1.9: Po'Pay: Architect of the Great Southwest Rebellion

He lead a full-scale rebellion against Spanish rule in the American Southwest.  This rebellion was so successful that it expelled the Spaniards from the region and allowed the Pueblo  to return to their traditional ways...for a time.  Although the Spanish would return about one decade later, the Great Southwest Rebellion, as history has come to call this 1680 event, stands out for the ruthlessness with which it was carried out, and the tenacity of the leader who planned it.  This episode of History: Beyond the Textbook focuses on this leader, who spent years planning this rebellion after suffering so much in the years before: Po'Pay, a Tewa medicine man who now enjoys enshrinement in National Statuary Hall.

Key People
Po'Pay, Tewa medicine man
Don Juan de Onate, first Adelantado of New Mexico

Key Event
Great Southwest Rebellion of 1680

The third season of History: Beyond the Textbook focuses on the stories of individuals who shaped "America's Crucial Years" of 1783-1790, and runs from October 8-December 24. Catch up on Season One, "America's Colonial Era," and Season Two, "America's Revolution," wherever you listen to your podcasts!

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Transcript

Attached to the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. is an area known as National Statuary Hall, wherein each state is allowed to select two individuals for display.  Each individual is meant to be a representation of the spirit and values of the corresponding state.  This idea dates back to the 1850’s when the House of Representatives was moved to a new chamber and debate about what to do with the existing chamber occurred.  It’s quite a sight to see, and it’s fascinating to observe the people that each state selects as their representative statues.  One from New Mexico stands out not only for its symbolism, but because no written description exists to explain the likeness of this individual.  In 1997, the New Mexico state legislature approved the selection of Po’Pay, a Tewa from the Pueblo of Grinding Stone, as their second statue in Statuary Hall; his selection would mark the first time that each state officially was represented by two states.  Sculptor Cliff Fargua, himself from Jemez Pueblo, unveiled his work in 2005 and it was highly symbolic of Pueblo life and culture, but also focused on the rebellion that Po’Pay is often credited with starting, a rebellion that I was personally unaware of until I started teaching AP World History.  For example, the scars on the back of the statue represent the brutal whipping he received at the hands of the Spanish for engaging in his role as a medicine man, and the knotted cord in his left hand illustrates the method by which the start of the rebellion was communicated.  He coordinated a widespread, violent resistance to Spanish rule in the American Southwest…and succeeded.  Today on History: Beyond the Textbook, we examine Po’Pay, the architect of the Great Southwest Rebellion of 1680.

Act One: New Mexico

Admittedly, it’s been a while since we closely examined a perspective that deals with the Spanish presence in North America: our first episode, to be exact, in which we explored the role of Pedro Menendez de Aviles in establishing St. Augustine, Florida, the first permanent European settlement on the continent.  It’s not as if Spain was idle during the time frame we have been discussing, it’s just that Spain was much more active in Central and South America than they were in what is now North America.  The founding of the colony of “New Mexico” can officially be traced to adelantado Don Juan de Onate, who was appointed in the 1590’s to lead an expedition into what is now the Southwestern United States.  About one decade before the English established Jamestown along the Spanish crown amplified their efforts to expand Christianity in the Rio Grande Valley.  They reasoned that since the natives they encountered in the region were predominantly sedentary, they were prime targets to be converted, and the Franciscans were to take the lead in this task.  About two decades earlier, Spain’s leaders requested that this, and all future undertakings, were to be officially deemed “pacifications,” which paints the picture that this area was somehow wrought with extreme violence, and that all Adelentados were to treat Indigenous peoples with fairness and care.  Remember that this position was an explorer, politician, and businessman all rolled into one: they led expeditions, administered to the territories they explored, but also fronted the capital for these journeys, so they expected a return on their investment.  So it was with 129 soldiers, seven Franciscan friars, and over 400 additional colonists that Onate set out into the northern portion of the Rio Grande Valley.

One of the primary nations that the Spanish sought to convert were the Pueblo.  The conquistador Coronado first encountered the Pueblo in the 1540’s when he explored the region in search of a fabled city of gold, a goal we briefly mentioned in that first episode.  This was still early enough that many Spanish believed, building on the precedent set in their conquest of the Mexica, that nearly every Indigenous nation possessed caches of gold.  This certainly wasn’t the only misconception that Spanish would bring with them into the Southwest: since the inhabitants of the Rio Grande Valley all tended to reside in sedentary villages in dwellings constructed out of adobe-brick, they called all they encountered in this region “Pueblo,” meaning “town” or “village.”  There was no singular “Pueblo” Confederation as the region consisted of about 60 towns that shared similar architecture, but had different leaders, languages, and often fought with one another. Due to disrespectful treatment by the Spanish explorers, the Pueblo collectively rose up in revolt at this time: the Spanish decided to burn 100 warriors at the stake.  The Pueblo then told them fabulous tales of where they could really find the gold… northeast of their current position, away from them.  The first encounter between the Spanish and Pueblo resulted in an attempted Pueblo revolt, which set a violent tone for future interactions.

Returning to the late 1590’s, Spain attempted to reestablish a colonial base in this region, with Onate taking the lead.  However, things went south in a hurry: it didn’t help that Onate captured one of these towns and kicked all of the Indigenous inhabitants out.  The nearby Pueblo were also frustrated when the Spanish had the audacity to seize their food and allow their cattle to graze on Pueblo fields; one Pueblo had the courage to stand up to Onate for his seizure of their food, but Onate simply tossed him off the roof of his house.  Several months later, Onate’s nephew led a small force into a nearby town to seize their food as winter had set in, and the fed-up Pueblo killed the entire Spanish force.  In revenge, Onate and his men stormed the town and spent three days killing 800 men, women, and children.  He then seized 500 survivors and put them through a farce of a trial, charging them with murder and treason: to simplify the brutality of what happened, everyone was enslaved, and all men over the age of 25 had one foot cut off.  This sums up the majority of Onate’s time as Adelentado: disregard for Pueblo land, violence against the Pueblo, and complete indifference towards his behavior.  Needless to say, those Franciscan friars who accompanied the initial settlers were aghast at his actions, and also complained to their friends at the royal court because it was now much harder to convert the Pueblo to Christianity (remember, this was a “pacification” mission).  The settlers were also fed up given that they had been promised untold riches, but needless to say, the precious mines were nowhere to be found.  Onate was deposed having lost 400,000 pesos in the venture, and abandoning New Mexico was considered, but the Franciscans worried about the souls of those who had been converted: might they relapse into the pagan ways without their influence?  So, the new governor decided to stay, but instead of keeping Spanish settlement among the villages, he established Santa Fe in the early 1600’s, forcing colonists to raise their own crops and limiting the military garrison to a mere 50 men.  This outpost on New Spain’s furthest frontier was a capital in name only given the scant attention it received.  Nevertheless, a Spanish presence remained, providing the friars with a base to grow their operations.

Act Two: Po’Pay, the Medicine Man

This is traditionally the part of the show where we explore the background of our subject in more depth; you know, the part where I pose a question to the effect of, “Who was Po’Pay,” or perhaps “What in his experiences led to his role as the instigator of a highly successful rebellion against colonial oppressors?”  I mean, we’re still going to go down that route, but unfortunately, the only evidence we have about Po’Pay comes down to us from Spanish sources.  It’s true that every source has a bias, but if all we have to go on are the words of his enemies, then we really must be diligent in discerning fact from fiction.  We can also apply our knowledge of his people, the Tewa, to infer what made him a special leader.

Po’Pay was born in…well, we’re not exactly sure.  Best guess is around 1630…so while one religious leader, the Puritan John Winthrop, was boarding the Arabella to cross the Atlantic, another religious leader was born in the Rio Grande Valley.  No records exist to indicate anything about what he looked like, and since Europeans had a habit of emphasizing the robust physical characteristics of their Indigenous neighbors and enemies, it’s probably safe to assure that his presence wasn’t very imposing.  He was also born into a world in which the Spanish were attempting to further impose their will on Po’Pay’s world.  Around the time of his birth, a contingent of 30 friars, a detachment of soldiers and their accompanying supplies reached Santa Fe, which was traditionally referred to as “Bead Water,” after making the 1,500-mile overland trek from Mexico City.  In the succeeding years, over 50 missions and churches were constructed throughout the region (into a shape of a large cross, when viewed on a map) so the Fransiscans could supplant traditional Pueblo faith with Christianity.  Subsequently, it was this spirituality with which “Ripe Squash,” which is the translation of the Tewa name “Po’Pay,” was intimately familiar.  The rituals and ceremonies involved with this faith began at birth: Po’Pay and his mother would have stayed indoors for four full days following his delivery, at which time friends and well-wishers would visit and symbolically thrust the evil spirits floating above him to the West.  After these four days, a midwife would “sweep” all of the good of those who had passed on towards Po’Pay…at which point, he received his name.  As he grew, he mainly learned through careful observation of the world around him, and through listening to the stories of his elders.  Stories that told of how his people originated in Sand Lake, which is underground, and made their way to their current village, Grinding Stone, while discovering abundant wildlife along the way.  Four sacred shrines surrounded Grinding Stone, as did four mountains where the men of the village would go to pray (four was itself a sacred number).  Such knowledge would consistently inform the direction of Po’Pay’s life.

Ceremonies marked crucial transitions in Po’Pay’s life, and one of the most critical occurred at age 10, allowing him to become a full member of his village.  Similar to the early days of his life, this ceremony also helped drive away any and all evil out of him…but was much more intense than before.  It involved the men of the village physically whipping him while wearing what were called kachina masks.  That’s right…whipping occurred, but it was meant as a symbolic gesture to expel evil spirits, and Po’Pay could see the faces of the men who performed this when the masks were removed.  No ill-will has been recorded of this ritual, which was forbidden by the Spanish; in fact, the Spanish would burn any Kachina masks that they found, so this and other ceremonies were not only carefully timed, but even driven underground into kivas, or large circular rooms that are physically underground.  Despite overt persecution and Spanish efforts to stamp out such beliefs, overall Pueblo culture thrived, and Po’Pay sought to undertake the training to carry on these traditions as a medicine man.  His intensive education required him to become an expert on nearly all aspects of Tewa society, and subsequently stay under the radar of Spanish officials.  Po’Pay would become a highly respected member of his community…and he also began to experience visions.  Eventually, he began to share the core message of these visions with his people: they needed to unite and resist the Spanish, who were attempting to eliminate their true identity.  Translation: change was needed, and Po’Pay was the man to take charge and institute this change.

Act Three: Rebellion

How was it that, out of all of the conflicts that occurred between Indigenous peoples and European settlers during the colonial period, like the Pequot War from our Uncas episode, or King Philip’s War from last week’s episode on Mary Rowlandson, this was the only one that really achieved a measure of sustained success?  Leading up to the 1680 revolt, smaller unsuccessful uprisings occurred, while drought and disease combined to decrease the overall Pueblo population…but the bigger picture tells us that this may not tell the entire story.  The population of New Mexico…that’s the Spanish population of New Mexico...was 2,500 at best…at its peak, and the hub of Santa Fe (or Bead Water) was surrounded by competing Indigenous nations, but the mobile Apaches posed the most imminent threat.  Sure, they sought the material trade goods that these newcomers brought to the region, but they also began to expand their domain by acquiring horses and captives as they pleased (yes, “acquired” is another word for “seized”...maybe “stolen” is a better term).  To deal with what they viewed as a loss of control and order, Spanish officials resurrected the internal slave trade in which predominantly Pueblo and Apache captives were sold into slavery.  The most visible representatives of Spanish rule, the Fransiscans, were assumed to be complicit by their silence, so friction intensified between the Fransiscans and the Pueblo.  Remember that the Pueblo continued to practice many of their traditional ways, which caused great anxiety for the friars, so men like Po’Pay became targets for Spanish aggression.  In 1675, the same year that Metacomet and the Wampanoag began to violently challenge English rule in New England, a Spanish investigation into Indigenous practices resulted in a mass punishment of nearly 100 Pueblo medicine men.  3 were publicly hung, one committed suicide, and 47 were brutally whippedon a post, Po’Pay among these 47.  There were still over 40 awaiting their punishments, but a large force of fierce Pueblo warriors caused the Spanish to back down…that and the threat that the Pueblo would simply abandon their villages, thus taking their labor with them.  Suddenly, the Pueblo understood that the Spanish would never allow them to freely and openly practice their faith, but also if they pushed hard enough, the Spanish would back down.  Armed with these revelations, in addition to his aforementioned visions, Po’Pay’s work truly began.

Communication and coordination were key: similar to the aftermath of the Pequot War when Narragansett leader Miantonomi advocated for Native unification as a means of self-preservation, Po’Pay did the same thing.  Weakened in body by his imprisonment and flogging, but strong in spirit, he returned to Grinding Stone to continue his spiritual duties and advance his message of unity.  This was an absurdly strange concept to the Tewa because, as we have seen, there was no pan-Pueblo unity to speak of.  Each village fought their own battles and acted independently of one another.  Po’Pay would spend the next five years carrying out his vision against this deeply ingrained ideology.  His fellow medicine men and Pueblo traders were all fluent in multiple languages, so they spread Po’Pay’s ideas wherever they went.  In nearly every village, these middlemen identified at least one leader who was sympathetic to the cause, and these individuals slowly began to make their way to Grinding Stone to speak directly to Po’Pay.  Po’Pay formulated his plans, but chose to keep those plans as airtight as possible; this was the definition of a “need to know basis.”  If someone had no direct role in the pending events, they were out of the loop and had no knowledge of what was to come.  It certainly wasn’t a perfect system: Spanish officials began to understand that something was afoot, and Po’Pay even suspected his son-in-law of betraying the plan to the Spanish.  He held the position of tuyo, or Pueblo Governor that the Spanish had appointed, and depending on which version you believe, either a group of men in Grinding Stone killed him just outside of town, or Po'Pay did the job himself.  Either way, it clearly demonstrates the resolve with which Po’Pay would not only proceed with the rebellion, but prevent Spanish officials from discovering the plans of said rebellion.

The morning of August 10, 1680, is when the planning came to fruition.  Runners began to deliver knotted cords of yucca, a shrub common in the region, among leaders of the now-interconnected Pueblo villages (explaining why Po’Pay’s statue appears with knotted cords).  Each recipient understood the meaning behind the knots, as had been previously communicated: each day, one knot was to be untied.  When the final knot was untied…that was the day to kill all Spanish in each village.  The timing of the attack was carefully calculated: given the sparseness of New Mexico’s Spanish population, Santa Fe was resupplied by a wagon caravan once every three years.  The next one was due in 1680, specifically in July…and would likely remain on the other side of the Rio Grande given the unusually high water levels that spring and summer.  This would leave the Spanish vulnerable as all necessary supplies, including ammunition, would be just out of reach.  It would also decrease the odds of resistance to the attacks, which were to target all Spaniards: men, women, children, and even those who were ethnically only half-Spanish.  Nobody was particularly happy about targeting women and children, but Po’Pay and his inner circle believed that all needed to die to convince the Metal Men, the Spanish, that they were truly unwanted in the region.  So when the final knots were untangled on that fateful August morning, the simmering rage of nearly a century of mistreatment and oppression boiled over as a majority of the 17,000-strong Pueblo population, along with their recently acquired Apache allies, overwhelmed their supposed overlords.  This was despite the capture of two teenaged runners named Catua and Omuta as a result of the betrayal of a Pueblo leader, leading to the Spanish “discovery” of the knotted cords.  Those Spaniards who survived the wave of violence fled to Islet Pueblo and then retreated to modern-day El Paso…while others sought the perceived safety of the walls of Santa Fe.  The decentralization that made it difficult to counter the Pueblo attack worked in the opposing way on the Spanish: their centralization made it easy to pursue and corner whomever remained alive.  The Spanish governor and the distressed settlers hunkered down and suffered through a siege that saw a good portion of Santa Fe burned and lasted until August 21, at which point all surviving Spaniards were allowed to leave Bead Water.  History didn’t record exactly where Po’Pay was throughout the rebellion, but his plans had succeeded: the Spanish were marching out, and the Pueblo had won.

Act Four: Sustaining a Culture

What else could Po’Pay have possibly accomplished?  He just engineered the most successful revolt against European colonizers in the history of the North American continent.  The Spanish were gone, either by force or persuasion, perhaps never to return.  Now what?  For starters, the primary reason the rebellion came to fruition: a return to the traditional ways that the Spanish had not only forbidden, but had driven underground.  This demanded a reversal of previous Spanish policy: Christian names were discarded, Christian marriages were dissolved, and baptisms were even undone via a process involving a formal cleansing in the Rio Grande.  He even went further and, according to the words of the prisoner the Spanish referred to as Pedro Naranjo, Po’Pay ordered the burning of any and all images and symbols associated with Christianity.  This included Jesus, the Virgin Mary, crosses…if there was any relation to Christianity, it was destroyed.  In one of the reclaimed villages, Dancing Place, Po’Pay even gathered with other leaders around a table when Christian missionaries used to take their meals.  Po’Pay allegedly made a mocking toast “To your Paternal Reverences’s help,” as everyone held up their chalices and responded with toasts of their own.  Sacreligious to the Spanish, but justice for the Pueblo.

Unfortunately, the jubilation and unity would not last.  In eliminating all vestiges of Spanish influence and culture, Po’Pay desired that the Pueblo would even refrain from growing crops and utilizing domesticated animals that the Spanish had introduced: this was too much to ask, for these were so ingrained into everyday life that it would appear to be a step backwards.  Additionally, the common enemy had been defeated: the Spaniards were gone, surviving in squalor in the modern-day city of El Paso.  What need was there for unification without this direct threat to the Pueblo way of life?  After all, hadn’t the goal of this rebellion been to expel the Spanish so that the traditional rituals and ceremonies could resume?  Now that the Kachina masks could return, spiritual songs were heard once again, and the false idols were destroyed, what rationale existed for further efforts to bring the region together?  Ignoring the pleas of Po’Pay, save for a few leaders, most wished to resume the lives they knew before Spanish arrival when inter-village communication was minimal and centralization was non-existent.  Po’Pay understood that the Spanish would never fully go away, but his wishes fell on deaf ears.  Prolonged drought led to famine, which discredited Po’Pay’s view that there would now be unlimited peace and prosperity.  We don’t know exactly when or how it occurred, but Po’Pay died around 1688, long enough after the rebellion to witness the unraveling of all of his hard work.  A few short years later, the Spanish, led by Governor Diego de Vargas, recaptured Santa Fe and reclaimed New Mexico.  They took advantage of the divisions that had arisen in the rival Pueblo villages and sought to reassert control of the land from which they had been exiled just over one decade earlier.

But is that what they really sought to do, and is that what truly panned out?  The Spanish reclaimed what they believed to “control,” but how did this play out?  Sure, another revolt occurred in 1696 in which 26 additional Spaniards were killed, but did everything revert back to the “pre-rebellion” status?  The short answer: no.  Sure, Governor Vargas revived colonial rule, but it was not a return to the colonial rule of old.  No longer would the Pueblo be forcibly enslaved, for the oppressive, centuries-old encomienda system was swept away.  Each village was granted a tract of land, as well as the equivalent of a public defender, a Spaniard whose job it was to advocate for the legal rights of the Pueblo.  The previously-banned traditional ceremonies were now back…well, not officially, but unofficially, since the Fransiscans and Spanish political officials turned a blind eye to these rituals so long as the Pueblo accepted (think “acknowledged”) Catholic sacraments.  On the subject of Catholicism, Pueblo women began to study Catholicism more intently and use this scholarship as a means of challenging ancient traditions from which their participation had previously been forbidden.  The two cultures, through intermarriage and mutual defensive needs, formed diverse towns and relied on each other for safety.  The Pueblo provided the muscle, while the Spanish provided the leadership in fighting the new enemies, the nomads of the Plains and Rockies.  However, Po’Pay had promised a return to traditional ways and permanent peace following a successful rebellion against the Metal Men.  It hadn’t resulted in complete autonomy for the Pueblo, but the old ways did return even though a foreign faith needed to be acknowledged. So, Pueblo ways lived on and helped foster a new culture in the American Southwest.  A Measure of peace was indeed achieved in the aftermath of Po’Pay’s Great Southwestern Rebellion…and for that, he absolutely deserves enshrinement in Statuary Hall.

Join us next week on History: Beyond the Textbook as we shift our focus to a highly sensitive topic…that of American slavery.  We’ll shift gears ever so slightly as we explore this oppressive system through the lives of not one, but three individuals who experienced it in very different ways, and whose stories all explain something different in the greater American story.