[cite web | year=2002 | url=http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/c2kbr01-15.pdf | title= The American Indian and Alaska Native Population: 2000| publisher= United States Census Bureau | format=pdf|accessdate=2007-08-05] The tribes represented in the state consist of mostly Navajo and Pueblo peoples. As a result, the demographics and culture of the state are unique for their strong Spanish, Mexican, and American Indian cultural influences. The climate of the state is highly arid and its territory is mostly covered by mountains and desert. At a population density of 15 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth most sparsely inhabited U.S. State.]Geography
The state's total area is convert|121665|sqmi|km2. The eastern border of New Mexico lies along 103° W longitude with the state of Oklahoma, and three miles (5 km) west of 103.5° W longitude with Texas. On the southern border, Texas makes up the eastern two-thirds, while the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora make up the western third, with Chihuahua making up about 90% of that. The western border with Arizona runs along the 109° 03' W longitude. The 37° N latitude parallel forms the northern boundary with Colorado. The states New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah come together at the Four Corners in the northwestern corner of New Mexico. New Mexico, although a large state, has little water. Its surface water area is only about convert|250|sqmi|km2. New Mexico's average precipitation rate is only convert|15|in|mm a year.
The landscape ranges from wide, rose-colored deserts to broken mesas to high, snow-capped peaks. Despite New Mexico's arid image, heavily forested mountain wildernesses cover a significant portion of the state, especially towards the north. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost part of the Rocky Mountains, run roughly north-south along the east side of the Rio Grande (Big River) in the rugged, pastoral north. The most important of New Mexico's rivers are the Rio Grande, Pecos, Canadian, San Juan, and Gila. The Rio Grande is the eighth longest river in the U.S.
Cacti, yuccas, creosote bush, sagebrush, and desert grasses cover the broad, semiarid plains that cover the southern portion of the state.
The Federal government protects millions of acres of New Mexico as national forests including:
* Carson National Forest
* Cibola National Forest (headquartered in Albuquerque)
* Lincoln National Forest
* Santa Fe National Forest (headquartered in Santa Fe)
* Gila National Forest
* Gila Wilderness
Areas managed by the National Park Service include: [cite web | title = New Mexico | publisher = National Park Service | accessdate = 2008-07-17 | url = http://www.nps.gov/state/nm]
*Aztec Ruins National Monument at Aztec
*Bandelier National Monument in Los Alamos
*Capulin Volcano National Monument near Capulin
*Carlsbad Caverns National Park near Carlsbad
*Chaco Culture National Historical Park at Nageezi
*El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail
*El Malpais National Monument in Grants
*El Morro National Monument in Ramah
*Fort Union National Monument at Watrous
*Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument near Silver City
*Old Spanish National Historic Trail
*Pecos National Historical Park in Pecos
*Petroglyph National Monument near Albuquerque
*Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument at Mountainair
*Santa Fe National Historic Trail
*White Sands National Monument near Alamogordo
Visitors also frequent the surviving native pueblos of New Mexico. Tourists visiting these sites bring significant monies to the state. Other areas of geographical and scenic interest include Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument and the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The Gila Wilderness lies in the southwest of the state.
History
The first known inhabitants of New Mexico were members of the Clovis culture of Paleo-Indians. Indeed the culture is named for the New Mexico city where the first artifacts of this culture were discovered. Later inhabitants include Native Americans of the Anasazi and the Mogollon cultures. By the time of European contact in the 1500s, the region was settled by the villages of the Pueblo peoples and groups of Navajo, Apache and Ute.
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado assembled an enormous expedition at Compostela in 1540–1542 to explore and find the mystical Seven Golden Cities of Cibola as described by Cabeza de Vaca who had just arrived from his eight-year ordeal traveling from Florida to Mexico. Coronado's men found several mud baked pueblos in 1541, but found no rich cities of gold. Further widespread expeditions found no fabulous cities anywhere in the Southwest or Great Plains. A dispirited and now poor Coronado and his men began their journey back to Mexico leaving New Mexico behind.
Over 50 years after Coronado, Juan de Oñate founded the San Juan colony on the Rio Grande in 1598, the first permanent European settlement in the future state of New Mexico. Oñate pioneered the grandly named El Camino Real, "Royal Road," as a 700 mile (1,100 km) trail from the rest of New Spain to his remote colony. Oñate was made the first governor of the new Province of New Mexico. The Native Americans at Acoma revolted against this Spanish encroachment but faced severe suppression.In 1609, Pedro de Peralta, a later governor of the Province of New Mexico, established the settlement of Santa Fe at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The city, along with most of the settled areas of the state, was abandoned by the Spanish for 12 years (1680-1692) as a result of the successful Pueblo Revolt. After the death of the Pueblo leader Popé, Diego de Vargas restored the area to Spanish rule. While developing Santa Fe as a trade center, the returning settlers founded the old town of Alburquerque in 1706 from existing surrounding communities, naming it for the viceroy of New Spain, the Duke of Alburquerque. The name later evolved into its present form of Albuquerque.
Mexican province
As a part of New Spain, the claims for the province of New Mexico passed to independent Mexico following the 1810-1821 Mexican War of Independence. The Mexican province of Nuevo Mexico included all of present-day New Mexico, except the northeastern portion, which had been under French rule and was sold to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. During the brief 26 year period of nominal Mexican control, Mexican authority and investment in New Mexico were weak, as their often conflicted government had little time or interest in a New Mexico that had been poor since the Spanish settlements started. Some Mexican officials, saying they were wary of encroachments by the growing United States, and wanting to reward themselves and their friends, began issuing enormous land grants (usually free) to groups of Mexican families as an incentive to populate the province.
Small trapping parties from the United States had previously reached and stayed in Santa Fe, but the Spanish authorities officially forbade them to trade. Trader William Becknell returned to the United States in November 1821 with news that independent Mexico now welcomed trade through Santa Fe.
William Becknell left Independence, Missouri, for Santa Fe early in 1822 with the first party of traders. The Santa Fe Trail trading company, headed by the brothers Charles Bent and William Bent and Ceran St. Vrain, was one of the most successful in the West. They had their first trading post in the area in 1826, and, by 1833, they had built their adobe fort and trading post called Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River. This fort and trading post, located about 200 miles (322 km) east of Taos, New Mexico, was the only place settled by whites along the Santa Fe trail before it hit Taos. The Santa Fe National Historic Trail follows the route of the old trail, with many sites marked or restored. The Spanish Trail from Los Angeles, California to Santa Fe, New Mexico was primarily used by Hispanics, white traders and ex-trappers living part of the year in or near Santa Fe. Started in about 1829, the trail was an arduous 2,400 (3862 km) mile round trip pack train sojourn that extended into Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California and back, allowing only one hard round trip per year. The trade consisted primarily of blankets and some trade goods from Santa Fe being traded for horses in California.
The Republic of Texas claimed the mostly vacant territory north and east of the Rio Grande when it successfully seceded from Mexico in 1836. New Mexico authorities captured a group of Texans who embarked an expedition to assert their claim to the province in 1841.
American territory
Following the Mexican-American War, from 1846-1848 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Mexico ceded its mostly unsettled northern holdings, today known as the American Southwest and California to the United States of America in exchange for an end to hostilities, the evacuation of Mexico City and many other areas under American control. Mexico also received $15 million cash, plus the assumption of slightly more than $3 million in outstanding Mexican debts.
The Congressional Compromise of 1850 halted a bid for statehood under a proposed antislavery constitution. Texas transferred eastern New Mexico to the federal government, settling a lengthy boundary dispute. Under the compromise, the American government established the Territory of New Mexico on September 9, 1850. The territory, which included most of the future states of Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado and Nevada, officially established its capital at Santa Fe in 1851.
The United States acquired the southwestern boot heel of the state and southern Arizona below the Gila river in the mostly desert Gadsden Purchase of 1853. This purchase was desired when it was found that a much easier route for a proposed transcontinental railroad was located slightly south of the Gila river. The Southern Pacific built the second transcontinental railroad though this purchased land in 1881.
During the American Civil War, Confederate troops from Texas briefly occupied the Rio Grande valley as far north as Santa Fe. Union troops from the Territory of Colorado re-captured the territory in March 1862 at the Battle of Glorieta Pass. The Territory of Arizona was split off as a separate territory on February 24, 1863.
There were centuries of conflict between the Apache, the Navajo and Spanish-Mexican settlements in the territory. It took the federal government another 25 years after the Civil War to exert control over both the civilian and Native American populations of the territory. This started in 1864 when the Navajo were sent on "The Long Walk" to Bosque Redondo Reservation and then returned to most of their lands in 1868. The Apache were moved to various reservations and Apache wars continued until Geronimo finally surrendered in 1886.
The railway encouraged the great cattle boom of the 1880s and the development of accompanying cow towns. The cattle barons could not keep out sheepherders, and eventually homesteaders and squatters overwhelmed the cattlemen by fencing in and plowing under the "sea of grass" on which the cattle fed. Conflicting land claims led to bitter quarrels among the original Spanish inhabitants, cattle ranchers, and newer homesteaders. Despite destructive overgrazing, ranching survived and remains a mainstay of the New Mexican economy.
Albuquerque, the largest city in New Mexico, on the middle Rio Grande, was incorporated in 1889.
tatehood
Congress admitted New Mexico as the 47th state in the Union on January 6, 1912. The admission of the neighboring State of Arizona on February 14, 1912 completed the contiguous 48 states.
The struggle to gain voting rights for women came to be known as the "suffrage movement." In spite of efforts by suffrage organizers after 1915, New Mexico's legislature was one of the last to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.
For the first 25 years of statehood, the NM Supreme Court lived in cramped quarters in the Capitol. Not until 1937 as a result of a Public Works Administration Project, did the Supreme Court get its own building. That year, there was a diphtheria epidemic in Santa Fe resulting in 20 deaths before serum was flown in to end it.
The United States government built the Los Alamos Research Center in 1943 amid the Second World War. Top-secret personnel there assembled the atomic bomb, first detonated at Trinity site in the desert on the White Sands Proving Grounds between Socorro and Alamogordo on July 16, 1945.
Albuquerque expanded rapidly after the war. High-altitude experiments near Roswell in 1947 reputedly led to persistent but unproven suspicions that the government captured and concealed extraterrestrial corpses and equipment. The state quickly emerged as a leader in nuclear, solar, and geothermal energy research and development. Sandia National Laboratories, founded in 1949, carried out nuclear research and special weapons development at Kirtland Air Force Base south of Albuquerque and at Livermore, California.
Demographics
Census 2000 data; estimates through 2006
As of 2005, New Mexico has an estimated population of 1,928,384, which is an increase of 25,378, or 1.3%, from the prior year and an increase of 109,338, or 6.0%, since the year 2000. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 74,397 people (that is 143,617 births minus 69,220 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 37,501 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 27,974 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 9,527 people.
The center of population of New Mexico is located in Torrance County, in the town of Manzano. [ [http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cenpop/statecenters.txt U. S. Census Bureau, Population and Population Centers by State: 2000] ]
As of 2006, 8.2% of the residents of the state were foreign-born.
According to the Census Bureau, 1.5% of the population is Multiracial/Mixed-Race, a population larger than both the Asian and NHPI population groups. New Mexico has the highest percentage of people of Hispanic ancestry of any state, some recent immigrants and others descendants of Spanish colonists. The state also has a large Native American population, third, in percentage, behind Alaska and Oklahoma. Hispanics of colonial ancestry, along with recent Mexican immigrants, are present in most of the state, especially northern, central, and northeastern New Mexico. Mexican immigrants, legal or illegal, are prominent in southern parts of the state. Descendants of white American settlers, mostly of Irish English, and Spanish descent, from other parts of United States live in west, southwest, and southeast areas and main cities of the state. The northwestern corner of the state is primarily occupied by Native Americans, of which Navajos and Pueblos are the largest tribes. As a result, the demographics and culture of the state are unique for their strong American, Colonial Spanish, Mexican, and Native American cultural influences.
2007 population estimates
New Mexico's July 1, 2007 population was estimated at 1,969,915 by the United States Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program.[cite web]
url= http://www.census.gov/popest/states/tables/NST-EST2007-01.csv
title= Annual Estimates of the Population for the United States, Regions, States, and Puerto Rico: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2007 (NST-EST2007-01)
accessdate= 2008-06-25
date= 2007-12-27
publisher= US Census Bureau, Population Division] USCensusPop
1850 = 61547
1860 = 93516
1870 = 91874
1880 = 119565
1890 = 160282
1900 = 195310
1910 = 327301
1920 = 360350
1930 = 423317
1940 = 531818
1950 = 681187
1960 = 951023
1970 = 1017055
1980 = 1303302
1990 = 1515069
2000 = 1819046
estyear = 2007|estimate = 1969915
estref=
footnote=Sources: 1850–1990, [cite book
title=Population and Housing Unit Counts
url=http://www.census.gov/prod/cen1990/cph2/cph-2-1-1.pdf
format=PDF
accessdate=2008-07-03
series=1990 Census of Population and Housing
volume=CPH-2-1
publisher= U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
pages=26–27
chapter=Table 16. Population: 1790 to 1990] 2000
Ancestry groups
According to the U.S. Census, the largest ancestry groups in New Mexico are:
Education
econdary education
Colleges and universities
ports
Notable professional sports teams based in New Mexico include the professional teams Albuquerque Isotopes (baseball), Albuquerque Thunderbirds (basketball), New Mexico Scorpions (ice hockey), and the New Mexico Wildcats (indoor football). The state universities field teams in many sports; teams include the University of New Mexico Lobos and the New Mexico State Aggies.
Culture
With a Native American population of 134,000 in 1990, New Mexico still ranks as an important center of American Indian culture. Both the Navajo and Apache share Athabaskan origin. The Apache and some Ute live on federal reservations within the state. With 16 million acres (6,500,000 ha), mostly in neighboring Arizona, the reservation of the Navajo Nation ranks as the largest in the United States. The prehistorically agricultural Pueblo Indians live in pueblos scattered throughout the state, many older than any European settlement.
More than one-third of New Mexicans claim Hispanic origin, the vast majority of whom descend from the original Spanish colonists in the northern portion of the state. Most of the considerably fewer recent Mexican immigrants reside in the southern part of the state.
There are many New Mexicans who also speak a unique dialect of Spanish. New Mexican Spanish has vocabulary often unknown to other Spanish speakers. Because of the historical isolation of New Mexico from other speakers of the Spanish language, the local dialect preserves some late medieval Castilian vocabulary considered archaic elsewhere, adopts numerous Native American words for local features, and contains much Anglicized vocabulary for American concepts and modern inventions.
The presence of various indigenous Native American communities, the long-established Spanish and Mexican influence, and the diversity of Anglo-American settlement in the region, ranging from pioneer farmers and ranchers in the territorial period to military families in later decades, make New Mexico a particularly heterogeneous state.
There are natural history and atomic museums in Albuquerque, which also hosts the famed Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.
A large artistic community thrives in Santa Fe. The capital city has museums of Spanish colonial, international folk, Navajo ceremonial, modern Native American, and other modern art. Another museum honors late resident Georgia O'Keeffe. Colonies for artists and writers thrive, and the small city teems with art galleries. In August, the city hosts the annual Santa Fe Indian Market, which is the oldest and largest juried Native American art showcase in the world.
Performing arts include the renowned Santa Fe Opera which presents five operas in repertory each July to August, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival held each summer, and the restored Lensic Theater a principal venue for many kinds of performances. The weekend after Labor Day boasts the burning of Zozobra, a 50 ft (15 m) marionette, during Fiestas de Santa Fe.
Writer D. H. Lawrence lived near Taos in the 1920s at the D. H. Lawrence Ranch where there is a shrine said to contain his ashes.
Notable New Mexicans
Many New Mexicans-those who were born, raised, or lived a significant period in New Mexico-have gained local, national, and international prominence. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson was one of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Notable businessmen include Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, and Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton Hotels Corporation. New Mexicans have also studied outer space, notably NASA astronauts Sidney M. Gutierrez and Harrison Schmitt. Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, a former New Mexico State University professor, discovered Pluto. Several New Mexicans have served roles in popular culture, including artist Georgia O'Keeffe, animator William Hanna, actor Neil Patrick Harris and actress Demi Moore, Pulitzer Prize winners Bill Mauldin and Ernie Pyle. Notorious criminals include outlaws Billy the Kid and Clay Allison. Indie Rock band The Shins are from Albuquerque.
ee also
*List of New Mexico-related topics
References
Further reading
* Hubert Howe Bancroft. "The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol. XVII. (History of Arizona and New Mexico 1530-1888)" (1889); reprint 1962. [http://www.1st-hand-history.org/Hhb/17/album1.html online edition]
* Warren Beck. "Historical Atlas of New Mexico" 1969.
*Thomas E. Chavez, "An Illustrated History of New Mexico", 267 pages, University of New Mexico Press 2002, ISBN 0-8263-3051-7
* Joseph G. Dawdon III. "Doniphan's Epic March; The 1st Missouri Volunteers in the Mexican War", Kansas Press [http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/dawdon.html]
* Richard Ellis, ed. "New Mexico Past and Present: A Historical Reader." 1971. primary sources
* Lynne Marie Getz; "Schools of Their Own: The Education of Hispanos in New Mexico, 1850-1940" (1997)
*Erlinda Gonzales-Berry, David R. Maciel, editors, "The Contested Homeland: A Chicano History of New Mexico", 314 pages - University of New Mexico Press 2000, ISBN 0-8263-2199-2
* Nancie L. González; "The Spanish-Americans of New Mexico: A Heritage of Pride" (1969)
* Ramón A. Gutiérrez; "When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846" (1991)
* Paul L. Hain; F. Chris Garcia, Gilbert K. St. Clair; "New Mexico Government" 3rd ed. (1994)
*Tony Hillerman, "The Great Taos Bank Robbery and other Indian Country Affairs", University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1973, trade paperback, 147 pages, (ISBN 0-8263-0530-X), stories
* Jack E. Holmes, "Politics in New Mexico" (1967),
*Paul Horgan, "Great River, The Rio Grande in North American History", 1038 pages, Wesleyan University Press 1991, 4th Reprint, ISBN 0585380147, Pulitzer Prize 1955
* Sante Fe Trail: 72 References Kansas Historical Society [http://www.kshs.org/research/collections/documents/bibliographies/transportation/santa_fe_trail.htm]
*Robert W. Kern, "Labor in New Mexico: Strikes, Unions, and Social History, 1881-1981", University of New Mexico Press 1983, ISBN 0-8263-0675-6
* Howard R. Lamar; "The Far Southwest, 1846-1912: A Territorial History" (1966, repr 2000)
* Robert W. Larson, "New Mexico's Quest for Statehood, 1846-1912" (1968)
* John M. Nieto-Phillips, "The Language of Blood: The Making of Spanish-American Identity in New Mexico, 1880s-1930s", University of New Mexico Press 2004, ISBN 08236324231
*Marc Simmons, "New Mexico: An Interpretive History", 221 pages, University of New Mexico Press 1988, ISBN 0-8263-1110-5
* George I. Sánchez; "Forgotten People: A Study of New Mexicans" (1940; reprint 1996)
*Marc Simmons, "New Mexico: An Interpretive History", 221 pages, University of New Mexico Press 1988, ISBN 0-8263-1110-5, good introduction
* Ferenc M. Szasz; and Richard W. Etulain; "Religion in Modern New Mexico" (1997)
* David J. Weber, "The Mexican Frontier, 1821-1846: The American Southwest under Mexico" (1982)
* David J. Weber; "Foreigners in Their Native Land: Historical Roots of the Mexican Americans" (1973), primary sources to 1912
External links
;State Government
* [http://www.newmexico.gov/ New Mexico Government]
** [http://www.sos.state.nm.us/sos-bluebook.html New Mexico's Blue Book On-Line] - State of New Mexico, Secretary of State (print almanac of statistics and information)
** [http://www.sos.state.nm.us/Main/Elections/Elec%20Site%20Party.htm Bureau of Elections] New Mexico Major and Minor Political Parties
* [http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/New_Mexico New Mexico State Databases] - Annotated list of searchable databases produced by New Mexico state agencies and compiled by the Government Documents Roundtable of the American Library Association.
* [http://www.unm.edu/~bber/ Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER)] at University of New Mexico (statistical information about the New Mexico economy);U.S. Government
* [http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/state/state_energy_profiles.cfm?sid=NM Energy Profile for New Mexico- Economic, environmental, and energy data]
* [http://www.usgs.gov/state/state.asp?State=NM New Mexico] - "Science In Your Backyard" - United States Geological Society
* [http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/amsw/ "American Southwest"] - "Discover Our Shared Heritage" travel itinerary - National Park Service
* [http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/35000.html New Mexico dataset] - United States Census Bureau
* [http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/NM.htm New Mexico state facts] - Economic Research Service - United States Department of Agriculture ;Directory
*dmoz|Regional/North_America/United_States/New_Mexico;Tourism
*
succession
preceded = Oklahoma
office = List of U.S. states by date of statehood
years = Admitted on January 6, 1912 (47th)
succeeded = Arizona
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