The Tompiro Indians were Pueblo Indians living in New Mexico. They lived in several adobe villages east of the Rio Grande Valley in the Salinas region of New Mexico. Their settlements were abandoned and they were absorbed into other Pueblo Nations in the 1670s.
Very little is known about the origin of the Tompiros. They spoke a language closely related to that of the Piro Indians who lived to their west in the Rio Grande Valley. The Piro and Tompiro languages are believed by most authorities to belong to the Tanoan language family. [1]
In the 16th century, the Tompiro lived in nine settlements in the Salinas clustered around the present day town of Mountainair. [2] Those whose ruins are preserved today are Quarai, Abó, and Gran Quivira which today make up the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. The ruin known as Gran Quivira today but during Spanish times as Las Humanas – was the largest settlement and may have had a population of 2,000 people. [3] Las Humanas and the other Tompiro settlements were probably established about 1300 and became culturally similar to the other Pueblo Indians in the Rio Grande Valley. [4] The Tompiro name for Las Humanas was probably Cueloze, but Juan de Oñate named the settlement the "Great Pueblo of the Humanas" when he visited in 1598, the name reflecting the inhabitant's custom of painting stripes or tattooing their faces. The Plains dwelling Jumano Indians were called by the same name, and authorities differ as to whether they were related to the Tompiros or simply given similar names by the Spaniards. [5]
As village-dwelling and sedentary Pueblo Indians, the Tompiros lived in a marginal climate. Their region was more than 6,000 feet in elevation, near the upper climatic limit for corn cultivation. They had little surface water for irrigation, rainfall was sparse and sporadic, and winters were long and cold. What made the Tompiro settlements viable was their proximity to salt deposits in the Salinas and to the bison herds of the Great Plains. Thus, they were important traders and middlemen between the Plains Indians and the Pueblos of the Rio Grande Valley for salt and bison skins and meat. The Tompiros also hunted small and large game in the region, especially deer, pronghorn, and rabbits and gathered wild foods, including pinyon pine nuts. [6]
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado did not visit the Tompiros during his expedition of 1539–1542. The first Spanish account of the Tompiros is from Antonio de Espejo in 1582–1583. Espejo was greeted with suspicion in the Tompiro settlements. [7] In 1601, the founder of the colony of New Mexico, Juan de Oñate, retaliated for the killing of two Spaniards with a raid on the Tompiros that left, according to one account (probably exaggerating the feat of Spanish arms), 900 Indians dead and three Pueblos destroyed. [8]
The Tompiros were distant from the early Spanish settlements in the Rio Grande Valley and not until 1627 was a Catholic mission, headed by the Franciscan Fray Alonso de Benavides, established at Las Humanas. Thus began a long struggle between the Spanish missionaries and the Tompiros about religion. At first, Catholicism and the Kiva religion of the Tompiros co-existed, but by 1660 the Franciscans were suppressing the native religion.
The early days of Spanish settlement in New Mexico were characterized by bitter disputes between the civil authorities and the missionaries as each attempted to exert control – and exploit – the Pueblo Indians. This dispute came to a head among the Tompiros. In 1659, Governor Bernardo López de Mendizábal appointed Nicolás de Aguilar as Alcalde Mayor (Magistrate) of the Tompiro settlements. Aguilar was a Mestizo (part Indian) soldier from Michoacán, Mexico and he carried out the policy of Governor López forcefully. Among López's dictates were that no Indian would be required to work for the Franciscan priests without pay and that the Indians had the right to practice their religion. He also permitted the Pueblos to perform their religious dances in the Governor's Palace in Santa Fe, thus endorsing religious practices that had been prohibited for 30 years.
Aguilar enforced the Governor's policy among the Tompiros over the opposition of the Franciscans. Aguilar went so far as to have Indians whipped who contributed labor to the priests. During a bitterly cold winter when the Franciscans requested Indian assistance to gather firewood, Aguilar told them to burn the 600 wooden crosses they had collected for ceremonies. Aguilar said it was too dangerous for the Indians to gather wood for the priests because of Apache raiders lurking in the area. Aguilar also permitted Indian dances and ordered Christian Indians to participate.
The Franciscans took their grievances to the authorities in Mexico City and López and Aguilar were charged under the Inquisition of obstructing the spread of the Catholic faith. Both were arrested. López died during his trial, but Aguilar defended himself before the Inquisition. Nevertheless, after a long trial he was convicted and exiled. The Church had won and its authority in New Mexico would go unchallenged until 1680 when the Pueblos rose up en masse and expelled the Spanish. [9] The dispute would have consequences. Among the major causes of the Pueblo Revolt were the excesses of the Franciscans in suppressing the traditional religions.
The problems of the Tompiros multiplied in the 1660s. European diseases probably took a heavy toll among the Tompiros as they did among other Pueblos. In addition, drought impacted the viability of the Tompiro economy. A priest stated in 1669, "For three years no crop has been harvested. In the past year, a great many Indians perished of hunger, lying dead along the roads, in the ravines, and in their huts. There were pueblos (for instance, Las Humanas) where more than four hundred and fifty died of hunger…there is not a fanega of corn or wheat in the whole kingdom." [10] Labor required of the Tompiro to build churches and to participate in Catholic religious ceremonies took time away from what the Indians needed to earn their uncertain living in a difficult environment.
Weakened by drought and disease, fractured by religious disputes, the Tompiros were also the closest and most vulnerable of the Pueblos to Apache raiders. The diminished Tompiros began to abandon their settlements to take refuge among their Piro relatives westward on the Rio Grande. In 1670, the residents of Las Humanas moved to Abó. Within a few years the Salinas Pueblos were all abandoned and the Tompiros had ceased to exist as a distinct people. [10]
Santa Fe de Nuevo México was a province of the Spanish Empire and New Spain, and later a territory of independent Mexico. The first capital was San Juan de los Caballeros from 1598 until 1610, and from 1610 onward the capital was La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís.
Juan de Oñate y Salazar was a Spanish conquistador from New Spain, explorer, and colonial governor of the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México in the viceroyalty of New Spain. He led early Spanish expeditions to the Great Plains and Lower Colorado River Valley, encountering numerous indigenous tribes in their homelands there. Oñate founded settlements in the province, now in the Southwestern United States.
The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, also known as Popé's Rebellion or Popay's Rebellion, was an uprising of most of the indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, larger than present-day New Mexico. The Pueblo Revolt killed 400 Spaniards and drove the remaining 2,000 settlers out of the province. The Spaniards reconquered New Mexico twelve years later.
Piro people were a Native American tribe who lived in New Mexico during the 16th and 17th century. The Piros lived in a number of pueblos in the Rio Grande Valley around modern Socorro, New Mexico, USA. The now extinct Piro language may have been a Tanoan language. Numbering several thousand at the time of first contact with the Spanish, by the time of the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 the Piro had been decimated by European-introduced diseases and Apache attacks and most of the survivors resettled near El Paso, Texas.
The Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument is a complex of three Spanish missions located in the U.S. state of New Mexico, near Mountainair. The main park visitor center is in Mountainair. Construction of the missions began in 1622 and was completed in 1635.
The Spanish Missions in New Mexico were a series of religious outposts in the Province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México — present day New Mexico. They were established by Franciscan friars under charter from the monarchs of the Spanish Empire and the government of the Viceroyalty of New Spain in a policy called Reductions to facilitate the conversion of Native Americans into Christianity.
Quivira was a province of the ancestral Wichita people, located near the Great Bend of the Arkansas River in central Kansas, The exact site may be near present-day Lyons extending northeast to Salina.
The Suma were an Indigenous people of Aridoamerica. They had two branches, one living in the northern part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua and the other living near present-day El Paso, Texas. They were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who practiced little or no agriculture. The Suma merged with Apache groups and the mestizo population of northern Mexico, and are extinct as a distinct people.
The Piro pueblo of Senecú was the southernmost occupied pueblo in New Mexico prior to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. It was located on the west bank of the Rio Grande within sight of the Piro pueblo of San Pasqual. Colonial Spanish documents consistently place the pueblo opposite of Black Mesa, which is near San Marcial. Due to changes in the floodplain and the establishment of San Marcial, however, no surface remains of the pueblo survive in the area.
Antonio de Espejo (1540–1585) was a Spanish explorer who led an expedition, accompanied by Diego Perez de Luxan, into New Mexico and Arizona in 1582–83. The expedition created interest in establishing a Spanish colony among the Pueblo Indians of the Rio Grande valley.
Abó, is a pueblo ruin in New Mexico that is preserved as part of the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. The ruins are located about 9 miles (14 km) west of Mountainair, at about 6,100 feet (1,900 m) above sea level. They are said to date back to the 14th century. It was a major trading station during its time. There is a visitor contact station, a 0.25 miles (0.40 km) trail through the mission ruins, and a 0.5 miles (0.80 km) trail around the unexcavated pueblo ruins. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1962.
Teyas were a Native American people living near what is now Lubbock, Texas, who first made contact with Europeans was the 1541 Francisco Vásquez de Coronado Expedition.
The Chamuscado and Rodríguez Expedition visited the land on what became present day New Mexico in 1581–1582. The expedition was led by Francisco Sánchez, called "El Chamuscado," and Fray Agustín Rodríguez, the first Spaniards known to have visited the Pueblo Indians since Francisco Vásquez de Coronado 40 years earlier.
Jumanos were a tribe or several tribes, who inhabited a large area of western Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, especially near the Junta de los Rios region with its large settled Indigenous population. They lived in the Big Bend area in the mountain and basin region. Spanish explorers first recorded encounters with the Jumano in 1581. Later expeditions noted them in a broad area of the Southwest and the Southern Plains.
Juan Sabeata was a Jumano Indian leader in present day Texas who tried to forge an alliance with the Spanish or French to help his people fend off the encroachments of the Apaches on their territory.
Nicolás de Aguilar a mestizo, was a Spanish official in New Mexico. He defended the Pueblo Indians who wanted to continue their earlier religious practices even after converting, clashed with the Franciscan missionaries, and was tried and found guilty of heresy by the Mexican Inquisition. As a result of this conviction, his public career ended and he was banished from New Mexico.
Gran Quivira, also known as Las Humanas, was one of the Jumanos Pueblos of the Tompiro Indians in the mountainous area of central New Mexico. It was a center of the salt trade prior to the Spanish incursion into the region and traded heavily to the south with the Jumanos of the area of modern Presidio, Texas and other central Rio Grande areas. Its ruins are now part of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.
Domingo Jironza Pétriz de Cruzate was a Spanish soldier who was Governor of New Mexico from 1683 to 1686, and again from 1689 to 1691. He came to office at a time a large part of the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México was independent of Spanish rule due to the Pueblo Revolt. With limited resources, he was unable to reconquer the province.
The Jumanos Pueblos were several villages of the Tompiro Indians in the mountainous area of central New Mexico between Chupadera Mesa and the Gallinas Mountains including Pueblo Colorado, Pueblo Blanco (Tabirá), and the smaller Pueblo de la Mesa. Usually the group includes the addition of Gran Quivira and Pueblo Pardo. They were separated from the rest of the larger Salinas Pueblo group which lie north of Chupadera Mesa. The Jumanos Pueblos were a center of the salt trade prior to the Spanish incursion into the region and traded heavily with the Jumanos to the south in the area of modern Presidio, Texas and other central Rio Grande areas. They may have also traded with Jumanos along the Pecos River and other places to the east and maybe even north.