On this date in 1680, the surviving Spanish settlers under siege decided to abandon Santa Fe and began the trek to Chihuahua. The Spanish did not return to New Mexico for 12 years.
Colonists from Mexico first settled in New Mexico, north of present-day Santa Fe, in 1598. By the 1620s there were 2,000 colonists taking land and forcing labor from the Puebloans, occasionally executing dozens of Indians for the murder of one settler. In the 1660s a drought further stressed conditions for all, especially as Apaches and others raided the Pueblos. Many Puebloans began to feel that deserting their own religion to accept Christianity had brought on these disasters. There were occasional uprisings, but nothing sustainable until Popé, a San Juan medicine man, began unifying resistance among the various independent Pueblos in 1675.
On August 10, 1680, the Indians launched a unified all-out attack on Spanish settlers. Colonists were killed, churches burned, horses and cattle seized. Priests were singled out and killed in all the Pueblos, including Acoma, Zuni and Hopi (in modern Arizona). About 1,000 survivors escaped to Santa Fe and the town was put under siege on August 12. By the 16th the Indians occupied all of the town except the plaza and its surrounding buildings. According to reports, as they burnt the town the Indians sang Latin liturgy to taunt the Spanish.
Three-hundred-and-twenty-six years ago today the settlers were allowed to withdraw from Santa Fe. When they reached El Paseo del Norte in October, there were 1,946 from of a population that had been about 2,500. About 400 had been killed, another 150 escaped to Mexico independently.
The Puebloans removed all signs of the Spanish — the churches, the religion itself, the crops, even the animals (the horses let loose on the plains, eventually transforming the culture of the Plains Indians). One vestige remained: one man rule. Popé declared himself that man and moved to the Palace in Santa Fe.
Spanish attempts at reconquest failed until 1692.