The First American Revolution - The Pueblo Revolt of 1680

we're starting with here is something

quite early going all the way back to

1680 but actually earlier than that

and it's not possible for me to cover

all of the things that we could possibly

cover and all of the people that have

been affected by colonialism or the

things that happened here in north

america or around the world so for

anyone that uh is a member of any of

those cultures that are left out of this

discussion today please note that this

is focused and that this is a specific

topic that i'm trying to address today

and absolutely there are many different

um tribes and regions that were affected

across the the whole world and this is

just one specific example thereof and i

apologize if you were not included in

this discussion but it was impossible to

include everyone and this presentation

would have been going on for weeks

otherwise so thank you again for being

here and let's go ahead and get started

so one thing i want to show you here is

a map of the pre-colonial north american

southwest this is something that you

don't see typically in history anymore

and there's a reason for that because it

doesn't fit the narrative of what people

want people to think about when it comes

to american history the reality is north

american history is far longer and much

more extensive than that of just the

united states and the reality is that

this is not taught in the way that it

should be and that is a great deficiency

in our understanding of the world and a

better knowledge of it so here we have a

map of just the southwestern part of the

us superimposed over you know the

current united states arizona new mexico

colorado utah et cetera

um and

um in that regard we have we see three

specific nations of indigenous people

although there are far more than that

these are very gross generalizations and

these groups were also broken up into

smaller subdivisions as well

but here down here in arizona phoenix

tucson et cetera you see the hohokum

centered on the media middle gila river

and lower salt river drainage areas

extending into the southern sonoran

desert believed to have merged at

approximately 200 ce these people lived

in smaller settlement clusters than

their neighbors but built extensive

irrigation canals for a wide range of

agricultural crops

northeast or southeast of that you see

the mogaon who lived in the southwest

from around the same time 200 ce up

until somewhere around 1450 or 1540 ce

molgayon archaeological sites are found

in the gila wilder wilderness the river

valley upper gila river

uh and the low mounds between the

franklin mountains west and the hueco

mountains to the east

predominantly what we're going to be

speaking about today is northeast of us

the ancestral puebloans

or sometimes also refers to as the

anasazi was centered around present-day

four corners area their distinctive

pottery and dwelling construction styles

emerged at around 750 ce so this is

quite a while ago

uh this is a map a 1963

archaeological map of just some of the

hohokum canal systems just south of

phoenix near present-day coolidge

these canal systems were extensive

indicative of an advanced agriculturally

based society many of these areas are

still inhabited in today what are likely

are the descendants of the hohokum but

that is not entirely clear but what is

clear is how extensive that society was

along with ruins that exist still to

this day

i mean if you look at this you're

familiar with arizona maybe you're

coming from you're visiting this uh

presentation from somewhere else but if

you live here coolidge is uh just

between tucson and phoenix and if you

look at this there is a

nest of lines and maps and processes

here that were all irrigation ditches by

the hohokam

and continued to be used extensively for

a long time they learned how to make

this desert an inhabitable place and

grow temporary beans and other types of

indigenous foods and sustain themselves

on an agriculturally based society

that type of agriculturally based

society has an effect later in this

discussion along with the anasazi or the

puebloans and we'll see more about that

later in the presentation um here you

see the hohokam in and of course an

artistic rendering probably near what

would be modern-day casa grande um and

on the bottom right is an actually still

existing hohokum irrigation ditch in the

phoenix area these irrigation dishes

were so extensive that they still exist

today and a lot of phoenix is actually

architected around those existing

systems so

phoenix pretty much exists today because

of what the hohokum did before white

settlers came here to turn it into

something else those irrigation ditches

made phoenix a possibility

this is these are the ruins of casa

grande uh you can see at the bottom of a

artistic rendering

once again the hohokum but these were

not primitive societies they were

extensively and advanced societies uh

that figured out how to live in a very

uh hostile desert like we live in here

today but without the modern amenities

they did it with with agriculture and

understanding the environment the way

but i'd say that frankly a lot of us

don't now but if you look at these ruins

and these are of course just ruins now

um and then look at the diagram below

these were extensive civilizations with

entire cities really by modern standards

uh but coming back to our map northeast

of the hokum we find the anasazi or the

ancestral puebloans

up there on the top right you'll see

santa fe las vegas choco canyon which

was an epicenter of the puebloan

civilization more of that coming we

mentioned the extensive and advanced

complex canal systems of the hokum and

the trade routes of the hokum earlier

but the anasazi were probably even more

so this map is just part of modern new

mexico and it gives a hint of the

magnitude of how significant the

puebloan civilization was

each and every one of those dots on

there that states the pueblo is a huge

complex of very long and long-standing

and surviving indigenous peoples

villages and cities um that still to

this day are inhabited

uh this is uh the acoma sometimes

referred to as sky city uh has been

inhabited for over two thousand years

and you can still visit this today in

fact um a number of these pueblos in new

mexico are open to some level of public

visitation on specific days or with surf

specific constraints but uh it tells you

really how resilient the puebloan people

have been but first we've got to talk

about spanish colonialism if we're going

to get to the point of the 1680 pueblo

revolt and what were the purposes and

intentions of spanish colonialism and i

think we all kind of know this but we

have to make these settings down we have

to set this down in stone before we

understand why

they were coming here one was of course

to extract gold and silver from the

americas the other was perhaps maybe

they thought they were actually doing

this or was an excuse

convert the indigenous people to

christianity but of course the third and

most important thing they were looking

for

slave labor or enslaving people to thor

their needs and goals

christopher columbus 1492 we have this

glamorized artwork of him here arriving

he was an italian navigator but he was

sponsored by the catholic monarchs of