The Pueblo Revolt
The one Indigenous revolt that drove a colonial power out entirely
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The Pueblo peoples are Indigenous nations of New Mexico and Arizona living in permanent villages of stone and adobe, and they had been under Spanish rule for eighty years when they rose. The revolt is the most successful of its kind in North America and is worth knowing precisely because the pattern usually runs the other way. The trigger was systematic suppression of Pueblo religion; the leader Popé had himself been publicly flogged. When the Spanish returned in 1692 the terms had genuinely changed: the encomienda was not reimposed in New Mexico, and religious practice was tolerated in fact. The horses left behind spread north and reached the Plains within decades.
For children
The Pueblo peoples of New Mexico rose together against Spanish rule, coordinating between towns that spoke different languages using knotted cords counting down the days. They drove the Spanish out of the region entirely, and held it for twelve years.
Sources
- Knaut, The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 (1995)
- Palace of the Governors / New Mexico History Museum
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