White) THE PUEBLO OF SIA, NEW MEXICO 321 
Then there was that long era about which we know so little; from 
1696 to the middle of the 19th centrury when American army officers 
and Indian Agents came upon the scene. The story they tell us about 
Sia is pathetic and depressing: a pueblo once great, according to the 
early Spanish chronicles about the Punames, now falling into utter 
ruin and decay. I have already noted, in my chapter on the history 
of Sia, the observations and comments of early Indian Agents and of 
John G. Bourke. Matilda Stevenson (1894, p. 9) observed: 
All that remains of the once populous pueblo is a small group of houses and a 
mere handful of people in the midst of one of the most extensive ruins of the South- 
west, the living relic of an almost extinct people and a pathetic tale of the 
ravages of warfare and pestilence. 
And Powell’s (1894, p. xl) judgment was that they were “‘a decadent 
and rapidly changing people.” 
So sorry was the plight of the Sia around the turn of the century 
that the Bureau of Indian Affairs seriously considered removing the 
remnants of the population to another site: 
Supt. John B. Harper, in charge of irrigation for the pueblos, hopes to settle 
this question of water for the Sia Pueblo by moving them to fertile lands in the 
Rio Grande Valley below Bernalillo, on the Sandia grant. I hope this may be 
done, but I have advised Supt. Harper that it will, I fear, be impossible to secure 
the removal of the Sia Indians unless force is employed, and that we cannot use. 
[Report of the Indian Agent in Rept. of the Supt. to the Commissioner of Indian 
Affairs for 1902, pp. 257-258.] 
Three years later the same agent reported that the Sia had refused 
to move to the Sandia reservation: ‘“‘They would prefer to remain 
where they are and starve than to join with the San Dia Indians. . . .” 
(Rep. Com. Ind. Affairs, 1905, p. 275.) 
Early in the 19th century an American tourist visited Sia (Saunders, 
1912, pp. 60-61): 
Once among the finest and most populous of all the pueblos, according to the 
chronicles of the Conquistadors . . . Sia is now desolate, its population dwindled 
through wars and epidemics to a bare hundred, its buildings in partial ruin, and 
its light all but gone out. .. . Most of the dwellings are tenantless and, to the 
casual visitor, the place seems hopelessly lifeless and uninteresting... . 
{Saunders talked with the American schoolteacher stationed there:] 
But it is sad business teaching here at Sia [she remarked], and watching 
the dying of a race. They are so reduced in numbers, it is no longer possible 
for them to keep up their institutions and their healthfulness in the way their 
traditions require them to do; yet they would rather die out as Sias than amal- 
gamate with another pueblo. The Santa Ana people would like to have them 
go over there, which would seem a sensible course, strengthening both peoples; 
but the Sias cannot bring themselves to surrender. It shows a fine spirit, I think, 
and I cannot help honouring them for it, suicidal as it is. 
