Cloud #1
by Cheri Randolph
Title
Cloud #1
Artist
Cheri Randolph
Medium
Photograph
Description
Minimalist interpretation showing a restricted view into an abandoned and roofless adobe mission church in New Mexico.
Four hundred years ago, Spanish Franciscans helped bring Christianity to New Mexico, and to the Pueblos. The Pueblos are considered the native people in the United States who are the least changed, though they�ve had the longest running contact with Europeans.The Pueblo Indians are not the only group in New Mexico that has survived the struggles and hardships of the last 400 years in New Mexico. Other native peoples such as the Navajos and Apaches have also survived. So have the Spanish and, in a sense, so have the Franciscan friars who came with them�along with the Catholic faith they propagated.
Early in 1598 Juan de O�ate, whose family had made a fortune from the silver mines of Zacatecas, Mexico, set out on an expedition into present-day New Mexico with 400 soldiers, colonists and Mexican-Indian servants, as well as horses and cattle. Eight Franciscan friars also accompanied Juan de O�ate�a clear sign that Christianizing the native peoples was a leading motive in this push northward.
After an arduous journey up the Rio Grande River to the region above present-day Santa Fe, Juan de O�ate and his colonists finally arrived in July at San Juan Pueblo. Moving to a spot across the Rio Grande, they soon set about building the first Spanish settlement and mission church, naming it San Gabriel. It was still 1598, and San Gabriel became the first capital of New Mexico with O�ate its first governor.
To put these events in historical perspective, the founding of San Gabriel took place nine years before the founding of Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the United States (1607), and more than 150 years prior to the establishment of the better-known old Spanish missions of California by Fray Junipero Serra.
Uploaded
August 15th, 2012
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