Surviving Columbus; Part 1

<v Narrator>[sound of wind and waves] The celebration of 500 years of, uh, <v Narrator>European contact, which is basically the commemoration of Columbus. <v Narrator>[drumming] It is a opportunity for Indian people to tell their <v Narrator>story, something that has to be, I think, very important for <v Narrator>Pueblo people because there are always two sides to a story <v Narrator>and that there is not just one way of looking at history, but many ways. <v Announcer>Funding for this program has been provided by the Corporation for Public <v Announcer>Broadcasting and by the financial support of viewers like you. <v Announcer>Additional funding has been provided by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Native <v Announcer>American Public Broadcasting Consortium. <v Announcer>[music] <v Narrator>I make my living telling stories, stories about human

<v Narrator>life, human tragedy, human <v Narrator>drama. <v Narrator>Living in a place like Los Angeles is <v Narrator>so different from the place where I grew up. <v Narrator>That place that I call home, where my people are, my family, my clan. I think that's <v Narrator>probably the reason why I return home as much as I can. <v Narrator>[music] <v Conroy Chino>I was born and raised in this house coming up over here so close to the

<v Conroy Chino>tracks and, I remember as a kid standing outside the mother's house and watching the <v Conroy Chino>trains go by, the uh sleek red and silver trains. <v Conroy Chino>That'sthe village where I grew up, <v Conroy Chino>played among these hills, played with mostly children here. <v Conroy Chino>Brings back a lot of memories. [music] I <v Conroy Chino>remember going to school and being taught that Columbus <v Conroy Chino>discovered America. <v Conroy Chino>A land populated by brutal savages who had to be conquered, <v Conroy Chino>converted and civilized. <v Conroy Chino>In the official version of history, it always seemed better <v Conroy Chino>to be white than to be Indian.

<v Conroy Chino>But at night, when I came home to my family, my grandparents, <v Conroy Chino>especially my great grandfather, would tell us stories and <v Conroy Chino>legends, myths about our past, about our history that <v Conroy Chino>began long before Christopher Columbus set sail, <v Conroy Chino>before Spain was a nation and even before <v Conroy Chino>Christ was born. <v Conroy Chino>[greeting each other] This then is our story. <v Conroy Chino>It's my story, a living story, <v Conroy Chino>a story of how Pueblo people have survived. <v Speaker>[Speaking in Pubelo]

<v Conroy Chino>'Always tell a story from the beginning,' that's what Pueblo elders used to tell us. <v Conroy Chino>Telling a story is re-knowing the experience. <v Conroy Chino>This is the way all things have always been. <v Conroy Chino>As a little girl I stayed with my grandparents and <v Conroy Chino>they would you know, she would tell me, you know, long ago <v Conroy Chino>tales. And she told me that <v Conroy Chino>one day two spider sisters came out of a hole <v Conroy Chino>in the ground, and they saw all the beauty

<v Conroy Chino>that surrounds Acoma, the mesas, <v Conroy Chino>beautiful mesas, the pinyon trees, <v Conroy Chino>cedar trees. <v Conroy Chino>All around was beautiful. <v Conroy Chino>So they went back in and told the ?huchin,? <v Conroy Chino>that's the chief of the tribe. <v Conroy Chino>And they told him, 'It's so pretty up there. <v Conroy Chino>Why don't we move up there? <v Conroy Chino>Everything is so beautiful.' [music] So <v Conroy Chino>the ?huchin? got the kokopelli, the humpbacked <v Conroy Chino>flute player to lead the people out from the underworld <v Conroy Chino>into the world we live in now. [music]When <v Conroy Chino>people found a place they wanted to settle, they of course, could not

<v Conroy Chino>do it, uh, just by themselves. <v Conroy Chino>They always had to talk to other animals. <v Conroy Chino>They had to talk to the rainbow. <v Conroy Chino>They had to talk to the water spider and say, 'how <v Conroy Chino>does this feel to you? Does this feel like- like we've arrived <v Conroy Chino>at some place where the energies are swirling and- and <v Conroy Chino>is this a place that we can give ourselves to?' [music] <v Conroy Chino>After their emergence from that world beneath, that place called <v Conroy Chino>?Shabap?, our ancestors set off to find the center <v Conroy Chino>of this world, the middle place of a spiritual landscape. <v Conroy Chino>It's here that they created one of the most highly evolved civilizations ever <v Conroy Chino>known. Cities like Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, Aztec <v Conroy Chino>and Canyon de Chelly stand in testimony to a complex,

<v Conroy Chino>highly sophisticated culture. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>Pueblo culture was in formation about the time of Christ <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>and of course, it all picked up steam in the centuries between <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>900 and about 1350 A.D. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>when the largest towns were occupied <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>and the most architecturally complex <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>cities were built and the Pueblo culture extended at its zenith <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>from Las Vegas, New Mexico to Las Vegas, Nevada, <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>on an east to west range, and from Durango, Colorado, <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>to Durango, Mexico, north to south. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>It was a very vast range. [music] <v Conroy Chino>There's a story in Acoma history that talks <v Conroy Chino>about a place like Chaco Canyon,

<v Conroy Chino>a place called ?Kushkutret,? <v Conroy Chino>a place where Acoma people migrated from. <v Conroy Chino>I remember my grandparents going to Chaco Canyon. <v Conroy Chino>And taking prayer bundles with them, and late <v Conroy Chino>at night as they were praying my <v Conroy Chino>grandmother later told me she thought she heard someone, somebody, singing. <v Conroy Chino>It <v Conroy Chino>not only frightened her, but maybe even at the same time <v Conroy Chino>delighted her to know that there was still this <v Conroy Chino>connection between what had been and what is now. <v Rina Swentzell>What we're told as children is that people,

<v Rina Swentzell>when they walk on the land, leave their sweat and leaves their breath <v Rina Swentzell>wherever they go, so that wherever we walk <v Rina Swentzell>the place, that particular spot <v Rina Swentzell>on the earth, never forgets us. <v Rina Swentzell>And when we go back to those places, we know that the people <v Rina Swentzell>who have lived here are in some way still there and that <v Rina Swentzell>we can actually partake of their breath and <v Rina Swentzell>of their- of their spirit. <v Rina Swentzell>And that's another incredible source of power. <v Simon Ortiz>Pueblo life is always close to the Earth. <v Simon Ortiz>The traditional homes of stone and adobe, the red, <v Simon Ortiz>yellow and white mesa cliffs and sandstone canyons into which <v Simon Ortiz>they blend. This closeness is in the agrarian way of

<v Simon Ortiz>life. The link is there between our land and people, <v Simon Ortiz>our homes, our art and our religion. <v Simon Ortiz>It is in the colors of our skin and hair and our clothing and food, <v Simon Ortiz>just as it is in the natural earth and sky all <v Simon Ortiz>around. [music] <v Conroy Chino>What makes Pubelo culture so unique is its special relationship to the land, <v Conroy Chino>the mountains, the deserts and the rivers are not resources to be exploited, <v Conroy Chino>but our sacred landscape. <v Conroy Chino>We don't own the land, we belong to it. <v Dr. Dave Warren>The land is- is part of a, uh, ceremonial universe, <v Dr. Dave Warren>in literally the enshrined systems that exist in the center of the <v Dr. Dave Warren>community and around the community. <v Dr. Dave Warren>And that mountain tops as far as you can see, <v Dr. Dave Warren>and that defines who you are and where you are now.

<v Dr. Dave Warren>But I think very much defines the origin as well as the destination, the destiny <v Dr. Dave Warren>of a person. <v Gail Bird>You can look back to the old members pottery and you see depictions of people. <v Gail Bird>You can look at petroglyphs and- and rock art and you see that occurrences <v Gail Bird>in people's lives were being recorded. <v Gail Bird>And there is that presence there that really indicates that people are aware of where <v Gail Bird>they came from and who they are. And they were leaving, um, <v Gail Bird>images for other people to see. <v Gail Bird>Each family has their you know own designs, you know <v Gail Bird>that- you know, they're their mothers, their grandmas, you knowm that this <v Gail Bird>is the way they painted. <v Gail Bird>And so it's you- it's just passed down, you <v Gail Bird>know, it's just- we just keep <v Gail Bird>on doing it. When my mother was real sick, <v Gail Bird>I told her that my daughter had called from Phoenix

<v Gail Bird>and I told her-I said she she did a pottery with <v Gail Bird>a parrot design, that is one of our oldest designs. <v Gail Bird>And I hugged my mother and I told her, 'Oh, mother, you're <v Gail Bird>gonna live forever through your designs.' I <v Gail Bird>said, 'Well, you know, people always see- always see the beauty <v Gail Bird>that you have left with us all. <v Gail Bird>All of this you have left. <v Gail Bird>Don't be so sad,' I said, 'because we will all carry on <v Gail Bird>this.' [music] <v Conroy Chino>Some of our ancestors moved closer to the Rio Grande so that their villages of stone <v Conroy Chino>and adobe were strung along the river and its tributaries like beads upon <v Conroy Chino>a string of water.

<v Conroy Chino>In the West other groups concentrated around desert water sources in <v Conroy Chino>Acoma, in Zuni and Hopi. <v Conroy Chino>[music] <v Gail Bird>The- the movement through the land by the people, uh, <v Gail Bird>is very significant and is- and is part of all Pueblo <v Gail Bird>myths. It's part of that emulation of movement that we see <v Gail Bird>in the in the natural environment. <v Gail Bird>One that is always talked about in songs, prayers <v Gail Bird>is the movement of the clouds, how the rain comes from the father's source <v Gail Bird>and fertilizes the mother earth, and then out of that, everything <v Gail Bird>grows. <v Joe S. Sando>Pueblo life before the Europeans arrived consisted of, uh, <v Joe S. Sando>farming and supplementing their farming by hunting <v Joe S. Sando>buffalo, antelope, deer.

<v Joe S. Sando>And because this is a, uh, semi-arid <v Joe S. Sando>country, low rainfall, they spent much of <v Joe S. Sando>their time fasting or praying for <v Joe S. Sando>good weather and other times they spent dancing <v Joe S. Sando>to ask for more animals during the winter <v Joe S. Sando>months. They have buffalo dance, deer dance so that they hope that more <v Joe S. Sando>will be available when hunting season comes around. <v Speaker>[Speaking a Pueblo language] <v Conroy Chino>On the eve of the first contact with European culture, the Pueblo people

<v Conroy Chino>comprised a peaceful, highly successful civilization <v Conroy Chino>made up of over 100 pueblos of 50,000 people speaking <v Conroy Chino>8 sovereign languages. <v Conroy Chino>It was a multitude of differing customs but one <v Conroy Chino>common culture. <v Conroy Chino>We saw it in our dreams, in our dark night time knowings, <v Conroy Chino>that a white man would come from the South. <v Conroy Chino>We do not understand what the night time knew, that these men <v Conroy Chino>would take our corn, our corn meal, our bodies <v Conroy Chino>use them, throw them against the ground with disdain, <v Conroy Chino>with disdain for both us and the ground, for our place, <v Conroy Chino>for our lives. <v Conroy Chino>It was a bad wind against which we tightened our blankets, closed

<v Conroy Chino>our eyes and waited for the wind to pass. <v Conroy Chino>The wind passed, but we were left with the men and metal, <v Conroy Chino>with diseases which rotted our bodies, with dying children. <v Conroy Chino>Our nighttime voices warned of more to come. <v Conroy Chino>One afternoon in May of 1539 in the Zuni Pueblo of <v Conroy Chino>Hawikuh, the Pueblo world was changed forever because of a Spanish myth. <v Conroy Chino>A dream of 7 cities of gold. <v Conroy Chino>Less than 50 years after the voyage of Columbus, this dream of Golden <v Conroy Chino>Cities waiting to be plundered drove men thousands of miles across <v Conroy Chino>seas of sand in Stark Mountains. <v Conroy Chino>Ironically, the first white man to contact Pueblo people was Estebanico

<v Conroy Chino>a black slave from Azemmour, Morocco. <v Conroy Chino>Estebanico was the guide for Fray Marcos de Niza's expedition to find the 7 <v Conroy Chino>cities of gold. <v Edmund J. Ladd>He was the first black man who was representing the, uh, <v Edmund J. Ladd>the Spaniards and who was- and who told the Zunis when he arrived that he was <v Edmund J. Ladd>representing white man who were following. They were more powerful than he was, <v Edmund J. Ladd>and that they had to obey things that he was asking for. <v Edmund J. Ladd>And I'm sure he was asking for food, for shelter, for I guess <v Edmund J. Ladd>probably- probably women also. <v Edmund J. Ladd>And in the meantime, had been hearing rumors of slavery <v Edmund J. Ladd>up into the- the northern part of Sonora, where there was many, many slave raids, <v Edmund J. Ladd>where whole villages were killed off by the slave raiders. <v Edmund J. Ladd>Taking all the- all the men, women and children, and killing all the older men and women <v Edmund J. Ladd>and, uh, leaving and taking them into slavery.

<v Edmund J. Ladd>And so they were afraid that he was one of the slave spies. <v Conroy Chino>Estebanico and the rumors of slave raids have long since entered <v Conroy Chino>Zuni Legend. <v Conroy Chino>Over the centuries, the actual events have receded <v Conroy Chino>until only faint echoes remain in the stories of giants <v Conroy Chino>and magic rattles. <v Conroy Chino>But then Pueblo history is history through storytelling, <v Conroy Chino>history through legend.[Speaking <v Conroy Chino>a Pueblo language]

<v Edmund J. Ladd>Esteban learned a few tricks on his- on the trade of being medicine man. <v Edmund J. Ladd>So he sent his gourd that he had that was supposed to be his medicine <v Edmund J. Ladd>gourd, which had two feathers, one white one and one red one and a couple <v Edmund J. Ladd>of copper bells. And at that point, the Zuni chiefs and the war chiefs <v Edmund J. Ladd>flung the gourd to the ground and said this is not from our people. <v Edmund J. Ladd>This is not- this person must be a spy. <v Edmund J. Ladd> [Speaking a Pueblo language] <v Conroy Chino>The Zoonie treated Estebanico like any other spy.

<v Conroy Chino>They confined him in a house outside the Pueblo walls. <v Conroy Chino>But one morning in May 1539, Estebanico tried to <v Conroy Chino>flee and was killed. <v Conroy Chino>When Fray Marcos de Niza heard about Estebanico's death, he turned <v Conroy Chino>around and sped back to Mexico without seeing the country he called Cibola <v Conroy Chino>His lack of firsthand knowledge did not prevent him from inventing <v Conroy Chino>the tale of the Seven Golden Cities of Cibola. <v Fray Marcos de Niza>Cibola has the appearance of a very beautiful town. <v Fray Marcos de Niza>The city is bigger than the city of Mexico, and it is the least of the seven <v Fray Marcos de Niza>cities. There is much gold, and the natives trade in vessels and jewels. <v Conroy Chino>Fray Marcos's lies and exaggerations soon ignited Spanish greed for gold. <v Conroy Chino>One year later in 1540, an expedition led by Francisco <v Conroy Chino>Vasquez de Coronado came to Zuni to find the treasure of the seven

<v Conroy Chino>cities of cibola. Coronado brought with him 300 <v Conroy Chino>Spanish soldiers, a thousand Mexican Indians, guns, <v Conroy Chino>cannons, crossbows and warheads. <v Edmund J. Ladd>Banners were waving. Armor was shining. <v Edmund J. Ladd>Coronado was arriving right at the most important religious period of time. <v Edmund J. Ladd>They were arriving at the summer solstice for the pilgrimage. <v Edmund J. Ladd>When the pilgrims are out on their journey, going to <v Edmund J. Ladd>and coming from the sacred lake, nobody must cross- cross their town <v Edmund J. Ladd>because that cuts off the rain, uh, wishes of the people <v Edmund J. Ladd>performing the ceremony. As they approached, the high priest <v Edmund J. Ladd>and the various ?inaudible? <v Edmund J. Ladd>forming the front line spilled a line of corn meal which <v Edmund J. Ladd>is a symbol for do not enter now,

<v Edmund J. Ladd>do not enter now because we don't want to interrupt our ceremony. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>And of course, they, uh, did just that, they violated <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>the Zuni ritual taboo, and that was a terrible thing to do. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>And violence was inevitable after that. <v Conroy Chino>Against the peaceful Zuni, European military techniques and weapons <v Conroy Chino>resulted in a quick victory. <v Conroy Chino>The Spanish, however, were bitterly disappointed. <v Conroy Chino>There was no gold, no precious jewels. <v Pedro de Castaneda>When the Spaniards first saw the village, which will was Cibola, such were <v Pedro de Castaneda>the cursus that they hurled at Frey Marcos that I pray God may protect <v Pedro de Castaneda>him from them. It is a crowded little village looking as if it had been <v Pedro de Castaneda>all crumpled together. <v Conroy Chino>After hearing about the arrival of the Spanish, the people of Pecos Pueblos

<v Conroy Chino>sent two of their most important men, including a man who the world <v Conroy Chino>would come to know only as Bigotes, the man with a mustache. <v Conroy Chino>Bigotes led the Spanish on a tour of the Pueblos, perhaps hoping <v Conroy Chino>to show Coronado that the pueblo's lacked the gold and the treasures <v Conroy Chino>that they sought. <v Joe S. Sando>Bigotes was a war chief, or at least a war captain. <v Joe S. Sando>And in a company of one of his leaders, very likely cacique, they <v Joe S. Sando>made plans to go out to Zuni to look into <v Joe S. Sando>the situations themselves. <v Joe S. Sando>And Bigotes was able to bring them out to his country to <v Joe S. Sando>show them the place first. But at the same time, the idea of the Spaniard's was that <v Joe S. Sando>maybe there was something that they were looking for further east from <v Joe S. Sando>Zuni.

<v Conroy Chino>The Pueblos were not the cities of gold the Spanish sought. <v Conroy Chino>But the collapse of the myth of the 7 cities of Cibolla only made the Spanish <v Conroy Chino>ripe for an even bigger lie. <v Conroy Chino>The legend of Quivira. [music] Quivira was <v Conroy Chino>a land where rich lords drifted along a river in gold draped barges <v Conroy Chino>and ate from golden plates. <v Conroy Chino>In their efforts to prove the existence of Quivira, Coronodo set Bigotes <v Conroy Chino>in chains and set the war hounds him. <v Conroy Chino>The Pueblo peoples near Coronado's camp were also learning the true nature <v Conroy Chino>of the invaders. <v Conroy Chino>Constant Spanish demands for food, blankets and clothing, coupled <v Conroy Chino>with the rape of a Pueblo woman ignited a rebellion among the Tiwa. <v Pedro de Castaneda>After the Pueblo ?Arenal? Had been set ablaze, the Pueblo people surrendered <v Pedro de Castaneda>of their own accord.

<v Pedro de Castaneda>?Escardinez?had been ordered by Coronado not to take them alive, but to make an example <v Pedro de Castaneda>of them so that the other natives would fear the Spaniards, he ordered <v Pedro de Castaneda>200 stakes prepared at once to burn them alive. <v Pedro de Castaneda>Then when the enemy saw that the Spaniards were binding them and beginning to roast them <v Pedro de Castaneda>about 100 men who were in the tent began to struggle and defend themselves. <v Pedro de Castaneda>Our men who were on foot attacked the tent on all sides <v Pedro de Castaneda>so that there was great confusion around it. <v Pedro de Castaneda>And then the horsemen chased those who escaped. <v Pedro de Castaneda>As they got to us level? not a man of them remained alive unless it <v Pedro de Castaneda>was some who remain hidden in the village and escaped at night to spread <v Pedro de Castaneda>throughout the countryside the news that the strangers did not respect <v Pedro de Castaneda>the peace they had made. <v Conroy Chino>The pueblos of the Tiwa well were abandoned like so many pueblos would be in the future. <v Conroy Chino>Their peoples pacified by death and destruction.

<v Conroy Chino>Coronado pushed on to Kansas only to find that Quivira was yet another lie, <v Conroy Chino>and without gold, Spanish interest quickly waned and the expedition <v Conroy Chino>retreated, leaving the Pueblos in relative peace for yet another 50 years. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>Coronado maybe a knight or an explorer <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>and a pioneer to Spanish people <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>and to Euro-American peoples in general. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>But from a Pueblo perspective, he was a disaster. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>You know, his expedition might better be termed a destructive rampage through <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>Pueblo country. Really it was Coronado by behavior <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>who was the savage. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>So what does the conquered call her conquerer?

<v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>What name does the victim give her victimizer? <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>What is the proper name of the man who brings a bewildering storm <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>of people, wagons, guns, strange ways <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>and a cold philosophy of fear into your beautiful, peaceful place? <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>What right sound and true image conveys the psyche of the man who <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>wreaks unspeakable sacrilege and does not know he does? <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>The name of the conqueror is not discoverer. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>The name of the victimizer its not pacifist. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>The name of the conqueror is fear and death. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>The name of the victimizer is hunger and loss. <v Conroy Chino>One morning in 1598 400 soldiers, colonists, <v Conroy Chino>priests, Mexican Indian servants and black slaves

<v Conroy Chino>gathered on the banks of the Rio Grande hundreds of miles to the south of <v Conroy Chino>public country. <v Conroy Chino>On April 30th, 1598 day of ascension of our Lord, <v Conroy Chino>at this rio del norte Governor Juan de Onate took possession <v Conroy Chino>of all the kingdoms and provinces of New Mexico in the name of King Philippe. <v Conroy Chino>[music] <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>The Spaniards who came into the southwest were imbued, as were all <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>Europeans of the age of discovery, with a peculiar notion <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>that they owned the whole heaven and the whole earth and <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>that any lands that were not already occupied by Europeans <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>where theirs by right of discovery to do with as they wished. <v Conroy Chino>When the Spanish arrived in New Mexico, they established their first capital

<v Conroy Chino>in San Juan pueblo. <v Conroy Chino>It was clear that this group of invaders was different from Coronados' expedition. <v Conroy Chino>They brought their families, mission supplies, wheat seed, fruit trees <v Conroy Chino>and thousands of horses, cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens. <v Conroy Chino>The Spanish were here to stay. <v Esther Martinez>When the Spanish were coming from the south <v Esther Martinez>I suppose- I think that's where they would come in from each pueblo where they <v Esther Martinez>stopped at, they were driven off and then ?audio and video cuts out? <v Esther Martinez>send when they were on the other side of the river and the <v Esther Martinez>people had heard about them being driven off from the other places so they were <v Esther Martinez>going to do the same. And they had a meeting. <v Esther Martinez>But then the governor that they had there then <v Esther Martinez>was one who had compassion and he talked <v Esther Martinez>to his people and he said, 'Why do we want to treat

<v Esther Martinez>them in this manner? <v Esther Martinez>They have families. They have children to raise. <v Esther Martinez>They- they have to feed their families. <v Esther Martinez>And we can't be mean. <v Esther Martinez>We'll let them stay on and let them raise their family. <v Esther Martinez>Let them raise a crop.' <v Agnes Dill>The reason were called Pueblo Indians is because <v Agnes Dill>when the Spaniards came through our country, they found our Indian people <v Agnes Dill>living in towns and in villages. <v Agnes Dill>So Pueblo is a Spanish word. <v Agnes Dill>Word, which means town or village. <v Agnes Dill>They classified us their only classification they knew, of course, was <v Agnes Dill>Pueblo Indians or town or village Indians. <v Agnes Dill>[music] <v Conroy Chino>One of the first things the Spanish taught the San Juan people was the dance <v Conroy Chino>of the Moors and Christians, a dance that celebrated the

<v Conroy Chino>invincibility of Spanish arms and European religion. <v Conroy Chino>Although the dance has changed over 400 years, the matachina <v Conroy Chino>is still being danced in San Juan on Christmas Day. <v Governor Herman Agoyo>The, uh, matachina dance is known to us as ?mata <v Governor Herman Agoyo>cina? <v Governor Herman Agoyo>And represents Christianity, and <v Governor Herman Agoyo>the, uh, main dancer represents the king. <v Governor Herman Agoyo>And the little girl that dances with the men represents <v Governor Herman Agoyo>the Blessed Virgin Mary. <v Governor Herman Agoyo>And there are, uh, 10 dancers, and these <v Governor Herman Agoyo>dancers represent the 10 beads on a rosary. <v Governor Herman Agoyo>Uh, this is how, uh, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ <v Governor Herman Agoyo>and his coming into the Pueblo. <v Governor Herman Agoyo>And basically reminds us that we not only have our

<v Governor Herman Agoyo>traditional way of life, but the legacy or the tradition <v Governor Herman Agoyo>of being Catholic is, uh, passed on to- to <v Governor Herman Agoyo>the people. <v Conroy Chino>[speaking a Pubelo language] <v Speaker>[speaking a Pubelo language] <v Speaker> <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>We have to look also at who were the people who came to settle.

<v Dr. Tomas Atencio>Although they were families, this was not a- this place was not settled by Spaniards <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>who were, uh, tied to being farmers, tied to the crafts or <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>anything like that. They were basically people who wanted to- to colonize and, <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>uh- and use an available labor source here. <v Luis Gasco de Velasco>We send people out every month in various directions to bring maize from the pueblos. <v Luis Gasco de Velasco>The feelings of the natives again supplying it cannot be exaggerated. <v Luis Gasco de Velasco>For they weep and cry out to see they and all of their descendants were being killed. <v Luis Gasco de Velasco>The Spaniards seize their blankets by force, leaving their poor Indian women stark naked, <v Luis Gasco de Velasco>holding their babies to their breast. <v Conroy Chino>At Acoma the demands of a small Spanish force led by Onate's <v Conroy Chino>nephew, Juan de Zaldivar, provoked a fierce battle. <v Conroy Chino>Pueblo warriors poured out of the houses and killed Zaldivar and 13 <v Conroy Chino>other Spanish soldiers.

<v Conroy Chino>When he heard the news, Onate moved quickly to crush this rebellion <v Conroy Chino>by ordering Zaldivar's own brother, Vicente, to lead the attack on Acoma. <v Glenabah Martinez>Many of the Spanish soldiers who were there were either thrown off the mesa or were <v Glenabah Martinez>in some way hurt by the Acoma Indians. <v Glenabah Martinez>His brother came in with the idea of revenge, with the idea of getting back <v Glenabah Martinez>at these people who had killed his brother and had hurt so many and killed so many <v Glenabah Martinez>Spaniards. <v Conroy Chino>Led by Vicente de Zaldivar 70 Spanish soldiers arrived <v Conroy Chino>at the steep cliffs of Acoma and methodically prepared for a European war <v Conroy Chino>without order. <v Conroy Chino>Against cannons, muskets, crossbows, steel, swords <v Conroy Chino>and war horses, the Acoma people held out for three days. <v Governor Juan de Onate>Vicente de Zaldivar ordered the kivas and quarters to be set on fire. <v Governor Juan de Onate>Many were burned alive in those places.

<v Governor Juan de Onate>Men and women, some with children in arms. <v Governor Juan de Onate>Others were suffocated by the smoke. <v Conroy Chino>Those who refuse to surrender were dragged before Zaldivar and hacked to pieces, <v Conroy Chino>their limbs, heads, and bodies thrown over the cliff. <v Conroy Chino>The Spanish lost a single man while 800 Acomas died. <v Conroy Chino>A line of 500 men, women and children were let down from the Pueblo <v Conroy Chino>and brought to Santo Domingo to stand trial before Onate for rebelling against <v Conroy Chino>the king of Spain. <v Governor Juan de Onate>The males who are over 25 years of age, I sentence to have <v Governor Juan de Onate>one foot cut off and to 20 years of personal servitude. <v Governor Juan de Onate>The males between the ages of twelve and twenty five, I sentence <v Governor Juan de Onate>likewise to 20 years of personal servitude. <v Conroy Chino>Shocked by the severity of the sentences, the Spanish settlers brought charges

<v Conroy Chino>against Onate and Zaldivar, who were found guilty, fined <v Conroy Chino>and banished from New Mexico. <v Conroy Chino>Still, these European invaders continued their efforts to impose <v Conroy Chino>the futile world of 17th century Spain on the Pueblo people. <v Conroy Chino>We were considered the property of an unseen king and his armored servants. <v Conroy Chino>We were forced to pray to a cross and European saints and follow <v Conroy Chino>the rules of an invisible Pope and his all too visible missionaries. <v Conroy Chino>[chanting] <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>The church and the state in the early colonial period had a similar goal. <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>I would say the political perspective was of course one to- to <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>subjugate politically and to conform within a feudal system. <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>And the church's view was to Christianize and to convert and to save

<v Dr. Tomas Atencio>souls. And these two coincided as the encomienda, as the encomienda system <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>was formalized and implemented where they could use Indian <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>labor. There were their missions, which were two missionize, right, to Christianize. <v Glenabah Martinez>The encomienda and repartimiento systems where the basic economic systems that were <v Glenabah Martinez>imposed on- on native people of New Mexico <v Glenabah Martinez>and all of a sudden there comes this- these invaders who begin to tell you, 'Well things <v Glenabah Martinez>are going to change here now. You can't- you can't leave your pueblo, <v Glenabah Martinez>you can't travel as far as you want anymore because we don't want you leaving your area.' <v Rina Swentzell>They began to cut up the land, <v Rina Swentzell>and for the Pueblo people, they were told <v Rina Swentzell>how much of the land was now theirs. <v Rina Swentzell>So you get the idea of of owning other people <v Rina Swentzell>for yourself. What an incredible, strange foreign notion, you know,

<v Rina Swentzell>when we talk about that other world. <v Conroy Chino>The Spanish imposed a governmental system on the pueblo's whereby governors <v Conroy Chino>ran the civil part of tribal life. <v Conroy Chino>In 1623, the Spanish gave each Pueblo governor <v Conroy Chino>a cane as a symbol of authority. <v Regis Pecos>One of the most symbolic gestures that has <v Regis Pecos>elevated this whole notion of our status of sovereign <v Regis Pecos>entities over the last 400 years has been <v Regis Pecos>the issuance of- of canes by various sovereigns <v Regis Pecos>of the world. <v Regis Pecos>A traditional passing of authority annually <v Regis Pecos>among Pueblo officials is a passing of- of the canes <v Regis Pecos>which symbolize the sovereign status of our governments. <v Regis Pecos>[Speaking a Pueblo language]

<v Conroy Chino>I remember elders in my family talking about <v Conroy Chino>how when the mission in Acoma was being constructed, being built, Pueblo people there had <v Conroy Chino>been basically placed into slavery and <v Conroy Chino>made to work until they dropped <v Conroy Chino>dead. And yet, ironically, <v Conroy Chino>now three or four hundred years later we <v Conroy Chino>celebrate, you know, with the feast days, we dance inside <v Conroy Chino>the mission. We revere Christianity. <v Glenabah Martinez>Well, when the Spaniards first came up into northern New Mexico, one of the first things <v Glenabah Martinez>that they did was to build churches.

<v Glenabah Martinez>And they utilized Indian labor to build those churches and later on to maintain those <v Glenabah Martinez>churches. And the labor was not voluntary. <v Glenabah Martinez>A parcel of land was set aside for the priest in which they would plant corn, cultivate <v Glenabah Martinez>corn, squash and things of that sort to maintain the missionary household. <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>The church as a whole, because of its theological position, would begin <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>would look at the Indian religion as probably superstition and witchcraft. <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>So from time to time, people were punished for that. <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>And I think the church was- was concerned with creating a unified, uh, <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>worldview. And it's not only converting people and saving souls, but also getting <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>a perspective from the Indians that would support the medieval <v Dr. Tomas Atencio>Catholic worldview of the Spaniard. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>The missionary program involved the attempted destruction <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>of all semblance of the Indigenous religions, the filling in of <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>kivas, the destruction and burning of katchina masks, the

<v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>outlawing of the dances, the reporting <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>of people who were involved in the practice of the <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>traditional Indigenous religion. <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>There were three missions that were built on Hopi during that period of time. <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>The priests were so isolated that they pretty <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>much made their own rules. <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>And, uh, they made <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>claims on women reaching <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>puberty. They were said to be the first <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>to- to have these young women <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>reaching the age of puberty. <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>Before they were- before the girls were free to <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>participate in the rest of the social, marital institutions of <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>Hopi. And that this apparently, according to the stories,

<v Emory Sekaquaptewa>was the last straw. <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>[singing] <v Conroy Chino>In their efforts to destroy our religion, the missionaries tried <v Conroy Chino>to separate sons from the knowledge of their fathers and daughters <v Conroy Chino>from the world of their mothers. <v Conroy Chino>Christianity would have destroyed our culture, our relationship <v Conroy Chino>to the Earth Mother herself. <v Conroy Chino>We did not consent to the eradication of our world. <v Conroy Chino>Gran Quivira, a Tompiro Pueblo abandonded 1672, was one of the victims of the great <v Conroy Chino>contraction of the Pueblo world. <v Conroy Chino>It was a time when the world was out of balance. <v Conroy Chino>It was a time of death.

<v Conroy Chino>The rain ceased to fall. <v Conroy Chino>The corn withered. Thousands of Pueblo people died in a great <v Conroy Chino>famine. <v Father Bartolome Bernal>For 3 years no crop has been harvested. <v Father Bartolome Bernal>Last year, 1668, a great many Indians <v Father Bartolome Bernal>perished of hunger, lying dead along the roads, in the ravines, <v Father Bartolome Bernal>and in their hovels. <v Conroy Chino>That year, thousands died of starvation. <v Conroy Chino>In Gran Quivira, Quarai and other pueblos, <v Conroy Chino>the elders and the children were the first to die, leaving a society <v Conroy Chino>bereft of its past and its future. <v Glenabah Martinez>Giving food to the missionaries and giving food to the Spanish colonizers had <v Glenabah Martinez>a- had a tremendous impact on the Pueblo economies. <v Glenabah Martinez>For example, at Taos where the climate varies from season to season and some seasons <v Glenabah Martinez>where you able to reap a lot of corn and other years not being able to do that, um,

<v Glenabah Martinez>some years being lean in terms of hunting for venison in some days- some years not. <v Glenabah Martinez>So it did have a tremendous impact on the economy. <v Glenabah Martinez>Many people were not eating as well as they used to. <v Conroy Chino>The Apaches had mastered the horse, upsetting the balance between <v Conroy Chino>the Pueblo peoples and their nomadic neighbors. <v Conroy Chino>Their raids on the Pueblos came with increasing frequency. <v Conroy Chino>And then there was disease, a disease that struck both Indian <v Conroy Chino>and European. <v Conroy Chino>The Spanish attributed the deaths to witchcraft by Pueblo sorcerers. <v Conroy Chino>In 1675, the Spanish governor finally heeded the cause <v Conroy Chino>of the missionaries and arrested 47 alleged sorcerers <v Conroy Chino>and brought them to trial. <v Joe S. Sando>Naturally, the case was against them, and <v Joe S. Sando>4 men were condemned to die and the others were

<v Joe S. Sando>to be whipped publicly. <v Joe S. Sando>One of the men that was whipped was a man from San Juan <v Joe S. Sando>Pueblo, whose name was Po'pay and the Spaniards <v Joe S. Sando>call him Pope. <v Joe S. Sando>He began to think about what should be done to retaliate. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>Pope decided to, uh, go to Taos Pueblo, far away <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>from the center of, uh, Spanish activity, and <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>Taos needs to be given credit for giving protection <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>to him and all the others that were planning the revolt. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>[singing] <v Conroy Chino>The decision to fight to go to war probably <v Conroy Chino>took a lot of soul searching, a lot of <v Conroy Chino>input from various factions, various groups, race clans, various leaders <v Conroy Chino>within the Pueblo, and then to unite all the Pueblos, <v Conroy Chino>to unite each of the sovereign nations in a

<v Conroy Chino>united effort to drive the Spaniards out of their lands. <v Conroy Chino>There must have been an awful lot of suffering <v Conroy Chino>that occurred that eventually drove them to that point. <v Glenabah Martinez>Well, it was a very ingenious plan. <v Glenabah Martinez>First of all, to communicate this plan to have the rebellion. <v Glenabah Martinez>It consisted of messengers running to all the various pueblos in New Mexico and into <v Glenabah Martinez>Arizona and informing them that this is going to happen, that they would create their own <v Glenabah Martinez>little rebellion within the village and and kill the intruders. <v Pedro Naranjo>The three spirits told Pope to make a cord of maguey fiber <v Pedro Naranjo>and tie some knots in it which would signify the number of days that they must wait <v Pedro Naranjo>for the rebellion. The cord was taken from pueblo to pueblo <v Pedro Naranjo>by the swiftest youths under the penalty of death if they reveal <v Pedro Naranjo>the secret.

<v Joe S. Sando>Two young men were appointed to carry the knotted rope, <v Joe S. Sando>and each day as the sun came up, a knot would be untied. <v Joe S. Sando>And on the last day that the knot was untied would be the day <v Joe S. Sando>the action would begin. <v Joe S. Sando>It didn't happen the way it was really planned. <v Joe S. Sando>The two boys were discovered. <v Joe S. Sando>They were brought to Santa Fe for trial. <v Joe S. Sando>When the Tesuque people learned about it, <v Joe S. Sando>they became extremely alarmed. <v Joe S. Sando>Consequently, they killed a Spaniard that was <v Joe S. Sando>at Tesuque. This was the beginning of the <v Joe S. Sando>first successful revolt by a Native American <v Joe S. Sando>organization against the Europeans. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>On August 10, 1680, the Pueblo warriors

<v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>by design attacked the churches. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>August 10th happens to be St. Lorenzo's day, and so the people <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>knew that, uh, both the Indians and non-Indians <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>would be congregated in church. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>And it was in retaliation for <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>what the church and civil authorities were doing to the Pueblo people. <v Glenabah Martinez>Most the villages, the churches were destroyed and those people who were accepting <v Glenabah Martinez>of the Catholic faith were ousted from their villages if not killed. <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>All of the Pueblos under the Spanish rule, <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>rose up against the yoke of Spain and <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>in some cases as a Hopi killed the <v Emory Sekaquaptewa>priests, the Franciscan priests.

<v Conroy Chino>Within three days, over 400 Spaniards, men, women and children <v Conroy Chino>lay dead. 21 of New Mexico's 33 priests were killed. <v Conroy Chino>Churches, crosses, saints and the symbols of Christianity were burned <v Conroy Chino>and destroyed. The Spanish governor and most of the colonists <v Conroy Chino>were trapped in Santa Fe, besieged by thousands of Pueblo warriors. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>Indians from the pueblos of Pecos, San Cristobal, ?San Dasaros?, <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>San Marcos, ?Caliste? and Cienega, are on league from the ?Vio? <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>Santa Fe, defeat on the way to Tackett to destroy the governor and all the Spaniards. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>They're saying that now God and Santamaría were dead and that their own God <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>whom they obeyed never died. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>They had a few days of stand off here. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>The Spanish guns, ?acabas?

<v Governor Antonio de Otermin>against Pueblo bows and arrows, clubs and stones. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>Naturally the Pueblos were at a disadvantage, <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>but soon decided that the only way they could dislodge <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>the Spaniards were to cut up the water. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>And few days later, the Spaniards had no water for themselves nor their <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>animala. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>Every day of the 9 days which the siege of Santa Fe lasted, more <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>and more people assembled until the beasts and the cattle began to die <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>because we had been entirely cut off from water. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>Being agreed that it was better to die fighting, his lordship advanced <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>and invoking the name of the Virgin, he routed another ?random? <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>and massacred more than 300. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>47 Indians were taken prisoner in their houses. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>They were executed. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>But finding ourselves out of provisions with very few horses. <v Governor Antonio de Otermin>Threatened by the enemy and not being assured of water, it is necessary

<v Governor Antonio de Otermin>to leave. We have decided to withdraw. <v Speaker>The Pueblo peoples had a chant during the siege of Santa Fe <v Speaker>to wipe out all of the Spaniards, and they stood to one side <v Speaker>when their siege worked and the Spaniards silently filed <v Speaker>out, heading southward on their remaining horses <v Speaker>and carrying what possessions they could carry. <v Speaker>The Pueblo warriors made no effort to attack them. <v Speaker>They just let them leave. <v Antonio>We are at quits with the Spaniards and the persons we have killed. <v Antonio>Those of us whom they have killed do not matter for the Spaniards <v Antonio>are going and now we shall live as we like. <v Antonio>[water sounds] The, uh, period <v Antonio>after the revolt- It's recorded that the Pueblo people <v Antonio>went down to the river, cleansed themselves.

<v Antonio>They did away with many of the things that the Spaniards <v Antonio>brought. For example, they burned the orchards and <v Antonio>tried to- to again be pure, a pueblo people again. <v Antonio>[music] <v Glenabah Martinez>It was a very joyous time for them. It was a time of re-learning what had been lost <v Glenabah Martinez>in the past. And there was also a sense of <v Glenabah Martinez>threat as well that existed because they knew that there would be other people to come <v Glenabah Martinez>in. They knew that they weren't completely safe from the Spaniards. <v Glenabah Martinez>[music] <v Conroy Chino>During the 12 years that the Puebli world was free from European domination, <v Conroy Chino>the Spanish sent a number of armed expeditions to reclaim their kingdom. <v Conroy Chino>In the pueblo of Alameda, the Spaniards found a man who, unable <v Conroy Chino>to flee, hung himself rather than be captured by the Spanish. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>There would not be much of a Pueblo culture left over if the Pueblo people

<v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>of 1680 had not taken the action they did. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>They acted to save their culture, to save their integrity of communities <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>and to save their self-respect which the Spaniards were rapidly withering away <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>with their onslaughts on their religion, on their labor, on their politics, on their <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>very independence. <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>And so it's in that sense- the sense that Pueblo culture survives <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>late into the 20th century that we <v Dr. Alfonso Ortiz>must honor and commemorate the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. <v Conroy Chino>There was no mention in the textbooks that I read <v Conroy Chino>of the Pueblo Revolt. <v Conroy Chino>There was never any mention of the kind of treatment of Pueblo people at the <v Conroy Chino>hands of Spaniards in the textbooks that I read. <v Conroy Chino>There was never anything said about

<v Conroy Chino>our survival, our efforts to survive. <v Conroy Chino>And I think it's only now that our story be told. <v Announcer>Surviving Columbus: The Story of the Pueblo People will continue <v Announcer>after this brief intermission.