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Pueblo Indians
built 607 days ago
Drawing of a Pueblo The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona are descendants of the first people to enter the Americas, perhaps 20,000 years ago. These earliest groups, called Paleo-Indians, encountered an environment very different from that of today. The climate was cooler and wetter; there were glaciers on top of the Sandia Mountains and small shallow lakes called playas on the west mesa and a large lake in the Estancia Basin to the east of the Sandias. A wide variety of exotic animals lived here then--mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, and dire wolves. Paleo-Indian lifeways were apparently centered on the hunting of large game, but there was still a need to collect plants and seeds, and the people moved their campsites often and over great distances.
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The early ancestors of the Pueblo Indians were farmers who constructed pueblos and cliff dwellings, hunted small game and planted and harvested corn, beans and squash. Ancestors of the Pueblo People are often referred to as the Anasazi. They lived over 2,500 years ago. They were a Neolothic people who had no beast of burden, no wheel, no metal and no written language.
Beginning at dawn on 10 August 1680, Pueblo Indians from various villages throughout the New Mexico region rebelled against Spanish rule. Within less than two months, the Pueblo Indians had forcibly evicted the Spaniards who had dominated their lives for the past one hundred fifty years. This rebellion was the first successful Native American revolt against the Spanish in the Western Hemisphere. Although various circumstances contributed to the discontent which led to this uprising, the primary objective of the Indians during the revolt was to regain religious freedom. The brutality of the Indians during these attacks resulted from the violent examples previously set forth by the Franciscan missionaries in their attempts to convert the Indians to the Christian religion.
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Since the Pueblo Indians emerged into this world, their life has always been close to the earth. The record of the Pueblo people is shown in petroglyphs and pottery. The Pueblo people created the great cities in Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, Aztec, and Canyon de Chelly. These great cities began at about the time of Christ, and reached their zenith from 900 to 1300 AD. There is a link between the land, home, art and religion to the Pueblo People. Land defines the origins and destiny of the Pueblo People.
The Pueblo Indians were deeply spiritual and operated under a government that was the shared responsibility of their separate clans. The Pueblo Indians were first encountered by Europeans in 1539 by a Spanish missionary named Marcos de Niza. By 1600, the Spanish occupied Pueblo country and within just a few decades, missionaries occupied nearly every village. In 1680, a mass Pueblo revolt drove the Spanish from the territory briefly until it was reoccupied in 1692. The territory remained under Spanish and Mexican control until after the Mexican War in 1848 when it landed under jurisdiction of the United States.
During the period of early Spanish settlement (1598-1680), relations between the Pueblo Indians and the Spaniards were strained. Some unscrupulous civil officials and clergy oppressed the native peoples. In August of 1680, the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico rebelled against Spanish injustices. Several hundred settlers were killed and churches, ranches and villages were set afire.
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