Envisioning America and What Caused the Pueblo Revolt - Essay Example

319590 Topic: Envisioning America & What Caused the Pueblo Revolt Introduction: The pages of human history daubed in bloodshed in the name of religion, color, race, territorial aggrandizement etc. ask the crying question. How to make this Planet Earth heaven-like? The answer is simple and straightforward. Eyes full of understanding, hearts full of love and the life that refuses conflicts—enough, these alone are enough! I am a Pueblo, willing to defend the Pueblo revolt of 1680. But remember, there are two sides for a conflict and the reasons could be several! “…most scholars believe that the Pueblos act of defiance assured them of a measure of freedom from future Spanish efforts to eradicate their culture.”(Countryman, Foreword…) and the side that brought maximum happiness to the maximum number of people, in this context Pueblons, won and those who preached malice, practiced cruelty in the name of religion met with the gory end. God sees the truth, but how long is the man to wait and tolerate the indignities and cruelties heaped on him by another man? How long a community can suffer humiliation of the worst order? We, the local tribes, lived a life of peaceful co-existence with the Spaniards, who are in reality the aggressors on our land. We are a conglomeration of tribes and we have our own problems of language, distance, and have fierce historical tribal rivalries. Tribal people are like innocent sitting birds. We were easily outwitted and outsmarted by the invading Spaniards who were successful in asserting their sovereignty over us. Only a handful, yet they succeeded in bossing over us directing us to pay regular tributes to the Spanish Crown. Next action was to interfere and suppress our religious beliefs, by applying force to convert us to Christianity. Notwithstanding our numerical strength, we Pueblo Indians tolerated this humiliating arrangement for many generations! Our disunity was our main problem. The causes are historical and to some extent geographical. The distance between the Pueblo towns, several discreet languages added to our woes. With their persistent efforts and pressure tactics, Christian missionaries succeeded in establishing a foothold amongst us. Many of us had to grudgingly tolerate this onslaught on our religious beliefs. They say, you can fool and suppress some for all time, all for sometime, but not all for all time! When brutalities of the Spaniards reached beyond the tolerable limits, open rebellion was the only alternative before us. We are an agricultural people and our fertile valleys are most dear to us and our survival depends upon them. We decided to retaliate; surmounting the problems posed by the distance between the towns, six different languages and many hundreds of dialects, with no central authority to unify us. The isolated incidents of rebellion were brutally suppressed by the Spaniards with no Christian standards revealed in dealing with us. They cut the right foot of every male above twenty-five years of age! They only had cross dangling on the neck, but no Christ in their hearts. Unity! And what sins are committed in the name of unity….but the unity exhibited and the united resistance initiated by us against the Spaniards in the year 1680, has perhaps, no parallel in the history of freedom-loving people. What the Spaniards had assiduously built was reduced to dust, within a short period. The surprise element in the determined attack by Pueblos, took the Spaniards by surprise and the magnitude of the attack tore through their defenses. Pueblos killed more than four hundred of New Mexico’s Hispanic residents. Churches were destroyed; twenty-one of the thirty-three Franciscans were brutally killed. Now, let me give some details from the historical perspective. Any historian who has investigated the issues in South Western America or Latin America would agree that Pueblo Revolt is an important event. It is an uprising that gave the desired results to Pueblos. It is a remarkable gain for the native Indians, a stunning blow in the more than three hundred years of colonial rule. The efforts of the Spaniards to eradicate the tribal culture did not fructify. Rather, Spaniards were eradicated from Latin America, once for all. If you ask me to pinpoint one solid reason, that distanced the Spaniards from the native Indians which ultimately resulted in the major revolt, it is the religious oppression. Religion is a very sensitive issue with any human being, and when the Franciscan friars employed barbarism to enforce Christianity on the tribal, they resented the approach. The forced conformity to Christian tenets resulted in the unity of Pueblo tribes for a common cause-overthrow the cunning Franciscans! How this unthinkable unity amongst the tribal materialized that led to the downfall of the Spaniards? Who initiated the unity moves and planned the successful attacks? Fray Angelico Chavez, a historian gives the credit to a mestizo, named Domingo Naranjo. He was the descendant of a freed black slave and a native woman. A new generation was emerging in Pueblo, offspring of Spanish and native people. Their thinking was different from the die-hard Spaniards and they were less loyal to Spain and carried good influence on tribal people and among the Pueblo social circles. This cultural exchange worked to the advantage of Pueblo. A strong lobby that harbored ill will towards the Spanish was taking shape. Initially the preaching of Franciscans fascinated the tribal leaders. Later Franciscans promised more after death but the tribes were worried about their secular needs like good crops, welfare of their animals etc. They wished for the divine forces to work in their favor for rains, plenty and prosperity. The Franciscans failed to deliver this, and incurred the displeasure of the tribal leaders. Robbing of the freedom by an alien force is a tragedy for any people; robbing of the economic freedom is a double tragedy; robbing of the religious freedom is the ultimate calamity for the people. “In addition to submitting to instruction by Catholic missionaries, the tribes were also required to pay tribute in the form of labor to the colony. Since the colonists were unable to successfully cultivate the land that they had occupied, they relied on their indigenous captives to provide them with adequate sustenance. This repartimiento system was maintained by the threat of brutal reprisal in the event of Indian reluctance.”(Gudzune, 2008) Pueblo suffered all these, over a period at the hands of the Spaniards which ultimately lead to the end of Spanish colonialism. ‘Brutal force has not won anything durable’—the veracity of this statement can be found in the Pueblo Revolt. A century of Spanish rule, failed to win over the Pueblon hearts. The attack on indigenous religion did the ultimate damage to the Spaniards. Pueblons initially tolerated various facets of the misrule and did not hit back. But when they hit, they hit so hard and there was no need to hit again and again. Spaniards were routed. “The Pueblo revolt is explained by many historians. Each person has a different description for how the revolt got started. Henry Bowden, however, has the best reasoning. He skillfully states why the causes were the excessive force of Christianity, the destruction of the Indian’s religious items, the burning of the Spanish’s churches and murder of their clergy, all which relates to the argument of religion.” (The Pueblo….) Conclusion: The cumulative effect of several measures initiated by the Spaniards to ultimately root out the Pueblo culture, assault on our traditions, using ruthless force, demanding free labor and tribute to Spain, resulted in the collapse of their Empire and many thousands of lives were lost. The missionaries succeeded in procedural conversions to Catholicism but they failed to win the hearts of the Pueblo people. *************** Works Cited: Weber, David J. (Author), Countryman, Edward (Foreword) What Caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680? Bedford: St.Martin’s; 1999. Gudzune, Jeffrey R: Article: Reconstruction: Spanish Missionaries and the Pueblo Indians …. Retrieved on September 8, 2009 [PDF] The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 has been discussed by many historians….Bowden also has very good sources with anthropological views. Retrieved on September 8, 2009 Read More