Tanoan

The Tanoan are the Pueblo peoples of the Rio Grande valley in New Mexico who speak the Tiwa, Tewa and Towa branches of the Kiowa-Tanoan family. Their ancestors drifted south as the old Mesa Verde and Chaco world broke up, the Tiwa reaching the upper Rio Grande before the year 1000 and the Tewa arriving around 1275.

In 1540 Coronado fought the Tiguex War against southern Tiwa towns, and Spanish rule over the valley began with Juan de Oñate in 1598. In 1680 the Tewa leader Po'pay of Ohkay Owingeh united the pueblos in the revolt that drove the Spaniards out for twelve years.

After the reconquest forced labour ended and native ceremonies were tolerated beneath outward Catholicism. The trade pueblo of Pecos dwindled until its last families abandoned it for Jemez in the late 1830s.