History of Pueblo Revolt

Sifting through Sources: What Really Caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680? “Every piece of written history starts when somebody becomes curious and asks questions.”[1] In Weber’s compilation he gathers several of these curious peoples works and binds their writings together to form a sort of continued discussion. Arguing from different sources and coming from different backgrounds, they indubitably arrive at different conclusions. From Garner to Gutiérrez and from Chávez to Knaut, they all are part of a continued dialogue on what that caused the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. By addressing the readings as a sum instead of individual accounts, one can gain a more detailed view. While some poke holes in others theories, most of the time, the writers simply offer different perspectives. The vast range of the arguments speak to the difficulty of the topic. Examining an event (or series of events, as the case may be) 300 years ago is an arduous task, but trying to determine causation of such events is even more cumbersome. Typically numerous factors exist and to give these factors any sort of rankings requires a fair bit of perspiration on the part of the researcher. This essay will attempt to evaluate this eclectic mix of commentaries to sift out the strong arguments from the weak. In 1598, when Juan de Oñate arrived in northern New Mexico with a small group of colonists to Pueblo country, Spain demanded payment of tribute and the friars demanded allegiance of religion. For over 80 years Spanish lived with Pueblo before the revolt - multiple generations.[2] As Knaut points out, that as “colonists were isolated from the south in a land where indigenous inhabitants numbered in the tens of thousands”, meaning there was plenty of contact between the two groups.[3] Within that time families intermarried, and a large mestizo population arose, creating an intersection in the Venn diagram of early New Mexico. What Knaut argues in Acculturation and Miscegenation is not