Overview of New Mexican History                

Dinosaurs once roamed New Mexico, but modern day New Mexico is a blend of three cultures:  the Native American, the Spanish, and the Anglo.

NATIVE AMERICANS
Native Americans have inhabited the territory of New Mexico since shortly after the time of Christ.  Their cliff dwellings and mysterious symbols etched in rock serve as strong reminders that New Mexico was home to native cultures several centuries before the Europeans reached the Americas.

EARLY SPANISH EXPLORERS
Some 100 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Spanish explorers made their way into present-day New Mexico lured by rumors of the Seven Cities of Gold.  Some historians believe that the golden glow of adobe pueblos, their mica-inflected clay inflamed by the setting sun, created an optical illusion that spawned the belief that such a place existed.

From the dawn of the 16th century, supplies and communications came into the area along El Camino Real, the Royal Road stretching 2,000 miles from Mexico City to Santa Fe.  Caravans of Spanish colonizers, making the six-month trek northward, brought mining and forging techniques to the Indians, teaching them to use metals for weapons, tools, and art.  They also brought cattle and sheep and taught the Indians how to raise them.  They introduced horses, which would eventually be used in warfare against them.  They even brought the wheel, opening the door to a new world of technology.

Initially, the Pueblo people accepted their new neighbors, but over the years resistance to Spanish attempts at religious and cultural oppression simmered.   Eventually, resentment boiled over in the highly organized Pueblo Revolt of 1680.  The Pueblo warriors converged on Santa Fe, surrounded the fortified city, and cut off their water supply.  The New Mexican governor called for a retreat, and a thousand Spanish settlers streamed out of the capital city and fled to Mexico.

In 1690, the Spanish set out to re-conquer and re-colonize New Mexico.  By 1692 they succeeded and this triumph is still celebrated today in the annual Fiestas de Santa Fe.

1680 REVOLT LEGACY
While the Spanish were ultimately victorious in their conquest of New Mexico, it is worth noting that the Pueblo Revolt had a significant effect on the ways in which the Spanish chose to deal with the Pueblo peoples thereafter.  The Revolt ultimately led to more tolerance of local custom, language, and religion than had previously been the case.  This ultimately contributed to the survival of Native American cultures in New Mexico today.

PEACE WITH THE COMANCHE
Most of the seventeenth century was marked by incessant raids on the Spanish and the Pueblo peoples.  The most dangerous raiding tribe of the time was undoubtedly the Comanche.  It wasn't until 1786 that a formal agreement was reached between the Spanish government and the Comanche, which finally enabled the settlers to devote their energies to other matters.

THE SANTA FE TRAIL
In 1821, Mexico won her independence from Spain and New Mexico became a territory of Mexico.  While Spain was isolationist in its trade policies, Mexico encouraged open trade with the outside world.  The Santa Fe Trail, which spans from St. Louis, Missouri to Santa Fe, quickly became an important commercial trade route to the West.  The capital city of Santa Fe soon became a bustling trade center.

                                                                                           The Santa Fe Trail

NEW MEXICO:  A U.S. TERRITORY
In 1846, the United States Congress declared war against Mexico.  On August 18, 1846, US troops entered Santa Fe and took possession of New Mexico without firing a shot.

With the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Mexican-American War came to an end in 1848, and on September 9, 1850, the United States authorized the creation of the Territory of New Mexico.   The New Mexico territory consisted of the present-day state of New Mexico, Arizona, parts of southern Colorado, southern Utah, and a portion of southern Nevada.                        

Continued attacks by nomadic Native American tribes throughout the state forced the territory to establish military posts extending from Fort Union north of Las Vegas, New Mexico, to Fort Fillmore near Mesilla in southern New Mexico.

THE WILD WEST
The great cowboy phenomenon of the American West began in New Mexico more than four centuries ago.   Spanish explorers and colonizers brought the first cattle and horses to this territory and a cowboy ranching lifestyle was born.  It was easily absorbed into the various Native American cultures and further embraced by the Anglo settlers who arrived in the mid-1800s.

The westward expansion of U.S. settlers continued to push the Native American tribes out of their traditional ways of living, forcing many out of the their homelands and into reservations.  Among the greatest atrocities of this period perpetrated by Anglos on native peoples was the infamous Long Walk of 1863, a forced relocation of the Navajo people.  Led by famed lawman Kit Carson, 8,000 Navajos were led from southeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico (in the area now known as the "Four Corners") and forced to walk over 300 miles to the Bosque Redondo, located on the Pecos River in eastern New Mexico.  There they remained until 1868, when a treaty was signed between the United States and the Navajo, giving them the 3.5 million acre reservation in the "Four Corners" area that includes parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado.

                                    The Flags of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado converge at "Four Corners"

By the early 1880s, the railroads arrived in most major New Mexico cities, including Santa Fe and Albuquerque, and with the railroad came an increase in both trade and population.

Though there were still military forts scattered around the state in a holdover from the battles with Native American raiders, much of the territory still lacked any effective law enforcement.  This was time of such colorful movie outlaws as William "Billy the Kid" Bonney, (who is buried in Fort Sumner, New Mexico) Sheriff Pat Garrett, and such local skirmishes as the Lincoln County War.

       Billy the Kid                                                                                Billy the Kid Tombstone

On January 6, 1912, President William Howard Taft signed the proclamation that would admit New Mexico to the Union as its 47th state.

THE 20TH CENTURY
In the earliest part of the twentieth century, a new kind of immigrant began to arrive in New Mexico.  Drawn here less by the promise of cheap land or trade possibilities, these people were drawn by the intangible qualities of our light, our air quality, our altitude, and the awesome beauty of our landscapes.  These people were the artists and they came here to paint, write, and compose amidst the beauty of our enchanted land.  New Mexico has the third largest art market in the nation, surpassed only by Los Angeles and New York City.

Many people outside the state were likely to know New Mexico only through either the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe or by the photographs of Ansel Adams, who used his lens to capture not just our landscape but also our spectacular natural light.

                  Photography of Ansel Adams                                                            Painting by Georgia O'Keeffe


But beginning in World War II, Washington had begun to recognize the strategic significance of our landscape, including its arid deserts and high mountain hideaways.  By March of 1941, buildings had begun to spring up in the site now known as Kirtland Air Force Base, and Albuquerque was soon growing by leaps and bounds into the half-a-million-plus size city it is today.

But the Army had already set its sights on another New Mexico location for a very secret project it was working on, and after surveying several other remote locations throughout the state, in early 1942 it finally settled on Los Alamos, New Mexico as the location for the research and development portion of its Manhattan Project.  A forty-minute drive from the capital city of Santa Fe and a thousand miles from any coast, Los Alamos was deemed invulnerable to attack and unlikely to attract the attention of local residents.  By the time that what would become Los Alamos National Laboratories had completed its first mission, it had spun off an additional laboratory in Albuquerque called Sandia National Laboratory, and had made New Mexico synonymous with the dawn of the atomic age.

Today New Mexico has some of the most beautiful sights on earth, including deep blue skies that stretch forever, mountains that make you feel like you'll never have to look at a freeway again, and that beautiful light that has kept artists and residents enchanted for close to five hundred years.

NEW MEXICO...VISIT FOR A LIFETIME