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Four hundred years ago, in April of 1598, Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate and 500 colonists from Mexico crossed the Rio Grande at El Paso and embarked on a journey that would forever change the cultural makeup of New Mexico and the United States. Oñate led a caravan of settlers, soldiers, Franciscan friars, wagons and livestock northward from Mexico along El Camino Real, the Royal Road, in order to claim this new land for the King of Spain.
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| The colonists ultimately established the first permanent European settlement in the American West at San Juan de los Caballeros, near San Juan Pueblo, north of Española. This Spanish community predated the first permanent English settlement in the present United States, Jamestown in Virginia, by almost a decade. The result was the merging of Native American and Spanish European cultures whose interaction has resulted in the art, agriculture, trading, government and religions we now recognize as New Mexico. |
Articles from the Museum of New Mexico magazine, El Palacio:
Photo Gallery: Spanish Government Delegation visit to New Mexico, April 1998 1998 Legislative Proclamations: Official Statements:
Governor of San Juan Pueblo
Please join us in celebrating cultural diversity, respect and integrity as experienced through the dramatic encounter in New Mexico between these two great nations, the Pueblo Indians and the people of Spain. |
 © 1999 NM Office of Cultural Affairs/All
Rights Reserved | |||