More Old Adobe Walls

Pueblo ruins and public works don't go together.


A Tiwa* Pueblo, one of at least a dozen that existed when Coronado arrived in 1540, sat where Alameda Elementary School is today. The County trenched sewer lines throughout the valley without letting archaeology get in the way. This included cutting through the school site and the site of the old church further west. Crews only slowed down for history when they turned up churchyard bones.

In other valley locations the County has plopped big deep drainage ponds within yards of known pueblo ruins and other archaeological sites. They broke no laws, sadly. Without use of federal funding clearance surveys aren't required. There are no restrictions on private land at all. A developer may have to note a site with a subdivision action but the only time it slows anything down is when human bones are found. Some requirements are triggered then but that's mostly about respect for the dead. It's not the same thing as respect for history.

Oh well. An engineer I worked for once said, "What does an old adobe wall have to tell me?" I actually tried to answer but it was rhetorical and he waved me away.

According to church history and resident Barbara Santillanes Tapia, there were 7000 Tiguex Indians and a Spanish Mission at Alameda in 1620. Six years later the Indian population had dropped to 2000 and by the time of the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 there were only 300 Indians at Alameda. Along with Sandia Pueblo residents, they actively participated in the 1680 revolt and an earlier uprising in 1650. 

Lively place once, this valley.

 

*Tiwa is the same as Tiguex. I'm not consistent in usage. Sue me.