The Pueblo Revolt

The Secret Rebellion That Drove the Spaniards Out of the Southwest

By: David Roberts

Narrated by: David de Vries

Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

The dramatic and tragic story of the only successful Native American uprising against the Spanish, the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

With the conquest of New Mexico in 1598, Spanish governors, soldiers, and missionaries began their brutal subjugation of the Pueblo Indians in what is today the Southwestern United States. This oppression continued for decades, until, in the summer of 1680, led by a visionary shaman named Pope, the Puebloans revolted. In total secrecy they coordinated an attack, killing 401 settlers and soldiers and routing the rulers in Santa Fe. Every Spaniard was driven from the Pueblo homeland, the only time in North American history that conquering Europeans were thoroughly expelled from Indian territory.

Yet today, more than three centuries later, crucial questions about the Pueblo Revolt remain unanswered. How did Pope succeed in his brilliant plot? And what happened in the Pueblo world between 1680 and 1692, when a new Spanish force reconquered the Pueblo peoples with relative ease?

David Roberts set out to try to answer these questions and to bring this remarkable historical episode to life. He visited Pueblo villages, talked with Native American and Anglo historians, combed through archives, discovered backcountry ruins, sought out the vivid rock art panels carved and painted by Puebloans contemporary with the events, and pondered the existence of centuries-old Spanish documents never seen by Anglos.

©2004 David Roberts. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Learning From the Past

We each, in our own way, try to understand how we got “here” from “there”. Many historians, writers and scientists work on figuring out the answered to those questions. However, when you stop to consider your own personal history, the stories you tell about your short-term experiences (historically speaking), you realize that you may tell the same story differently from another who experienced the same event. This book retells the story of this particular event, BUT attempts to include different perspectives from the same moments.

What this gifts you is the experience as a whole “thing”; and you then have the freedom to “see” events in your own mind. That makes the writer extremely talented and deeply curious about you, his reader. And you, as the reader free to come to an historical understanding from your own experiences.

Telling a story that doesn’t want to be told

I really got a lot out of this book, but can’t shake the feeling of guilt for listening to a story that many of the Pueblo people don’t want told.
I appreciate the sensitivity that Roberts gave to the subject matter, but the Anglo influence is ever present. I recommend this book but caution that the information in it is highly sensitive/contested by some Pueblo people.

Great summary of the Pueblo uprising and the persistence of the peoples of the SW

Great summary of the Pueblo uprising and the persistence of the peoples of the SW

Enlightening

Having traveled from Oregon several years ago while investigating the Civil War battle site East of Santa Fe at Glorieta in a nearby visitor location I ran across a reference to this revolt against the Spanish. Its always been one of those things I wanted to know more about but never made the time to investigate until recently reminded while listening to the audiobook version of "El Norte" (excellent book @ Spanish heritage in the United States). I paused "El Norte" at the pueblo revolt, obtained this book for more detail, and am very pleased that I did. I highly recommend this well written and narrated book to anyone wanting to know about this event. …. now back to "El Norte"....

Essential American history

Before I read this book the only thing I knew about the 1680 Pueblo revolt was that something happened. So glad I know so much more now. This is an essential part of history. What a story of tragedy and courage.