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More history of Pecos National Monument Park, New Mexico
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Text adapted from an article in the Albuquerque Journal by James Abarr
and from information available at the Visitor's Center.
In the Sangre de Cristo Mountains 25 miles southeast of Santa Fe, New
Mexico, ruins of an Indian pueblo remain from an golden age of a
once-powerful people. Weathered walls of a Spanish church rise above
the pueblo ruins, which extend along a narrow ridge rising from the
floor of a shallow valley cut by the Pecos River.
These are part of the ruins of the Pecos Pueblo. Surrounded by mountain
peaks and mesas, Pecos was once one of the largest and most powerful Indian
communities in the ancient Southwest. Because the site commanded the
mountain gateway between the Plains tribes to the east and the Pueblo
villages of the Rio Grande Valley to the west, Pecos became a major
trading center and a cultural melting pot dominating the Pueblo world.
Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches and other tribes came regularly to Pecos for
bartering sessions lasting for days. They brought slaves, buffalo
hides, flint and shells and exchanged them for the pottery, crops, textiles
and turquoise of the river settlements. From about 1450 to 1600, Pecos had
a population of about 2,000 with a fighting force of 500 warriors.
Don Juan de Onate brought the first settlers to New Mexico in 1598, and the
Spanish had come to stay. Their goals were on converting Indians to
Christianity and on building a colonies of settlements and farms.
Fray Francisco de San Miguel of the Catholic Order of Friars Minor
(Franciscan) erected a crude chapel at Pecos in 1598. But it wasn't
until 1620 that the padres launched their major effort to convert the
pueblo. Then Fray Pedro de Ortega, using Indian labor, began
construction of a huge church, which he called Nuestra Senora de Los
Angeles de Porcnuncula or Our Lady of the Angels of Porcnuncula.
Nuestra Senora was an impressive achievement. The nave, or central worship
hall, was 150 feet long and 40 feet wide. Its massive adobe walls, 22 feet
thick in places, with rows of buttresses and six bell towers.
To the south of the church, a sprawing "convento," which provided living
quarters for priests and church staff, covered hundreds of square feet.
This stunning church did not survive. After a half-century of bringing
Christian teachings and new ways of life to Pecos, Nuestra Senora
was destroyed in the great Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
In 1716, Fray Jose de Arranegui completed a new church at Pecos. Far less
ambitious than the original mission, it was built over the ruins of the
church destroyed in 1680. The smaller structure was designed to serve a
diminishing population, for the once-powerful pueblo was on the decline. By
the late 1700s, it counted less than 300 souls.
One historian noted: "The threat of warring Comanches led to abandonment
of farm land. This, coupled with drought, brought famine. Hundreds died from
epidemics and many moved away. By 1800, new Hispanic settlements in the area
had taken over the trade that had made Pecos prosper."
Pecos was now a ghost town, and in 1838, the last 17 residents walked away
to move in with their cousins at Jemez. For years after its abandonment,
Pecos weathered away under the battering of rain, snow and wind. The great
multi-storied community houses with their hundreds of rooms melted down,
and much of the church, stripped of its roof and wooden beams by area
settlers, partially collapsed into the reddish soil from which it had come.
For many years, Pecos was protected as a New Mexico State Monument, but in
1965, the ruins became a national monument when they were transferred to the
National Park Service.
Today, a walk through the ruins reveals rough, poorly-fitting stones
in uneven rows marking the lower tiers of the two terraced community houses
that once towered four stories high. Residents were apparently short on
building skills. Alfred V. Kidder, archaeologist from Phillips Academy of
Andover, Massachusetts, pioneered excavations at Pecos from 1915 to 1924.
He reported: "These people weren't builders, they were stackers. As one
dwelling fell into ruins, a new one was simply constructed on top of the
old one." In one area, excavations have uncovered six levels of dwellings.
Remains of more than 20 kivas, underground ceremonial chambers that played
a role in Pueblo religion, dot the ruins.
On the southern edge of
the mesa, the trail leads you and your camera through the ruins of the
church built in 1716. There are photo opportunities all around you, as
Sunlight streams in through a roofless nave outlined by reddish walls still
many feet thick. Adjoining the sanctuary is the remains of the convento.