PUEBLO INDIAN REVOLT of 1680 in SAND and SAGE.

Figure One - Painting on a bison hide, depicting the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 (painter unknown). 

Most Americans believe the American Revolutionary War of 1776 was the first revolutionary war in the United States, but there was one that was much older, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Let me tell you about it. 

In the 1500s, Spanish conquistadors explored what would ultimately become the states of New Mexico and Colorado. At that time, tensions between the Spanish explorers and the Pueblo Indians were still palpable. The Spaniards brought the Indians new and dazzling trade items that the Pueblo Indians desired while the Spaniards coveted the vast unclaimed land and resources of New Mexico and Colorado. The Spaniards colonized what they called New Mexico. As the years passed, disagreements between the Pueblo Indians and Spaniards escalated. The Pueblo Indians wanted to live in sovereignty following the religion and customs of their ancestors while the Spaniards campaigned to convert the Indians to Christianity and the Spanish way of life. As more and more Spaniards arrived in the territory, it became more and more difficult for the Indians to accept Spanish rule and to live in peace and harmony with the European interlopers.   

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At the beginning of 1660, a long sustained drought swept across New Mexico. Rivers became streams, and streams became dry washes. Winds carried desert sand high up into brownish skies. Cattle suffered and crops failed. Famine swept across the Pueblo Indian Nation. Some of the Indians blamed the Spaniards for this bad luck. At the same time, raids on the Pueblo Indians from the Comanche and Apache tribes became more frequent and daring. The Pueblo Indians asked the Spanish military to help them against these hostile raids, but the Spaniards ignored the Pueblo Indians' plea for help.  

With drought, famine, and raiding parties punishing the Pueblo Indian Nation at the same time, they must have wondered why their gods had forsaken them. To a large portion of the Indian population, their negative circumstances coincided with the arrival of the Spaniards. At the same time, the Spaniards remained relentless in converting the Pueblo Indians from paganism (Spanish opinion) to Christianity, more specifically Catholicism. The Pueblo Indians practiced their own religion and their beliefs for generations, they did not need the Spaniards' religion! The Spaniards responded by banning the Pueblo Indians' religion and religious symbols since they did not fit with Christian beliefs. The destruction of the sacred Pueblo kivas and kachina masks in the Spanish-led purge in 1661 added fuel to the growing discontent of the Pueblo Indians. To top this off, in 1671 disease struck the Pueblo Indians killing off even more people.   

Figure Three - The red roan colt, the inspiration 
for the book SAND and SAGE. The colt lives in my 
memory forever. Photograph by John Bradford Branney.  

By 1675, the relationship between the Pueblo Indians and the Spaniards became irreparable. The governor of the New Mexico territory, Juan Francisco Treviño, ordered the arrest of forty-seven Pueblo Indian medicine men, charging them with sorcery. The Spaniards convicted four of the medicine men to death. The Spaniards hung three of these medicine men while the remaining medicine man took his own life. The Spaniards flogged the rest of the medicine men in public squares before sentencing them to prison.  

Outraged, the Pueblo Indians moved against the Spanish capital of Santa Fe and forced the governor to release the surviving medicine men from prison. One of these medicine men was Po'pay. In the eyes of the Pueblo Indians, Po'pay was a very powerful mystic who possessed serious sorcery. After his release from prison, Po'pay fled to Pueblo de Taos where he took up residence and for the next five years plotted a revolution against the Indians' Spanish oppressors.  

Figure Four  - Map of key pueblos at the start of the Pueblo Revolt in 1680.

At that time, there were an estimated sixty or more pueblos with fewer than four hundred people and a couple of pueblos with more than two thousand people. Each pueblo lived more or less autonomously from the others. In many cases, each pueblo did not even speak a common language. In the past, Indian revolts against the Spanish government never gained momentum because of the division and isolation between the various pueblos of the Pueblo Indian Nations. Po'pay accomplished something that no other leader could. He united the various pueblos against a common enemy - the Spanish. Po'pay and other leaders created a coordinated and united Indian front against the advanced weaponry and horses of the Spaniards.

On August 10, 1680, the Pueblo Revolt began. My historical fiction book SAND and SAGE starts just months before that. The inspiration for SAND and SAGE was a wild mustang that I once saw along the Powder Rim of Wyoming. I wrote the story centered around a horse, a Plains Indian boy, and a Spanish boy. The story is about the coming of age of all three main characters during a very tumultuous period in American history. 

The year was 1680. The place was the Spanish colony of New Mexico. The Pueblo Indians just revolted against their Spanish oppressors. The chaos of war separates two brothers and propels them into hostile circumstances that neither is prepared to navigate. North of the two brothers, an Indian boy struggles to find his place in the tribe. He discovers something so great that it could change his tribe’s lifestyle forever. Skeptics within the tribe prevent the Indian boy from fulfilling his vision, or do they? 

The two boys are on a collision course and it takes a horse to draw them together. Hang on to your saddle horn for a fast-paced adventure!

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