Pueblo culture as we know it today took root at the beginning of the 14th century and flourished for 300 years -- until its first encounter in 1540 with Europeans, who brought guns as well as a new world of diseases against which the natives had no natural defenses. Through force in some cases and friendly but firm persuasion in others, Spanish conquistadores, priests and settlers claimed the region in the name of the motherland and the Catholic Church, only to lose it in 1680 during the Pueblo Revolt (see our History chapter). Spain reconquered the territory in 1692 and held onto it for more than a century. In 1821, Mexico claimed the New Mexico area by default when it won independence from Spain. Twenty-seven years later, after losing a two-year war to its northern neighbor, young Mexico ceded the territory to an even younger United States under the terms of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.