The Spaniards who had conquered Mexico cast imperialist eyes on the land to the north. And in 1540 Francisco Vazquez de Coronado led an entrada (expedition into unknown territory) into the region we now know as New Mexico. He was looking for the rumored Seven Cities of Gold. But the natives Coronado encountered weren’t passive. And in this northern frontier the entrada spent a violent winter among pueblo peoples.
What was the nature of these conquistadores that led to native resistance and violence? Mostly single men between ages 14 and 30, they were…
…“imbued with the militant Catholicism of the Reconquest (of Spain from the Moors) and inspired by the tales of chivalry then much in vogue. They were determined, supremely self-confident, with a burning sense of loyalty to Crown and Church, and an unquenchable thirst to acquire wealth, status and power.”
And that desire for wealth wasn’t just personal. For silver had been discovered in Zacatecas, Mexico; and mining already was underway. The powers that be in Mexico and Spain expected the conquistadores to enrich the Crown by finding silver and gold.
So this was not a journey of exploration. They were on a mission from and for god and king! The Catholic priests with them would save the souls of “the heathen” natives, and the conquistadores would find mineral wealth. And to the conquistadors, violence was simply a tool to be used against the natives should they resist Christianization or not lead them to silver and gold.
There were a dozen Tiwa pueblos — called the Tiguex Province by the Spanish — along both sides of the Rio Grande, north and south of present-day Bernalillo, New Mexico. This prosperous area was where Coronado’s massive expedition encamped for the winter of 1540-41 – 350 soldiers, 2000 Mexican Indian allies, wives, servants, slaves. They required enormous quantities of food, and forage for their horses and mules. Initially the Tiwas willingly traded food and winter clothing for Spanish trinkets and beads. But that winter the weather turned harsh. As food supplies ran low in the pueblos, the Tiwas refused further trade. The Spaniards reacted with hostility and abuse. And the natives responded by killing about 50 of the Spaniards’ free-roaming horses and mules that were consuming so much forage.
To the Spanish, this required immediate retaliation. Coronado sent a large force of Mexican Indian allies to attack the Arenal Pueblo. All of Arenal’s defenders were killed, including an estimated 30 Tiwas who the Spaniards burned alive at the stake. The Tiwas abandoned their riverside pueblos and made a stand on a mesa-top stronghold the Spaniards called Moho.
The Tiwas held off Coronado’s attacks, so he laid siege to Moho for about 80 days from January into March, 1541. When Moho’s defenders ran out of water, they attempted a nighttime escape. The Spaniards heard the escapees and slaughtered almost all the men and several women. Survivors were enslaved.
The entrada then set off into the Great Plains. They needed guides through this unknown land. And, of course, there were no cities of gold. A volunteer native guide eventually was suspected of having duped the Spaniards. It was surmised that he had led the Spaniards over the empty, waterless plains in hopes that they, the massive entourage, and their animals would die of thirst. When Coronado and his men figured out that they’d been fooled, they were both embarrassed and outraged. A guide named El Turco reportedly confessed. In their anger, the Spanish murdered him. Conquistador Jar
imillo wrote:
“’That night he was put to the garrote, so that he did not wake the next day.’”
When Coronado’s expedition returned to the Rio Grande, Towa natives of the Jemez Pueblo turned hostile. A battle ensued, followed by another Spanish siege, this time against the Pecos pueblo. The fighting with Coronado has been named the Tiguex War, the first named war between natives and invading Europeans in what is now the United States.
Coronado’s expedition returned to Mexico in 1542. Due to their failure to find silver and gold, and the armed resistance of the natives, the Spanish mounted no further entradas into New Mexico for decades. This has been called a period of “no conquest, no settlement.” The Pueblo people reestablished themselves in their Rio Grande homelands. But in 1598 the Spanish were ready to try again, sending another major expedition north. This invasion succeeded in gaining footholds, enslaving native peoples, and forcing conversion to Christianity. The natives suffered oppression and terror from the Spaniards during the first 80 years of the 17th century. This fueled native hostility against the colonizers. In a second article we’ll explore the dynamics of that Spanish colonization of New Mexico, and what the natives endured.