Pueblos, Plains, and Province

Book excerpt: In Pueblos, Plains, and Province Joseph P. Sánchez offers an in-depth examination of sociopolitical conflict in seventeenth-century New Mexico, detailing the effects of Spanish colonial policies on settlers’, missionaries’, and Indigenous peoples’ struggle for economic and cultural control of the region. Sánchez explores the rich archival documentation that provides cultural, linguistic, and legal views of the values of the period. Spanish dual Indian policies for Pueblo and Plains tribes challenged Indigenous political and social systems to conform to the imperial structure for pacification purposes. Meanwhile, missionary efforts to supplant Indigenous religious beliefs with a Christian worldview resulted, in part, in a syncretism of the two worlds. Indigenous resentment of these policies reflected the contentious disagreements between Spanish clergymen and civil authorities, who feuded over Indigenous labor, and encroachment on tribal sovereignties with demands for sworn loyalty to Spanish governance. The little-studied “starvation period” adversely affected Spanish-Pueblo relationships for the remainder of the century and contributed significantly to the battle at Acoma, the Jumano War, and the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Pueblos, Plains, and Province shows how history, culture, and tradition in New Mexico shaped the heritage shared by Spain, Mexico, the United States, and Native American tribes and will be of interest to scholars and students of Indigenous, colonial, and borderlands history.