Book Review of "The Pueblo Revolt of 1680" .
Discovering the past of North America has been an twisted and dark story of inhumanity and self indulgence. The treatment of others by the European powers has recently been uncovered as a degrading time for the Native Americans. Nobody else in the past five hundred years has faced genocide of this power; albeit, the forces of the Spanish people have created the most horrific stories of domination by one race. To say all the Spanish people were horrible is in fact a nasty thing to say; there were some people under the Spanish crown that wanted fair treatment of the natives. Andrew L. Knaut explores these sides of the Spanish crown during the seventeenth century of their claim to New Mexico. The native peoples of the New Mexican territory would struggle to maintain or gain power back from the Spanish peoples; but the Spanish would find every outlet of exploitation and force new ideas upon these Pueblo Indians. The books intention was to shine new light on the external and internal struggles of both the Spanish and the Pueblo Indians. The following is a critical review of the facts stated in his book. This is followed up by a review of the book itself. .
The Native Americans of the New Mexican area before the seventeenth century would face very little outside conflict from foreigners, but by the early 1600's their freedom would radical change. The Pueblo Indians is a culmination of five major groups: Piro, Hopi, Zuni, Tano, and the Keresan. These groups of people faced challenges everyday living in the conditions that they inhabited, but when the outside force of the Spanish got involved all hell broke lose. The natives faced many power struggles as a nation, both internal and external factors played roles in their every day live style. Disease, famine, and Catholicism all were factors in destroying the Pueblo nation of the southwest.