A shared country
The Jicarilla Apache homeland historically lay in what is now northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, where the Sangre de Cristo Mountains meet the edge of the Great Plains. To the west and south of that country lay the Pueblo villages of the upper Rio Grande region, including Taos and Picuris on the mountain side. These neighbours lived within a day or two of travel of each other for centuries, and they had ample reason to meet.
It is important to be careful here. Pueblo and Apache nations are distinct peoples, each with its own languages, governments and histories. Describing their relationship as simply friendly or simply hostile would be wrong; the record shows both, depending on the period, the community and the individuals involved.
Trade and the Taos fairs
The best-documented link is trade. Taos Pueblo sat at a meeting point between the farming villages of the Rio Grande and the hunting peoples of the Plains, and Spanish records from the 1600s and 1700s describe gatherings there where Plains groups exchanged goods with the Pueblo residents and with Spanish colonists. Items said to have moved in these exchanges include bison hides and meat from the Plains side, and maize, textiles and other farm products from the Pueblo side. Over time, horses and metal goods became part of the exchange.
Jicarilla people, as people who combined Plains and mountain ways of life, took part in these exchanges, although the sources do not always name them clearly. Spanish records often used the name Apache broadly, and later the Jicarilla name became more specific. Where the records are ambiguous, historians disagree about which group is meant.
For a broader view of Apache commerce in the region, the history of early Apache trade networks places the Jicarilla within a larger web of exchange.
Politics and conflict
Trade did not mean constant peace. Spanish colonial authorities sometimes encouraged Apache groups to settle near Pueblo towns and sometimes tried to control or punish them. Raiding and counter-raiding occurred in both directions in some periods, and Pueblo communities were drawn into Spanish military campaigns. At other times, Pueblo and Jicarilla people fought alongside one another or sheltered one another.
Taos Pueblo itself is known to have had a complicated role. Residents traded with Plains peoples, were sometimes caught between rival powers, and took part in the wider events of New Mexico history, including the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The exact details of Jicarilla participation or involvement in those episodes are less clear than the broad outline.
Picuris and the Plains
Picuris Pueblo, another mountain village, also had links to Plains peoples. Historical accounts mention movements of people between Picuris and the Plains in the late 1600s, and some accounts connect them to places on the Plains where Apache groups lived. These accounts are discussed by scholars, but the evidence is thin and interpretations vary, so readers should be cautious about firm claims.
Cultural influences
It is often said that the Jicarilla learned pottery-making and certain farming practices from their Pueblo neighbours. The subdivision known as the Olleros, a Spanish term connected with pottery, is sometimes cited in this connection. This is plausible and widely repeated, but exact pathways are not fully documented, and some scholars emphasise that Apache communities developed their own approaches. Today, Jicarilla basketry and Jicarilla pottery are distinct traditions with their own makers and histories; for background see the separate discussions of Apache pottery.
Language contact, intermarriage and the adoption of individuals also happened in the borderlands, as in many frontier regions. Spanish settlers, Pueblo communities and Apache families lived in close contact, and some families have mixed ancestry. It is not possible to say how common any of this was in a given period without detailed records.
Shared places
The mountains, valleys and springs of northern New Mexico were used by several peoples. Pueblo communities have traditional ties to specific mountains, lakes and shrines, and the Jicarilla also recognise sacred places in their homeland. Shared geography does not mean shared ceremonies or beliefs, and some knowledge connected to these places is not made public. Visitors and researchers should respect that.
Later history
By the 1800s the arrival of the United States, then the rise of settlement and railroads, changed the region again. The Jicarilla were pressed to leave much of their traditional country, a story told in the history of the Jicarilla reservation. Taos and Picuris retained their pueblo lands, with their own struggles to protect them. The two communities remain neighbours in northern New Mexico, each a separate nation today.
Sources and caution
Most of the written evidence for this relationship comes from Spanish, Mexican and American officials, missionaries and travellers, who wrote from their own perspectives. Oral histories held by the nations themselves offer other views. Readers wanting current information should turn to the official websites of the Jicarilla Apache Nation and the pueblos.