Pueblo Confederacy

Not a permanent state but a coalition that came together once, expelled a European empire, and held its ground for twelve years. The Pueblo peoples of the Rio Grande and the western mesas - Hopi, Zuni, Acoma, Taos and many more - lived in stone and adobe towns some of which have been continuously occupied for a thousand years, farming irrigated maize in a landscape that barely allows it. They speak several unrelated languages and had no tradition of united action. Spanish rule from 1598 was brutal from the start: Onate's punishment of Acoma included cutting off the feet of surviving men, and the encomienda system extracted labour while missionaries suppressed kachina ceremonies and destroyed masks and kivas. Drought, famine and Apache raiding in the 1670s discredited the Franciscans' protection. Pope, a Tewa religious leader from Ohkay Owingeh, organised a coordinated rising across dozens of towns speaking different languages, using knotted cords to fix the date, and on 10 August 1680 the Pueblos killed four hundred colonists including most of the priests and drove the survivors to El Paso. It is the only successful expulsion of a European power from a North American colony. The Spanish returned in 1692 and governed far more carefully afterwards. The towns remain. Taos and Acoma are among the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in North America. Nineteen pueblos are federally recognised in New Mexico today. Kivas, circular underground chambers, remain the centre of ceremonial life. Chaco Canyon holds their ancestors' great houses. Pope's statue represents New Mexico in the United States Capitol.

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