Revolution
After his release, Po'pay joined forces with several other Pueblo leaders to plot what would become the Pueblo Revolt. Settling in Taos Pueblo, roughly 70 miles north of Santa Fe, he devoted the following five years to rallying backing for an uprising among the region's 46 Pueblo towns. His efforts won over the Tiwa, Tewa, Towa, Tano, and Keres speaking communities scattered along the Rio Grande Valley. Since these six tribes did not share a common tongue, organizers relied on Spanish as an informal shared language for coordinating the rebellion. Fifty miles east of the river, Pecos Pueblo committed itself to the cause, and so did the Zuni and Hopi, situated 120 and 200 miles to the west. Holding back from the effort were the four southern Tiwa, or Tiguex, towns close to Santa Fe, along with the Piro communities south of the main Pueblo settlements near what is now Socorro. Both groups had become more deeply woven into Spanish colonial life than their counterparts elsewhere.
Numbering around 2,400, the Spanish population, a plurality of them mestizos of mixed heritage, lived spread thin across the territory alongside native servants and dependents. Only Santa Fe bore any real resemblance to an actual town. Armed Spanish manpower amounted to a mere 170 men, while the allied Pueblos could likely field 2,000 or more adult warriors wielding traditional weapons like bows and arrows. Some Apache and Navajo may also have thrown in their lot with the rebels.
In many ways this uprising followed the pattern common to millenarian movements within colonial societies. Po'pay assured his followers that once the Spanish were driven out or killed, the old Pueblo deities would bless them with prosperity and wellbeing. His strategy called for each Pueblo community to rise against Spanish residents in its own vicinity before uniting in a march on Santa Fe to finish the job. August 11, 1680 was chosen as the day of reckoning. To spread word of the plan, Po'pay sent messengers bearing knotted cords to every Pueblo. Two youths, Pedro Omtua and Nicolas Catua, carried this task out. Setting off early on August 8, 1680, they traveled from Tesuque toward Tanogeh, the Tano villages, making their first stop at Pecos. Trouble arose quickly, however, when Christian Indians alerted Fray Fernandao De Velasco that two Tewa youths had been seen at the war chief's residence. Undeterred, the pair pressed onward from Pecos to Galisteo, then San Cristobal, and finally San Marcos.
The plan called for Pueblo leaders to remove one knot from their cord each day, with the untying of the final knot serving as the signal for a coordinated rising. But on August 9 the Spanish caught wind of the plot through southern Tiwa informants and seized the two Tesuque youths who had been carrying the knotted cords. Torture was used against them to extract the meaning behind the cords.
In response, Po'pay moved the timetable up by a single day. News of this change never reached the Hopi villages on their remote mesas in Arizona, so they proceeded according to the original schedule. On August 10 the Pueblo peoples launched their uprising, seizing Spanish horses to prevent escape, blocking every route into Santa Fe, and ransacking Spanish settlements throughout the area. The violence claimed 400 lives in total, among them men, women, children, and 21 of New Mexico's 33 Franciscan missionaries. At Tusayan, Hopi fighters destroyed churches at Awatovi, Shungopavi, and Oraibi, killing the priests stationed there. Those who survived fled toward Santa Fe or to Isleta Pueblo, located 10 miles south of Albuquerque and among the communities that had refused to join the revolt. By August 13 every Spanish settlement across New Mexico lay in ruins, and Santa Fe itself found itself under siege, encircled by Pueblo forces who cut the city off from its water supply. Facing dire circumstances, Governor Antonio de Otermín, who had barricaded himself in the Palace of the Governors, led all available men in a desperate sally on August 21 that pushed the Pueblo besiegers back with significant casualties on their side. Otermín then evacuated the Spanish population southward along the Rio Grande, making for El Paso del Norte, with Pueblo warriors trailing the retreat
Self governance
With the Spaniards gone, New Mexico now rested entirely under Pueblo control. Po'pay himself faded into legend, and the Pueblo people preserved many differing accounts of his fate once the uprising had ended.
According to these accounts, Po'pay moved among the various towns alongside two lieutenants, Alonso Catiti of Santo Domingo and Luis Tupatu of Picuris, insisting that life return to what it had been before the Spanish arrived. Every cross, church building, and Christian icon was to be torn down. Communities were told to purify themselves through ceremonial washing, revert to their old names, and erase any trace of Catholic worship or Spanish influence, down to the livestock and orchards the Spanish had introduced. Tradition holds that Po'pay banned growing wheat and barley, and that he insisted anyone joined in marriage under Catholic rites abandon that spouse in favor of a partner chosen according to older native customs.
Because governance remained local to each pueblo, many communities, and perhaps every one of them, pushed back against Po'pay's vision of erasing all Spanish influence. The prosperity he had guaranteed once Spanish rule ended never came to pass. Drought persisted and ruined harvests, while Apache and Navajo attacks grew more frequent. Even so, in the early period the Pueblo peoples stood together, bound by a shared determination to keep the Spanish from returning.
Po'pay held authority until he died in 1688, though certain sources claim his influence had already faded roughly a year after the revolt. Most believe his death came not long before Spanish forces reclaimed the region in 1692.
Written by Aubrey Research from Pueblo Revolt on Wikipedia, cited as a reference and not reproduced.
Where these engagements were fought
All 12 are placed on the map. Select a marker to see the engagement.
Red markers are surveyed battlefields with a mapped boundary; navy markers are point-located engagements. Select a marker to open its page.
By decade
The tempo of the war, by decade.
Notable engagements
| Engagement | State | Year | Outcome | Forces or losses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tiguex War | NM | 1540 | Spanish victory | 12 Southern Tiwa Puebloans: Hundreds killed, executed, or… |
| 1599 Acoma massacre | NM | 1599 | Spanish victory | hundreds of Acoma killed and enslaved |
| Pueblo Revolt | NM | 1680 | Pueblo victory | ~400 Spanish colonists killed |
| Second Pueblo Revolt of 1696 | NM | 1696 | 5 missionaries and 34 settlers killed | |
| Recapture of Santa Fe (1693) | NM | 1693 | 70 Pueblo warriors executed | |
| Otermin's battle at Isleta Pueblo | NM | 1681 | Otermin 146 Spanish + 146 native soldiers |
Plus 6 further documented engagements in the Pueblo Revolt & the Spanish Southwest record.
By state
Engagements and locations are compiled from published sources: Wikipedia (text rewritten and cited as a reference, CC BY-SA 4.0).