Pueblo Indians

The word Pueblo is the Spanish name for "town or village."

The Pueblo Indians speak seven languages from four different linguistic stocks. However, most Pueblo people speak a variation of primarily two linguistic stocks, Keresan and Tanoan, as well as English and frequently Spanish.

The ancient area of Pueblo culture, as indicated by numerous prehistoric ruins, extended from about the Arkansas and Grand rivers, in Colorado and Utah, southwards indefinitely into Mexico, and from central Arizona eastward, almost across the Texas Panhandle.

At the beginning of the historic period in 1540, the Pueblo population centered chiefly on the upper Pecos and Rio Grande, and about the Zuñi in New Mexico, and upon the Hopi mesas in north-east Arizona. The inhabited pueblos at that date probably numbered close to one hundred. Today, 26 are occupied, excluding the two small Americanized pueblos of Isleta del Sur (Texas) and Senecú (Mexico), in the immediate neighbourhood of El Paso. With the exception of these two, all but the seven Hopi pueblos (including Hano) are in New Mexico. The Hopi are in Arizona. All have US Federal recognition except Senecu, which is in Mexico, and San Juan de Guadalupe, which is currently petitioning for recognition.

The Franciscan monk, Marcos di Niza, first saw the Zuni in 1539 but did not approach them. As soon as he returned, a new expedition was organized Francesco Vasquez de Coronado, for the conquest of this new country. In July, 1540, after nearly five months' march, the advance guard reached the principal Zuñi town, which was taken by storm.

Exploring parties were sent out in every direction, over to the Hopi, the Colorado, and the Buffalo plains, and the expedition finally went into winter quarters at Puaray, among the Tigua (Tiguex province), about the present Bernalillo, North Mexico, on the Rio Grande. The province was rich and populous, having twelve pueblos with perhaps 8000 people.

The Indians were at first friendly, but the conduct of the Spaniards soon provoked hostility and resistance, which was put down with one hundred surrendered prisoners being burnt at the stake, or shot as they attempted to escape, and hundreds or thousands of others being butchered by the Spaniards.

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