Pogroms in the Spanish realms in the 1390s were an attempt at eradicating Judaism from Spain’s kingdoms, and also a massive move toward the conversion and assimilation of the Sephardim, or Jews of Spain. Still, resentment turned to outright persecution by the middle of the 15th century, when the…
By Rick Hendricks In The El Paso Salt War of 1877, C.L. Sonnichsen, described what he called the Salt Ring as being made up of W.W. Mills, A.J. Fountain, Louis Cardis, and Father Antonio Borrajo, the parish priest of San Elizario, Texas. Sonnichsen went on to describe Father Borrajo…
By Mark Thompson As the comprehensive bibliography in the Rio Grande Historical Collection of the New Mexico State University Archives shows, the 19th Century Shalam religious colony near Doña Ana is the subject of many fascinating stories. Less often told, perhaps, is the story of litigation involving the…
By Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint As the modern traveler approaches Zuni Pueblo from the west along State Highway 53, one sees a massive cream-colored mesa as a backdrop for the pueblo itself. This mesa is called Dowa Yalanne, meaning Corn (Dowa) Mountain (Yalanne). The mesa is indicated…
By Robert J. Torrez Spanish missions were churches established by Franciscan Friars in Indian villages called pueblos, the Spanish word for town. The purpose of these missions was to have a place in each pueblo where the Indians could be taught about Christianity. When New Mexico was settled by…
In 1840, the American explorer and trader Josiah Gregg encountered a startling scene in Tomé, New Mexico. In his journal, he related that: “…my attention was arrested by a man almost naked, bearing, in imitation of Simon, a huge cross upon his shoulder which, though constructed of the lightest…
First grown in Mexico about 5,000 years ago, corn soon became the most important food crop in Central and North America. Throughout the region, Native Americans, Maya, Aztecs, and others worshiped corn deities and developed a variety of stories about the origin, planting, growing and harvesting of corn (also…
By Michael Ann Sullivan On October 27, 1937, the Santa Fe Maternal Health Center (SFMHC) opened under the auspices of Margaret Sanger and the New York Clinical Research Bureau. Florence Davenport, Faith Meem, and several other prominent Santa Fe women had invited Sanger to tea the previous summer to…
By Mary M. Serna and James W. Steely The present Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation lies within the northern range of the prehistoric Jornada Mogollon culture. The Tularosa Basin yields many Paleo-Indian sites with findings of specific artifacts unique to this period, including fluted Folsom and Clovis projectile points and…
By Robert Torrez When Holy Week approaches, the thoughts of many Roman Catholics in northern New Mexico turn to the traditional religious practices observed during the several days preceding Easter Sunday. To many nuevomexicanos, semana santa brings to mind the haunting sounds of the native flute, or pito, that…
