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The Spaniards had shown little interest in Hopiland ever since the visit of de Tovar. The initial reports on the Black Mesa region, confirmed by subsequent encounters, had convinced the Spaniards that there was little of value, interest or wealth in this corner of Arizona. However, with the colonization assignment given to de Onate in 1629, this would change. The Roman Catholic Church had had an ongoing mandate to Christianize the peoples of the New World, but this had meant little more than giving a sermon in each area as they passed through it, and then quickly leaving, on the previous expeditions through what would become Arizona and New Mexico.
Despite the reputation that the Spaniards were equally interested in gold and souls, in the Black Mesa region, at least, they had priorities, and the serious search for gold preceded that for souls by about 90 years.
With the colonization assignment, the friars were finally given permission to move into local communities and stay, for extended preaching, conversion, baptism, and the celebration of the other sacraments. At this point, the strongly religious Pueblo and Hopi were to undergo what they would consider to be yet another major assault. The friars were universalist in their outlook. They wanted to go anywhere that the Word had not yet reached. They did not evaluate locations in terms of gold, silver, jewels and wealth, but in numbers of souls to be saved. The Black Mesa would now become a target of their missionary activities.
Almost immediately upon the colonization assignment, in 1629, Padre Francisco Porras arrived at the mesa with two other friars and ten soldiers. The friars immediately began a period of Christianization, mission-building, and goal of construction of Roman Catholic schools and convents. Friar Porras was much less crude than many of the earlier explorers who had abused the indigenous population. He even attempted to learn the Hopi language and culture. This was unusual, especially since the authorities in New Spain had generally ordered the friars to use interpreters. The various governors generally did not want the priests to hear and to be able to understand the complaints of the peoples in their villages. Most of the acceptable interpreters knew how to convey satisfactory translations to the friars, in a manner that would not embarrass government officials.
Porras led an effort to build churches at Oraibi, Awatovi, and Shongopovi, in addition to smaller chapels or outreach centers in some of the outlying villages. The efforts were generally futile among the strongly traditional Hopi. Only at Awatovi were any real inroads made by the friars. A minority of the residents there ultimately did convert to Catholicism. Friar Porras may have been a kind man, by the standards of the Spaniards of that day, but ultimately, four years after his arrival, he was poisoned and died. Nevertheless, Spanish mission work on the Black Mesa continued.
Relations between the friars and the Pueblo/Hopi were generally strained, throughout the southern Colorado Plateau. Some of the Pueblo communities converted at an early date, although most of the Hopi continued to cling to their traditions. Historical reports and oral traditions from the region tell tales of Franciscan friars who established large farms on land confiscated from the peoples they were supposedly helping. The produce from these farms was used to support the mission personnel, with any surpluses being given not to the indigenous farmers, but being sold to the government or to soldiers. The proceeds from these sales often went into ornament and decoration, instead of into the stomachs of the Native American workers.
Natives were frequently impressed into construction crews, with orders to raise Churches to the glory of a religion that remained alien to the most of the laborers. Attendance at services in these new churches was often made mandatory, even though it often conflicted with traditional activities, requirements in the fields, and traditional practices and schedules. Many of these practices were considered abominable by the traditional Hopi. Nevertheless, some of the Hopi did genuinely convert to Catholicism.
Stories also abound, across the region, of whippings, torture, and even executions being carried out by friars, in the tradition of the Spanish Inquisition. The most severe punishments were reserved for persons practicing the old religions. The details of these reports does not matter today. Neither does finding proof of these or other stories about the friars, such as frequent stories of rape by friars. What matters for this project is that 300+ years of word-of-mouth history within the Hopi community has recorded these items as fact. The Hopi have grown up believing that this is what the White religion does.
After the friars had been on the Mesa for a number of years, and the religious practices of the Hopi were under maximum stress, the area was hit by two successive waves of drought. The first of these occurred in the 1640's; the second, in the 1660's. These spells were obviously interpreted by the Hopi as retribution for their lack of faith and adherence to the traditional rites. The Hopi discontent with the Spaniards rose.
In addition, although the earlier isolation of the Hopi had helped to prevent epidemics, the nation was to succumb to a number of diseases, including both measles and smallpox, during the mid-1600's. Many members of the nation were to die at this time. The religious leaders of the tribe ascribed all of these ills to the newcomers. These traditions have survived, even to present times. European understanding of drought patterns and of the epidemics that swept all of the New World, Hopi and non-Hopi, alike mean little to native traditionalists.
A third plague descended on Hopiland at about the same time. The first significant raids on Hopi fields by neighboring, wandering Navajo bands began at about the same time as the start of the first drought. The Hopi were not accustomed to this type of activity and quickly blamed it on the Spaniards. They felt that the friars had brought all the other ills, and, thus, they must have brought, or instigated, the Navajo problem as well. To European eyes, this may seem absurd, but the Hopi traditionalists still feel that this tribulation was provoked by the Spaniards, and, by extension, by whites, in general.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the Navajo had been in the Four corners region for centuries prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, and that they had lived, side-by-side, in peace, with the Hopi for most of this time. The sudden reason for the raids on Hopi resources during the time of the drought was presumably due to the fact that the Navajo communities had also become stressed by the lack of rain, and by invaders in their homeland.
The Navajo were, generally, by the 1600's, wandering nomads, and went unnoticed or unseen by the early Spanish explorers, who were looking for “cities,” not stick-and-bark mobile homes. When the weather turned bad, the fields became barren, and white-skinned strangers began to wander across their hunting grounds, the Navajo were forced to resort to desperate measures.
By the second drought of the 1660's the Hopi were almost universally upset with the infidel invaders of their home grounds. The people of this region had had previous experience with dry years, but repeated, extended droughts, raids by outsiders, and severe epidemics were more than the Hopi felt they had ever been required to cope with in the past. To the religious leaders, these travails were obviously tests brought by the Kachina due to a drop off of true belief by the people and the non-practice of required rituals in the villages. Although the friars were attempting to prohibit traditional rituals, the elders “knew” that this is what was necessary for the restoration of the physical and psychic health of their communities. The traditionalists wanted to lead a renaissance of their practices by the time of the second drought, in the 1660's. They appealed to the Kachina for relief.
Instead of relief, another large group of Spaniards, arrived at the Black Mesa in 1674, reinforcing the activities of the Catholic emissaries. Conditions went from bad to worse, as the friars mandated that a great church should be built by the Hopi at Oraibi. Huge wooden beams were cut from two forested areas, one forty miles to the northeast, the other on the San Francisco peaks, the sacred mountains of the Hopi, 100 miles to the southwest. The San Francisco were the home of the Kachina, and, thus, were holy and to remain undisturbed, according to Hopi beliefs. They were not to be used as timberland for pagan activity.
The Spaniards declared that the Hopi would provide the labor to haul the huge beams to the church site. Slavery had officially been outlawed in the Spanish New World in 1532, forty years after Columbus' arrival in the New World, and eight years before Coronado' preparations for his Colorado plateau explorations. Nonetheless, natives were frequently coerced to perform labor for the Spaniards for centuries after the decree which supposedly freed them. Numerous young Hopi males were impressed to roll and drag the large timbers to a location on the edge of the cliff near Oraibi. The softer limestones on the rim and crest of the mesa and through the village streets of Oraibi still show deep grooves where these unwilling young men were forced to drag the huge logs to the site of what many Hopi dubbed the “Slave Church.”
The issue was no longer just the rape of the land and people, or exorbitant taxation and levies. The intimate religious interrelationship of man and the natural world that surrounded him had been disturbed. Many of the Hopi resented the new religion, they didn't want the home of their Kachina defiled, they didn't understand the non-traditional architecture or building materials of the planned church, and they needed their labor for their own fields, not the confiscated church lands.
A field trip to Hopiland included a pleasant, talkative Hopi guide. This guide peppered his talk with a litany of Spanish excesses and abuses. According to Morris, the guide, the Hopi were treated like slaves and used as forced labor when the logs were brought onto the Mesa. Morris obviously still resented the scars on his sacred land from the dragging of the logs.
Morris had a number of subtle digs at both the Spaniards and at the Roman Church. His point of view was instructive. His thoughts were presumably representative of the point of view of most modern Hopi. They could generally be classed as friendly, peaceful, and open to strangers, but glad that the strangers were soon going away from his land and its shrines. Morris used several anti-Catholic phrases, and, at one point revealed that he had led the group close to a sacred site, but not told us about it until we were well away from the area, just in case we might have defiled it somehow if we had known about it. This was interesting, because his concern and concept of “defilement” seemed to be more a state of consciousness, than any physical acts we might commit. This is a bit too metaphysical for most Anglos to understand. A “sacred site” can range from the location of an historical event to something as ephemeral as a plant that is growing in a specific shape of religious significance.
The Church was built on the very edge of the Mesa and was apparently much larger and taller than anything else in the area. It was a point of real pride to the Spaniards, who considered it a great tribute to God. According to Morris, the church was soon struck by lighting, and burned to the ground; an understandable fate for anything rising far above the high mesa surface in this land of flat rock. The Spaniards rebuilt the Church. It was struck and leveled again. Morris reported that the Spaniards tried one more time, and that the building was destroyed one more time. With his dry Hopi wit, and more than a hint of anti-Catholicism, Morris said that he guessed that the Church didn't belong there, on land that belonged to the Hopi and their traditions. The ruins of the Church can still be seen on the rim of the mesa, but they are generally off limits today.
The Hopi religious ceremonies had traditionally been public events, with no special secretiveness, prior to the arrival of the Spaniards. The friars, however, did their best to purge the Hopi of their “sacrilegious” beliefs and practices, and went around the villages attempting to eradicate all signs, trappings and artifacts associated with the practice of the Hopi rites, including many of their Kivas. Many of the nation's most holy, multi-hundred-year-old sacred objects and costumes were destroyed during the period of occupation by the friars.
In defense of their nation, lifestyle, and religion, the Hopi moved their rites and rituals underground. The Hopi had had their culture disrupted, their religion attacked, and their work-life disturbed to build shrines that were meaningless to their people. This assault by the Spaniards would set the stage for centuries of mistrust of Europeans by the Hopi and the adoption of secrecy about their way of life with respect to the outside world. Much of this secrecy is still in place, and the most-holy ceremonies are still for Hopi eyes only, except by special invitation.
During the period of assault, many of the Hopi displayed an attitude of peace. They would allow themselves to be baptized with Spanish-sounding names, and would superficially practice Christianity, but the ancient internal structure of clans and traditional practices remained solidly in place below the surface. Traditional religious practices continued, but the ceremonies were hidden from the prying eyes of the friars or other outsiders.
The truth of the charges cannot be proven, but local stories, on the Black Mesa, record specific tales of excess by the Spaniards, including the friars, who lived at Oraibi, Awatovi, and Shongopovi. The Hopi describe the priests as having imposed slavery on their people, far beyond just the forced building of the hated church. Some of the friars supposedly indulged in sex with young Hopi girls. As happened at several other sites in New Mexico, there is a tradition that Hopi's were severely punished, occasionally with burning oil, if they were caught in forbidden traditional “witchcraft” practices.
One notorious friar allegedly required that all of his drinking water be brought from a particular spring located well off the main mesa. When he got thirsty, a runner was sent to fetch water specially for this individual. This is the sort of tale that sounds less than reasonable. The spring was hours away. If he sent a runner when he got thirsty, this friar would have been waiting most of the day for water, which would have been hot when it arrived back at Oraibi, in summer, or frozen, in winter. This is an example of a story which may be exaggerated, but this type of tale persists and is believed by the Hopi down to the present day. In Hopi eyes, all whites have been tainted by the actions of these early Spanish contacts.
With the sharp decline in rainfall in the 1660's, crops again began to fail. As the food gave out, Spanish persecution continued, and Navajo raids worsened, Hopi families began to leave the mesa. In desperation, the traditionalists decided to defy the friars. Allegedly, they conducted one of their major midsummer ceremonies, in secret, unnoticed by the Spaniards. The results came rapidly. The fields were blessed by a rainstorm, just four days later. This was considered a sign from the Kachina, and increased unrest among the Hopi. Word of this miracle quickly spread to the pueblos to the east.
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Contents, including illustrations, copyright T. K. Reeves, 1997.
on 5 April, 1997.
