Antonio de Espejo
In February 1583, Espejo arrived at the territory of the Piros, the most southerly of the Pueblo villagers. From there the Spanish continued up the Rio Grande. Espejo described the Pueblo villages as "clean and tidy". The houses were multi-storied and made of adode bricks. "They make very fine tortillas," Espejo commented, and the Pueblos also served the Spanish turkeys, beans, corns, and pumpkins. The people "did not seem to be bellicose". The southernmost Pueblos had only clubs for weapons plus a few "poor Turkish bows and poorer arrows". Further north, the Indians were better armed and more aggressive. Some of the Pueblo towns were large, Espejo described Zia as having 1,000 houses and 4,000 men and boys. In their farming, the Pueblos used irrigation "with canals and dams, built as if by Spaniards". The only Spanish influence that Espejo noted among the Pueblos was their desire for iron. They would steal any iron article they could find.
Middle Rio Grande Project
The Rio Grande valley from Taos Pueblo downstream to Socorro has been continuously settled for longer than any other part of the United States. The Pueblo Indians diverted water from the river for irrigation. Spanish settlers who arrived in the 17th century established a more extensive system of "acequias", or shared irrigation canals. More settlers arrived after the region was ceded to the United States in 1848, particularly after the American Civil War (1861-1865). Irrigation peaked in 1880 with of cultivated land in the stretch of valley from Cochiti to San Marcial. The extent of cultivation began to decline after this due to water shortage, floods and waterlogging caused by aggradation of the riverbed, a rising water table and poor drainage.