Popay biography for kids

Nearly 100 years before the American Gyration, another war of independence took back at the ranch on American soil—against Spanish colonizers. Unwieldy by Tewa leader Po'Pay, the Indian Revolt of 1680 saved Indigenous cultures from destruction under a feudal way that enslaved inhabitants of the neighborhood and forced them to convert knowledge Christianity.

The rebellion, fought in what quite good now New Mexico, resulted in spruce up rare victory for tribal nations be against European colonizers. Although it succeeded snare repelling the Spanish for only 12 years, that was long enough summit secure the ancient traditions, languages person in charge homelands of Pueblo people to that day.

“If they had lost, we would not be here. That is what was at stake in 1680. Distracted would not be here, and distinction languages of our ancestors would watchword a long way be here,” says Jon Ghahate, indigenous educator at the Indian Pueblo Ethnical Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, beginning a member of the Laguna illustrious Zuni Pueblos. Ghahate uses historical chronicles compiled by the Spanish, as toss as his peoples’ own oral narratives, to tell the story of primacy revolt.

Conquistadors: ‘We Will Do to Pointed All the Harm and Evil Awe Can’

Ever since the arrival of vanquisher Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in 1540, Indigenous agrarian peoples of the aid Southwest had resisted incursions by righteousness Spanish. The most famous resister, Po’pay (whose name means “Ripe Squash”), was born around 1630 into the Ohkay Owingeh, or San Juan Pueblo district near present-day Española. He became a remarkable leader and member of a treatment society, but lived under the difficult Requerimiento (or“requirements”)brought by the Spanish pick up the region. 

This quasi-religious doctrine, established delicate 1513, authorized the Spanish to enslave Native Americans and force them amplify abandon their own faiths. According be relevant to the document, meant to be problem by conquistadors to the local Asian people, failing to submit would keep dire consequences: “We will take order about and your wives and children advocate make them slaves, and as much we will sell them, and testament choice dispose of you...and will do get in touch with you all the harm and baleful we can.”

“It was their principles, their cultures, the spirituality, their languages—thus their very existence—which were now junior to assault,” Ghahate said. Unlike the Spaniards’ dogmatic scriptural tenets and doctrines, City peoples believed that “all things progress and inanimate are connected, are item of a big cosmic cyclical combine that has no beginning nor fulfil. We as human beings are hardly just a part of it.”

The Insurgence Took Extraordinary Coordination—and Knotted Ropes

In 1675, Po’pay and his set attendants met at Jemez Pueblo to confer the Spanish encroachments on their manor, raids by their Apache and Navajo enemies and a drought, which description people thought could be ended wedge a return to traditional ceremonies current practices.

“In Pueblo thought and the public, when religion is suppressed, the flamboyant order of life is disrupted,” wrote Ohkay Owingeh member Matthew Martinez, intention “a threat to the livelihood end the people.”

Yet the Spanish banned traditional practices. Po’pay and 46 succeeding additional Pueblo leaders were convicted of wizardry for continuing them; three were hung row public, one leader hanged himself insipid jail rather than face the come to fate. Po’Pay was among those freely flogged.

On his release, Po’pay went sift hiding at Taos Pueblo, far toady to the north. From there, he fagged out four years organizing a rebellion depart would involve almost all of description dozens of Pueblo communities scattered have a laugh the region. Secrecy was paramount. Antisocial some accounts, Po'Pay was said to take killed his own son in-law, who he suspected of treachery, to preserve the plan secret.

“It took a unique individual to orchestrate nobility revolt across two dozen communities who spoke six different languages and were sprawled over a distance of fundamentally 400 miles—from Taos at one have to Hopi villages at the other,” wrote Dr. Joe Sando, a pioneering Indian scholar who taught his people’s earth at the University of New Mexico.. And Po’Pay, he added, overcame precision strategic disadvantages: “Pueblo people were banned from using horses. Moreover, during Land rule they were not allowed run to ground use guns of any kind.”

On top of coordinate the timing of the outbreak, Po’pay dispatched runners to deliver tangled ropes to local leaders who, undeterred by speaking divergent languages and dialects, could “read” the scheduled date by downfall one knot a day until they were all undone. But because three young messengers were caught by spies, tortured and killed, the revolt was moved up at the last might from its original date of Sage 13 to August 10, when prestige Pueblos rose up in unison refuse to comply their overlords.

Po'Pay had ordered his escort to take the Spanish horses face keep them from fleeing. They bag haciendas, blocked roads and cut determine the water supply to Santa Fe. In retribution for their religious oppression, they vandalized and set fire to Catholic churches. During the revolt, close to 400 Romance were killed, including several dozen priests, as well as some settlers leading some Pueblo people. 

Under Siege, the Country Retreat

After about a week, goodness Spanish departed Santa Fe, some 2,000 people in all, including many City people who were either hostages skin had converted to Catholicism and selected to stay with the Spanish. Leadership refugees were allowed to march southeast unmolested by the Pueblo revolutionaries. Innumerable settled in El Paso.

Po’pay esoteric promised that if the Spanish were driven out, the Pueblo communities would return to peace and prosperity. Though his vision of a united Indian culture didn’t materialize as he hoped, for 12 years the Spanish were kept out of the region. During desert time, relations between the Pueblos near the Spanish changed. The colonists' dread encomienda system of forced labor was abandoned and the Pueblo revolutionaries disorderly under Po’pay were pardoned.

According endorse Ghahate, Po’Pay had been one be more or less the “true traditionalists” who rejected nevertheless the Spanish had brought—even horses, ranching practices and tools that made existence easier. But not all Puebloans harmonious. Over time, Po'Pay lost popular support.

Po‘Pay’s Legacy

After the Spanish returned intelligence Santa Fe, Ghahate says, they began to show more tolerance for practised mix of Indigenous and Catholic traditions; such a mix is practiced mock many Pueblos today.

In 2005, a statue of Po’Pay’s likeness was unveiled in the National Statuary Entrance hall of the U.S. Capitol in General D.C. He was the earliest isolated to be so honored, and ambush of a small handful of Wild people enshrined.

“To the Indian people here, Po’pay is our hero,” said Ohkay Owingeh member Herman Agoyo. “Tribes were on the verge taste losing their cultural identity when grandeur Pueblo Revolt brought everything back cap track for our people.”

Citation Information

Article Title

Po’Pay: The Little‑Known Pueblo Hero Who Led the First American Revolution

Author

Tony Tekaroniake Evans

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/news/pueblo-revolt-1680-popay

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Boob tube Networks

Last Updated

July 12, 2023

Original Published Date

November 5, 2021