Po’pay

12 minutes ago

4 min read

So I left off last time hinting something big was about to happen in the Taos of 1680. And so it was. And if that Something-Big wasn’t all the fault of Governor Juan Francisco Treviño, then he still gets a lot of credit.

As you’ll recall, Treviño had set out to destroy Pueblo religion. He’d arrested a number of medicine men, had some of them killed, and then whipped and humiliated the rest. He’d eventually had to release those who hadn’t been executed, and that only reluctantly.

About the photos: First, a statue of Popé/Po'pay by the Pueblo artist Cliff Fragua. It is on display at the National Statuary Hall in the rotunda of the U.S. Congress building. (For more on this, see: https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/popay-statue) This photo is believed to be in the public domain.

Second, another shot of some of the buildings of the Pueblo. Again, this from the other side of the river.

Third, and finally, and nothing to do with Taos, but I like the picture, here’s Martha at breakfast a few years back.

One of the freed men was a gentleman by the name of Po’pay, or Popé, depending on whose spelling you prefer. Up to that time--or at least as near as I can tell--Popé had been a perfectly normal medicine man.(1) He came from Ohkay Owingeh, one of the Pueblos in the northern part of the state, and seems to have lived a quiet life there. At least he didn’t seem to stand out.

But...then he was arrested and abused on Treviño’s orders. That made all the difference. Popé was transformed. He became an ardent revolutionary.

He left Santa Fe, where he’d been held, and went to Taos Pueblo, which was right at the edge of Spanish control. There, working in utter secrecy, he constructed a network of like-minded people in most of the Pueblos. He made plans. He collected weapons. He preached a religious war. Get rid of the Spanish, he said, and return the Pueblos to their golden age.

In August of 1680, it happened. The Pueblos rose as a body, and the bewildered Spanish found themselves facing a revolutionary army. They fought back bravely, but were outnumbered and outfought, and finally had to flee in toto to what is now Mexico.

After that, Popé ruled over a kind of Pueblo Confederation. It isn’t clear quite what it was like to live there, or how successful he was. He seems to have tried to eliminate every aspect of Spanish colonialism and Spanish Catholicism -- demanding his followers pull down churches, destroy crosses, and even give up imported European crops, like wheat and fruit. Apparently, and again we have a lack of sources in this, many of the Pueblos refused to do this, and some came to regard Popé as a tyrant.

He died around 1692, though no one knows for sure what happened to him. And his Confederation did not long survive him. By 1692, the Spanish were back. Officially, the “reconquest” was bloodless. It wasn’t. Not really. Though it is still celebrated as such yearly in the Santa Fe Fiesta. (2)

Still, Popé had achieved something remarkable. For the very first time, anywhere in the Americas, local peoples had successfully expelled a European invader, even if it was only temporarily. In his own way, he was a great revolutionary, and he remains an inspiration to liberation movements all over the world to this very day.

Also, while the Pueblo peoples were not able to keep their independence, they did gain much. The Spanish authorities largely (if not completely) gave up their attempt to eliminate Pueblo culture, and Pueblo people were far less subject to forced labor. The government had finally realized that there was no chance of a mini-Europe of Indian serfs and Spanish squires along the northern Rio Grande.

Moreover, the Church, too, had learned its lesson. From hence forward, it would demand only that the Pueblo peoples maintain a nominal Catholicism, while tolerating their beliefs and spiritual practices. It is the system that exists, to some degree, even now.

And that is the story of the Pueblo Revolt, and how Taos Pueblo had a major role in it. As an aside, it wouldn’t be the last time Taos led a rebellion, or fought for the rights of Native Americans. But, perhaps that’s a story for another day.(3)

Right now, I should speed along. I need to abandon history, and move to the present.

For it was to the Pueblo that we were headed next.

More to come.

Footnotes:

1.“Po’pay,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po%27pay

2. In fact, there was considerable loss of life, if not in the first reconquest then in subsequent attempts to pacify the local peoples. But, in Santa Fe, what is remembered is the happier story of the peaceful return of the Spanish authorities with the permission of the Pueblo peoples. See “Pueblo Revolt,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Revolt#Reconquest and “The Santa Fe Fiesta,” EBSCO, https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/santa-fe-fiesta

3. Taos seems to have a bent toward rebellion against unjust authority. In 1847, Taos Hispanics and Taos Pueblo people united in a revolt against the new American government following the Mexican-American War. See “Taos Rebellion,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taos_Revolt

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