Over the course of the spring and early summer of 1598, Spanish explorer Don Juan de Onate led a group of settlers north out of Mexico across the Rio Grande near the present day city of Las Cruces to a destination in northern New Mexico at the junction of the Rio Chama and Rio Grande. On the west riverbank, opposite the Pueblo of San Juan de los Caballeros, Onate and his people established the village of San Gabriel del Yunque. The date was July 11, 1598, and this small community became the first permanent Spanish settlement in the United States, predating the English colony of Jamestown in 1607 by nine years.

These historic events determined the course of New Mexico - and the nation's - history and set into motion the cultural forces which continue to define New Mexico today. We are proud to be among the most culturally and ethnically diverse of the 50 states. We celebrate the 400 years of additions to our population which began when the Pueblo people of San Juan first welcomed the weary Spanish travelers into their midst. Today, our language, place names, food, arts, social institutions, and the very faces of our people reflect this unique heritage of cultural trust and exchange.

In addition to marking 400 years of Native American and European cultural interaction, the Cuarto Centenario commemorates 400 years of Catholicism in New Mexico, as well as the 400th anniversary of the New Mexico National Guard, the oldest such military guard in the nation.

I invite you to join with me and people of New Mexico in commemorating our unique and culturally prolific past as we look forward to an equally illustrious future.