A listing of 250 names has been proposed for the federal authorities’s new Backyard of American Heroes, however considered one of our earliest revolutionaries isn’t included.
Po’pay, a Seventeenth-century Native American chief from what’s now New Mexico, is honored with one of many 100 statues within the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Corridor Assortment however isn’t on the listing 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 stunning. In spite of everything, he led the Pueblo Revolt of 1680: probably the most profitable Indigenous rebel towards colonization within the historical past of what turned the US. He and his followers sought political independence and spiritual freedom, points central to Individuals’ sense of themselves.
Non secular actions and figures performed a central function in early American historical past. For instance, Thanksgiving is linked to Protestant spiritual dissenters we name Pilgrims and Puritans. American fantasy 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 document reveals that economics additionally drove their resolution emigrate.
Po’pay, a Tewa spiritual 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 well-known Pueblo metropolis recognized to the Spanish by means of earlier experiences from the explorer Francisco Coronado. The oldest settlement inside the territorial boundaries of the US, Acoma has been occupied virtually constantly for the reason that twelfth century.
On the finish of the sixteenth century, battle 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 clergymen after which ordered a counterattack.
The Spanish killed not less than 800 residents — 300 girls 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 offered virtually 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 folks throughout the Southwest and offered them into slavery too. For Pueblos and different Indigenous peoples, the intertwined navy, political and religious invasions threatened seemingly each facet of their lives.
The violence at Acoma didn’t dissuade Spaniards wanting to migrate. Round 1608, horse- and oxen-drawn carriages traveled into the territory to construct a brand new capital, which the Spanish known as Santa Fe. Along with ferrying troopers and farming households, these wagons additionally carried Franciscan friars, crucifixes, Bibles and different gadgets the brothers wanted to advertise Catholicism.
Over the following many years, periodic conflicts pitted Indigenous peoples of assorted pueblos towards 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 hope in chambers often called kivas and talk with their deities: Pos’e yemu, for instance, whom Tewas believed had the ability to carry rain.
In 1675, colonial authorities accused Indigenous spiritual 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 towards 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 a detailed, the area was gripped in a drought that lowered provides of meals and water, pushing Indigenous communities’ frustrations to a tipping level. Po’pay led a rebel 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 towards Spanish troopers, colonial farmers and Catholic church buildings. They systematically destroyed spiritual buildings and abused and killed clergymen. 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 within the second, saying, “Now the God of the Spaniards, who was their father, is lifeless.” Historians imagine that the assault killed not less than 400 colonists and troopers, 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’ navy victory, Po’pay led an effort to eradicate the final 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 beneath dire risk throughout North America. In New England, Metacom’s, or King Philip’s, Struggle — waged between Indigenous teams and English settlers — destroyed scores of communities in one of the crucial 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 turned one of the crucial consequential figures on the continent — and the embodiment of the American thought that folks ought to be free from oppressive rulers and free, too, to apply 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 beneath their management.
However they by no means erased the legacy of Po’pay, who stays a cultural hero for his defiant stand towards 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 Dialog.
