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Show The Spanish Period 5 Santa Fe to trade as they had before the revolt. Despite the Pueblo Revolt and the absence of the Spanish for twelve years, the peace treaty of 1670 with the Utes remained intact well into the 1700's. Around 1700, the Utes and their kinsmen, the Comanches, began to raid the Pueblos for horses, agricultural products, and captives to be held for ransom. The full force of Ute and Comanche attacks were felt from 1696 to 1727 especially in the north central and northeastern portions of New Mexico. In 1719, the peace between the Utes and the Spanish was broken. Governor Valverde of New Mexico carried on an extensive campaign against them after a Council of War and opinions gathered from Spanish leaders in Santa Fe. That punitive expedition against the Utes and Comanches was largely unsuccessful and the Spanish turned to developing peace with the Jicarilla Apaches who would act as a buffer state. From about 1650 the Apaches had been encroaching on Ute lands and, by the time of the return of the Spanish, had settled in the Sierra Blancas north of Taos and in northeast New Mexico.9 Because the Spanish offered some protection, the Utes were willing to form an alliance with them. But when this alliance broke down, the Utes and the Comanches began raiding the Jicarillas, burning rancherias and capturing women and children to sell for ransom. The Utes also formed an alliance with the Comanches, which lasted intermittently from 1700 to 1746, to help apply pressure against the encroaching Apache. So from about 1700 to 1750, relations among the Utes, Comanches, Apaches and Spanish were confused, shifting from warfare to alliance and back again. By the end of the Ute-Comanche alliance, and one of the reasons for its ending, the Apaches had been driven out of northeastern New Mexico and into an area south and west of the Ute lands. By 1748 the Comanches had become strong enough to turn on their Ute allies and cause problems for the Spanish as well. To end this problem the governor of New Mexico, Joachin de Coadallos y Rabal, marched on both the Utes and Comanches and defeated them in a battle above Abiquiu, New Mexico. After this a series of battles between the Utes and the Spanish lasted for two years before the Utes came to Taos to sue for peace with the Spanish. The Utes were finding it too difficult to fight both the Spanish and the Comanches. They 9 S. Lyman Tyler, "The Spaniard and the Ute," Utah Historical Quarterly, XXII, No. 4 (1954), 346. |