Trade route
Mule pack trains from New Mexico crossed the canyon country of Colorado and Utah and the Mojave Desert to reach Los Angeles, about 1,100 km. Traders took woven New Mexican blankets west each winter and drove herds of California horses and mules back in spring. Wagon roads replaced it by the mid-1850s.
The Old Spanish Trail (Spanish: Viejo Sendero Español) is an historic trade route through the American Southwest that connected the colonial Spanish settlements of Nuevo México near Santa Fe with those of Los Angeles and the rest of Alta California. Approximately 700 mi (1,100 km) long, the trail and its many variants ran through areas of high mountains, arid deserts, and deep canyons. It is considered one of the most arduous of all trade routes ever established in the United States. Explored in part by Spanish explorers as early as the late 16th century, the trail was extensively used by traders with pack trains from about 1830 until the mid-1850s. The area was part of Mexico from Mexican independence in 1821 until it was ceded to the United States in 1848.
The name of the trail comes from John C. Frémont's report on his 1844 journey from California to New Mexico for the U.S. Topographical Corps, which was guided by Kit Carson. The name acknowledges that parts of the trail had been known and used by the Spanish since the 16th century. Frémont's report identified a trail that had already been in use for about 15 years. The trail is important to New Mexico history because it established an arduous but usable trade route with California.
In 2002 the trail was designated by Congress as part of the National Trails System under the name Old Spanish National Historic Trail.
The trail is a combination of a network of trails first established by indigenous people and later used by Spanish explorers, trappers, and traders with the Ute and other indigenous tribes. The eastern parts of what later became the Old Spanish Trail, in what is now southwest Colorado and southeast Utah, were explored by Juan Maria de Rivera in 1765. Franciscan missionaries Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante unsuccessfully attempted to blaze an overland route to California, which was just being settled, in 1776 during the Domínguez–Escalante expedition. They departed from Santa Fe and traveled across large parts of the Colorado Plateau, reaching the edge of the Great Basin near Utah Lake before returning via the Arizona Strip. Other expeditions, including those led by Franciscan missionary Francisco Garcés and by Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, explored and traded in the southern part of the region. They found shorter and less arduous routes through the mountains and deserts that connected Sonora to New Mexico and California, but these did not become part of the Old Spanish Trail, with the exception of some of the paths through the Mojave Desert. The Mohave Trail was first traveled by Garcés from the Mohave villages on the Colorado River westward across the Mojave Desert, with stops at intermittent desert springs, until he turned northwestward to the Old Tejon Pass into the San Joaquin Valley, looking for a route to Monterey. Garcés returned to the Colorado River by following the whole length of the Mohave Trail from the San Bernardino Valley, over the San Bernardino Mountains at Monument Peak, down the Mojave River and eastward to the Colorado River. This same trail was used by the first Americans to reach California by land, an expedition led by Jedediah Smith in November 1826. The Mojave desert section of the Mohave Trail is now a 4WD trail called the Mojave Road.
A route linking New Mexico to California, combining information from many earlier explorers, was opened in 1829–1830 when Santa Fe merchant Antonio Armijo led a trade party of 60 men and a caravan of mules to Alta California. Armijo's group blazed a trade route using a network of indigenous routes, and incorporated parts of Jedediah Smith's routes of 1826 and 1827 as well as Rafael Rivera's route of 1828 to the San Gabriel Mission through the Mojave Desert along the Mojave River. Armijo documented his route in a report to the governor, and this was published by the Mexican government in June 1830.
After this date, traders generally used the trail for a single, annual round trip. Word spread about Armijo's successful trade expedition, and some commerce began between Santa Fe and Los Angeles. However, in 1830, due to resumed hostilities with the Navajo, the portion of the Armijo route west to the Crossing of the Fathers on the Colorado River was no longer practical. A new route north of the river had to be found, which used trails blazed by the fur traders and trappers of New Mexico through the lands of the Ute. This route ran northwest to the Colorado and Green rivers, then crossed over to the Sevier River, which it followed until crossing westward over mountains to the vicinity of Parowan, Utah. From there it passed southward to the Santa Clara River, linking up with Armijo's route to California.
This commerce usually consisted of one mule pack train from Santa Fe with 20 to 200 members, with roughly twice as many mules, bringing New Mexican goods hand-woven by Indians, such as serapes and blankets, to California. California had many horses and mules, often running wild, but no local market for them; as such they were readily traded for hand-woven Indian products. Usually two blankets were traded for one horse; more blankets were usually required for a mule, which were considered hardier and therefore more valuable. California had almost no wool-processing industry and few weavers, so woven products were a welcome commodity. The trading party usually left New Mexico in early November to take advantage of winter rains to cross the deserts on the trail and would arrive in California in early February. The return party would usually leave California for New Mexico in early April to get over the trail before the water holes dried up and the melting snow raised the rivers too high. The return party often drove several hundred to a few thousand horses and mules.
Small-scale emigration from New Mexico to California used parts of the trail in the late 1830s when the fur trade began to decline. Many New Mexicans migrated to settle in Alta California by this route: some settled first in Politana, then established the twin settlements of Agua Mansa and La Placita on the Santa Ana River, the first towns in what later became San Bernardino and Riverside counties. The family of Antonio Armijo moved to Alta California, where his father acquired the Rancho Tolenas. A number of Americans, most naturalized Mexican citizens in New Mexico, and formerly working in the California trade over the Old Spanish Trail or in the fur trade, settled in Alta California. Several became influential residents in later years, including Louis Rubidoux, John A. Rowland, William Workman, Benjamin Davis Wilson, and William Wolfskill.
The trail was also used for illicit purposes. Some raiders attacked the California ranchos for horses and captives to sell in the extensive Indian slave trade. Mexicans, ex-trappers and Indian tribes, primarily the Utes, all participated in the horse raiding. With allies, Walkara was known to steal hundreds to thousands of horses in a single raid. Native Americans along the route were at risk of being taken captive, especially the women and children of the Paiute, who were sold as domestic servants to Mexican ranchers and other settlers in both California and New Mexico. Mexican traders and Indian raiding parties both participated in this slave trade. The consequences of this human trafficking had a long-standing effect for those who lived along the trail, even after the trail was no longer in use. Intermittent Indian warfare along the trail often resulted from such slave raids by unscrupulous traders and raiding Indians.
John C. Frémont, "The Great Pathfinder", was guided by Kit Carson along the Old Spanish Trail in 1844, and gave the trail its name in his report published in 1845. Trade between New Mexico and California continued until the mid-1850s, when a shift to the use of freight wagons and the development of wagon trails made the old pack trail route obsolete. By 1848 both New Mexico and California had been annexed as U.S. territories following its victory in the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848. After 1848 numerous Mormon immigrants began settling in Utah, Nevada, and California all along the trail, affecting both trade interests and tolerance for the slavery of American Natives.
Place names used in this article refer to present-day states and communities. Few (if any) settlements existed along the trail, except in the coastal plains of Alta California, before 1850, although many of the geologic features along the Trail retain their Spanish designations.
The Armijo Route of the Old Spanish Trail was established by an expedition led by merchant Antonio Armijo in 1829–1830. Leaving Abiquiú on November 7, 1829, Armijo's expedition traveled a route northwest and west of Santa Fe, following the Chama River and the Puerco River. He then crossed to the San Juan River basin and from there entered the Four Corners area, passing north of the Carrizo Mountains to Church Rock, east of present-day Kayenta. The trail ran to Marsh Pass and north through Tsegi Canyon into canyon country. At the Colorado River (then called the Rio Grande), the travelers forded at the Crossing of the Fathers above present-day Glen Canyon Dam.
Continuing west to Pipe Spring and on to Virgin River above present-day St. George, Utah, the expedition followed the Virgin to the mouth of the Santa Clara River, which they followed up to the vicinity of the Shivwits Reservation. They crossed southward over the Beaver Dam Mountains at Utah Hill Summit to the Virgin River again, which they followed for three days down to the Colorado River. They traveled west, parallel to the river, over difficult terrain in the Black Mountains (in order to avoid the deep narrow gorge of Boulder Canyon), to the riverside oases of Callville Wash and Las Vegas Wash. Armijo waited there for his scouts to return, especially Rivera, who had visited the Mohave villages downriver before. Rivera returned, having recognized the Mohave Trail that led westward to Southern California. Perhaps because the Mohave had been antagonistic to parties of mountain men in recent years, or to save time, Armijo attempted a shortcut route southwest to the mouth of the Mojave River.
From Las Vegas Wash on the Colorado River, Armijo's expedition passed southwestward to Eldorado Dry Lake in Eldorado Valley and the spring at Goodsprings Valley, then through Wilson Pass, across Mesquite Valley and California Valley, through what became known as Emigrant Pass to Resting Springs, then along the Amargosa River from near Tecopa to Salt Spring. From Salt Spring they crossed a two-day-long waterless stretch up Salt Creek to Laguna del Milagro ("Lake of the Miracle") (probably Silver Lake), then to Ojito del Malpais ("little spring of the badlands") on Soda Lake. They had another waterless day beyond Soda Lake, where they reached the Mojave River, only intermittently dependable for potable water, and the Mohave Trail leading upriver.
By then short of food, Armijo sent some of his scouts ahead to get more food in the settlement at San Bernardino de Sena Estancia. They followed the river for six days (110 miles to its head from the mouth), having to kill a mule or horse each day to eat. Probably at Summit Valley at the top of the river east of Cajon Pass, they met vaqueros of the San Bernardino de Sena Estancia who had extra food. Armijo did not cross over the mountains by the Mohave Trail route over Monument Peak, but followed a route he called "Cañon de San Bernardino" from the upper Mojave River west through Cajon Pass and down Crowder and Cajon canyons to the mouth of Cajon Pass, where the trail reached the coastal plain of San Bernardino Valley. This route was undoubtedly known to the vaqueros of San Bernardino de Sena Estancia.
Once through the pass, they turned west along the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains for two days to San Jose Creek; they followed it, crossing the San Gabriel River at the Rancho La Puente, and reaching Mission San Gabriel Arcángel on January 30, 1830. Armijo used the same route to return to his original town, traveling from March 1 to April 25, 1830.
He submitted a brief journal of his journey (itemizing the days with names of places where camps were made but not quantifying distances) to the government of New Mexico, and it was published by the Mexican government in June 1830.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Old Spanish Trail (trade route)”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.