San Buenaventura de Humanas (Gran Quivira)

San Buenaventura de Humanas (Gran Quivira)

Central region of New MexicoFranciscans began converting Abó residents in 1622, and by the late 1620s, the first church was finished. Later, a second church was built with a sophisticated buttressing technique unusual in 17th-century New Mexico. It had an organ and trained choir. In the end, however, cultural conflict and natural disaster devastated the Salinas pueblos. The Apaches, formerly trading partners, now raided the pueblos for food and in retribution for Spanish slave raids in which Pueblo Indians had participated. The Pueblos might have survived the raids, but they—and the Apaches and Spaniards—were hit during the 1660s and '70s with drought and wide-spread famine that killed 450 people at Gran Quivira alone. The Salinas pueblos and missions were abandoned during the 1670s, and the surviving Indians went to live with cultural relatives in other pueblos .

Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument
P.O. Box 517
Mountainair, NM 87036-0517
(505) 847-2585
www.nps.gov/sapu