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This book chronicles the life and frontier career of Don Juan de Oñate, the first colonizer of the old Spanish Borderlands. Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, in the mid-sixteenth century, Don Juan was the prominent son of an aristocratic silver-mining family.
In 1598, in his late forties, Oñate led a formidable expedition of settlers, with wagons and livestock, on an epic march northward to the upper Rio Grade Valley of New Mexico. There he established the first European settlement west of the Mississippi, launching a significant chapter in early American history.
In his activities he displayed qualities typical of Spain's sixteenth-century men of action; in his career we find a summation of the motives, aspirations, intentions, strengths, and weaknesses of the Hispanic pioneers who settled the Borderlands.
Marc Simmons holds the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of New Mexico. His publications include more than one hundred articles and nearly two dozen books on the American Southwest, several of them award winners.
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Marc Simmons is a professional author and historian who has published more than forty books on New Mexico and the American Southwest. His popular "Trail Dust" column is syndicated in several regional newspapers. In 1993, King Juan Carlos of Spain admitted him to the knightly Order of Isabel la Católica for his contributions to Spanish colonial history. His books include "Turquoise and Six-Guns: The Story of Cerrillos, New Mexico," "New Mexico Mavericks: Stories of a Fabled Past," "Yesterday in Santa Fe: Episodes in a Turbulent History," "Charles F. Lummis: Author and Adventurer," and, with Frank Turley, "Southwestern Colonial Ironwork: The Spanish Blacksmithing Tradition from Texas to California," all published by Sunstone Press.
