USA Guide
The Southwest
New Mexico
Settled in turn by Native Americans, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Yankees, New Mexico is among the most ethnically and culturally diverse states in the US. Each successive group has built upon the legacy of its predecessors; their histories and achievements are intertwined, rather than simply dominated by the white American late-comers.
New Mexico's indigenous peoples – especially the Pueblo Indians, the heirs of the Ancestral Puebloans – provide a sense of cultural continuity. After the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 forced a temporary Spanish withdrawal into Mexico, the missionary endeavor here became less brutal than elsewhere. The proselytizing padres co-opted the natives without destroying their traditional ways of life, as local deities and celebrations were incorporated into Catholic practice. Somewhat bizarrely to outsiders, grand churches still dominate many Pueblo communities, often adjacent to the underground ceremonial chambers known as kivas.
The Americans who arrived in 1848 saw New Mexico as a useless wasteland. But for a few mining booms and range wars – such as the Lincoln County War, which brought Billy the Kid to fame – New Mexico was relatively undisturbed until it finally became a state in 1912. During World War II, it was the base of operations for the secret Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bomb, and since then it has been home to America's premier weapons research outposts. By and large, people here work close to the land, mining, farming, and ranching.
Northern New Mexico holds the magnificent landscapes of the Rio Grande Valley, which cradles both Santa Fe, the adobe-fronted capital, and the artists' colony of Taos, with its nearby pueblo. The broad swath of central New Mexico along I-40 – the interstate that succeeded the old Route 66 – pivots around the state's biggest city, Albuquerque, with the extraordinary mesa-top Pueblo village of Ácoma ("Sky City") an hour's drive west. In wild, wide-open southern New Mexico, deep Carlsbad Caverns are the main attraction, while you can still stumble upon mining and cattle-ranching towns barely changed since the end of the Wild West.
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