Analysis: Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico by Antonia de Otermin

Date: August 10, 1680–June 25, 1682

Author: Otermín, Antonio de

Genre: report

Summary Overview

On August 10, 1680, Pueblo Indians throughout northern New Mexico mounted a coordinated offensive to drive out the Spanish, who had established a colonial presence in the region more than eighty years earlier. Though the plot was revealed to the Spanish governor, Antonio de Otermín, the Pueblos were still successful in routing Spanish resistance, killing hundreds and driving the survivors hundreds of miles south toward Mexico. Fifteen months later, Otermín led an expeditionary force back to northern New Mexico to recapture the territory; however, his efforts were thwarted and he was forced to return to the survivors’ encampment at the site of present-day El Paso, Texas. As a result, the Pueblo tribes were able to live free of Spanish domination for more than a decade.

Document Analysis

The testimonies of Josephe and Lucas, members of Pueblo tribes that rose up against Spanish settlers in New Mexico in 1680, and the description of the appointment of the soldier Raphael Téllez Jirón, who served as interpreter for Lucas’s testimony, are part of a large cache of official documents about the Pueblo revolt. Spanish governor Otermín directed that these be compiled to provide a record of the insurgency in order that the central colonial government in Mexico City might understand the causes for the Pueblos’ actions and develop plans for restoring Spanish rule at a later date. The collection includes reports of various skirmishes written by Otermín’s chief lieutenants, missives from the governor himself, and a number of firsthand accounts from Spanish soldiers. Also included are records of testimony by Pueblo Indians captured during the initial conflict and in the ensuing months when Otermín launched an unsuccessful attempt to reestablish control of the region.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of these documents is their formality. Each is introduced with formulaic language that specifies the place, date, and purpose for the inquiry being conducted. The statements make clear that a judicial proceeding is being conducted, suggesting that the rule of law will govern both the taking of testimony and the disposition of anyone accused during these proceedings. Each statement is witnessed by a number of Spanish officials who attest to its accuracy and, by implication, to the fairness of the proceedings in which testimony has been taken. The questions asked of Josephe are used in other inquiries: what role the individual being interviewed played during the uprising, the motivations for the Indians’ actions, and the plans being developed by the Pueblos to deal with a return of the Spanish to the region.

When one looks beyond the veneer of this dispassionate legal framework, however, and examines both the history of the revolt and the language used to describe it in these documents, one can discern some rather disturbing clues that the Spaniards were hardly fair and impartial in dealing with the Pueblos. The narrative accounts of these two interrogations reveal their prejudices. The Pueblos are described as “apostate traitors and rebels” and “treacherous Indian apostates.” Sometimes the words appear in the interrogator’s questions, at other times in Josephe’s response. Whether Josephe actually used terms such as “apostate” and “rebel” is open to debate. He claims to be a Christian, which would make his use of such descriptive attributes plausible. On the other hand, these words easily could have been inserted by the interpreter or the person transcribing the testimony. It is worth noting also that Josephe and Lucas were interrogated in December 1681, during Otermín’s return to the Pueblos’ territory in New Mexico. It is highly likely that both knew what had happened to the first group of captives interrogated by the Spanish on the day the revolt began: Forty-seven Indians were questioned, and, after their testimony was recorded, all were summarily executed. That fact alone could easily persuade Indians brought before Otermín’s tribunals to be circumspect in explaining their role in the revolt, and perhaps to provide answers they thought the Spanish might wish to hear.

While Lucas provides little useful information, Josephe is a key witness in explaining how the revolution began, who its leaders were, and why the Indians chose to rise up against the Spanish at this time. Josephe is asked to explain causes the “Indian rebels” had for “renouncing the law of God and obedience to his Majesty.” The underlying assumptions are that the Christian religion is the only true one; adherence to any other religion is inherently evil. The Spanish believe rebellion against those who represent Christ in the New World—the king of Spain, his appointed ministers, and the Franciscans—is both a political crime and a sin. There is also a hint of naïveté in the Spanish officials’ pursuit of reasons why the Indians might have chosen to throw out the colonists and reject their religion. Certain of the truth of their faith and of the need to propagate it around the globe, the Spanish seem at a loss to understand why anyone would reject the “true” God in favor of pagan deities.

Josephe may have had firsthand knowledge of the planning that led to the revolt, but he was not a participant. Rather than fighting with fellow Pueblos, he accompanied his “master,” an officer in the Spanish army, and other survivors to the El Paso area in August 1680. Several months later, however, he slipped away from the Spanish encampment there and returned to the Pueblo-controlled regions of New Mexico. He claims that a lack of food in the camp prompted him to flee. Josephe tells his interrogators he intended for the return to be only temporary, and that he rejoined the Pueblo community in order to “find out how matters stood with the Indians and to give warning to the Spaniards of any treason” he might uncover there. He insists he did not go there “with the intention of remaining always with the apostate traitors and rebels.” He gives no evidence, however, that such a mission was sanctioned by anyone in authority among the Spanish exiles at El Paso, nor does testimony from Spanish officials suggest that anyone knew of his plan. On the other hand, evidence from others indicates that Josephe did warn the Spanish of a planned ambush on Otermín’s forces in December 1681, so it is possible that he is sincere in saying that he remained loyal to the Spanish even though he chose to leave El Paso months earlier.

Despite the possibility that Josephe’s testimony is influenced by the circumstances in which he found himself in December 1681, he provides important information about the Pueblos’ actions in planning the revolt and the causes that led them to take up arms against the Spanish that is corroborated by other accounts. He identifies the leaders of the revolt and explains how these men provided justification to the Pueblo people for rising up and driving the Spanish from their region. The causes that Josephe reports as having sparked the rebellion can be classified broadly into two categories: personal and religious.

Josephe reports that ill-treatment of Pueblo leaders and other Indians at the hands of several Spanish officials prompted retaliation: “The present secretary, Francisco Xavier,” and the “sargentos mayores, Luis de Quintana and Diego López” “beat them, took away what they had, and made them work without pay.” Though it is unlikely that these men alone were responsible for punishments inflicted on the Pueblos, there is evidence from other documents that Spanish treatment of the Indians in New Mexico was consistently exploitative. Pueblos across the region were required to provide a portion of their crops to the Spanish and many were forced to work for the monasteries or the government for little or no compensation. Although Josephe does not reference larger economic conditions directly, in 1680, the Pueblo Indians were suffering through a prolonged drought that made raising crops difficult; having to supply the Spanish from their meager stores left little for themselves.

Even under the best conditions, this arrangement led to impoverishment and demeaned the dignity of the native peoples. To make matters worse, some Spaniards treated the Indians as subhuman (despite papal and regal directives to deal with them fairly). Francisco Xavier, the secretary for government and war in New Mexico, systematically persecuted Indians for their religious practices, first under Governor Juan Francisco Treviño and later under Governor Otermín. Xavier took special interest in attacking Popé, which undoubtedly precipitated Josephe’s secondhand observation regarding the role Xavier played in sparking the revolt. Xavier was apparently unrepentant in his attitude toward the Indians. Accompanying Otermín’s forces on their march from El Paso into New Mexico, he continued to inflict physical punishment on Indians selected at random.

The second reason Josephe gives for the rebellion is one that has caused considerable debate for centuries: the suppression of the Pueblos’ religious practices. Asked why the “apostates” destroyed churches, killed priests, and burned implements of worship, Josephe again provides hearsay evidence that points to the Indians’ motives. “While they were besieging the villa the rebellious traitors burned the church,” shouting, “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.” The Pueblos did not stop at church-burning, however; in a kind of reversal of the Christian baptismal ritual, they “wash[ed] away the water of baptism” in the river. The Indians banned people from speaking the names of Jesus and Mary, renounced their baptismal (Spanish) names, and even told men they were no longer bound to the wives they had married in Christian ceremonies. They rebuilt their estufas, the kivas where they practiced their native religion.

Although Josephe does not ascribe motives for his fellow Pueblos’ actions, it seems that the excessive vitriol displayed toward the symbols of Christianity revealed the pent-up hatred many Indians had for having a foreign religion imposed on them. Clearly, some Pueblo Indians accepted Christianity and willingly abandoned indigenous religions. Others were not so eager to give up their old ways. Some accounts of Spanish rule in New Mexico indicate that, for a time at least, Indians were allowed to continue staging traditional religious ceremonies even though they had officially converted to Christianity. The religious purges that began in 1675 under Governor Treviño had made continuance of such practices virtually impossible. Hence, it is not surprising that, when given the chance, those Indians who still clung to traditional beliefs would respond vehemently against the symbols of a faith they found offensive.

When asked how he thought the Indians would react to a return of the Spanish to their territory, Josephe is again careful to distance himself from the opinions he offers. He says sentiment among his fellow Pueblos is divided. “Most” believed “they would have to fight to the death with the said Spaniards”; on the other hand, some would probably welcome the Spanish, especially if the foreigners could once again provide protection from the Apaches. In his much shorter testimony, the Indian Lucas makes a similar complaint about the effect of Apache raids. Asked to explain why no Indians came forward to support Otermín’s attempted reconquest, Josephe suggests that many Indians continued to resist reinstatement of Spanish rule simply because they “stood in very great fear” of tribal leaders. Implied in his assessment is an argument that the population at large should not be blamed for the actions of rash leaders who have compelled them to stand against the Spanish. Following that argument to its logical conclusion, Josephe’s Spanish interrogators might decide that the rank-and-file in the pueblos would be happy to return to Spanish rule if rebel leaders could somehow be neutralized.

Josephe’s testimony about the specifics of the revolt, and his repeated admonitions that the Spanish should be on their guard against surprise attacks, suggests that he is a credible witness on whose loyalty the Spanish can rely. Nevertheless, only two months after he provided this account to his captors, Josephe once again escaped from the Spanish camp and returned to his own people. That act alone calls into question the veracity of his narrative.

The example of Josephe’s testimony weighed against his prior and subsequent actions provides one of the most important lessons to be learned from an analysis of the Spanish records documenting the Pueblo Revolt of 1680: the need to read the historical record skeptically. As the account of Josephe’s testimony reveals, the cultural assumptions of the interrogators can lead an unsuspecting reader to draw unwarranted conclusions from a casual reading of a text. Too often, those who control the narrative are able to paint themselves in a favorable light while casting aspersions on those who oppose them. Sometimes the tactics employed are calculated and blatant; more often, however, the tendency to bias the interpretation of events arises from the cultural blindness of those telling the story to the legitimate differences in outlook and values of peoples with whom they come into conflict.

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