Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/624

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PUEBLO


556


PUEBLO


dieation of former Christian teaching. The sarred vessels of the slain priests had been carefully preserved and candles were still burning upon the altar. The reconquest was assured by the retaking of Santa F6 from the hostile Taiio, and the slaughter or enslave- ment of all the defenders, 29 December, 1693, but a spirited resistance was kept up by the various tribes, even at hea\-j- loss, for nearly a year longer. The de- feated hostiles were compelled to return to their abandoned towns or to gather into new ones, as their conquerors dictated. A part of the Yewa, who had fled from the Rio Grande to the far distant Hopi, remained with their protectors and now constitute the pueblo of Hano, still retaining their distinct cus- toms and language. In June, 1696, half the pueblos rose again, killing five missionaries and a number of other Spaniards, but were finally reduced to sub- mission. The missions were re-established among all but the Hopi, who showed such determined hostility to Cliristianity as to destroy one of their OT\'n towns, Awatobi, and massacre or enslave the entire popula- tion for having consented to receive missionaries (1700). Sporadic outbreaks and alarms continued for many years, together with increasingly bold in- roads by the wild tribes. In a special junta held in 1714 the missionaries, against the ci\Tl and mihtary authorities, defended the right of the Christian Indians to carry arms and paint their bodies. From 1719 to 1745 the Jesuits of Arizona made efforts to secure official charge of the Hopi, but without success. In 1747 an expedition against the wild Comanches, who had raided Pecos and otlier eastern pueblos, killed 107, captured 206 and took nearly 1000 horses.

In 1750 the hostility of the civil administration to the missionaries resulted in two counter reports, in one of which the Franciscans were accused of neglect- ing their duties, and it was recommended that the number of missions be reduced, while in the other the missionaries accused the governor and ci\-il officers of all sorts of crimes and oppressions against the Indians. In 1748 Villasenor reported IS principal missions, besides visiting stations representing a total of nearly 9400 Indians. Only a part of these, however, could be considered as actual Christians. Pecos and Zuiii were the most important, the one with 1000 and the other with 2000 Indians, and each with two resident mLssionaries. In 1776 the Franciscan Fr. Francisco Garces ascended the Colorado to the obdurate Hopi, but was refused even a shelter. In 1780 Governor Anza took advantage of a terrible famine in the tribe to induce a few of them to remove to the mission pueblos (see Hopi). In this same year, 1780-1, besides the famine and pestilence which nearly exterminated the Hopi, the smallpox carried off over 5000 Indians of the mission pueblos, in consequence of which the governor in 17S2 officially reduced the number of missions by eight, despite the protests of the friars. Says Bancroft: "It should be noted that the New Mexican missions were radically different from the Californian establishments of later years. Practi- cally, except in being subject to their provincial and paid by the king, instead of being under the bishop and supported bj- parochial fees, these friars were mere parish priests in charge of Indian pueblos. There were no mission estates, no temporalities managed by the padres, and except in petty matters of religious observance the latter had no authority o\er the neophytes. At each pueblo the padre had a church, where he preached and taught and said Mass. With the performance of these routine duties, and of those connected witii baptism, marriage and burials, he was generally content. The Indians, for the most part willingly, tilled a little jiiece of land for him, furnishing also a few servants from week to week for his house- hold ser\nce and that of the church. He was in most instances a kind-hearted man, a friend of his Indians, spending much of his salary on them or on the church.


The Indians were in no sense Christians, but they hked the padre in comparison with other Spaniards, and were willing to comply with certain harmless church formalities (sic), which they neither understood nor cared to understand." Of the frequent charges brought against them he says, "with all their short- comings, the padres were better men than their enemies." Official reports of this later period repre- sent the Indians as constantly victimized by the traders and the Spaniards generally.

About the year 1800 the missions still existing were eleven, viz: at Sia (Asuncion), Isleta (San Agustin), Laguna (San Josd), Picures (San Lorenzo), San FeUpe, San Juan, Dandia (Asumpcion or Dolores), Poynaque (Guadalupe), Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, Toros (San Geronimo), Zuni (Guadalupe). "Visitas" were Acoma, Cochiti (San Buenaventura), Galisteo, Jemes San Diego), Xambe (San Francisco), Pecos (Los Angeles), San Felipe, San lldefonso, Santa Ana, Tesuque. With the increase of the Spanish popula- tion and the steady decrease of the Indians in im- portance as well as in number, the missions also de- clined, and in 1811 there were but five missionaries in nineteen pueblos of New Mexico. The establishment of the Republic of Mexico in 1821 tended further to weaken the mission support. In 1832 there were still five resident missionaries. There was no "seculariza- tion", as in California, because there was nothing to confiscate. In 1837 a part of the Pueblos attempted a revolution, and elected Jos^ Gonzalez of Taos as governor, but were defeated in the following January and the Indian leader taken and shot. In January, 1847, the same Indians of Taos resisted the newly established American government, killing Governor Charles Bent and about twenty other Americans, but were finally defeated, their piicWo being stormed, about 150 of their men killed, and several others executed. With some unimportant exceptions the Pueblos have since remained quietly under American rule, the treaty of Cession having conferred upon them the theoretic right of citizenship, with which however they seldom concern themselves, their affairs being administered through the Indian Office, and their jnieblo lands being secm-ed under old Spanish grants confirmed by act of Congress in 1858. Other legislation left them prac- tically disfranchised. "They never cost the govern- ment a dollar of warlike expenditure, and they re- ceived much less aid from the civil department than any of the hostile tribes." In 1853 they suffered again from smallpox. With the changing conditions the pueblos lost their mission character, the old Francis- cans being replaced by secular priests.

Excepting the Hopi of Arizona and about one-half of the people of Laguna, most of the Pueblo Indians are still under Catholic influence and at least nomi- nally Catholic, although a majority undoubtedh- still adhere to their ancient rites. E\-ery pueblo is served either by a resident or visit ing priest, including several Franciscans, with frequent instruction by sisters from Santa Fe or Bernalillo. Some of the old churches, however, are in ruinous condition and visits from the priest are at long intervals. Besides a number of Government schools there is a Catholic day school at Jemes, conducted by Franciscan Sisters and the two flourishing boarding-schools of Saint Catherine's at Santa Fe, in charge of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacra- ment, and Loretto at Bernalillo, under the Sisters of Loretto. Of Protestant work, past and present, the most important is that of the Presbyterians, at Laguna, begun about 1876 by Rev. John ^lenaul, who is the author of several booklets in the language. Although very few of the adult Pueblos speak any English, a large number speak Spani-sh fluently.

Home Life .\nd iNnrsTRiEs: The primitive Pueblo culture stood alone. It centred about the house, an immense communal structure, sometimes in part several stories high, of many rectangular rooms and