Manso

The Manso lived along the Rio Grande near El Paso del Norte, where the river passes between mountains on its way south. They were recorded there in 1598, when Spanish travelers used the pass on the route between central New Spain and New Mexico. Manso communities occupied the river country alongside neighboring Suma and Pueblo peoples, whose encounters with the growing colonial frontier would reshape the region.

In 1659 the Franciscan García de San Francisco founded Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe for the Manso on the south bank of the river. The mission became a gathering place for Manso families and other Indigenous people. After the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 drove Spanish settlers from New Mexico, refugees came south to El Paso. Relations remained strained: in 1683 Manso, Suma and Janos people rose against Spanish authority, joining a wider period of resistance on the northern frontier.