We spent a long day yesterday touring the three widely separate properties of the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. The monument focuses on the Spanish missions and their "conquest" of the region, and they provide a disappointing lack of information about the native populations that the missions were established to convert, dominate, and ultimately to enslave. Each mission was built adjacent to a very large and vibrant native pueblo (village) and little archaeology has focused on the Prehispanic history of those pueblos although there is enough to have a general outline of each pueblo's history. As we left the last of the three missions/pueblos we agreed that we had seen enough of missions - all their stories have done is make us angrier and angrier about the injustices and brutalities carried out in the name of religion (as a tool of greed and power), a phenomenon that continues today. It is sad that we don't learn the lessons that history (and archaeology) has to teach us about "man's inhumanity to man."

But off our "soapbox" - the largest and the longest occupied of the three pueblos is at Gran Quivira and it is where most of the Prehispanic archaeology has been conducted. In the background is the Spanish mission that was never completed.

Building of the pueblo began around A.D. 1100 and housed about 2000 people by the 1400-1600s. During that time sections of the pueblo were abandoned, filled in (either by the occupants or by the dust storms) and then built again over the top.

It is located on a hill-top far away from water, which is puzzling; however, it was the regional center for trade for groups in all directions. The every-day household items reflect this, for instance a very small percentage of pottery was locally made and most came from adjacent cultural traditions (the pot below is flattened so that it can be carried long distances full of water on one's back with a tump line over the forehead).

The reason the trade center ended up here, apparently, is because nearby are shallow ephemeral playas that only hold water in the wettest of seasons. However, during the Ice Age they were expansive lakes with no outflow so the water then was saline depositing several feet of pure salt. Everyone wants/needs salt and it was quarried and traded by the citizens of Gran Quivira leading to their wealth and dominance of trade in the region.

The other two pueblos in the Salinas Monument (Abo and Quarai) were also involved in the salt trade (hence the name of the monument - "salinas" meaning salt works in Spanish). Building there began around 1300 and they each housed about 1000 - 1500 folks. Both were located along streams and Abo actually had a couple of springs within the pueblo so water was not an issue (in the photo below the mission is in the background but the massive mound in the foreground is the collapsed remains of a two to three story pueblo that has not been excavated).

The building of the missions was not done by the Spanish but was by native forced labor; and the buildings are massive! The men quarried the stone and cut the timbers while the women mixed the mortar and stacked the stone. Women also plastered the walls and whitewashed them making the mission stand out among the soil-colored stucco of the pueblos.

Since the monument is focused on the Spanish conquest we learned a lot about how Quarai became the regional center for the Spanish Inquisition - another example of the tyranny associated with organized religions. The Spanish also demanded from the natives a percentage of all crops, etc. (but we'll shut up about our feelings).

All three pueblos are in beautiful locations in the juniper-covered hills around the salt playas that supported their economy. They were occupied until the late 1670s when the survivors rebelled against the Spanish oppression - a regionally coordinated effort called the "Pueblo Revolt of 1680" that drove the hated Spanish out of the entire southwest. The few surviving native citizens moved in with relatives already occupying the pueblos along the Rio Grande River (like the Taos Pueblo mentioned a few blogs earlier). The Spanish returned in the first decade of the 1700s with overwhelming military force and subdued the rebellious native population - the region (and the people) ultimately became part of the United States after the Mexican-American War ending in 1848.

But enough of that - today a major storm moved into the Albuquerque area with very high winds and dust storms. We stayed in the trailer reading and enjoying some peace and solitude. The electricity went out (and so did the RV park wifi) because of the high winds for over four hours this afternoon but we have our own batteries and it was no big deal. The high winds are supposed to continue through tomorrow and perhaps the next day so we have delayed our departure from Albuquerque until Wednesday. It is so nice to be retired and not have to stick to a rigid schedule!