SPAIN – AMERICA
Don Juan de Onate began his journey from Nueva Spania which is now Mexico on January 1598 with 129 soldiers, ages mid teens to 60 and Onate himself was age 43, married to Isabel de Tolsa Cortez Moctezuma; Onate a moul (wealthy man) was paying for the journey and besides the soldiers included their wives and families, including babies. The total was some 500 people, some servants, some packers, some Mestizos and some Mulattos, Indians and a few slaves. He brought some 7,000 head of stock including horses and mares for breeding, 83 wagons loaded with supplies, steel farming equipment and many sacks of carne seca (dried meat) and perhaps the principle source of food as they traveled north to Colonize Nuevo Mejico what is now (New Mexico). Their stock included 150 mares, 1,000 goats, 2,000 sheep and 1,000 cows. Before The Onate expedition, the only animal in what is now America were the Bison and today horses run wild in many states, thanks to the Onate Expedition.
Onate agreed with the Viceroy—Luis de Velasco of Nueva Spania to colonize the territory of New Mexico and he would become the Governador Adelantado y Capitan General (Governor and Captain General) and would be for life with an annual salary of 6000 Ducados (antique money of gold from Spain). Onate established a new route arriving at the Rio Conchos and the Rio Grande junction west of El Paso where they rested for a week and gave thanks with a celebration among friendly Indians (mansos) they run into and who shared in the celebration and exchange of gifts and Thanksgiving, and where Onate made a formal declaration asserting King Phillip II, and the Crown of Spain as legal claim to Nuevo Mejico. Onate then moved his people and his herds north to San Juan Bautista (the first Capital) arriving on July 11, 1598. He later reestablished the Capital
to San Gabriel in 1600; in the year 1610, Onate’s successor, Don Pedro de Peralta established the new State Capital at Santa Fe where Colonists had already settlements as early as 1608.
The Spanish Explorers, the Conquistadores that ventured into the New World, those that sacrificed by putting their life at the hands of the Capitan Adelantado and to those that established colonies and settlements are not given much credit, but we owe them much gratitude, for if it had not been for them, we may not be here. SPAIN’s long history has proven it to be a mature Nation with diverse kingdoms that have come and gone, leaving their bits and pieces of culture and influence. Although Spain does not get much credit in America, they left a tremendous LAND MARK, with the Spanish names of villages, towns, cities, mountains, rivers, arroyos, trails, land grants, Church Missions and the great number of names like Archuleta, Bargas, Carbajal, Chavez, Peres, Leon, Martinez and many more. These are Historical names and people that no one can ever take away from us because they are too deep rooted in our ancestors and where we come from…
