Santa Fe (Nov. 13, 2009) – When Santa Fe Found: Fragments of Time opens at the New Mexico History Museum on Nov. 20, futuristic technologies will give visitors new, close-up views of the past.

Stephen Post, co-curator of the exhibit, worked with student interns from New Mexico Highlands University and former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists brought on board by the Department of Cultural Affairs to devise new ways to present old objects, including the 400-year-old Palace of the Governors.

Santa Fe Found: Fragments of Time combines historical documents with archaeological artifacts from several sites of early Spanish colonists to explore the founding of La Villa Real de Santa Fé, now celebrating its 400^th birthday. Set appropriately in the Palace of the Governors, where colonists established their first government, the exhibit was curated by Post and Josef Diaz of the New Mexico History Museum.

Some of the artifacts are too fragile for long-term exhibition; others, like the Palace, no longer exist in their original form. That’s where technology comes in.

Using a portable laser scanner, Ralph Chapman and David Modl of New Mexico Virtualization LLC are producing a 3D model of the oldest radiocarbon-dated dart point from Santa Fe – a small artifact from New Mexico’s indigenous people that is more than 7,000 years old. The virtual model – an enlarged, rotating, three-dimensional image – will be displayed with the actual dart point.

New Mexico Virtualization was formed last year by Chapman, former head of the Idaho Virtualization Lab, and two former Los Alamos Visualization Scientists, Modl and Steve Smith. The group had received a 2009 Venture Acceleration Fund grant from Los Alamos National Laboratory to develop their business; the grant supports the museum collaboration. 

“It has been four years since DCA received funding to position New Mexico as an international center for museum technology, and it’s gratifying to see the convergence of Highlands students, museums, and private companies,” said Mimi Roberts, DCA director for media projects. “Visitors who come to see Santa Fe Found are in for a special treat.”

The little basalt dart point that New Mexico Virtualization worked with will be on public view for the first time since it was discovered in 1995 by Post, deputy director of the New Mexico Office of Archaeological Studies. During the excavation of a much later hunter-gatherer campsite near N.M. 599, Post became intrigued by a dark streak in the bank of an arroyo and decided to investigate. Older points have been found outside the city, including Paleoindian sites in Santa Fe County that may date to 8,500 or 9,000 years old. This one, however, comes from the oldest radiocarbon-dated site found so far within city limits – a discovery that involved hand-removal of 14 metric tons of dirt.

Another artifact – a gold earring found during the excavation of the Sánchez Site near El Rancho de las Golondrinas – will be on virtual display only. (The actual earring is featured above in a photograph by Blair Clark, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.)

“It’s precious and can’t be put on loan for 18 months,” Post said. “This is a way museums can bring things to people.”

The exhibit will also feature an interactive 3D model of the 17^th-century Palace of the Governors created by students Jessica Power and Daniel Atencio from the Media Arts Program at Highlands. The project is part of a DCA partnership that prepares students for careers as multimedia professionals in museums.

Post said the project was extremely challenging and time-consuming because of sparse information about the Palace during the 17^th century. The model is a visual representation based on data gathered during several archaeological excavations in the building and historical documents.

“No one knows what the original Palace looked like in the 17^th century,” he said.  “But we’re taking people as far back in the past as we can with this virtual model.”

The New Mexico History Museum is the newest addition to a campus that includes the Palace of the Governors, the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States; Fray Angélico Chávez History Library; Palace of the Governors Photo Archives; the Press at the Palace of the Governors; and the Native American Artisans Program. The New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors is a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs. For more information, visit www.nmhistorymuseum.org.

Media contact: Kate Nelson

Marketing Manager

New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors

(505) 476-1141

(505) 554-5722 (cell)

kate.nelson@state.nm.us

http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/

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New Mexico History Museum to Receive Hewett Award

Retired curator Louise Stiver also honored for lifetime achievement

Santa Fe (Nov. 3, 2009) – The New Mexico History Museum will receive the New Mexico Association of Museums’ Hewett Award on Thursday during the group’s annual meeting in Santa Fe. Also receiving a Hewett is Louise Stiver, retired senior curator of the History Museum, whose Fashioning New Mexico exhibit is on display through April 14, 2010.

The awards are named for Edgar Lee Hewett, the first director of the Museum of New Mexico from 1909 until his death in 1946. Hewett taught anthropology at UNM and was instrumental in encouraging the development of small museums throughout New Mexico. NMAM bestows two yearly awards in his honor.

The History Museum opened May 24 to blocks-long lines after 20 years of work by staff and supporters. Encompassing more than 500 years of New Mexico history, it combines artifacts, maps, photographs, films and interactive exhibits that range from Native peoples to Spanish colonization, the Mexican period, the Santa Fe Trail, outlaws, the railroad, World War II, scientists, hippies and modern-day New Mexicans.

“Dr. Hewett had a comprehensive vision of what the Museum of New Mexico could be as a center of scholarship in history and many fields of anthropology,” Levine said. “The New Mexico History Museum opened in May with a strong commitment to the exploration and exhibition of New Mexico History.  We are proud to accept this award and gratified that visitors have responded enthusiastically and with so much support for the newest museum in the system.”

Less than five months after opening, the Museum surpassed 100,000 visitors, doubling the annual attendance of its predecessor, the Palace of the Governors, now the Museum’s largest exhibit.

“Our much anticipated new History Museum has been celebrated and applauded each and every day by visitors and observers alike since its public opening on Memorial Day weekend,” said Cultural Affairs Department Secretary Stuart Ashman.  “This prestigious award from NMAM is a wonderful ovation for the developing new museum, its staff, the Fashioning New Mexico exhibition and – most especially – the creativity and work of Ms. Stiver.”

Stiver was nominated for the award by Nancy Dunn, director of the Artesia Historical Museum and Art Center. In her nomination, Dunn wrote of Stiver’s role in getting the Museum up and running, adding that she “has served New Mexico museums and NMAM for many years, serving as President and in several other offices. During her term as President, Louise was personally responsible for revitalizing the association and increasing membership.”

Stiver was also one of the editors of the book Telling New Mexico: A New History, along with Marta Weigle and Levine. The book, a collection of essays from 45 scholars and writers, accompanies the Museum’s core exhibit, Telling New Mexico: Stories from Then and Now.

Stiver’s swan song, Fashioning New Mexico, cuts a swath across 150 years of New Mexico costumes and clothing – from weddings to operas, fiestas to inaugurations, baptisms to an ooh-la-la interactive exhibit on underwear. Prior to the History Museum’s opening, the collection lacked exhibition space with proper lighting and environmental controls. The collection’s emergence from the closet (so to speak) has proved one of the most popular aspects of the new museum.

For information on the exhibit, as well as a selection of photographs, log onto http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/events.php?action=detail&eventID=407.

The New Mexico History Museum is the newest addition to a campus that includes the Palace of the Governors, the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States; Fray Angélico Chávez History Library; Palace of the Governors Photo Archives; the Press at the Palace of the Governors; and the Native American Artisans Program. The New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors, 113 Lincoln Ave., is a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs. For more information, visit www.nmhistorymuseum.org.

Media contact: Kate Nelson

Marketing Manager

New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors

(505) 476-1141

(505) 554-5722 (cell)

kate.nelson@state.nm.us

http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/

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Announcing the Telling New Mexico Inaugural Lecture Series

A cultural convergence celebrating a tapestry of history

Santa Fe (Nov. 2, 2009) – The New Mexico History Museum today unveiled a new subscription lecture series to accompany the book, Telling New Mexico: A New History. Speakers for the five-part Telling New Mexico Inaugural Lecture Series will cover a range of topics – from the earliest Spanish colonists to Blackdom to Japanese internment camps to Navajo women.

The series will be held in the New Mexico History Museum Auditorium. Each lecture costs $10; a subscription to all five lectures costs $40. For $100, participants will be named “event sponsors” and receive a paperback version of Telling New Mexico: A New History, autographed by the volume editors. 

To purchase tickets online (until 4 pm the Friday before each lecture), visit the Museum of New Mexico Foundation’s website at http://www.museumfoundation.org/tellingnm. Tickets can also be purchased at the Museum Shops in the Palace and the New Mexico History Museum.   

The series kicks off at 1 pm, Sunday, Nov. 22, with a special reception honoring Marianne O’Shaughnessy and her late husband, Michael O’Shaughnessy, who provided funding for the series, and Marta Weigle, editor of Telling New Mexico. The reception will be in the John Gaw Meem Community Room (enter through the New Mexico History Museum’s Washington Avenue entrance).

The Telling New Mexico Inaugural Lecture Series takes places on these Sundays at 2 p.m.:

Nov. 22, 2pm: Following the opening reception, Dr. Thomas Chávez, former director of the Palace of the Governors and the National Hispanic Cultural Center, on his current book project, a history of the Palace of the Governors. 

Jan. 31, 2 pm: Author Thomas Lark on the history of African-Americans in New Mexico; and the Rev. Landjur Abukusumo, president of the Blackdom Memorial Foundation, on the pioneers of the Blackdom community in Roswell. Special treat: The Afro-Gospel Praise Experience will perform a mixture of Afro-Latin rhythms and traditional gospel.

March 28, 2 pm: Gail Y. Okawa, professor of English at Youngstown State University in Ohio, on Santa Fe’s WWII Japanese internment camps, including one that held her late grandfather.

May 2, 2pm: UNM History Professor Ferenc Szasz on New Mexico’s role in developing the atomic bomb.

Aug. 22, 2pm: Diné author Jennifer Nez Denetdale on the stories of Navajo women, from her current book project.

The New Mexico History Museum is the newest addition to a campus that includes the Palace of the Governors, the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States; Fray Angélico Chávez History Library; Palace of the Governors Photo Archives; the Press at the Palace of the Governors; and the Native American Artisans Program. The New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors, 113 Lincoln Ave., is a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs. For more information, visit www.nmhistorymuseum.org.

Media contact: Kate Nelson

Marketing Manager

New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors

(505) 476-1141

(505) 554-5722 (cell)

kate.nelson@state.nm.us

http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/

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Last week, the New Mexico History Museum began laying plans for how we’d mark our 100,000^th visitor since opening on May 24, 2009. This week, when the numbers came in, we realized it had zipped past us unannounced. As of Sunday, Oct. 18, we’d logged 100,761.

Which got me to thinking about what 100,000 means. Here are a few of the answers I’ve found.

In its last full year of operating as a solo museum, the Palace of the Governors logged 55,597 visitors. The History Museum/Palace of the Governors hit its total just shy of five months old.

According to 06 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau, only the city of Albuquerque has more than 100,000 residents. Of the next top four:

Las Cruces: 86,268

Santa Fe: 72,056

Rio Rancho: 71,607

Farmington: 43,573

According to Wikipedia (I know, I know, but we’re being whimsical here – lighten’ up!):

In astronomy, 100,000 metres, 100 kilometres, or 100 km (62 miles) is the altitude at which the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) defines spaceflight to begin.

In the Irish Language, Ceád Mile Fáilte (pronounced: KAY-ed MEE-luh FOIL-cha) is a popular greeting meaning “A Hundred Thousand Welcomes”.

In piphilology, one hundred thousand is the current world record for the number of digits of pi memorized by a human being.

If you really, really, seriously need to annoy 100,000 people by putting lots of icons in your e-mails and Web posts, here’s where to find 100,000 varieties: http://www.iconfinder.net/ultimate

In pounds, 100,000 equals approximately 523.5 American males, 638.9 American females.

In dollars, 100,000 would pay the salaries of 3.6 certified nurses assistants in Albuquerque.

And, finally: College stadiums that regularly host 100,000 people include Penn State’s Beaver Stadium, the University of Michigan’s Michigan Stadium, and the Ohio State Buckeyes’ Ohio Stadium. (Until the 1970s the Melbourne Cricket Ground could seat up to 130,000 people. Renovations and safety regulations have since restricted the capacity to its current 100,000.)

Thanks to all the by-ones, by-twos, and by-a-few-mores who helped us reach the 100,000 mark at the Museum. We’re just sorry we weren’t there with roses to greet you, Visitor Hundred Thou.

Kate Nelson

Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the culture and contributions of Hispanic Americans who trace their roots to Spain, Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries.  In 1968 President Lyndon Johnson began the tradition with Hispanic Heritage Week.  It’s now a month-long celebration from September 15 to October 15^th, and the dates include independence days for several Latin American countries as well as Columbus Day.

In 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a parish priest in Guanajuato, Mexico, called for Mexican independence from Spanish rule.  El Grito de Dolores is now celebrated across the Southwest on September 16^th. 

But a month-long extravaganza isn’t long enough for Santa Fe’s 400^th anniversary. Celebrations started on September 4^th and will continue throughout 2010.  ¡ Que Viva la Fiesta!

Also falling within Hispanic Heritage Month, is the annual Banned Books Week, September 26^th to October 3^rd.  This celebration of the freedom to read has been sponsored by the American Library Association since 1982.

This year why not celebrate both events by reading (or re-reading) New Mexico’s own Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima.  It’s this year’s selection for a national reading program that highlights Latino literature and Latino authors which is sponsored by LatinoStories.com.  Bless Me, Ultima, first published in 1972, has won numerous awards, and was the People’s Choice winner at the New Mexico Book Awards in 2007.

 This Anaya classic is also number five on the top ten most frequently challenged books of 2008 as reported by the American Library Association. ¡Que disfrute el libro!

 http://www.santafefiesta.org/

 http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/chh/bio/anaya_r.htm

 http://latinostories.com/

 http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

“A Long Time Coming: The 17^th-Century Pueblo-Spanish War”

Santa Fe, NM (Aug. 20, 2009) –John L. Kessell will give the annual Santa Fe Fiesta Lecture at 6:30 pm, Wednesday, Sept. 9, in the New Mexico Museum of Art’s St. Francis Auditorium. General admission is $5, on a first-come basis. Members of the Palace Guard and the Fiesta Council, co-sponsors of the event, are free.

Kessell’s lecture, “A Long Time Coming: The 17^th-Century Pueblo-Spanish War,” will consider several questions. The Pueblo Indians had endured for three generations under Spanish rule before they threw off the colonial yoke. What took them so long? Why was war so long in coming?  Was the colonial regime really not so bad after all? Did the benefits of coexistence repeatedly undermine the urge to revolt?  Or were the Pueblos so deeply divided by pre-contact grudges and by the new promise of settling old scores through alliance with Spaniards that they simply could not rally themselves until 1680?  What did Esteban Clemente get wrong in 1670 that Pueblo Revolt leader Po’Pay got right in 1680?

Kessell, professor emeritus of history at the University of New Mexico, specializes in colonial Southwestern history. He has received numerous awards for his scholarship and has published widely, including his latest book, Pueblos, Spaniards, and the Kingdom of New Mexico (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008), an even-handed narrative of the tumultuous 17th-century Spanish colony.

No individual Spaniard figured more prominently in New Mexico’s long history than Madrid-bred Diego de Vargas (1643-1704), the refounding father whose legacy has been celebrated every year since 1712 in Las Fiestas de Santa Fe. (This year’s fiesta is Sept. 11-13.) The historical contributions of Vargas, twice governor of the kingdom of New Mexico, and other Spanish colonists have been largely ignored by the Eastern historical establishment in the United States, Kessell contends. Through his efforts, the Guggenheim Foundation, National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and National Endowment for the Humanities finally made a place for Vargas at the tertulia of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams.

As a result of their financial support, the long-term Vargas Project led by Kessell at the University of New Mexico, 1980-2002, published in English translation a six-volume scholarly edition of the Journals of Don Diego de Vargas, 1691-1704, thereby making available to students, scholars, teachers, and the public the principal archives of Vargas’ pivotal government.

Since his retirement from UNM in 2000, Kessell has continued to lecture to a variety of groups on topics relating to Spain’s presence in the American Southwest. He has repeatedly offered the Spanish background in seminars for high school teachers under the Teach America Program. Recently in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, he provided the third lecture to the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibit “Jamestown, Québec, and Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings,” placing Santa Fe’s unique history in its Spanish context.

Pueblos, Spaniards and the Kingdom of New Mexico sets aside stereotypes of Native American Edens and the Black Legend of unique Spanish cruelty, and offers a lively narrative of a tense but interwoven coexistence. Beginning with the first permanent Spanish settlement among the Pueblos of the Rio Grande in 1598, Kessell proposes a set of relations more complicated than previous accounts have envisioned and then reinterprets the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and the Spanish reconquest in the 1690s.

Media contact:

Kate Nelson

New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors

(505) 476-1141

Kate.nelson@state.nm.us

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If you visited Indian Market on its third anniversary in 1925, you could have purchased a pot from now-famed San Ildefonso Pueblo potters Maria and Julian Martinez. This glass lantern slide photograph shows the two working in front of the Palace of the Governors Portal. Photo courtesy of the Photo Archives, Neg. No. 200043.Visit the online photo archives at http://palaceofthegovernors.org/photoarchives.html

This weekend your visit will be rewarded with a rich cultural experience in the Palace of the Governors courtyard, which will include this entertainment:

Native Artisans Courtyard Celebration 2009

DANCE PERFORMANCES

(this schedule is accurate as of press time)

Saturday, August 22

9:00 am – Opening/welcome

9:30 am – Oak Canyon Dancers

[Jemez Pueblo]

Traditional Jemez Pueblo Dance

10:30 am – Tony Duncan Dance Troupe

[San Carlos Apache/Arikara

Nation/Navajo]

Traditional and Contemporary

Native American Song & Dance

11:00 am – Red Turtle Dancers

[Northern Pueblos]

Traditional Northern Pueblo

Children’s Dance

12:00 noon – Oak Canyon Dancers

[Jemez Pueblo]

Traditional Jemez Pueblo Dance

1:00 pm – Tony Duncan Dance Troupe

[San Carlos Apache/Arikara

Nation/Navajo]

Tradition and Contemporary

Native American Song & Dance

1:30 pm – Evan Trujillo

Taos Pueblo

Native American Song & Dance

2:00 pm – Red Turtle Dancers

[Northern Pueblos]

Traditional Northern Pueblo

Children’s Dance

3:00 pm – Tony Duncan Dance Troupe

[San Carlos Apache/Arikara

Nation/Navajo]

Tradition and Contemporary

Native American Song & Dance

4:00 pm – RAFFLE Benefit for

Palace of Governors

Vendor Program

Sunday, August 23

9:00 am – Opening/welcome

9:30 am – Oak Canyon Dancers

[Jemez Pueblo]

Traditional Jemez Pueblo Dance

10:30 am – Tony Duncan Dance Troupe

[San Carlos Apache/Arikara

Nation/Navajo]

Tradition and Contemporary

Native American Song & Dance

11:00 am – Red Turtle Dancers

[Northern Pueblos]

Traditional Northern Pueblo

Children’s Dance

12:00 noon – Oak Canyon Dancers

[Jemez Pueblo]

Traditional Jemez Pueblo Dance

1:00 pm – Tony Duncan Dance Troupe

[San Carlos Apache/Arikara

Nation/Navajo]

Tradition and Contemporary

Native American Song & Dance

1:30 pm – Evan Trujillo

Taos Pueblo

Native American Song & Dance

2:00 pm – Red Turtle Dancers

[Northern Pueblos]

Traditional Northern Pueblo

Children’s Dance

3:00 pm – Tony Duncan Dance Troupe

[San Carlos Apache/Arikara

Nation/Navajo]

Tradition and Contemporary

Native American Song & Dance

4:00 pm – RAFFLE Benefit for

Palace of Governors

Vendor Program

Santa Fe, NM (July 29, 2009) – The New Mexico History Museum’s Fray Angélico Chávez History Library has obtained several documents pertaining to Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War from the Lincoln State Monument. The Library and Monument are both New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs properties.

Librarian Tomas Jaehn said the documents had been acquired by the defunct Lincoln County Heritage Trust, which was absorbed by the Hubbard Museum in Ruidoso in 1999. Two years ago, the Lincoln State Monument took over several buildings and their contents from the Hubbard Museum and has since cared for them under professional storage conditions – but not, until now, for public viewing. Among them are Pat Garrett’s cattle-brand certificate, an arrest warrant for John Chisum and, most important, two letters by Billy the Kid to Governor Lew Wallace.

Staff at the Monument and the History Library felt the library was a more conducive environment for those rare items and they are now housed at the library at 120 Washington Ave., in Santa Fe. They can be viewed upon request during regular public hours (Tue-Fri, 1-5pm).

English author Fred Nolan, notable for several books on Billy the Kid, John Tunstall and the Lincoln County War, recently made a courtesy visit to the Chávez Library, along with his fellow Billy the Kid aficionado Bob McCubbin. Nolan and McCubbin had seen the letters years ago and were the first members of the public to see them again after all these years. They declared themselves extremely pleased to see the items in a safe library environment where historians and others interested in the Lincoln County War can view them.

“A significant ‘rediscovery’” is how Nolan characterized the letters, and he praised their new resting place as one “which will make two letters written by Billy the Kid available to an even wider audience.”

The letters reveal a literate writer with good penmanship as he sought to hold Governor Wallace to a purported promise of a pardon. The two met once in Lincoln as Billy tried to parlay his willingness as a prosecution witness into an official amnesty, but the territorial governor eventually did not prevent the judge from signing his death warrant.

The Lincoln County War in 1878 had been a battle built on the competing economics of two mercantile businesses, represented by the Murphy-Dolan faction and the Tunstall-McSween faction, which William H. Bonney (known to history as Billy the Kid) supported. The prize worth fighting for was government contracts, but dozens of deaths and the lingering legend of one participant was the main result. The final chapter of the Lincoln County War was written when Pat Garrett shot Billy the Kid on July 14, 1881 in Ft. Sumner, N.M..

The story of the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid is included in the New Mexico History Museum’s main exhibition, Telling New Mexico: Stories from Then and Now at 113 Lincoln Ave., Santa Fe. Many of the buildings that were once the backdrop to the conflict are still standing along Main Street in Lincoln, N.M., where the Lincoln State Monument Lincoln State Monument (http://www.nmmonuments.org/inst.php?inst=7) serves as a world-class draw for tourists and scholars – an attraction confirmed by the New Mexico Tourism Department’s new Web site devoted to Billy the Kid: http://www.newmexico.org/billythekid/.

This weekend is the annual Old Lincoln Days event at the Monument. Call 575-653-4372 for information.

The Fray Angélico Chávez History Library is the institutional successor to New Mexico’s oldest library (1851). A non-circulating, closed-stack research facility, it preserves historical materials in many formats documenting the history of the state, the Southwest, and meso-America from pre-European contact to the present.

For more information on the acquisitions and the Library, contact Tomas Jaehn at 476-5090.

The New Mexico History Museum is a 96,000-square-foot addition to the Palace of the Governors’ campus, which includes the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library and Photo Archives, the Palace Print Shop & Bindery, and the Portal Program. The New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors is a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs. The Museum is at 113 Lincoln Ave., just north of the Palace at 105 W. Palace Ave., on the Santa Fe Plaza. For more information, visit www.nmhistorymuseum.org or www.palaceofthegovernors.org.

Media contact: Kate Nelson

New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors

(505) 476-1141

(505) 554-5722 (cell)

kate.nelson@state.nm.us

www.media.museumofnewmexico.org

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A 1968 work of historian Marc Simmons, Report on the barrio de Guadalupe, was just added to the online catalog of the Fray Angelico Chavez Library. One of the chapters describes the Albino Perez monument, “a small boulder with a polished face and inscription lies enclosed within a rusting iron fence in the 1400 block of Agua Fria Street. The words carved in stone read: Governor Perez was assassinated on this spot on Aug. 9, 1837. Erected by sunshine Chapter, DAR, 1901”.

This chapter from the Report about the Perez monument tells th interesting story of the “Chimayo Rebellion” of 1837. Sometimes called a tax rebellion, the Revolt of 1837 opposed the administration sent by Mexican President Santa Anna to New Mexico. Governor Albino Perez and approximately 20 other government supporters were killed in the insurrection.

There is a letter from an eyewitness to the Chimayo Rebellion on display in the Linking Nations, Perils of Independence area in the New Mexico History Museum Core Exhibit, Telling New Mexico. This letter is part of the manuscript collection of Carl Blumner Letters in the Fray Angelico Chavez History Library, which can be found online at http://rmoa.unm.edu/docviewer.php?docId=nmsm1ac231.xml

Recently, while relaxing in the Courtyard of the Palace of the Governors, my eye caught sight of a rock which bore the inscription commemorating the assassination of Governor Perez. On Agua Fria Street no more, the Albino Perez Monument now rests safely in the peaceful courtyard that links the Palace of the Governors with the New Mexico History Museum.

About the Author:

Patricia Hewitt is the Cataloger at Fray Angelico Chavez History Library in the New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe, NM