Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciuncula

The traces of nearly 500 years of cultural contact, conflict, and change are visible at Pecos Pueblo.

At the time of European contact in 1540, Pecos was one of the largest Pueblos, with a population of more than 2,000. Increasing harshness of the subjugation under Spanish colonial occupation led the Pueblos to revolt in 1680, successfully driving the Spanish out of the territory. 

The Spanish returned a dozen years later, and the church in this image was built with Indigenous labor on top of the Pueblo’s principal ceremonial structure.

By 1838 the population of Pecos Pueblo had dwindled down to 17 - a result of ongoing raids, smallpox outbreaks and other factors. Those last inhabitants abandoned Pecos and journeyed 70 miles to Wallatowa, the only other community that spoke their language. They were welcomed there, and yet maintained their identity as the people of Pecos living at Wallatowa.

In the 1920s, archaeologists from Harvard excavated the abandoned structures. Without consultation with descendants, they removed human remains from nearly 2,000 burials and placed them in museums. In 1999, after decades of advocacy, a plan to return the remains was agreed upon. Two  descendants of Pecos drove a truck containing the remains of their ancestors from Massachusetts to Pecos and they were met at Pecos by over 400 more descendants who had journeyed from Wallatowa to welcome their ancestors back home and, in ceremony, to lay them to rest in Mother Earth once more.

The ruined church stands as a reminder of conquest built upon sacred ground. What is absent from view – the Pueblo people, their ceremonies, and their ancestors – remains central to the story carried back here through memory and return.