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The story of Spanish settlement in New Mexico begins with Francisco
Vasquez de Coronado's expedition into the territory in 1540-1542.
The conquistadors were seeking new lands, gold, and converts to
Christianity. In 1598, Juan de Onate's expedition of soldiers,
settlers and indigenous Mexicans arrived, charged by the Crown to
colonize the northern frontier of New Spain. Far from Mexico and
the seat of Spanish government, in a land of extremes already
inhabited by the First Americans, these settlers proved their
tenacity. Farmers, shepherds and townspeople, they lived off the
land: they built houses and churches, constructed irrigation
ditches, raised crops, wove cloth and hunted for food in an often
hostile land. They borrowed, bartered and intermarried with their
Pueblo neighbors and weathered an occasional uprising; they battled
with Comanche, Apache, and Navajo for control of land and
resources. When the American army arrived, they chose sides and
paid the consequences. Between 1936 and 1940, field workers in the
New Deal Works Project Administration's Federal Writers' Project
(WPA) recorded authentic accounts of life in the early days of New
Mexico. Happily for us, Hispano settlers were avid storytellers and
gave the field writers detailed descriptions of village life,
battles with Indians, encounters with Billy the Kid, witchcraft,
marriages, festivals and floods. The result is a rich and uniquely
regional literature. "Stories from Hispano New Mexico" is the
fourth volume in the New Mexico Federal Writers' Project Book
series. The first three titles in the series are "Outlaws &
Desperados, Frontier Stories" and "Lost Treasures & Old Mines,"
all from Sunstone Press. ANN LACY, an artist and researcher/writer,
has lived in New Mexico since 1979. She has worked for Project
Crossroads, a not-for-profit educational resource group, in
projects related to New Mexico history and culture. Participating
in preserving open space and preservation efforts, she received a
City of Santa Fe Heritage Preservation Award in 2000. ANNE
VALLEY-FOX is co-editor of the New Mexico Federal Writers' Project
Book series. She is a poet and writer who has worked for two
decades as a writer/researcher for Project Crossroads. Her fourth
collection of poetry is "How Shadows Are Bundled" (University of
New Mexico Press, 2009).
In the early days of the American West, outlaws dominated the New
Mexico Territory. Such colorful characters as Black Jack Ketchum,
the Apache Kid, Curly Bill, Devil Dick, Billy the Kid, Bill
McGinnis, Vicente Silva and his gang, the Dalton Brothers, and the
Wild Bunch terrorized the land. Feared by many, loved by some,
their exploits were both horrifying and legendary. In between
forays, notorious outlaws were sometimes exemplary cowboys. Singly
or in gangs, they held up stagecoaches and trains and stole from
prospectors and settlers. When outlaws reigned, bank holdups,
shoot-outs, and murders were a common occurrence; death by hanging
became a favored means of settling disputes by outlaws and
vigilantes alike. Stories of outlaws later provided plots for many
of our favorite Western movies. Between 1936 and 1940, field
workers in the Federal Writers' Project (a part of the
government-funded Works Progress Administration, or WPA, later
called Work Projects Administration) collected and wrote down many
accounts that provide an authentic and vivid picture of outlaws in
the early days of New Mexico. They feature life history narratives
of places, characters, and events of the Wild West during the late
1800s. These original documents reflect the unruly, eccentric
conditions of the New Mexico Territory as they played out in
clashes and collaborations between outlaws and "the gentle people"
of New Mexico before and after statehood. This book, focusing on
outlaws and desperados, is the first in a series featuring stories
from the New Mexico Federal Writers' Project collection. Other
books in the series include stories about ranchers, cowboys, and
the wild and woolly adventures of sheepherders, homesteaders,
prospectors, and treasure hunters. In them, the untamed New Mexico
Territory comes to life with descriptions of encounters with
Indians, travels along the old trails, cattle rustling, murders at
the gambling table, and Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus. This
treasury of Federal Writers' Project records, presented with
informative background and historic photographs, also highlights
Hispano folk life and Western lore in old New Mexico. ANN LACY has
lived in New Mexico since 1979. She has been an Artist-in-Residence
in the New Mexico Artists-in-the-Schools Program and a studio
artist exhibiting her work in museums and galleries. As a
researcher and writer, she has specialized in New Mexico history
and culture. She received a City of Santa Fe 2000 Heritage
Preservation Award. ANNE VALLEY-FOX is a New Mexico poet and
writer. Her publications include "Your Mythic Journey: Finding
Meaning in Your Life through Writing and Storytelling," "Sending
the Body Out, "Fish Drum 14" and "Point of No Return." Her work has
been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, including "El
Palacio: Art, History and Culture of the Southwest,"" New Mexico
Poetry Renaissance" and "In Company: An Anthology of New Mexico
Poets After 1960."
"Lost Treasures & Old Mines" brims with stories of gold fever,
copper ore, and silver mining in the American Southwest.
Between 1850 and 1912, the year New Mexico was granted statehood,
the Territory of New Mexico was a wild and dangerous place.
Homesteaders, cowboys, ranchers, sheepherders, buffalo hunters,
prospectors, treasure hunters and railroad men pushing the borders
of the western frontier met with resistance from man and animal
alike. Native Americans, who had lived on the land defending their
boundaries and way of life for centuries, reacted to the wave of
outsiders in various ways. The agrarian Pueblo peoples along the
Rio Grande largely kept to themselves. Apache, Navajo and Ute
tribes sometimes attempted to co-exist with the newcomers but most
often they fought against encroachment. Anglo and Mexican outlaws
ran roughshod across the frontier and there was no shortage of
bears, wolves, mountain lions, blizzards and bad water to unsettle
the newcomers. This collection of frontier stories vividly
illustrates the range of struggles, triumphs and catastrophes faced
by settlers who hoped to tame the land and inhabitants of
Territorial New Mexico. Between 1936 and 1940, field workers in the
Federal Writers' Project (a branch of the government-funded Works
Progress Administration, or WPA, later called Work Projects
Administration) recorded authentic accounts of life in the early
days of New Mexico. These original documents, published here as a
story collection for the first time, reflect the conditions of the
New Mexico Territory as played out in dynamic clashes between
individuals and groups competing for control of the land and
resources. "Frontier Stories," the second in the New Mexico Federal
Writers' Project Book Series, features informative background and
historic photographs. Forthcoming books in the series include
collections on mining and buried treasure, Hispano folk life, and
cattle trails and ranching. Ann Lacy, co-editor of the New Mexico
Federal Writers' Project Book series, has lived in New Mexico since
1979. She has been an Artist-in-Residence in the New Mexico
Artists-in-the-Schools Program and a studio artist exhibiting her
work in museums and galleries. She has worked as a researcher and
writer for Project Crossroads, specializing in New Mexico history
and culture, since 1987. She received a City of Santa Fe 2000
Heritage Preservation Award. Anne Valley-Fox, co-editor of the New
Mexico Federal Writers' Project Book series, is a poet and writer
who has worked for two decades as a writer/researcher for Project
Crossroads. Her publications include "Your Mythic Journey: Finding
Meaning in Your Life through Writing and Storytelling," "Sending
the Body Out," "Fish Drum 15" and "Point of No Return." "How
Shadows Are Bundled" is her latest collection of poems.
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