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CONQUEST AND COLONIZATION The Spanish Colonial Settlement Landscapes of New Mexico, 1598-1680. By Elinore M. Barrett. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012. Pp. xvi, 296. Maps. Tables. Appendix. Abbreviations. Preface. Notes. Index. $49.95 cloth.
This meticulously researched book focuses on the first eight decades of the Spanish col- onization of New Mexico, beginning with the 1598 expedition under Juan de Oñate and ending with the pueblo Indian revolt of 1680 that violently overthrew Spanish authority and forcibly removed Spanish colonists for some dozen years. Barrett's task is difficult because many archival materials-in particular land grant records that would have provided key information about Spanish administration, economy, settlement, and land use-were physically destroyed during the turbulent 1680s. Archaeological research, of which Barrett makes ample use, helps to identify and locate specific Spanish sites and fill many data gaps, but that research is itself still fragmentary.
New Mexico lay at the far northwestern frontier of Spain's colonial domain of New Spain, whose principal administrative capital at Mexico City was hundreds of miles to the south across territories that were themselves often imperfectly subject to Spanish authority....