Gran Quivira: The Pueblo That Vanished
New Mexico
About a mile south of here stand the ruins of Gran Quivira, the largest of the Salinas Pueblos, known to its Tompiro-speaking inhabitants as Pueblo de las Humanas. At its height, from roughly thirteen hundred to the sixteen seventies, the village held roughly two thousand or more people and served as a major trading hub between the Rio Grande pueblos and the Plains peoples to the east.
Spanish missionaries built two churches here in the sixteen hundreds, a smaller one finished in sixteen thirty-five and a much larger one begun after sixteen fifty-nine. Then catastrophe arrived simultaneously: a long drought, famine, smallpox, and escalating Apache raids overwhelmed the community. The survivors abandoned Gran Quivira around sixteen seventy-two and never returned. The Spanish called it the Gran Quivira, confusing it with the mythical golden city Coronado had sought a century before. Today it is part of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.
