The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Summer 1995, Volume 41, Number 3
Richard W. Crawford, Editor

Book Notes

Stephen A. Colston, Book Review Editor

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680: Conquest and Resistance in Seventeenth-Century New Mexico.

By Andrew L. Knaut. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995. Bibliography. Illustrations. Notes. Index. 248 pages. $29.95. Buy this book.

In August 1680, Native Americans from the upper Rio Grande Valley (whom, because they resided in towns, the Spaniards designated as “Pueblos”) mounted a full-scale rebellion against Spanish rule. The attack forced Hispanic settlers, churchmen, soldiers, and civil authorities, as well as many of their native allies, to abandon the province of New Mexico for more than a dozen years. Andrew Knaut’s study is less about the 1680 revolt than of the developments which antedated this event by more than a century and which, the author convincingly demonstrates, were elements of a combustible formula that ultimately exploded in the form of the native insurrection. Two different forces–one, the Pueblos’ increasing resentment toward Spanish rule, and the other, the lessening ability of Hispanic colonists to control these native peoples–collided to create one of the most dramatic events in the history of the colonial North American frontier. Knaut has produced a carefully researched and well written book that examines Native-Hispanic stresses during more than a century of colonial life. This work should be welcomed by serious students of Southwestern and Native American history.

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