Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Festival, New Mexico

he earliest 'New Mexicans' were hunter-gatherers who lived more than 10,000 years ago. A thousand years ago, the ancestors of today's Native Americans thrived as weavers and basket-makers who fashioned pottery, developed farming techniques and lived in communal adobe structures.

Before Columbus, they gradually moved into villages called 'Pueblos' where Native Americans enjoyed a highly developed way of life, carried pottery and weaving to a fine art and built sophisticated irrigation and road systems. They traded with areas as far-flung as the Pacific Coast, Mexico and the Great Plains.

Pueblos represented the highest cultural development along the Continental Divide by AD 1300 and included Aztec, Bandelier and Chaco Canyon in northwest New Mexico. Eventually, drought, marauders and other problems forced the inhabitants to abandon these larger villages for smaller 'Pueblos' along the Rio Grande Valley and throughout the Southwest.

Spanish influence
Coronado discovered these settlements in 1540 when he marched his conquistadors into the New Mexico region. From here, Coronado sent out expeditions as far east as Kansas, searching in vain for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold.

Adobe Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe

In 1598, Don Juan de Oñate brought the first Mexican colonists into a 'Pueblo' he named San Juan de los Caballeros. Later, Oñate moved the colonists to a place he called Santa Fe which, by 1610, became the first official capital of New Mexico.

Spanish settlements grew, and Franciscan padres converted the Pueblo Indians to Christianity. Ultimately, the two cultures clashed. In 1680, the Pueblo Indians united and drove the Spaniards back to Mexico. In 1692, Don Diego de Vargas' army marched back up the Rio Grande and reclaimed Santa Fe.

For the next 150 years, New Mexico served as Spain's and the Republic of Mexico's northernmost outpost – linked by the 450-mile Chihuahua Trail (Camino Real) from Santa Fe south to Chihuahua.

Following Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821, New Mexico opened trade with the rest of the United States and 60 years of heavy trade followed.

American territory
In 1846, New Mexico became a U.S. territory when U.S. General Stephen W. Kearny raised the Stars and Stripes over the plazas of Las Vegas and Santa Fe. After the Civil War, New Mexico Territory experienced rapid immigration and far-reaching social and cultural changes.

Horseback riding

During the next half-century, the territory lived up to its Wild West image. The Indian wars against the Apaches, Navajos and Utes were carried out relentlessly, until the Native Americans accepted reservation life in late 1860s, when the last holdout, Geronimo, surrendered in 1886. Range wars continued into the 1870s, the most infamous taking place in Colfax and Lincoln Counties. The latter made Billy the Kid a celebrity.

The railroad came to New Mexico in 1880, closing down the Santa Fe Trail, and Albuquerque soon outgrew Santa Fe as the economic center of the state.

New Mexico today
The Land of Enchantment, as it is nicknamed, covers 121,412 square miles making it the fifth largest state in the United States. Every year, more than 12 million visitors marvel at the variety and allure of New Mexico's multicultural heritage, climate, geography and cuisine.

Today, 23 Indian Pueblo groups live much as they have for centuries along the central and northern Rio Grande and in western New Mexico. Navajos occupy a 16-million-acre reservation in northwest New Mexico and northeast Arizona. Two Apache tribes reside in New Mexico – the Jicarillas in the north and the Mescaleros in the south.

Most Pueblo Indian celebrations involve mid-morning masses and processions and afternoon dances which last until dusk. The dances celebrate success in hunting and farming as well as a long, prosperous and healthy life. The tribes have also long-excelled in pottery-making, basketry, textiles and jewelry.

Kiowa Indian dancer

The Spanish settled in little villages along the Rio Grande. Many of these villages, and their fortress-like mission churches, still exist. Their names are almost lyrical – Santa Cruz, Chimayó, Cundiyó, Cordova, Las Trampas, Truchas – and all are found on the famed High Road to Taos, which meanders along Santa Fe's Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Visitors to the Land of Enchantment gasp at Carlsbad Caverns, the White Sands National Monument and at Albuquerque's International Balloon Fiesta. They stroll through ghost towns, historic forts, Indian and Spanish villages and Franciscan missions. They patronize Santa Fe's world-renowned Opera, backpack, camp, hike, and horseback ride. Visitors bicycle, river-raft, hunt, fish, pan for gold, play golf and tennis, ski and go to the races. They hot-air balloon, mountain-climb, hang-glide, windsurf, spelunk and snowmobile.

Most of all, they go home telling stories of the most truly enchanting place one could ever hope to see and visit.

Air Canada in conjunction with United Airlines offers convenient connections from Chicago and other U.S. cities, while American Airlines provides connection service over its Dallas hub. For more information on New Mexico, call (800) 545-2070 or visit www.newmexico.org.

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