[Music] hello i'm robert martinez in albuquerque new mexico i'm the state historian and this is new mexico history in 10 minutes so by 1596 juan donnata has been granted the contract to colonize new mexico this is a big deal um he has to pay for part of the expedition so he's going to be investing a lot of his own money with the hopes of uh finding a riches wealth that will make him even more powerful than he already was at that time um it didn't happen overnight a lot of other powerful espanolas spaniards were vying for the contract uh he started to uh recruit in places like santa barbara zacatecas mexico city and all kinds of spaniards were coming and volunteering for this colonization well as they gathered um in santa barbara um it got to be a bit of a difficult situation because of uh political intrigue corruption uh competition uh the expedition was delayed uh time after time and this caused a lot of the colonists that were recruited uh to desert to to leave not so much dessert but to just say uh we're not gonna go so um the numbers kept fluctuating but um the good news is we have a lot of the documentation uh that was taken the spaniards are amazing record keepers they wrote everything down um so that's that's good those documents are housed in the archivo de las indias in sevilla spain and the archivo general de la nacion in mexico city and so we get a pretty good idea of what's going on there are quite a few um muster roles where uh they would write down who was coming up uh uh where they were from uh what they were bringing with them uh one was a salazar inspection and these are great records because we get an idea of exactly who these people were what kind of people they were and what they were intending to do up here in new mexico for example um when they would uh write down your record you had to declare your name uh they would uh ask you your father's name where you were from and then they would write down a physical description so um if somebody's name was bartolome romero um he would name his father's bartolome and he was from coral del mar spain and he would be described as having black hair sorority black bearded um this these are very important details and you have to read between the lines because some of the men were described as black haired somehow or as um uh what chestnut colored hair uh black eyes uh gray eyes blue eyes um some had sharp pointy noses others are described as having a flat nose um some were described as of a strong body tall and slender or uh rotund or fat so we we got get the notion that yes the european people that came here were described as european but some others were described in ways that showed that they uh likely had some native american ancestry or african ancestry so that happened um what else um some of them brought women with them but let's be clear um if you were a spaniard in spain um you weren't sitting around in spain thinking i want to go to new mexico um that didn't happen if you were going to come to the indies to the americas you wanted to go where the action was mexico city great spanish cities like puebla or guadalajara or a mining center like zacatecas where there's wealth and opportunity mexico was on the edge of empire finistere lands and it wasn't a very desirable place to come but i think for some like any immigrant uh situation for a lot of folks they were looking for a place where they could have a new start maybe uh have a chance at mineral wealth financial wealth and access to land and let's be honest access to native peoples to put to work so this is what was going on uh between 1596 and 1598 and a lot of the men that came to new mexico uh brought women with them wives um but most of the wives weren't from spain i think maybe uh let's see pedro robledo was from uh maqueda outside of toledo he brought his wife catalina lopez she was from toledo spain but for the most part um the women were from mexico uh spanish perhaps but also mixed spanish mixed with indian and some of them had indian wives with them uh native mexican indian women and they brought them to new mexico with children and had children up here so it's a mixed group already none of these were just spaniards didn't go to spain to sevilla and say i'd like to recruit only spanish people and take them to new mexico no this was a colonial operation so by 1598 after many delays uh the expedition is ready to set out and come north and it would be a very very difficult journey there were about 400 colonists these are spanish people mixed blood people there are a lot of native americans who are being brought up uh africans as well and i have to mention them because uh many were brought as servants but they're colonists too they are part of the operation it's not just onyata doing all the hard work or his uh family he brought nephews with him vicente and juan zaldivar heavy hitters from zakatekas but he's also bringing um a bunch of different kinds of people and they are all colonists men and women and there are even some children in the expedition so this is what we're dealing with a long difficult journey uh through the um sonora desert uh into uh what will eventually become uh the kingdom and province of new mexico so um let's imagine what that operation looked like paintings and images we see uh people uh on horses men with armor uh with uh helmets and uh chain mail uh armored boots leather boots uh horses uh uh heavily armored we see this sort of thing that's probably not how they were dressed when they came up here it's very cumbersome and in the heat of a desert uh like you see uh in mexico and then up here in new mexico it wouldn't have made any sense um they were probably wearing um loose uh cotton shirts uh pants that might have been made out of cloth or leather probably heavy boots for the journey a lot of people were probably walking they had carretas these were the spanish carts it's not what you see on those images of westerns with carts that have four wheels no these were carts that had two wheels and they were probably pulled uh by oxen or some other heavy animal of burden um they uh had to carry not just humans but they had to bring all the elements of civilization with them um horses cows pigs sheep goats chickens um they had weapons what kind of weapons oh let's see they had the archerus that was a like a musket um not very handy i mean if you could get one shot off uh if an enemy was attacking uh then you had to load it um it took a while to load and by that time you had a warrior on top of you and you probably used it just to swing and hopefully hit someone they had steel they had swords um they had media lunas a very uh formidable weapon a half moon that was a long uh uh pole or stick that had a half moon metal blade that you could cut down animals or humans with this is the stuff of the spanish colonization they had catholic priests franciscans with them um they had about 10 i believe uh onyate wanted an apostolic 12 but he wasn't able to get that number but he had some that came up to start the difficult task of uh attempting to convert the pueblo people to the roman catholic faith so this is what's going on there are hundreds and hundreds of spaniards mixed blood native american african people coming and they're hoping to uh arrive in new mexico before a hard winter sets so we'll see what happens then um in the spring of 1598 when the expedition gets to uh what's the area of present day juarez mexico see you next time [Music]