Settler Colonialism in the Picuris Watershed

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative Archaeology at Picuris Pueblo: The New History" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper tracks the relationship between Picuris Pueblo and San Antonio del Embudo, a settlement in the Picuris homeland downstream of the Rio Pueblo. Embudo (now known as Dixon) is the product of two colonial regimes, beginning with the Spanish appropriation of the lower Picuris watershed to create the Embudo Land Grant in 1725, followed by settlement's annexation by United States, following the 1848 signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Archival evidence dating to the declaration of the land grant, the defensive architecture of the central plaza, distributions of ceramic types from midden fill, and local ethnohistories all point to a stronger relationship between Embudo and the Tewa pueblos, despite the closer proximity of Picuris. This paper also considers the impact of US colonialism on both Embudo and Picuris, particularly following the construction of the railroad, the introduction of wage labor, and the growing presence of Anglo settlers in the watershed. While offering an archaeology of conquest, expropriation, and occupation in the Picuris homeland under Spanish and US settler colonialism, this paper also highlight the depth of cultural exchange that has occurred.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Collaborative Archaeology at Picuris Pueblo: The New History   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41494.0