PUEBLO, pwebiti (Sp., village). A name first used by the Spaniards, and later adopted by the Americans, to designate the semi-civilized agricultural and sedentary Indians dwelling in adobe or stone-built communal houses in the arid region of the Southwestern United States, chiefly along the Rio Grande and its tributaries. The term 'village Indians' was used in distinc tion from the ruder wandering tribes, without reference to political or linguistic affiliations. The existing pueblos, o• settlements, now num ber 27, besides the Slexicanized colonies of Isleta in Texas and &meet) in Mexico, to gether with several sub-pueblos, representing in all four distinct stocks, with about twice as many languages and several additional dialects. With the exception of Zufii, the seven Mold villages in Arizona and the two Pueblo colonies below El Paso, all the exist ing pueblos are within a limited area of north central New Mexico, but the hundreds of ruins, together with traditional and historical evidence, prove that the area of Pueblo culture formerly comprised the whole region from the Pecos to the middle Gila, and from central Colorado and Utah southward into Mexico. This does not mean that all of the ruins were occupied at the same time, but that at one time or another every part of the region in question was within the sphere of Pueblo culture. There seems to have been a gradual withdrawal from the northern and other more exposed sections and a concentra tion upon central points, due to the invasion of the savage Apache and Navaho. Some Pueblo tribes have distinct traditions of their former occupancy of particular ruins, frequently remote from their existing villages.
The recorded history of the Pueblos begins with their discovery by Father Marcos de Niza in 1530, followed up by the expedition of Coro nado (q.v.) the following year. Later on the occupation and conquest of the country was begun in earnest. Within the next century missions were established in nearly every pueblo, and the whole country was mapped out into districts, held under close subjection by Spanish garrisons.
The exactions of the commanders, the outrages of the soldiers, and the interference of the mis sionaries with the old-time pleasures and cerci monies of the Indians, bred discontent, and in 1680, under the leadership of Popi•, a medicine man of the Tewa, there was a sinuiltaneous rising of the Pueblos from the Pecos to the Hopi villages so sudden and complete in its surprise that priests, soldiers, and civilians were every where butchered, and the survivors after holding out for a time under Governor Oterinin at Santa Fe fled to El Paso, leaving not a single Spaniard in New Mexico. A few of the Piro and Tigua tribes who adhered to the Spaniards followed them in their retreat, and were afterwards colonized respectively at Seneeii and. Isleta, below El Paso. The people of Awatobi, one of the Hopi towns, who had refused to dismiss or butcher their missionaries, were massacred by their kindred of the other Hopi villages, and their town was destroyed. Taking care to make their preparation complete, the Spaniards gathered their forces together for another invasion of the country, and this time with such success that by 1692 the reconquest of the Pueblos was complete. The missions, however, were not reestablished, and most of the tribes relapsed into their primi tive religion and ceremonial. Their history from that period until the Mexican War brought them under American .jurisdiction is of little outside importance. By the treaty with Mexico they were declared American citizens on the same terms as their Mexican neighbors, but the new territorial administration refused to admit them to equal rights, and they continue to be treated as Indians under Government control according to the regular agency system. They are entirely self-supporting, however, and ask and receive little beyond schools and recognition of certain village and farming reservations.