Santa Ana Pueblo: A Village That Moved Twice

The Keres-speaking people of Santa Ana Pueblo have occupied this reach of the Rio Grande for centuries, though not always in the same spot. The pueblo was established on its present site in sixteen ninety-three, when the Spanish reconqueror Diego de Vargas led settlers and allied Native peoples back into New Mexico more than a decade after the Pueblo Revolt of sixteen eighty.

The location proved difficult. Prone to flooding and poorly suited for farming, the main village was used for ceremonial and winter purposes while residents farmed plots downstream. Today, the Tamaya people, as they call themselves, operate the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort on their ancestral river lands, a striking example of tribal economic sovereignty. The old pueblo buildings still stand and are maintained, but the community's center of daily life has long been the river farms their ancestors found more hospitable than the plateau above.