La Cienega
La Ciénega was a seventeenth- century pueblo that was resettled by Spaniards in the early eighteenth century. Schackel notes that it was also called El Guicú, San José del Guicú, and La Cañada del Guicú in the eighteenth century (Schackel 1979:5-8). In 1777, Juan Candelaria’s 1777 reminiscences included mention of the settlement of Cienega in 1715. He added that it was four leagues from Santa Fé and was watered by Los Ojos del Alamo (Armijo 1929:282-284).
In 1776 Fray Domínguez identified Ciénega Grande as the settlement below Cieneguilla and five leagues from Santa Fé. He wrote that it lay in a kind of nook between two cañadas, and that the outlines of ancient ruins were visible at the site of this settlement, which might have been “pagan” pueblos (Adams and Chávez 1956:41). Morfi described Ciénega as a ranch on the Río de Santa Fé directly west of Alamo. It was home to four families (Thomas 1932:93).
Pike’s 1807 map contained a town marked “Vitior” which Coues identified in 1895 as being at or near La Bajada. However, it has also been connected to the town of Cienega or Sienega, on a creek of the same name and two miles southeast of Cieneguilla (Coues 1895:II.613-614; III.950).
This area has often been called the closest paraje to Santa Fé. It has been inhabited nearly continuously since before the arrival of the Spanish.
U.S. Department of the Interior. El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail, Comprehensive Management Plan/Final Environmental Impact Statement. Santa Fe, NM: National Park Service/Bureau of Land Management,2004.