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Chaco Canyon, Bandelier

Early Spanish Explorers
Some 100 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Spanish explorers made their way into present-day New Mexico. In 1532, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca led the first European expedition into the region. Other explorers quickly followed, inspired by rumors that he had discovered 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.

In 1540, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado arrived at Hawikuh, a Zuni Pueblo, with an advance party of cavalrymen. They quickly clashed with the Zunis, forcing them to flee from their homes. In 1598, the Spanish government commissioned Juan de Oñate to lead an expedition from Mexico into New Mexico. The expedition party left Compostela, Mexico in January, and arrived at the New Mexican Tewa village of Ohkay Owingeh located near the confluence of the Rio Chama and the Rio Grande. They renamed the village San Juan do los Caballeros and established the first Spanish capital of New Mexico. It is this event which the state of New Mexico marks it's "official" history of 400-plus years, and which began the formal colonization of New Mexico.

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 (3,220km) from Mexico City to Santa Fe. In 1610, New Mexico territory's third governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, established Santa Fe as the new capital. 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. The Pueblo people were reacting, among other things, to the Christian missionaries and forced servitude. Eventually, resentment over the imposition of Spanish culture and the repression of indigenous religions boiled over in the highly organized Pueblo Revolt of 1680. In August of that year, Pueblo warriors throughout the region overthrew their colonizers, burned their churches, and killed their priests. Then the Pueblo warriors converged on Santa Fe and surrounded the fortified city and cut off their water supply. New Mexico governor Antonio de Ortermin called for a retreat, and a thousand Spanish settlers streamed out of the capital city and fled to Mexico.

In 1690, Diego de Vargas was appointed the Governor of New Mexico, with a mandate to both reconquer and re-colonize New Mexico. In a master stroke of diplomacy (and bluff) de Vargas returned to the capital city of Santa Fe in July of 1692 with less than fifty soldiers and convinced the Pueblo people to surrender. On September 14, 1692, De Vargas proclaimed a formal act of repossession, and this triumph is still celebrated today in the annual Fiestas de Santa Fe, one of the nation's longest continually celebrated civic events.

But if the re-conquest proved simple, the re-colonization was another matter entirely. De Vargas left New Mexico in early 1693 to retrieve a party of settlers. By the time he returned from Mexico with a group of seventy families, the Pueblo people had re-taken Santa Fe, and de Vargas' party decided to take the city by force. Hundreds of Pueblo warriors were killed or executed and the Spanish were successful, but it was an uneasy peace, eventually resulting in the Second Pueblo Revolt of 1696. For the next several years, warfare continued between both sides, but as the death toll mounted on the Pueblo side and more Spanish came in from Mexico, it became gradually clear to everyone that the Spanish were here to stay.

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. While warfare and bloodshed were not excised from the interactions between the two groups, the Revolt ultimately led to more toleration of local custom, language, and religions than had previously been the case. Further, the appearance of attacking nomadic Native American tribes such as the Jicarilla Apache and Comanche created common ground between the Pueblo-dwelling Natives and the town-dwelling Spanish, for neither Native Americans nor Spanish were safe from their raids.

Peace with the Comanche
Most of the seventeenth century was marked by incessant raids on the Spanish and the Pueblo peoples by the Native nomadic tribes. The most dangerous raiding tribe of the time was undoubtedly the Comanche, who by the 1750s had developed a wide sphere of influence ranging from eastern Colorado to northeast New Mexico through west Texas. By 1778, when Juan Bautista de Anza was appointed Governor of New Mexico, the Spanish government had developed an aggressive policy towards the Native nomadic tribes, and de Anza believed that the only way to defeat them was to take on the Comanche and their chief, Cuerno Verde. In 1779, de Anza launched a military attack against the Comanche that resulted in the death of Cuerno Verde near Pueblo, Colorado. But 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. This had little immediate effect on New Mexico except that while Spain was isolationist in its trade policies, Mexico encouraged open trade with the outside world — including the newly formed United States. The Santa Fe Trail, which winds 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 from which caravans continued on to northern Mexico via the Camino Real or into California along the Old Spanish Trail.

1837 Revolt
New Mexico wasn't a great priority for the struggling Mexican Republic, yet it was still vulnerable to nomadic tribal attack as well as internal unrest. In 1836, the Mexican Republic dispatched Albino Perez to be the new Governor of the territory, and Perez began his tenure with an ambitious plan to replace many local officials and raise taxes. On August 1, 1837, a group of prominent northern New Mexicans called for Perez's resignation, and this protest quickly generated into a full-scale revolt in which Perez was captured and eventually beheaded. Despite this minor triumph, the rebels were unable to create a new government since they didn't have the support of the wealthy merchants and land owners, and so when the Mexicans sent in troops to quell the revolt, the Revolt of 1837 soon came to a bloody end.

The United States Arrives
In 1846, the United States Congress declared war against Mexico, and in August of that year, General Stephen Watts Kearny led his army west down the Santa Fe Trail and into New Mexico's undefended frontier. Governor Manuel Armijo publicly announced his intention to meet the Americans for battle at Apache Canyon east of the capital city, but after a series of secret meetings with representatives of the U.S. government, Governor Armijo left town and fled south to El Paso. In a scene reminiscent of De Vargas' peaceful re-conquest of 1692, General Kearny entered Santa Fe on August 18, 1846 and took possession of New Mexico without firing a shot. General Kearny instituted a new set of laws under which New Mexico was to be governed (dubbed "the Kearny Code") and appointed Charles Bent to be the first civil governor of New Mexico. As the war between the United States and Mexico raged on further south, New Mexico seemed a placid oasis with no qualms about her new masters — but not for long.

The Revolt of 1847
As the new year passed, rumors of an impending coup by native New Mexicans against the Americans reached General Kearny and Governor Bent, and efforts were made to squelch this effort through the arrest of several suspected leaders. But the unrest was larger than expected, and on January 19, 1847, Charles Bent was killed along with other U.S. appointed officials in Taos. The "Revolt of 1847" had begun, but the Americans responded decisively, and after a series of battles in Santa Cruz and Embudo, the rebels took up a defensive position inside the San Jeronimo Church in Taos. After a two-day battle, the Americans finally broke through and many New Mexicans were arrested. In the following weeks, many were hanged for treason and murder.

New Mexico: A U.S. Territory
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 and the establishment of a new civil government. At this time, 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. It would remain this way until 1861, when the northeastern portion of the territory was attached to Colorado, but the biggest change came in 1863 when the territory was divided in half and the western portion became Arizona.

The Civil War in New Mexico
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. This would prove to be a prescient decision in fending off the Confederate Army in the U.S. Civil War. While ultimately there were only a few small battles in New Mexico, the Confederate Army initially considered New Mexico an important target because of its strategic location on the road to the gold fields of California and Colorado — as well as Santa Fe's trade significance at the end of the Santa Fe Trail. So in July of 1861, Confederate troops from nearby Texas captured Mesilla, and in February of 1862 launched an attack on Fort Craig, south of Socorro, with the intention of continuing on to capture Albquerque, Santa Fe, and the military supply depot at Fort Union.

On February 21, 1862, Union troops joined forces with several battalions of New Mexico militia to beat back the Confederate at Valverde, north of Fort Craig. The battle was a bit of a standoff, with the Confederates unable to take the fort and the Union forces unable to rout the Confederates. Unable to re-supply, the Confederates headed north towards Santa Fe with Union forces close behind.

As Confederate forces approached Santa Fe in early March, Union scouts were able to send word to New Mexico Governor Henry Connelly that the Confederacy was on its way. Governor Connelly ordered the evacuation of the capital and relocated executive offices, troops and all military supplies to Las Vegas. On March the 10th, the Confederate Army laid siege to an empty capital city, and took possession with a Confederate flag flying over the Palace of the Governors.

The battles of Apache Canyon and Glorieta Pass began on March 26, 1862 and proved to be decisive for the Confederate defeat. Union troops from Fort Union and members of the New Mexico militia confronted the Confederates at Apache Canyon east of Santa Fe, and the two armies fought ridge by ridge along steep-walled canyons and in sandy arroyos. The Confederate forces retreated into Glorieta Pass and fighting continued while Union forces sent troops around to Johnson's Ranch, where the Confederates were camped, to destroy their supplies. In retreat and lacking supplies, the Confederates headed south towards San Antonio, and the Civil War in New Mexico was over.

The Wild West: Expansion, Exploitation, and Outlaws
After the Civil War, New Mexico embarked on the journey for statehood, a battle that it wouldn't win until 1912. In the meantime, the westward expansion of U.S. settlers continued to push the native American tribes both settled and nomadic out of their traditional ways of living, forcing many out of the their homelands and into reservations that were often no better than prison camps. 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. By 1880, nearly all remaining New Mexico tribes had been pushed onto reservations, and it would be close to a hundred years later before Native Americans would begin to be actively integrated into the community at large.

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.

In Washington, meanwhile, the jury was still out on New Mexico statehood, owing to a number of factors that show the cultural xenophobia of the times. Many lawmakers felt that the territory made a poor candidate for statehood because of its large Hispanic, predominately Catholic population. The name "New Mexico" was also considered a poor name choice for a state, and other possibilities, including "Navajo" and "Lincoln" were considered. Finally, there were also questions about the loyalty of a people who had only recently been conquered would have for their new country. Countless delays to statehood were made for over fifty years, until on January 6, 1912, President William Howard Taft signed the proclamation that would admit New Mexico to the Union as its 47th state.

Defining New Mexico's 20th Century: War & Beauty
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 many flocked to small cities in the northern part of the state like Santa Fe and Taos to paint, write, and compose amidst the beauty of our enchanted land.

Los Cincos Pintores ("the five painters") were among the earliest artist groups in New Mexico. Comprised of five male painters who lived in Santa Fe, including Fremont Ellis, Josef Bakos, Walter Mruk, Willard Nash and Will Shuster, Los Cincos Pintores was a title bestowed upon these men via association, rather than similarity of style or subject matter. On December 21, 1921, the group held their first exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe.

Other artists in the region at the time included Mabel Dodge Lujan, a writer who had come to Taos from New York and who would become more well-known for her Taos salons and her ability to draw other artists and writers from all over the country to New Mexico, including such luminaries as writer D.H. Lawrence, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and painter extraordinaire Georgia O'Keeffe. Indeed, by the 1950s and '60s, 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.

Living artists who choose to make New Mexico their home today include visual artists like Agnes Martin, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg, Erika Wanenmacher, Peter & Paul Sarkisian, Gregory Lomayesva, Woody and Steina Vasulka, and R.C. Gorman; writers like John Nichols, Tony Hillerman, Rudolfo Anaya, and Jimmy Santiago Baca; and musicians like Bo Diddley, Ottmar Liebert, and Eric Darling.

But beginning in World War Two, Washington had begun to recognize the strategic significance of our landscape, including its arid deserts and high mountain hideaways. In 1939, two representatives from the little town of Albuquerque were deployed to Army Air Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C. to discuss the possibility of establishing an air base there. 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.

In the post-war era, New Mexico grew, changed, and prospered in much the same way as the rest of the country, though it may have been more dramatic than other parts of the country, since the changes were so rapid to what had once been such wild country. And like the rest of the nation also, New Mexico saw its fair share of upheaval, protests and new ideas during the turbulent '60s. In the north, many urban and mostly Anglo "hippies" "dropped out" and went back to the land in Santa Fe, Taos, and as far north as the southern Colorado border to assert their dreams of a more agrarian existence. Both Hispanic and Native American groups chafed against the dominant culture and many young people joined such organizations as AIM (American Indian Movement) and MECHA (Mexicano Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) or joined up with the UFW's Cesar Chavez to protest the treatment of workers of color throughout the region. Viet Nam war protests were frequent in both the capital and the Duke Cities, culminating in the infamous shooting death of a student by a National Guardsman in 1972. But throughout all such strife, then and now, what keeps the state together is a genuine willingness to engage in a tri-cultural dialogue, because we recognize that diversity is one of our great strengths as a community.