THE DEAD PUEBLO
In 1838 the dozen or so of Indians, who comprised at that time the fading population of Pecos, abandoned their ancient pueblo and took refuge with their kinfolk of Jemez from the unceasing Comanche raids, which for more than a century had been diminishing the tribe. This closed a period of continuous occupation estimated by archaeologists at more than fifteen hundred years, during which the pueblo had become the most powerful in the Rio Grande region. A veritable fortress on its final site,—for it had been removed to the mesa top from an earlier location across the arroyo,—it is believed that Pecos had been founded as a result of the growing attacks of the wild tribes of the Plains and Desert upon the scattered farming communities of the fertile valleys and uplands of the vicinity. For many centuries and through many shifts of the local culture (by no means primitive when Pecos was founded) the community grew in strength—an eastern outpost of the Pueblo civilization. When in 1540 Coronado entered New Mexico in quest of the “seven cities of Cibola,” the people of Cicuyé (a Tewa name by which Pecos became known to the Spaniards) sent a delegation with presents, offering their friendship. Hernando de Alvarado was despatched to the town, where, says the chronicler Castañeda, “the people came out with signs of joy, and brought them into the town with drums and pipes and something like flutes, of which they had a great many; they made many presents of cloth and turquoises, of which there are quantities in that region; and the Spaniards enjoyed themselves for several days.” Of the village Castañeda says: “The houses are all alike, four stories high. One can go over the top of the whole village without there being a street to hinder. There are corridors going all around it at the first two stories, by which one can go around the whole village.... The people of this village boast that no one has been able to conquer them and that they can conquer whatever villages they wish.” It was at Pecos that the Spaniards found the Plains Indian “El Turco,” who told of the wonderful Quivera and lured them on into the expedition toward the Missouri River. When finally Coronado returned to Mexico, Friar Luis, a lay brother, remained at Pecos, one of the two first missionaries of the region. Castañeda writes: “Nothing more has been heard about him; but before the army left Tiguex some men who went to take him a number of sheep met him as he was on his way to visit some other villages.... He felt very hopeful that he was liked at the village [Pecos] and that his teaching would bear fruit, although he complained that the old men were falling away from him. I, for my part, believe that they finally killed him.” Later the Franciscans built at Pecos one of their largest establishments, now a massive ruin.