The Soaring Eagles
by Jesus Two Soul
The birth of the Mesa Confederation was founded in opposition to the wills of old, Imperial powers centered thousands of miles away. The native people of the land rose up against the iron fist of the Spanish and threw them out, then proceeded to keep themselves a nucance, but not a threat to the Spanish while they were distracted fighting off their neighboring rivals. While the isolated geography and the strong will of the Mesa people were a large part in ensuring their independance it was also the corrupt and bloated bureaucracies of the Spanish who eventually lost most if not all interest in putting them down under a yoke once more. The Mesa Confederation had carved for itself a sea of independence surrounded by raiding nomadic groups of the great plains and scorned tribes stretching from the great canyon to the Pacific. What little European settlement occured adjacent or within their lands was run off by their neighbors, was managed carefully to not increase tension, or were already outcasts from their lands of origin.
Those who came knocking at their borders in the early 19th century were unlike any foe they had faced before. They desired land in a much more deep and desireful way then the Europeans did. The two greatest foes of the Mesa Confederation, the American and Mexican Republics actually wanted to take land for their own people to use, not to simply have it to keep it from their rival or national prestige.
The Mesa Confederation only heard news of revolt by the Americans on the eastern seaboard of the continent years after they had won their independance and freed themselves from the British. On occasion they recieved American traders, but they generally operated with Spanish traders out of Mexico or trappers making deep hunting and trade expeditions and they had wandered into Commanche land and brought to Santa Fe to be ransomed. The Louisiana Purchase when announced did slightly raise the eyes of some in the Mesa Confederation, having been surprised that they shared a border with the French. Granted administration did not really change at all during the period this was not unsurprising. The Mesa Confederation anyway did not see the purchase as a threat just yet as the boundaries clearly or at least most likely would not have included their own lands and they did not yet realize the tenacity of the Anglo settlers from the east.
Their first major encounter with the Americans occured in 1807 with the arrival of Zebulon Pike. Attempting to explore the recent purchase American purchase Pike traveled through the Arkansas river to the base of the Rocky Mountains before winter and low morale forced Pike to bring his twenty or so man expedition southward in an attempt to find the Red River and return to Lousiana. Stumbling southward they were captured by Comanche traders and like many were taken to Santa Fe for the Mesa to deal with. Arriving at the northeastern border of the Mesa Confederation which at the time was along the Canadien river and had become inhabited by semi-nomadic bands of the Ute people who did well accepting protection of the Mesa Confederation and trading with their free roaming cousins. Arriving in the Mesa Confederation his retelling of the journey once back in the United States shows he was quite surprised to find the Mesa Confederation. A civilized or at least semi-civilized tribe that had thrown off the Spanish was known in the United States but not many had of course had visitedas the Spanish attempted to cut off as much contact with them as possible. The Mesa people treated Pike and his survivors with as much hospitality as curisoity. Meeting with several notable leaders amongst the Mesa people he was grilled through translaters about the American people and importantly their form of government. From what they could gather several made the comparision that the United States had fallen into their own footsteps of throwing off colonial rulers and a form of government where no one man had total power.
After a month of rest, Pike and his men were escorted out of the Mesa Confederation to the Rio Grande with a few gifts and good words from the Mesa's leaders. Upon returning to the United States Pike went before the United States Congress to give a debriefing of his expedition and relayed all that he had learned and seen. His views gave the impression that the Mesa Confederation was a civlized tribe (they would be the Sixth Civilized Tribe along with the Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Creek) that had adopted European culture (they had in their time only seen Santa Fe mostly), but did pick up on the hatred for Christanity that the majority of the Mesa Confederation still harbored (and only then those that did were Kachina/Catholic Christians). He also outlined their isolationist mindset and the scarcity of their geography. One congressman was said to have commented that perhaps it would be possible to get the Mesa Confederation to accept 'Indian immigrants' from east of the Mississippi.
The 1810 Mexican Revolution of Independance caused much, much more concern amongst the people-leading to a calling of the tribal heads to Santa Fe that same year. The Speaker Jose Luis, a half Taos Pueblo and half European, echoed the concerns of many by comparing the revolution to a owner letting their dogs slip their leash and attack a neighbor's cattle.