Pecos National Historical Park, NM

On my way through New Mexico, I made a slight detour to check out Pecos National Historical Park, east of Santa Fe. Before my travels last year, I didn’t know that much about the people who lived in the southwest before white people and their wagon trains invaded, so 2021 was me learning who was here “first” and how they lived. From Ancestral Puebloans to the Civil War to a famous movie star, Pecos has an amazing history so let’s do some exploring.

Why Pecos?

The Pecos Pueblo is situated along the Glorieta Pass, which provided a natural gateway through the Sangre de Christo Mountains and the Glorieta Mesa. This location made it a crossroads for anyone who wanted to go west to east or east to west, starting with farmers of the Rio Grande Valley to the west and the Plains peoples to the east.

Pecos was mainly a farming community, growing corns, beans, and squash, but they also had a standing army to keep the peace and protect themselves from outsiders. The Pueblo thriving as a center of commerce for the area, at least for a while.

Spanish Interventions

In 1541, the Spanish arrived, aiming to colonize the lands and convert the locals to Catholicism. By 1610, this effort had taken a bad turn, with Franciscan friars destroying many of the traditional kivas and banning traditional ceremonies.

After 1620, a new Spanish governor tried to build peace with the Pecos people, including the construction of a large mission church. (I feel like he kind of missed the point here…) For a while, things calmed down (well, except for the occasional Apache raids on the Pueblo). But there were long-simmering tensions between the Pecos people and the Spaniards that grew as the latter tried to destroy the traditional Puebloan ways.

Native Rebellion

In 1680, Po’ pay, a Pueblo religious leader coordinated a rebellion of several villages against the Spanish. While the revolt succeeded in driving out the Spaniards, it left the Pueblo open to increased raiding by Apache and Navajo bands. And once the Comanche raids started, the Pueblo suffered even more. Even the return of the Spanish in 1692 didn’t really help their dire situation. By the late 1700s, the population had decreased significantly. In 1838, the remaining Pecos people were relocated to Jimez Pueblo. The long reign of the Pecos Pueblo ended, with little fanfare for what had once been the reigning civilazation in the area.

Santa Fe Trail

From 1821 until 1880, Pecos was a key part of the Santa Fe Trail, one of the major trade routes between Independence, Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico. In the early years, wagon trains full of white people headed west saw a Pueblo struggling to survive. After the relocation to Jemez, the Pecos Pueblo slowly crumbled into what you can see today. The Santa Fe trail didn’t fare much better. In 1880, the railroad opened up and the trail quickly became obsolete. (I totally get that people would pick a smooth railroad road over mostly walking on rocky trails beside their wagons. Did you know most people didn’t actually ride in those wagons? I didn’t either till a visit to a museum in Casper, Wyoming a few years ago.)

First Round: US-Mexican War

When Mexico gained their independence from Spain in 1821, they were still the dominant culture in Pecos. As the US wanted to expand west and south, tensions grew with Mexico, resulting in the US-Mexican War (1846-1848). While Mexico geared up for a US invasion with an army of 4,000 soldiers, the local US general took a different tack. He promised people that the US would protect their freedom and religion and increase trade. When the Mexican troops heard this, many of them chose to switch sides and Santa Fe became US territory with no shots fired in battle.

Second Round: The US Civil War

In 1862, the Civil War came to the Pecos Pueblo area. The Confederates were keen to gain control of the southwestern region, both for Fort Union in New Mexico and the gold in Colorado and California. The two sides had a day-long battle, then withdrew for (how civilized) resting and burying the dead. Next round, the Confederates held the field, but the Federal army destroyed their supply train. Without that, they retreated all the way to San Antonio, Texas. The Battle of Glorieta Pass, then, marked the end of the Civil War in New Mexico and the Southwest.

Cue the Movie Star

In 1925, someone bought one of the old stage stations on the Santa Fe trail, converting it into a tourist ranch. His timing wasn’t the best, though, and he lost the ranch during the Great Depression. A Dallas oilman purchased it and surrounding areas in 1941 and turned it into a cattle ranch. He married Greer Garson, the movie star, in 1949. She fell in love with everything about the area and the couple were active in local preservation efforts. In 1991, she sold the ranch to the Conservation Fund, which then donated it to the National Park Service. And that’s how an old-time movie star protected the Pecos Pueblo.

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Some of my people, Colvins and Kemptons, came west via the Mormon trail to settle in southeastern Arizona. That family history includes more than one clash between indigenous people and the new settlers. I’m always aware of that when I visit monuments like Pecos and wonder how the original settlers lived before their cultures and communities were partitioned into reservations. That’s why, in this post, I decided to go all in on learning the history of Pecos Pueblo.

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