Four Square Leagues: Pueblo Indian Land in New Mexico

7. Jemez Pueblo

189 c h a p t e r 7 Jemez Pueblo A ccording to Jemez oral history as historian Joe Sando recounted it, the Towa-speaking people of Jemez originated at Wá˙vɨnatí ˗˙tá (also Hua-na-tota), a lake in the north, which is said to be Stone Lake on the Jicarilla Apache reservation, south of Dulce, New Mexico. By 1300 CE they were living in the mountains and on the mesas above the present-day village of Walatowa.1 Other Jemez people locate their place of origin in the Four Corners area.2 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Jemez people “developed a distinctive material culture and settlement system in the upper Rio Jemez, Rio Guadalupe, and Rito Vallecito drainages.”3 When the Spaniards explored the Rio Jemez valley in 1541, they found seven pueblos whose inhabitants referred to themselves as “Hemes” and who were clearly distinct from their Tewa neighbors.4 Franciscans probably established a mission at Giusewa not long after fray Alonso de Lugo arrived in 1601. The mission did not last long and was likely abandoned by 1610.5 Seventeenth-century Spanish documents name five missions: San José de los Jémez, San Diego de la Congregación, San Diego de los Jémez, San Diego del Monte, and San Juan de los Jémez.6 In 1621 fray Gerónimo de Zárate Salmerón founded San José de los Jémez and San Diego de la Congregación in an attempt to get the Jemez people to come down off their mesas and settle in the two mission villages.7 The residents of San Diego de la Congregación rebelled in 1623, burning the mission and returning to the mesa tops. Three years later fray Martín de CHAPTER 7 190 Arvide reestablished the San Diego mission. San José was permanently abandoned in the period from 1632 to 1639, after which time San Diego de la Congregación was the only functioning Franciscan mission among the Jemez people until the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Jemez played a very significant role in the Revolt and killed fray Juan de Jesús, one of the two Franciscans assigned to the mission of San Diego de la Congregación.8 As Hispanos were leaving New Mexico, the inhabitants of Santa Ana, Zia, and Jemez (among others) were not touched because they were outside the direct line of march, but they were reported to be openly hostile to Hispanos. When Vargas returned to New Mexico during his ceremonial reconquest in 1692, he took possession of the Jemez pueblo located on San Diego Mesa. The following year when Vargas came back with colonists and an obvious intention to remain, Jemez continued to rebel and attacked neighboring pueblos, such as Zia, which were allying themselves with the Hispanos. Vargas then punished Jemez by attacking Astialakwa, the refugee village atop Guadalupe Mesa, in July 1694. The defeated Jemez Indians were forced to fight against Tewa rebels on Black Mesa. In order to secure the return of pueblo members who were prisoners of the Spaniards, the Jemez people rebuilt San Diego de la Congregación, which received the new name San Juan de los Jémez. The site of the mission was Walatowa, the present-day pueblo on the east bank of the Jemez River, about 20 miles northwest of Bernalillo.9 In June 1696 the Jemez people revolted again and killed fray Francisco de Jesús at San Diego del Monte mission. Vargas retaliated by launching punitive expeditions against the pueblo. Later in the month of June, the Jemez people were defeated in the Battle of San Diego Canyon, but even then many of them moved west to live among the Navajos, the Hopis, and possibly other tribes. Others took refuge in the Jemez Mountains.10 By 1703 some Jemez refugees had reoccupied their village at Walatowa.11 In 1706 they rebuilt the mission church there.12 A contingent of Jemez Indians who were living among the Hopis came back to their homeland in 1716.13 ◆ ◆ ◆ ◆ Early in the eighteenth century, several pueblos began to demand that Spanish authorities measure the four square leagues surrounding the pueblo to which they were entitled. Invariably, the Pueblo league was measured in 191 JEMEZ PUEBLO response to the claim by the pueblo that a Hispano was encroaching on pueblo land. Often a Spanish land grant was proposed or made...