Gran Quivera

I haven't visited the Salinas Monuments in about 15 years.  Each site has a visitors center, now.  Most of the sites have not been fully excavated, so the stories about what happened in these communities are largely based on the Spanish record.  The Franciscans came to convert the pueblo people to Catholicism.  Soon after the Spanish arrival - the pueblo people built churches and were forced to cover their traditional kivas.  The churches at the sites were either never used or were used for very few years.  Drought and starvation soon followed the Franciscans.  The Pueblo people were forced to sell their back store of corn that they had always relied upon during drought years.  When the drought years began, hundreds of people died and these pueblos were abandoned.