Pueblo Resistance and Inter-Ethnic Conflict: The 1540–1542 Vázquez de Coronado Expedition to the Middle Río Grande Valley, New Mexico

Abstract

The expedition led by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado from west-central Mexico into the American Southwest from 1540 to 1542 had a profound and lasting impact on everybody involved. The exploration sought an overland route to Asia and to establish trade relations. The enterprise was also the first major contact between foreigners/others and Indigenous peoples of northern Mexico and the American Southwest. Research at Piedras Marcadas Pueblo, an ancestral village of the Southern Tiwa in central New Mexico, has material evidence and artifact patterns reflecting the cultural groups on the exploration and those with whom the expeditionaries ultimately fought. Geophysics surveys and metal detection have found evidence of a major battlesite at the pueblo. Specific artifact types, such as European metal items, slingstones hurled by their Mexican allies, and piles of rocks thrown back by Pueblo defenders all attest to the conflict and the hard-fought Tiwa resistance.