Santa Fe de Nuevo México
| Santa Fe de Nuevo México | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kingdom of the Spanish Empire and New Spain (1598–1821) Territory of the First Mexican Empire (1821–23) Territory of the First Mexican Republic (1823–1848) | |||||||||
| 1598–1846a | |||||||||
| Capital | Santa Fe | ||||||||
| Area | |||||||||
• 1842 | 603,345 km2 (232,953 sq mi) | ||||||||
| Population | |||||||||
• 1842 | 63,510 | ||||||||
| Government | |||||||||
| Spanish governors | |||||||||
• 1598–1610 (first) | Juan de Oñate | ||||||||
• 1818–1822 (last) | Facundo Melgares | ||||||||
| Mexican governors | |||||||||
• July – Nov. 1822 (first) | Francisco Xavier Chávez | ||||||||
• August – Sept. 1846 (last) | Juan Bautista Vigil y Alarid | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
| 1598 | |||||||||
| 1821 | |||||||||
| March 2, 1836 | |||||||||
| from April 25, 1846 | |||||||||
• Surrender to U.S. occupation | September 1846 | ||||||||
| 2 February 1848 | |||||||||
• New Mexico statehood | January 6, 1912 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | United States | ||||||||
| While the Mexican territory theoretically existed until the Mexican Cession under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, the New Mexico Territory had been annexed under U.S. military occupation in September 1846, after the surrender by Mexican interim governor Juan Bautista Vigil y Alarid to General Stephen W. Kearny. | |||||||||
Santa Fe de Nuevo México (English: Holy Faith of New Mexico; shortened as Nuevo México or Nuevo Méjico, and translated as New Mexico in English) was a province of the Spanish Empire and New Spain, and later a territory of independent Mexico. The first capital was San Juan de los Caballeros (at San Gabriel de Yungue-Ouinge) from 1598 until 1610, and from 1610 onward the capital was La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís.
The name of "New Mexico", the capital in Santa Fe, the gubernatorial office at the Palace of the Governors, vecino citizen-soldiers, and rule of law were retained as the New Mexico Territory and later state of New Mexico became part of the United States. The New Mexican citizenry, primarily consisting of Hispano, Pueblo, Navajo, Apache, and Comanche peoples, became citizens of the United States as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848).
Nuevo México is often incorrectly believed to have taken its name from the post-independent nation of Mexico. But as early as 1561 (260 years before Mexican independence), Spanish colonial explorers used el Nuevo México to refer to Cíbola, cities of wealth reported to exist far to the north of the recently conquered Aztec Empire. This name also evoked the Mexica people's accounts of their ancestral origin in Aztlán to the north before their migration to Mexico centuries prior. The Nahuatl-language history of the Mexica people, the Crónica Mexicayotl, dated to 1609, makes this identification explicit, describing how the Mexica left "their home there in Old Mexico Aztlan Quinehuayan Chicomoztoc, which today they call New Mexico (yancuic mexico)."