![Salinas Pueblo](https://assets.gotravelsites.com/photos/NPS-Salinas-Pueblo-Missions-National-Monument-630x420.jpg)
Once thriving with American Indian trade communities of Tiwa and Tompiro speaking Puebloans, this remote area of central New Mexico was rapidly overpopulated in the early 17th-century by Spanish Franciscans. They were attempting to convert the residents of the region, but by 1677 the entire Salinas District was depopulated of both Indian and Spaniard alike.