Tonque Pueblo

Tonque Pueblo was located on the Arroyo Tonque, east of what is now Bernalillo, New Mexico.  Like many of the prehistoric pueblos, very little information is available about its existence.  Details can be found in various historical documents, but these details are often speculative or do not match those of other early historical reports.  Much of what is known today comes from the site itself and whatever artworks remain. Because the village was never mentioned by name in early Spanish chronicles, it is generally assumed that it had been abandoned before their arrival. Historians offer varying suggestions about which language group Tonque fit into and when and why its residents vacated the pueblo.  What is known with certainty about Tonque is that it was home to large deposits of high-quality clay. The clay was of such exceptional quality that eventually, in the early twentieth century, a brick factory would be constructed at Tonque.

Tonque was a large pueblo, and its people produced a considerable amount of high-quality pottery.  According to a 1969 El Palacio article by Helene Warren, Tonque’s pottery production was most likely as significant as that of any other pueblo of its period: “During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the skilled potters of Tonque Pueblo supplied well over half and sometimes nearly all of the glaze decorated pottery used in contemporary villages.”  Tonque pottery made its way to many neighboring villages as well as more distant locations like Zuni, and was traded to Plains Indians in Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma. The proliferation of Tonque pottery, Warren writes, was due in large part to its exceptionally high quality: “The Tonque wares are distinguished for their excellence of craftsmanship, design, and color. The cream to light orange clay and rich pastel surface colors and crystal tuff tempering material make it possible to recognize these wares wherever they are found.”

The Tonque potters located lead minerals in the general vicinity of Cerrillos, about fifteen miles south of Santa Fe.  This heavily mineralized zone probably was known earlier, since it was also a source of hematite and limonite pigments, as well as turquoise. (Peckham 1990:86)