Spanish Period Timeline in New Mexico
1539 - 1821 (282 yrs.)
16th Century
1492 - Christopher Columbus was the first European (financed by Spain) to sail to the Americas from Europe
1519 - 1521 Spanish conquest of the Aztec by Heran Cortez along with Mexican Indian allies (especially by the Tlaxcalteca people)
1527 – Cabeza de Vaca walked 8 years to Mexico City arriving in 1536 with 4 men from his shipwreck off Galveston Island, Texas. There were 80 men originally from the Panfilo de Narvaez expedition to Florida to find the [Seven Cities of Cibola (Gold) or El Dorado] leaving from Santo Domingo; only four returned to Mexico. One was Esteban (Estevanico) the Moor, a slave. The stories may have their root in an earlier Portuguese legend about seven cities founded on the island of Antillia by a Catholic expedition in the 8th century, or one based on the capture of Mérida, Spain by the Moors in 1150.
1532 - Spanish conquest of the Incas of Peru by Francisco Pizarro.
1539 – Esteban (Estevanico) & Friar Marcos de Niza expedition sent by Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza to find the “Seven Cities of Gold” (Esteban was killed at Zuni Pueblo). Niza returned to Mexico and described Cibola as "a city larger than the city of Mexico" and it had "a great store of gold...and a hill of silver."
1540 - Francisco Vasquez de Coronado left Compostela on February 23, leading a force of from 300 to 400 Spaniards and 1,300 to 2,000 Mexican Indian allies, four Franciscan friars (the most notable of whom were Juan de Padilla and the newly appointed provincial superior of the Franciscan order in the New World, Marcos de Niza), and several slaves, both natives and Africans to Zuni; they arrived at Zuni Pueblo (Hawikuh) on July 7th. Zuni men laid down a line of corn meal for them not to cross. They crossed it and attacked the pueblo. Coronado entered the village and claimed it for the Spanish Crown.
Later Coronado received Bigotes (Whiskers) from Pecos Pueblo at Hawikuh (Zuni). They exchanged gifts (buffalo robes, native shields, headdresses for artificial pearls, glass vessels and little bells); in expeditions Garcia Lopez de Cardenas discovered the Grand Canyon and Pedro de Tovar went to Hopi.
1540, Aug. 29 - Capt. Hernando de Alvarado and Frey Juan de Padilla left Zuni with Bigotes for Pecos; El Turco (who looked like a Turk) & Sopete led the Spanish into the plains; upon returning Bigotes, El Turco, Sopete and Cacique were taken to Tiquex as captives to Coronado.
1541, May – Coronado w/army of 1,500 Europeans (Castilians, Portuguese, Italians, French, Germans and a Scot), Africans (perhaps 30), 800 Mexican Indians (Tarascans Mexicas, Tlatelolcans & Tlaxcalans) and a score of Tiquex slaves acquired in fighting over the preceeding winter he went from Pecos to begin looking for Quivera on the plains. They were guided by El Turco, Bigotes & Cacique from Pecos (Cicuye) pueblo.
1541, July – Coronado decided he had been tricked and had El Turco choked to death with a garrote.
1541, Aug/Sept – Arellano + 40 men returned to Pecos from Tiquex to thwart an ambush for Coronado returning from the plains; they fought the first battle with the Pecos Indians for four days.
1541, Mid-Sept – Coronado returned to Pecos then back to Tiquex; Fray Padilla and others went back to the plains to find Quivera and were killed by plains Indians
1542, April - Coronado left New Mexico for good; Old Brother Luis de Ubeda was the first missionary at Pecos left by Coronado; he was never heard from again.
1581, June – The first Spanish back in New Mexico since Coronado (obtained license from the viceroy to journey to New Mexico to explore for valuable minerals) Fray Agustin Rodriquez/Chamuscado (Capt. Francisco Sanchez was called "El Chamuscado" meaning scorched because of his flaming red beard) & 2 other Franciscans + 9 mounted men at arms each with an Indian servant; 12 Indians & a Mestizo; several hundred head of stock. It was the first mention of “New Mexico" (Camino Real); they met the Piros first, then Tiwas, Keres, Pecos (named Nueva Tlaxcala after the capital city of Cortes’ stalwart allies), Estancia Valley, Acoma & Zuni. Didn't go to Hopi. The Franciscans stayed in the Galisteo Basin among the pueblos to suffer martyrdom and the soldiers returned. The Chamuscado and Rodríguez Expedition named the region north of the Rio Grande "San Felipe del Nuevo México", the first use of the term New Mexico.
1582, Nov. 10th - (authorized through the Franciscan hierarchy only) Antonio de Espejo & Fray Bernaldino Beltran went to Puaray in Tiguex to determine fate of the priests. They left Santa Barbara, Mexico with 12-14 soldiers; Father Beltran + wife & 3 small children of one of the soldiers (40 in all). By Feb, 1583 they had “taken possession of” Piros, Tompiros, Southern Tiwas & Keres. He learned for sure of the deaths of Father Lopez & Bro Agustin Rodriquez. Then they went west to Zuni and to Hopi. They visited Pecos where they abducted 2 natives, one got away and the other was taken to Mexico City where he was taught Spanish and took the name Pedro Oroz.
1583 - King Philip II – Spanish colonization of NM “without a thing being expended from my treasury." He issued a decree calling upon New Spain's viceroy to find a wealthy and able colonist willing to undertake settlement in New Mexico.
1590, July 27- (Unauthorized expedition) Gaspar Castano de Sosa the lieutenant governor was given orders from the new viceroy, don Leon Luis de Velasco II forbidding him to go to New Mexico. Contrary to the order he moved the entire settlement of Almaden to NM. -men, women, children (200 in all), servants, dogs, oxen and goats in 2-wheeled ox carts (the first wheeled vehicles in NM). He took no friars or priests.
- at Ciudad Acuna on the Rio Bravo he caught 60 male and female Indians to send south for sale as slaves - an expedition party referred to a large pueblo –el pueblo de los Pecos (the Keresan name, probably the Pecos Pueblo)
- some soldiers attacked and took Pecos Pueblo, then the next day the entire population left and probably went to the Galisteo Basin pueblos
- the Spanish went through Glorieta Pass to the Keres and Tano pueblos
- on Oct. 1 Viceroy Velasco sent Juan Morlete to arrest de Sosa and bring him back. Morlete, Fray Juan Gomez and 40 soldiers confronted him at Santo Domingo Pueblo and returned to Mexico City
- Sosa was tried in Mexico City, found guilty and sentenced to 6 yrs. of military service in the Philippines. He was killed by Chinese galley slaves on a voyage to the Moluccas.
- he was acquitted of all charges; his appeal arrived in Spain too late
1593 - (Unauthorized expedition) Captain Francisco Leyva de Bonilla and Juan de Humana went into Kansas looking for mineral riches from New Mexico; Bonilla was stabbed by Humana and Humana was later killed by Quiviran indians
1598 - Juan de Onate purchased everything needed and went from Zacatecas to Santa Barbara, Mexico up the Rio Grande to village of Ohke on the east bank naming it “San Juan de los Caballeros”; then to Yuqueyunque renaming it San Gabriel del Yungue. He had with him 83 wagons, 400 individuals (200 armed and equiped men who were to serve in the dual role of soldier and colonist- many with families), eight Franciscan friars and two lay brothers, Mexican indians, mulatto servants, 600-700 head of cattle, sheep, goat, horses and mules. Many luxury goods were also brought to the settlement over what was to become the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Some of the settlers were "crypto-Jews" escaping the Spanish Inquisition which affected all of the colonies of New Spain.
1599, Jan. – Dec. 4, 1599 - Juan de Zaldivar, Onate’s nephew was sent to meet w/Acoma’s cacique Zutacapan. He demanded food & shelter, then invaded homes when he was denied. He and his 16 men were killed. Vicente de Zaldivar, Juan’s brother & 70 men later attacked Acoma. They killed 500 warriors, 300 women & children. 500 prisoners were taken to San Juan Pueblo. The Spanish cut off the right foot of males over 25 (24 men) and enslaved them for 20 yrs as well as females over 12 yrs old. Two Hopis that were visiting Acoma each had one hand cut off and were released. The mutilations were carried out at various Rio Grande pueblos.
17th Century
The 17th Century brought many changes to New Mexico.
1607, August 24 - Juan de Onate resigned as governor. He returned to Mexico City and was tried and convicted of cruelty to both natives and colonists.
1608, February 27 - Juan Martinez de Montoya was appointed governor after Juan de Onate and his son Cristobal were authorized to leave New Mexico.
1608 – Juan Martinez de Montoya was a member of Onate’s colony. According to testimonies given before the governor at Santa Domingo Pueblo he testified that he had established a plaza at Santa Fe in Oct. 1604 or April 1605 (this was during Onate's absence from the colony when he was gone in search of the South Sea). He also stated that when visiting the Santa Fe area he found no Indians on the site (closest in La Cienegulla and in prehistoric Agua Fria).
1609 – Pedro de Peralta was ordered by the viceroy in Mexico City to found Santa Fe. He came with 16 soldiers 6 friars, 2 lay brothers pushing the number of adult males to over 50.
1610 - The capital was moved to Santa Fe; Palace of Governors (Casa Reales) was constructed; 24 governors there until the Pueblo Revolt. The San Miguel Mission (Chapel) was built across the Santa Fe River from the city in the Barrio De Analco where the Mexican Indians lived. The name "Analco" comes from the Nahuatl languagespoken by the Tlaxcalteca people who accompanied the Spanish from Mexico.
Peralta was instructed by the Viceroy of New Spain to plan the town according to the The Royal Ordinance of the Indes of 1573 (Colonization Laws of 1573) whereby specific instructions specifying that there must be friendly relations with the natives, the selection of the town site, the laying out of the grid of streets with a central plaza, locating a church and government buildings on the plaza and the distribution of town lots and farming lands to the colonists.
1616 - The Autumn mission supply caravan to New Mexico was bound from Mexico with a half dozen Christian brethren coming up the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.
1619 - Fray Pedro Zambrano Ortiz was assigned to “the convent of Nuestra Senora de los Angeles de los Pecos” by Fray Esteban de Perea. [He established the first church (the Lost Church made of jacal at Pecos Pueblo)]
1619 - Fray Pedro de Ortega served at the Galisteo Pueblo from 1619 until he was assigned to the Pecos Pueblo where he replaced Fray Pedro Zambrano Ortiz.
1620 - Ortega was replaced at Pecos by Fray Andres Suarez who was responsible for building the great church and probably also responsible for the construction of the convent kiva.
1626 - The Holy Office of the Inquisition was formally introduced to New Mexico. It was used not so much against the Puebloans as against the Spanish. It mainly gave the Franciscans a weapon against the goverment officials.
1640 - A smallpox epidemic swept through the pueblos where at least 3,000 of the Indians died. There was also a lasting drought at the same time proving to the Puebloans that the Catholic faith was worthless.
1656 - There were approximately 46 priests in New Mexico, most only speaking Spanish. Only one friar, Garia de San Francisco spoke Piro.
1600s - There were many conflicts between the church and the state each trying to control Pueblo land, labor and tribute. By the 1660s conditions for the Pueblo people was unbearable.
1675 - Governor Juan Francisco Treviño ordered the arrest of forty-seven Pueblo medicine men and accused them of practicing "sorcery" which resulted in them having killed ten Spaniards by witchcraft. Sorcerers were punished by hanging, whipping, being sold into slavery or imprisonment. Four medicine men were sentenced to death by hanging; three of those sentences were carried out, while the fourth prisoner committed suicide. One was hanged at Nambe, one at San Felipe and another at Jemez. The remaining men were publicly brutally flogged and held in prison. When the news reached the Pueblo leaders, seventy of them moved in force to Santa Fe where the prisoners were held demanding their release. One of the men released was Po'pay who was a forty-five year old Tewa religious leader from Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. Distrusting some of the San Juan leaders Po'pay then moved to the Taos Pueblo. Had the prisoners not been released the intent of the Indians was to kill the governor and the people of Santa Fe as well.
1677 - New Mexico experienced the largest documented influx of newcomers since Onate's entrada. There were 43 new soldiers, 40 of whom were convicts sentenced to serve in the "desolate province."
1680, August 10 (set for the 11th) – The Pueblo Revolt was supported by 46 Pueblo towns. They killed 422 Spanish settlers and soldiers as well as 21 of the 33 Franciscan friars. By August 13, all the Spanish settlements in New Mexico had been destroyed and Santa Fe was besieged. The remaining 2,000 settlers were driven out of the province to what is now El Paso, Texas (actually on the south side of the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juarez). Governor Antonio Otermin called it a “Journey of Death,” or in Spanish, Jornada del Muerto. The group arrived in El Paso with 1,946, a total loss of 574 souls. The Palace of Governors in Santa Fe was taken over and rebuilt by the Pueblos during their occupation. It was reported that there were 2,500 to 3,000 (probably an inflated number) of Hispanic settlers prior to the Revolt.
(A carved marble statue of Po'pay carved by Cliff Fragua of Jemez Pueblo was given to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol Emancipation Hall by New Mexico in 2005. The collection in the hall honors persons notable in the history of each of the 50 states. The other statue is of Dennis Chavez who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1936. He supported the New Deal and championed the rights of American Indians and Puerto Ricans.)
1681, November - Governor Antonio Otermin attemped to return to New Mexico, but failed and had to return to El Paso.
1689 - Governor Domingo Jironza Petriz de Cruzante with an army of eighty soldiers traveled up the Rio Grande and fought a fifteen-hour battle at Zia Pueblo where fifty of his eighty soldiers were wounded. In the battle 600 Zia men, women and children were killed. After the battle he returned to El Paso.
1692, August – Diego de Vargas Zapata Lujan Ponce de Lion y Contreras went from El Paso to Santa Fe with modest force of 60 Spanish soldiers & vecinos, several Franciscan friars and 100 Indian allies north to reconquer New Mexico. Some of the Indians were Tlaxcalans from Mexico and others were Piro and Southern Tiwa who had gone south with Otermin. The Puebloans submitted. The Spanish redeemed some 63 Spanish and Indian captives from their Pueblo captors. He had a large cross erected in the middle of the Santa Fe plaza. He also traveled to twenty-three of the other pueblos gaining acceptance and baptized 2,214 of the native Puebloans. (In the twelve years since the revolt many of the puebloans were too young to remember and most of the revolt's leaders were dead.)
1693 - Vargas returned to to recolonize Santa Fe, bringing soldiers and settlers. He had more than 800 people, which included 700 families, 100 soldiers and 18 Franciscans. The livestock that he brought included 900 head of cattle and sheep, 2000 horses and 1000 mules. Twelve large wagons carried passengers and six held supplies and the image of Nuestra Senora de la Conquista.
This time they had to fight their way into Santa Fe. Warriors from four of the pueblos sided with the colonists, but most opposed them. When the capital had been taken, Vargas ordered some 70 of the Pueblo men killed. The women and children were distributed as servants to the colonists.
1695 - Vargas made the first recorded settlement grant for the new Villa of Santa Cruz de la Canada which then became the administrative center for the area north (Arriba) of Santa Fe.
1696 - Second Pueblo Revolt - This was a revolt that seriously challenged Spain's presence in the upper Rio Grande Valley, but lacked cohesion and success. The northern pueblos of Taos, Picuris, San Ildefonso, San Juan and Jemez were among the rebels. The southern Keres pueblos joined with the Spanish. Pecos Pueblo contibuted warriors to the Spanish, but suffered fractional disputes for many years. The revolt consisted of six months of skirmishes, devastation, executions and reprisals by Vargas.
1697 - Upon arrival in New Mexico, Pedro Rodríguez Cubero initiated the standard procedure of residencia, or administrative review, of Vargas' term. He brought forward a list of charges against Vargas. Vargas was placed under house arrest, where he was to remain until 1700. The Tribunal of Accounts in Mexico City rendered a decision in favor of him and cleared the way for him to serve a second term which began in 1703. On April 1, 1704, the he fell ill. He was taken to the home of Fernando Durán de Cháves at Bernalillo, where he prepared his last will. He died on April 8th, at the age of 60.
There were culture chages in 18th century New Mexico
1706 - a third villa, Albuquerque was established to administer to the area south (Abajo) of Santa Fe by Franscisco Cuervo y Valdes, the governor of New Mexico, and named after the Duke of Alburquerque.
1720 – Governor Antonio Valverde y Cosio’s request for reconnaissance of French & plains Indians of Kansas & Nebraska by Don Pedro Villasur failed, 14 soldiers & 49 Puebloans survived (1720 and 1758 painting of battle done on buffalo hides).
Mid 1700s – Genizaros were given land in Abiquiu, Belen, Tome and San Miguel
1735 - Ojo Caliente area - Antonio Martin grant (abandoned); 1790s peace with the Utes and Commanches
1751 – Las Trampas was founded by 12 Spanish families
1754 - Plaza of Truches was founded by 12 families from Chimayo and Pueblo Quemado (Cordova, New Mexico)
1762 – France ceded Louisiana to Spain
1776, July 29 - Dominguez-Escalante Expedition was an expedition of ten men led by Francisco Atanasio Dominguez, a 36 year old Franciscian missionary and Silvestre Veled de Escalante a 26 yr. old Franciscan friar. They left Santa Fe to journey to Monterey, CA. (later known as the Old Spanish Trail trade route). They had to turn around before reaching their goal, but the route was later followed by Santa Fe merchant Antonio Armijo in 1829.
El Camino Real de Terra Adentro, The Santa Fe Trail and The Old Spanish Trail
1779 – Governor Juan Bautista de Anza (1779–1787) defeated Cuerno Verde "Green Horn" and a peace treaty was signed with the Comanches in 1786.
1781 – A smallpox epidemic swept the state and affected Native Americans since they had no resistance to the disease (25% or 1 person in 13 died).
19th Century
1803 - The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the Louisiana territory of New France (828,000 sq. mi. (2,140,000 km.; 530,000,000 acres) by the United States from France in 1803 during the third presidential term of Thomas Jefferson. The U.S. paid fifty million francs ($11,250,000) and a cancellation of debts worth eighteen million francs ($3,750,000) for a total of sixty-eight million francs ($15 million, equivalent to about $600 billion given the GDP of 2017).
1804, May to September 1806 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the first American expedition to cross the western portion of the United States. It began in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania made its way westward, and passed through the Continental Divide of the Americasto reach the Pacific coast. The Corps of Discovery was a selected group of US Army volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend Second Lieutenant William Clark. The object was to explore and to map the newly acquired territory, to find a practical route across the western half of the continent, and to establish an American presence in this territory before Britain and other European powers tried to claim it.
1806-7 - Lt. Zebulon Montgomery Pike was arrested for mapping in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado and escorted to Santa Fe then to Chihuahua for interrogation by the Spanish. He was sent by president Thomas Jefferson to explore the Southwest to the fringes of the northern Spanish-colonial settlements of New Mexicoand Texas. All of his papers and notebooks were confiscated. He was later released near the U.S. Louisiana border. Upon his return he had to write an account of all that he had seen from memory which was published in 1810. He was a protege of James Wilkinson, the commading general of the U.S. Army sent to explore the headwaters of the Arkansas and locate the source of the Red River. He was to unofficially gather intelligence about the Spanish Southwest.
1821 – News of the signing of Treaty of Cordova (Spain) on August 24 concluding the Mexican War of Independence was received in Santa Fe by Governor Facundo Melgares at the Palace of Governors.