Hann 1990). Long the most important feature of
Mississippian settlements, the council house functioned variously as the seat of
chiefly government, a community meeting place, a place for Black Drink ceremonialism, a locus for interacting with Spanish authorities, and a place to house
enemy scalps. The buhio at San Luis fronted the main mission plaza (directly
across from the mission church)—the material consequence of a unique blending of indigenous and Franciscan place logic.
Franciscans in Spanish Florida were also confronted by the ball game, a centuries-old custom commonly played between competing villages (with 50 to 100
participants to a side). Pelota games typically lasted a half day with omens and
rituals attending every aspect of the game; serious injuries were not uncommon (Bushnell 1978). A debate raged within the Franciscan community about
whether the ball game was compatible with Christianity—was the ball game a
simple athletic contest or a survival of pagan demonic beliefs? The Franciscans
initially supported the ball-game complex, arguing that attending the ball games
encouraged sedentism among neophytes and increased attendance at mass. The
Governor of St. Augustine also reluctantly supported the practice under pressure from caciques anxious to keep tribute relationships and responsibilities
intact. But Apalachee paramounts eventually prevailed with arguments claiming that these ancient Mississippian did indeed reflect “pagan” beliefs, especially
the symbolism of sun, thunder, and rain deities. When the Apalachee caciques
insisted that such non-Christian practices could not be permitted in their mission communities, the Franciscans eventually complied.
The ritualized architecture of La Florida thus reflected a tightly negotiated
and sometimes fluid hybrid of Franciscan ideals played out in the context of
continuing Mississippian beliefs and materials.
the kiva as an object lesson in social agency
Coronado’s entrada encountered a ritually charged space they called estufas,
which today is better known as the kiva. These underground chambers served
multiple functions in the Pueblo world, including Katsina dances and rituals and clan or social group meeting rooms. In her dynamite study of colonial
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materiality, Webster (chapter 4 in this volume) addresses the Southwestern kiva
as locus of textile making. The shifting tribute demands imposed by the encomienda required that Pueblo households make twice-yearly payments of cotton
blankets, hides, or corn to encomenderos, including Franciscans, who sometimes
exchanged Pueblo-made textiles southward to Mexico for church furnishings.
Among the Rio Grande Pueblos, these tribute requirements ultimately caused
significant shifts in the sexual division of labor, and the timing and contexts of textile production, to say nothing of the long-distance patterns of textile exchange.
But more isolated Hopi communities, while still impacted by colonial demands,
maintained long-term practices of textile production into modern times.
Webster’s impressive chapter (4) examines the materiality of textile production by focusing on the nature of kiva practice and architecture at Hopi. Watson
Smith (1972:76, 75) argued that kivas were abandoned 1630–80 due to missionary
pressure, but Hopi oral tradition suggests that kivas were still used throughout this period (Courlander 1971:160). By tracking diagnostic loom holes in the
Pueblo V kiva and nonkiva spaces at Awat’ovi (Smith 1972), Webster concludes
that men did indeed manufacture of textiles for tribute on upright looms inside
kivas throughout the Franciscan interval, with at least tacit approval by friars.
But encomienda pressures likewise appear to have fostered weaving in outdoor,
nontraditional settings including public plazas (perhaps reflecting manufacture
by women as well). If so, then it would seem the cultural biographies of Hopi
textiles maybe have temporarily shifted from their ritualized, noncommodity
(“priceless”) function to a temporary “commodified” status appropriate for economic tribute (Kopytoff 1986). After the expulsion of the Spanish, the highly
gendered system of textile production was “re-sacralized” to long-term Hopi
practices (if it ever really changed at all).
Webster (chapter 4) concludes that the geographical remoteness and marginal
environment of the Hopi mesas shielded these communities from many of the
Spanish labor demands experienced by Rio Grande pueblos, thereby affording
them more freedom to maintain precontact ritualized practices. Among the
Rio Grande pueblos and elsewhere, more intensive day-to-day interaction with
Spanish authorities and the resulting material consequences reflect multiple
responses within the ritually charged sacred spaces of the kiva.
the theory of superposition
The Southwestern Grand Narrative was most eloquently developed by Ross
Montgomery, in an evolved theological metaphor he termed the “theory of
superposition” and applied without reservation to Franciscan and indigenous
architectural practice throughout colonial New Mexico (Montgomery 1949:143–
37; see also Brew 1949:65–67; Ivey 1998:126). The “superposition” argument holds
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that whenever a prerevolt kiva is associated with a church and convento in colonial New Mexico, the Franciscans must have deliberately built their church over
that earlier sacred space to obliterate the pagan past.
Harvard University excavations at Awat’ovi exposed portions of the sacristy and sanctuary of the church at San Bernardo de Aguatubi in Room 788.
Montgomery predicted at the time that a desanctified kiva should lie buried
immediately below (Smith 1972:59–66). To test this hypothesis, a small pit was
dug through the sanctuary near the steps leading up to the predella (the altar
platform), revealing the top of a masonry wall with a wooden beam emplaced
in a socket, buried 1.25 meters below—clearly evidence of the kiva predicted by
Montgomery. This was pretty good science as practiced in late 1930s, with an a
priori hypothesis expressed and tested on independent data.
Reflecting the Grand Narrative, archaeologists working at Awat’ovi concluded
that Franciscans had deliberately and symbolically subjugated Hopi religion
by erecting a Christian altar over the sacred ground of the past. Sheridan and
Koyiyumptewa (chapter 9 in this volume) agree that by building the church at
Awat’ovi directly over a “perfectly preserved kiva,” these “abusive guests” were
proclaiming that “the Christian God was superior to Hopi gods, that Christian
sacred spaces were submerging Hopi sacred spaces.” Hopi traditional history
and Harvard archaeology thus concur. This specific interpretation—and the
larger issue of ritual superposition across colonial New Mexico—has generally
been accepted and has not been criticized in print until James Ivey specifically
questioned the hypothesis of deliberate superposition at Awat’ovi (1998; see also
Ivey and Thomas 2005:211; Thomas 2014).
There is no question that Church 2 at Awat’ovi was built over two intentionally backfilled kivas, one with ceiling beams intact. But does this archaeological
fact reflect deliberate superposition? Relative to Church 2 architecture, both buried kivas were offset in an “untidy location,” which Ivey attributes entirely to
chance alone—suggesting that other similar kivas are probably buried nearby,
but the excavators did not look for them. He points out that Church 2 was only a
temporary structure, soon to be replaced by a more impressive church building.
Did the friars at Awat’ovi had sufficient power and agency to destroy publically
one or more kivas then insultingly erect a new temporary Christian church over
the top? Ivey argues that the emplacement of Church 2 was the outcome of
seventeenth-century Franciscan negotiations with both pro- and anti-Catholic
factions at Hopi. Together, they must have agreed to decommission the kiva
spaces followed by a careful, orderly, and respectful backfilling process.2
Aside from the contested kivas at Awat’ovi, there are no other examples of
kivas being deliberately buried beneath Catholic churches in New Mexico, and
there is every reason to question the Theory of Superposition as applied to the
colonial Southwest (Ivey 1998:132; Ivey and Thomas 2005).
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reverse superposition
The archaeology of Pecos Pueblo provides another telling example of how
the Grand Narrative has continued to color interpretation of Spanish colonial
archaeology in the American Southwest.
Shortly after the ruins at Pecos were gifted to the National Park Service
in 1965, Jean Pinkley and Alden Hayes excavated (or reexcavated) almost the
entire Franciscan convent, finding a well-preserved kiva buried inside one of
the rooms. The associated artifact inventory suggested a century-long window
for the construction date of the kiva (roughly 1620 through 1720). Rather than
address the ambiguity, Hayes instead enlisted the concept of superposition
(in reverse). He argued that after demolishing the church and convent in 1680,
rebellious Pueblos symbolically reclaimed their land by deliberately emplacing
one or more kivas in formerly sacred Franciscan space (Hayes 1974:23–35; see
also Ivey and Thomas 2005:211). John Kessell (1979:239) accepted this interpretation of the archaeological evidence, likewise attributing the Pecos convento
kiva to postrevolt fervor, when victorious rebels took over the church space and
dug a new kiva inside the convento: “The symbolism was clear. The ancient
ones had overcome. The saints, mere pieces of rotted wood, were dead.”
More recent archaeological evidence suggests a more plausible alternative.
Courtney White’s (1996) reanalaysis of the bricks and adobe mortar sequence
at Pecos makes it clear that the “convento kiva” was constructed during the
interval 1630–40—squarely during the height of the Franciscan involvement at
Pecos. As at Awat’ovi, it seems highly unlikely that anti-Catholic factions could
have built such an outlaw convento kiva with the pro-Franciscan factions still
in place (Ivey 1998:125–26, 133). It seems more likely that the so-called postrevolt
kiva at Pecos was actually constructed almost a half-century before the Pueblo
Revolt—apparently with the participation and approval of Franciscans. Perhaps
the convento kiva at Pecos served as training rooms and chapels for mission
neophytes—an initial training practice pursued “with great caution” of influential “principal caciques and captains of the pueblo” (Ivey 1998:22; see also Riley
1999:124; Weber 2009).
Ivey (1988, 1998) argues that the prerevolt convento kiva was not unique
to Pecos, citing quite parallel structures documented at the Salinas missions
of Abó and Quarai (Ivey 1988, 1998:134–38). The kiva at Abó (Figure 15.1) was
precisely centered inside the garth (convento patio) during the construction of
the first church in 1622–28. Construction of the second church, about 1647–52,
disrupted the plan of the convent plaza, and the kiva was unroofed and intentionally filled (see Toulouse 1949 for an alternative interpretation invoking the
Grand Narrative). A square convento kiva was also constructed in 1626 at nearby
Quarai (Ivey 1988).3
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fiGUre 15.1. Plan view of the Spanish mission at Abó (New Mexico) after its first reconstruction circa 1652. Note the circular “Franciscan kiva” (built between 1623 and 1645), carefully
centered inside the convento, adjacent to the church (after Ivey et al. 1991:fig. 4; reproduced
courtesy of the National Park Service).
convento and visita kivas: historicizing the Mission experience
The fact of convento kivas underscores the importance of historicizing the
colonial experience—not as a monolithic “clash of cultures,” but rather as an
outcome of specific histories of “accommodation, alliance, ambiguity and
ambivalence” on the part of active agents from diverse backgrounds (Liebmann
and Murphy 2010:18).
Sometime after New Mexico shifted from a proprietary colony to a royal colony (in 1610), Franciscans followed a plan of more “careful integration” when
establishing new mission churches. This was a time of deliberately increased
religious tolerance, and there are several recorded cases of replacing friars who
were too aggressive in handling neophytes (e.g., Kessell 1979:121; Ivey 1998:129–30,
148nn40, 41). During the interval 1610–45, colonial officials approved and encouraged construction of convento and visita kivas throughout the New Mexico
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Province, creating familiar places within the Franciscan mission space where
children and others could be taught the basics of Christianity, the catechism, and
Spanish culture. David Weber (2009:10–11) concurs, pointing out that (at least
during in the early seventeenth century), Franciscans introduced churches into
the Southwest only “gingerly” to avoid triggering a backlash among the Pueblos,
who vastly outnumbered the newcomers, thus demonstrating “restraint and
flexibility that had long European antecedents.”
The convento kiva is one of the many “creative architectural provisions”
employed by Franciscans throughout the New World, including sixteenth-century “Franciscan mosques” in Mexico (Ivey 1998:123–24). Convento and visita
kivas apparently went out of use sometime after 1645, in part because the missions of New Mexico were past the initial phases of proselytization. Spanish
colonial policy stiffened further in the early 1660s, when Franciscans hardened
their policies to suppress the Katsina activities at Isleta and Pecos, when “indigenous idols” were smashed and kivas deliberately destroyed (Kessell 1979:111; Ivey
1998:144,147n6; Brooks 2013).
Rejection of the Grand Narrative means that understanding the colonial
period in the American Southwest no longer requires that either Pueblos or
Franciscans have passive roles. The tired dominance/revolution dichotomy
grew out an early twentieth-century reading of the documentary research. A
more contemporary rereading of the same documents suggests some alternative interpretations, including the kiva as a hybrid colonial form.
the MissioN bell as social aGeNt
Objects such as Mississippian tribute and Hopi textiles have genealogies and itineraries, some more generalized, but others quite specific and varied (Gosden
and Marshall 1999:171). At different points in their life histories, these same
objects may also be vested with transient values and meaning (Kopytoff 1986;
Joyce 2012a; Joyce and Gillespie 2015; Mills and Walker 2008:10–11). The rest of
this chapter considers some of the cultural itineraries experienced by selected
mission bells in the American Southeast and Southwest.
Mission bells had a critical importance throughout Spanish American missions,
with the churches sporting a campanario (or bell tower), which functioned as a
“community timepiece” calling the faithful to their evening and morning devotions (Foster 1960:159; Bushnell 1994:82). Franciscan friar and historian Maynard
Geiger described how the church bells ruled the Mission Santa Barbara (Alta
California) landscape as they “proclaimed the Lord’s Day and feasts of saints.
Their peels were heard on occasions of national rejoicing. They were rung to
greet governors and other distinguished visitors. They lent a merry note to weddings, and in doleful tones lamented the departure from life of both the great
and the humble. Thrice daily they called men to prayer ‘at morn, at noon, at
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eventide’ . . . in fact, the entire day at the missions was regulated by the bell:
prayer, work, and sleep” (Geiger 1956:1). The tolling bells arranged the precisely
timed life rhythms of the mission and its community of souls.
Consistent with long-term Spanish tradition, New World mission bells were
consecrated and blessed in a ceremony similar to baptism—typically involving
exorcisms; application of water, salt, and holy oils; bestowing of a Christian
name (after a specific saint, but sometimes for living individuals); and the naming of godparents. One of the original church bells at Mission Santa Barbara
(Alta California) was so “baptized” in 1833 during the wedding of Doña María
de las Augustias de la Guerra, who became the madrina (godmother) to this bell
(Walsh 1934:79).
The power of mission bells extends far beyond their role as community timekeeper, with the metonymic oppositions of “life under the bell” and “break
up the bells” signaling their metaphorical life and death (after Kopytoff 1986;
Gosden and Marshall 1999). Reflecting his personal Franciscan beliefs, Maynard
Geiger described the ecclesiastical genealogies of church bells at Mission Santa
Barbara (and elsewhere): “Some of the bells played themselves out in the faithful
performance of their musical calling. Others sustained injury during the convulsions of nature. Some found an unmarked resting place. Many remain to tell the
story of their happy usefulness. Some, while still speaking in silvery tones, are
mute with regard to their origin. Thus bells, like humans, are a varied lot” (Geiger
1956:1; emphasis added).
Indeed, like humans, most mission bells led more complex existences than
implied in a simple life-and-death dichotomy. Many church bells had colorful
life histories, genealogies, and itineraries across the Spanish Borderlands. The
church bells of Spanish Florida had such social agency that during a 1575 trip to
the establish the earliest missions, friars found that merely touching a small bell
attracted the caciques and their subordinates in great numbers, offering themselves for conversion and baptism (Bushnell 1994:42).
life under the bell (bajo campana)
The mission bell has been taken as a “metonym” —a figure of speech identifying
thing or a concept not by its own name, but rather by something closely associated—for the entire Franciscan mission enterprise (Bushnell 1986). “Hollywood”
is a common metonym denoting film industry in southern California and “the
White House” often signals the executive branch of the United States government (if not the entire government itself ).
The metonym bajo campana (beneath the bell) reflects the expectation throughout the Franciscan ecclesiastical world that the greater mission communities
should live within earshot of the campanario. A 1688 account from St. Augustine
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(Spanish Florida) cautions that when neophyte Christians run off into the woods,
every effort must be made to find and “reduce them under the bell of their doctrinas” (Bushnell 1994:96). The metonym “under the bell” has even achieved
considerable currency in the archaeological literature of the Spanish Borderlands
(e.g., Liebmann 2006, 2012:chap. 2; Lycett 2004; Milanich 2006:chap. 6;).
Putting the bell into rebellion
For friars and pro-Franciscan converts living within the “the missioned soundscape” (Mahar 2013), the church bell was a full-fledged member of the community,
reflecting a power that blurred the lines between person and thing. But for
anti-Christians living in these same communities, mission bells had become a
nuisance—literally tolling every facet of their lives, tell them when to eat and
sleep, wake and work, pray and attend mass.
Mission bells rang across the Pueblo world for eight decades, meaning that
virtually every revolutionary in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 knew no other existence. These same mission bells were most famously contested by Po’pay, the
Tewa firebrand from San Juan who urged the Pueblo rebels in 1680 to “break up
and burn the images of the holy Christ, the Virgin Mary and the other saints, the
crosses, and everything pertaining to Christianity . . . burn the temples, break up
the bells, and separate from the wives whom God had given them in marriage and
take those whom they desired” (Hackett and Shelby 1942:247; emphasis added).
As the violent counterpart to “life under the bell,” the metonym of “breaking
up the bells” has become a commonplace figure of speech to denote indigenous
rebellions against Franciscan authority.
The materiality of both metonyms is confirmed across the Spanish Borderlands. As the Pueblo Revolt spread throughout the Southwest, mission bells
were often yanked from the campanario and smashed to fragments; other cases,
however, they were protected and revered (e.g., Brew 1949:56; Brooks 2013:756–
57; Courlander 1971:163; Hackett and Shelby 1942:1:96, 2: 240; 2:203–6; Kessell,
Hendricks, and Dodge 1992:549–550; Liebmann 2012:225n12: Lippard and Ranney
2010:202). Examples of both treatments:
•
•
•
398
At Santo Domingo, the church, convent, sacristy, and trappings of the church
were initially left unharmed until Po’pay specifically ordered their destruction.
Rebels at Isleta expressed contempt for Franciscan religion by converting the
burned-out church into a cow pen; but the priest’s vestments, candlesticks,
books, and mission bells were carefully curated, unharmed.
The church at Hopi was totally destroyed, but the mission bells were removed
from the village and sealed up in a crypt below the mesa. A line of stones
was laid out atop the mesa and tribal history records that elders sighted along
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•
•
•
•
the stone markers to be certain that drifting stand still covered the unbroken
church bells.
At San Felipe, rebels smashed a hole in one side of their mission bell, then sank
it into the Rio Grande.
The Zias drowned their bells in the Jemez River.
Bells were shattered at Hawikku, Sandia, and Senecú, and the fragments were
disposed in cemeteries.
At Senecú, Alamillo, and Zuni, the rebellious Pueblos “castrated” their bells by
removing their clappers.
Po’pay’s edict to “break up the bells” likewise has a distinct materiality.
For more than a century, archaeologists have found fractured mission bells at
sites associated with the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Don Juan Oñate brought two
church bells to New Mexico in 1598, and both were recovered in excavations near
the site of San Gabriel (Howe 1956). R. G. Montgomery et al. (1949:55, fig. 6) illustrate the two bell fragments they found, superimposing the images on a church
bell then hanging at Acoma; they argued that the Awat’ovi and Acoma mission
bells had been cast in the same mold. Adolph Bandelier (1881:40–41) reported seeing a single bell fragment from the church at Pecos, and Alfred Kidder (1932:306)
excavated eight additional mission bell fragments. Nels Nelson excavated a large
mission bell fragment in at San Cristobal (Nelson 1914:59), as illustrated in Figure
15.2. Nelson also found another single mission bell fragment at San Marcos; my
own excavations recovered five additional bell fragments (Ivey and Thomas 2005;
Thomas 2014, n.d.). More than two dozen mission bell fragments are known
from San Lazaro, including four refits and two showing damage from deliberate
breakage (Fenn 2004:170–71, fig. 51, plates 111 and 112).
Each mission bell has a unique life history, and the best known of these come
from Pecos and the Galisteo Basin, where the factionalism is well documented
(Bandelier 1881; Brooks 2013; Kessell 1979:232; Levine 1999; Riley 1999:223), with
pro-Franciscan neophytes living at the southern end of Pecos, literally in the
shadows of the church, and more traditional anti-Hispanic factions residing in
the older northern section (Liebmann, Preucel, and Aguilar, chapter 5 in this
volume). Pecos remained a divided pueblo even after the Spaniards were gone in
1680 (Kessell 1979:7, 26, 223; Kidder 1958:1008).
The genealogies of these particular bell fragments are intriguing. After initial manufacture in a foundry, the bells of Pecos were sanctified by Franciscan
ritual, then hung and rung in the campanario at Nuestra Señora de los Angeles
de Porciúncula. Kidder (1932:306) is doubtless correct when concluding that
the eight church bell fragments he recovered “date from the Pueblo Revolt of
1680 when the mission was sacked.” But the perpetrator is unclear (perhaps the
anti-Franciscan faction at Pecos, or perhaps Tanoans from the Galisteo Basin).
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fiGUre 15.2. This mission bell was found at San Cristóbal Pueblo in New Mexico’s Galisteo
Basin (Nelson 1914:59). The bell was almost certainly broken during the Pueblo Revolt of
1680, then subsequently recovered and deliberately placed by pro-Franciscan factions within
a “secret kiva” near the destroyed mission church (photograph by Nicholas Triozzi, courtesy of
the American Museum of Natural History).
Another Pecos bell was taken hostage by San Cristóbal rebels as a war trophy,
then “killed” in the nearby mountains (Bandelier 1881). Figure 15.2 shows the bell
piece found by Nelson in a “secret” mission-period kiva at San Cristóbal, where
it was apparently being venerated. Nelson (1914:57–59) mused over whether the
Pecos and San Cristóbal bell fragments might match up, and we’re currently
working on such possibilities (Thomas 2014, n.d.).
These object itineraries echo the words of Po’pay about “breaking up the
bells” and tell conflicted tales about the internal civil war waged during and
after the Pueblo Revolt. While I am unaware of precisely parallel oratory from
the Southeastern Borderlands, that same metonymic refrain to “break up the
bells” must have resonated in the Muskogean and Apalachee languages because
violently fractured bell fragments marked the advent of indigenous uprisings
across La Florida (e.g., Francis and Kole 2011; Jones 1970; Jones and Shapiro 1990;
Thomas 1988, 2014, 2015).
the MissioN bells of saNta cataliNa De GUale
So it is that powerful, singularized objects such as mission bells accumulate histories reflecting the social processes of value creation between people and things:
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“As people and objects gather time, movement and change, they are constantly
transformed, and these transformations of person and object are tied up with
one another” (Gosden and Marshall 1999:169–70). Relating materiality to their
life histories, it is possible to track the making and unmaking of objects through
recourse to so-called fragmentation theory by exploring breakage patterns evident in the archaeological record (Chapman 2000; Chapman and Gaydarska
2006; Knappett 2012:199).
The importance of a signal object and its fragmentation was manifestly obvious during our excavations at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale (1570–1680),
where we recovered 163 bronze church bell fragments from the mission complex
on St. Catherines Island (Georgia). Most of the bell fragments came from the
atrio immediately outside the church doorway, throughout the central mission
plaza, and along the eastern wall of the friary; a few came from the surrounding
pueblo part of the mission. Each bell fragment from Mission Santa Catalina has
a specific “object provenience”—the original “find spot,” documented in detail
during the excavation process (Bushnell 1994; Thomas 1988, 1993).
Understanding the genealogies and itineraries of these objects requires a close
consideration of object provenance as well—clarifying the sequences of ownership and meaning, ideally from creation through the social lives and circulation
to establish networks of connections between persons and these things (Blair
2015a, 2015b; Chapman 2000; Joyce 2012a, 2012b: 8). Here is my reconstruction
of the multifarious itineraries and genealogies of the mission bells of Santa
Catalina de Guale, from the sixteenth century to today.
bells: from commodities to singularized objects
When Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sailed in 1565 to establish the St. Augustine
colony and the attendant mission chains, he loaded eight church bells aboard
San Pelayo, his flagship. A hurricane struck while the great ship was unloading
and heretic mutineers took control, immediately setting set sail for Europe. San
Pelayo and its remaining cargo sank somewhere off the coast of Denmark—
perhaps with the mission bells still on board (Bushnell 1986; Lyon 1976:91, 128).
Maybe those bells still lie at the bottom of the North Sea, but it is also possible
that one (or more) one of them ended up at missions on the Georgia Coast.
One way or another, the bells of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale began their
cultural itinerary in a European foundry. As commodities, these bells circulated
through the economic system and were exchanged for other things, usually
money (Kopytoff 1986:64–68). One such client was His Majesty, the king of
Spain, who provided all new colonial missions with a “start-up kit” containing
the means necessary to conduct divine worship—especially the vestments, ornaments, and mission bells, plus remittances for the sacraments (Bushnell 1994:84).
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Somewhere between foundry and campanario, the church bells destined for
doctrinal service at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale were transformed through
liturgical protocols from the realm of economic commodities to the world of
inalienable power. Like Spanish tribute items being transformed into ritualized chiefly Mississippian prestige items, these large bells became “singularized”
through Franciscan ritual practice into priceless noncommodities, reflecting
the extension of sacred power projected onto “sacralized objects” (Kopytoff
1986:64–68, 73–75).
Franciscan Fray Maynard Geiger (quoted earlier) lyrically expressed how the
mission bells of Santa Barbara were “singularized” through baptism and naming,
creating distinct object identities and preparing each bell to fulfill its own unique
destiny. But Franciscan missions are, by definition and design, multicultural
communities with social agency articulated by both colonizer and colonized.
Archaeologists must be mindful when such powerful, singularized objects are
employed in a colonial setting, because multiple agencies and contingencies are
likely in play.
With respect to native North America, María Nieves Zedeño (2009) could
identify only a “handful” of such inherently powerful and singularized objects,
which she calls index objects, with the potential for revealing “relational ontologies [in which] animate objects can and do establish social relationships that
parallel those of human social systems” (Zedeño 2009:413). Index objects can
and often do speak a universal language of power; indigenous leaders and
Franciscan authorities recognized the importance of such ritualized index
objects—whether items of tribute or mission bells—in cementing cross-cultural
relations in New Spain. In both cases, these priceless noncommodities played
agential roles in modifying human behavior and social relations in Mississippian
Spanish Florida (see also Brown and Walker 2008:298).
A 1682 court case ruled that local Guale and Timucuan caciques actually
“owned” the mission bells of La Florida. When the doctrina of San Salvador de
Mayaca was abandoned, friars gathered up the sacred furnishings (including two
church bells) and took them away for safekeeping. But local caciques argued that
“His Majesty made the grant … of the said ornaments and bells to their pueblo
and no other.” Although temporarily without a friar, the caciques asserted that
the neophyte community would still get another, and in the meantime, they still
owned the bells—gifts so powerful they could not be withdrawn simply because
the Indians and the friar chose to close that particular mission (Bushnell 1986,
1994:155, 159; 2014).
This episode highlights the importance of viewing colonial practice not in
terms of the Grand Narratives, superposition or syncretism, but rather through
an expanded multicultural context where practical politics play out. These sometimes novel, hybrid formulations crosscut indigenous American and European
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linguistic and religious ideologies—materialized in a uniquely singular index
objects such as the mission bells.
For a century, off and on, the bells of Santa Catalina served their agreed-upon,
multicultural role—to hang in the campanario and ritually regulate the lives of
those who elected to “live under the bell.” But this practice was contested by
many others, in several ways.
recommodifying the santa catalina bells
The mission bell and the artillery cannon are “technological twins,” in that either
can be melted down and recast to assume the form and function of the other
(Bushnell 1994:163–65). As Spain’s military prowess grew, artisans working in the
foundries became national resources, shifting as necessary from casting church
bells to casting guns. When Spain ventured onto the global stage as a military
power, many church bells were melted down and cast into cannons, with the
naming tradition sometimes carrying over to the new firearms.
Pirates plying the La Florida coastline knew this as well. During a 1683 raid
on St. Augustine, Governor Juan Marques Cabrera and his troops took refuge
inside the castillo fortress. Recognizing the scarcity and market value of bronze,
the pirates diverted to nearby missions San Juan and San Phelipe, where they
stole six mission bells, presumably to be melted down (“recommodified”) into a
cannon (after Kopytoff 1986:82). Ironically, the bells stolen from the Guale and
Mocamo missions may not have been recast. A Spanish spy saw intact mission
bells in Charles Town in 1687, and the governor of Florida used this as evidence
that the British were providing safe harbor to pirates. If so, the bells of Guale
may have been more valuable as (noncommodity) trophies of war than as
(recommodified) cannon.
The singularized, sacred role of mission bells was contested on other fronts
as well. Bells were rung at all public occasions in St. Augustine and elsewhere
throughout Spanish Florida, and at times they figured prominently in the
power struggles between the sacred and secular sectors of the Spanish community. Bushnell (1994:150), for example, describes the 1681 “showdown at Sapelo.”
Captain Francisco de Fuentes (a veteran of the defense of Mission Santa Catalina
de Guale a year before) complained that he and his men rushed to arms on
Sapelo Island when they heard a bell signaling the tocsin (an alarm and call to
arms) only to find the fiscal calling the mission women together to grind corn at
the convento. In the ensuing dispute between Friar Juan de Useda and Captain
Fuentes, voices were raised and tempers flared; Fuentes was ultimately excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for this (and other disputes) with
the Franciscans.
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killing and resurrecting the bells of santa catalina
Rebellious Guale Indians murdered the church bells at Mission Santa Catalina
de Guale in October 1597. At least three mission bells were broken into hundreds of fragments and apparently broadcast across the smoldering ruins of
Mission Santa Catalina. Kopytoff (1986:76) calls this “deactivation,” signaling the
transition from a singularized “priceless” noncommodity into worthless junk.
Intriguingly, these bells were killed not by local Guale neophytes, who literally
lived under the same bells; these church bells of Mission Santa Catalina were
destroyed instead by enemy Guale from a rival non-Christian chiefdom, who
also killed five Franciscans (including Fray Miguel de Auñón and Fray Antonio
Badajoz, both stationed at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale). These rebellious
Guale ransacked Franciscan missions along the Georgia coastline, not only burning churches and breaking bells, but also torching the rival Guale council houses
and cacique residences along the way.4
Franciscans returned to Guale territory nearly a decade after the rebellion, in
March 1606, to refurbish Mission Santa Catalina de Guale and establish four new
missions as well (Blair 2015b; Blair and Thomas 2014;Francis and Kole 2011:7).
Over the next seven decades, members of the Santa Catalina de Guale mission
community collected four dozen pieces of the bells fragmented in 1597, stacking
them against the back wall of the new convento. These bell fragments were
almost certainly being stockpiled for recasting into rebaptized replacement
bells (and a quantity of bronze slag suggests that perhaps new bells were being
recast on St. Catherines Island). In the meantime, replacement mission bells
rang over Mission Santa Catalina de Guale until 1680, when the mission site
was attacked once again, this time by slave raiders from Charlestown. After the
enemy retreated, the friars and neophytes at Mission Santa Catalina fled southward to the adjacent Sapelo Island, apparently taking their replacement church
bells with them (Bushnell 1994:163).
The 163 bell fragments were left behind where they had symbolically perished
in the attack of 1597. Like the martyred brothers Michael and Antonio who died
at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale that same day, the church bells were victims
of deadly internecine warfare between rival Guale polities. The bells were broken up and tossed around while the priests were butchered on the spot, then
hastily buried.
the bells of santa catalina in the twenty-first century
With the Franciscan abandonment in 1680, the whereabouts of Mission
Santa Catalina de Guale was unknown until 1979, when archaeologists from
the American Museum of Natural History found the site and dug there for
two decades (Thomas 1988, 1993, 2014). The bell fragments, now perceived as
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archaeological artifacts, were transported to laboratories New York City, where
they remained until 2005, when the entire archaeological assemblage from
Mission Santa Catalina was gifted to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History
(in Atlanta, reflecting the premise that “what comes from Georgia stays in
Georgia”).
In 1984, the archaeological ruins of the church at Mission Santa Catalina de
Guale were reconsecrated by the Franciscan Order and the Savannah Diocese of
the Roman Catholic Church ( Judge 1988; Thomas 2014, 2015). Today, (Franciscan)
Bishop Gregory Hartmayer is promoting The Cause of the Georgia Martyrs,
which seeks sainthood for the five Franciscans killed in the Guale Uprising of
1597. Their bones, if they could found, could become saintly in the eyes of the
Vatican, human relics “fully capable of saving thousands of lives” (Fr. Conrad
Harkins, personal communication, 1985).
soMe coNclUsioNs
I have drawn upon several themes addressed in the other contributions to this
volume, stressing particularly how materiality and social agency played out in
the “practical politics” at the edges of Spanish Borderlands (after Silliman 2001).
Exploring the “archaeologies of persistence” (Panich 2013:17) emphasizes the
variability in how communities negotiated their colonial world, which are (by
definition and design) cross-cultural—with social agency articulated by both colonizer and colonized. Throughout, I have stressed the importance of viewing
colonial practice not in terms of Grand Narratives, superposition or syncretism,
but rather through the expanded multicultural contexts where decision making,
accommodation, resistance, and compromise played out.
This chapter highlights the remarkable contrasts between the respective indigenous landscapes in the Southwest and Southeast. The Pueblo world had long
resisted top-down authority and with the insertion of Spanish colonial ways,
factions in most communities contesting how best to address the changes all
around them. Some, particularly those excluded from higher levels knowledge
of ritual knowledge and power, embraced innovation and newer ideas. Others
chose to reiterate what had been done previously.
Practical politics and social agency cut both ways in colonial communities,
and Franciscans across the Borderlands vacillated over how best to achieve their
divine mandate to save indigenous souls. Colonial authorities in La Florida deliberately bolstered and reinforced long-term hierarchical structure of hereditary
Mississippian micos, who retained a large measure of secular autonomy. The
factionalism of colonial Pueblo society lacks a counterpart in Spanish Florida,
where indigenous communities were known for their loyalty and protectiveness of chiefly authority. But the paramounts across Spanish Florida competed
viciously with one another to curry favor with the Franciscan authorities.
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Spanish colonial–Mississippian hybrids provided an external support system for
hereditary chiefs who maintained time-worn practices of traditional rank and
privilege, even in the face of the withering demographics.
I have particularly foregrounded the Guale Rebellion of 1597 and the Pueblo
Revolt of 1680 as complex and violent affairs, at times pitting rival indigenous
factions and sometimes polities against a backdrop of adaptations and negotiations. Franciscans and indigenous leaders died in both uprisings, but for very
different reasons.
Attempting to ground these events materially, I have explored cultural biographies of some uniquely singular index objects from repurposed kivas and
council houses, pelota and Katsina ritualism, to sanctified tribute items and
the omnipresent mission bells. These sometimes novel, hybrid formulations
crosscut indigenous American and European linguistic and religious ideologies. Archaeologists must be particularly mindful when powerful, singularized
objects are employed in colonial settings, because multiple agencies and contingencies might well be in play.
And yet, the selected object itineraries reflect remarkably comparable conflicts and legacies, dramatically underscoring the colonial reality that “messages
of violence were directed at other indigenous people, not simply the Spanish”
(Pearsall 2013:1017). Church bells were murdered at Nuestra Señora de los
Angeles de Pórciuncula (Pecos Pueblo) and at Mission Santa Catalina de Guale
(St. Catherines Island)—eighty-three years and 2,500 miles apart—but the perpetrators were not locals fed up with living under these bell. Rather, these bells were
broken up by rival indigenous factions and long-term chiefly enemies driven to
punish their pro-Franciscan relatives with an unmistakable show of anti-Spanish
force. Ironically, battered bell fragments in both the Southwest and the Southeast
were sometimes collected, curated, and venerated, perhaps in the unlikely hope
that one of contested bells might one day ring out again.
ackNowleDGMeNts
I appreciate the invitation from Douglass and Graves to participate in this project, and I most gratefully acknowledge the assistance of friends and colleagues
who helped me prepare this manuscript: Elliot Blair, Ginessa Mahar, Lorann S.A.
Pendleton, Anibal Rodriguez, Diana Rosenthal, and Maria Nieves Zedeño.
Notes
1. Although the 1597 uprising is the best known, several other rebellions are documented in Spanish Florida: in Guale, 1645 and the early 1680s; in Apalachee and Timucua,
1565; in Apalachee, 1647; in Apalachicola, 1675 and 1681. In the previous historiography,
each of these uprisings has been interpreted—per the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 model—
as violent indigenous resistance aimed at throwing off unwarranted Spanish authority
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(e.g., Bushnell 1994; Matter 1975; Thomas 1993; Weber 1994:133). In light of more recent
research, it seems clear that most (if not all) of these rebellions reflect warfare between
competing Mississippian-style chiefdoms vying for power, access, alliance, and tribute
obligations from Spanish St. Augustine.
2. It is also worth noting the degree of continued factionalism evident at Hopi.
More than half of the burials (69 of 118) found within the church nave at Awat’ovi were
interred after the church had been destroyed. These individuals were laid out in standard Christian fashion (rather than flexed in traditional Hopi style), and several were
associated with Catholic grave goods. “Somehow” writes Brooks (2013:761–62) “after the
execution of their Franciscan priests and the expulsion of the Spanish presence from the
Hopi mesas, some residents of post-revolt Awat’ovi had continued to bury their loved
ones in the ruined mission church, accompanied by cherished symbols of both Hopi and
Spanish spiritual life.”
3. Another likely convento kiva at Awat’ovi was constructed in the middle of the
sacred garden, a placement Ivey (1998:141) believes is more than coincidental. The socalled “sorcerer’s kiva” at Awat’ovi had a stepped floor resembling an altar, fragments
of local clay candlesticks similar to those used in the nearby Franciscan church. Brooks
(2013:762) suggests that in this kiva, people “had been experimenting with combining Hopi
and Franciscan imagery, paraphernalia and spiritual practices during a painful period of
uncertainty about their own future.” Other possible convento kivas include Kiva D at Las
Humanas and visita kivas at San Lazaro and Giusewa (Ivey 1998:128, 141–142.
4. We estimate that a minimum of three bells are represented in the Santa Catalina
collection through XRF analysis of the fragments (using a TRACeR III-V from Bruker
Technologies; Mahar n.d.). Breaking up a bell is no easy matter and beyond doubt, dozens of the bell fragments recovered from the mission site show deliberate punch and
axe marks around the margins. Despite repeated attempts, we could not refit any of the
163 bell fragments. To me, this implies that a relatively large number of bell fragments
remain in unexplored archaeological contexts, probably still buried at Mission Santa
Catalina, or (intriguingly) perhaps elsewhere.
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contributors
J OSEPH A GUILAR
University of Pennsylvania
aguilarj@sas.upenn.edu
J IMMY A RTERBERRY
Comanche Nation
jimmya@comanchenation.com
H EATHER A THERTON
Independent Scholar
hnatherton@gmail.com
D ALE S. B RENNEMAN
Arizona State Museum
daleb@email.arizona.edu
J. A NDREW D ARLING
Southwest Heritage Research
jadarlin@swheritage.com
J OHN G. D OUGLASS
Statistical Research, Inc. and
University of Arizona
jdouglass@sricrm.com
B. S UNDAY E ISELT
Southern Methodist University
seiselt@mail.smu.edu
S EVERIN F OWLES
Barnard College, Columbia University
sfowles@barnard.edu
W ILLIAM M. G RAVES
Logan Simpson and University of Arizona
wmgraves@email.arizona.edu
L AUREN E. J ELINEK
Bureau of Reclamation
laurenejelinek@gmail.com
|
415
K ELLY L. J ENKS
New Mexico State University
kljenks@nmsu.edu
R OBERT P REUCEL
Brown University
robert_preucel@brown.edu
S TEWART B. K OYIYUMPTEWA
Hopi Cultural Preservation Office
SKoyiyumptewa@hopi.nsn.us
M ATTHEW F. S CHMADER
University of New Mexico
mschmader@unm.edu
P HILLIP O. L ECKMAN
Statistical Research, Inc. and
University of Arizona
pleckman@sricrm.com
T HOMAS E. S HERIDAN
University of Arizona
tes@email.arizona.edu
M ATTHEW L IEBMANN
Harvard University
liebmann@fas.harvard.edu
K ENT G. L IGHTFOOT
University of California, Berkeley
klightfoot@berkeley.edu
L INDSAY M ONTGOMERY
University of Arizona
lmmontgomery86@gmail.com
B ARNET P AVAO -Z UCKERMAN
University of Maryland
bpavao@umd.edu
416
|
Contributors
C OLLEEN S TRAWHACKER
University of Colorado at Boulder
colleen.strawhacker@colorado.edu
J. H OMER T HIEL
Desert Archaeology, Inc.
homer@desert.com
D AVID H URST T HOMAS
American Museum of Natural History
thomasd@amnh.org
L AURIE D. WEBSTER
University of Arizona
ldwebster5@gmail.com
index
Page numbers in italics indicate illustrations.
Abiquiú, 165, 192, 196, 223
Abó, 20, 23, 394, 395
abuse, by Spanish, 240, 243–49, 255–56, 358
acequia systems, 92, 195. See also irrigation
Acoma (Acuco), 12, 60, 106, 119, 127, 227, 241, 245,
381, 399; post-Revolt period, 23, 143, 145
adoptions, and Rio del Oso lineages, 198, 199
agency, social, 380, 385, 390–91
agriculture: Hopi, 129–30; on middle Gila River,
332–34, 338, 342–48, 367; O’odham, 290–92,
335–36; Spanish and Pueblo practices, 92–99,
106; Pimería Alta, 28, 293–94; Vecino, 227,
228
Aguilar, Nicolás de, 120
Ak-Chin Indian Community, 277
Akimel O’odham, 26, 275
Alameda (NM), 63, 69
Alamillo, 399
Alarcón, Hernando de, 266, 276
Albuquerque, 191
Albuquerque Basin, 12, 53
Alcanfor, 53, 54, 57, 63
alliances, 199, 272; in La Florida, 384–85; with
native warriors, 16, 17; pan-Pueblo, 143–44,
382; Pimería Alta, 266, 278–79; post-Revolt
period, 145–49, 152–53; Rio Grande Pueblos,
22, 31–32, 365
Alta California, 8, 33, 215, 304, 320, 362, 366, 367,
370; Californio identity, 368–69; colonialism in, 356–57; early European encounters
in, 358–59; ethnogenesis in, 32, 361; identity
transformations in, 18, 32; livestock in, 293,
297, 300, 301–2; mission restoration projects,
359–60
Altar River, 267, 272, 274, 279
Alvarado, Hernando de, 53, 55, 60–61
American period, 225, 229
Analco, Barrio (Santa Fe), 17–18
animal husbandry, in Pimería Alta, 293–95,
296–97
|
417
animals, domestic, 21. See also faunal remains;
zooarchaeology; by type
Antequera (Oaxaca), 17
Anza, Juan Bautista de, 344
Apaches, 5, 145, 214, 267, 274; ceramics, 227, 228;
and Comanches, 159, 162–63; in Pimería Alta,
27, 29, 30, 272, 302, 314, 315, 332, 340–41; postRevolt interactions, 143, 147; raiding by, 151,
302, 337, 361; in Tucson, 317–18
Apalachee, 391
archaeology, and documents, 50–51; ethnic
markers in, 229–30
architecture, colonial period, 390–91
Arenal, 63; Coronado’s attack on, 54, 58–60, 66
Areneños, 26, 28–29, 271, 275, 276, 278, 279
Argüello, Fernando de, 250
Arivaca Valley, 267
Arizona, 215, 264, 370. See also Pimería Alta
Arizpe, and Tucson Presidio, 319–20
Arkansas River, Comanches on, 162
armas de tierra, 53
armor, bison hide, 173
Astialakwa (LA 1825), 145, 148–49, 152
Athabaskans, 5, 12, 21, 143, 166, 192. See also
Apaches; Jicarilla Apaches; Navajos
Augustias de la Guerra, María de las, 397
Ávila, Francisco de, 387
Awat’ovi, 116, 119, 122, 132, 407(n2); cotton at,
129–30; destruction of, 120–21, 133, 136(n7),
251–52, 253; Franciscan missionaries at, 20,
241; kiva-church superpositioning at, 393,
407(n3); textile production at, 123, 124–25, 126,
127–29, 136(n6)
Bac, 293, 297, 303, 312, 318, 325
Bacoachi, 269, 271, 279
Bandelier, Adolph, 251
barrios, of indios amigos, 17
battles: Coronado-Zuni, 53; rock art scenes of,
166, 175, 177–78
Baviácora, 274
Bearhead Peak obsidian source, 148
bells, mission, 396–405, 407(n4)
Benavides, Alonso, 105
Bigotes, 60–61
Boletsakwa (LA 136), 145, 148, 150, 151, 152
bone grease production, in Pimería Alta,
300–302
Bonilla, Leyva de, 15
borders, boundaries, cultural concepts of, 100
botanical remains, at Hispanic sites, 221, 223,
224, 225, 227
418
| Index
Bourbon reforms, 188, 190–91, 205, 368
brazilwood, 123–24
buhio, 391
burials, 122, 125, 132, 322, 407(n2)
Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Nuñez, 51
Caborca, 30, 270, 271
Cabrera, Juan Marques, 403
Cabrillo, Juan Rodríguez, 359, 370
caciques. See micos
Caddoan speakers, 12
Cahuilla, Lake, 275
California, 337; indigenous land use, 367–68;
historic restoration projects, 359–60. See also
Alta California
Californios, 32; identity as, 368–69
Camino Real, 228
campsites, 168; depictions of, 172, 173, 175, 176–77
canal systems: Hohokam, 332, 367; on middle
Gila River, 336, 341–42, 343–44; Pueblo, 92, 93,
94. See also acequia systems
Cananea, 269
Canito, 269, 271, 272
cannons, and church bells, 403
Cañones region, 197
captives, 17, 164, 182(n6), 198, 223, 387
Carnue Plain, 221
Casitas Red-on-brown, 223
Castañeda de Nájera, Pedro de, Coronado
expedition history, 55–62
Castaño de Sosa, Gaspar, 15, 18, 68–69
Castillo, Blas del, 269
Catholic Church, 241, 255, 360, 405; women’s
empowerment, 382–83. See also Franciscans;
Jesuits; missionization, missions
Catiti, Alonso, 153
cattle, 92; cattle industry, 361–62; in New
Mexico, 92, 225, 228; Pimería Alta, 266, 293,
297–98, 299–300, 304, 361; raiding and, 302,
303
ceramics, 316, 363; at Hispanic New Mexican
sites, 221, 222, 223, 225, 227–28; Jicarilla
Apache, 164, 166, 202; pan-Puebloan, 22–23;
in Pimería Alta sites, 264, 265–66, 276–77,
278, 318–19; post-Revolt era, 145–47, 152;
religious knowledge and, 23–24; Sobaipuri,
273–74
ceremonial societies, at Hopi, 251–52
Cerro Colorado (LA 2048), 145, 148, 152
cerros de trincheras, 265
CGDDs. See Corn Growing Degree Days
Chaco Canyon, 150
Chalchihuites (Durango), 17
Chama River region, 12, 214, 228; Hispanic sites,
223–24, 227
Chamuscado, Francisco Sánchez, 13, 67
Chiapas, 17
Chichimecas, 17
chiefdoms, Southeastern, 383–84, 386–87
Chili (NM), 197
Chinarras, 30, 272
Christianity, 134, 150; conversions to, 29, 241;
introduction of, 20–21
churches: and kivas, 393–96, 407(n3); in New
Mexico, 87, 88. See also by name
Cibola, 51, 53
Cicuye. See Pecos Pueblo
citizenship, and Vecino identity, 216
Ciudad Real (Chiapas), 17
Ciudad Viejo Sonsonate (Guatemala), 17
climate: during colonial period, 242–43; around
Paako, 78–81
clothing: at Awat’ovi, 120, 123, 124–25, 126,
127–29, 136(n6); manufacture of, 228–29;
Mississippian chiefly, 386; at Tucson
Presidio, 321–22
Coahuila, 17
cochineal, 124
Cochiti, 145, 146, 147, 148, 153
Cocomaricopas, 26, 29, 275, 276, 278, 340
Cócopas, 27, 27, 276, 278
Cocpi, Juan, 244
Colón, Cristóbal, 49, 50
colonialism, colonization, 4, 69, 355, 362; adaptation to, 334–35; in Alta California, 356–57;
impacts of, 241–42; indigenous landscapes
and, 363–66; Pimería Alta, 25–29, 266–67;
power relationships, 24–25, 157–58, 390; relations, 6–7; scholarship on, 369–71; Spanish,
9–10, 380–81; terra nullius, 10–11
colonial period, 4, 134, 230; architecture, 390–91;
at Hopi, 133–34, 243–49; livestock introduction, 289–90; at Paako, 88–92; textile
production, 118–19, 135(n1)
colonists: identities of, 7–8; social agency of,
390–91
Colorado, Hispanic sites in, 217, 224
Colorado Delta, 278
Colorado River, 275
Comanche Empire, The (Hämäläinen), 159–61, 365
Comanchería, 163
Comanches, 5, 32, 106, 158, 166, 179, 182(n4), 193,
214, 365–66, 371; documentation of, 161–62;
equestrianism, 180–81; imperialism, 159–61,
175–76; raiding, 192, 196; rock art, 170–78;
Taos and, 162–63, 164, 182(n7)
communities: grants of, 191–92; mission, 87–88;
Puebloan vs. Spanish concepts of, 76–77,
85–87, 92–93, 100
Concepción, Río, Pima uprising at, 272
confederacies, Southeastern, 383
conflict, 159; in Pimería Alta, 270–71, 275–76,
278; post-Pueblo Revolt, 143, 144; among
Pueblos, 70, 151–52
convento complexes: in Pueblo communities,
87–88
conversion, 134, 241
corn (maize), 21; middle Gila River production, 336, 343, 345; New Mexico pueblos,
78–80
Corn Growing Degree Days (CGDDs), at
Paako, 78–80
Coronado expedition, 50, 241, 266, 358; archaeological evidence for, 63–67; indios amigos/
aliados on, 17, 51–52, 357; Native responses to,
55–62; provisioning of, 52–53; route of, 53–54;
in Tiguex Province, 54–55
Coronado Project/Coronado Road Show,
322–23
Coronado y Luján, Francisco Vázquez de, 4, 31,
50, 67; expedition, 51–55
corrals, in Paako plaza, 90, 91, 364
Cosari (Dolores), 270
cotton: at Awat’ovi, 122, 125; cultivation of,
129–30; textile production, 118, 362, 363
council houses, Mississippian, 391
counting coup, rock art depictions of, 178, 181
crops, 227; Old World, 293, 335; at Paako, 93–94
Crow Head, 341
crypto-Jews, in New Mexico Colony, 18
Cuiquiburitac, 26
cultural revitalization movement, at Hopi, 252
Cuna, Juan, torture and death of, 244, 245, 246,
250
Cunixu, Luis, 153
Cuquiárachi, 272
dance floor, at Vista Verde site, 168, 365
dances, Hopi ceremonial, 132
decolonization, Vecino, 189, 203–4
defense, 21; Puebloan, 58–59, 70
diseases, in Pimería Alta, 28, 292, 340
Dominguez, Francisco Atanasio, 105–6
drought, 21, 242
Durango, 17
dyes, in textile production, 121, 123–24
Index
|
419
Eastern Keresans, 12, 381
economies, 33, 226, 331–32; Gila River O’odham,
344, 367; La Florida, 384–86; Mississippian,
386–87; native political, 363–65; New Mexico
Colony, 18–20
El Cerrito, 224
El Cuartelejo, 162
electrical resistivity (ER), 63
Elias de León, Ramona, 325
El Paraje Rio Oso, 196. See also Rio del Oso
grant
El Paso, 12
El Salvador, 17
embroidery, 135(n4); Hopi use of, 125–27
Embudo (Dixon), 165
empire, Comanche, 159–61
encomienda system, 19, 85, 118, 241–42, 362; at
Hopi, 119–20; in La Florida, 385–88
England Ranch Ruin (AZ DD:8:129[ASM]),
274, 278
epidemics, 242, 292, 314
equestrianism: Comanche, 180–81; images of,
166
ER. See electrical resistivity
Española Valley, 146
Espejo, Antonio de, 14, 18, 67–68
Espeleta, Francisco, 250–51
Espeleta, José de, 250, 251
estancias, 87
Esteban (Estevan) de Dorantes, 3–4, 53
Estrada, Beatriz, 51
ethnicity, 229–30
ethnogenesis, 32, 188, 361, 366, 368–69
ethnohistory, Pimería Alta, 269–72, 275–76
Eudeves, 26, 27, 271, 280(n2)
exchange network, La Florida, 384–85, 386–87
expeditions, Spanish, 13–15, 67–69
explorations, New World, 49–50, 370
factionalism, 31; post-Revolt Pueblo, 149–52,
365; Pueblo society, 381–83, 407(n2)
families, on Rio del Oso grant, 197–99
faunal remains: at Hispanic sites, 221, 222, 223,
224–26, 227; at Pimería Alta sites, 295–300,
304
feathers, symbolism of, 23
Fernández de la Fuente, Juan, 272
field houses, Paako, 93
Figueras, José de, 250
fire, indigenous use of, 367–68
Franciscans, 26, 356, 360, 403; architectural
norms, 390–91; bajo campana and, 397–98;
420
| Index
at Hopi, 32, 120, 122, 132, 240, 241, 255, 358;
in La Florida, 384–85, 405–6; martyrdom of,
388–89; missionization, 380–81, 395–96; in
New Mexico Colony, 20–21, 22, 99, 100; and
Pueblo factionalism, 382–83
Frontera (Sonora), 26
frontier, 5, 18
Fuentes, Francisco de, 403
Gadsden Purchase, 337
Galisteo, 76, 106
Galisteo Basin, 12, 53, 101, 102, 146, 399
Gallup Diocese, apology issued by, 255
Garcés, Francisco, 344
Gaybanipitea (AZ EE:8:15[ASM]), 272, 273, 275
gender roles, 21; in textile production, 118,
130–31, 134–35, 136(n6), 392
genealogy, Rio del Oso grant, 197–99
genizaros, 206(n3), 223
gente de razón, 8, 215
Georgia, Spanish missions in, 401, 404. See also
La Florida
gift giving, California tribes-maritime explorers, 359
Gila River Indian Community (GRIC), 333, 334,
337, 367
Gila River Valley, middle: agriculture in, 335–36,
343–48, 367; irrigation systems in, 342–43;
leadership in, 341–42; O’odham in, 275,
332–34, 337–41, 343–44; Protohistoric Period
in, 336–37
Gileños, 26, 29, 275
glaze ware, Mexican, 228
goats, 92, 96, 297
Gojia, 202
Gómez, Elena, 120
Gran Quivira, 23
grants: to Spanish colonists, 191–92, 193; Vecino,
193–95
Great Plains, Coronado expedition on, 55, 61
GRIC. See Gila River Indian Community
Griego, Juan, 152
Guale, 384, 386, 389, 406–7(n1); and mission
bells, 402, 404
Guale Rebellion, 387, 388, 389, 404, 405
Guatemala, indios amigos barrios in, 17, 18
Guerra, Salvador de, 120, 133; abuses of, 243–45,
253
Guevavi, 267, 269, 318; livestock at, 297,
299–300
guns, 170, 173
Gutiérrez de Humaña, Antonio, 15
Halyikwamai, 27, 276, 278
Hämäläinen, Pekka, The Comanche Empire,
159–61, 365
Hartmayer, Gregory, 405
Hawikku, 53, 59, 399
Herrera, Cristóbal, 197
Herrera, Juana, 196
Herrera, Juan Manuel de, 195–96, 197
Herrera, Juan Pedro, 197
Hia Ced O’odham. See Areneños
hides, hide processing, 304–5; intercolony trade
in, 301–2, 305
Hímeris, 269, 271
Hisatsinom, 252
Hispanic sites: in Chama Valley, 223–24; in Rio
Grande Valley, 217–23
Hispano-Chicano identity, 188
Hispano Homeland, 187–88, 205
Hispanos, 162, 187, 206(n1); identity construction, 368–69. See also Vecinos
historical societies, in California, 360
Hohokam, 264, 265–66, 291, 336; agricultural
system, 332, 367
Home Dance, and Sitkoyma, 246–48
Homestead Acts, 229
Hopi, Hopi Mesas, 8, 11, 117, 242, 393, 407(n2);
adoption of wool, 121–23; colonial period
abuse of, 243–49; and Coronado expedition, 56, 358; cotton cultivation at, 129–30;
and destruction of Awat’ovi, 251–54; dyes
used at, 123–24; embroidery at, 125–27; and
Franciscan missionaries, 20, 32, 255, 358;
historical trauma, 254–56, 358; knitting at,
124–25; mission bells at, 398–99; mission
era, 131–32, 362; oral histories, 239–40; postRevolt period, 143, 145; and Pueblo Revolt,
250, 381, 382; Spanish conquest and missionization, 240, 241–42; textile production, 31,
115–16, 118, 119–21, 127–31, 133–35, 362–63, 392;
way of life, 252–53
Hopification, 8
Hopi History Project, 358, 362
Hopi Independence Day, 256
Hopi language, 12
Hopi Tribe, 255
hornos, on Rio del Oso grant sites, 199–200
horses, 96, 161, 292; Coronado expedition, 57,
58; in rock art, 166, 170, 171–73, 174, 175, 178
household complexes: in Rio del Oso grant,
199–200; at San Lorenzo, 200–202
Huachuca, 269, 280(n1)
Huachuca Mountains, Spanish cattle in, 266
hunter-gatherers, 12, 28; in California, 356, 362,
367–68
hunting, 21, 334; garden, 290–91, 304
Ibargaray, Antonio de, 120, 133, 243, 244–45
iconography: Comanche, 170–78; post-Pueblo
Revolt, 23
Ideal Site, 227
identity, 16; civic, 215–17; Comanche, 176,
182(n4); construction of, 368–69; New
Mexican cultural, 213–14; pan-Pueblo, 22–23;
transforming/reinventing, 8, 18, 25, 31;
Vecino, 187–88, 189, 205, 214–15, 229–30
imperialism, Comanche, 159–61, 175–76
Ímuris, 269
index objects, 402
indigenous groups, 7, 214, 366–67. See also by
name
indigo, 123–24, 132
indios amigos, 16; on Coronado expedition, 4,
51–52, 67, 357, 358; in New Mexico Colony,
17–18
indios bárbaros, 161
information networks, long-distance Pueblo,
55–56
Inquisition, in New Mexico, 245
irrigation: colonial period, 92, 106, 195, 342–43;
Hohokam, 332, 367; on middle Gila River,
336, 341–42, 343–44
Isleta, 72(n3), 102, 119, 182(n6), 227, 245, 396, 398
Isleta del Sur, 227
Isleta Red-on-tan, 221
Janos, 30, 267, 271, 272, 274, 279
Jaramillo, Roque Jacinto, 195–96, 197
Jemez, 12, 106, 119, 125, 150, 245, 252; alliances,
152, 153, 365; obsidian at, 148–49; post-Revolt
ceramics, 22, 23, 146–47
Jemez Mountains, 62
Jemez River, 12
Jesuits, in Pimería Alta, 25–26, 27, 29, 30, 271,
279, 312, 356
Jicarilla Apaches, 163–64, 193; ceramics, 223,
227, 228; Rio del Oso Valley, 199, 202; in Rio
Grande Gorge, 165–66, 365
Jocomes, 27, 30, 267, 271, 272, 274, 279
José María Martínez Site, 224
Joshevama, Elgean, 239–40
Juanillo’s revolt, 388
Jumanos pueblos, 12
justice system, Pueblo, 57–58
Index
|
421
Kastiilam, 239
Katsina Buttes (Kaktsintuyqa), 246, 247–48
katsinam, 23, 252, 382–83, 396; and mission
activity, 246–48
Kechiba:wa, 90
Keresans, 119, 143, 147, 252, 381; alliances,
152–53, 365; conflicts with Tewas, 151–52; and
Coronado expedition, 62, 70; post-Revolt
ceramics, 22, 23
Kewa (Santo Domingo Pueblo), 62, 147, 152,
245, 398
kilts, embroidered, 127
Kino, Eusebio Francisco, 25, 26, 266, 267, 317,
342; missions established by, 290, 292, 293,
312–14; travels of, 269–70, 275
kivas, 86, 89; and churches, 20, 241, 393–96,
407(n3); functions of, 391–92; textile production in, 116, 127–28, 130–31, 136(n6, n8)
knitting, adoption of, 121, 124–25, 127
knowledge, hidden religious, 23–24
Kotyiti (LA 295), 145, 146, 147, 153; alliances, 152,
365; obsidian at, 148–49
labor, 21, 27; colonial period, 118, 241; exploitation of, 18–19; mission, 26, 119–21, 133, 290,
294, 304; repartimiento, 385–86; textile production, 120, 362
La Florida, 33, 380, 383, 389, 391; church bells in,
397, 400–405; encomienda and repartimiento
in, 385–88; Franciscan missions in, 384–85,
405–6
Laguna, 12, 119, 227
La Navidad, 50
land, land tenure, 206(n6), 362; exploitation of,
18–19; marriage patterns and, 197, 198–99,
205; Pimería Alta, 293–94; Spanish colonial,
192–93; Vecino, 193–95, 204, 215, 368
land grants, 214, 224, 311; to Spanish colonists,
191–92, 193; Vecino, 193–95, 204, 207(n10). See
also Rio del Oso grant
landscapes, 367; cultural concepts of, 31, 76–77,
99–100; indigenous, 363–66
land use, 195, 229; indigenous, 367–68, 370–71;
Paako, 31, 77; Pueblo, 76, 99–100; Spanish,
92–93
La Placita, 224–25, 227, 228
La Puente, 223, 224
Las Casitas, 223
Las Huertas land grant, 227
La Soledad, 221
Las Trampas, 192
Las Vegas (NM), 228
422
| Index
Laws (Ordinances) of the Indies, 86, 390
leadership: Gila O’odham, 341–42; post-Revolt,
144, 150, 152, 153; Pueblo, 381–82
León, Francisco Solano, 311, 324, 325
Lightning Arrow Site, 166, 167
lithics: at Hispanic sites, 221, 223; post-Revolt
period distribution, 147–49
livestock, 58; butchering and rendering,
300–302; introduction of, 289–90; at Paako,
96–98; in Pimería Alta, 292–95, 296–300,
303–5, 335; raiding of, 30, 302–3; Spanish land
use and, 92–93
Lobato, Juan Cristobal, 197
Lobato, Juan José, 196, 197, 206(n8)
Lobato, Polito, 197
looping, 124–25
López de Cárdenas, Diego, 53, 57, 58, 61
López Sambrano, Diego, 250
Los Ojitos, 224, 225, 228
Lowland Patayan, 277, 278
Màasaw, 252
macanas, macahuitls, at Piedras Marcadas
Pueblo, 67
Magdalena, Río, 267, 269, 271, 279
majolica: in Alta California and Pimería Alta,
320–21; in New Mexico sites, 222, 224, 228
Malacate, Antonio, 153
Manby Trailhead Site (LA 102341), 167
Manje, Juan Mateo, 267, 276; on floodwater
farming, 342–43
Manso Apaches, 317–18
Mansos, 12, 272, 274
mantas, 126–27, 245
Manzano region, 101
Maricopas, 26
maritime expeditions, California, 359
marriage patterns: and land grants, 197, 198–99;
O’odham-Cocomaricopa, 275; in Tucson,
316–17; Vecino, 205, 368
Martyrs of Georgia (Oré), 388
matanzas (mass killings), 30
matrilineages, Mississippian, 386
men, 382; Pueblo textile production, 118, 119,
130–31, 134–35, 136(n6, n8), 362
Menchero, Miguel de, 196
Mendizábal, Bernardo López de, 118, 245
Mendoza, Antonio de, 3, 4, 51
Menéndez de Avilés, Pedro, 384, 401
mesa-top communities, post-Revolt, 145, 365
Mesoamerica, influence of, 4–5
Mestas grant, 197, 207(n11)
metal artifacts, from Coronado expedition,
63–66
metallurgy: Paako plaza, 90–91, 364; Tucson
Presidio, 324–25
meteorites, 316
Mexican American War, 337
Mexicas, 4; on Coronado expedition, 51, 357
micos, 383–84; exchange system, 386–87
migrants, post-Revolt era, 145–47
militarism, Comanche, 160, 162–63, 177, 178
military, 17, 191, 314, 344
milpa agriculture, 106
mineral resources, Pimería Alta, 27
mines, supplies for, 301, 304–5, 361
Mishongnovi (Musangnuvi), 119, 241, 244, 251
missionaries, 8, 13–14, 68, 100; abuses by, 243–45,
255–56, 362. See also Franciscans; Jesuits
missionization, missions, 99, 332, 356–57, 362, 363,
364, 370; bells at, 396–405; Franciscan, 380–81,
382–83; at Hopi, 121–22, 131–32, 133–34, 240, 241,
245, 255, 358; in La Florida, 384–85; livestock
butchering and rendering, 300–302; in New
Mexico Colony, 19–22, 87–88, 389; in Pimería
Alta, 25–29, 266–67, 271, 292–95, 296–97, 302–5,
359; ranching at, 296–97; recruitment by,
21–22; restoration projects at, 359–60; textile
production at, 119–21, 127–28
Mississippian Southeast, 379, 391; colonial era,
383–88
Mocamo, 384, 388
Moho Pueblo, 62, 63; Coronado’s siege on, 54,
59, 60, 61, 70
Montgomery, Ross, theory of superposition,
392–93
Moreno, Pedro, 244
Morlete, Juan, 15
Mormon Battalion, 322
Mototícachi, 272
mulatos, 8
multiethnicity, of New Mexico Colony, 16–18
Musangnuvi (Mishongnovi), 119, 241, 244, 251
Muskogean-speakers, 383
naborias (auxiliares), 17
Nahuatl speakers, 4
Narváez, Pánfilo de, 4
Native Americans. See indigenous groups; various groups by name
Navajos, 5, 145, 151, 193, 214
Nébomes, 26, 27, 271, 280(n2)
neophytes, control of, 362, 398
New Indian History, 158
New Mexico, New Mexico Colony, 5–6, 9–10,
303, 370; alliances, 31–32; Bourbon reforms in,
190–91; civic identity in, 215–17; Comanche
role in, 159–60, 161–62, 365; cultural identity
in, 213–14; Dominguez’s description of,
105–6; economy of, 18–20; establishment
of, 11–12, 15–16; frontier, 103–5; identity construction, 368–69; missionization in, 20–22,
356; multiethnicity of, 16–18; reestablishment of, 24–25; resistance in, 22–24; Spanish
vs. Pueblo role in, 157–58
Niza, Marcos de, 3–4, 19, 51, 266
nomadic groups, 106; archaeological evidence
of, 274–75; Puebloan relations with, 103,
104–5. See also by name
Nombre de Dios (Durango), 17
Northern Tewa, 381; ceramics, 221, 223, 227
Northern Tiwa, 12, 381
Nostrand, Richard, on Hispano Homeland,
187–88, 205
Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de Pecos, 87
Nuestra Señora de los Angeles de Porciúncula
(Pecos), 399, 406
Nuestra Señora del Pilar y Santiago de
Cocóspera, zooarchaeology, 295–96, 297, 299,
303, 304, 361
Nuevo León, 17
Oacpicagigua, Luis, 28
Oaxaca, 4, 17
objects; agency of, 380; index, 402; ritual and
tribute, 387–88
obsidian, 62, 67; distribution of, 147–49
Ocheguene, Joseph, 244
O’Conor, Hugo, and Tucson Presidio, 314, 315
Ohkay Owingeh (Yunque-Yunque), 15, 69, 165,
202
Ojeda, Bartolomé de, 143, 250–51
Oñate, Juan de, 15–16, 17, 399; colonization, 69,
85, 241
Ontiberos Site, 224–25, 228
O’odham, 33, 312, 364; agriculture, 335–36,
343–48; distribution of, 267–68; on middle
Gila River, 332–34; missionization of, 293–94,
362; population changes, 338–41; regional
interactions, 269–72, 275–76, 278–79, 280(n2);
seasonal movements, 290–92; Spanish and,
266–67, 336–37; tribal leadership, 341–42;
Tucson area, 317–19
Opas, 26, 275
Ópatas, 26, 27, 30, 267, 294; and O’odham relations, 271–72, 279, 280(n2)
Index
|
423
Oraibi (Orayvi), 119, 241; factionalism, 149, 151;
missionary abuses at, 243–45, 248–49
oral traditions, 144, 162; Hopi, 32, 132, 239–40,
241, 243–49, 254–55, 358
Oré, Gerónimo de, Martyrs of Georgia, 388
Ortega, José María, 197
Ortega, San Juan, 197
Oseca/Osera/Osara, 275
Paako (San Pedro; LA 162), 20, 364; agriculture
at, 93–95; cultural setting of, 82–85; isolated location of, 100–105; land use, 31, 77;
livestock at, 96–98; natural setting, 78–82;
plazas at, 88–92; sheepherding camp at,
98–99
Padoucas, 161–62. See also Comanches
Pajarito Plateau, 146
Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), 242
Papago Plain, 273
Paraje de Fra Cristobal, 219, 221
Parral (Chihuahua), Pueblo textiles in, 118
Patayan complex, 264, 277, 278
Patokwa (LA 96), 145, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152
PDSI. See Palmer Drought Severity Index
Pecos Pueblo, 11, 12, 22, 87, 106, 131, 143, 150, 227,
394, 396; Coronado expedition at, 53, 55, 56,
60–61; mission bells at, 399–40, 406
Pecos River, 214, 224, 228
Pee Posh, 26
pelota, 391
Pelotte, Donald, 255
Peñalosa, Diego de, 132, 245
penitentes, 203–4
Peralta, Pedro de, 15
Perea, Esteban de, 241
Pesede’uinge (LA 299), 199, 200, 201
Pétriz de Cruzate, Domingo Jironza, 250–51
petrographic analysis, of post-Revolt ceramics, 146
Pfefferkorn, Ignaz, 300
Phillip III, 16
Picuris, 11, 12, 162, 165
Piedras Marcadas Pueblo, 31, 69, 358; archaeology of, 63–67
Pilar Morada Site (LA 55948), 167
Piman language, 26
Pima Revolt, 267, 293, 296, 312
Pimas (Gileños), 26, 29, 267, 269, 275
Pimas Bajos, 26, 271, 279, 280(n2), 290
Pimería Alta, 5–6, 32–33, 263, 312, 314, 315, 332,
359, 364; archaeological record in, 264–66,
268–69, 272–75; butchering and rendering
424
|
Index
activities in, 300–302; colonialism, 25–29,
356; documentary record on, 267–68; ethnic group relationships in, 269–72, 275–76,
278–79; native revolts in, 29–31; native settlements, 27–28; ranching in, 292–95, 296–97,
302–5; Spanish exploration and colonialism,
266–67; subsistence pattern in, 290–92; zooarchaeological evidence, 295–300, 361–62
Pinacate, Sierra, 277, 278
pirates, and mission bells, 403
Piro-speakers, 11, 12, 116, 118, 143, 242, 382
Pitaitutgam (AZ EE:8:15[ASM]), 272, 273, 274
Pitic, 26
Plain Black, 221, 222, 223, 225
Plain Red, 222, 223, 225
Plains Apaches, 12; and Comanches, 162–63;
and Paako, 104–5
Plains Biographic Tradition, 166, 170, 366
Plains Sign Language, 175
Plaza Colorada, 197
plaza communities, Hispanic, 197, 219–25
plazas: Paako, 88–92, 364; town orientation
around, 85–86, 364
Po’pay: on destruction of mission bells, 398,
399, 400; leadership of, 144, 150, 152, 153, 382
population: Hispanic New Mexico, 191, 192–93,
194–95; Pimería Alta, 263–64; Rio Grande
Pueblos, 241–42; Tucson presidio, 316–17
Porras, Francisco de, 241
Posada, Alonso de, 245
postrevolt period, 9; alliances, 145–49, 152–53,
382; factionalism, 149–52
power structures, 7; in New Mexico Colony,
24–25
presidios, 26, 28, 30, 33, 370. See also Tucson
Presidio
Presidio San Agustín del Tucson. See Tucson
Presidio
projectile points: at Piedras Marcadas, 67;
Sierra Pinacate, 277, 278
Protohistoric Period, middle Gila River, 336–37
Puaray, 68, 69
Pueblo Blanco, 102
Pueblo de la Cruz, 59, 63
Pueblofication, 8, 25
Pueblo V period, 158
Pueblo Revolt, 22–24, 116, 250–51, 365, 388–89,
405; factionalism and, 381–82; Hopi and, 122,
133; mission bells and, 398–40; weather prior
to, 242–43
Pueblos, 8, 92, 115, 200, 221; capitulation by,
60–61; colonial power relations, 24–25;
Coronado expedition, 4, 56–62, 357–58;
decision-making in, 381–82; early Spanish
descriptions of, 75–76; encomienda and
repartimiento systems, 19, 241–42; factionalism, 149–52, 382–83; landscape concepts,
76–77, 99–100, 364; long-distance information
exchange, 55–56; missionization of, 20–21, 362,
389; in New Mexico Colony, 11–12, 157–58;
and nomadic groups, 103, 104–5; and Oñate,
15–16; plazas in, 85–86, 88; post-Revolt relationships, 143–49; Spanish governance of,
380–81; textile production, 116, 118–19, 124
Puname-area polychromes, 221, 223, 225
Puname Polychrome, 222
Purgatoire River, Hispanic sites on, 224
Quarai, 20, 23, 245, 394
Quechan, 27, 275, 278
Quera, Francisco, 244
Querechos, 12
Quíburi (AZ EE:4:11 [ASM]), 269, 271, 272
Quíquimas, 27, 276, 278
Quivira, 53
raiding, raids, 21, 151, 163, 166, 182(n6), 196, 362;
Comanche, 159, 177; in New Mexico Colony,
106, 192; on O’odham, 337, 340–41; in Pimería
Alta, 271, 294–95, 302–3, 305, 361; in Sonora
and Pimería Alta, 30–31
Ramírez de Salazar, Francisco, 272, 279
rancherías, 28, 267, 269, 312, 337
ranching, ranches: in New Mexico, 195, 219,
221–23; in Pimería Alta, 28, 266, 292–95,
296–99, 302–5, 361
Ranchitos Polychrome, 221
Rancho de Chama, 196
Ranchos de Taos, 192, 221, 228
rebellions, 405; La Florida, 400, 404, 406–7(n1);
in Pimería Alta, 271–72. See also Pueblo
Revolt
Reconquest, 88, 189, 251
Red Mesa Black-on-white, 222
reduccíon, 290
redware, post-Pueblo Revolt, 22–23
refugee pueblos, 383
regalia, chiefly, 386
religion, 21; post-Revolt Puebloan, 23–24
repartimiento system, 19, 118, 362; in La Florida,
385–88
requerimiento, 57
resistance, 8, 390; to Coronado expedition,
54–55, 58–60; Hopi, 243, 251; in Pimería Alta
and Sonora, 29–31; Pueblo, 22–24, 133–34. See
also Pueblo Revolt; rebellions
respect system, Pueblo, 57–58
revolts, in Pimería Alta and Sonora, 29–31. See
also Pueblo Revolt
Rio Abajo region, 12, 217; Hispanic sites, 219–21
Rio Arriba, 217; Hispanic sites on, 221–23
Rio del Oso grant, 189, 207(n10), 368; archaeology of, 199–202; genealogy of, 197–99;
history of, 195–96
Rio del Oso Valley: archaeology of, 199–202;
occupation of, 202–3
Rio Grande Classic Period, 82
Rio Grande Coalition Period, 82
Rio Grande Developmental Period, 82
Rio Grande Gorge, archaeology of, 164–75,
365–66
Rio Grande Pueblos, 11, 12, 70, 161; alliances,
31–32, 365; Coronado expedition and, 53–54,
69; plain redware, 22–23; population decline,
241–42; settlement patterns, 100–101, 145;
textile production, 131, 132, 392. See also by
community; language group
Rio Grande Valley: landscape use, 370–71;
Hispanic settlements in, 217–23, 368
Rio Medio, 217; Hispanic settlements on, 219–21
Rio Pueblo, sites on, 164–65
rock art, 168, 182(n5), 383; battle depictions
in 177–78; Comanche, 170–79, 180, 365–66;
Jicarilla, 166, 167
Rodríguez, Augustín, 13–14, 67
Romero, Diego, 132
Rosas, Luis de, 118
Ruiz, José, 196
St. Augustine, 384–85, 388, 391, 398, 401, 403
St. Catherines Island, bell fragments from, 401
Saitude band ( Jicarilla), 202, 203
Salazar, Hita, 387
Salinas pueblos, 10, 23, 242, 332
Salinas Red, 23
Saltillo, 17
Salvatierra, Juan María, 276
San Andrés, 270
San Antonio de Los Poblanos, 219
San Antonio Pueblo (LA 24), 82, 100
San Agustín de Tucson, 317, 318, 325; establishment of, 312–14; livestock at, 297, 303;
zooarchaeology of, 295, 299–300, 304
San Bernardo de Aguatubi (Awat’ovi), 393
San Cristóbal, 153; mission bell from, 399, 400
Sandia, 69, 399
Index
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425
Sandia Mountains, 78
Sand Papagos. See Areneños
San Esteban de Nueva Tlaxcala (Saltillo), 17
San Felipe Pueblo, 62, 78, 102, 147, 153, 399
San Francisco (CA), 215, 361; presidio, 321, 369
San Gabriel, 15
Sangre de Cristo Micaceous, 222
Sangre de Cristo Mountains, 224, 225, 227
San José de Baviácora, 274
San José de las Huertas, 192, 219, 227, 228
San José de Los Ranchos, 219
San Juan mission (La Florida), 403
San Juan Pueblo (Ohkay Owingeh), 15, 69, 165,
202
San Juan Red-on-tan, 223
San Lázaro, 102, 153, 399
San Lorenzo, 196; archaeological evidence of,
200–202
San Luis de Talimali, 391
San Luis Valley (Santa Cruz River), 267
San Marcelo de Sonoyta, 270, 276, 278
San Marcos Pueblo, 146, 147
San Miguel (El Salvador), 17
San Miguel de Carnué, 192
San Miguel del Vado, 224, 228, 229
San Miguel River, 271
San Pedro (NM). See Paako
San Pedro Arroyo (NM), 78, 93; as Paako water
source, 81–82; Plains Apache sites, 104–5
San Pedro Mountains (NM), 78
San Pedro River Valley (AZ), 269, 272, 279
San Pelayo (ship), 401
San Phelipe mission (La Florida), 403
San Salvador, 17
San Salvador de Mayaca, 402
Santa Ana de Cuiquiburitac, 26
Santa Ana Polychrome, 221
Santa Ana pueblo, 62, 106, 152, 153, 227
Santa Barbara mission, bell at, 396–97
Santa Catalina de Guale, bells from, 400–405,
407(n4)
Santa Clara Constitution, 149
Santa Cruz de Gaybanipitea (AZ
EE:8:15[ASM]), 272, 273, 275
Santa Cruz de la Cañada, 191, 196
Santa Cruz del Pitaitutgam (AZ EE:8:15[ASM]),
272, 273, 274
Santa Cruz de Terrenate (AZ EE:4:11[ASM]),
26, 272, 274, 322
Santa Cruz River, 266, 267, 269, 274, 279
Santa Fe, 15, 17, 118, 191; structure of, 86–87
Santa Fe Trail, ceramics imported on, 222–23
426
| Index
Santa María, Agustín de, 250
Santa Rita Mountains, timber from, 316
Santa Rosa de Lima de Abiquiú, 223
Santiago (Guatemala), 17
Santiago Pueblo (New Mexico), 63
Santo Domingo, 62, 147, 152, 245, 398
Santo Domingo Basin, 101
San Xavier del Bac, 293, 297, 303, 312, 318, 325
Sapelo Island, 404
scalp dances, at Taos, 164
School of American Research (School for
Advanced Research), 360
S-cuk Son, 312–13. See also Tucson
seasonal movements, O’odham, 290–91, 294
Sedelmayr, Jacobo, 276, 340, 343
sedentism, rotating, 98, 99
Senecú, 399
Seris, 27, 29, 30
settlement patterns, 28, 145; northern Rio
Grande, 100–101; Spanish colonial, 192–93;
Vecino, 193–95
sheep, 361; at Hopi, 121–22, 133; in Pimería Alta,
297–300, 302–3, 305
sheep/goat remains, 92, 96, 118, 119; at
Hispanic sites, 221, 222, 223, 225–26
sheepherding camp, at Paako, 98–99
Shongopovi (Songòopavi), 119, 120, 241, 244, 251
shrines, 77, 86, 88
siege, on Moho, 54, 59, 60, 61, 70
Sitkoyma, torture and death of, 246–49
slaves, in La Florida colony, 386
slingsstones, at Piedras Marcadas Pueblo, 67, 68
smallpox, 242, 292, 314
smelting, in Paako plaza, 90–91, 364
smoke signals, Puebloan, 56
Sobaipuri Plain, 273, 274
Sobaipuris, 26, 269, 271, 272, 278, 279, 317, 318;
archaeological evidence, 272–75
Sobas, 26, 267, 270–71, 279
social hierarchies, Mississippian Southeast,
383–84, 386–87, 389
Socorro, 11
soldiers: Tucson Presidio, 314–15, 316–17, 322;
weapons, 323–24
Songòopavi (Shongopavi), 119, 120, 241, 244, 251
Sonora, 264, 303; native revolts and resistance
in, 29–31; Spanish settlement of, 26, 27–28,
266
Sonora, Río, archaeology, 274, 278
Sonoyta, 270, 276, 278
Soto, Hernando de, 383
soul wounds, 254
Southeast. See Mississippian Southeast
Southern Tewa, 12
Southern Tiwa, 12, 119, 227, 382
Southwestern Grand Narrative, 392–94
space, 364, 393; cultural concepts of, 76–77, 370–71
Spaniards, 124, 279, 357; concepts of landscape,
76, 77; dependence on Pueblos of, 157–58;
ethnogenesis, 188–89, 361; introduction
of livestock, 289–90; land rights concepts,
99–100; and O’odham, 336–37; town structures, 86–87; village establishment, 192–93
Spanish Empire, 10, 380; frontier of, 5, 103–5
Spanish entrada, 3–4, 57, 292; exploring expeditions, 13–15, 67–69, 357–59, 383; trauma of,
240
spinning technology, at Hopi, 128–29
substance abuse, and historical trauma, 253–54
subsistence strategies, 98; hunter-gatherer,
367–68; Pimería Alta, 290–92
Sumas, 30, 271, 272, 274
sun katsina, and Virgin of Guadalupe, 9
superposition, theory of, 392–93
Tabira Black-on-white, 23
Tabira Polychrome, 23
Taino, 50
tallow production, Pimería Alta, 300–302, 304,
305
Tamarón, Bishop, 164
Tanos, Tanoans, 12, 143, 153, 252
Taos, 11, 12, 143,165, 245; Comanches and, 161,
162–63, 164, 170, 182(n7)
Tarascans, 4; on Coronado expedition, 51, 357
Tenochas, on Coronado expedition, 51, 357
Tepehuan, 275
terra nullius, 10–11
Terrenate, 26, 272, 274, 322
Teuricachi Valley, native attacks in, 271, 272
Tewa, 12, 143, 221, 252, 381; alliances, 152–53, 365;
conflicts with, 151–52; at Kotyiti, 146, 147;
post-Revolt ceramics, 22–23
Tewa Basin, 98
Tewa Polychrome Series, 221, 222, 223, 225
textile production, 132; embroidery, 125–27;
Hopi, 115–16, 119–21, 127–29, 130, 134–35,
136(n6), 362–63; knitting, 124–25; Pueblo,
118–19, 392; Vecino, 228–29; wool in, 121–23
Teya/Jumanos, 12
Tiguex Province, 53, 69; contact period archaeology, 63–67; Coronado expedition and,
54–55, 56, 57–58, 60–61, 62; defensive tactics
in, 58–59; textile production, 116, 118
Tijeras Creek, 78
Tijeras Pueblo (LA 581), 82
Timucua, 384, 388, 402
tipi rings, Vista Verde site, 168, 169, 176, 365
Tiwa, 31, 63, 69, 143, 252; Pueblo Revolt, 381, 382;
textile production, 116, 118, 119
Tlatelolcas, 51, 357
Tlaxcaltecas, 4, 17
Tohono O’odham (Papagos), 26, 267, 275, 343;
settlement pattern, 28–29
Tolar Site (WY), 175, 177
Tompiros, 12, 98, 101, 382
Tonque, Arroyo, 78; watershed, 81–82
torreones, 200
Tota’tsi, 248–49
Totonicapán (Guatemala), 17
Towa, 12, 381
town planning, Spanish, 86–87
trade, trade networks, 132, 164, 202, 318, 343,
387; intercolony, 301–2, 305; post-Revolt,
146–47, 152; Tucson Presidio, 319–25; Vecino,
227–28
trauma, historical/intergenerational, 240,
253–56, 358, 362
treaties, Spanish-Indian, 193
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 160
tribute, 19, 241; La Florida, 386–87;
Mississippian system, 386–88; Pueblo communities, 21, 85, 115, 133, 245; textiles as,
118–19, 120–21, 392
Trincheras, 264, 265
Trincheras Plain, 274
Trujillo, José, 250
Trujillo House site, 223
Tubac, 267, 312; livestock at, 298–99; presidio
at, 28, 30, 314
Tubutama, 30, 272, 279
Tucson: archaeological research, 311–312.
See also San Agustín de Tucson; Tucson
Presidio
Tucson Presidio, 359, 361; construction of,
315–16; establishment of, 314–15; livestock at,
295, 298; metallurgy at, 324–25; and Native
Americans, 317–19; presidio life, 33, 325–26;
residents of, 316–17; trade goods at, 319–24
Tucubavia, 269–70, 271
Tumacácori, 299, 312
Tunque, 78, 100
Tunyo (LA 23), 145, 146, 152, 153
Tupatú, Luis, 144
Turco, El, 61
Index
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427
Ulibarri, Juan de, 162
US military, and Gila River O’odham, 344
Upper Pimans, archaeology, 277
Upper Pima Revolt (1751), 28
uprisings. See Pueblo Revolt; rebellions
Useda, Juan de, 403
Utes, 143, 193, 214; and Comanches, 161, 182(n4);
raids by, 151, 196; in Rio Grande Gorge, 165,
166, 365; rock art, 167, 182(n5)
Valdez, Antonia Rosa, 197
Valdez, Ignacio, 195, 206(n7)
Valdez, José Antonio,196, 197, 207(n10)
Valdez, Juan, 195
Valdez, Juan Bautista, 197
Valdez, Rosalía, and Rio del Oso grant, 195, 197
Valencia, 219
Valladolid, 76
Vargas, Diego de, 17, 24, 143, 145, 152, 196, 251
Vecinos, 206(n4); archaeological identity
of, 217–25; identity as, 188, 214–17, 229–30,
368–69, 371; identity restructuring as, 25, 32;
legal recognition as, 189–90, 205; settlement
pattern, 193–95, 203–4; subsistence and
economy, 225–26; trade, 227–28
vecinos de razón, 215
Velasco, Luis, 68
Ventana Cave (AZ Z:12:5[ASM]), 276–77
Vicente Valdez Site, 221
Vijil, José Ramón, 196
villages, Spanish colonial, 190, 191–92
violence, 9, 19, 24, 240; Coronado expedition,
53, 54–55, 58–59
Virgin Mary, images of, 383
Virgin of Guadalupe, 9
visitas: at Hopi, 116, 119, 241; at Paako, 89–90; in
Pimería Alta, 295–96, 313–14
Vista Verde Site (LA 75747), 165, 168, 169, 179;
rock art, 170–78, 181, 365–66
Wàlpi, 116, 119, 121, 125, 127, 130, 241, 251; textiles,
123, 127–29, 134
warfare: Comanche, 159, 160; among Pueblos,
151–52
428
| Index
warriors, native, 16, 17, 176
warrior societies, in Rio Grande Pueblos, 70
water control/harvesting systems, Pueblo, 92,
95, 98
water sources: for O’odham, 291–92; around
Paako, 81–82
weapons, 67, 358; presidio soldiers, 323–25;
Spanish, 322–23
weaving: dyes used in, 123–24; as gendered
role, 21, 392; at Hopi, 31, 115–16, 127–29, 133,
362–63; in Spanish colonies, 118, 135(n1)
wedding ceremonies, Hopi, 247, 248
wheat, 29, 293; middle Gila River production,
336, 341, 342, 344, 345, 367
Whetstone Plain, 273, 278, 279
Wichita-speakers, 12
women: and Catholicism, 382–83; textile production, 118, 119, 134, 362
wool, 118, 119, 225; embroidery, 125–27; at Hopi,
121–23, 124, 130, 133, 362
Wuwtsim, 252
Xauian, 61
Xiveni, Juan, 243
Yaqui Revolt, 28
Yaquis, 26, 28
Ybargary, Antonio de, 120, 133, 243, 244–45
Yuman speakers, 26, 267, 275–76, 278, 364
Yumas (Quechan), 27, 275, 278
Yunque-Yunque (Ohkay Owingeh), 15, 69, 165,
202
Zacatecas, 13
Zepe, El, 153
Zia, 62, 70, 106, 147, 153, 399; ceramics from, 146,
227; conflicts with, 151–52
zooarchaeology, of Pimería Alta sites, 295–300,
304, 361–62
Zuni, 4, 18, 23, 58, 90, 106, 119, 132, 145, 241, 334;
Coronado expedition and, 53, 56, 57, 60;
embroidery, 125, 127; Pueblo Revolt, 381, 399
Zúñiga, José de, 318
Zuni language, 12