For most of the seventeenth century, Spain was a fading superpower. Though supplied by a seemingly endless supply of silver from its mines in the New World, poor management and a seemingly endless involvement in wars across Europe kept the country teetering on bankruptcy. Formerly the pre-eminent explorers of the previous century, the Spanish in the Americas spent most of the 1600s resting on their laurels in well established settlements which seemed to have already seen their best days.
At the time, the northern most settlements of the Spanish were in New Mexico, where around 2,500 Spanish colonials kept a tight control over some 15,000 Puebloans, who were treated little better than slaves in a system where they had to provide a certain level of work to their Spanish overlords without any type of compensation. New Mexico was on the frontier, with little to no access to silver, and the hostile Apache and Navajo all around, meaning it only attracted from amongst the Spanish the desperate and the foolish, a bad combination even under the best of conditions. Though there were colonial administrators, the real management of the colony was in the hands of the Franciscan missionaries, who busily tried to convert the Pueblo to Catholicism by eradicating all of their old religion and culture. The result of this was the reduction of the Puebloan population by some 75% via disease, violence, and forced labor, and for little to no purpose.
Not surprisingly, the Puebloans really didn’t like what was happening to them. However, when the Spanish first arrived, they were so divided by language, culture, and old grudges that even when revolts did break out, they tended to be limited to a few towns, which made it easy for the Spanish to end them with ruthless efficiency. However, as things steadily got worst, the Pueblo people increasingly set aside their differences, coming to the realization that if they were to survive, they would have to work together. Uniting under a single leader named Po’pay, they planned an intricate united uprising which took place in 1680, some 82 years after the Spanish first arrived. As one they rose up, killing 20 percent of the Spanish population in a matter of days and forcing the survivors to flee south back to Mexico.
With the Spanish gone, Po’pay attempted to eradicate all signs of the Spanish and to unite the Pueblo people under his rule. Though such efforts were momentarily buoyed by an attempt by the Spanish to retake New Mexico in 1681, which the Puebloans handily defeateted, things overall did not go well. Though united in their want to end Spanish rule, the Pueblo were still a divided people, now not just by towns, language, and culture, but also by varying levels of acceptance and integration of Christianity with traditional beliefs. Things only got worse as the Apache and Navajo, with the Spanish now gone, began to increasingly attack the Pueblo. Though the Pueblo managed to defeat a second attempt by the Spanish to retake the area in 1687, by the following year Po’pay was dead, any dreams of a united Pueblo people dying with him.
As for the Spanish, they would’ve likely abandoned New Mexico completely, if it wasn’t for French explorers increasingly appearing along the Mississippi River and coast of Texas and the need to create a more secure frontier against the hostile Apache and other native groups. In 1692, the a third Spanish army marched north. Unlike the other two, this one proved successful. Rather than try to engage in battle, the Spanish instead promised protection from the Apache, an end to the pseudo-slavery system, and for the Pueblo to be able to keep their religious ceremonies if they chose to do so. New Mexico was largely won without a fight, though a second Pueblo revolt took place in 1696, the Spanish retribution was so harsh that a third never occurred. Though becoming more fully integrated into Spanish culture over the coming century, the Pueblo did manage to retain their unique cultural identity.
