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History!

The Spanish Re-Conquest of New Mexico and the Pueblo Revolt of 1696

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 forced the Spanish out of New Mexico for twelve years, but they eventually returned to reclaim their northern province. Diego de Vargas Zapata Lujan Ponce de Leon, then governor of New Mexico, organized and carried out the re-conquest and re-colonization of New Mexico in 1692. In that year, de Vargas succeeded in persuading twenty-three pueblos to rejoin Spain's empire. By 1694, the settlers had re-occupied Santa Fe after a quickly-crushed attempt by the Tewa and Tano to rebel and drive the Spanish once more from the area. But de Vargas's problems with rebellion were not yet over.

De Vargas came from a prominent and influential family in Spain. Appointed governor and captain-general of New Mexico in mid-1688, he assumed the position in February of 1691. Although his original intention was to immediately undertake the re-conquest of New Mexico, economic conditions in El Paso and hostilities between the Spanish and tribes in north New Spain prevented his departure until 1692. De Vargas planned two separate expeditions. The first one was to be a reconnaissance of New Mexico while the second was to be the re-colonization and actual reestablishment of Spanish hegemony in the region.The first expedition, in the estimation of the Spanish, was an unequivocal success. During the four months of the expedition's reconnoitering, de Vargas succeeded in obtaining the loyalty of twenty-three pueblos. However, the expedition was not without hostility. At Santa Fe, Jémez, and the Hopi pueblos, the governor's forces had to contend with aggressive native forces who outnumbered the Spaniards by a factor of ten to one. While the Indians seemed eager to fight the Spanish, de Vargas's diplomacy prevailed, and bloodshed was avoided. De Vargas then returned to El Paso to begin preparations for the re-colonization of New Mexico. For the next year, New Mexico remained in the hands of the Pueblos. The re-conquest was only a formality at this point. Pulling together a re-colonizing expedition of one hundred soldiers, seventy families, and eighteen Franciscan friars, together with some Indian allies, de Vargas left El Paso for Santa Fe on October 4, 1693. In addition to the personnel, several thousand horses and mules and almost a thousand head of livestock followed the main force of the expedition. Six wagons and eighty mules hauled supplies, including three cannon. Despite the relatively peaceful nature of de Vargas's preliminary expedition and the submission of the twenty-three pueblos, the Spanish re-colonization force found resistance when they arrived in New Mexico. Of the twenty-three pueblos that had submitted, only four, Pecos, Santa Ana, Zia, and San Felipe, remained loyal. The governor of Pecos, Juan de Ye, met de Vargas before the governor reached Santa Fe to warn him that most of the province was preparing for a fight. When de Vargas arrived at Santa Fe, he found Tewas and Tanos gathered in the plaza. The governor decided not to precipitate violence by pitching camp close to the villa. The Spaniards camped outside Santa Fe for two weeks in the cold. Twenty-three died of exposure while rumors of Pueblo hostility ran wild. Finally, the Spanish concluded that the Indians remaining in Santa Fe should be returned to their pueblo of Galisteo and that the Spanish should enter the town and reoccupy it. These objectives would be accomplished by force if necessary. The Indians situated in Santa Fe could clearly see and hear the proceedings of the meeting and proceeded to plan a resistance.

Early in the morning on the twenty-eighth of December, de Vargas was aroused by a messenger who warned of an imminent attack by the native forces in Santa Fe. The governor of Pecos was sent to his pueblo for reinforcements while a squadron of Spanish soldiers approached the walls of the villa to find them manned by a force of armed warriors. Another force of Pueblos arrived to aid those on the Santa Fe walls. With most of the soldiers, de Vargas then proceeded to the walls and attempted a diplomatic solution to the crisis. The leader of the Indians, Antonio Bolsas, agreed to discuss the situation with his people and give an answer to de Vargas by evening. By early the next morning, a group of 140 reinforcements had arrived from Pecos but an answer to the governor's diplomacy had not. De Vargas began to move towards the villa and those on the walls began to shout that the whole province was against the Spanish and would kill them all, except for the friars, who would become slaves. Arrows and stones followed the insults and de Vargas cried the Santiago, urging his men into battle. The battle lasted until early the next morning--the Spanish being the victors.

When the capture of Santa Fe was complete, de Vargas then divided the stores of corn, beans, and other foodstuffs among the Spanish families, and the colonists then occupied the houses vacated by the defeated natives. De Vargas had succeeded in capturing the main city of New Mexico, the old Spanish capital, and gained a solid foundation for the eventual reestablishment of Spanish hegemony over the entire region. But, as de Vargas discovered, this would prove no easy task.

Santa Fe, at the beginning of 1694, was the lone outpost of Spain in New Mexico. Only four pueblos had sided with the Spanish--Santa Ana, San Felipe, Zia, and Pecos. Between April and September of 1694, de Vargas launched campaigns against those pueblos along the Rio Grande who still had not submitted to Spanish rule. Continual battles between the Spanish and the natives kept the Spaniards in Santa Fe from planting crops. Starvation was a real possibility. The arrival of two hundred and thirty additional colonists in June simply exacerbated the situation. De Vargas attacked the pueblos to gain their stores but in doing so also forced their capitulation. By January of the following year, de Vargas could claim that most of the Rio Grande valley was under the domination of the Spanish. The reconstituted colony began to grow as more colonists arrived from Mexico. Two new villas, Santa Cruz and Bernalillo were founded. Eleven missions were reestablished once the missionaries felt secure enough to be assigned to the pueblos. However, the western pueblos of Ácoma and Zuñi as well as the Hopi pueblos were areas in which the new Spanish hegemony in New Mexico was still unrecognized.

Even in the pueblos that had accepted Spanish rule hostilities began to emerge. In mid-year, 1695, the Franciscan friars were alone at their missions, and the soldiers of de Vargas were dispersed. The harsh winter of 1695-96 put material burdens on the Spanish settlers who still could not adequately feed their own. Hostile Pueblo leaders perceived that this was a propitious time for a rebellion like the one fifteen years earlier.

As early as July, 1695, the missionaries began to fear that the Pueblos were planning another uprising. In December, these fears reached greater proportions and the custodio, Fray Francisco de Vargas, held a meeting to ascertain the extent of the possible insurrection. The friars petitioned the governor to post soldiers at the pueblos for protection and evaluation of the fears of the clergy. Governor de Vargas decided not to send troops to the pueblos because of his concern that such an action would incite hostilities among more loyal Indians. Despite the fears of the Franciscans, a revolt did not occur in December, 1695, though their tasks at the pueblos became increasingly difficult and the actions of the Pueblos became increasingly hostile.

In March, 1696, the missionaries again pleaded with de Vargas for military protection as rumors of war increased. From San Juan, Fray Gerónimo Prieto wrote that natives of various pueblos, including the Hopi pueblos, Zuñi, and Ácoma, were on their way to San Juan to meet with rebel leaders there under the cover of coming to trade. The tone of the fathers' letters was one of panic. On the fifteenth of March, de Vargas responded to the request of thecustodio to place soldiers at some of the pueblos. By this time, however, the missionaries had abandoned their posts in favor of the safety of the Spanish settlements.

After eleven months of persistent rumors, increasing unrest among the Pueblos, and actions taken by the Pueblos in apparent preparation for a general uprising, rebellion broke out on June 4, 1696. Five missionaries and twenty-one other Spaniards were killed. Hostile Pueblo forces burned the missions, and the people of the pueblos in revolt fled into the mountains. Only Tesuque, Pecos, San Felipe, Santa Ana and Zia did not participate.

Unlike the Revolt of 1680, this rebellion was poorly planned, and the rebels divided into several distinct factions. One powerful faction was under the command of a Cochiti named Lucas Naranjo. In late July, de Vargas left Santa Fe with Spanish soldiers and native troops from Pecos in search of Naranjo and his group, finding them hidden in the slopes of a canyon awaiting the arrival of the Spanish. During the battle, Naranjo was killed by a harquebus shot to the Adam's apple by a Spanish soldier who then beheaded him.   Said de Vargas, "It gave me great pleasure to see the said rebel apostate dog in that condition. A pistol shot that was fired into his right temple had blown out his brains leaving the said head hollow."  The remaining rebels fled and the allies from Pecos were given Naranjo's severed head as a trophy of war.

After the fall of Naranjo, the rebellion began to collapse. The most active rebels in the central Rio Grande valley were destroyed. Those who had fled their pueblos to the mountains were leaderless and in desperate circumstance. The Spanish had appropriated stores of food after each victory, and the people remaining in the mountains faced the choice of either returning to their pueblos and accepting Spanish governance or starving.

Although de Vargas succeeded in subduing the rebels closest to the center of Spanish power in New Mexico, the pueblo fringe was still unrepentant. Picurís, Taos, and of course the western pueblos of Ácoma, Zuñi and the Hopi were outside the reach of de Vargas, his troops and Indian allies. In August of 1696, de Vargas mounted an expedition against the recalcitrant pueblo of Ácoma. Having come to the mesa, de Vargas and his troops could not mount an assault, but proceeded to gather the sheep the Ácoma had left at the base of the mesa. After waiting below the mesa for several days and issuing threats and ultimatums, de Vargas instructed his men to burn the Ácoma fields and then departed to the east. The Ácoma remained on their mesa.

In September, the governor moved against the northern pueblos still in rebellion. The people of Taos were talked down from the mountains after the peaceful capitulation of the pueblo's leaders. At Picurís, de Vargas found no one. The Spanish set out after the inhabitants of the pueblo who, in the company of some Tewas, Tanos, and Apaches, were fleeing eastward. In late October, de Vargas caught up to the retreating Indians and, in a short battle, captured around eighty of them. The rest continued to flee eastward and were captured by another band of Apaches in western Kansas. Those who had been captured were distributed to the victors to be held as hostages until the remaining Picurís returned to their pueblo.

With Picurís no longer a threat, the general peril to the Spanish of New Mexico was erased. Slowly, Indians remaining in the mountains descended to their pueblos. Some leaders of small rebel bands voluntarily surrendered while others were tracked down with the help of friendly Pueblo allies. Still other Indians did not return to their pueblos along the Rio Grande, but continued to hide with the Apache and the Navajos and at the pueblos of Ácoma, Zuñi, and Hopi. The Pueblo Revolt of 1696 was over by the end of the year. With the exception of the western pueblos, the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico had once more submitted to Spanish authority.

Student Loans and Life as an Educator in America

Student loans create incredibly large amounts of debt, and it's a big business.  Except for in very rare circumstances, this debt cannot be forgiven by bankruptcy.  Here is a Huffington Post article on the subject, you really want to read this.