Pueblo peoples in present-day New Mexico coordinated a successful uprising against Spanish colonial rule, expelling colonizers for twelve years and rejecting forced labor, tribute demands, and religious conversion efforts. Led by Popé, the revolt temporarily restored indigenous governance structures and traditional practices before Spanish reconquest reimposed colonial taxation and missionary systems.

The Pueblo Revolt represents indigenous resistance largely absent from colonial Spanish literary records, which portrayed natives as passive or savage. Contemporary recovery of Pueblo oral traditions and testimonies reveals sophisticated political organization and cultural resilience, while modern Native American poets draw on this history to explore themes of colonization, cultural survival, and the ongoing struggle for indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.