Native and Spanish New Worlds: Sixteenth-Century Entradas in the American Southwest and Southeast

5. The Role of Climate in Early Spanish–Native AmericanInteractions in the US Southwest

Archaeologists describe and reconstruct past environments for two reasons . First, we describe the physical setting, climate, and environmental resources of a particular area and time period because they convey a mental image to our readers and form the background for subsequent narratives and interpretations. Second and more importantly, we reconstruct past environmental conditions because we know that factors such as the length of a growing season or access to dependable water often establish the limits within which a given set of human behaviors can occur. After environmental reconstructions are developed, we attempt to identify the economic opportunities, constraints, options, and risks present to various human groups, given their economic organization, technological capabilities, and population characteristics. We describe in this chapter how we reconstructed past climate in the Middle Rio Grande basin of north-central New Mexico during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We then describe how climate variation likely influenced natural resource productivity and food production in the Middle Rio Grande basin, which, in turn, influenced living conditions for its Indigenous populations and non-Native explorers. Although we understand that climate was but one of a number of important factors that influenced the events of the Spanish entrada (a.d. 1539–1598) and Early Colonial periods (a.d. 1598–1680), we contend that extremes in climate played a decisive role in permitting or inhibiting sustainable settlement for both Natives and newcomers. Background: Why the Middle Rio Grande Basin? Following orders issued by Captain General Francisco Vázquez de Coronado to explore lands to the east of the Cíbola province, Captain The Role of Climate in Early Spanish–Native American Interactions in the US Southwest Carla R. Van West, Thomas C. Windes, Frances Levine, Henri D. Grissino-Mayer, and Matthew W. Salzer  82 Climatic Influences and Impacts Hernando de Alvarado and a party of twenty-three men-at-arms, an unknown number of Indian allies, and at least one Catholic priest were led from Hawikku by Pecos Pueblo emissaries to the Tiguex province along the Middle Rio Grande valley in early September 1540 (Flint 2008:130). What these explorers found was the largest concentration of settlements anywhere in Tierra Nueva—some twelve closely spaced pueblos stretching from what is now Albuquerque north to Bernalillo along both sides of the Rio Grande, housing many thousands of people. Within months, the remainder of Vázquez de Coronado’s large expeditionary force at Hawikku had moved to the Tiguex province. There, they took up residence in and around at least one of the province’s largest villages, Coofor (Flint 2008:141–144), after displacing its Native inhabitants and forcibly appropriating its stores of food, clothing, and fuel. These actions, as others in this volume discuss (Flint and Flint, this volume; Mathers, this volume), initiated the process of population dispersal , settlement abandonment, and demographic collapse in the Middle Rio Grande Valley from which these pueblo populations never fully recovered. This chapter, then, focuses its efforts on the reconstruction of climate in that portion of the Middle Rio Grande basin that was home to the Southern Tiwa-speaking peoples of Tiguex province. The Study Area: The Middle Rio Grande Basin Setting The Rio Grande flows 1,887 miles from southwestern Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico and drains a basin of approximately 637,137 square kilometers. In its course, it traverses four geomorphic provinces of the United States and Mexico. Within central New Mexico, the lands bordering the river are assigned to the Mexican Highland or Basin and Range geomorphic province. This reach of the Rio Grande is referred to as the Middle Rio Grande Basin (MRGB), and it extends from the area near present-day Cochiti Lake and Cochiti Pueblo on the north to present-day Elephant Butte Reservoir near Truth or Consequences on the south. Within the MRGB are contained two subbasins—the Santo Domingo basin to the north, and the Albuquerque–Belen basin to Climate and Spanish–Native Interactions 83 the south—and numerous north–south oriented mountain ranges. Elevations range from about 1,524m along the river to 3,255m at Sandia Crest. The Tiguex pueblos occupied the northern portion of the Albuquerque–Belen basin. Climate The climate of the MRGB is arid overall and characterized by a summer dominant precipitation pattern. Elevation strongly controls the amount of moisture received. Whereas the lowland basins of the MRGB typically receive between about 230 to 300mm of...