Place Information
|
Santa Fe (Spanish, "Holy Faith"; full form: La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís, English: Royal City of the Holy Faith of St. Francis of Assisi) is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. Santa Fe is the largest city and county seat of Santa Fe County. It had a population of 62,543 at the 2000 census. As of the 2005 census estimate the population was 70,631, making it New Mexico's third-largest city. It is the principal city of the Santa Fe, New Mexico Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Santa Fe County. The elevation of Santa Fe is nearly 7,000 feet (2,132 meters) above sea level compared with approximately 5,352 ft (1,631 m) for nearby Albuquerque.
History
Santa Fe under Spain and MexicoSanta Fe was the capital of Nuevo México, a province of New Spain explored by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and established in 1515. The city was founded by Don Pedro de Peralta, New Mexico's third governor. Peralta gave the city its full name, "La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís", or "The Royal City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi". A settlement on the site that would become Santa Fe was first established by Juan Martinez de Montoya in 1607. The town was formally founded and made a capital in 1610, making it the oldest capital city and the second oldest surviving city founded by the European colonists in what land was later to become part of the United States, behind St. Augustine, Florida (1565). (Jamestown, Virginia was also settled in 1607). Except for the years 1680-1692, when, as a result of the Pueblo Revolt, the native Pueblo people drove the Spaniards out of the area known as New Mexico, later to be "reconquered" by Don Diego de Vargas, Santa Fe remained Spain's provincial seat until the outbreak of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810. In 1824 the city's status as the capital of the Mexican territory of Santa Fe de Nuevo México was formalized in the 1824 Constitution. Santa Fe and the United StatesIn 1841 a small military and trading expedition set out from Austin, Texas with the aim of gaining control over the Santa Fe Trail. Known as the Santa Fe Expedition the force was poorly prepared and was easily repelled by the Mexican army. In 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico, and General Kearny led a troop of US Cavalry into the city to claim it and the whole New Mexico Territory for the United States. By 1848 it officially gained New Mexico through The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Colonel Alexander William Doniphan under the command of Kearny recovered ammunition from Santa Fe labeled "Spain 1776" showing both the quality of communication and military support New Mexico received under Mexican rule. (Garrard, Lewis H., Wah-to-yah and the Taos Trail, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Oklahoma, 1955, originally published in 1850) In 1851, Jean Baptiste Lamy, arrived in Santa Fe and began construction of Saint Francis Cathedral. For a few days in March 1863, the Confederate flag of General Henry Sibley flew over Santa Fe, until he was defeated by Union troops. Santa Fe was originally envisioned as an important stop on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. But as the tracks progressed into New Mexico, the civil engineers decided that it was more practical to go through Lamy, a town in Santa Fe County to the south of Santa Fe. The result was a gradual economic decline. This was reversed in part through the creation of a number of resources for the arts and archaeology, notably the School of American Research, created in 1907 under the leadership of the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett. The first aeroplane to fly over Santa Fe was piloted by Rose Dugan, carrying Vera von Blumenthal as passenger. Together they started the development of the Pueblo Indian pottery industry, a major contribution to the founding of the annual Santa Fe Indian Market. In 1912 New Mexico became the country's 47th state, with Santa Fe as its capital. Research Tips
|
