Education beyond the Mesas: Hopi Students at Sherman Institute, 1902-1929

1. Hopi Resistance

In the summer of 1540, a group of Hopis from the village of Kawaiokuh on Antelope Mesa looked over the mesa’s edge and observed a band of people they had never seen on their land.1 The Hopis had encountered a Spanish exploratory party of seventeen cavalrymen, a small number of foot soldiers, a few Zuni guides, and a Franciscan priest named Juan de Padilla. Led by Pedro de Tovar, a lieutenant in Vasquez de Coronado’s expedition to the southwest,2 the Spaniards arrived in “Tusayan,” or Hopi country, expecting to find gold, but instead they discovered homes made of stone, steep rock cliffs, and small fields of corn.3 Closely observing the “strangers at their doors,” the Hopis at Kawaiokuh looked at the men and their horses with amazement, but their curiosity quickly turned to concern and the people sounded an alarm throughout the villages.4 Hopi leaders instructed their warriors to arm themselves and confront the intruders at the base of the mesa.5 When the warriors approached the Spaniards, Tovar, through a Zuni interpreter, explained to the Hopis that they came on friendly terms, but the Hopis told the intruders to leave their land, and they drew a line in the dirt and instructed Tovar that he and his men could not cross beyond the marker. When some of the Spanish “soldiers made motions to cross the line,” Hopis hit one of their horses with a wooden “club,” 1. Hopi Resistance Hopi Resistance 2 which caused commotion in both parties.6 As tensions between the Hopis and Spaniards escalated, the Catholic priest grew impatient and called on Tovar to annihilate the Hopis. Tovar responded by ordering his soldiers to attack, and several Hopi warriors were killed. Realizing that the Spaniards would not hesitate to kill, the people at Kawaioukuh gathered food and other gifts and offered them to Tovar and his men. The Hopis allowed the Spaniards to enter their villages and agreed to trade with them. The Spanish expedition did not conduct itself like the Utes, Navajos, or other tribes that Hopis fought in the past; Tovar came to the Hopi mesas with powerful weapons and horses that quickly covered great distances, and the Spanish spoke a language that Hopis did not understand. But the Hopi people outnumbered the Spaniards. At any moment warriors from each of the villages could have joined together and killed the foreign intruders. However, the Hopis calculated the risks of forcefully resisting the Spaniards and chose, for the time being, a nonviolent approach. The Hopi-Spanish encounter in 1540 was a turning point in Hopi history that foretold a wave of explorers and Christian missionaries who demanded that the people embrace Christianity and education in European ideals and values. Catholic clergy insisted that Hopis become educated in Christianity. From 1628 through 1633 Spanish missionaries forced Hopis to build three large churches at the villages of Orayvi, Awat’ovi, and Shungopavi . At Awat’ovi, Catholic friars required that Hopis attend Christian gatherings where priests educated Hopi children and other “neophytes” in the “catechism” and “rules and lore” of the Catholic religion.7 Catholic missionaries also committed horrendous acts against the Hopi people. For example, historian Robert Silverberg noted that “when a friar caught a Hopi in Hopi Resistance 3 ‘an act of idolatry’ at Oraibi in 1655, he thrashed the man until blood came, then poured burning turpentine over him. The man died; when the Indians complained, the friar was transferred to a different district.”8 In 1680, after priests abused and persecuted Hopis for practicing their own religion, Hopis despised the Spaniards, killed the priests at Awat’ovi, and destroyed the village.9 After Catholic missionaries attempted to reestablish a Christian stronghold in the village, the Hopis destroyed Awat’ovi again in 1700. The people understood these acts of rebellion to be their contribution to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, an event that united the Pueblo people to rid their communities of Spanish occupation. These acts of Hopi resistance kept the Catholic Church from regaining a strong presence on Hopi land.10 As Hopi historian Lomayumtewa C. Ishii observes: these events, especially the final destruction of Awat’ovi, “marked a transition in Hopi history where outside European influence temporarily came to an end.”11 Between 1680 and 1700, the Hopi people “maintained their independence” from Spanish control and even signed a treaty with the king of...