01.21.06

UIS Spring, 2006 - Understanding US History

Posted in at 1:22 pm by Stephanie

Another primary document1 we are using this week reveals the testimony of both a Spanish soldier and a Pueblo Indian to Spanish authorities in Santa Fe, Nuevo Mexico in 1680 about the Indian uprising (or “revolt”) against the ruling Spaniards.

Of course, the document is written from the Spanish point of view, so the language used includes words like “conspiracies of the Indian sorcerers” and
“who is said to have communication with the devil.” There is no attempt to understand the true nature of the rebellion. History is rife with this sort of arrogance.

One review, written in 1945, says “their rebellion against the church was regarded as a far more serious offense than their rebellion against the king.”2

Full text of Pedro Naranjo’s testimony

Sources:
1Charles Wilson Hackett, Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Otermin’s Attempted Reconquest, 1680–1682 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1942), Volume 2: 245–49.
2Green, Joseph C. in The American Historical Journal 50, 4 (Jul, 1945): 806-807.
Handy definitions:
estufa - assembly room in dwelling of the Pueblo Indians (”it happened that in a estufa of the pueblo of Los Taos there appeared … three figures …”)autos - decrees, proceedings of councils of war, depositions of witnesses, official reports and correspondence, etc. (see 2)Other resources about this rebellion:
PBS - The West - The Pueblo Revolt
PBS - The West - PopéGoogle: Pueblo Revolt
Google Books: Pueblo Revolt
Google Scholar: Pueblo Revolt
Wikipedia: Pueblo Revolt

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