Archeologists have determined that some ten thousand years ago, the Folsom Paleo-Indians, a hunter-gatherer society, lived in the area. They left behind bison bones and projectile points (arrowheads and spear heads). The Anasazi moved into New Mexico proper from the Four Corners area (where New Mexico meets Colorado, Utah, and Arizona). These Anasazi peoples adapted to the environment by abandoning their high-walled towns for what the Spanish later dubbed pueblo villages (reminiscent of the land-based communities of Old Spain). Finally, the Athapascan Indians, known to fans of American Western movies as the Navajo and Apache, arrived in the area. This culturally diverse mix of peoples endured a somewhat tempestuous existence until the arrival of the Spanish explorer conquerors.

The Spanish arrived in the mid to late Sixteenth Century with their unique Old World culture--complete with priests, soldiers, and settlers - the cross and sword. Don Juan de O-ate, perhaps the most successful Spanish entrepeneur, founded the first Spanish capital at San Gabriel del Yunque (in Tewa: Yungueingge, which means mockingbird place) at the confluence of the Chama and Rio Grande Rivers. A decade later, Don Pedro de Peralta, founded the present-day capital at Santa Fe.

The unique brand of Spanish Colonial Catholicism often required indentured servitude or slavery of indigenous peoples. The Taos Pueblo led a revolt against Spanish empire in 1680, killing approximately four thousand Spaniard settlers. The Old Worlders were pushed out, leaving a power vacuum in the region. Even the Apache, once a proud warrior tribe, had become planters. This was the time of Comanche terror! To combat the new threat, the ever adaptive peoples formed alliances through trade and intermarriage, leading to a unique mestizaje culture. The societies held grand fairs where a free-born person might, for example, ransom Spanish settlers abducted in Indian raids. A free-born could also buy servants, usually Indians captured by other Indians. These Christian "genizeros" who shed the stigma of slavery in three generations, soon became so numerous that the Spanish built villages for them at Abiqui, Santa Fe's Analco neighborhood, San Miguel del Vado, Ojo Caliente and elsewhere. Genizeros formed the buffer between Spanish and Pueblo settlements and the raiding nomads. 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, Colorado; and 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. New Mexico then became an American territory.

In 1847 a revolt by Mexican loyalists precipitated battles at Santa Cruz and massacres at Mora and Taos. Ultimately, 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.

Two decades later the railroads steamed in, forever changing New Mexico. Although commerce improved under the imported U.S. legal system, dishonest Anglo lawyers defrauded many indigenous peoples of land they had held for centuries. At this time, cattle barons like John Chisum rounded up longhorns along the southeastern plains, battling native landholders. Chisum, along with other notorious folk like Pat Garrett, Billy the Kid, and Gov. Lew Wallace (author of Ben Hur) fought in the bloody Lincoln County Wars, a conflict between two trading houses. Notwithstanding injustices, New Mexicans remained patriotically American. In fact, Teddy Roosevelt recruited his "Rough Riders" from New Mexico (mainly Las Vegas) in 1898.

New Mexico became the 47th state in 1912. In the Thirties when The Great Depression threatened to eliminate the isolated villages--heart of the Hispano homeland, New Deal programs ensured the survival of the culture.

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. In the politically tumultuous 1960s, 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.

Today, thanks to New Deal dams and other infrastructure, dairies thrive where Comanches once raided along the lower Pecos River. The lush Mesilla Valley produces alfalfa hay, pecans, onions and New Mexico's staple, the chile. But with agriculture and a growing population demanding more, water is an increasingly scarce resource in New Mexico. New Mexicans, while welcoming planned growth, are beginning to recognize the necessity of conservation and prudent land management.