Significant chapters in the absorbing history of New Mexico were written
at three sites that have been made units of the National Park System.
Gran Quivira National Monument, near the center of the state southeast
of Mountainair, preserves the ruins of a frontier Spanish mission that
had been built, used, and abandoned by 1675. The Monument contains
twenty-one ruined house mounds of Indian pueblos and ruins of two
mission churches. It was the presence of the Indians at this location,
of course, that attracted the Franciscan missionaries.
[Illustration: A look at ruins of Gran Quivira]
The earliest Indian pueblo in the Monument was founded about 1300 A.D.;
by the 1600’s, the village, with several structures, had become the
largest in the region. It was conveniently located on the south side of
a hill near the cultivated fields in the surrounding lowlands. Water was
a problem then as now. The Indians solved this as best they could by
digging shallow wells at the base of the hill, about one mile west of
the pueblo.
The first known specific reference to Gran Quivira was made in 1630 by
Fray Alonso de Benavides, a Franciscan missionary. He called the pueblo
the “Village of the Humanas,” and referred to the church there as having
been built by Father Francisco Letrado in 1629 and dedicated to San
Isidro. Humanas, now misnamed “Gran Quivira,” was later administered
from the mission of San Gregorio de Abo, some forty miles to the north.
In 1659, Father Diego de Santander was assigned to Humanas. Construction
of the mission buildings, which he rededicated to San Buenaventura, was
completed by him.
The Franciscans had a pronounced influence upon the Pueblo Indians. They
stimulated trade with Mexico and the pueblos farther north. They
imported wine grapes and cultivated them, and they introduced
domesticated sheep, goats, cattle, and horses.
Sometime between 1672 and 1675, the pueblo and mission at Humanas were
abandoned because of Apache raids, drought, and crop failures. The
people first moved to the Rio Grande near the present town of Socorro. A
few continued to El Paso del Norte, where, in 1680, they were joined by
those from Socorro, who had fled with the Spaniards from the Pueblo
Revolt of that year.