I read Uprising
with relish. I’ve tried to read other books about the Pueblo Revolt, but
couldn’t get into them as they were too ponderous or dry. Jake Page’s prose is
as good as non-fiction narrative can get, and it flows like a well-paced,
humming river. So many historical books get bogged down with the numerous
players, settings, or events, but not Uprising.
In the narrative the people, Pueblos, settlements, and complicated events are
so well portrayed that I could quite easily keep track of them. The map also
helped. The spot illustrations are an added bonus.
Because I live in the region, I see it as a plus that Jake
Page also lives here as the land itself informs the book’s narrative. Even in
an automobile, it t takes the fortitude of an old mountain man to traverse this
vast desert region in order to ferret out the facts hidden between the Spanish
lost or destroyed records, the understandable Pueblo secrecy in order to
preserve their culture, and the cultural narrative point of view on all sides
of the history and peoples in New
Mexico.
Jake Page points out on page 161, “The Pueblo Rebellions of
1680-1696 can be considered the first American revolution – fought in part if
not entirely for the right of the Pueblo people to practice their s and
cultural ways without interference.”
It is amazing that to this day, in spite of conquest, some
diaspora, intermarriage, and suppression of culture, religion, and language
that the Pueblos remain the most intact of all the North American indigenous
groups.
Uprising
Jake Page
Rio Nuevo Publishers, Tucson, 2013
ISBN: 9781933855929
