The Last Years of the Spanish Claim to the Greater Southwest, Louisiana, and Florida---American Latino Heritage: A Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary

The Old Spanish National Historic Trail ran through the Mojave Desert
Courtesy of Racoles, Flickr's Creative Commons

Trade routes crisscrossed the Spanish frontier in North America. Trails like the Natchez Trace, the caminos reales of California, Texas, and New Mexico, Old Spanish Trail in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California, as well as the Santa Fe-Chihuahua Trail, represented a growing transportation and commercial development in the late Spanish period. Formed from old Indian trails, some of these routes left a trace in North America that visitors can still see and appreciate in the ruts, rock art, and archeological campsites that remain. They, too, are part of the Spanish colonial patrimony of the United States, born from a colonial period that lasted from 1492 until 1821. Today, the National Park Service administers the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail, which ran from Mexico City to Santa Fe; the Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail, which ran from Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico, to Los Adaes in Louisiana via San Antonio, Texas; and Old Spanish National Historic Trail, which ran from Santa Fe to Los Angeles via western Colorado, southern Utah, and eastern California through the Mojave Desert.

By 1790, Mexico City felt the tremors of an independence movement. Already, intellectuals had begun to debate the merits of the American Revolution and the Enlightenment that had produced it. Spanish officials responded by censoring "liberal" literature that had made its way into the Spanish Empire from the United States and Europe. Two decades later, on September 16, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo raised the cry for rebellion that would bring down the Spanish Empire and begin a new social order. The frontier, which had been following events in Mexico City during the late 18th century, had been concerned with other affairs, namely the defense of the Empire from foreign incursions and the pacification of a wide Indian frontier that stretched from California to Florida.

For one night each year, 8,000 candles are lit on the field at Resaca de la Palma Battlefield in remembrance of the shared heritage between the people living at the Mexican-American border.
Courtesy of the National Park Service

In the end, the Spanish Empire fell to revolutionaries, not to any of the many native tribes, nor to Englishmen, Frenchmen or Anglo-Americans who had threatened it for so long. The independence movement (1810-1821) swept the Empire like a wind until only Puerto Rico and Cuba remained in Spanish hands. The rest moved toward the development of independent nation-states. Florida quickly fell into the fold of the United States. Texas, a territory of the newly established Mexico, rebelled against Mexican authority in 1836 and formed the Lone Star Republic. New Mexico likewise rebelled in 1836 and remained more or less independent for twenty-five years. California and Sonora (southern Arizona included) underwent a series of rebellions against Mexico's government that resulted in measured autonomy. Not until May 8 and 9, 1846, when two armies lined up against each other on a flat plain in south Texas called Palo Alto just north of present-day Brownsville, was the fate of the frontier sealed.

Palo Alto was the first major engagement of the United States-Mexico War (1846-48). Today, Palo Alto National Battlefield and Resaca de la Palma Battlefield, near Brownsville, Texas commemorate that battle fought on May 8-9, 1846. With the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, 1848, the United States incorporated the vast frontier from California to Texas inclusive of property and population. Pecos National Historical Park expands the theme to include the Civil War battle at Glorieta Pass, sometimes called the “Gettysburg of the West." At Apache Canyon, a Latino unit under Colonel Manuel Chávez, known as the New Mexico Volunteers, routed the Confederate rear guard, which resulted in the defeat of Confederate forces at Glorieta Pass. Pecos National Historical Park interprets the battle and the Confederate invasion of New Mexico. Other sites in the National Park Service tell more stories of Hispanics in the Civil War. Our national story incorporates the Latino Heritage and reflects the richness of our colonial past, particularly in North America.

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