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1 1 Introduction Archaeology, Anthropology, and the Pueblo Revolt July 24, 1694. With their homes in flames, enemy soldiers advancing, and all escape routes blocked, the Pueblo Indian warriors of the Jemez village of Astialakwa were out of options. The acrid smoke and gunpowder that smeared the air was pierced by the screams of their wives, mothers, and children. The Jemez warriors inched backward until their heels teetered at the edge of the cliffs surrounding the mesa-top pueblo. As their eyes darted back and forth between the armor-clad Spaniards marching toward them and the canyon floor that loomed a thousand dizzying feet below their backs, the warriors made a final, fateful pact. Surveying the towering walls of the mesa that dropped beneath their feet, they choose death over surrender. One by one the Jemez men stepped to the brink and jumped off the precipice, limbs flailing as they plummeted headlong into the abyss. They seemed to hang in the air for a long, still moment before the silence was shattered by a sickening crunch as they smashed into the jumbled boulders at the base of the cliffs. Better to die with dignity, they must have thought as their feet left the ground, than in defeat staring down the barrel of a Spanish harquebus. Twelve hours earlier the Jemez had been preparing for the impending battle by staging a ritual dance in the plaza at Astialakwa. They were well aware that the Spaniards were coming to attack the mesa-top refuge because General don Diego de Vargas, the self-proclaimed “restorer, conqueror, settler , governor, and captain general of the kingdom and provinces of New Mexico,” had publicly announced his plans in the plaza of the colonial capital of Santa Fe four weeks earlier. “The present campaign is necessary,” he had declared, “because of the rebellion and backsliding of the Jemez nation.” What the residents of Astialakwa may not have been aware of, however, was the fact that Vargas was coming with formidable reinforcements. In addition to the 120 presidial soldiers and militiamen he had mustered in Santa Fe, don Diego had enlisted the aid of 100 Pueblo allies from Chapter 1 2 the neighboring villages of Zia, Santa Ana, and San Felipe to fight against their Jemez brethren. Just five years earlier these villages had been resolutely opposed to colonial rule, taking up arms against the Spaniards in defense of their freedom. But when the colonizers returned in 1692, the Zias, Santa Anas, and San Felipians shifted their allegiances, casting their lots in with their former enemies. Now these pro-Spanish Pueblo warriors marched under the leadership of Bartolomé de Ojeda, a Zia war captain who had been recruited to the Spanish cause after being captured and held as a prisoner of war.1 Vargas gave the signal to begin the assault when the morning star appeared in the early hours of July 24. Splitting his force into two units, the colonial men-at-arms ascended the front of the mesa while the allied Pueblo troops circled around to the back. As the light of dawn broke, the opening volley from a Spanish musket cracked the morning silence and the Jemez warriors scrambled to defend their village against both wings of the attack. The people of Astialakwa rained arrows, slingstones, boulders, and anything else they could get their hands on down on the enemy troops, with the Spaniards forced to dismount their horses and scramble up the steep paths on foot. As the sun climbed high in the summer sky, the attacking forces breached the fortifications surrounding the acropolis and the Jemez found themselves hemmed in by the pincer strategy of their aggressors. When the colonial militia began setting fire to the village room-by-room, the Jemez knew that the tide had turned. The women and children could only watch as their fathers and brothers launched themselves off the crags, dropping from the sky like hailstones. At least seven Pueblo bodies were later found splashed across the rocks in the valley below Astialakwa. Following the battle the Spaniards reported 77 further Jemez casualties, including 5 seared alive in their houses. In addition to those killed, colonial forces captured 361 Jemez prisoners of war. The Spaniards later attributed their victory over the Indian rebels to the intervention of the saints. They had marched under the protection of La Conquistadora (Our Lady of the Conquest) and Santiago (St. James the Greater, patron saint of Spain and the conquistadores), with the...

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