The Christian Faith in the American Indian World: A History

Sources

INTRODUCTION

The dynamic of the Christian faith has been filtering down through the centuries doing its enlightening and transforming work despite herculean roadblocks and innumerable quagmires. Flickering and fluttering, the Light has not always shown brightly, but even its weakest rays have not been overcome by the darkness. That Light, Jesus Christ, was the true Light which enlightens everyone, bringing grace and truth, writes the author of the fourth Gospel, John.

He goes on to say … He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God.¹

This truth, captivating the hearts of Christ’s committed followers regardless of the era in which they lived, impelled them to spread the Good News of the Gospel from place to place and from generation to generation. Eventually it reached the aborigines of the Western World albeit often shrouded in layers of heretical religious fantasy.

This book attempts to trace the progress of the Christian faith among the Native American tribes, particularly in the United States from the days of Columbus to the beginning of the twenty-first century—from the Conquistadors to the present-day Indian reservations—roughly a five-hundred-year period.

Innumerable volumes recounting the historical events in the Indian world of this time-span line the shelves of scores of libraries. What an incredible, amazing, and troubling mountain of information! This book refers to those events only as they are involved, negatively or positively, in the advance of the Christian faith in the Native American world.

Coming from the Mediterranean countries were the Roman Catholic witnesses—the priests accompanying the Spanish conquistadors and the Jesuits zealous for the Church and for France—in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Then came the English—mostly Protestants–children of the Reformation—who brought a Gospel struggling to be free of nationality and church-hierarchy loyalty, particularly after the Revolutionary War. English Catholics settled in Maryland and English Quakers in Pennsylvania, and finally German Moravians in Pennsylvania before migrating to the Northwest Territory.

These European groups had varying degrees of interest in bringing the Good News of God’s love in Christ to the Native Americans, but for all of them disseminating the Faith was not easy.

The early nineteenth century, post-colonial period created enormous new challenges for the Native Americans and the Good News messengers alike. The Indian Removal movement brought a Presidential decree of horrible consequences; a Trail of Tears for five large tribes. Amazingly, this did not extinguish the Light, however.

After the Civil War President Grant’s Peace Policy was a valiant effort to encourage champions of the Light to demonstrate the efficacy of Christian precepts. But they were overpowered by atheistic and dissident opposition in high places.

Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century no satisfactory solution to the Indian Problem appeared. Turbulence within the tribes increased. Adding to this was a significant change in mission theology. The foundations were shaking; the authenticity of the Bible was questioned. Some missionaries were no longer proclaiming Christ as the Light of men. Little by little in liberal bodies of the church, missionary zeal began to wane while new missionary-sending agencies were establishing themselves among conservative groups. Native Americans were responding positively to the Light of the Gospel despite the opposition of liberal theology or the shenanigans of the United States Government.

George Russell, Saginaw-Chippewa author of Native American FAQs Handbook, says that at the end of the twentieth century an estimated 2,400,000 Native Americans were living in the United States, twenty-two percent on reservations, and seventy-eight percent off reservations, mostly in cities. He adds that seventy percent of Native Americans do not marry other Native Americans, and that most tribes require one-fourth minimum blood quantum for tribal enrollment, some more, some less.

Looking into the future he predicts: … in about two more generations the vast majority of Native Americans who live off-reservation will no longer be considered Native Americans because of blood quantum requirements. Native Americans that live on the reservations will survive tribal blood quantum requirements a few generations longer, but will eventually meet the same end result.²

Of far greater importance than blood quantum or official standing in the tribal community is membership in the kingdom of God and the certainty of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ, who declared I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.³ Later he spoke unequivocally saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.⁴ Then the Apostle Paul said in his letter to the Romans … if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.⁵ Can anything be more important than the assurance of eternal life?

This is the conviction that has persisted through the years following the discovery and settlement of the Western World Missionaries, convinced of the reality of these statements, made courageous efforts to bring the Good News to Native Americans who had never heard. It was no small task to bridge the gulf between the Native American cultures and languages, but the accounts of those who did cause us to exclaim with St. Paul, quoting from Isaiah, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

CHAPTER I.

THEY DARED TO DO IT:

SPAIN INVADES THE WESTERN HEMPISHERE

COLUMBUS

Can you imagine yourself an Arawak Indian on the Island of Hispaniola (present day Dominican Republic and Haiti) when Columbus arrived in 1492? What would your hopes and dreams have been? You would have learned survival skills and a religious orientation from your family and tribe. Most likely you would have been one of those best people under the sun, with neither ill will nor treachery, as Columbus wrote to Isabella and Ferdinand.

Before Columbus left Spain, he was given the titles of admiral and governor (of the territories he would discover), and he was also given three ships by the king and queen. One of his ships became grounded on a coral reef close to Hispaniola, and the Arawak Indian chief Guancanagari brought the crew and cargo to safety. He also brought gifts to Columbus, which were thought to be indications of the Indian’s acknowledging Spain as the new ruler of the island.¹

Why, then, did Columbus begin almost immediately gathering Arawaks to take back to Spain with him? It was to sell them in the slave markets.² Later the men in Hispaniola and other Caribbean islands were sent into the mines, and if they failed to produce the expected amount, a hand or foot was cut off. In 1498 Columbus was removed as governor of the island. In 1499 he was put in chains and taken back to Spain and tried for cruelty to the Indians.³ Although he was exonerated and permitted to make another trip to the Caribbean, his titles were never restored to him.

The damage had been done. To add to the abuse initiated by Columbus, Arawaks soon became victims of the contagious diseases (measles, scarlet fever, chicken pox, and smallpox) brought to them by the Spaniards. Having no immunity to these illnesses, tens of thousands died. In about fifty years the Arawaks (numbering at least three million or more in 1492) were almost entirely extinct, and black slaves were brought in to replace them. By 1510, the entire tribe of the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles was also wiped out.⁴

In 1511, nineteen years after Columbus first touched the coast of Hispaniola, Father Antonio de Montesinos boldly asked the colonists from his pulpit, Tell me, by what right do you keep these Indians in cruel servitude? … You are in mortal sin for the cruelty and tyranny you deal out to these innocent people … Are these not men? Have they not rational souls? The issue was presented in Spain and seriously debated by the priesthood. In 1512 the Pope declared that the Indians were descended from Adam and Eve, and thus fully human. Twenty-five years later another Pope declared that Indians could become Christians and were worthy of conversion.⁵

In 1515 Bartolome de Las Casas, a bold and untiring Dominican priest, accused the conquistadors of endless crimes against the Indians. His defense of the Indians lasted fifty years. His ideas of improved master-slave relationship were eventually incorporated in the Law of the Indies of 1542. This was a step in the right direction but did not solve the problem of maltreatment fully. Somehow the cracks were too wide through which the de facto powers of the conquistadors could slip to accomplish their surreptitious designs.⁶

CORTEZ

The stories of atrocities had just begun. In 1519 the unbelievably Machiavellian dictator, Herman Cortez, arrived. He gained his fame by bringing the entire Aztec empire (in present-day Mexico) to its knees. A complicated story with many episodes, this tale involves La Malinche (Aztec) who was the conquistador’s interpreter and lover, the defeat of the large Tlaxcala tribe who also hated the Aztecs, and the capture of Moctezuma. Cortez destroyed the Aztec capital (Tenochtitlan, present-day Mexico City) in 1521; the battle had taken two years, and 24,000 Aztecs were killed. The entire Aztec Empire collapsed. His crimes against the Indians were unimaginable. In writing about Cortez, Carlos Fuentes said, Between his Spanish duties as a Christian soldier and the Indian illusion of him as a god, Cortes had to choose, finally, the former.(p. 113) How could this author have called Cortez Christian? He was in no sense of the word a Christian by biblical definition. But by virtue of the fact that he was a Spaniard and a member of the Spanish Catholic Church, which had unusually strong ties to the Church in Rome, he was a Christian, to be sure. Certainly he was not Muslim. But his Christianity had not influenced his attitude and behavior toward godliness. He was a ruthless scoundrel at best.

It is not an exaggeration to say that all the conquistadors were actually disreputable thugs. Even by the standards of their day, they were men who knew nothing of Christian character. Little do today’s young people know when they, as elementary or high school students, were studying the achievements of the Spanish explorers, they were learning about terrible gangsters and murderers. And it was these fellows who held the future of the world in their hands. These were the people who were commissioned by the Pope to recite to the Indians a document composed by him called the Requerimiento before using physical force to conquer them. Do you think the Indians could understand what was being said? (It was in Spanish, of course, which most Indians had never heard before.) This is what it said:

We ask and require you … to acknowledge the Church as the ruler and superior of the whole world, and the high priest called the Pope and in his name the King [of Spain] as lord of … this terra firma …

[If you submit] we … shall receive you in all love and charity, and shall leave you, your wives and children, and your lands, free without servitude …

But if you do not [submit] … we shall powerfully enter into your country, and shall make war against you … We shall take you, and your wives, and your children, and shall make slaves of them … and we shall take away your goods and shall do you all the harm and damage we can."⁷

What a dreadful purpose statement! It gave the conquistadors permission to proceed as they did. It was said that Cortes made serious effort to persuade Montezuma to convert to Christianity, but the Indian chief was unwilling. He could see that this was only a ploy to get him to hand over his nation to the Pope and the King of Spain. To him Christianity was simply a political kingdom in which he could see no value.

PIZARRO

The picture of the Spanish conquest of the New World would be markedly incomplete without mentioning the conqueror of the Incas in Peru, Francisco Pizarro. Intrigue, deceit, and murder were all in his mind-set. In a book Republics of the Indies by Roman y Zamora, Pizarro and his brothers are called the worst men who ever set out from any nation and who, with their comrades, brought the greatest dishonor to the kings of Spain.⁹ All of the Pizarro boys came to a bad end. And the destruction of the Inca Empire that they brought to an end in 1530 was, though pagan, a great loss to Planet Earth. Cuzco and Machu Picchu still fascinate travelers, archaeologists and historians.⁹

Many authors have chronicled the stories of the horrors that took place in the Indian worlds of Mexico and Peru and elsewhere in Latin America. They are informative, gripping, and tragic. But it is to the accounts of the Spanish conquistadors who came to what is now the United States and wrought the same maltreatment on the Indians of this land to the north that we now turn our attention.

SPANISH EXPLORATION IN THE SOUTHEASTERN PART OF THE UNITED STATES

PONCE DE LEON

Juan Ponce de Leon had been part of Columbus’ crew on his second voyage in 1493. He had also been one of Columbus’ right hand men in bringing the Arawak Indians of Hispaniola (and there were probably 3,000,000 of them) into slavery and eventual extermination. It was he who set out to explore Florida in 1513 and found the Calusas Indians were waiting for him. Word had gotten to them. They chased him off and would not let him land on his first try. But he came back a couple years later, and this time he was able to build a colony. He was not there for long, however. The Calusas attacked the colony with poisoned arrows, and the Spaniards had to go back to Cuba where Ponce de Leon died from the wound that a poisoned arrow had inflicted.¹⁰

DE SOTO

Ponce de Leon was one of the lesser evils, but Hernando de Soto certainly was not. Beginning in 1539 he, with his army, servants, horses, and trained attack dogs, cut a swath of terror and ruin northward about five hundred miles from what is now Florida through Georgia and South Carolina, then westward probably eight hundred miles through Alabama and Mississippi into Arkansas. They moved back to Mississippi where DeSoto died in 1542.

DeSoto, a soldier in Pizarro’s army, which brought about the demise of the Inca empire in Peru a few years before (1532, in fact), was well trained for this expedition. Destruction, total disregard for the lives and possessions of the Indians, and unrelenting demands were always his modus operandi, though he always read the Requerimiento to each tribe he encountered. Six large tribes, inheritors of the famed Mississippi civilization, were virtually destroyed. They were the Timcua, Appalachia, Coosa, Mobile, Natchez, and Tonkawa. Mobile deaths alone ranged from three thousand to over ten thousand.

The accounts of the varied incidents and the barbarism inflicted by De Soto and his crew during this heinous four-year trek through the southeastern United States reveal the shocking and tragic episodes that occurred as they moved from place to place searching desperately for gold. It is a fascinating horror story if you should want to read about slave baggage trains formed by captives bound together with iron collars and chains, or, if they were reluctant to cooperate, captives losing a hand or foot or being burned alive or thrown to the dogs. Rather hair-raising! Of course, some Indian tribes were ingenious in devising ways to resist DeSoto, but His weapons always brought about the Indians’ defeat. Then in 1542 De Soto fell ill and died. That expedition was soon brought to an end.

This conquering expedition brought death and ruin also by the measles, chicken pox, smallpox, and other diseases carried by the Spaniards. Deaths from these continued long after the conquering army had left. The sizeable towns on De Soto’s route were greatly diminished when they were visited twenty-five years later. The comparatively few remaining survivors from adjacent communities came together and formed new towns, but the great Mississippian culture that had existed for hundreds of years was gone. Today these survivors’ descendants are the Creek, Cherokee, Natchez, Chickasaw, and Choctaw.¹¹

NARVAEZ

Even before De Soto began his tyrannical expedition, in 1528 to be exact, Spanish explorers led by Panfilo de Narvaez landed near Tampa Bay hoping to imitate Cortez’s success in Mexico. But Narvaez’s cruel and unwise decisions brought him to defeat. His dispirited men built some small boats and attempted to sail across the Gulf of Mexico, but four of the boats sank and only four of the men–a black slave and three Spaniards–survived. Shipwrecked on the east coast of Texas, they wandered from one tribe to another westward for two years. They hoped to reach Spanish settlements in Mexico, and amazingly, they did. Europeans had not explored this part of the country before, and it took them eight years to make their way through the wilderness into Mexico. During their wanderings they had heard reports of magnificent cities many stories high further to the west. Whether the reporters actually spoke of gold in these cities, or whether the hearers imagined there was gold there, we don’t know. But at least a rumor was set in motion.¹²

SPANISH EXPLORATION IN THE SOUTHWEST

CORONADO

The rumor was all it took to motivate Spanish officials in Mexico City to make immediate plans to set out on an exploration. A Franciscan priest, Fray Francisco de Niza, was asked to lead the exploration and the black slave, Estaban, was asked to be the guide. A few Christian Mexican Indians also went along.

The details of this interesting adventure have been given in many accounts, so they are not repeated here. But the upshot of the primary expedition report was that a spectacularly large expedition was assembled—230 mounted troops, a thousand Indian servants, and 1,500 horses, mules and cattle. The commander chosen was Coronado, a handsome Spanish aristocrat. And he dreamed of gold.

Alas, no gold was found. The city turned out to be Hawikuh, a pueblo village in Zuni land. Instead of gold and emeralds and rubies, they found only corn and beans. Coronado then sent Captain Pedro de Tovar and twenty men on west to Awatobi, a Hopi pueblo. They found more corn and beans, engaged in a skirmish, and returned to Hawikah. Coronado sent out another group lead by Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas; they discovered the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. Hernando de Alverdo was sent, with twenty men, to make an eighty-day exploration of the region east of Zuni land; they discovered the amazing pueblo of Acoma (about four hundred feet straight up) and further along, the dozen pueblos of Tiguex (present-day Albuquerque).

Coronado led his men to the pueblo of Puaray (or Tiguex as Coronado called it) near the modern town of Bernalillo just north of Albuquerque where they were to live for the winter. The Indians here became offended by the overbearing behavior of Coronado’s soldiers and their stealing. So Coronado and his men were driven from the pueblo, and it was two months before they could regain entrance. Of course, the Indians paid an awful price for this. One hundred were butchered as a warning to the rest.

Alverdo continued on five days eastward from Tiguex to the pueblo of Pecos. Here he met an Indian—probably Pawnee—who became big trouble to the Spanish. Called Turk because he looked like one, he told very tall tales of a land called Quivira where there were innumerable bison and great quantities of gold. With Turk as his guide, the gullible Coronado and his men marched well over two hundred miles eastward into Texas. After a season of wondering in this immense land with no landmarks, one of the pueblo Indians told Coronado that Quivira lay to the north. So after first returning to Tiguex they marched into Kansas. This 1000-mile trek also amounted to nothing. The Turk was put to death, and the rest marched back to Tiguex and passed the winter there. When spring came Coronado and his men returned to Mexico leaving the two Franciscan priests there to convert the natives to Christianity. Do you think they succeeded? Both men were murdered in short order. Coronado’s expedition had been a dismal failure. His remaining years were few and dark.

Coronado and his men were in New Mexico only two years, but they had deceived the Indians, killed hundreds of them, even burning some of them at the stake. Indian hospitality had been trampled and abused. The Spaniards had caused enormous turmoil. Would they come back? The Indians feared that they might.¹³

FORTY YEARS LATER

*

Everything was peaceful in the Pueblo Indian world for forty years. But many miles to the south some Spaniards had not given up on the idea of establishing a Spanish colony in the north. In 1581 three priests, nine soldiers and sixteen Mexican Indian servants traveled up the Rio Grande to Coronado’s old quarters at Puaray, the present-day site of Bernalillo. Basically it was a mission trip. The priests visited several places that had been contacted by Coronado and his men years before. Their efforts at converting Indians to Christianity were entirely fruitless. The soldiers decided to return to Mexico after which the priests were killed. A year later another group went north to find out what happened to the priests that had not returned with the soldiers. It didn’t take them long to learn that the priests had been killed.

ESPEJO

One of the men in the second expedition named Espejo saw the trip as a great opportunity for him to discover new lands. He explored the area northeast of Tiguex and discovered many pueblos which had not been discovered previously. Then he turned to the west looking for rich mines, and came upon Acoma and the Zuni area. Here he met two Mexican Indians who had been part of Coronado’s expedition more than forty years before. They told him about the Hopi mesas further to the west, and the Grand Canyon. Of course, Espejo had to check this out, but he found nothing more than the earlier explorers had found. So he returned to Zuni and went on to explore the pueblos north of present day Santa Fe.

It was Espejo who discovered the language differences between the pueblos. Piro was the language of the south, then Tiwa, Keres, Tano, Tewa, Towa, Zuni, and Hopi. The pueblos were not grouped according to language, and the languages of one group were not understood by another group, except in one instance—the Tano speakers could understand the Tewas. Otherwise the languages were unintelligible between the different pueblos.

Of course, the Spaniards quickly saw ways to capitalize on these language differences. It would be easy to cause conflict between the pueblos and thus to bring them under Spanish domination.

So the idea of colonizing this area for Spain was born. It was received with a great deal of enthusiasm, but because of the bureaucratic red tape involved in getting permission to attempt colonizing, not much was done for several years.

DE SOSA

Finally, a loyal enthusiastic Spaniard named Gaspar Castano de Sosa decided to ignore the rules of official approval, gathered a group of 170 people, and headed toward the Pueblo country by a roundabout route.

De Sosa was not given a very warm welcome when he arrived at Pecos pueblo, but he managed to avoid a major conflict. In his subsequent visits of twenty-two pueblos he attempted to treat the Indians with respect, and though they could not understand him, he announced that he would govern this region on behalf of the king of Spain. He also attempted to Christianize the Indians by erecting a huge cross at each pueblo, and by assigning the name of a saint to each pueblo.

De Sosa was a scrupulous man refusing to allow his men to mistreat the Indians. But in the end his uprightness did not win for him the place of honor it should have. Soldiers were sent by the viceroy of Mexico to arrest him for failing to obtain permission to do what he had done. He was exiled to China and died there before word of his exoneration was received

ONATE

In 1595 the very rich, prominent, and ambitious Juan de Onate went through the proper channels seeking the right to colonize New Mexico all at his own expense as was customary. He was granted a royal charter and commissioned by the King of Spain to carry out this discovery and pacification in a Christian spirit … Then the King added, You will endeavor to attract the natives with peace, friendship, and good treatment, with which I particularly charge you, and to induce them to hear and accept the holy gospel. The Spanish viceroy in Mexico City repeated the same directive when he said, Your main purpose shall be in the service of God our Lord, the spreading of His holy Catholic faith. The viceroy also expressly stated that the natives were not to be forced to work in mines.

With these instructions Onate set out on his long journey northward accompanied by his recruits, over one hundred families and thousands of farm animals. After two months he reached the Rio Grande River, and when the company had forded the River, Onate named the spot El Paso del Norte—present-day El Paso. They continued northward close to the River and eventually reached the Tibuex pueblos. Here he found two Christian Indians from Mexico who had been in Castano de Sosa’s company. With their assistance as interpreters Onate was able to tell the Indians of thirty-four pueblos what his mission was. First he told them that he was inviting them to swear allegiance to Spain, and then he told them about Jesus Christ, urging them to accept baptism. It is likely that the Indians did not fully understand what Onate was saying despite the interpreter’s efforts, and the politeness and courtesy of the Indians was construed to mean that they were submitting to the rule of Spain.

Onate secured the same sort of politeness and submission at each pueblo he visited. And as this happened, he renamed each village after a Catholic saint. The pueblo of Caypa became San Juan, and nearby a place was chosen for the colony’s capital, which was named San Gabriel. In very short order a church was built here, and within a month the first mass was celebrated.

During this time a weather incident occurred which had a powerful effect on the Indians. There had been no rain all summer, and the crops were dying in the fields. The Indians had prayed and performed the rain dances to no avail. Then they expressed their fear to the Spanish priests who promised to pray for rain. They did, and it rained torrentially.

The day after the first mass at San Gabriel the pueblo chiefs gathered to listen to an appeal made by the leader of the priests to accept the religion of Christ. The chiefs replied that they wanted to learn more about the religion. They said that if they accepted what they learned, they would become baptized; but if they did not, they did not want to be forced to accept it. This seemed reasonable to Onate and the leader of the priests, and they decided that the area should be divided into districts to which priests would be sent to instruct the Indians about the Christian religion. This idea was carried out—one priest to each district.

The idea of districts was also carried out in the political organization of the colony. Onate designed a specific governmental structure for all the districts. But since the Indians already had their own system of government, the Spanish realized it was to their advantage to cooperate with the Indian system already in place. The Indians continued to listen to their caciques (chiefs) who actually appointed the native governor, a new office created by the Spanish as a go-between for the Spaniards and the Indians.

The cacique was the spiritual head of the pueblo who made the major decisions particularly in regard to the religious life of the pueblo. He was more like a high priest than an administrator. The governor was designated the administrator by the Spanish but he functioned mostly as a spokesperson for the cacique.

Things seemed to go quickly and well. The priests went immediately to their distant places of service. All of this had happened in less than one year’s time. Onate was proud of his accomplishments. There had been no uprisings and no bloodshed.

Onate’s next move was to explore the surrounding area. It was his hope that sources of gold or other riches would be discovered so that he could recoup his wealth spent on the enormous expenses he had incurred so far. He therefore sent one of his nephews who had accompanied him on this expedition to explore the region east of the Tigeux pueblos, and he himself went west. The other nephew stayed at headquarters (San Gabriel).

On his march west Onate came to the Acoma, a pueblo on a mesa that towered almost four hundred feet above the surrounding countryside. He did not climb to the mesa-top, and remained there only long enough to claim the pueblo for Spain. Then he continued on to the Zuni pueblo and points further west. Little did he know that some of the Acoma Indians opposed him and all the Spanish and wanted to assassinate him.

The nephew who had gone east returned to San Gabriel after forty-five days with nothing to show for his investment of time. His brother Juan then left him at San Gabriel and headed west retracing Onate’s footsteps. When he came to Acoma, he and his force of thirty soldiers made the mistake of climbing to the top of the mesa whereupon all but five of them were killed including Juan. Four of the five escaped. Word soon reached Onate who declared war on the Acoma village. His remaining nephew led the Spanish troops in a vicious war of retribution against the Acoma Indians. Because of their superior weaponry, only two Spanish soldiers lost their lives, but a thousand Indians were killed, the remaining 500 were taken prisoners. In addition, Onate’s sentence was that all men over 25 years of age were to have one foot chopped off, and they would be slaves for 20 years. In addition all males and females above twelve years were sent into slavery.

Only a month later Onate sent a positive report of the colony to the viceroy in Mexico City, and about a year later, he sent his remaining nephew Vicente westward to search for the Pacific. Vicente got into some trouble with the Indians, and Onate decided to follow him a short time later, but things were beginning to look up.

However, in 1601 one of Onate’s officers carried a report to the viceroy that did not make things seem so rosy. A long list of complaints of both colonists and soldiers were spelled out. This, of course, was a secret report that was further confirmed by an incident with the pueblo of Quarai in which hundred of Indians were killed and forty Spaniards were injured.

Onate continued his wandering, searching for gold, and fighting the Indians when he was needed at San Gabriel. Many of the colonists decided to abandon the colony and return to Mexico. This was the beginning of the end for Onate. In 1609 he was removed from office and lived the last years of his life in Spain.¹⁴

DON PEDRO DE PERALTA

Succeeding Onate was Don Pedro de Peralta who in 1610 moved the colony’s capital from San Gabriel to Santa Fe, a site on the Santa Fe River, a tributary of the Rio Grande. This was a central location with pueblos both north and south. Peralta did not pursue riches of gold and pearls as did Onate, but he was forced to struggle with a serious conflict between the colonists and the friars in using the Indians to meet their goals. It seemed that two rival governments had arisen—the civil government in Santa Fe, and the church government in Santo Domingo.

This was the beginning of a long struggle that continued in an on-again off-again pattern throughout most of the rest of the century. The civil government felt they had to exploit the Indians in order to have a functioning economy, and the friars felt it was their responsibility to protect the Indians from such exploitation.

During this time the church was successful in appealing to the Indians. The friars worked hard to bring the message of Christ to the pueblos. Story telling was one of their effective methods, and the Bible stories had powerful influence on the Indians. Story telling, used regularly in their religious life, was not new to the Indians, and they welcomed these new tales.

The priests then began to explain some of the more complicated concepts of the Christian faith: that each individual has an immortal soul, that Christ was sent into the world to redeem humankind from sin, and that the main tenet of Jesus’ religion was love. These missionaries were Franciscans and they sought to model to the Indians the love, compassion and gentle ways of St. Francis. Many of the Indians responded positively to this expression of Christianity.

The friars were also interested in the well being of the Indians and taught them improved ways to farm the land, to raise livestock, and to be productive in many area of life.

Of course the key men of the pueblos, which included the heads of the secret societies and the strong leaders of the native religion, were sharply and adamantly opposed. Consequently religious divisions grew up within the Indian community.

But the Indians that responded positively to the friars’ teaching were glad to use their skills to build churches and mission houses for their priests. Almost fifty churches had been built by 1630. Even in Acoma a church had been built after a sick Indian child was miraculously cured by the priest. And building a Spanish church was no small accomplishment in any location, especially on a high mesa!

By 1630 the head of the Franciscan mission in New Mexico reported to the king of Spain that 50 friars were working in 90 native villages. Sixty thousand Indians, both Pueblo and non-Pueblo, had been baptized. It seemed that the Christian faith had made great inroads in New Mexico.

But there was a mitigating factor that caused the victory of the Christian faith to be compromised. In accepting Christianity the Pueblo Indians did not give up their old religion. Both the kiva and the church were patronized. Robert Silverberg in The Pueblo Revolt quotes Matilda Stevenson, an anthropologist writing in 1894 after having studied the Pueblo Indians many years, thus:

They are in fact as non-Catholic as before the Spanish conquest … [They] have preserved their religion … holding their ceremonials in secret, practicing their occult powers to the present time, under the very eye of the church … The Catholic priest marries the betrothed, but they have been previously united according to their ancestral rites. The Romish priest holds mass that the dead may enter heaven, but prayers have already been offered that the souls may be received by Sus-sis-tin-na-ko (their creator) into the lower world … Though professedly Catholic, they wait only the departure of the priest to return to their secret ceremonials (p. 70).

Silverberg goes on to say that the ceremonials are still observed by these supposedly Christian people, and the rites performed today are probably not very different from those of the seventeenth century, or those of the time before the friars came. The rites govern everything in village life: birth, marriage, sickness, death, the yield of the fields, success in war, and safety in travel. The kiva is the place where much of the ritual is acted out. Often the men remain in the kiva for days on end, emerging into the plaza of the pueblo only at the climax of the ceremony.¹⁵

ABOUT THE PUEBLO RELIGION

Religious education begins at an early age more by observation than by verbal instruction. The child’s father leaves the family to go into the kiva for long periods of time. The child hears and sees what is happening. He hears drumming and chanting, and he sees the kachinas come into the pueblo and dance.

The kachinas are the masked gods who have painted bodies and wear weird costumes decorated with horns or feathers or green boughs. Some move slowly and others run and hop about. They are terrifying and grotesque. They are believed to be supernatural beings who come to the pueblos to bring rain. All the Pueblos believe that long ago the kachina spirits lived with humans, teaching hunting, farming and the arts and crafts. But a quarrel arose between kachinas and humans, and the kachinas left to dwell in a distant home. Now the kachinas return only to bring rain. All this teaches the Pueblo child that the spirit world is very real and very near. As the boys grow up kachina dolls are given to them.

These, of course, represent a kind of religious education. The dolls are not toys.

Later, when the boy is twelve or thirteen, he is taken to a kiva. Kachinas are present. After an elder on the pueblo explains their importance, the kachina masks are lifted from the kachinas’ heads, and the boy sees that the masked gods are really just members of the pueblo, men he has known all his life. Then the boy learns that the real kachinas do not come to the pueblo, but they have given people the privilege of wearing masks and impersonating them. It is when the men wear the masks that the true spirits enter them and rain comes.

The boy is then given a kachina mask and is regarded as an adult. He can now participate in the ceremonies. He may also join a secret society, and there are several from which to choose. Each secret society specializes in a particular behavior—like handling venomous snakes, or eating fire, or healing the sick.

The Franciscan missionaries had hoped to eradicate these pagan practices and to replace them with the knowledge and worship of the Christian God. At first they thought this was happening, but little by little they discovered this was not the case. They were divided as to what should be done. Should they just be patient and believe that Jesus would prevail over the masked gods, or should this pagan religion be eradicated by force? Significant problems lay ahead.¹⁶

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND THE CROWN

During Onate’s tenure as Governor of New Mexico, he instituted a system that was designed to attract colonists. It awarded tracts of land (encomiendas) to men who took part in the conquest and expansion of the colony. With this was the privilege of employing Indians (repartimiento) to farm the land. Although the Indians were supposed to be hired to do the work, it turned out that they were actually serfs, bound to the land and received no wages. The proprietors of the encomiendas became wealthy landowners who lived on large estates (haciendas) with many Indians to serve them and farm their lands. In addition, the Indians were required to produce food and cloth for their remuneration for doing all the work. What they produced was often sold to Mexico for a good profit, but the Indians did not receive any of it.

The friars also had need of Indian labor. This led to conflict between the priests and the governors. The Spaniards had come to New Mexico to get rich and to serve God, and now there seemed to be a conflict between these two goals. Part of the conflict lay in the basic concept of who the Indians were. The colonists, including the civil authorities, saw the Indians as an inferior species who had no ambition, no interest in wealth, and were not interested in expanding their boundaries. Their lives were valueless from the Spaniard’s point of view. But the priests respected the Indians as being fully human with immortal souls. One of the priests, Bartolome de las Cassas, spoke out loudly and clearly in the Indians’ behalf. So did Pope Paul III who said that the idea that Indians should be treated as dumb brutes created for our service was of the Devil. He also said that the Indians are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property … nor should they be in any way enslaved.

The governmental leaders paid little attention to these statements and the Indians were gradually pulled into slavery. This increased the intensity of the contest between the government and the church.¹⁷

PERALTA vs. FRAY ISIDRO

Finally in 1613 the conflict grew into a war of sorts when Governor Peralta sent a group of soldiers to collect the required farm produce from the Indians at Taos. Fray Isidro Ordonez, the head of the church in New Mexico, met them and told them to return at once to Santa Fe without the farm produce. He declared his disapproval of the use of forced Indian labor in the building of Governor Peralta’s palace in Santa Fe. Of course, this enraged the Governor who denounced Fray Isidro violently. In return, Frey Isidro threatened excommunication. Later in a face-to-face meeting Peralta drew his gun and fired at the priest missing him but hitting another priest and a civilian.

This led to a situation in which Peralta headed for Mexico City to report his account of the incident to the authorities, but he was captured after a short distance by Fray Isidro’s men and imprisoned in a convent. Thus Fray Isidro had seized control of New Mexico. Even though Peralta escaped and returned to Santa Fe, he was caught and imprisoned again.

While Fray Isidro was in control he dared to do something that could only be considered a big monkey wrench in Spain’s plans. He granted permission for all the settlers and soldiers who wished to return to Mexico to go. This resulted in Santa Fe’s population dropping to forty-seven other than priests.

Peralta was replaced by Bernardo de Caballos, and, interestingly, Fray Isidro was replaced, too, on the grounds that he had overstepped his authority. But the quarrel between the factions was not resolved.

EULATE

In 1619 another governor, Eulate, came on the scene following in the train of Peralta. He wanted to drive a wedge between the priests and the Indians because the natives had developed a loyalty to the priests who defended them. Eulate encouraged the Indians to revive their pagan dances, their kachinas, and their whole system of festivals. He knew, of course, that this would alarm the friars who would likely take strong measures to prevent the Indians from regressing to their pagan faith. This is precisely what happened. Kivas, masks, and sacred images were burned. This caused resentment in the Indians who turned against their priests.

Through the 1620’s and 1630’s the priests complained constantly about the abuses of the government. All of them were legitimate, and many of them consisted of stories of dreadful appalling treatment. But the governors, when confronted with these facts, responded with accusations of the friars claiming that they mistreated the Indians shamefully. The priests were by no means exemplary in their conduct toward the Indians.

DE ROSAS, DE MENDIZABAL AND DE PENALOSA

Don Luis de Rosas, Governor from 1637 through 1641, like the governors who had preceded him, favored the attitude of the civil government. His method was to keep the missions understaffed, and to stir enmity toward the friars. He was assassinated in 1641.

In the 1650’s Bernado Lopez de Mendizabal, the next governor, again adopted the scheme of encouraging the natives to engage in their pagan ceremonials. At one point he said that if he were not governor, he would go out and dance with the Indians himself. This favorable attitude toward paganism and idolatry was going too far, and in 1660 the Holy Office of the Inquisition forced Governor Lopez to resign.

Next came Don Diego de Penalosa Bricena, a eccentric, ostentatious person who followed the pattern of the preceding governors in limiting the power of the priests. At the time of his arrival, they were concerned with undoing the damage that had resulted from Governor Lopez’s tolerance of pagan practices. Strict rules were again being imposed on the Indians. Kivas were raided, kachina dances were strictly prohibited, and masks and kachina dolls were destroyed. As before, this created resentment; whispered rumors of revolt were heard.

By reflecting on past events it became evident that the Indians had been willing to allow the Spaniards to establish their own system of government along side the Pueblo style of government. And the Pueblos had been willing to take on Christianity in addition to their own pagan religion. But now a quarrel had arisen between the government and the missionaries, and the Indians were caught in the middle.

Governor Penalosa took advantage of this situation to negate the authority of the priests. It had become a serious game of one-upmanship. Governor Penalosa jailed Fray Alonso and then regretted doing this. Again the Holy Office of the Inquisition forced Penalosa’s resignation. In fact, they carried out a program of his humiliation and banished him from the Western Hemisphere in 1668.

If only somehow a resolution to the conflict between the opposing parties could have come from this. But it didn’t. The Indians became contemptuous. The missionaries became cruel in their efforts to force the Indians to become Christians, sometimes flogging them, and in some cases, hanging them. The government enslaved them, stole the wealth of their crops, and forced them to live by unintelligible laws. They were the victims of this tragic conflict.¹⁸

TROUBLE IN ORABI (HOPI)

More than two hundred miles to the west the Hopi, who had long indicated their opposition to Christianity, killed a friar in 1633. At the Orabi pueblo the Indians were forced to haul logs to be used in mission building from a forest forty miles away. They called it the slave church and continued worshipping the kachinas. In 1655 a Hopi, discovered engaging in idolatry, was abused until blood came, and was then drenched in burning turpentine. One priest demanded that his drinking water be brought to him from a source fifty miles away. Their problems were very real but because they were so far away, the Hopis did not experience the exploitation that the Indians in the main Spanish settlement did.

All of the turbulence resulting from the conflict between church and government continued to take its toll. And then a disaster stuck over which no one had control. In 1660 a tremendous drought victimized the region. Crops failed and people were forced to rely on their storehouses. On top of that, nomad Indian raiders, mostly the Apache and the Navajo, swooped down and robbed the storehouses.

The first point of attack was the Piro-speaking pueblos forty to fifty miles east of the Rio Grande. Christianity had taken hold here and three large churches had been built. On priest wrote, The whole land is at war with the widespread heathen nations of Apache Indians, who kill all the Christian Indians they can find.(Silverberg, p. 91) The Apaches were reported to be cannibalistic, cutting off parts of the bodies of their prisoners, and cooking and eating them.

The raids continued throughout the 1660’s. Despite the promises they had made years earlier, the Spaniards could not defend the Pueblo Indians against such raids. More Spanish troops were desperately needed, but they were not forthcoming. People and their livestock died of starvation. In 1671 a disease epidemic struck killing many people. All of the Piro villages were abandoned, the people fleeing westward over the mountains to the Rio Grande. Even here they were attacked; some went south into Mexico, and some north into other Indian villages. This was a period of horror for the entire colony. The Indians cried out to God both in the churches and the kivas for relief from their suffering.¹⁹

The turbulence and terror of this era caused enormous distress, and the Spanish settlers began questioning the reason for it. Some felt that God was not pleased by the attitude of the government toward the friars. Then, in 1675 a dying girl had a vision of the Virgin Mary, which seemed to confirm this idea. Of course, this influenced the people to turn to the church, but some wondered if it were already too late.

TREVINO

Governor Juan Francisco de Trevino then began a program designed to end the contest between the church and the government. The civil authorities would no longer attempt to hinder the work of the priests. The revival of pagan rites would never be encouraged again, and the Indians would be influenced to be true to the Christian faith.

It was the governor who now prohibited the native ceremonials, calling them idolatry and witchcraft. He even sent forces though the pueblos to round up the heads of the secret societies, the medicine men who performed the healing rites, and the organizers of the kachina dances. In all there were forty-seven who were brought to Santa Fe to be tried for the crimes of sorcery and idolatry.

Of course, they were found guilty. Four of them were hanged. The others, who were considered the spiritual leaders of the community, were jailed. This created a great sense of fear in the pueblos because these were the only ones who could perform the proper rituals to protect the people from the evil forces of the spirit world.

This fear grew making it necessary for the pueblos to unite in an attempt to seek the freedom of the jailed men. Interestingly, seventy Christian Tewa Indians went to Santa Fe to ask for the release of the imprisoned medicine men. They simply described the possible actions of the Pueblos if the men were not freed soon. Their quiet but convincing approach won the day and the prisoners were set free.

POPÉ and AYETA

But even darker events were yet to come. Among those set free was a medicine man named Popé who had fought against Christianity most of his life. He was passionately dedicated to the kiva religion. Some years earlier he had advocated rebellion and driving the Spaniards out. But at that time few took his suggestions seriously. Now, however, his determination was as strong as steel.

Little by little Popé built a web of alliances between the pueblos. He also spent much time in the kiva at Taos with a mysterious figure thought to be the mouthpiece of the Pueblo war god. He was a huge black man with fiery yellow eyes who was regarded as a giant, and he acted as a counselor to Popé. He claimed that three spirits of the underworld—Caudi, Tilni, and Tleume—came to advise him frequently.

The Spaniards suspected that something was going on at Taos, but they did not realize that a revolt was being planned, and they did not have enough evidence for an arrest.

During this time another priest came on the scene. He was Fray Francisco de Ayeta, the leader of the Franciscans in New Mexico. Stopping along the way northward from El Paso, he began to sense that not all was well in the colony. Great discouragement had set in as a result of the Apache raids, the drought, and fear of an Indian uprising. Many of the colonists were ready to give up and return to Mexico. When Fray Francisco reached Santa Fe, he discovered this same depressed mood. Things had started to break down.

The kindly priest realized that aid was needed, so in 1676 he headed back for Mexico City. His plea was heard and in February 1677 he began his long return to Santa Fe. This trip took nine months instead of the expected six; the Rio Grande was flooded and he had to wait to cross. He finally did arrive in Santa Fe in November 1677, and for a short time felt confident about his trip.

But soon reality set in. The threats were still the same. The colony’s existence was still precarious. It dawned on Fray Francisco that much further aid was needed, so he returned to Mexico City, but this time his plea was not heard, and he was forced to return to Santa Fe with only the provisions the Spanish government made every third year. His request for additional troops was ignored.

He reached El Paso in August of 1680, and again the Rio Grande was running so high he could not cross. While he was waiting a platoon of soldiers from the north came to escort him back to Santa Fe. They too had to wait for the River to subside.

A few days later while they were waiting Indian messengers came with the most upsetting news that had reached any governor or priest since the colony had been founded. Most of the Indians had indeed revolted furiously and ferociously. The settlements north of what is now Albuquerque had been wiped out; it was presumed that the Governor (Otermin) and everyone else including the priests and the leading families at Santa Fe were dead. The few who had not been massacred were fleeing down the Rio Grande Valley.

Popé’s efforts had been successful. The Pueblo Indians had thrown the Spaniards out of New Mexico, and the colony that had existed eighty-two years was dead. For Spain and for Catholic Christendom, it was a stinging defeat.

The story of this amazing revolt by the Indians who lived in pueblos and villages scattered along the Rio Grande River separated by considerable distances is recounted in fascinating detail in The Day of Reckoning—Chapter Seven in Robert Silverberg’s The Pueblo Revolt. How it was masterminded, orchestrated, and carried out makes for captivating reading. It is a story containing intrigue, suspense, massacre, and other tragic consequences. One incident is particularly memorable: The friar who had repeatedly showed remarkable compassion to the colonists, Fray Francisco, also revealed his skill at manipulating them politically. When they fled to El Paso he made sure they would have to remain there until the colony could be reestablished. He managed to hold them like prisoners so that New Mexico would not be lost to Spain or to the church regardless of how long it would take to reestablish the colony. Thus the climax of the story is tinged with a selfish dictatorial act on the part of the top church leader.

The detailed story of the revolt is not included here since it is primarily a war story and highlights the Indians’ instability in their commitment to their Christian faith. The close of Governor Otermin’s administration was as disappointing as preceding administrations had been. He and his second-in-command did attempt a reconquest of the colony but it was a complete failure.

POPÉ’S REGIME

Of course, Popé had assumed the position of governor when the Spaniards had been driven out in 1680. His first goal was to get rid of all evidences of Christianity. This meant tearing down all the churches that had not already been destroyed. All of the huge wooden crosses were burned along with the images of Christ, Mary, and the saints. Ceremonies of debaptism in which the Indian Christians were scrubbed clean from Christian baptism by the suds of the yucca plant were held in every village. No Christian names were allowed, and no Spanish could be spoken.

This also meant that all of the vegetables and fruits that had been introduced by the Spaniards could not be used or raised, and neither could the animals. Even the Spaniards horses were set free from the corrals. (From these horses descended the horses that were used by the Plains Indians in the eighteenth century.)

Old kivas were restored and new ones built. New kachina masks were made, and the Indians returned to their pagan religious practices with great enthusiasm and fury. Within a few months there was little evidence of their ever having been Christians.

But some Spanish practices could not easily be obliterated. Perhaps the most obvious one was the idea of a central authority controlling all the villages. This one Popé clung to. He moved into the Spanish Governor’s palace in Santa Fe and demanded that his subjects give him the same honor they had given the Spanish governor. He was an oppressive governor; anyone who disobeyed him was enslaved.

The pueblos had never been a united people, and Popé’s effort to unite them simply drove them further apart. The Pueblos spoke several different languages; the Tewa and Tano people seemed to be favored by Popé while the Keres, Towa and Tiwa people were not. Soon, civil war erupted. There was quarrelling even in the ruling group. Popé’s own tribe (Tanos) spoke of deposing him. The drought had continued as had the Apache raids. Things had not returned to the happy state they remembered experiencing before the Spaniards came.

While this was happening the Spaniards were planning a program of reconquest. But getting the colonists to go back north was not an easy matter. However in November 1681 the Spanish governor was able to start the march to the land of the pueblos. The Spaniards ran into all sorts of reactions from the Indians as they approached the pueblos one after another. Some were resistant, but their resistance was soon broken down. Some were furious and wanted to make war. Many were fearful and fled to the mountains, and a few were welcoming. Finally the Spaniards were faced with a rebel army of Indians from the north, which was powerful and threatening. And the Spanish leaders did not present a united front. So the Spaniards withdrew and returned to El Paso. The reconquest program had been a complete failure.

Meanwhile Popé’s dreadful reign continued as did the drought and the Apache raids. Fighting between the pueblo peoples increased. Some Indian groups were destroyed and some fled to Hopi country.²⁰

CRUZATE

Into this perplexing scenario came yet another Spanish governor, General Domingo Jironza Petriz de Cruzate, to attempt to carry out the order from the king of Spain to reconquer the lost province with as little expense as possible to my royal treasury.

Cruzate’s attention was focused on Texas, however, and soon he was replaced by another governor, Don Pedro Reneros. Reneros didn’t last long, and soon Cruzate was back. But he was not a successful governor, having no real interest in the Indians.

VARGAS

Finally the viceroy of Mexico became acquainted with an extraordinary man who came from a long line of pedigreed people in Spanish history and who was amazingly gifted. He was Don Diego Jose de Vargas Zapata Lujan Ponce de Leon y Contreras. When he took over the reigns of the government of the Spanish Colony, things began to change quickly. His first attempt at reconquest succeeded so thoroughly that everyone was dazed, colonists and Indians alike. What he accomplished in bringing order out of chaos in one year’s time was incredible. Amazingly, it was all done without a single battle. He displayed a demeanor of genuine caring, non-retaliation, and shrewdness that really took the wind out of the Indians