Kachina and the Cross (46 page)

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Authors: Carroll L Riley

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included in the list, as well as a Jumano woman who had been held captive at Pecos. Two of the Pueblo Indians, a brother and sister, probably Tewa, named Tomé and Antonia, were taken in by Sergeant Juan Ruiz de Cáceres, who claimed them as cousins.
Father Vélez de Escalante mentions two other Spanish women in addition to Petrona Nieto who were found by Vargas at San Juan. Both were unmarried, but one had a small daughter. It is unclear whether these are represented in the Vargas list, though they might be the daughters of José Nevares, mentioned above (if so, the child was omitted from the tally). At Pecos, Vargas found Francisco, a son of the murdered Cristóbal Anaya Almazán.
Whatever his failings in the days preceding the revolt, Governor Otermín took bold and effective action following the outbreak of hostilities. Realizing on August 12 the deadly seriousness of the revolt, Otermín began to plan his defenses. On August 13, Otermín called on survivors to cluster in Santa Fe, and that same day the surviving settlers at Santa Cruz de la Cañada, the Spanish settlement near Santa Clara in Tewa country, made their way to the capital. The Spaniards at Los Cerrillos in the Tano area had arrived the previous day. As settlers trickled in, Otermín began to plan the defenses of the villa. He was faced with the problem that not only did the Indians outnumber him, but they had supplied themselves with a variety of Spanish weapons.
The head count at Santa Fe quickly rose to more than a thousand persons, and Otermín made a distribution of animals, food, and clothing "to the Spanish soldiers, to all their families and servants, to the Mexican natives, and to all classes of people."
On Tuesday, August 15, the siege of Santa Fe began. The Tano Indians were under the command of Juan, who rode a horse and was armed with a harquebus, sword, and dagger. A parley with Otermín proved fruitless, and the Indians burned the Analco area and did considerable damage to the San Miguel chapel. A violent battle broke out along the southern outskirts of the city, the Indians using captured Spanish weapons. The Spanish lines held in that area, but by then the Tewa, Northern Tiwa, and Taos Indians attacked, perhaps from the east and north of the city, although that is not entirely clear. They utilized their captured harquebuses to keep up a fire on the Casa Real and burned houses on the outskirts of the villa as well as the church. Presumably this church was St. Francis, which means that probing parties of the Indians were quite near the center of the town. Their most important action, however, was to cut off the ditches that supplied Santa Fe with water. There were some two thousand Indians surrounding Santa Fe, and the Spanish position seemed desperate. Otermín decided on strong countermeasures and on August 20 delivered a successful surprise attack, killing
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some three hundred of the overconfident Pueblo warriors, ''dislodging them from the streets and houses where they were massacred," and capturing forty-seven. Eight harquebuses, various other equipment, and some eighty stock animals were captured. The prisoners were interrogated, then executed. They told of long planning for the revolt and a mandate of an Indian living to the north (presumably Popé), the lieutenant of Poseyemu. According to Otermín's information, the Indians planned to kill all the male Spaniards, even male children at the breast. Nonetheless, a great many of the women and female children were also killed.
Even though they had won a considerable victory, the Spanish situation could not continue for very long. Only five people had been killedMaestro de Campo Andrés Gómez and four ordinary soldiersbut a number of Spaniards had suffered wounds, both from bow-and-arrow and harquebus fire. The governor himself was wounded twice, in the face and by a harquebus ball to the chest. But the most important thing was the severing of the Spaniards' water supply, which made the situation intolerable for both humans and animals. Something had to be done, and done while the Indians were still reeling from their defeat.
After consulting with his various officers and such Franciscans as were in Santa Fe, Otermín decided to abandon the town and march southward to link up with Lieutenant Governor Alonso García at Isleta in Rio Abajo. The secretary of government and war, Francisco Xavier, was ordered to distribute all the goods to the various settlers. It was a mournful retreat through desolate country, a march punctuated by exchanges of harquebus fire. The party reached the Galisteo region on August 23, and Santo Domingo the following day. Here, although all the Franciscans were dead, the church had not been looted, and the various church vessels were intact.
Meanwhile, apparently on August 11, having just heard of the revolt, the commander of the Río Abajo country, Lieutenant Governor Alonso García, with a small body of men attempted to rescue Spaniards in the Keres and Towa areas. He discovered the great devastation left by the rebels and received a report that Governor Otermín and all of the settlers had already been killed. García then retreated to the south, evacuating Isleta, and continued till he reached the Socorro (Pilabó) area. Originally, he seems to have planned to fortify Socorro, but evidences of hostility on the part of local Piro Indians and the continuing uncertainty as to the situation in the north led García to retreat further to Fray Cristóbal, a place some forty miles south of Socorro. On or around September 4, García received word from the commissary, Father Ayeta, that Maestro de Campo Pedro de Leiva in El Paso was marching to his assistance. Ayeta himself was slowly wending his way northward with the mission supply train. At the same time, García heard that Otermín was alive and on his way to the south. He
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quickly retraced his steps, joining Otermín at El Alamillo, a pueblo probably located on the east side of the Rio Grande just south of the Alamillo Arroyo, about halfway between Sevilleta Pueblo and Socorro. The site has never been found and probably was washed away by the Rio Grande in flood.
When the two met, an angry Otermín ordered the arrest of his lieutenant governor for having abandoned the province. García made a spirited defense and was eventually exonerated. For the moment the two forces were merged and continued the march south, meeting Leiva with his little army of forty men a few miles south of Alamillo. The augmented force arrived in Socorro the following day, September 7, and after a short wait continued on downriver. Meanwhile, Father Francisco de Ayeta was in the El Paso area with twenty-four wagons, loaded with supplies from Mexico. With Pedro de Leiva, Father Francisco pushed on northward to bring supplies to Otermín's group. The two parties met at a place called La Salineta, ten miles or so north of the Guadalupe mission near El Paso. Over the next several months Otermín purchased grain, cattle, and other supplies from the Casas Grandes and Tarahumar areas and "other suitable places." Also, at La Salineta the governor began a head count of survivors, the basis of modern calculations of the New Mexico population. Of the estimated 1,000 people with Otermín and the 1,500 with García, not all were counted at La Salineta, the total head count there being 1,946, which included the 400 or so servants listed in the muster rolls, though the 317 Piro Indians from Senecú, Socorro, Alamillo, and Sevilleta seem to have been counted separately. Only 155 persons of this total were capable of bearing arms, and there were 471 horses and mules. Leiva was listed in this count, but it is not clear if his relief force, 78 men armed with harquebuses, was included. In any case, there seem to have been several hundred individuals who drifted on into Nueva Vizcaya before they could be tallied. A number went to the Casas Grandes area, and others apparently to Parral. Since the Analco Mexican Indians were curiously under-represented in the head count, possibly they were among those individuals moving on to the south.
Otermín now determined to establish his settlers at El Paso, settling them on the southwest side of the river in the area of modern-day Ciudad Juárez and near the mission settlement of Guadalupe. His immediate plans were for a reconquest, but this took about a year to organize. Finally, on November 5, 1681, the governor launched his reconquest attempt. He had 146 soldiers and some 112 alliesManso, Piro, Tiwa, and Jemezplus 28 servants, some of them armed. Several of the Spanish captains went on the expedition, the most important being Juan Domínguez de Mendoza. Some officers were absent, a notable one being Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza, brother of Juan, who begged off, arguing that he had both gout and stomach trouble. In fact, there was considerable resistance on the
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part of the settlers to join the expedition, and, according to Father Ayeta, the majority of those who did join were discontented. Also, the military equipment was somewhat deficient, a number of the soldiers possessing little or no armor. The Spaniards had great hope, however, that Pueblos and Apaches would be at each other's throats, and that the Pueblo Indians, after tasting freedom, would crave to return to the bosom of the Church. They also thought that if they treated captive Indians well, others would flock to them to be pardoned. None of these expectations proved valid.
Except to bring information about the Indians in revolt, the expedition accomplished very little and was badly handled both by the Spanish forces and by the Indians resisters. The Spaniards overran Isleta, capturing more than 500 people who were then absolved by Father Ayeta. Isleta became a temporary headquarters while Juan Domínguez de Mendoza, with an advance party of 60 men, probed northward in mid-December, eventually reaching as far north as the Keresan pueblo of Cochiti. For the most part, the Indians fled before the advancing Spanish army, leaving only old and sick people. Even though they should have been able to anticipate the Spanish march northward, they seemed to have been largely caught by surprise. Significant amounts of foodstuffs fell into Otermín's hand, and even loaded carts. The Indians did manage to remove their herds of cattle, sheep, and horses for the most part.
At Cochiti there was a parley in which Juan Domínguez de Mendoza and Captain Pedro Márquez attempted to persuade Alonso Catití, Márquez's half-brother and a rebel war leader, to surrender. There was another parley with El Cupiste of Santa Ana, an important Pueblo war leader. The Pueblos held out hope of peace, and Domínguez actually felt that an overall peace treaty, one which would include the Hopi and Zuni, was doable. The Pueblo leaders, however, were stalling, partly while waiting for reinforcements and partly in the hope of trading for supplies, especially powder for their harquebuses. A Spaniard, the mestizo named Domingo Luján, did supply some powder to his brother, one of the Pueblo leaders, El Ollita (Francisco) of San Ildefonso. Luján was interrogated, but when it was discovered that he had only given El Ollita one charge from his own pouch, he was admonished and set free. On December 11 Otermín marched north, establishing a field camp in the vicinity of Puaray. Six days later, Domínguez de Mendoza, hearing of a plot to attack his inadequate force, retreated, reaching Otermín's camp the next day. In the following week, the governor heard that Luis Tupatú of Picurís, the overall commander of the central Rio Grande Pueblo forces, was threatening Isleta with a mounted corps of some fifty men. Otermín then decided to withdraw to El Paso. His men were concerned with the families left behind, and the expedition's horses were worn out.
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Otermín reached Isleta on December 30, collecting his small garrison there, and the Spaniards vented their frustrations by smashing masks and other ceremonial objects. On January 1, 1682, the Spaniards burned their headquarters at Isleta and, with 385 Isletans in tow, began a removal to El Paso. They left behind eight pueblos in flames, and they had sacked three others. Of the two prominent missionaries with the expedition, Father Francisco de Ayeta agreed with Otermín that the expedition should be aborted. As the Franciscan procurator-general, he began long-term planning to support the El Paso colony. On the other hand, his secretary, Fray Nicolás López, blamed the governor for burning pueblos and believed that Otermín's inclusion of the hated Francisco Xavier in the expedition nullified his chances of bringing about an accommodation with the Pueblos.
Otermín's problem was that he did not have sufficient forces to extend beyond the Rio Grande Valley unless he could be reasonably certain that he had secured the Pueblo heartland. Although the Pueblo armies were unwilling to fight him in the open field, they were becoming increasingly bold, and the governor was unsure he could win a pitched battle. The situation at El Paso was uncertain, and Otermín really had little choice but to return to the main Spanish headquarters on the northern fringe of Nueva Vizcaya.
Otermín and the Santa Fe cabildo made a temporary headquarters at a place called San Lorenzo de la Toma about thirty miles downriver from El Paso. Near San Lorenzo were founded the settlements of Senecú, primarily for Piro and Tompiro, a second town of Corpus Christi del Isleta (del Sur) for Isleta and other Tiwa refugees, and a third one, Socorro, for Piro and a scattering of Tano and Jemez Indians. This latter town was unstable, and in 1683 the transplanted Pueblos attempted to kill their priest, Antonio Guerra, and the family or two of Spaniards who were in the vicinity. Blocked from doing this by nearby Suma Indians (the mission of San Diego de los Sumas was in the vicinity), the instigators fled to the rebel Pueblos with a large herd of stolen horses. In the fall of 1683 a new governor, Domingo Jironza Petrís de Cruzate, replaced Otermín, who, among other things, had been having difficulties with the transplanted Santa Fe cabildo. After some initial resistance, by the fall of 1684 the new governor carried out a plan to move Socorro to a place nearer Isleta del Sur and made a new settlement of San Lorenzo closer to El Paso. The presidio, whose original location is uncertainif indeed it ever existed except on paperwas then located at El Paso. Meanwhile, settlers, both colonists and Indians, gradually filled in the area between San Lorenzo and El Paso.
One problem, probably a factor in the refusal of a number of Spanish leaders to undertake the 1681 expedition up the Rio Grande, was rising native unrest in southern New Mexico and in Nueva Vizcaya itself. Indian groups all along the

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