Questa- San Antonio del Rio Colorado
This excerpt from Another Time in This Place: Historia, Cultura y Vida en Questa
Utes (mostly Mouache and Capote bands) reached this area by around 1500AD. They were to become closely intertwined with life of early Questa-area settlers. Also visiting the area for hunting were Comanches and perhaps other Plains Indians tribes.
With the entry of Spain into the northern New Mexico area, the Indians had new elements to deal with—new ideas and goods as well as conflict over land. Pedro de Castenada, a member of the 1540-1542 Coronado expedition describes the Plains Indians they encounted as well as the “multitude of cows [buffalo] that they were numberless”. These Spaniards visited a settlement of 200 houses made of buffalo skins. Casteñada wrote that “the maintenance or sustenance of these Indians comes entirely from the cows, because they neither reap nor sow corn.” In 1599, Don Juan de Oñate described the Indian nations he saw in northern New Mexico. “We have seen other nations, such as Querechos or Vaqueros, who live among the Cibola [Pueblo Indians] in tents of tanned hides. The Apaches, some of whom we also saw, are extremely numerous. Although I was told that they lived in rancherias, in recent days I have learned they lived in pueblos the same as the people here….They are a people that has not yet publicly rendered obedience to his majesty”.
1815
Originally home and hunting ground to many indigenous peoples, this village was founded and abandoned several times by Mexicano-Mestizo peoples between 1815 and the mid 1840s. The original name of the village was San Antonio del Rio Colorado. In 1883, its name was changed to Questa.
(2003) by Tessie Rael y Ortega and Judith Cuddihy presents the history of the village of Questa as determined from the archaeological and written records. All rights reserved.