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300 word essay on this primary source document using these questions
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What was the role of religion in igniting the rebellion against Spanish authority?
2. What happened during the rebellion to the Pueblos who had converted to Catholicism?
Primary source document
Testimonies from the Pueblo Revolt
(1680)
In 1680, the Pueblo Indians in what is now New Mexico rebelled against Spanish rule. Throughout the seventeenth century, Spanish soldiers, priests, and governing officials had exploited enslaved Indian workers and forced them to embrace the Catholic faith. Catholic missionaries destroyed sacred Indian spiritual objects and banned Indian religious ceremonies and dances. Such efforts to rid Pueblo life of its cultural and spiritual traditions triggered a rebellion led by Popé, a religious leader. The Pueblos killed some 400 Spaniards, making the revolt the most successful Native American uprising in history.
Two years later, however, a Spanish army regained control of New Mexico. In the aftermath of the rebellion, Pueblo Indians who spoke Spanish were interviewed. Two of those accounts follow.
From Charles W. Hackett, “Declaration of Josephe and Pedro Naranjo,” in Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Otermin’s Attempted Reconquest, 1680-1682 (Albuquer que:
University of New Mexico Press, 1942), 2:238-40, 245, 247-48.
Editorial insertions appear in square brackets-Ed.]
Declaration of Josephe, Spanish-speaking Indian. [Place of the Rio del Norte, December 19, 1681.]
Asked what causes or motives the said Indian rebels had for renouncing the law of God and obedience to his Majesty, and for committing so many kinds of crimes, and who were the instigators of the rebellion, and what he had heard while he was among the apostates [rebels who renounce the Catholic faith], he said that the prime movers of the rebellion were two Indians of San Juan, one named El Popé and the other El Taqu, and another from Taos named Saca, and another from San Ildefonso named Francisco. He knows that these were the principals, and the causes they gave were alleged ill treatment and injuries received from the present secretary, Francisco Xavier, and the maestre de campo [military commander], Alonso García, and from the sargentos mayores [second-in-command), Luis de Quintana and Diego López, because they beat them, took away what they had, and made them work without pay.
Thus he replies.
Asked if he has learned or it has come to his notice during the time that he has been here the reason why the apostates burned the images, churches, and things pertaining to divine worship, making a mockery and a trophy of them, killing the priests and doing the other things they did, he said that he knows and has heard it generally stated that while they were besieging the villa the rebellious traitors burned the church and shouted in loud voices, “Now the God of the Spaniards, who was their father, is dead, and Santa Maria, who was their mother, and the saints, who were pieces of rotten wood,” saying that only their own god lived. Thus they ordered all the temples and images, crosses and rosaries burned, and this function being over, they all went to bathe in the rivers, saying that they thereby washed away the water of baptism. For their churches, they placed on the four sides and in the center of the plaza some small circular enclosures of stone where they went to offer flour, feathers, and the seed of maguey, maize, and tobacco, and performed other superstitious rites, giving the children to understand that they must all do this in the future. The captains and chiefs ordered that the names of Jesus and of Mary should nowhere be uttered, and that they should discard their baptismal names, and abandon the wives whom God had given them in matrimony, and take the ones that they pleased. He saw that as soon as the remaining Spaniards had left, they ordered all the estufas erected, which are their houses of idolatry, and danced throughout the kingdom the dance of the cazina, making many masks for it in the image of the devil. Thus he replied to this question….
Asked if he knows, or whether it has come to his notice, that the said apostates have erected houses of idolatry which they call estufas in the pueblos, and have practiced dances and superstitions, he said there is a general report throughout the kingdom that they have done so and he has seen many houses of idolatry which they have built, dancing the dance of the cachina, which this declarant has also danced. Thus he replied to the question.
Declaration of Pedro Naranjo of the Queres Nation. [Place of the Río del Norte, December 19,
1681.]
Asked for what reason they so blindly burned the images, temples, crosses, and other things of divine worship, he stated that the said Indian, Popé, came down in person, and with him El Saca and El Chato from the pueblo of Los Taos, and other captains and leaders and many people who were in his train, and he ordered in all the pueblos through which he passed that they instantly break up and burn the images of the holy Christ, the Virgin Mary and the other saints, the crosses, and everything pertaining to Christianity, and that they burn the temples, break up the bells, and separate from the wives whom God had given them in marriage and take those whom they desired. In order to take away their baptismal names, the water, and the holy oils, they were to plunge into the rivers and wash themselves with amole, which is a root native to the country, washing even their clothing, with the understanding that there would thus be taken from them the character of the holy sacraments. They did this, and also many other things which he does not recall, given to understand that this mandate had come from the Caydi and the other two who emitted fire from their extremities in the said estufa of Taos, and that they thereby returned to the state of their antiquity, as when they came from the lake of Copala; that this was the better life and the one they desired, because the God of the Spaniards was worth nothing and theirs was very strong, the Spaniards’ God being rotten wood. These things were observed and obeyed by all except some who, moved by the zeal of Christians, opposed it, and such persons the said Popé caused to be killed immediately. He saw to it that they at once erected and rebuilt their houses of idolatry which they call estufas, and made very ugly masks in imitation of the devil in order to dance the dance of the cacina; and he said likewise that the devil had given them to understand that living thus in accordance with the law of their ancestors, they would harvest a great deal of maize, many beans, a great abundance of cotton, calabashes, and very large watermelons and cantaloupes; and that they could erect their houses and enjoy abundant health and leisure.
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