V

Exile: 1680 - 1693

Regrouping

Not all had acted honorably on the torturous march south. Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza II, whose estancia had been below the Isleta Pueblo, was accused of burying plowshares and other agricultural implements as a means of lightening his wagons, although he knew these would be needed by the exiled colony. He and a number of the Pedro Durán y Cháves II clan were later indicted for profiteering on the misery of the colony. Others, such as Antonio de Carvajal and Cristóbal Enríquez II, were accused of taking an undue share of relief supplies. For the most part, however, the group demonstrated exemplary behavior.¹

It was not until the colonists reached El Paso that they were able to stop and fully assess the damage. Catalina Bernal and Ana de Sandoval y Manzanares were representative of the many widows who were left with young children. There were so many devastated families! The initial determination was that the colony had suffered the loss of 380 colonists and twenty-one Franciscans, but the exact number will never be known. On the other hand, the census taken by Governor Otermín determined that the survivors numbered 1,946 with approximately 300 Pueblo Indians who had cast their lot with the retreating Spaniards and joined them in exile.² Undoubtedly, additional survivors had continued running, escaping into New Spain, out of reach of both colonial authority and Indian revenge.

The Albizuses were perhaps a bit better equipped than were many of the other families. Colonists from the Río Abajo, they were at least able to pack some bedding and a canvas with which to construct a rude tent. The chestnut-haired Antonio Albizu needed the help of his son to secure to the wheels of his wagon the ropes of the canvas which flapped uncontrollably in the desert wind. He hated his inability to grasp the wildly flapping sheet, but his lame finger restricted the complete use of his good hand.³ While his wife, Gregoria Baca, searched among the survivors for her sister Gertrudis and for her cousins, one can imagine what was in Antonio’s mind at this time. He was probably thanking God his children were older and able to assist during this grueling period. It would be horrible, he must have thought, to have young children who were completely dependent upon you for their survival. It was bad enough to suffer one’s own hunger, thirst, and fear, but to have to suffer these also for your children, whom you had a responsibility to protect, would be unthinkable.

Gregoria and Gertrudis were the only children of Antonio Baca to escape the onslaught,⁴ and they could only find a single surviving first cousin among the impoverished crowd. Cristóbal Baca II, son of their uncle Alonso, was there with his wife, Ana Moreno de Lara, and his six adult children.⁵ Some of his children had their own families with them, and they were scattered throughout the encampment. The survivors were no longer a colony. Each family was wondering what the next move would be and was badly in need of direction.

Almost immediately, Governor Otermín attempted to provide that direction for his exiled people. In early October, he moved his group across the Rio Grande where he established them in three camps below the mission of Guadalupe del Paso. Here the colonists began to erect rude shelters. And here Governor Otermín received new orders from his viceroy to retake Santa Fe and to reestablish a Christian enclave among the Indians.

The viceroy’s orders revealed his distance from the reality of the situation. He could issue his directives, but both the undertaking and accomplishment of these were another matter. Otermín had some difficulty mounting an expeditionary force for the return to New Mexico. Many felt they had been totally demoralized; others had lost everything. When Diego Lucero de Godoy I, for example, packed his gear at Taos for the trip to El Paso as a member of the Leyva escort party, he had no idea he would never return. He was one of those who had lost it all. For him there was nothing to go back to but memories. He preferred to remember his smiling and laughing children as they cantered alongside him when he left his estancia, to the bitter reality of returning to the beautiful but desolate place they had called home, to the place where he would never hear their voices again. No. He was not going back. There was nothing there but the reminder of what was forever lost.

Diego was not alone. A number of colonists petitioned to return to New Spain, while others c rept away in the night. Although some were caught and required to return, others, like Diego, eventually received permission to move south and did not return to New Mexico.

On November 5, 1681, however, after more than a year in El Paso, the governor was able to put a group of 146 Spaniards into the field, the majority of these being colonists from the Río Abajo who had not suffered the full fury of the rebellion. They were accompanied by four or five friars, twenty-eight servants and 112 Indian allies.⁶ This force, which included Sargento Mayor Ignacio Baca, left El Paso during November, perhaps with the intention of retaking New Mexico, although how Otermín expected to accomplish this with his very small force is uncertain.

As they marched north, they found the pueblos of the Piro deserted and burned them. Continuing north, they took the Indians of Isleta by surprise and easily moved into their village. Here they were greeted rather amiably by the Isletans who had not taken part in the rebellion, perhaps because this pueblo had been the southern outpost for the colonists of the Río Abajo. Beginning again, the Spaniards absolved the people for any part they may have played in the rebellion, baptized their infants, and began destroying their idols. Had they learned nothing?

Establishing Isleta as his base of operations, Otermín sent Indian scouts to the Indians of the northern pueblos, telling them to stay in their villages and to prepare themselves to be placed under Spanish rule once again. Hearing nothing from them, Otermín ordered one of his cavalry officers to mount a scouting party to move north and determine what was going on. This officer was Juan Domínguez de Mendoza, brother of Tomé, who had lightened his wagons in order to more easily make the trip south into exile.

From Isleta, the fifty-two-year-old Domínguez moved north finding pueblo after pueblo deserted except for an occasional wizened old man or woman, too old or feeble to have gone into hiding with their people.⁷ Finally, at Cochiti, the scouting party met the Pueblos, a large force assembled and waiting for them on a fortified mesa.

This was the first encounter between the Pueblos and the colonists since the latter had fled down river more than a year before. In the colonists’ absence, the Pueblos, under the fierce direction of Popé, had burned and razed the churches, desecrated and destroyed Christian religious objects. They had also been ordered to burn Iberian seed (the seed of those agricultural products introduced to the Americas by the Spaniards). The Pueblo Indians were, of course, forbidden to speak Spanish and had been required to scour their bodies in the river with yucca root soap to erase their Christian names and to remove any vestige of baptismal water or holy oil. They had also been required to ignore their Christian-sanctioned marriages and to take new wives. Except for the destruction of Iberian seed, an act which the Indians refused to carry out, Popé’s dictates had been obeyed almost to the letter even though they caused great consternation among many of the Pueblo Indians. In destroying everything Spanish, many of the Pueblos could see that they were losing much which was beneficial.

In one very interesting way, Popé took over where the Spaniards had left off. The encomienda tribute, previously directed to the Spaniards, was now collected by Popé. Not only did he require that the Pueblo Indians give up their sheep, cattle, and fruit trees, but he also required they pay taxes. His leadership was to last less than a year.⁸ Thus, when the large group of Pueblo Indians met Domínguez on that fortified mesa near Cochiti during the winter of 1681, it was not Popé with whom the colonists parlayed, but Alonso Catiti and he was just as bright and crafty as Popé.

In a series of meetings between the two groups, Catiti played for time. Pretending to sue for peace with the Spaniards, he offered to negotiate with the Indians of the other pueblos while planning the Spaniards’ slaughter. His scheme was quite simple. He planned to have some attractive young women of the Cochiti enter the Spanish camp to entertain the soldiers. Then, when the soldiers were engaged with the Indian women, the Indian men would drive off the soldiers’ horses. Catiti felt that, on foot and sixty miles from their main force at Isleta, the hapless Spaniards could be picked off at leisure. Had the plot not been betrayed to one of Domínguez’ men by a former servant, Domínguez’ small group would surely have been cut off and cut down by both the Pueblo Indians gathered at Cochiti, and those arriving from the north. In stead, Domínguez and his mounted troops in deep snow through which they trudged, began a retreat south to Isleta. When Domínguez and his group met Otermín and the remainder of the soldiers on the trail, the total group decided to quit New Mexico, taking with them to El Paso 385 of the Isleta people.⁹

If Otermín’s intention had been reconquest, he was unsuccessful; the entrada, however, was not without accomplishment in that it taught the Spanish conquerors some hard truths about the people they had conquered and converted. For example, if the Spaniards had labored under the misconception that the Pueblo Indians had been forced by their leaders into rebellion, they found this to be untrue. They also found that the Pueblo Indians were not waiting for their return with open arms.¹⁰ The Spaniards would have to wait at El Paso for reinforcements and new leadership during which time some of their members would desert, and others would be allowed to leave; marriages would be consummated, and children born; and many of their company would die. It would be twelve long years before the colonists would return to the homes they had been forced to abandon.

Originally settled into three camps at El Paso, the colonists, and their Indian allies, eventually established several scattered settlements in the vicinity of Guadalupe del Paso. These were El Santisimo Sacramento (later to be called Corpus Christi de Ysleta), San Pedro de Alcantara, and a third site, which was later to become the capital of the colony in exile.¹¹ (Later settlements in this vicinity were San Elizario and San Marcial. Interestingly, although Guadalupe del Paso was settled by 1661, Corpus Christi de Ysleta, which was founded in 1681, is considered by many residents in Texas to be her oldest community.)

In El Paso Governor Otermín brooded about what lay ahead. Apparently feeling that New Mexico was a lost cause, or that it offered little even if reconquered, he tried to resign his appointment so he could get on with the rest of his life. His request to step down was refused, however, and he was required to serve out his term on the Diablo Plateau.

At the conclusion of his tenure in 1683 Otermín was replaced by General don Domingo Jironza Petriz de Cruzate. Governor Jironza, a veteran of many military campaigns in Europe, began immediately to organize the dispirited colonists into a group hoping to renew a sense of purpose. He gathered them in from their scattered camps, consolidated them, and directed them in their building of a new town. They called this new settlement El Real de San Lorenzo, for the saint on whose feast day (August 10) the Pueblos had initiated their rebellion.

Life at San Lorenzo, although not impossible, was very difficult. While Jironza was building his adobe palace, the colonists constructed rather rude shelters made of tree branches plastered with mud. They seemed totally disinclined to build more permanent homes, hoping perhaps that they would eventually be allowed to return to New Spain or to New Mexico. (The destitute condition of these settlers is best described in a chronicled visitation by Attorney General Juan Severino Rodríguez from September 11 to 14 in 1684. His descriptions are given in Appendix I.)

During the cold January of 1683, Juana de Carvajal, wife of Juan Lucero de Godoy died at San Lorenzo.¹² Fifty-nine year old Juan, former secretary of government and war, may have wondered if it had all been worth it. At the rebellion of 1680, he had been alcalde mayor of Santa Fe. Although not a position of privilege, this post as a superior civil official with executive, legislative, and judicial responsibilities placed him and his family in a position of some respect. At San Lorenzo, they were nothing. They spent their days fighting off the Texas Indians who were bent on finishing the job of annihilating the Spaniards that had been left incomplete by the Pueblos. All felt the pangs of hunger and hardship, but Juana succumbed to them. Surrounded by her adult children and many grandchildren, she passed from life, never again to see her Pueblo Quemado.

Life went on though for Juan Lucero de Godoy and for the other members of the colony. Despite the hardships presented by the Indians and the sparse farming and grazing land at San Lorenzo, some of the colony even decided they would make their permanent homes there. They farmed and built a small church for their Conquistadora and thanked God they were still alive.

The Spaniards now had new forces driving them. Competition was coming at them from all s ides: the English, the Dutch, the French, and the Portuguese. In 1685, Frenchman Rene Robert Cavelier Sieur de la Salle, apparently working on information furnished to the French by the exiled Diego de Peñalosa, former governor of New Mexico, attempted to establish a colony on the Texas coast. He began also to move westward in search of gold and silver. Four years later, the Spaniards would mount an expedition led by Alonso de Leyva to destroy the French colony, but in the meantime, it seemed imperative to Spain that it retake New Mexico. This was the directive that was given to Governor Jironza by the Spanish government. The Spanish officials, however, gave him nothing with which to accomplish their order. The colony of San Lorenzo, therefore, merely waited, regaining its strength, preparing for the next opportunity to move north.

The next opportunity came in 1689 when Governor Jironza put together a small force for what must have been a reconnaissance expedition. This group had approximately the same number of men in it as did the group led by Otermín eight years before. They marched quickly up the Rio Grande Valley to meet a group of northern Pueblo Indians massed at the stone pueblo of Zía above present-day Bernalillo. The Indians at Zía greatly outnumbered the Spanish and, in addition, had sent north for further reinforcements. Despite being outnumbered ten to one, however, the Spanish forces won a decisive victory, killing 600 of the Keres people, and taking seventy prisoners to be sold as slaves. The que-kos then moved south with their prisoners, but all knew they would be back.

By this time, at the age of sixty-five, Juan Lucero de Godoy had married his third wife, Isabel de Salazar, the adopted daughter of Encomendero Andrés Hurtado and Bernardina de Salas.¹³ Ironically, had it not been for the Indian rebellion, Juan might never have met Isabel, for the Hurtados were a family of the Río Abajo. Isabel’s father held the encomienda of Santa Ana and the neighboring pueblos. Her sister, María de Salazar, was married to Manuel Baca, son of Cristóbal Baca II. Thus, Juan Lucero de Godoy and Manuel Baca became brothers-in-law.

Don Diego de Vargas

On February 22, 1691, don Diego de Vargas Zapata y Luján Ponce de Léon ascended to the governorship of New Mexico in exile.¹⁴ It is approximated that Antonio Lucero de Godoy II, son of Antonio Lucero de Godoy I and Antonia Varela de Losada was born some four years earlier. Thus, Juan, Antonio I and Antonio II, son, grandson, and great-grandson of Pedro Lucero de Godoy, waited at San Lorenzo for don Diego de Vargas to take them back to New Mexico. Placing their trust in this unlikely-looking hero, a strutting aristocrat who spoke with a lisp, they could in fact not have chosen a greater champion.

Don Diego de Vargas had all the credentials for the job. The last legitimate son of the illustrious house of Vargas of Madrid, ¹⁵ he was a nobleman of twenty years’ service to the crown. He had served gallantly in New Spain and was here seeking fame and fortune. He wanted the assignment, although he later came to hate New Mexico, and he paid for his appointment. He would probably have preferred to climb onto his horse and ride north by himself, but good sense dictated that he plan his campaign well. Otermín and Jironza had failed to retake the kingdom. He must not also fail, for New Mexico was needed as a northern buffer to the mines in New Spain. He had promised the viceroy, Gaspar de la Cerda, the Conde de Galve, he would retake New Mexico; moreover, he was impatient to get out of the El Paso district which he despised.

As with everything else on the frontier, it took forever to get going. There were problems of supply, recruitment, and continual Indian depredations. Finally, however, on August 10, 1692, the twelfth anniversary of the Pueblo Rebellion, don Diego de Vargas was ready to go.¹⁶ Each of the two previous expeditions had numbered about 150 individuals, but his initial party appears to have been even smaller consisting of only forty mounted soldiers, ten armed civilians, fifty Indian auxiliaries and two Franciscan Friars. The energies and skills of the former colonists, however, were concentrated totally on a single objective: the retaking of New Mexico.

His plan was a two-stage affair. First, don Diego de Vargas had his supply carts, pack mules, and artillery units move out from the presidio (military post) to await him at Mount Ro bledo. Then, he, his mounted men and Indian auxiliaries marched out of the plaza of Guadalupe del Paso on August 21, amid the cheers and tears of the wives and families being left behind.¹⁷

Moving quickly, this party marched up the Rio Grande unimpeded, arriving at Santa Fe less than four weeks later. Through the gloom of the early morning of September 13, 1692,¹⁸ the Spaniards could just make out the shadowy form of the casas reales. But, as it began to grow light, they saw that what had once been their governor’s palace with its attendant buildings, was now a multi-storied Indian pueblo!

On the march north, the officers and men of this expeditionary force had been amazed at the impact their governor had on the hostile Indians of the pueblos they had encountered. Although delicate-looking, their forty-eight-year-old governor and captain-general had completely won over the people, pueblo after pueblo, with his soft voice, sincerity and strength of personality. Could he do the same here?

The small force worked its way to the walls of the casas reales. Don Diego de Vargas had told the soldiers that, under penalty of death, they were not to fire unless they saw him unsheathe his sword. Then, from outside the walls, the group, speaking as one man, uttered the loud cry, “Glory to the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar!” The startled Indians inside the casas raced to the rooftops to see a splendidly dressed Spaniard standing below. Through his interpreters, one of whom was his armorer and captain of artillery, Francisco Lucero de Godoy, Vargas told the Pueblos that “he had come in peace to pardon them and to accept their renewed obedience to God and King.¹⁹ The Spaniards could just hear the Indians shouting obscenities at them over the din of their trumpet calls and drum rolls. Then the arrogant and daring don Diego de Vargas divided his very small force. Outnumbered again, ten-to-one, the Spaniards nevertheless surrounded the casas reales, brought up two field pieces, and got themselves into position to do battle if necessary.

With some apprehension, the Spaniards watched while armed Indian warriors from some of the other pueblos gathered on the hills nearby. Then, as the Pueblos had done to them some twelve years before, the invading forces cut off the acequia bringing water into the fortress and waited, Vargas directly in front of the one door leading into the interior. Some hours later, and without a shot being fired, the Indians capitulated, sending their leaders out to make peace. Don Diego dismounted and embraced these men as respected compatriots. The next day, Vargas, resplendent in the dress of a man-at-court, watched while the Franciscans absolved the Pueblos of their sins, celebrated mass, and baptized the many children of the Tanos and Tewas born since 1680.

Then, at pueblo after pueblo, don Diego de Vargas and his small force repeated the ritual repossession of the kingdom. Most remarkably, at Pecos don Diego, after waiting for many days for these fearful and recalcitrant Pueblo Indians to return to their homes as requested, did not burn the pueblo. He also chose not to destroy their kivas, and he freed the Pecos people whom he had captured. He then erected a large cross in their plaza and withdrew to confer with the Tewas and Tanos of the other northern pueblos, and accept their surrender.

While waiting at the Pecos Pueblo, Vargas had captured three very old women, two of whom he felt must have been over a hundred years old. With them was a young man for whom these old women had apparently cared who identified himself as the son of Cristóbal de Anaya Almazán. It was his father who had been imprisoned by the Inquisition and killed by the Indians along with the rest of his family at his estancia at Angostura during the Indian revolt in 1680. The youth, Francisco de Anaya Almazán, was placed in the care of his first cousin, Francisco Lucero de Godoy.²⁰ (Chávez has him as Francisco’s nephew. This young man drowned two years later while crossing the Rio Grande.) ²¹

There were other colonial survivors of the 1680 rebellion also found at this time. The wife and daughter of Pedro Márquez, were rescued by his nephew, Francisco Márquez, during this bloodless entrada.²² María Naranjo and her mother, Juana Hurtado, were discovered by Juana’s brother Martín.²³ Juana and María were the sister-in-law and niece respectively of Juan Lucero de Godoy and Manuel Baca. José Domínquez de Mendoza found his sister Juana, her four daughters, and one son.²⁴ Two daughters of José Nevares de Leyva, spared when their mother was killed at Galisteo while their father was gone with the Leyva escort party, were found at San Juan by Juan Olguín, a relative.²⁵

Lucía de Madrid, eldest adopted child of Ana María de Anaya Almázan and Lorenzo de Madrid, might have been the Lucía that was made captive in 1680. She was single at the time but when discovered by her brother, José de Madrid, twelve years later, she had two children, one about twelve.²⁶ And perhaps most tragically (as the particular speaks to the life of these women in captivity), when Petrona Pacheco, wife of Cristóbal Nieto was discovered by Roque de Madrid, she had six children, three more than she had before her captivity.²⁷ All - soldiers, armed citizens, Indian auxiliaries, Franciscans, and these newly repatriated women with their young children - began the long march south to Guadalupe del Paso, triumphant, but cautious. It had been too easy.

Although don Diego de Vargas felt the entrada had been too simple, as future events would demonstrate, he was hopeful the Pueblos were as they presented themselves, repentant, and at least willing, if not eager, to again accept Spanish domination. As so correctly noted by one authority, it had been a ritual repossession and merely a symbolic reconquest.²⁸ He was back in the miserable hole of El Paso and the Pueblos were still there in his remote adobe capital in Santa Fe. In October of 1692, when he wrote to Viceroy Cerda and to his well-placed son-in-law in Madrid, he spoke of the difficulties he had endured, figuring that his victory would be well-received and would eventually result in his promotion to a more lucrative assignment.

Reconquest

Back in Guadalupe del Paso, Vargas began to plan for the second phase of his reconquest of New Mexico, occupation. Generously supported by the Conde and the crown, he threw himself into the tasks of recruitment and supply for the recolonizing effort. He had come back to El Paso in December of 1692 with the intention of returning to New Mexico as soon as possible. The timing of the contiguous reconquest and recolonization was crucial. He could leave no gap, no void within which the Pueblos could place a wedge. It would be like a chink in the armor of his venture through which the first well-placed arrow could be driven home. He had to move fast, but fast meant leaving in mid-fall of 1693. Many argued against this move, but the impatient Vargas insisted in putting his expedition on the trail.

Don Diego de Vargas had said he needed 550 families²⁹ and 100 soldiers, but when his crew forded the river at El Paso for the trip north, he had but seventy families.³⁰ (See Appendix II.) This time Josefa López de Grijalva had time to prepare the beloved statue of the Virgin for her journey. La Conquistadora had been entrusted to Josefa’s care thirteen years before and she had carried her into exile, wondering if either would ever return. Now, having taken her from her throne in the small church at San Lorenzo, Josefa dressed her in the figured, white French silk provided by her husband, Francisco Lucero de Godoy.³¹ She attempted to affix a silver crown to the Virgin’s head, but gave this up as futile, since the statuette would have a long trip in a two-wheeled cart, making the retention of her fragile crown improbable. Then, kissing her softly and wrapping her in one of the soft cotton blankets of her children, she carefully placed her in a box to be loaded onto a freight wagon. She would see her in Santa Fe.

In the Vargas party was the family of José de Valle and Ana de Ribera. They were traveling with an orphan, Bernardino de Sena, son of Agustín de Sena and María Ynez de Amparano.³² Here, also, were the Gallegos, the Gonzáles, the Garcías, the Herreras, the Jaramillos, the Leybas, the Montoyas, and the Zamoras. They were all, like the Luceros de Godoy and the Bacas, returning to their homes in New Mexico. The Lucero contingent consisted of old Juan with his third wife, Isabel de Salazar, and her mother, Bernardina de Salas y Trujillo. Returning with Juan, were four of Juan’s adult children, Antonio I, Nicolás, Juan de Dios, and Pedro III, each with a family of his own, and Juan’s half-brother Francisco and his family.

The Baca family had been severely depleted. Alonso, the surviving son of Cristóbal I, had died long before the Indian rebellion. Cristóbal II, Alonso’s only male child, also had died by 1687. Cristóbal’s offspring, like their grand-uncle Antonio who was beheaded in the Rosas affair, appeared ill- fated. José had been married to Josefa Pacheco at Guadalupe del Paso. On July 3, 1687, he got into a fight with his brother-in-law Silvestre Pacheco and was killed by h im.³³ His wife Josefa and daughter Juana were now returning with Vargas. Ignacio, the second son of Cristóbal II, had been a sargento mayor at the presidio of Guadalupe del Paso. As the assistant alcalde of El Real de San Lorenzo, he had been required to arrest Pacheco, who had murdered his brother.³⁴ Ignacio had died by 1689, but his widow, two sons, and five daughters were returning with the reconquest. Thus, of the male Bacas, it was only Cristóbal’s third son, Manuel Baca, who was returning with the recolonization forces. He, like Juan Lucero de Godoy, was going back with his sons, Antonio, Juan Antonio, Diego Manuel and Cristóbal III, and Gregorio.

The brothers-in-law, thirty-four-year-old Manuel Baca and sixty-nine-year-old Juan Lucero de Godoy, forded the cold river at El Paso that morning of October 1693, each convinced it was too late in the year for the arduous trip which awaited them. The group, in addition to the settlers, consisted of approximately 100 soldiers, many Indian allies, seventeen Franciscans, eighteen wagons, 1,000 mules, 2,000 horses and 900 cattle.³⁵ The train was stretched out along the trail for several miles.

Soon, the journey which had begun with such promise turned into a nightmare. The colonists had not prepared well enough, if preparing well enough was ever possible, and winter had come early with its freezing wind and driving snow. Their carts began falling apart. They began to run out of provisions and had to trade their belongings for food as they moved upriver. Perhaps as many as thirty women and children died and were buried in nameless graves along the trail.³⁶

The colonists arrived in Santa Fe in mid-December, 1693, and camped on frozen ground outside the high city walls which had been built in their absence. Then, on December 16, don Diego de Vargas staged a glorious entrada with the intention of initiating a formal transition of the custody of the Villa de Santa Fe from the Indians to the Spanish.³⁷ With the Tanos and Tewas filling the plaza and the roofs of the casas reales to the north, don Fernando Durán y Cháves II, aboard a magnificent charger, cantered regally into the plaza.³⁸ The royal ensign for the occasion, Durán y Cháves, was the only one of his large family to return to New Mexico. He carried the royal banner with Oñate’s Our Lady of Remedies blowing stiffly in the morning chill. He was followed by the infantry and then the cavalry, marching in ranks and falling into parade formation in front of their reconstructed pueblo-fortress. Once the troops were in place, all awaited the entrance into the plaza of their captain-general, don Diego de Vargas.

When don Diego de Vargas rode into the plaza, he was greeted with resounding cheers from his people and subdued hurrahs from the Indians both inside and outside their new pueblo. He entered the plaza with the civil, military, and religious officials to whom he now planned to entrust the villa and the missions of his kingdom. Vargas issued a full pardon to the Pueblo Indians and promised them peace and good care. The Spaniards, leaving a few of their company to oversee the Indians’ departure, retired to their encampment to give the Indians time to gather their belongings and depart for their former homes in the Galisteo basin where they were supposed to be going. The only problem was the Indians didn’t go.

It had been naive to think the Indians would meekly uproot themselves at the bidding of their “conquerors.” The Spaniards went on hoping, however, while they huddled around their campfires outside the villa walls. Perhaps they thought the Pueblo Indians needed more time. The Spaniards continued to wait in the blue cold. Malnourished and totally exposed to the elements, twenty-one Spaniards, including many infants, died of exposure and had to be buried beneath the snow, the frozen ground refusing to accept their bodies in a proper burial.³⁹

Don Diego de Vargas conferred with the Indians. He even asked for their assistance in replacing the roof on the chapel of St. Michael which had been burned in the rebellion thirteen years earlier. The Tanos and Tewas said they would help, but this would have to wait until the weather was better and timber could be brought from the mountains.

Don Diego thought back to his late November encounters with the Pecos Indian, Juan de Ye, at San Felipe, and to his more recent meeting with him at his encampment outside Santa Fe. In the latter discussion with Juan de Ye and four other Pecos, ably interpreted by Francisco  Lucero de Godoy, Vargas had learned of a plot to annihilate the entire expedition.⁴⁰ He had decided at that time to proceed as if he had not heard that this was their intent, hoping the Pueblo Indians would see the futility of this move. This was a measure of his confidence in the Spaniards’ ability to best the Pueblo Indians in a fight. But the plan of the Indians was being carried forward. Vargas had sent foray after foray to the distant pueblos to trade meat for flour, maize and beans. The food they obtained, however, was not enough; moreover, cold and illness were decimating his ranks. His people pressed him for action. He could wait no longer.

On December 28, 1693, after spending a freezing Christmas in the snowdrifts which piled against his tent, Vargas received word from the blind interpreter, Agustín de Salazar,⁴¹ that the rebels inside the pueblo-fortress were poised for an attack. At the request of Vargas, Juan de Ye went to his pueblo to ask his people to join the Spaniards against the hated Tanos and Tewas.

The next day, hearing that the Pecos were waiting in the hills for his word, Vargas sent Francisco Lucero de Godoy to fetch them. Within hours, Lucero was back with 140 Pecos.⁴² Vargas’ decision not to destroy their kivas or pueblo the previous year was paying off.

Early the next morning, the little statue of La Conquistadora was set up on a makeshift altar outside the villa walls. Then the companies of cavalry and infantry were assembled before her in full military formation. They knelt in the snow and recited the Act of Contrition in a loud voice, and as one man. Given absolution by one of the friars and with words of encouragement from Vargas, the cavalry mounted and the infantry began to fall into ranks behind the horses which now fouled the snow over which they had to march. While tears streamed down the cheeks of their wives and children, the men began to move toward the wall where they would re-form for a charge on the fortress. Many of the men had difficulty seeing, their vision clouded by frozen tears.

The Spaniards charged the fortress and were met by a hail of arrows, stones, and obscenities. Over and over they attacked the walls, but the moat and the height of the palisades, proved to be formidable barriers. Still, they were able to take the parapet above the main entrance, burn the gate, and enter the first of two patios constructed within the compound in their absence. They secured the houses encircling this patio, began to build ladders, and then turned their attention toward a second group of Tewas from the northern pueblos who attacked them from the rear. With the help of the Pecos Indians, they were successful in repelling this attack with great losses to the Tewas. As night fell, the Spaniards held the first patio and were poised to attack the second.

The soldiers did not wait long. In the dark of early morning, they attacked the remaining Indians in the second half of the compound. The surprise ensured their victory. Caught totally off guard, and experiencing the full fury of these men whose children were freezing in the snow, the rebels ran, albeit hurling arrows and stones in the direction of the Spaniards as they fled. Seventy, who refused to surrender, were captured and executed in the plaza that morning.⁴³ Some 400 women and children who had been abandoned by their retreating warriors, were distributed among the colonists and soldiers and placed into servitude for ten years.⁴⁴ Although the Pueblo-Spanish war was to continue sporadically for at least another four years, the Spaniards could celebrate. With a cross erected over the main entrance of the pueblo-fortress, and Oñate’s banner flying from its roof tops, they again had Santa Fe and their exile was over.