Old Town Albuquerque

Old Town is the historic original town site of Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the provincial kingdom of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, established in 1706 by New Mexico governor Francisco Cuervo y Valdés. It is listed on the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties as the Old Albuquerque Historic District, and is protected by a special historic zoning designation by the city. However, prior to its establishment as a city in the Santa Fe de Nuevo México province, many indigenous tribes lived there including Diné, Pueblo, Apache, Tiwa, and others. The present-day district contains about ten blocks of historic adobe buildings surrounding Old Town Plaza. On the plaza's north side stands San Felipe de Neri Church, a Spanish colonial church constructed in 1793.

Old Town is a popular tourist destination with a large number of restaurants, shops, and galleries, and is also home to the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science and the Explora science center are located a short distance to the northeast. Old Town is known for its luminaria displays during the holiday season, particularly on Christmas Eve.

Old Town occupies an area of about 0.8 square miles (2.1 km²), roughly bounded by Rio Grande Boulevard, Mountain Road, 19th Street, and Central Avenue. At the center is Old Town Plaza, surrounded by approximately ten blocks of one- and two-story buildings. The central plaza layout was favored by Spanish colonial authorities and is found in many other cities and towns throughout New Mexico, including Santa Fe, Taos, Las Vegas, and Mesilla. The area around Old Town was originally acequia fed farmland, but it has been covered over by 20th century urban development, however, land to the north and south of the plaza continues to operate for agricultural purposes with the acequia traditions, including Los Ranchos, Corrales, South Valley, and Isleta Village Proper.

Prior to 1706, indigenous tribes traveled through and inhabited the land on which Old Town Albuquerque now stands. These indigenous peoples include the Anasazi, Diné, Pueblo, Apache, and Tiwa communities. While it is unknown approximately how long the area has been inhabited by indigenous peoples, their long-standing presence in the Albuquerque area is exemplified by the thousands of years old Petroglyphs found in the Sandia mountains to the Acoma pueblo which is still inhabited by the Acoma tribe today. During this time, the region that is now known as Albuquerque was known as Paak'u. The indigenous peoples residing in the Paak'u region engaged in subsistence farming and hunting, managing complex, intertwined systems of government and religion. The Pueblo peoples of modern Albuquerque originally stemmed from one tribe called the Tamayame or Santa Ana tribe. As they discovered the resources that the Sandia mountains and the Rio Grande had to offer, they slowly spread into different pueblos as far as Angostura, a village 131 miles northeast of Albuquerque. The spread led into the development of five distinct language groups and many more dialects based on those languages. Today, because of the combination of smaller and larger pueblos due to colonization by both the Spanish and Anglo Americans, there is a total of nineteen pueblos which are recognized as sovereign nations in and around Albuquerque.

When the Spanish colonists arrived, their relation with the existing indigenous peoples in the Albuquerque area were complex and violent. In New Mexico, the first interaction that Puebloans had was at the Zuni pueblo of Vacapa when the Spanish explorer Frey Marcos de Niza sent his black African slave Estaban to interact with the Zuni people. Estaban was subsequently killed by the Zuni, establishing a tone for Spanish-Indigenous relations throughout New Mexico which carried on into the founding of Albuquerque. The Spanish first had contact with the Pueblos in the area that would become Old Town Albuquerque when in 1540 Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s expedition searching for the Seven Cities of Cibola lead him to the Pueblos. Coronado was able to peacefully trade small gifts and items with them at first, but as winter overtook the unprepared conquistadors, they steadily became more and more violent with the Pueblo peoples, demanding more food and supplies and progressively conquering a few of the Puebloan’s smaller villages. The Tiwa people of Albuquerque fought back against the Spanish until they left to return to Mexico in the Spring of 1541. However, the violent interactions between the two parties gave each a long-lasting impression of the other, further contributing to negative relations between the Spanish and Indigenous peoples of Albuquerque. This paved the way for the violent conquest of Juan de Oñate, and his ouster from New Mexico by the indigenous Pueblo people during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

In 1693, Albuquerque began to be resettled by a group of people traveling in the Spanish “Reconquista” led by Don Diego de Vargas. Several families in this group split off and asked permission to settle the Middle Valley which was the area south of the Sandia and Alameda pueblos. The settlement grew progressively to encompass around forty-five Spanish estate and what is known as Old Town Albuquerque was established in 1702 and recognized by Francisco Cuervo y Valdes, the governor of Spanish New Mexico, as a municipality in 1706. In 1784, over 3500 Spaniards and 600 Indigenous people were recognized by the census to be residents of Old Town. However, for many of the Indigenous tribes living around Old Town, the rapid growth of Old Town served as a reminder to the continuing conquest of their people. Cuervo reported that the new settlement was home to 252 residents and had been laid out with streets, a plaza, and a church in accordance with the town planning regulations set forth in the Laws of the Indies. Cuervo's account had been exaggerated in order to offer a centralized Villa to better serve the already existent Hispano and Pueblo communities. Those communities included Barelas, Corrales, Isleta Pueblo, Los Ranchos, Sandia Pueblo, and others along the Rio Grande rather than a centralized settlement. After a formal investigation, the villa was allowed to keep its title, especially as it was established to serve those communities as an outpost on Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.

Women also played an overlooked role in Old Town Albuquerque. At least twenty women are known to have been a part of the Spanish colonization of Albuquerque and the subsequent founding of Old Town. While many were subjugated to more traditional colonial roles like cooking, cleaning, and homemaking, some quickly became heads of their respective families due to the death of their husbands. Those who were designated heads of households were able to inherit land as a result of Spanish law and became the breadwinners for their families. The twenty women who are known to have helped colonize Old Town have come to be acknowledged as the "founding women of Albuquerque" and are listed on a plaque in Old Town Plaza provided by the New Mexico Historic Women Marker Program.

Like other Spanish colonial settlements, Albuquerque consisted of a central plaza surrounded by houses, government offices, and a church. For much of the 18th century, the homes around the plaza were inhabited only on Sundays as the residents spent the rest of the week on their farms. It was not until the late 1700s that a permanent population was established at the plaza.