In the spring of 1540, Francisco Vazquez de Coronado led an "entrada" from present-day Mexico into the region we call New Mexico, where the expedition spent a violent winter among pueblo peoples. The following year, after a long march across the Great Plains, Coronado led an elite group of his men north into present-day Kansas where,…

The Pecos River of the nineteenth century, unlike its faint twenty-first century shadow, was a formidable watercourse. The river stretches some 755 miles, from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains northeast of Santa Fe to its eventual merger with the Rio Grande. Control over the public domain of southeastern New Mexico came from controlling access to…

In the 1700s, the Spaniards of New Mexico ransomed captive Plains Indians enslaved by other tribes, named them "genizaros," and absorbed them into Pueblo-Spanish society. After working off their ransoms, the genizaros became farmers or craftsmen and served as defenders against and traders with Indians. Contains 55 references. (SV)