A listing of 250 names has been proposed for the federal authorities’s new Garden of American Heroes, however considered one of our earliest revolutionaries will not be included.
Po’pay, a 17th-century Native American leader from what’s now New Mexico, is honored with one of many 100 statues within the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall Collection however will not be on the record for the backyard.
As a historian of early America, I see Po’pay’s absence within the to-be-built shrine as unlucky — however not shocking. In any case, he led the Pueblo Revolt of 1680: essentially the most profitable Indigenous insurrection in opposition to colonization within the historical past of what grew to become the US. He and his followers sought political independence and spiritual freedom, points central to People’ sense of themselves.
Spiritual actions and figures performed a central function in early American historical past. For instance, Thanksgiving is linked to Protestant non secular dissenters we call Pilgrims and Puritans. American delusion tells us that these hearty souls braved an ocean crossing and a contest with the “wilderness,” within the phrases of the Plymouth colony’s governor, William Bradford. They did so, in keeping with our legends, to pursue their religion — although the historic report reveals that economics also drove their decision emigrate.
Po’pay, a Tewa non secular chief born round 1630, wished to revive the traditions and practices of his homeland: Ohkay Owingeh, which Spanish colonizers renamed San Juan Pueblo, in what’s now New Mexico. The Tewa are considered one of many Pueblo peoples dwelling within the Southwest.
Pueblo lands had witnessed spasms of brutal violence since Spanish colonizers arrived on the finish of the sixteenth century. In 1598, a gaggle of Spanish troopers arrived in Acoma, a famous Pueblo city identified to the Spanish by earlier experiences from the explorer Francisco Coronado. The oldest settlement throughout the territorial boundaries of the US, Acoma has been occupied nearly repeatedly because the twelfth century.
On the finish of the sixteenth century, conflict erupted when residents of Acoma refused the troopers’ calls for for meals. Locals killed the commander and round a dozen others. In response, the provincial governor, Juan de Oñate, consulted with Franciscan monks after which ordered a counterattack.
The Spanish killed at least 800 residents — 300 ladies and kids and 500 males — and maybe as many as 1,500. In a subsequent trial, the colonizers dominated that the folks of Acoma had violated their “obligations” to the Spanish king. Judges bought nearly 600 survivors into slavery and amputated one foot from every man over the age of 24.
Within the years that adopted, Spanish troopers captured Indigenous people across the Southwest and bought them into slavery too. For Pueblos and different Indigenous peoples, the intertwined army, political and non secular invasions threatened seemingly each side of their lives.
The violence at Acoma didn’t dissuade Spaniards desperate to migrate. Round 1608, horse- and oxen-drawn carriages traveled into the territory to construct a brand new capital, which the Spanish referred to as Santa Fe. Along with ferrying troopers and farming households, these wagons additionally carried Franciscan friars, crucifixes, Bibles and different objects the brothers wanted to advertise Catholicism.
Over the following many years, periodic conflicts pitted Indigenous peoples of various pueblos against the colonizers. Like different Christian missionaries within the Western Hemisphere, Franciscans of the day argued that Indigenous peoples wanted to desert their conventional religions as a part of the method of conversion. However many in New Mexico retained older methods. They continued to wish in chambers known as kivas and communicate with their deities: Pos’e yemu, for instance, whom Tewas believed had the power to bring rain.
In 1675, colonial authorities accused Indigenous non secular leaders of killing Franciscans with sorcery. They rounded up suspects, executed three and beat others. Additionally they destroyed kivas. Amongst these imprisoned after which launched was Po’pay.
The sting of the lash scarred greater than human flesh in Pueblo communities. It fed resentment in opposition to colonists. Most of the Pueblos targeted their animosity on the clerical authorities who justified the brutality of the Spanish conquest.
As the last decade got here to an in depth, the area was gripped in a drought that diminished provides of meals and water, pushing Indigenous communities’ frustrations to a tipping level. Po’pay led a rebellion that reached throughout Pueblo communities, saying that he was following steering from Pos’e yemu.
On Aug. 11, 1680, Po’pay and his followers unleashed a reign of terror in opposition to Spanish troopers, colonial farmers and Catholic church buildings. They systematically destroyed religious buildings and abused and killed monks. Far outnumbering their opponents, the Pueblos chased the colonizers to Santa Fe after which drove them out of the area.
Po’pay, in keeping with a Native witness named Josephe, reveled in the moment, saying, “Now the God of the Spaniards, who was their father, is lifeless.” Historians consider that the assault killed at least 400 colonists and soldiers, or about 1 in 6 Spaniards in New Mexico. There had been 33 friars within the province earlier than the rebellion. Solely 12 survived.
Within the aftermath of the Pueblos’ army victory, Po’pay led an effort to eradicate the last vestiges of Catholicism in New Mexico. He ordered that Natives who had transformed wanted to clean themselves with yucca branches to take away the stain of baptism. Though some church buildings survived, together with San Estevan del Rey Mission Church at Acoma, a lot of the Spanish friars who had led companies in them lay lifeless.
From 1675 to 1680, the European colonial undertaking got here underneath dire risk throughout North America. In New England, Metacom’s, or King Philip’s, War — waged between Indigenous teams and English settlers — destroyed scores of communities in one of the vital damaging conflicts in American historical past. In Virginia, a dissident hinterland landowner named Nathaniel Bacon led a revolt by aggrieved colonists that torched the English provincial capital at Jamestown.
On this violent period, Po’pay grew to become one of the most consequential figures on the continent — and the embodiment of the American thought that individuals must be free from oppressive rulers and free, too, to follow their religion as they see match.
Po’pay died in 1688. 4 years later, Spanish colonizers returned to New Mexico and as soon as once more got down to carry the huge desert and its decided residents underneath their management.
However they by no means erased the legacy of Po’pay, who stays a cultural hero for his defiant stand in opposition to king and cross.
Peter C. Mancall is a professor of historical past, anthropology and economics at USC and the writer of the forthcoming “Contested Continent: The Wrestle for North America, c. 1000-1680.” This text was produced in collaboration with the Conversation.
