Previously: San Juan Pueblo and/or San Juan Indian Reservation

The Ohkay Owingeh, previously known by its Spanish name as San Juan Pueblo which community was given that name by Spanish Colonists and that name existed from 1598 to 2005. The people of Ohkay Owingeh, in 2005 chose to return to their original name of the settlement, changing it from back to Ohkay Owingeh. In the Tewa language, Ohkay Owingeh means "Place of the Strong People."

The settlement is located in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico and the people of the Ohkay Owingeh community are a federally recognized tribe of Pueblo people inhabiting their homeland.

The homeland was founded in about 1200 CE during the Pueblo III Era (1150-1350) or Great Pueblo period where many of the Ancestral Puebloans lived in large cliff dwellings, multi-storied pueblo or cliff-side talus house communities.

By the end of the period, the ancient people of the Four Corners region migrated south into larger centralized pueblos in central and southern Arizona and New Mexico, likely during a prolonged drought. The Tewa people moved here from the north, possibly from the San Luis Valley in south central Colorado and it is believed that part of this migration occurred during the Pueblo IV Era.

In March 1598, conquistador, explorer and viceroy of the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México of New Spain, Juan de Oñate y Salazar (1550-1626) traveled north from Nueva Galicia in central Mexico, accompanied by a caravan of Catholic missionaries, a thousand soldiers, colonists, and Tlaxcalans (Sons of Nahuatl). The expedition included cattle, sheep, goats, oxen, and horses, and arrived at Yungeh (place of the mockingbird) in present-day Ohkay Owingeh on July 11, 1598.

The pueblo people were hospitable and offered Oñate a place to quarter. The next day, Oñate baptized and renamed the Ohkay Owingeh as the San Juan de los Caballeros, after John the Baptist and this location, San Juan de los Caballeros became the first capital of the New Spanish region of Santa Fe de Nuevo Méjico. Later, the Spanish capital would be moved in 1610 to La Villa Real de la Sante Fe de San Francisco de Asis, which is now known as Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, also known as Pope′s Rebellion was an uprising of most all of the indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish colonist in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México. Persistent Spanish harsh policies, coupled with incident of brutality and cruelty such as the one occurring in 1599 resulted in the Ácoma Massacre, cause animosity by the pueblo people and gave rise to the eventual revolt of 1680. The most despised of the mistreatment and/or persecutions of Pueblo people were due to their adherence to traditional religious practices, which the Spanish considered to be pagan forms of worship and would the force the people to replace them with Christianity.

The Pueblo Revolt killed 400 Spaniards and drove the remaining 2,000 settlers out of the province, only to have the Spaniards return to New Mexico twelve years later. The Pueblo people were subjected to successive waves of soldiers, missionaries and settlers, encounters which were referred to as intradas (incursions) each of which were characterized by violent confrontations between the Spanish colonist and Peublo peoples.

Many a war was fought between the Spanish and the Pueblo people, resulting in the killing and enslaving of the defeated Pueblo people, which then resulting in the sentencing of men 25 and older to have a foot cut off for punishment for crimes against the Spanish Crown. The major massacre that occurred at the Ácoma mountaintop Pueblo instilled fear of and anger at the Spanish in the region for many year to come. Even today, the Ácoma Pueblo does not allow non tribal member to enter their mountaintop Pueblo.