Popé (1630?-1690?)

Pueblo religious and political leader

Sources

Early Spanish Contact. Popé was a revolutionary leader of the Pueblo peoples of present-day southwestern United States. When conquistadores under Francisco Vásquez de Coronado passed through Pueblo territory in 1540–1542 the Pueblo peoples were forced out of their homes temporarily but returned to them for a full generation before the Spanish reappeared. Rumors of gold and the desire to avenge old wounds stimulated Spanish interest, and by 1590 a short-lived Spanish colony was established near the village the Europeans named Santo Domingo. Finally in 1591 the scion of a wealthy immigrant family, Don Juan de Oñate, moved to the Rio Grande and Chama River. He established his capital at the town he called San Juan and ordered the Indians to disperse to nearby villages. As friars delivered religious instruction, troops searched for plunder and provoked a rebellion at the Pueblo town of Acoma. The villagers reacted by throwing the Spaniards over the side of the cliffs of their mesa. More Spanish troops arrived, and in the subsequent fighting more than one thousand native warriors died. Others were tried, convicted, and had their hands and feet chopped off as punishment; Acoma women were enslaved.

Christianity. Spanish officials established the capital of Santa Fe a few miles northeast of Santo Domingo. They imposed an encomienda regime, treating Indians like European serfs and demanding annual payment of tribute in addition to forced labor. Some Pueblo people began to accept Christianity, although traditionalists continued to resist. Disputes among the colonists over the authority of the governor and the priests weakened the authority of both.

Resistance. By 1660 droughts began to reduce the food supply for a growing colonial population, causing some Indians to fear that their old gods were offended. Starving Apaches attacked Pueblo peoples for food. At this point an older Tewa religious leader named Popé emerged in San Juan. The Spanish had seized and enslaved his older brother as punishment for Pope’s rejection of Christianity and his persistence in observing the old religion. Popé told the people that the drought was caused by the Spanish friars; only their departure would end the shortage of rainfall, he warned. As word spread of his preaching, his audience grew, and attempts to suppress him only fed the rising panic. When Popé and other priests were imprisoned in Santa Fe, a delegation obtained their release by threatening outright rebellion. Popé urged the execution of all informers, even if they were members of his own family. He dramatized the anger of the gods by arranging for a symbolic costumed dance in a kiva (ceremonial pit). He sent cords with knots tied in them as a signal for the number of days remaining before a general revolt.

Attack on Santa Fe. Coordinated attacks began on 10 August 1680 and were highly successful. In a few days time, the entire Spanish community had retreated to Santa Fe. After several days of fierce fighting the Pueblo Indians burned Santa Fe to the ground and forced the white settlers to flee southward hundreds of miles to El Paso. In the Pueblo towns the Spanish language and the Christian religion were banned, and all converts were ritually cleansed of their sins. Eventually Popé lost the support of his followers, who had become accustomed to European trade goods. In addition they were vulnerable to attacks by Apaches who seized their horses and introduced them to other native cultures north of the Pueblo region. Popé died sometime around 1690, and Pueblo unity eroded. In 1691 the Spanish returned in force and reasserted their authority in the Southwest.

Sources

Ramón Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico 1500–1846 (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1991);

Joe S. Sando, Pueblo Profiles: Cultural Identity through Centuries of Change (Sante Fe, N.M.: Clear Light, 1995).