History of Santa Fe and New Mexico
Human occupation of New Mexico stretches back at least 11,000 years to the hunter-gatherer Clovis culture. They left evidence of their campsites and stone tools. After the invention of agriculture, the land was inhabited by the Ancestral Puebloans, who built houses out of stone or adobe bricks. They experienced a Golden Age around AD 1000, but climate change led to migration and cultural evolution. From those people arose the historic Pueblo peoples who lived primarily along the few major rivers. The most important rivers are the Rio Grande, the Pecos, the Canadian, the San Juan, and the Gila.
Santa Fe's site was originally occupied by a number of Pueblo Indian villages with founding dates from between 1050 to 1150. After the 1521 Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, conqueror Hernan Cortes named the territory New Spain, and established the new capital, Mexico City, on the site of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Mexica (Aztec) Empire. The crown established New Spain as a viceroyalty in 1535, appointing as viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, an aristocrat loyal to the monarch rather than the conqueror Cortes.
The "Kingdom of New Mexico" was first claimed for the Spanish Crown by the conquistador Don Francisco Vasques de Coronado in 1540, 67 years before the founding of Santa Fe. Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico (English: Holy Faith of New Mexico; shortened as Nuevo Mexico or Nuevo Mejico, and translated as New Mexico in English) was a province of the Spanish Empire and New Spain, and later a territory of independent Mexico. Coronado and his men also discovered the Grand Canyon and the Great Plains on their New Mexico expedition.
Don Juan de Onate, sometimes referred to as "the Last Conquistador", is one of the seminal figures in New Mexico history. Like previous conquistadors, Onate engaged in widespread abuses of the Indian population. He left Mexico in 1598 with a long caravan of settlers, missionaries and livestock to establish a colony, to subjugate and Christianize the Indigenous population, and to extract all the riches he could. He made land grants to his colonists and empowered them to collect tribute from the forced labor of Indians. Don Juan de Onate became the first Governor-General of Nuevo Mexico and established his capital, known as San Juan de los Caballeros, in 1598 at San Juan Pueblo, 25 miles north of Santa Fe .
In 1598, Zutacapan, the Acoma spiritual leader, learned that the Spanish emissaries intended to conquer Acoma Pueblo by force. The Acoma would also be forced to convert to Catholicism and forsake their traditional beliefs and practices. Seeking to protect the Pueblo's material and religious integrity, Pueblo leadership decided to prepare to resist Spanish aggression.
Juan de Zaldivar, Onate's nephew and soldier, was sent to the pueblo to meet with Zutacapan. Upon arriving on December 4, 1598, the Spanish envoy demanded food and shelter for himself and his sixteen men. After being rebuffed, the group reportedly invaded Acoma homes, breaking walls and destroying property in order to take maize and blankets by force, leaving women curled up naked with their children. The Acoma resisted and a fight ensued, leaving Zaldivar and eleven of his men dead.
In retribution, Onate declared a war by fire and blood against the Acoma. Soldiers returned on January 21, 1599, slaughtering at least 500 men and 300 women and children in what is now known as the Acoma Massacre. The Spaniards enslaved most of the survivors and cut a foot off of 24 young men as a warning to other rebellious pueblos. The punishments inflicted on those who were not killed in combat included amputation of hands and feet or being sold into slavery. Franciscan missionaries were assigned to several of the Pueblo towns to Christianize the natives.
Onate was eventually recalled to Mexico City by the Spanish authorities. He was subsequently tried and convicted of cruelty to both natives and colonists and banished from New Mexico for life. When Onate retired, Don Pedro de Peralta was appointed Governor-General in 1609. One year later, he moved the capital to present day Santa Fe. The city's name means "Holy Faith" in Spanish, and is an abbreviation of La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis ("the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi").
In 1610, Pedro de Peralta began construction on the Palace of the Governors. The Palace originally served as the seat of government of the Spanish colony of Nuevo Mexico, which at one time comprised the present-day states of Texas, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico.
The oldest Christian church in the continental U.S., and the third oldest in any U.S. state or territory, is the San Miguel Mission in Santa Fe, which was also built in 1610. Although the Franciscans initially tolerated manifestations of the old religion as long as the Puebloans attended mass and maintained a public veneer of Catholicism, Fray (English: Friar) Alonso de Posada (in New Mexico 1656 - 1665) outlawed Kachina dances by the Pueblo people and ordered the missionaries to seize and burn their masks, prayer sticks, and effigies.
After compounding misdeeds and overbearing taxes by the Spanish invaders, the indigenous communities rebelled in what is now referred to as the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The Pueblo Indians killed about 400 of the Spainish Colonists and drove the remaining 2,100 back into Mexico. The conquering Pueblos sacked Santa Fe and burned most of the buildings, except the Palace of the Governors.
The Spanish return to New Mexico in 1692 was prompted by their fears of French advances into the Mississippi valley and their desire to create a defensive frontier against the increasingly aggressive nomadic tribes on their northern borders. Don Diego de Vargas reconquered the region and entered the capital city after a bloodless siege. In the years that followed de Vargas maintained increasingly severe control over the region.
In 1696 the residents of fourteen pueblos attempted a second organized revolt. De Vargas's retribution was unmerciful, thorough and prolonged. By the end of the century the last resisting Pueblo town had surrendered and the Spanish reconquest was essentially complete.
While the independence of many pueblos from the Spaniards was short-lived, the Pueblo Revolt gained the Pueblo people a measure of freedom from future Spanish efforts to eradicate their culture and religion following the reconquest. Moreover, the Spanish issued substantial land grants to each Pueblo and appointed a public defender to protect the rights of the Native Americans and argue their legal cases in the Spanish courts. The Franciscan priests returning to Nuevo Mexico did not again attempt to impose a theocracy on the Pueblo who continued to practice their traditional religion.
In 1753, North America was largely controlled by Spain and France with England having the smallest footprint.
The various indigenous tribes and kingdoms that had arisen throughout the northern central steppe of Mexico established the 1,590 mile route used from 1598 to 1882 known as the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro as a major thoroughfare for hunting and trading. The route connected the peoples of the Valley of Mexico, today known as Mexico City, with San Juan Pueblo (Ohkay Owingeh), New Mexico, about 25 miles north of Santa Fe.
The Mexican War of Independence (Spanish: Guerra de Independencia de Mexico, 16 September 1810 - 27 September 1821) was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico's independence from the Spanish Empire. It culminated with the drafting of the Declaration of Independence of the Mexican Empire in Mexico City on September 28, 1821, following the collapse of royal government and the military triumph of forces for independence.
When Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821 during the Mexican War of Independence, Santa Fe became the capital of the Spainish province of Nuevo Mexico. The Spanish policy of closed empire ended, and American trappers and traders moved into the region.
In September 1821, William Becknell opened the l,000-mile-long Santa Fe Trail, leaving from Franklin, Missouri with 21 men and a pack train of goods. They arrived in Santa Fe on November 16 and were welcomed with open arms by Mexican citizens and government officials. This initial path was known as the Mountain Route. The following year, Becknell searched for a path that would be wide enough for wagons and draft teams, to accommodate more trade. This route was 100 miles shorter and known as the Cimarron Route. A wagon train would take about 10 weeks to make the journey from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe. Days began at 4:00am, travel started at 7:00am and ended at 4:00pm.
On August 18, 1846, in the early period of the Mexican American War, an American army general, Stephen Watts Kearny, took Santa Fe and raised the American flag over the Plaza. Two years later in 1848, Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding much of what is now known as the Southwest to the United States. This treaty required Mexico to cede 55 percent of its territory including the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, most of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, and a small portion of Wyoming. Mexico also relinquished all claims for Texas and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas. In turn, the U.S. government paid Mexico $15 million "in consideration of the extension acquired by the boundaries of the United States" and agreed to pay debts owed to American citizens by the Mexican government. The New Mexican citizenry, primarily consisting of Hispano, Pueblo, Navajo, Apache, and Comanche peoples, became citizens of the United States as a result of this treaty.
At the conclusion of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), the U.S. annexed Nuevo Mexico as part of the larger New Mexico Territory. The Palace of the Governors became New Mexico's first territorial capital and served as such until 1901. The Palace is the oldest public building in the country.
Archbishop Jean B. Lamy, (1814-1888), was installed as the first bishop of the Diocese of Santa Fe in 1850. Lamy arrived in Santa Fe in 1851 and built the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi between 1869 and 1886 on the site of an older adobe church, La Parroquia (built in 1714-1717). An older church on the same site, built in 1626, was destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Lamy retired in July 1885 to his residence north of town, known as Bishop's Lodge. The Cathedral of Saint Francis of Assisi was officially elevated to a basilica by Pope Benedict XVI on October 4, 2005.
The Santa Fe Railway, since 1863 known as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway or ATSF, is undoubtably one of the most well recognized railroads in American history. The railroad merged with the Burlington Northern in 1996 and now is the BNSF Railway. Somewhat surprisingly, the ATSF mainline did not actually serve the city of Santa Fe, which was only reachable via a branch line from Lamy, New Mexico completed in 1880. Today, Amtrak's Southwest Chief train (Chicago to Los Angeles) arrives at Lamy daily. Lamy is 19 miles south of Santa Fe.
In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln recognized Pueblo independence by bestowing an ornamental, silver tipped cane to each Pueblo Nation. From more than 500 Indian nations in the United States, only New Mexico's 19 Pueblos received these symbolic gifts of sovereign status. The Canes were presented by an Indian Agent to each Peublo Governor, inscribed with the year 1863, the name of each Pueblo and topped with the signature of 'A. Lincoln.' For each of the tribes, it was a new birth for their inherent dominion and freedom for their communities. The canes were viewed as a living spirit representing leadership, self-government and a perpetual commitment of the United States to honor Pueblo sovereignty.
U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. John Steinbeck called it the Mother Road, and indeed it was. It provided hope to the farmers of the dust bowl era going west to find a new life. The 2,400-mile route winds from Jackson Boulevard and Michigan Avenue in Chicago to Santa Monica, CA, through the most romantic and celebrated portions of the American West. Route 66 was a lifeline through much of America.
US Route 66 originally passed through Santa Fe, the state capital. However, New Mexico had long been controlled politically by the Santa Fe Ring, an informal group of powerful politicians, attorneys, and land speculators in territorial New Mexico with close ties to the Republican Party. The genesis of the Santa Fe Ring was in the 1850s when lawyers in New Mexico (of which there were only a few) realized "that a fortune lay in the legal process of quieting [obtaining] title to the disputed Spanish and Mexican land grants. Or, if not that, in securing for themselves or clients control of these lands for the purpose of speculation." Most of the larger land grants were populated by Indian tribes and only sparsely populated, if at all, by Hispanic settlers. The Santa Fe Ring of lawyers and politicians, often in league with the Surveyors General, abused the adjudication system for their own benefit.
In 1924, Democrat Arthur Thomas Hannett was unexpectedly elected for a single term (1925-1927) as governor. Blaming the Republican establishment in Santa Fe for his defeat, Hannett used the lame duck remainder of his term to force through a sixty-nine mile cutoff from Santa Rosa directly to Albuquerque, bypassing Santa Fe entirely. The hastily constructed new road opened January 3, 1927.