opulation of the province was reckoned as
being within the pale of the church; not less than sixty Franciscan
friars at once were engaged in the double service of pastors and
missionaries. The triumph of the gospel and of Spanish arms seemed
complete and permanent.

Fourscore years after the founding of the colony and mission the sudden
explosion of a conspiracy, which for a long time had been secretly
preparing, revealed the true value of the allegiance of the Indians to
the Spanish government and of their conversion to Christ. Confounding in
a common hatred the missionaries and the tyrannous conquerors, who had
been associated in a common policy, the Christian Indians turned upon
their rulers and their pastors alike with undiscriminating warfare. "In
a few weeks no Spaniard was in New Mexico north of El Paso. Christianity
and civilization were swept away at one blow." The successful rebels
bettered the instruction that they had received from their rejected
pastors. The measures of compulsion that had been used to stamp out
every vestige of the old religion were put into use against the new.

The cause of Catholic Christianity in New Mexico never recovered from
this stunning blow. After twenty years the Spanish power, taking
advantage of the anarchy and depopulation of the province, had
reoccupied its former posts by military force, the missionaries were
brought back under armed protection, the practice of the ancient
religion was suppressed by the strong hand, and efforts, too often
unsuccessful, were made to win back the apostate tribes to something
more than a sullen submission to the government and the religion of
their conquerors. The later history of Spanish Christianity in New
Mexico is a history of decline and decay, enlivened by the usual
contentions between the "regular" clergy and the episcopal government.
The white population increased, the Indian population dwindled. Religion
as set forth by an exotic clergy became an object of indifference when
it was not an object of hatred. In 1845 the Bishop of Durango, visiting
the province, found an Indian population of twenty thousand in a total
of eighty thousand. The clergy numbered only seventeen priests. Three
years later the province became part of the United States.

To complete the story of the planting of Spanish Christianity within the
present boundaries of the United States, it is necessary to depart from
the merely chronological order of American church