the pueblo revolt of 1680
...he Indians. Onate went on to set up a city San Juan among the acomas Indians. Although Onate felt the Indians were very obedient to him and they had no problems with the Indians, but later on this would prove not to be the case for other expeditions. In the next part of the novel the struggling relations of the Indians and the Spanish begin to show. Juan de Zaldivar the maestre de campo of the new expedition, and the nephew of Onate, Is the newly appointed governor. Here is where we start to see the Indian uprisings and resentment show. As Zaldivar stopped among the acomas on his expedition, they needed supplies and looked to the Indians to provide these supplies. Things went smooth on this transaction but when Zaldivar returned a few days later he met angered Indians. He then tried to collect more goods and When the Indians refused and only gave them minimal supplies, Zaldivar became angered and ordered soldiers to split up and collect goods to speed up the process. The acomas didn’t like this and started and uprising which killed Zaldivar and 12 others. When word of this got back to Onate he came to the acomas and punished some of them for partaking in this fight. As the novel continues, so do the struggles for the Spanish. They begin to Christianize these native people, but it is a slow moving pace at which these people want to conform. They send missionaries and clerics to different pueblo villages throughout New Mexico and try to convert these Indians. The Spanish are not making very good progress at all. And when they think they are making progress in reality the Indians are having underground dances and rituals that the Spanish don’t know about. This just makes the struggle harder for the clerics. Not only is this a problem, but the constant clashing between the clerics and the governors for power has a damning affect on converting these Indians. As the Indians see the struggle for power and tensions between the governor and the clerics, they start to lose faith and ultimately this ruins the chance for the Spanish to convert these Indians. As new governors came and went, so did the chances of converting these Indians. There were the greedy governors who were in it just for the money, and did illegal slave trades to benefit from this. Then there were other governors who allowed the Indians to practice their beliefs in public. Eventually everything Onate had ultimately worked for was ignored and disregarded. As this Spanish greediness continued and the failing of the new province lurked, People became less interested in expanding to New Mexico. Not only were the supplies rarely on time from Mexico City to the new province, they had constant struggles with food and supplies. The wagon was supposed to come every 3 years with supplies, but if there was a delay it would usually take 4 to 5 years to reach the new province. This was caused by the weather and seasons, because u had to leave at a certain time of the year as to miss the floods, and other conditions while traveling. If you got stuck in one of these weather conditions it could prove disastrous for the supplies crew. This along with the demographics of the trip to New Mexico was the reason for the loss of interest to expand. As the Uprisings and changes in governors and laws continued, the pueblos kept gathering more and more strength to revolt. They were back practicing their old rituals and dances and believing in the medicine men. Then the Spanish tried once more to rule and go back to the old ways. What set everything off was when the Governor tried to hang and kill medicine men for supposedly setting a witc...