If you enjoyed the ruins at Pecos, you’ll love the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. The ruins of three pueblos—abandoned just before the 1680 Pueblo Revolt—are an incredible sight and provide a fascinating glimpse into New Mexico’s past.
You’ll need the better part of a day for this trip. The Salinas pueblos are about 80 miles southeast of Albuquerque (92 miles from Santa Fe) near the Manzano Mountains. The most direct route is to drive south on I-25 to Belen, then turn onto NM 47 South, which will take you on a southeastern diagonal to NM 60. Drive east on NM 60 to the town of Mountainair, where the main Visitor Center is located. But here’s a better idea: take the historic route. From I-25 South, turn east on I-40 in Albuquerque, then south onto NM 337, which winds through tiny old farming communities with names like Escobosa and Chilili. When NM 337 ends, take NM 55 south through Tajique and Manzano to Mountainair. For even more of a scenic drive, take the Turquoise Trail from Santa Fe to Albuquerque: NM 14 South, a lovely drive through the old mining town of Madrid and the Ortiz Mountains, hooks up with NM 337 right at I-40.
Salinas Pueblo National Monument consists of the ruins of three pueblos: Abó, Quarai, and Gran Quivera. All three are worth a visit. Stop at the Visitor Center in Mountain for maps, trails guides, and information. There’s a small museum shows what life was like in the pueblos and tells the stories of their rise and fall. The gift shop carries plenty of books about the area, and the rangers are very helpful. (There are also small Visitor Centers at each of the pueblo sites.)
Abó: If you’re driving in on NM 60 East, you’ll pass the sign for Abó on your way to Mountainair. There’s no need to wait: Abó has it’s own Visitor Center with trail maps and information. Follow the signs north on NM 513— it’s only about ½ mile up from NM 60. Here you’ll find the red stone ruins of a magnificent church, San Gregorio de Abó. Actually, it’s two churches: the second, built in the 1640s, was constructed right on top of the original 1622 church, using some of its walls. Wander the paved trail around the church and /convento/ (priest’s house and church outbuildings). Keep in mind that this very complex structure (which was in its day covered with mud plaster) was designed by a single Franciscan priest (well, in this case, two priests on different occasions) and built from the area’s red stone by the native Indians, who used techniques their ancestors developed centuries earlier in Chaco Canyon. The Indians’ homes, however, were not built of stone but of adobe. So where are they? If you’ve left the path to stand on the grassy mounds surrounding the church, they’re under your feet—gone back long ago to the earth from which they were built.
Quarai: The ruins of Quarai are on NM 55 just south of Manzano. If you’re coming in on the old historic route, you can make this your first stop. If you’re already at Mountainair, drive eight miles north on NM 55. Here you’ll find the ruins of another red stone church, Nuestra Señora de Purísima Concepción (Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception). Built in the early seventeenth century, in a different, simpler style, the ruins are more complete and just as gorgeous as the one at Abó, especially when you’re glimpsing the blue New Mexico sky through the church’s now-empty front window. You can see the old kiva (an underground ceremonial room used by the natives), and walk the foundations of the /convento/, where there once lived a priest who had a Spanish government official arrested and brought before the Inquisition for declaring that the authority of the Spanish Crown was higher than that of the Church. Like Abó, the red stone structures were once covered with brown mud plaster and were decorated with holy objects and artwork brought from Spain and Mexico. These churches even had organs in the choir lofts. Also like Abó, the adobe homes of the Indians have fallen back into the ground and have not been excavated. Notice, here, too, the trees and shrubbery around the pueblo ruins: in it’s heyday, the ground here was completely bare. All the available wood in the area had been harvested by the pueblo’s inhabitants.
Gran Quarai: Visiting Gran Quarai is a bit of a journey—it’s located 25 miles south of Mountainair on NM 55. But here you’ll find something different: not a huge red stone edifice but an uncompleted church built of white stones. Here, too, you’ll find more evidence of the pueblo itself. The natives of Gran Quivera (once called Los Humanas) built their homes from the same white stone, which they also covered in mud plaster. The foundations of a sort of apartment complex with tiny rooms stretches in front of the church, which was still under construction when the pueblo was abandoned. The Visitor’s Center here features a 40-minute film on Gran Quivera.
History of the Salinas Pueblos
The area called Salinas was once a great lake: the salts beds that remained after the lake dried up give the area its name. In the days before the Spanish, this region was home to many thriving villages. Theses villages seem to have been spared an encounter with Francisco de Coronado and his conquistadors, who first explored New Mexico in 1540, and although Governor Juan de Oñate’s settlement party arrived in New Mexico in 1598, Franciscan missionaries did not attempt to Christianize the natives of the Salinas area until after 1618. Their location far from the Spanish settlement at San Gabriel (near Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo north of Santa Fe) may be one reason for the delay. Another explanation lies in a series of battles between the natives of Salinas and the Spanish, which resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 Indian warriors. When the Franciscans finally did arrive a few decades into the seventeenth century, they wasted no time building grand churches at the largest of the villages: Abó, Quarai and Gran Quivera. Life here changed drastically with the arrival of the Spanish. New crops were cultivated, livestock raised, and new tools and skills were introduced. From the very beginning, rivalries between the Spanish civil officials and the missionaries caused conflicts—over civil and church authority and the labor of the Indians. The Spanish officials encouraged the Indians’ traditional dances, both because they enjoyed them and because their encouragement enraged the Franciscans, who wanted the natives to abandon their old beliefs and embrace Christianity exclusively.
These conflicts, however, were not what brought about the end of the Salinas pueblos. Drought did not discriminate between civil and church authorities or between pueblo-dwelling and nomadic Indians. Years went by with no rain, no crops. The stores of food the Franciscans had put into silos were soon depleted. Before long, buffalo skin blankets and rugs were being boiled for broth. Attacks by the Plains Indians—the Navajos and Apaches who roamed the area, sometimes trading, other times raiding—grew more frequent and more violent. Finally, in the years just before the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, the remaining Indians and Spaniards left the Salinas pueblos for good. The churches at the pueblos were left intact, spared the angry destruction that took place at most New Mexico pueblos during the revolt. In fact, when the natives of Quarai left their home, they took with them the body of their beloved priest, Fray Gerónimo de la Llana, who had died some years earlier. His remains were reburied at a church nearby, and eventually moved to Santa Fe, where they rest in a stone casket in a niche in the wall of the Conquistadora Chapel at St. Francis Cathedral.
