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New Mexico,
NM
The State of New Mexico is a state in the
southwestern region of the United States of America. Over its
relatively long history it has also been occupied by Native
American populations and has been part of the Imperial Spanish
viceroyalty of New Spain, part of Mexico, and a U.S.
territory. Among U.S. states,
New Mexico has simultaneously the highest
percentage of Hispanic Americans (comprised of both recent
immigrants and descendants of Spanish colonists) and the
second-highest percentage of Native Americans after Alaska
(mostly Navajo and Pueblo peoples).
As a result, the demographics and culture of
the state are unique for their strong Spanish, Mexican, and
American Indian cultural influences.
The climate of the state is highly arid and its
territory is mostly covered by mountains and desert.
At a population density of 15 per square mile,
New Mexico is the sixth most sparsely inhabited U.S. State.
Geography
The eastern border of New Mexico lies along
103° W longitude with the state of Oklahoma, and three miles
(5 km) west of 103° W longitude with Texas.
On the southern border, Texas makes up the
eastern two-thirds, while the Mexican states of Chihuahua and
Sonora make up the western third, with Chihuahua making up
about 90% of that. The western border with Arizona runs along
the 109° 03' W longitude. The 37° N latitude parallel forms
the northern boundary with Colorado.
The states New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and
Utah come together at the Four Corners in the northwestern
corner of New Mexico.
The landscape ranges from wide, rose-colored
deserts to broken mesas to high, snow-capped peaks. Despite
New Mexico's arid image, heavily forested mountain
wildernesses cover a significant portion of the state,
especially towards the north.
The Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ)
Mountains, the southernmost part of the Rocky Mountains, run
roughly north-south along the east side of the Rio Grande in
the rugged, pastoral north.
Cacti, yuccas, creosote bush, sagebrush, and
desert grasses cover the broad, semiarid plains that cover the
southern portion of the state.
History
The first known inhabitants of New Mexico were
members of the Clovis culture of Paleo-Indians.
Indeed the culture is named for the New Mexico
city where the first artifacts of this culture were
discovered. Later inhabitants include Native Americans of the
Anasazi and the Mogollon cultures.
By the time of European contact in the 1500s,
the region was settled by the villages of the Pueblo peoples
and groups of Navajo, Apache and Ute.
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado assembled an
enormous expedition at Compostela in 15401542 to explore and
find the mystical Seven Golden Cities of Cibola as described
by Cabeza de Vaca who had just arrived from his eight-year
ordeal traveling from Florida to Mexico.
Coronado's men found several mud baked pueblos
in 1541, but found no rich cities of gold. Further widespread
expeditions found no fabulous cities anywhere in the Southwest
or Great Plains.
A dispirited and now poor Coronado and his men
began their journey back to Mexico leaving New Mexico behind.
Over 50 years after Coronado, Juan de Oņate
founded the San Juan colony on the Rio Grande in 1598, the
first permanent European settlement in the future state of New
Mexico. Oņate pioneered the grandly named El Camino Real, "The
Royal Road", as a 700 mile (1,100 km) trail from the rest of
New Spain to his remote colony. Oņate was made the first
governor of the new Province of New Mexico. The Native
Americans at Acoma revolted against this Spanish encroachment
but faced severe suppression.
In 1609, Pedro de Peralta, a later governor of
the Province of New Mexico, established the settlement of
Santa Fe at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
The city, along with most of the settled areas
of the state, was abandoned by the Spanish for 12 years
(1680-1692) as a result of the successful Pueblo Revolt. After
the death of the Pueblo leader Popé, Diego de Vargas restored
the area to Spanish rule.
While developing Santa Fe as a trade center,
the returning settlers founded the old town of Albuquerque in
1706, naming it for the viceroy of New Spain, the Duke of
Alburquerque.
This article is licensed under
the
GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the
Wikipedia
article "New Mexico".
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