The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center Marks 47th Anniversary ON AUGUST 28, 2022

To commemorate this achievement, we offer an encore of the inspiring story of IPCC, from its founding to the milestones that paved the way to the present day—and lead us into the future.

The Past, Present, and Future of IPCC

The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center is the inspiring cornerstone of what has grown from a single building into the thriving business and cultural corridor of the 19 Pueblos District in the heart of Albuquerque. IPCC opened its doors in the summer of 1976. The same year the United States was celebrating its 200^th birthday, the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico were celebrating something far older—Pueblo culture.

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This grand opening of the hub for preserving and perpetuating Pueblo culture was seven years in the making. In 1969, the 19 Pueblos collectively petitioned the federal government to convey a few acres of disused Albuquerque Indian School land to Pueblo ownership for the purpose of establishing a cultural center, and creating economic and cultural opportunities that would benefit tourism and business for the 19 Pueblos, Albuquerque, and New Mexico.

After conducting numerous studies and securing letters of support from city, state, and federal legislators, the endeavor to create the Gateway to the 19 Pueblos was given the green light. Upon opening in 1976, we began curating our permanent collection, which has grown to more than 4,000 objects, and become an invaluable archive for research on Pueblo culture.

As time went on, IPCC’s campus and offerings grew. Our restaurant and museum store opened along with the Center in 1976. The following year, the Friends of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center—a group of volunteers who raised money from donors around the world—launched the mural campaign that resulted in IPCC becoming home to more than 20 murals by great Pueblo artists. In 1979, we established the Native American Student Art Show to encourage our youth to hone their artistic skills and maintain their cultural connection.

The 1980s ushered in more milestones. When the Albuquerque Indian School closed in 1981, the 19 Pueblos petitioned to have the remaining AIS property across the street from IPCC conveyed to tribal ownership. We established our Library & Archives department in 1983, and 1985 saw expansions of our museum exhibit and restaurant. Throughout the 1990s, the IPCC campus underwent numerous upgrades and remodels, and we celebrated our 20^th anniversary.

All of the planning and preparation of the ‘80s and ‘90s led to a boom period in the 2000s. The IPCC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, but there’s also Indian Pueblos Marketing, Inc., a for-profit enterprise of the 19 Pueblos that generates revenue for Pueblo communities and helps fund some of the cultural and educational programming of IPCC. Between 2004 and 2006, two office buildings were constructed across the street from IPCC, housing the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a long-term tenant.

The 2000s also saw the construction of IPCC’s south entrance, galleries, and ballrooms, as well as the grand east lobby entrance, and expansion of the restaurant. IPMI constructed a Holiday Inn Express across from IPCC, and expanded the old Pueblo Smoke Shop into Four Winds, a large convenience store and gas station that has become an institution for surrounding neighborhoods, as well as travelers.

IPCC and IPMI have accomplished a lot, but this past decade has been particularly invigorating. This period saw the creation of our Indigenous Wisdom curriculum project that provides educators with culturally based, easy-to-follow K–12 lesson plans for each grade level in math, language arts, social studies, and science, plus plenty of hands-on activities.

The annual Pueblo Film Fest debuted in 2014, and in 2015, IPMI opened the largest Starbucks in New Mexico next to the Holiday Inn Express, at what is now Avanyu Plaza. Starbucks at Avanyu Plaza features Pueblo-inspired architecture, and handmade Pueblo pottery and art. Some of the Pueblo artwork commissioned for the Starbucks generated a demand for what became the Pueblo Pottery Mugs, a series of coffee mugs designed by Pueblo artisans. The sale of each mug generates royalties for the artists and Pueblo communities, and makes Pueblo art accessible to people around the world as a portable beacon of culture.

We celebrated our 40^th anniversary in 2016 by unveiling our new permanent exhibit, We Are of This Place: the Pueblo Story. It’s an immersive, interactive, multimedia exhibit inspired by traditions that have been passed down for generations, and its displays honor our land and all living things. Not long afterward, we also established the Bob Chavez Scholarship for the Arts, helping Pueblo artists who are pursuing the arts in higher education.

Avanyu Plaza continues to expand in phases with restaurant, retail, and office space development. In Phase I, a Domino’s Pizza and Pueblo-owned Laguna Burger opened as tenants in 2017, followed in 2018 by Sixty-Six Acres, a new dining spot from a popular local restaurateur. A large, decorative, open plaza was completed in 2019, which complements the retail and dining spaces being constructed around it. Across from this new outdoor space, IPMI-owned Marriott TownePlace Suites opened in the summer of 2020. In the spring and summer of 2022, an exciting mix of businesses in Phase II of our commercial development began opening, including US Eagle Federal Credit Union and 12^th Street Tavern, a new neighborhood eatery owned and operated by IPMI. Rude Boy Cookies and Itality Plant Based Foods opened in the fall of 2022, and IPMI announced La Montañita Food Co-op, New Mexico’s largest locally owned food co-op, as the anchor tenant for Phase III. In the summer of 2023, Mama’s Minerals and IPMI’s day spa and wellness boutique, Rainwater Wellness, opened their doors. All will continue to draw residents and visitors alike to the thriving 12th Street corridor.

It’s a truly exciting and inspiring time for the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center and Avanyu Plaza. What began as a single building for a museum has flourished into a vibrant cultural and business corridor showcasing the best New Mexico has to offer, all while benefiting city, state, and Pueblo economies.

Today, IPCC is one of the top tourist attractions in New Mexico, and offers plenty of events, dining, and shopping for locals. Over the years our center has grown because of the love, care, and passion of all those who have passed through our doors, growing IPCC into what it is today, and what it will become in the years ahead. Thank you for being part of our story, and being involved in the past, present, and future of IPCC and Pueblo culture!

A Closer Connection to The Pueblo Story Starts Here

Experience a deeper, more meaningful connection to Pueblo people and culture by becoming an IPCC Insider. You’ll have priority access year-round to digital and in-person exhibitions, events, programs and other exclusive offerings.

Join now and start enjoying the benefits of membership. Your support helps us fulfill our mission to preserve and perpetuate Pueblo culture.

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Protected: Colors That Speak Words Video and Opening Invite

Protected: New South Gallery Exhibits Opening

Protected: IPCC Insider Exclusive Art Through Struggle Gallery: CONNECTED SNEAK PREVIEW

Protected: IPCC Insider Exclusive: Clay Line of The Red Willow People: A Showcase of Three Taos Pueblo ArtistsIPCC Insider Exclusive: Exhibit Opening Sneak Peak

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Protected: IPCC Insider Exclusive: Anshe Ko’Hanna Dance Group (Zuni)

INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW THOMAS (DINÉ)

Join IPCC Librarian & Archivist Jonna Paden as she talks with Diné (Navajo) flute player and long-time IPCC employee Andrew Thomas. Learn about the Native American flute, how he started playing, and the places his music has taken him. This conversation is part of programming funded by a 2022 American Library Association American Rescue Plan grant.

Protected: IPCC Insider Exclusive Video – The Pueblo Dance Group Closes out August

Pueblo Revolt

August 6, 2022

Since time immemorial, our Pueblo history has been filled with resilience and resistance, whether every day subsistence activities of living on our lands or life-changing events that require a larger collaborative community effort, such as the Pueblo Revolts of 1680 and 1696. Through the centuries, we have adapted and stayed strong. Resilience runs through our blood.

This month’s blog revisits and expands on the August 2021 post about the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and the leader, Po’pay.

Monthly Feature: Pueblo Revolt

“Pueblo Revolt 1680”, clay tile Jason Garcia (Tewa/Santa Clara Pueblo)

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 is a regularly inquired about subject. Researchers seek the Pueblo perspective, which is not likely to have been recorded. If it was, those records probably perished in the burning of buildings during the revolt. As Aguilar writes, Pueblo people have their own accounts of the revolt. Some have been shared and some not. “Some Pueblo accounts have been purposely suppressed in the historical memory of communities.” (p. 47) In his book, Pueblo Revolt: The Secret Rebellion that Drove the Spaniards Out of the Southwest, David Roberts presents one reason why, previous to current times, some Pueblo youth did not learn details of the Pueblo Revolt until college. As a life-changing event, that knowledge served no use.

Histories are primarily based on Spanish colonial journals and Franciscan ecclesiastical correspondence and are often biased. As professor, author and researcher, Matthew Liebmann writes, Indigenous rebellions are either successes or failures. “Successful” revolts result in the establishment of liberty or self-rule. Anything less than permanent decolonized independence is considered a failure.

Appraisals of Indigenous resistance tend to be Eurocentric. After a rebellion, the narrative turns toward the assimilation of tribal people and communities into the American mainstream. It rarely documents the after effects of colonization on a people. While the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 is recognized in American history as one of the first Native revolutions, more interesting is what occurred in Pueblo communities in the twelve years before the return of the Spanish. For example, Alfonso Ortiz (Ohkay Owingeh) cites religious restoration, cultural revitalization, population movement and dislocation, and the possible creation of the antecedent to the All Pueblo Council of Governors, formerly the All Indian Pueblo Council. (Aguilar)

The revolt might have shared meaning, but was not a shared experience. (Aguilar) There are a diversity of meanings and experiences based on, among other things, physical location, migrations, settler encounters, and cultural beliefs. What is shared and evident is the struggle, adaption, strength, and resilience of the Pueblo people and communities in the almost five hundred years since first contact with the Spanish.

Monthly Feature: Pueblo Revolt

“Tewa Tales of Suspense #5 – Behold . . . Po’Pay”, clay and mineral pigments
**Jason Garcia** (Tewa/Santa Clara Pueblo)

Born about 1630, Po’pay (Ohkay Owingeh/San Juan Pueblo) – whose name, Popyn, means Ripe squash in Tewa – was a farmer and part of the medicine society. In 1675, Po’pay and 46 other Pueblo leaders were convicted of sorcery. Those practicing traditional religious practices were tortured and sometimes executed by the Spanish settlers. Po’pay was flogged.

Pueblo leaders had been meeting to discuss how to approach and deal with the Spaniards. They agreed that the Spaniards needed to leave. Po’pay was chosen as leader. August 13 was chosen as the day the Pueblos would begin to force the Spaniards out of the Pueblo homelands. Runners carried knotted cords as they ran to notify the distant Pueblos of the plan. Each day a knot was to be undone. The day of the last knot signified the day of the uprising. Catua and Omtua (Taytsugeh Oweengeh/Tesuque Pueblo) were caught, questioned, and hanged. The revolt started sooner than planned on August 10^th.

Cliff Fragua (sculptor) describes the sculpture:

In my rendition, he holds in his hands items that will determine the future existence of the Pueblo people. The knotted cord in his left hand was used to determine when the Revolt would begin. As to how many knots were used is debatable, but I feel that it must have taken many days to plan and notify most of the Pueblos. The bear fetish in his right hand symbolizes the center of the Pueblo world, the Pueblo religion. The pot behind him symbolizes the Pueblo culture, and the deerskin he wears is a humble symbol of his status as a provider. The necklace that he wears is a constant reminder of where life began, and his clothing consists of a loin cloth and moccasins in Pueblo fashion. His hair is cut in Pueblo tradition and bound in a chongo. On his back are the scars that remain from the whipping he received for his participation and faith in the Pueblo ceremonies and religion.
Cliff Fragua (Jemez)

Installed in 2005 at the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol, Po’pay, is one of seven statues that honors a Native American and is the only statue carved by a Native American sculptor.

Cliff Fragua (Walatowa–Jemez Pueblo) had no visual reference for Po’pay. The seven-foot statue, carved from pink Tennessee marble, was chosen because its hue “is more closer to our skin color.”

A second Po’pay statue at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center was crafted with a stronger statement – a broken crucifix and a Pueblo drum, which represent traditional Pueblo songs and dances.

“Catua and Umtua” (Taytsugeh Oweengeh/Tesuque Pueblo), bronze sculpture, **George Rivera** (Pojoaque Pueblo)

Books

Po’pay: Leader of the First American Revolution chronicles the history of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and its leader, Po’pay, with commentaries on the historical and cultural importance of these events. This is the first time Pueblo historians have written about these events in book form; previous volumes reflected Spanish sources or more distant academic viepoints. Drawing on their oral history and using their own words, the Pueblo writers discuss the history and importance of Po’pay, the illustrious San Juan Pueblo Indian strategist and warrior who was renowned, respected and revered by their people as a visionary leader. Edited by Joe S. Sando (Jemez Pueblo) & Herman Agoyo (San Juan Pueblo), this book includes contributions by Theodore S. Jojola (Isleta Pueblo), Robert Mirabal (Taos Pueblo), Alfonso Ortiz (San Juan Pueblo), Simon J. Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo), and Joseph H. Suina (Cochiti Pueblo).

Po’pay: Leader of the First American Revolution also provides a comprehensive look at a particular time in New Mexico’s history that changed the state forever, making it the richly multi-cultural “Land of Enchantment” that it is. Amplified with quotes from New Mexico and Pueblo leaders, the book also demonstrates how the events of the Pueblo Revolt enabled the Pueblos, unlike other American Indian groups, to continue their languages, traditions and religion on essentially the same lands from ancient times to today and how Po’pay’s legacy continues to inspire all people. The book also covers the historical making of the seven-foot-tall Tennessee marble statue, from the political processes involved to its actual creation, eventual completion and final dedication in the Statuary Hall on September 22, 2005.

Revolt: An Archaeological History of Pueblo Resistance and Revitalization in 17^th Century New Mexico. The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 is the most renowned colonial uprisings in the history of the American Southwest. Traditional text-based accounts tend to focus on the revolt and the Spaniards’ reconquest in 1692—completely skipping over the years of indigenous independence that occurred in between. Revolt boldly breaks out of this mold and examines the aftermath of the uprising in colonial New Mexico, focusing on the radical changes it instigated in Pueblo culture and society.

In addition to being the first book-length history of the revolt that incorporates archaeological evidence as a primary source of data, this volume is one of a kind in its attempt to put these events into the larger context of Native American cultural revitalization. Despite the fact that the only surviving records of the revolt were written by Spanish witnesses and contain certain biases, author Matthew Liebmann finds unique ways to bring a fresh perspective to Revolt.

Most notably, he uses his hands-on experience at Ancestral Pueblo archaeological sites—four Pueblo villages constructed between 1680 and 1696 in the Jemez province of New Mexico—to provide an understanding of this period that other treatments have yet to accomplish. By analyzing ceramics, architecture, and rock art of the Pueblo Revolt era, he sheds new light on a period often portrayed as one of unvarying degradation and dissention among Pueblos. A compelling read, Revolt’s “blood-and-thunder” story successfully ties together archaeology, history, and ethnohistory to add a new dimension to this uprising and its aftermath.

Archaeologies of the Pueblo Revolt: Identity, Meaning, and Renewal in the Pueblo World is the first archaeological investigation of the events and consequences of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The fourteen chapters, written by leading anthropologists and Native scholars including editor Robert W. Preucel and Herman Agoyo of San Juan Pueblo, explore the roles of architecture and settlement in Puebloan society, the uses of ceramics and rock art in belief systems, and the influences of population movements and warfare patterns on social and political organization.

The authors demonstrate that, in the process of resisting Spanish authority, Pueblo people created a new historical consciousness, a collective memory and a mode of interaction which continue to serve them today.

References

Aguilar, J. R. (2019) Asserting sovereignty: An Indigenous archaeology of the Pueblo revolt at Tunyo, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico. (Publication No. 22584386). [Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Liebmann, M. (2012). Revolt: An archaeological history of Pueblo resistance and revitalization in 17th century New Mexico. University of Arizona Press.

Roberts, D. (2004). Pueblo revolt: The secret rebellion that drove the Spaniards out of the southwest. Simon & Schuster.

*The term Indigenous is used broadly to include those labeled Native American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Hawaiian, First Nations, Aboriginal, and others such as the Sami (Finland) and Ainu (Japan). Native American and American Indian are used interchangeably in this blog.

About the Author

Jonna C. Paden, Librarian and Archivist, is a tribally enrolled member of Acoma Pueblo. As part of the Circle of Learning cohort, she holds a Masters in Library and Information Science from San José State University where she focused on the career pathway of Archives and Records Management. She is also the archivist for the New Mexico Library Association (NMLA) and previous (2020) and current Chair for the New Mexico Library Association (NMLA) Native American Libraries – Special Interest Group (NALSIG).