National Register Listing

Isleta Pueblo

a.k.a. Tuei

U.S. 85, Isleta, NM

The southern Tiwa-speaking Pueblo of Isleta, in existence when Don Juan de Oñate led the first settlers into New Mexico in 1598, is today the largest New Mexico Indian Pueblo. Today, as in the 17th century, the Isletans are still noted for the excellence and diversity of their agricultural productivity.

Fray Juan de Salas was assigned to the Pueblo of Isleta in 1612 and the next year reported to his Franciscan Order authorities in Mexico City "hat he had begun the construction of the mission church of San Antonio de Padua. In the following decades, the Indians of Isleta were spared many of the conflicts which arose between the Spanish conquerors and other Pueblo groups, and hence took no active part in the great Pueblo Revolt which exploded on August 10, 1680 simultaneously around Santa Fe and in the Rio Abajo (Lower River) areas. Lt. General Alonso García, alcalde mayor of the southern district, which included the present Albuquerque area, gathered together the some 1,500 Settlers, including seven friars, who survived the initial attack and on August 11 led them into the Pueblo of Isleta, which had taken no part in the uprising. However, emissaries from the rebel Pueblos were soon in evidence and three days later García, believing that the Spaniards in the upper Rio Grande had been exterminated, led his colonists south towards the El Paso settlement taking with him some Isletas as well as loyal Piros from the Pueblos of Sevilleta, Alamillo, Socorro and Senecú. Those Isletans who did not join him fled the Pueblo in fear of the rebels. Governor Antonio de Dtermín and the small band of survivors from the north, who had fought their way out of Santa Fe, entered Isleta September 3 and found the Pueblo deserted. The two bands of refugees later reunited at the mission of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Paso.

'In November, 1681 Otermin undertook the first of several unsuccessful attempts to reconquer New Mexico. The Pueblo of Isleta which had been reoccupied by its members who had fled this village the preceding year, surrendered peacefully, and the expedition pushed northward as far as Cochiti before being forced to retreat and fell back to Isleta, where Otermín found that some of the Indians had again fled to the rebels. On January 1, 1682 the governor burned the Pueblo and continued his retreat to El Paso taking with him 385 additional loyal Isletans.

During the twelve years exile in the El Paso region, several settlements were established on both sides of the Rio Grande for both Spaniards and Pueblo Indians. That of the Isletans was variously known as Santísimo Sacramento, Corpus Cristi and finally San Antonio de Ysleta del Sur or "Ysleta of the South" to distinguish it from the original Pueblo.

In late August of 1692 General Diego de Vargas led a small army of Spanish and Indian auxiliaries out of El Paso for the successful reoccupation of New Mexico. He found the Pueblos south of Santa Fe, including Isleta, deserted, but the nave of the church was still standing and in good condition. The Indians from Ysleta del Sur did not return to New Mexico with the reestablishment of Spanish control in 1693 but remained in the El Paso region and their mission church in that area continued to bear the name of San Antonio as the patron. With the reoccupation, the scattered Isletans within New Mexico, joined by some who had fled to the Hopi in 1680, gradually returned to their village. The northern Pueblo of Isleta was reestablished in 1709-1710 and given the patron saint name of San Agustín de Isleta. The mission church, the nave of which had survived the revolt, was rebuilt and thus shares with San Estevan de Acoma honor of being one of the two oldest churches in New Mexico.

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Isleta was one of the most prosperous of the New Mexico Pueblos and as the population expanded, many families lived in dwellings scattered away from the main plaza. Both Bishop of Durango Pedro Tamarón, in 1760 and Franciscan visitador Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez in 1776 noted the excellence of Isleta crops and orchards. The latter has given a more complete description:
The Indians of this pueblo have arable lands of every quality for a league upstream, a league downstream, and as far on either side as such lands extend. As has been said, they are irrigated from the aforementioned river, and from all of them they get very copious crops of everything planted. There are many orchards of fruit trees as well as vinestocks, and they usually make a little wine.

An equally complete description of Isleta more than 100 years later was written by Lt. John G. Bourke who visited the pueblo for several days in November, 1881. He, too, noted the abundance of agricultural products raised by the Indians:

Wine, home-made, was offered us. I drank a tumbler full and found it excellent. He said they raised, and I have eaten, peaches, apples, melons, cherries, plums, apricots, pears,--also wheat, maize, chile, alverjones, frijoles. Have Cows, goats, sheep, burros, & horses, in some quantity,-- enough for their own wants. Eggs and milk are plenty and in general use... Our conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the man's wife with refreshments of hot coffee, onion scrambled with eggs and excellent bread and peach "turn-overs".

In common with other pueblos, Isleta experienced encroachment on her lands during the 18th and 19th centuries, especially from the "Lo de Padilla" grantees, as the non-Indian population in the fertile Rio Grande Valley below Albuquerque expanded. During the 1870's the membership was augmented by the addition of a conservative faction from the Pueblo of Laguna, including the cacique (religious leader), who left Laguna after a bitter quarrel with the "Progressive" faction in that pueblo. During much of its recent history, the internal affairs of Isleta have also been characterized by a division between its older conservatives and younger progressives. On occasion, there has also been a sharp cleavage between the Pueblo council and the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church over clerical authority and ownership of the church of San Agustin, resulting in the expulsion of the resident priest by the Pueblo Council in 1965 for interference in native religious customs and the closing of the Church by then Archbishop John Peter Davis. Better relations with later councils, however, caused Archbishop Davis to reopen the Church of San Agustin in June, 1974 prior to his retirement. A resident priest has again been recently assigned to Isleta by the new Archbishop, Robert F. Sanchez.

Some 170,000 to 180,000 acres of land comprise the present Isleta reservation. The governors and council members are elected for two-year terms by vote of all adult members of the Pueblo.

Local significance of the district:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1975.