122 SAVAGE CONSPIRACY. 



State before mentioned, with an account 

 of this insurrection and consequent mas- 

 sacre of the Spanish population, taken from 

 the journal of Don Antonio de Otermin, 

 governor and commandant at the time, 

 which was preserved in the public archives 

 at Santa Fe. 



It appears that the night of the 13th of Au- 

 gust, 1G80, was the time fixed for a general 

 insurrection of all the tribes and Pueblos* At 

 a stated hour the massacre of the Spanish 

 population was to commence. Every sou! 

 was to be butchered without distinction of 

 sex or age — with the exception of such 

 young and handsome females as they might 

 wish to preserve for wives! Although this 

 conspiracy had evidently been in agitation for 

 a great wliile, such strict secrecy had been 

 maintained, that nothing was known or even 

 suspected, till a few days before the appointed 

 time. It is said that not a single woman was 

 let into the secret, for fear of endangering the 

 success of the cause ; but it was finiilly dis- 

 closed by two Indian chiefs themselves to the 

 governor ; and about the same time informa- 

 tion of the conspiracy was received from 

 some curates and officers of Taos. 



Gov. Otermin, seeing the perilous situation 

 of the country, lost no time in dispatching 

 general orders for gathering the people of the 

 south into the Pueblo of Isleta, where the 

 lieutenant governor was stationed, and those 



* A general term for all the CcUftolic ladiaiu of N. Mexico, and 

 their villages. 





