#206 The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 2: The Siege of Santa Fe and the Flight to El Paso
The History of the Americans
Jack Henneman
4.9 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It is August, 1680 in New Mexico. The rebelling Pueblo Indians have sprung their ambush and quickly killed 400 Spaniards. About 2500 survivors have concentrated in two groups, at the government buildings in Santa Fe, and 70 miles to the south at Isleta Pueblo. Each has reason to believe that everybody else has died, and they are alone. The Indians beseige Santa Fe, but Governor Antonio de Otermín leads a successful defense. Still, they are isolated and out of food, and determine to retreat to the recently established mission at El Paso. The southern group, under Lieutenant Garcia at Isleta, make the same decision. This is the history of that harrowing retreat, another amazing story of survival in the European settlement of today’s United States.
It is also the only time in American history that rebelling indigenous peoples entirely expelled an established European settlement from their territory. The Spaniards would, of course, eventually reconquer New Mexico, but not until 1692.
The settlement of the New Mexican refugees at El Paso would make it – for the moment – the third most populous settlement of Europeans in North America, and the functional beginning of the eventual New Spanish territory, Mexican state, Republic, and American State of Texas.
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Primary references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)
John L. Kessell, Pueblos, Spaniards, and the Kingdom of New Mexico
Charles Wilson Hackett, “The Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico in 1680,” The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, October 1911.
Charles Wilson Hackett, “The Retreat of the Spaniards from New Mexico in 1680, and the Beginnings of El Paso, I,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, October 1912.
Charles Wilson Hackett, “The Retreat of the Spaniards from New Mexico in 1680, and the Beginnings of El Paso, II,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, January 1913.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast episode 206. |
| 0:11.6 | I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and we are recording this episode on Easter Sunday, April 5th, 2026, and Austin, Texas, we are telling the history of the lands |
| 0:25.0 | now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without intentional presentism. |
| 0:32.6 | As being part two of the story of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, |
| 0:46.9 | your delight will be amplified beyond measure if you've listened to Episode 205, which is part one. |
| 0:54.5 | Also, there's a link to a page with maps in the episode notes, and they will also be useful. |
| 0:58.0 | It is August 11, 1680. |
| 1:16.3 | The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico have risen in rebellion against the Spaniards who had settled and ministered and lived there for more than 80 years, killing around 400 of them, including 18 priests in the first two days of the war. |
| 1:32.0 | The surviving Spaniards around 2,500 are pinned down in the Via, the governmental center, of Santa Fe, under Governor Antonio de Otermein, at Isletta, one of the few Pueblos not in revolt, about 70 miles south of Santa Fe. And yes, I know that I blew the pronunciation |
| 1:39.1 | of Isletta in the last episode. Probably not doing so great now, but I'm getting closer. |
| 1:45.6 | The name of the Indian who aroused the country and organized the revolt was at that point |
| 1:52.8 | still unknown to the Spaniards, but we know him as a religious figure. |
| 1:58.4 | The various accounts refer to him as a medicine man named Popay. |
| 2:04.1 | On August 11th, all the Spaniards knew about Popay comes from the testimony of two Indian messengers |
| 2:11.1 | captured on August 9th, that he was very tall, black, with very large yellow eyes. |
| 2:20.5 | This did but has encouraged some historians to speculate that he was descended, at least in part, from Africans. |
| 2:29.0 | If so, perhaps one of his ancestors had been brought to New Mexico by Spaniards on one of their expeditions since |
| 2:35.9 | Juan Diognate came in 1598. Others have argued that it would have been unlikely for someone so alien to |
| 2:45.1 | Pueblo culture, which in modern times is famously insular, to rise to sufficient prominence to organize a province-wide uprising. |
| 2:56.1 | Sadly, Popeye's ethnicity is one of those many mysteries of the past |
| 3:01.4 | that is unlikely ever to be answered. |
| 3:05.4 | In August 13th, the Isletta group would be joined by a leader known to us, or at least to me, only as Lieutenant Garcia. |
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