The Pueblo peoples were willing to coexist with the newcomers, but the Spanish were not so giving.
They angered the Pueblo peoples by trying to force them to become Christians.
To discourage the Indians from practicing their own religion, Spanish priests destroyed masks and other ceremonial objects and filled their kivas with sand. They also imprisoned their religious leaders for performing witchcraft. Three Pueblo men convicted of sorcery were hanged in public in 1675.
The Spanish also infuriated the Pueblo people by taking a portion of the Indians’ crops. In years of little rainfall, the food demanded by the Spanish was almost all the Pueblo were able to grow. Many people went hungry, and large numbers died from famine or from European diseases introduced by the Spanish.
From 1600 to 1680, the Pueblo population dropped from about 50,000 to 17,000.
