One of 19 Native Indian Tribes in New Mexico, is the Pojoaque Pueblo; just north of Santa Fe, NM. Originally settled around the time of King Arthur’s death in Europe, it stayed undiscovered until the early 1600s by Spanish Missions into the west.

At the time of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the area became ravaged by external pressures and many people scattered to neighboring tribes. During the time of Re-Conquest of New Mexico, the Pojoaque pueblo village was abandoned for 26 years. In 1706, five families resettled the area, and the population reached 79 in 1712. Invaded by non-Indians, in the early 1800s, Abraham Lincoln patented an official land grant and presented it to the Governor of Pojoaque.

Further devastation came when non-Indians encroached on the land again, a lack of water came to the area, crops became harder to grow and a smallpox epidemic broke out. It later became abandoned once again, in 1900, after the last Pueblo Spiritual Leader died and the governor left the reservation for outside employment.

The Commissioner of Indian Affairs issued a call for all Tribal members to return to the area, in 1932. In 1934, only 14 members from the Romero, Tapia, Villarial and later the Gutierez/Montoya families came back to the land and were rewarded a land grant for the Pueblo land base.

In 1936 the land became a federally recognized Tribal Reservation. In 1973, the people of the Pojoaque Pueblo Reservation elected Thelma Talachy, the first woman governor in the Rio Grande villages. The Pojoaque people help operate the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, in Albuquerque with the other 18 Pueblos in New Mexico.

After being settled over 1500 years ago, the Pojoaque Pueblo people and the other pueblos in the lands around them are still continuing their nomadic lifestyle today.