Description

pp. 279, b/w photographs, “In 1598, Spain established a colony in what is today New Mexico; roughly 80 years later, more than 75% of the indigenous population was dead. A Pueblo shaman named Popé led survivors in a violent uprising in 1680 that resulted in a decade and a half of independence before the Spanish reasserted dominion over the territory. Delving into the few primary sources available, journalist Roberts (Four Against the Arctic, etc.) tries to set the record straight on this little-known, sometimes fancifully remembered event. Most notably, he corrects for the bias in surviving Spanish documents by adopting a more empathetic stance toward the Pueblo. Yet this project is hampered by the intense secrecy of modern Pueblo, which forces Roberts to incorporate into his account the struggle to find people willing to share their oral history with him. Gaining access to sacred sites and settlement ruins proves difficult, but vivid descriptions of the sites he did visit add a welcome immediacy to the tale. Roberts’s enthusiastic descriptions of Pueblo art, which played a crucial role in the religious conflict behind the rebellion, would have benefited from the inclusion of photographs. For the most part, however, this chronicle admirably illuminates the historical record while highlighting the problems inherent in re-creating history from fragmentary evidence. Maps. “