Indians of the Mesa Verde

by Don Watson

There can be little doubt that during this period the security of the people was threatened. Now we come to the most difficult question of all. Who was the enemy? Against whom were the people defending their homes? The complete answer is not known but there appear to be two possibilities.

It has been suggested that during this period dissension arose within the Pueblo group itself and the people began to war against each other. This theory will be difficult to prove and events of the period seem to argue against it. If the need for defense resulted from trouble within the tribe one might well expect the people to scatter even more widely with groups leaving the heavily populated areas to seek safety in isolation. But the people did just the opposite. Large areas were deserted and the population became more concentrated than in any previous period.

Four small cliff dwellings with excellent defensive locations

This drawing together of the Pueblo people may well indicate that the threat was from the outside and it is possible that at this time nomadic Indians entered the area and began to harass the farmers. Ceaseless raids of nomadic marauders would exert tremendous pressure on a farming population and withdrawal from the border lands and concentration in certain favorable areas probably indicates a need for defense against an outside enemy.

In 1540, when the Spaniards entered the Southwest, several tribes of nomadic Indians were warring on the Pueblo people and the population had dropped radically. When the Pueblo population was at its height there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of villages but when the Spaniards came they found less than eighty villages of Pueblo Indians and these were concentrated in a small area in what is now New Mexico and Arizona. Even after the Americans came the population continued to dwindle. Finally there were fewer than thirty villages of Pueblo Indians. Much of this loss of population was due to the harassing activities of nomadic Indians and it is possible that in the Mesa Verde area this trouble began about 1100 A.D.

The identity of the nomadic tribes which warred on the people of the Mesa Verde region is not known. It has been suggested that the early Apaches or the early Utes may have entered the area at that time but there is little positive evidence. Further research may provide an answer to the problem but it is possible the identity of the “enemy people” will never be known.

The Great Pueblo period came to an end just before 1300 A.D., and that is the time when the Pueblo Indians moved away from the Mesa Verde, never to return. As was mentioned in an earlier chapter the Pueblo Indian occupation of the Mesa Verde came to an end during the great drought of 1276-1299 A.D. Rainfall was deficient during this period of twenty-four years and before normal weather returned in the year 1300, all of the people had drifted off to the south. Nothing has been found to indicate that the Mesa Verde region was ever occupied by farming Indians after the drouth.

Since the area was deserted during the drouth it is only reasonable to assume that this period of abnormally dry weather was the cause of their leaving. There is much, however, to indicate that the drouth was not the sole cause. During their long occupation of the Mesa Verde the Indians had survived many long periods of drouth. Dry years were not a new experience and they were wise in the ways of existing through unfavorable periods. It is doubtful whether the drouth, severe as it was, would have caused complete abandonment of so large an area. We may feel sure that during the Great Pueblo period a very real danger threatened the people. They moved to the caves, certainly because of a need for security, and the population diminished. Before the drouth came the people were already moving to the south and it is probable that the abnormally dry period simply hastened a movement that was already underway. While the final, complete desertion of the area may be blamed on the drouth it appears that the danger which had threatened for more than a century had much to do with the abandonment of the once populous area.

When normal weather returned in the year 1300, there were no Pueblo Indians in the Mesa Verde. All had perished or had drifted away and the villages were empty and silent. Slowly the centuries paraded by. Drifting earth and vegetation crept over the mesa-top pueblos and the leveling forces of nature caused the once proud cliff dwellings slowly to bow their heads.