NMCentennialBlueBook

*All items are excerpted from New Mexico: A Brief Multi-History by Rubén Sálas Márquez.
Edited by Roberto Torres and Carlos Lopolo, NM historians. ** All other items are from other
historical documents and historians.
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NEW MEXICO HISTORY SUMMARY
*1000-1450
Tua-Tah, "Our Village," Taos Pueblo is founded and built during this period. Hlauuma (North
House) and Hlaukwima (South House) are sometimes described as the oldest continuously inhabited
communities in the United States.
*1150-1250
Keresan people move from Chaco Canyon into the Río Grande area. The people of present day
Santa Ana and Zía, migrate to the Río Puerco area.
*1150-1350
The "Golden Age" of Pueblo culture is taking place during these years. An identifiable culture,
religion, and government evolve in independent city/states along the Río Grande River and its
tributaries.
*1250-1400
In the Zuni area it is estimated that Amerind villages containing a total of 13,000 rooms are built
and abandoned, indicating a very mobile society.
*1300
Acoma (sometimes described as the oldest continuously inhabited town in the present United
States) is settled around this time.
Nambe, "Mound of Earth in the Corner," is thought to have been founded during this period.
Po-Who-Ge-Oweenge, "Where the Water Cuts Down Through," now called San Ildefonso
Pueblo is founded around this time.
*1350 - 1700
The maximum expansion of Pueblo Indian culture is experienced during this period.
*1400 - 1525
Athabascan people later to be known as Apache and Navajo enter the present day Southwest.
*1492 SPAIN
Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón, Admiral of the Ocean Sea) and the Spanish crews
of three ships led by the Pinzón brothers, Martín and Vicente, sail west in hopes of reaching the
Orient. Instead, they stumble onto the continents of the Américas, changing the course of human
history for all time.
Almost immediately, a liberal Spanish immigration policy to América is enacted: Catholic
Christians are eligible for free passage, they are exempt from taxes, they will be granted title to
all lands they cultivate for four years, they will be supplied with stock and grain from the Royal
Treasury, and there will be no tax on imports or exports.
*1493
Pope Alexander VI (a Spaniard of the Borgia Family) proclaims that all lands discovered west
of a line of demarcation 100 leagues beyond the Azores would belong to Spain. In a second bill
he declared that "all islands and main lands whatsoever found and to be found in sailing or travel
toward the west or south" would also be Spanish on the condition that aboriginal populations be
Christianized and not harmed.
*1500
Pueblo people speak in seven languages that belong to four language groups: Tanoan, Keresan,
Zuni, and Uto-Aztecan.
*1504
Queen Isabel of Spain decrees that the grant made by Pope Alexander VI obligates the "Spanish