Om· Catlzolic fl critage in Texas
New Mexico. By 1680 there were approximately two thousand eight hun- dred Spanish inhabitants in the province, most of whom were settled in the southern district generally known as Rio Abajo and only a relatively small number were living in the vicinity of the Villa de Santa Fe and north. The chief occupation was cattle raising and agriculture. In addition to the civilian population, there were a few soldiers with their headquarters at Santa Fe and thirty-two Franciscan missionaries dis- tributed throughout the entire province. The number of Christianized Indians has been estimated at sixteen thousand, but in addition to these there were almost as many living to the north of Santa Fe for a dis- tance of two hundred leagues, who had never been converted and who gladly joined their brethren in the revolt. The natural attempt of the missionaries to make the natives abandon completely their heathen prac- tices and the economic subjection imposed upon them by the conquerors had aroused a deep resentment in many of the older Indians ever since the beginnings of the conquest. In the period between 1645 and 1675 several attempts at revolt had been made, but the Spaniards had succeeded in putting them down. This last year the Spanish officials tried to . stamp out the continuing heathen practices of the natives within their juris- diction by administering an exemplary punishment. Forty-seven medicine men were captured and brought to Santa Fe, where three of them were publicly hanged as a warning to all soothsayers and witch doctors, while severe penalties were inflicted upon all the others. A certain Pope, one of those captured and released after being punished, went back to his people determined to avenge the insult. For five years he plotted unceas- ingly with such cunning and secrecy, that his plans were not discovered until two days before the revolt, and even then the information was so uncertain that, when on August 10, 1680, the entire Indian population suddenly arose against the Spaniards and murdered not only many of the men, women, and children but a great number of missionaries, the Spaniards were taken totally unawares, having been led to believe that the revolt was not to take place until August 13. 17 Tlze retreat to El Paso. The thoroughly aroused natives attacked the Spaniards simultaneously and effectively prevented communication between those living in the Santa Fe area and those to the south in the Rio Abajo region. On August 15, a large force of infuriated Indians laid formal 1 7 Hackett, "The Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico in I 680," T/,e Quarterly, XV, 97-109. This excellent study of the revolt based on the documentary sources of the tragic episode is the most accurate and vivid description available.
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