History
Beginning around A.D. 800 a sedentary native population settled here building pithouses. Archeological evidence indicates that by A.D. 1300, the area overlooking the southern Estancia Basin was inhabited by Tompiro-speaking peoples who built with the culturally distinct pueblo masonry architecture. From about A.D. 1000 to the 1600s, Gran Quivira, along with the other Jumanos Pueblos to the east and the other Salinas Pueblos to the north (Tenabó, Abó, Quarai, Tajique and Chilili) was a major trade center between the Great Plains, the Pacific Coast, and the Great Basin. [1]
In 1598, while exploring the territory he had claimed for Spain, Don Juan de Oñate arrived at Las Humanas and administered an oath of obedience and vassalage to the Humano Indians. Years later missionary activities at Gran Quivira began in earnest and around 1626 the pueblo was designated as a visita of San Grégorio de Abó mission. By 1629 Gran Quivira had its own resident priest, Fray Francisco de Letrado, who began construction of the first permanent mission at Gran Quivira. Letrado was removed in 1631 and Fray Francisco de Acevado took control and completed construction of Inglesia de San Isidro in 1635. In 1659 Fray Diego de Santander was permanently assigned to Gran Quivira after which construction on a new larger church, San Buenaventura, began. The churches were built out of the same blue-gray local limestone as the earlier pueblo and were held together with caliche-based mortar. [1]
At the time the Spanish came in the 1580s Las Humanas had a population of about 3,000. The area suffered from Spanish expropriation of resources and then from droughts in the 1660s. 450 residents died from starvation in 1668. In September 1670 an Apache raid damaged the mission and pueblo, left eleven dead, and took thirty inhabitants as captives. By the early 1670s the pueblo was abandoned. [1]
The first detailed description in English is Major James Henry Carleton's twenty-page pamphlet Diary of an excursion to the ruins of Abó, Qarra, and Gran Quivira, in New Mexico published in 1855. [2] In 1909 the ruins were incorporated into the Gran Quivira National Monument, which was enlarged in 1980–1981 to include Abó and Quarai, and which was renamed in 1988 to Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.
The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966, and the Gran Quivera Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in July 2015. [3]
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who led a large expedition from what is now Mexico to present-day Kansas through parts of the southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542. Vázquez de Coronado had hoped to reach the Cities of Cíbola, often referred to now as the mythical Seven Cities of Gold. His expedition marked the first European sightings of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River, among other landmarks. His name is often Anglicized as Vasquez de Coronado or just Coronado.
Piro people were a Native American tribe who lived in New Mexico during the 16th and 17th century. The Piros lived in a number of pueblos in the Rio Grande Valley around modern Socorro, New Mexico, USA. The now extinct Piro language may have been a Tanoan language. Numbering several thousand at the time of first contact with the Spanish, by the time of the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 the Piro had been decimated by European-introduced diseases and Apache attacks and most of the survivors resettled near El Paso, Texas.
The Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument is a complex of three Spanish missions located in the U.S. state of New Mexico, near Mountainair. The main park visitor center is in Mountainair. Construction of the missions began in 1622 and was completed in 1635.
The Spanish Missions in New Mexico were a series of religious outposts in the Province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México — present day New Mexico. They were established by Franciscan friars under charter from the monarchs of the Spanish Empire and the government of the Viceroyalty of New Spain in a policy called Reductions to facilitate the conversion of Native Americans into Christianity.
Quivira was a province of the ancestral Wichita people, located near the Great Bend of the Arkansas River in central Kansas, The exact site may be near present-day Lyons extending northeast to Salina.
Quarai, also known historically as Quarai State Monument, is a prehistoric and historic unit of the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument located north of Mountainair, New Mexico. A National Historic Landmark District, it encompasses the archaeological remains of prehistoric Native American settlements, historic remains of a pueblo that was abandoned in the 1670s during the Spanish colonial period, the ruins of a 17th-century Spanish mission compound, and 19th-century Spanish ranching artifacts. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962, and was added to the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument in 1980.
La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles is a historic Catholic church in El Pueblo de los Ángeles Historical Monument in northern downtown Los Angeles, California. The church was founded by the Spanish in the early 19th century when modern-day California was under Spanish rule and known as Alta California in the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
The Mission Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Porciúncula was a mission that served the people of the Pecos Pueblo, near modern Pecos, New Mexico, from sometime around 1619.
Abó, is a pueblo ruin in New Mexico that is preserved as part of the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. The ruins are located about 9 miles (14 km) west of Mountainair, at about 6,100 feet (1,900 m) above sea level. They are said to date back to the 14th century. It was a major trading station during its time. There is a visitor contact station, a 0.25 miles (0.40 km) trail through the mission ruins, and a 0.5 miles (0.80 km) trail around the unexcavated pueblo ruins. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1962.
Jumanos were a tribe or several tribes, who inhabited a large area of western Texas, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, especially near the Junta de los Rios region with its large settled Indigenous population. They lived in the Big Bend area in the mountain and basin region. Spanish explorers first recorded encounters with the Jumano in 1581. Later expeditions noted them in a broad area of the Southwest and the Southern Plains.
Juan Sabeata was a Jumano Indian leader in present day Texas who tried to forge an alliance with the Spanish or French to help his people fend off the encroachments of the Apaches on their territory.
The Tompiro Indians were Pueblo Indians living in New Mexico. They lived in several adobe villages east of the Rio Grande Valley in the Salinas region of New Mexico. Their settlements were abandoned and they were absorbed into other Pueblo Nations in the 1670s.
Manzano Mountain Wilderness is a designated Wilderness Area within the Cibola National Forest, located about 50 miles (80 km) south-southeast of Albuquerque. It is located in western Torrance County and eastern Valencia County. The Wilderness area includes 36,875 acres (14,923 ha) with elevations ranging from 6,100 feet (1,900 m) to 10,098 feet (3,078 m) at Manzano Peak.
Domingo Jironza Pétriz de Cruzate was a Spanish soldier who was Governor of New Mexico from 1683 to 1686, and again from 1689 to 1691. He came to office at a time a large part of the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México was independent of Spanish rule due to the Pueblo Revolt. With limited resources, he was unable to reconquer the province.
Estéban de Perea was a Spanish Franciscan friar who undertook missionary work in New Mexico, a province of New Spain, between 1610 and 1638. At times he was in conflict with the governors of the province. He has been called the "Father of the New Mexican Church".
Abo Canyon, also known as Abo Pass, is a mountain pass at the southern end of the Manzano Mountains of central New Mexico in the Southwest United States.
New Mexico Wilderness Act of 1980, Public Law 96-550, is a U.S. federal law that authorized the establishment of a number of designated Wilderness Areas on National Forest land in New Mexico. The law also added additional lands to four existing Wilderness Areas in New Mexico, and named several Forest areas for study as potential Wilderness Areas. The law also created two new National Park Service units, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Salinas National Monument, from existing NPS lands. By means of this law approximately 400,000 acres of forest land were designated as Wilderness Areas, as described by the Wilderness Act of 1964, and approximately 75,000 additional acres were designated as Wilderness Study Areas for possible future inclusion in the Wilderness program.
Gran Quivera Historic District is a historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
The Jumanos Pueblos were several villages of the Tompiro Indians in the mountainous area of central New Mexico between Chupadera Mesa and the Gallinas Mountains including Pueblo Colorado, Pueblo Blanco (Tabirá), and the smaller Pueblo de la Mesa. Usually the group includes the addition of Gran Quivira and Pueblo Pardo. They were separated from the rest of the larger Salinas Pueblo group which lie north of Chupadera Mesa. The Jumanos Pueblos were a center of the salt trade prior to the Spanish incursion into the region and traded heavily with the Jumanos to the south in the area of modern Presidio, Texas and other central Rio Grande areas. They may have also traded with Jumanos along the Pecos River and other places to the east and maybe even north.
