Santa Fe ( SAN-tə FAY, - fay, Spanish: [ˈsanta ˈfe]; Spanish for 'Holy Faith') is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-most populous city in the state with a population of 87,505 as of the 2020 census, while the Santa Fe metropolitan area has an estimated 158,000 people. The greater Albuquerque–Santa Fe–Los Alamos combined statistical area includes eight counties in north-central New Mexico with 1.16 million residents. The county seat of Santa Fe County, Santa Fe is situated at the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at the highest altitude of any U.S. state capital, with an elevation of 6,998 feet (2,133 m).
Founded in 1610 as the capital of Nuevo México, a province of New Spain, Santa Fe is the oldest state capital in the United States and the earliest European settlement west of the Mississippi River. Its name, Spanish for "Holy Faith", is the shortened form of its original name, La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís (Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi). The city prospered as a leading commercial and transportation hub, driven by lucrative trade and migration routes such as El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro and the Santa Fe Trail. Nuevo México became a territory of Mexico after Mexican independence from Spain in 1821. It was ceded to the United States in 1848 following the Mexican–American War, and in 1851 Santa Fe was named the capital of the U.S. Territory of New Mexico; it became New Mexico's state capital in 1912. Santa Fe remained the political and cultural center of New Mexico throughout the Spanish, Mexican, and American periods, which each impacted the city's development and character.
Blending indigenous, Spanish, and American influences, Santa Fe is considered the cultural capital of the Southwestern United States, and is widely regarded as one of the country's major art cities. In 2005, it was the first U.S. city inducted into the UNESCO Creative Cities Network. Santa Fe hosts more than 250 art galleries, a large concentration of museums, and three annual art events: the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, the R/Traditional Spanish Colonial Market, and the Indian Market. One-tenth of all employment is related to artistic and cultural industries, with writers and authors making up the highest proportion of the labor force of any U.S. city.
Santa Fe's cultural highlights include Santa Fe Plaza, Santa Fe Historic District, the Palace of the Governors, and Fiesta de Santa Fe; the city is also known for its contributions to New Mexican cuisine and New Mexico music. Among Santa Fe's many artistic institutions are the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, the Chuck Jones Gallery, and the art collective Meow Wolf. The cityscape is known for its adobe-style Pueblo Revival and Territorial Revival architecture, much of which is preserved and protected.
History
Name
The area around present-day Santa Fe is one of a number of places named by indigenous peoples for its water access. It is commonly known to the Tewa people as Pʼoegeh (pronounced [pʼòːɡè], 'water place'), an abbreviation for both Kwʼáˀaa Pʼoegeh, (used by Ohkay Owingeh) and Ogá Pʼoegeh, (used by the other Tewa-speaking pueblos), names that predate European colonization of the Americas. The Navajo people refer to the area as Yootó ("bead" + "water place").
In 1598, Juan de Oñate established the area as Santa Fe de Nuevo México, a province of New Spain. Formal Spanish settlements were developed leading the colonial governor Pedro de Peralta to rename the area La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís ("the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi").
Nicknames include "The City of Holy Faith", "The City Different" (promoted by the New Mexico Tourism Department) and in the 1800s, "The Ancient", "The Aztec Ruin", "Coronado's Camp" (despite the area of Bernalillo, New Mexico being the closest the Coronado expedition came to what is now Santa Fe), and others.
Early history
The area of Santa Fe was originally occupied by indigenous Tanoan peoples, who lived in numerous Pueblo villages along the Rio Grande. One of the earliest known settlements in what is known as downtown Santa Fe today came sometime after 900 AD. A group of native Tewa built a cluster of homes that centered around the site of today's Plaza and spread for 1⁄2 mile (800 m) to the south and west; the village was called Ogá Pʼoegeh in Tewa. The Tanoans and other Pueblo peoples settled along the Santa Fe River from the mid-11th to mid-12th centuries, but had abandoned the site for at least 200 years by the time Spanish arrived in the early 17th century.
Spanish era
Don Juan de Oñate led the first Spanish effort to colonize the region in 1598, establishing Santa Fe de Nuevo México as a province of New Spain. Under Juan de Oñate and his son, the capital of the province was the settlement of San Juan de los Caballeros north of Santa Fe near modern Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. Juan de Oñate was banished and exiled from New Mexico by the Spanish, after his rule was deemed cruel towards the indigenous population.
New Mexico's second Spanish governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, however, founded a new city at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in 1607, which he called La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís, the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi. In 1610, he designated it as the capital of the province, which it has almost constantly remained, making it the oldest state capital in the United States.
Lack of Native American representation within the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, New Spain (current New Mexico's early government) led to the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, when groups of different Native Pueblo peoples were successful in driving the Spaniards out of New Mexico to El Paso. The Pueblo people continued running New Mexico from the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe from 1680 to 1692, building the village of Thanugeh Ówîngeh Kayyee atop its ruins.
The territory was reconquered in 1692 by Don Diego de Vargas through the so-called "Bloodless Reconquest", which was criticized as violent even at the time. The next governor, Francisco Cuervo y Valdez, started to broker peace, including the founding of Albuquerque, to guarantee better representation and trade access for Pueblos in New Mexico's government. Other governors of New Mexico, such as Tomás Vélez Cachupin, continued to be better known for their more forward-thinking work with the indigenous population of New Mexico.
Mexican era
Santa Fe was Spain's provincial seat at outbreak of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810. The city's status as the capital of the Mexican territory of Santa Fe de Nuevo México was formalized in the 1824 Constitution after Mexico achieved independence from Spain.
In addition to remaining the administrative and political heart of Nuevo Mexico, Santa Fe maintained its status as the central trading and transportation hub west of the Mississippi. Beginning in the 1820s, the Santa Fe Trail brought lucrative commercial links to what was then the American frontier in Missouri, attracting both indigenous and Euro-American traders. The opening of trade and migration with the U.S. also facilitated friendly relations between the new Mexican republic and its American counterpart, for which Santa Fe was the primary nexus.
During that period, it was the site designated for the operation of the District Court of the Territory of New Mexico (Juzgado de Distrito del Territorio de Nuevo México), which existed from 1832, when José María Nájera, the first and only appointed judge who managed to reach Santa Fe, took possession of the court, and de facto conclusion in 1837 when Santiago Abreu, substitute judge, was murdered, and de jure in 1841, when Antonio López de Santa Anna ordered its closure.
When the Republic of Texas seceded from Mexico in 1836, it attempted to claim Santa Fe and other parts of Nuevo México as part of the western portion of Texas along the Río Grande. In 1841, a small military and trading expedition set out from Austin, intending to take control of the Santa Fe Trail. Known as the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, the force was poorly prepared and easily captured by the New Mexican military.
Notwithstanding these incursions, as well as recurring conflicts between Euro-American settlers and native peoples, Santa Fe witnessed multiple migrations through the three trails that led to the city, which would give way to the railroad, Route 66, and the interstate.
United States
In 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico. Brigadier General Stephen W. Kearny led the main body of his Army of the West of some 1,700 soldiers into Santa Fe to claim it and the whole New Mexico Territory for the United States. By 1848 the U.S. officially gained New Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Colonel Alexander William Doniphan, under the command of Kearny, recovered ammunition from Santa Fe labeled "Spain 1776" showing both the lack of communications and quality of military support New Mexico received under Mexican rule.
In 1846, following the annexation of Texas, they claimed Santa Fe along with other territory in eastern New Mexico. Texas Governor Peter H. Bell sent a letter to President Zachary Taylor, who died before he could read it, demanding that the U.S. Army stop defending New Mexico. In response, Taylor's successor Millard Fillmore stationed additional troops to the area to halt any incursion by the Texas Militia. Territorial claims were also brought by the California Republic and State of Deseret each claiming parts of western New Mexico. These territorial disputes were finally resolved by the Compromise of 1850, which designated the 103rd meridian west as Texas's western border and resulted in California's statehood, and the establishment of the land claims of the Utah and New Mexico Territory.
Some American visitors at first saw little promise in the remote town. One traveller in 1849 wrote:
I can hardly imagine how Santa Fe is supported. The country around it is barren. At the North stands a snow-capped mountain while the valley in which the town is situated is drab and sandy. The streets are narrow .... A Mexican will walk about town all day to sell a bundle of grass worth about a dime. They are the poorest looking people I ever saw. They subsist principally on mutton, onions and red pepper.
In 1851, Jean Baptiste Lamy arrived, becoming bishop of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado in 1853. During his leadership, he traveled to France, Rome, Tucson, Los Angeles, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Mexico City. He built the Santa Fe Saint Francis Cathedral and shaped Catholicism in the region until his death in 1888.
As part of the New Mexico Campaign of the Civil War, General Henry Sibley occupied the city, flying the Confederate flag over Santa Fe for a few days in March 1862. Sibley was forced to withdraw after Union troops destroyed his logistical trains following the Battle of Glorieta Pass. The Santa Fe National Cemetery was created by the federal government after the war in 1870 to inter the Union soldiers who died fighting there.
On October 21, 1887, Anton Docher, "The Padre of Isleta", went to New Mexico where he was ordained as a priest in the St Francis Cathedral of Santa Fe by Bishop Jean-Baptiste Salpointe. After a few years serving in Santa Fe, Bernalillo and Taos, he moved to Isleta on December 28, 1891. He wrote an ethnological article published in The Santa Fé Magazine in June 1913, in which he describes early 20th century life in the Pueblos.
As railroads were extended into the West, Santa Fe was originally envisioned as an important stop on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. But as the tracks were constructed into New Mexico, the civil engineers decided that it was more practical to go through Lamy, a town in Santa Fe County to the south of Santa Fe. A branch line was completed from Lamy to Santa Fe in 1880. The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad extended the narrow gauge Chili Line from the nearby city of Española to Santa Fe in 1886. The Territory of New Mexico incorporated the City of Santa Fe on June 17, 1891.
Neither was sufficient to offset the negative effects of Santa Fe's having been bypassed by the main railroad route. It suffered gradual economic decline into the early 20th century. Activists created a number of resources for the arts and archaeology, notably the School of American Research, created in 1907 under the leadership of the prominent archaeologist Edgar Lee Hewett. In the early 20th century, Santa Fe became a base for numerous writers and artists. The first airplane to fly over Santa Fe was piloted by Rose Dugan, carrying Vera von Blumenthal as passenger. Together the two women started the development of the Pueblo Indian pottery industry, helping Native women to market their wares. They contributed to the founding of the annual Santa Fe Indian Market.
20th century
In 1912, New Mexico was admitted as the 47th U.S. state, with Santa Fe as its capital. At this time, with an approximate population of 5,000 people, the city's civic leaders designed and enacted a sophisticated city plan that incorporated elements of the contemporary City Beautiful movement, city planning, and historic preservation. The latter was particularly influenced by similar movements in Germany. The plan anticipated limited future growth, considered the scarcity of water, and recognized the future prospects of suburban development on the outskirts. The planners foresaw that its development must be in harmony with the city's character.
After the mainline of the railroad bypassed Santa Fe, it lost population. However, artists and writers, as well as retirees, were attracted to the cultural richness of the area, the beauty of the landscapes, and its dry climate. Local leaders began promoting the city as a tourist attraction. The city sponsored architectural restoration projects and erected new buildings according to traditional techniques and styles, thus creating the Santa Fe Style.
Edgar L. Hewett, founder and first director of the School of American Research and the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe, was a leading promoter. He began the Santa Fe Fiesta in 1919 and the Southwest Indian Fair in 1922 (now known as the Indian Market). When Hewett tried to attract a summer program for Texas women, many artists rebelled, saying the city should not promote artificial tourism at the expense of its artistic culture. The writers and artists formed the Old Santa Fe Association and defeated the plan.