When Martin Hurtado came back to New Mexico from El Paso in 1692, he traveled with General Don Diego de Vargas who was reconnoitering the land for the Spanish government. Hurtado found his widowed sister Juana and her three children living at Zuni Pueblo where they had been taken captive during the Pueblo Revolt more than a decade earlier.
Hurtado’s family had settled in - come to New Mexico in the 1660’s, but some of them were killed in the revolt, when the Pueblo Indians sought to drive the Spanish out of the territory and forced them back to El Paso. Hurtado and others of his family came to New Mexico permanently in 1693 to re-establish a Spanish presence.
Resettlement came slowly for the Spanish. But in 1706 the new Spanish Villa de Alburquerque was formally established with Martin Hurtado as alcalde or mayor.
You can see a map with the original boundaries of Hurtado’s alcaldia or district, stretching north to Alameda, west past the Rio Puerco, east to Salinas Province (near what is currently Mountainair) and south to Sevilleta in the Albuquerque Tricentennial history exhibit at the Center for Southwest Research in Zimmerman Library.
Also on display is this maquette of a statue by sculptor Bruce Papitto that was envisioned for Albuquerque’s Tricentennial celebration. It shows Martin Hurtado marking the original boundaries for the city. Funding for this outdoor public larger-than-life project was never appropriated but Papitto donated the model for the library exhibit.
The exhibit explains that this new royal center, Alburquerque, was intended to be the governing, defensive, economic, transportation, cultural and spiritual center of the Rio Abajo or lower river region for the Spanish, and so it became and continues to be.
These pieces of Albuquerque history will be on display at the CSWR on UNM’s Main campus through November. They are but a small part of the larger exhibit, which covers the 300 years of Albuquerque’s history as a part of the city’s Tricentennial celebration.
Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu