SantaFe.com

As New Mexico commemorates its 400th anniversary, some historians wonder if political correctness is dividing our state.

The recent vandalism of a bronze sculpture of conquistador Don Juan de Oñate at a public visitors center north of Española was just another reminder that few of those we honor come without some sinister baggage.

Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson and Kit Carson are just a few members in a growing pantheon of historical figures who have been cast in unfavorable light by revisionist historians. Does that mean we shouldn't honor them?

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
by Ray Rivera (January 11, 1998) • Santa Fe New Mexican

The causes for intermittent but continued Spanish contact with the Indians of New Mexico prior to 1598 were due to wealth and religion. The Spanish government wanted to spread Christianity to the Indians and sent missionaries for this purpose. The leaders of these expeditions were after wealth. Previously, Chichimecas Indians blocked expansion to the North, but in 1548-48, silver was found in Central Mexico and the Indians’ resistance ended. Captured Indians became slaves in the mines and slave raiders crossed into New Mexico to capture other slaves to sell them to the mine owners.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

In 1598, Spaniards came north from Mexico to plant a permanent colony in what is today New Mexico in the heart of the American Southwest. Eight decades later, Pueblo Indians destroyed the colony and drove Spaniards out of their lands. The conquered became the conquerors. That turn of events was so unusual that it continues not only to intrigue us but to demand explanation. This site and the accompany book make it easy for students to compare the work of historians, to raise their own questions, and provide their own answers about the Pueblo Revolt and its causes.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
by David J. Weber (Readings Selected and Introduced by David J. Weber)

Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday remarked that the American West “is a place that has to be seen to be believed, and it may have to be believed in order to be seen.”

The City of Santa Fe was originally occupied by a number of Pueblo Indian villages with founding dates between 1050 to 1150.

The “Kingdom of New Mexico” was first claimed for the Spanish Crown by the conquistador don Francisco Vasques de Coronado in 1540, 70 years before the founding of Santa Fe. Coronado and his men also traveled to the Grand Canyon and through the Great Plains on their New Mexico expedition.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008
courtesy of City of Santa Fe