On Walkabout At: Abo Pueblo, New Mexico

Next up on the trip that my wife and I took to explore the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument was to drive to the remains of the Abo Pueblo.  Below is a map that shows the first Salinas Pueblo we visited, Gran Quivira as well as the second pueblo we visited, Quarai depicted by the purple marker on the map.  Abo can be seen towards the center of the map along Highway 60:

Abo is only about a 20 minute drive from Mountainair and is centrally located on a mountain pass that is still used today by both automobiles and trains to access the Rio Grande River Valley.  Abo like Quarai is also tucked up against the impressive Manzano Peak, which is part of the mountain chain that runs south from Albuquerque and composes the Cibola National Forest.  I began my visit to Abo by first stopping in the visitor center which offered plenty of information about the ruins:

Just like Gran Quivira and Quarai, Abo was once a vibrant trading city populated by Tiwa speaking Native-Americans. The visitor center had this model that shows how the mission and its surrounding pueblos would have looked like 350 years ago:

It is believed that the first Native-Americans began construction of their pueblo village here back in the 1300’s.  Like with the other Tiwa villages in the area, Abo was first contacted by the Spanish in the early 1600’s.  The first Spanish friar assigned to Abo in 1622, Francisco Fonte, began constructing a church that was completed using Indian labor in 1627.  He named the church “San Gregorio de Abo”.  In 1640 the next friar to come to Abo, Francisco de Acevedo further expanded the church with this additional construction being completed in 1651.  This church with its distinctive red rock construction would have been quite sight for all the travelers that crossed over the pass all those centuries ago:

However, this sight would not remain very long because by the mid-1670’s the Tiwa and the Spanish abandoned the pueblo due to the combination of a small pox plaque in the 1650?s followed by a drought between 1663 to 1670.  The residents that did not die from sickness or hunger had to then contend with attacks from the neighboring Apaches who attacked the Salinas Pueblo Missions regularly to obtain food. By 1677 all three of the Salinas Pueblo Missions were abandoned.  The remaining residents of these pueblo communities moved to the El Paso and Las Cruces areas settled by the Spanish colonists that had a dependable water source from the Rio Grande River.  The ancestor of these Indians still call the El Paso area home.

From the visitor center there is circuit trail that takes visitors all around the ruins of the Abo Pueblo:

At the start of the trail is an artists depiction of what the settlement would have looked like 350 years ago:

However, from the ruins today it is hard to imagine what a bustling settlement this once was so long ago:

Here is something I saw at this mission that was different from other Salinas Pueblo Missions, which was that Abo may have had outhouses built into the church:

Archaeologists are not sure if these really were outhouse stalls or not, but if not what else could they have been?

Here is something else that was different about Abo, is that a kiva was was incorporated as part of the design of the mission.  I have written before about how common it was to find kivas located next to missions during the Spanish colonial era in the American Southwest  As can be seen in the below photograph the kiva was built inside of the mission using the same building materials as the church:

Maybe the friars thought that by bringing the Tiwa Indians into their mission to worship that they could slowly win them over to Christianity?  Nevertheless it is pretty surprising to find pagan worshiping being allowed to happen inside a Catholic mission at the same time the Inquisition was going on back in Spain.

Here are the stairs that lead into church:

Here is the view of the inside of the church:

Here is the view looking back towards the entrance:

There was no pews in this church and both the Indians and the Spanish settlers who worshiped here stood to listen and then got on their knees when it was time to pray.  On the side of the church there is still a little altar that is visible:

After walking around the cavernous inside of the church, we then walked back outside.  While looking up at the bell tower I noticed that wood beams could still be seen supporting the structure:

Throughout the site there was even more wood beams in place keeping the structure together.  Whether or not the wood was from the original construction of the church I do not know.  What I found impressive about the wood is that it would have had to been dragged about 20 miles from the upper slopes of the Manzano Mountains in order to be used in the construction of the church:

Much like with the Quarai Pueblo, ruins from this settlement are not only from the Native-Americans and the early Spanish explorers.  Also sprinkled around the site are the remains from the Mexican grazers who began to resettle the Salinas area in the 1830’s:

The last Mexican grazer to call the Abo Pueblo home was Don Federico “Fred” Sisneros.  His ancestor settled in this area in 1869 and his dad charged his young son to care for the old mission until he took over the ranch himself.  When the government established the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument in 1981 Fred became known as the nation’s oldest park ranger since he was 87 years old at the time.

When Sisneros died in 1988 his body was buried underneath a juniper that overlooked the old mission he cared so long for:

From Fred’s grave the circuit trail continues around the park to allow visitors to see the earthen mounds that still remain, which are all that is left of the adobe pueblos that have long since eroded way over the centuries:

While walking around the trail I noticed that Abo did have its own water source that was conveniently located not too far from the settlement:

It was easy to imagine the Indians walking back and forth across this field to provide water to their pueblos and the mission:

There wasn’t a whole lot of water running in the creek so I can understand how easily drought would have effected the settlement.  The trail ended back at the parking lot which officially ended our tour of the Salinas Pueblo Missions.  The scenery combined with the interesting look back into the early history of New Mexico makes this an all-day activity that was well worth checking out.  However, judging by the lack of visitors that my wife and I saw at each of the missions not a whole lot of people are making the drive to these out of the way locations.  That makes the Pueblo Salinas Missions about the loneliest national monument that we have ever visited, not that there is anything wrong with that.

Here is some administrative from NPS website about the park.  The Abo ruins are open daily with summer hours (Memorial Day – Labor Day): 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.  The winter has hours (rest of the year) are 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.  There is also no entrance fee for visiting the park making this an affordable outing for anyone look for a cheap, but interesting day out with their family.