Among the Pueblos

Among the pueblos of Nuevo Mexico, Franciscan missionaries and Pueblo Indians structured their perceptions of and relationships with one another within religious frameworks. The history of cultural contact and interaction between friars and Pueblo peoples of the Southwest borderland reveals the prominence of religion within the history of the region and the lives of its inhabitants. The actions and reactions of Franciscans and Native American colonists expressed the influence of the religious motivations and behavioral norms that permeated their lives. Amidst patterns of social interaction that were infused with religious significance, missionaries and Pueblo congregants developed nuanced and fluid relationships. Residents of Nuevo Mexico engaged elements from diverse religious traditions and evidenced conversion, rejection, hybridization, and parallelism within their religious lives. The series of Native American revolts that marked the seventeenth century history of the colony was an articulation of Pueblo religious resistance that sought to redress the transgressions of New Mexican colonists. During initial Spanish colonization, the Pueblo Revolutionary period, and the later renewal of the colony, religion prominently influenced the cultural landscapes and historical experiences of Franciscan missionaries, Pueblo peoples, and the colony of Nuevo Mexico.