The Reconquista of New Mexico
In 1690, Diego de Vargas Zapata Luján Ponce de León was appointed Governor of New Mexico by the Spanish Crown.
When he assumed office at El Paso del Norte the following year, his assignment was the reconquista of New Mexico. His mission consisted of two parts:
A contingent of less than fifty Spanish soldiers and three Catholic friars accompanied Diego de Vargas to El Paso on August 17, 1692. This began an uneventful expedition north along the Rio Grande.
By early September, de Vargas and his troop arrived at Santa Fe, New Mexico. There he found the Old Spanish capital fortified and its Native-American inhabitants defiant. The wise De Vargas used a masterful mix of diplomacy and a not so subtle threat of a siege, to soon obtain their surrender. On September 14, 1692, de Vargas proclaimed a formal act of possession.
By the end of 1692, most of New Mexico’s Pueblos had been officially restored to the Spanish Empire without a shot being fired or any blood shed. This is the peaceful Reconquista that is observed annually in September at the famous Fiesta de Santa Fe.
The second portion of the Reconquista was far from peaceful. In 1693, de Vargas returned to El Paso, and by October, was on his way back with seventy Spanish families, eighteen Franciscan friars, and a number of Tlaxlacan allies to begin the re-colonization of New Mexico. But by this time, the Pueblos had experienced second thoughts, and when the colonists arrived at Santa Fe in December, they found the city once again fortified.
For two weeks, the Spanish colonists camped outside the city while de Vargas attempted to persuade the Indians to surrender. Finally, without a peaceful solution at hand, a decision was reached to take Santa Fe by force. Santa Fe was taken after a fierce battle that lasted two days. Afterwards, seventy Pueblo defenders were executed and several hundred captured men, women, and children sentenced to ten years servitude. The peaceful Reconquista was over.
During this time, only a few of the Pueblos remained true to the promise of peace they had made to de Vargas in 1692. Most continued to resist, and by the summer of 1696, the situation deteriorated into a general rebellion. This is often referred to as the Second Pueblo Revolt.
For the next several years, New Mexico suffered terribly from almost continual warfare. The Pueblos weakened by several years of war. And no longer able to resist effectively, many of the Native-American Pueblos were abandoned. They chose instead to disperse and sought refuge in the mountains and among the Navajo and Apache Indians.
With the Indian threat eliminated, soon, more Spanish families arrived in Santa Fe. The missions were reestablished and rebuilt. The new Spanish settlements began to grow and prosper. And accepting defeat and wanting peaceful relations with the Spaniards, the Pueblos repopulated.
By the close of the seventeenth century, a new era of New Mexico history had begun.
Don Diego de Vargas Expedition
New settlers led by Don Diego de Vargas entered New Mexico in 1692, promising the Indians better times. While the Spanish were gone, Utes, Navajos and Apaches harassed the Pueblos, some of whom now allied themselves with the Spanish. Meanwhile, the once-fierce Apaches, who had learned corn planting and homebuilding from the Pueblos, were driven south by invading Comanches, who terrorized the region until the Treaty of 1786.
Both Spanish settlers and Pueblos survived generations of nomadic Indian raids through alliances that included intermarriage. These marriages led to New Mexico's unique Spanish/Indian mestizaje culture. The trade fairs, common by the 1790s, from Taos to El Paso also hel;ped the New mexicn pueblos to survive. One of the fairs' major functions was to ransom Spanish settlers abducted in Indian raids or to buy servants, usually Indians captured by other Indians.
These freed Indians, known as genízaros, were Christianized and could, within three generations totally shed the stigma of slavery. They soon became so numerous that the Spanish built them villages at Abiquiú, Santa Fe's Analco neighborhood, San Miguel del Vado, Ojo Caliente and elsewhere. As the buffer between Spanish and Pueblo settlements and the raiding nomads, genízaros and their descendants, mostly stockmen and farmers, led the last great Hispano territorial expansions. They founded such towns as Las Vegas and Anton Chico, spreading as far north as present-day Antonito and Trinidad, Colo., into the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and west into east-central Arizona.
* Source of the above names: "Don Juan de Onate, Colonizer of New Mexico 1595-1682 by George P. Hammond And Agapito Rey (available through your libraries book exchange program). Special thanks to Carolyn (Garcia de Noriega) Stanley for providing this information.
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any of these people have 2 surnames. Please use the "Find" feature on your browser to locate any buried surnames.Abeitia, Antonio de
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Aguilera, Antonio de
Alderete, Juan de
Anaya de Almazan, Francisco Teniente
Apodaca, Juan Estevan de
Aratia, Felipe de
Archibeque, Juan de (Merchant)
Archuleta, Capt. Juan de
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Arellano, Cristobal de
Arias de Quiros, Capt. Diego
Armenta, Luis de
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Atienza, Alcala y Escobar Jose
Atienza, Juan de
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Baca, Cristobal
Baca, Diego Manuel
Ballejos, Manuel
Barela de Posada, Pedro
Barreda, Domingo de la
Barrios, Juan Antonio
Benavides, Francisco Xavier de
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Borjorquez y Corcuera, Capt. Jose Bueno de
Borrego, Diego Vasquez
Brito, Juan Leon
Bustillos, Juan de la Paz
Cabrera, Gabriel de
Carillo, Miguel
Carmona, Francisco de
Casados, Francisco, Jose
Castillanos, Jose
Castrillion, Manuel Alvarez
Castrillon, Antonio Alvarez
Cerda, Juan Jose
Chirinos, Juan Manuel
Coca, Miguel de
Contreras, Jose de
Cordero, Juan Ruiz
Cordoba, Lazaro de
Crespin, Cristobal
Cruciga, Antonio
Dias, Miguel de
Dominguez, Benito
Dominguez, Jose
Duran de Armijo, Antonio
Duran, Diego
Duran, Jose
Duran, Luis
Flores Vergara, Agustin Alferez
Flores, Lucas
Fresquez, Antonio
Gabaldon, Juan
Gallardo, Pedro Lopez de
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Garcia de las Rivas, Miguel
Garcia de Noriega, Juan
Garcia de Noriega, Lazaro
Garcia de Noriega, Martin
Garcia Jurado, Jose
Garcia, Jurado Ramon
Garduno, Bartolome
Giltomey, Jose Manuel
Godines, Antonio
Gomez Robledo, Francisco
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Gonzales, Diego
Gonzales, Sebastian
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Griego, Pedro
Guerrero, Francisco
Gutierrez de Figueroa, Antonio
Gutierrez de los Rios, Gaspar
Gutierrez, Alejo
Gutierrez, Capt. Juan Roque
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Hurtado, Martin, Capt.
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Jiron, Jose Telles
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Leba, Luis Francisco de
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Lopez, Carlos
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Lucero de Godoy, Nicolas
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Montes y Vigil, Francisco
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Montoya, Capt. Antonio
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Moreno, Juan Jose
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Olguin, Manuel
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Pacheco, Sylvestre
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Pineda, Juan de la Mora
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Rodriguez, Sebastian
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Terrus, Jose de
Torres, Jose Antonio
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Trujillo, Pascual
Ulibarri, Antonio
Ulibarri, General Juan de
Valasquez, Diego
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Valdez, Jose Luis
Vallejo, Antonio
Vargas, Sebastian de
Vasquez, Jose
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Velasquez, Jose
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