Coronado Historic Site, Kuaua Pueblo
Near Albuquerque, New Mexico
The ruins on the west bank of the Río Grande here belonged to Kuaua, a Tiwa-speaking pueblo founded around thirteen twenty-five. When Francisco Vásquez de Coronado's expedition arrived in fifteen forty, Kuaua was among the largest villages in the region, with roughly twelve hundred rooms arranged around three plazas and six underground ceremonial kivas. Coronado's army spent the winter of fifteen forty to fifteen forty-one here, and the encounter was catastrophic for the Tiwa.
Spanish demands for food and shelter triggered violence that destroyed the alliance. The pueblo was abandoned toward the end of the fifteen hundreds. What makes this site remarkable is what excavators found in the nineteen thirties: a kiva with seventeen layers of painted murals representing some of the finest pre-Columbian wall art ever discovered in North America.
The historic site was dedicated in nineteen forty as part of the four-hundredth anniversary of Coronado's entrada.
