State capitals

[Kristin]

Well here's a brief history of Santa Fe and New Mexico in general. 
Santa Fe is the oldset state capital in the US.

In 1598, his soldiers, oxcarts and livestock arrived at Caypa, one of 
two Pueblo villages at the confluence of the Río Chama and the Río 
Grande, north of present-day Española. He soon moved across the river 
to Yungueingge (Tewa for mockingbird place), a now-ruined pueblo he 
renamed San Gabriel del Yunque, the first Spanish capital of New 
Mexico. New Mexico's third governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, founded a 
new capital, Santa Fe, in 1610. The fortified villa real (royal 
village) occupied the site of an early Tanoan Indian Pueblo and a 
more recent Spanish settlement. Things hummed along, with Spanish 
priests converting Indians, and settlers pouring into the remote 
colony. But some of the priests became overzealous, and the economic 
tribute system enslaved the Indians. In 1680, led by Taos Pueblo, 
they revolted, killing many of the 3,500 settlers strung out from 
Santa Cruz de la Cañada (near Española) to Socorro and driving the 
rest south to El Paso del Norte (El Paso).  

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--which 
lends New Mexico its unique mestizaje culture--and through trade 
fairs, common by the 1790s from Taos to El Paso. 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. 

In 1824, New Mexico briefly became a Mexican territory, but in 1846 
U.S. Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny's troops followed Anglo merchants down 
the Santa Fe Trail to occupy New Mexico, which became an American 
territory. 

An 1847 revolt by Mexican loyalists precipitated battles at Santa 
Cruz and massacres at Mora and Taos, but eventually armed resistance 
ceased. 

During the U.S. Civil War, New Mexico Volunteers were among the 
troops proving their Union loyalties by helping cut the supply lines 
of invading Confederates at Apache Pass, near today's Glorieta. 

 
Steam engine near Chama 
Two decades later the railroads steamed in, forever changing New 
Mexico. Commerce improved, but under the imported U.S. legal system, 
dishonest Anglo lawyers defrauded many natives of land they had held 
for centuries. 

Meanwhile, cattle barons such as John Chisum started rounding up 
longhorns along the southeastern plains, often battling native 
landholders. Chisum also was involved in the bloody Lincoln County 
Wars, a conflict between two mercantile houses that involved such 
notables as Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, and Gov. Lew Wallace, who 
wrote the novel Ben Hur. 

Despite injustices, New Mexicans remained patriotically American. In 
1898, Teddy Roosevelt recruited his "Rough Riders" from New Mexico, 
many from Las Vegas. In 1912 New Mexico became the 47th state. The 
Great Depression almost eliminated the isolated villages--heart of 
the Hispano homeland. But New Deal programs helped villagers survive. 

During World War II, two New Mexico regiments endured the Bataan 
Death March in the Philippines. Navajo and other Indian "code 
talkers" used their native languages to help confuse the Japanese. 
Things heated up again in the politically tumultuous 1960s, when 
activists led by Reies Lopez Tijerina attempted to reclaim Spanish 
land grants. After several confrontations, including an armed raid on 
the Tierra Amarilla courthouse, the movement quieted. 


Cheers,

Kristin