Santa Clara Pueblo (in Tewa: Kha'po Owingeh [xɑ̀ʔp’òː ʔówîŋgè]) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, United States and a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people. Santa Clara Pueblo was established about 1550.
The pueblo is a member of the Eight Northern Pueblos, and the people are from the Tewa ethnic group of Native Americans who speak the Tewa language. The pueblo is on the Rio Grande, between Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan Pueblo) to the north and San Ildefonso Pueblo to the south. Santa Clara Pueblo is famous for producing hand-crafted pottery, specifically blackware and redware with deep engravings. The pueblo is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
|Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico|
House at Santa Clara Pueblo, 1910
Location of Santa Clara Pueblo
|• Total||2.1 sq mi (5.4 km2)|
|• Land||2.1 sq mi (5.4 km2)|
|• Water||0.0 sq mi (0.0 km2)|
|Elevation||5,607 ft (1,709 m)|
|Population (2010 census)|
|• Density||484.7/sq mi (188.5/km2)|
|Time zone||Mountain (MST) (UTC-7)|
|• Summer (DST)||MDT (UTC-6)|
|GNIS feature ID||0928813|
Santa Clara Pueblo
|Nearest city||Española, New Mexico|
|Area||24 acres (9.7 ha)|
|NRHP reference #||74001199|
|Added to NRHP||November 5, 1974|
|Designated NMSRCP||December 30, 1971|
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 2.1 square miles (5.4 km²), all of it land.
The 2010 census found that 1,018 people lived in the CDP, while 1,182 people in the United States reported being exclusively Santa Claran and 1,425 people reported being Santa Claran exclusively or in combination with another group.
Pueblo peoples lived in the area for millennia before they met Juan de Oñate and his exploration party on July 11, 1598. Pueblo archaeology shows that Ancient Pueblo Peoples lived in the general region as far back as 1200BC.
First visited in 1541, a segment of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado's expeditionary force met with the residents of the nearby Caypa pueblo. After annexation of the region into the Spanish Kingdom, and as part of the 1601 expansion of Oñate's colonial capital, a chapel was built there by 1617. Fray Alonso de Benavides established a mission in 1628.
History shows that the mission was abandoned on the lead up to the revolt. The pueblo would join forces with others and would fight against the Spanish royal government in 1680 in the Great Pueblo Revolt. The original and unoccupied chapel was destroyed. Two other chapel buildings would be constructed there. The current church replaced the former in 1918. In 1782, a small pox outbreak decimated the population. The eighth section of the Act of July 22, 1854 mandated a census of the newly acquired possessions of the US government. In review of the land's title, the pueblo presented a Spanish Royal decree dated October 15, 1713 that the title to land and various pueblos could be expected. Though lost, the decree on the title papers, if ever they existed, assured protection of the pueblos' right to protection of their homelands from encroachment. The result of the title research led the pueblo community to be of the first recognized by Congress.