WILL GIVE 25 POINTS iF YOU GIVE ME THE SUMMARY OF THIS STORY
Josephe was a Spanish-speaking Indian questioned by a royal attorney in Mexico City investigating
the Pueblo Revolt. The revolt of the Indian population, in 1680, temporarily drove Spanish settlers
from present-day New Mexico.
Asked what causes or motives the said Indian rebels had for renouncing the law of God and
obedience to his Majesty, and for committing so many of crimes, [he answered] the causes they have
were alleged ill treatment and injuries received from [Spanish authorities], because they beat them,
took away what they had, and made them work without pay. Thus he replies.
Asked if he has learned if it has come to his notice during the time that he has been here the reason
why the apostates burned the images, churches, and things pertaining to divine worship, making a
mockery and a trophy of them, killing the priests and doing the other things they did, he said that he
knows and had heard it generally stated that while they were besieging the villa the rebellious traitors
burned the church and shouted in loud voices, “Now the God of the Spaniards, who was their father,
is dead, and Santa Maria, who was their mother, and the saints, who were pieces of rotten wood,”
saying that only their own god lived. Thus they ordered all the temples and images, crosses and
rosaries burned, and their function being over, they all went to bathe in the rivers, saying that they
thereby washed away the water of baptism. For their churches, they placed on the four sides and in
the center of the plaza some small circular enclosures of stone where they went to offer flour,
feathers, and the seed of maguey [a local plant], maize, and tobacco, and performed other
superstitious rites, giving the children to understand that they must all do this in the future. The
captains and the chiefs ordered that the names of Jesus and Mary should nowhere be uttered. . . . He
has seen many houses of idolatry which they have built, dancing the dance of the cachina [part of a
traditional Indian religious ceremony], which this declarant has also danced. Thus he replies to the
question.