Title: The Great Pueblo Revolt - Resistance Against Spanish Colonialism
Headings: The Great Pueblo Revolt - Resistance Against Spanish Colonialism
The Great Pueblo Revolt - Resistance Against Spanish Colonialism
What Drove the 17th Century American Southwestern Pueblo People to Revolt?
Life Under the Spanish
Growing Unrest
Leadership
August 10–19, 1680
Revitalization and Reconstruction
Reconquest
Archaeological and Historical Studies
Recommended Books
Sources

Content: The Spanish established missions of Franciscan friars in several pueblos to specifically break up the Indigenous religious and secular communities, stamp out religious practices and replace them with Christianity. According to both Pueblo oral history and Spanish documents, at the same time the Spanish demanded that the Pueblo people render implicit obedience and pay heavy tribute in goods and personal service. Active efforts to convert the Pueblo people to Christianity involved destroying kivas and other structures, burning ceremonial paraphernalia in public plazas, and using accusations of witchcraft to imprison and execute traditional ceremonial leaders. The government also established an encomienda system, allowing up to 35 leading Spanish colonists to collect tribute from the households of a particular pueblo. Hopi oral histories report that the reality of the Spanish rule included forced labor, the seduction of Hopi women, raiding of kivas and sacred ceremonies, harsh punishment for failing to attend mass, and several rounds of drought and famine. Many accounts among Hopis and Zunis and other Puebloan people recount different versions than that of the Catholics, including sexual abuse of Pueblo women by Franciscan priests, a fact never acknowledged by the Spanish but cited in litigation in later disputes. Growing Unrest
While the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was the event that (temporarily) removed the Spanish from the southwest, it was not the first attempt. The Pueblo people had offered resistance throughout the 80-year period following the conquest. Public conversions didn't (always) lead to people giving up their traditions but rather drove the ceremonies underground. The Jemez (1623), Zuni (1639) and Taos (1639) communities each separately (and unsuccessfully) revolted.