On the Feast Day of San Lorenzo, August 10, 1680, the Franciscan priest Fray Juan Pío left early from Santa Fe to say Mass in the nearby pueblo of Tesuque. A Spanish settler living in Tesuque had been murdered the day before and Pío was preoccupied with reports of an imminent Indian uprising.
Before the day was over, Pío would disappear, his bloodstained shield found, and four hundred Spaniards, among them twenty other Franciscan priests, would be killed. After more than 140 years of submission to Spanish colonial rule, the Pueblos had united with other Indian tribes to revolt against their colonizers. Led by a medicine man known as Popé, they plundered homes and demolished churches and other signs of the Spanish empire, including government documents. The Pueblo Revolt had begun.
Spanish survivors were driven as far south as present-day El Paso. For the next twelve years, New Mexico would remain free of Spanish rule.
From Trouble for the Spanish: The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, Humanities, Volume 23/Number 6, November/December 2002
Popé, or Po’pay, is one of two New Mexicans depicted in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall.
In 1675 Po’pay and 46 other Pueblo leaders were convicted of sorcery; he was among those flogged, while others were executed. In 1680 Po’pay organized the Pueblo Revolt against the Spanish. According to legend, to coordinate the timing of the uprising, he and his followers sent runners to each pueblo with knotted deerskin strips. One knot was to be untied each day, and the revolt would begin on the day the last one was untied. However, the Spaniards arrested two of the runners, and the pueblos were quickly notified to accelerate the revolt. The attacks began on August 10, two days before the last knot would have been untied. The Spaniards took refuge at Santa Fe; the besieging Indians cut off their water supply but soon permitted them to leave the area. The Pueblo Revolt helped to ensure the survival of the Pueblo culture and shaped the history of the American Southwest.
Many New Mexicans refer to it as the St. Lawrence Day Massacre as most of the Spanish killed were women, children and priests. Only 73 of 400 were soldiers and men. Thus, it should be called a massacre. Due to political correctness, Po’Pay was created as the protagonist for the Pueblos.