Santa Fe, known as the oldest capital city in North America and the oldest European community west of the Mississippi, is the fourth largest city in the state. Santa Fe was settled on a very small scale in 1607, it was truly developed by the conquistador Don Pedro de Peralta in 1609-1610. It is also known because of the Palace of the Governors and the nation’s oldest community celebration, the Santa Fe Fiesta, which has been established in 1712.
The city has been the capital of the Spanish “Kingdom of New Mexico,” the Mexican province of Nuevo Mejico. It was first declared for Spain by the conquistador Don Francisco Vasques de Coronado in 1540, 67 years before the founding of Santa Fe. Coronado and his men also discovered the Grand Canyon and the Great Plains on their New Mexico expedition.
The first Governor-General of New Mexico and who established the capital in 1598 at San Juan Pueblo, was, Don Juan de Onate. When the first governor retired, Don Pedro de Peralta became the next governor of the city, and after a year he changed the capital to Santa Fe.
Beginning in the early 17th century, Spanish soldiers and officials, and also the Franciscan missionaries, required to defeat and change the Pueblo Indians of the region. The original population at the time was close to 100,000 people who speaks 9 basic languages and lived in a multi-storied adobe towns or what they call the “pueblos”. In 1680, Pueblo Indians revolted against the estimated 2,500 Spanish colonists in New Mexico, killed 400 of them and driving the rest back into Mexico. The conquering Pueblos released Santa Fe and burned most of the buildings, except the Palace of the Governors. Pueblo Indians occupied Santa Fe until 1692.
1692 to 1821 the place prospered as a city. There were two Native American Indians, Apaches and Navajos, who had made a deal with Pueblo Indians, and had retained a successful religious and civil policy of peaceful coexistence.
From 1846 to 1912 in the early period of the Mexican American War, or what they call the territorial period, August 18, 1846, Stephen Watts Kearny, took Santa Fe and raised the American flag over the Plaza. After two years, Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, surrendering New Mexico and California to the United States. In 1851, Jean B. Lamy had arrived in Santa Fe and 18 years later, he began constructing the Saint Francis Cathedral. He was an Archbishop and became the model for the leading character in Willa Cather’s book, “Death Comes for the Archbishop”, which made him more popular.
1912, the city gained statehood. Museums had opened and its Museum of Fine Arts was built. The state museum’s emphasis on local history and native culture did much to accentuate Santa Fe’s image as an “exotic” city.
Today, Santa Fe is distinguished as one of the most captivating urban environments in the nation. Due to its fascinating preservation of historic buildings, and a modern zoning code, it authorizes the city’s unique Spanish-Pueblo style of architecture.