The prolific Mr. Silverberg has produced a competent account of a
unique episode in "the long, sad chronicle of the European conquest
of the New World": the only revolt by Indians against white rule
that won back real freedom for an extended period. The Pueblos of
New Mexico, conquered and subjected to Spanish rule in 1598, their
religion suppressed, their labor commandeered, and their freedom
curtailed, rose up eighty-two years later (1680) in a carefully
organized conspiracy and swept their province clean of the
conquerors. For twelve years thereafter the Pueblo tribes kept the
Spaniards at bay, defeating several invading forces, but finally
they fell into disunity and disarray and, with little resistance,
back under the Spanish yoke. Silverberg's narrative treats tire
Indians with full sympathy, and the Spaniards are portrayed harshly
only when specific acts of inhumanity warrant it, and the Spanish
Governor Vargas who reconquered New Mexico is a hero for being a
kind rather than cruel master. The account goes as far back as the
early Indian migrations in the Southwest, covers the first Spanish
incursions into Pueblo territory, the years of Spanish rule, the
reconquest in 1692, and the last stirrings of Indian resistance. A
couple of pages bring the Pueblos up to the present - "They still
live in their dusty, mud-walled villages, but television aerials
sprout from the flat roofs, and shiny automobiles are parked in the
narrow streets." Sometimes the style is journeyman, but the content
should be of interest to an American history audience. (Kirkus
Reviews)
The peaceable Pueblo Indians seemed an unlikely people to rise
emphatically and successfully against the Spanish Empire. For
eighty-two years the Pueblos had lived under Spanish domination in
the northern part of present-day New Mexico. The Spanish
administration had been led not by Coronado's earlier vision of god
but by a desire to convert the Indians to Christianity and eke a
living from the country north of Mexico. The situation made
conflict inevitable, with devastating results.
Robert Silverberg writes: "While the missionaries flogged and
even hanged the Indians to save their souls, the civil authorities
enslaved them, plundered the wealth of their cornfields, forced
them to abide by incomprehensible Spanish laws." A long drought
beginning in the 1660s and the accelerated raids of nomadic tribes
contributed to the spontaneous revolt to the Pueblos in August
1680.
How the Pueblos maintained their independence for a dozen years
in plain view of the ambitious Spaniards and how they finally
expelled the Spanish is the exciting story of "The Pueblo Revolt."
Robert Silverberg's descriptions yield a rich picture of the Pueblo
culture.
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