By the late 16th century, Spain solidified its claim on Mexico and began to stretch its empire farther north into territory the Spanish called New Mexico. Spanish excursions into New Mexico began in 1540 when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led a party of Spanish explorers into Pueblo territory, and in 1598, Spain attempted to secure a lasting presence in the region. Don Juan de Oñate, a Mexican soldier of Spanish descent, founded the first permanent European settlement in New Mexico that year. Under Oñate’s leadership, Spanish colonists established San Gabriel de Yunque-Ouinge at a Pueblo adobe village in present-day northern New Mexico, which is now a National Historic Landmark.

San Gabriel was the first European capital of New Mexico and seat of the first European governor of New Mexico. King Philip II of Spain chose Don Juan de Oñate to represent Spanish and Roman Catholic interests in New Mexico. A native of New Spain, Governor Oñate was the child of prominent Spanish immigrants and married to Isabela Cortez, the wealthy great-granddaughter of Aztec Emperor Montezuma II. Philip II wanted Oñate to administer New Mexico as a missionary field for acculturating the Pueblo. Oñate brought 400 Franciscan friars, soldiers, and indigenous Mexicans north to colonize the region and spread Catholicism. The colonists arrived in Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, which they named San Juan Pueblo, in 1598 and quickly established themselves at the neighboring adobe pueblo of San Gabriel de Yunque-Ouinge on the west side of the Rio Grande.

San Gabriel served the colonists as their capital in New Mexico for 12 years. During that time, the Spanish colonists used the settlement at San Gabriel as a base for exploring the surrounding land. From there, Oñate and small parties of men set out to subjugate the Pueblos and to search for silver. The relations between the Pueblos and the colonists quickly soured. In December 1598, Oñate’s nephew, Juan de Zaldivar, died during a battle with residents of Acoma Pueblo, southwest of San Gabriel. A month after the battle, the Spanish sacked the pueblo and suppressed the Acoma. Oñate requested reinforcements to strengthen the colony, and by 1601, San Gabriel managed over 500 Hispanic colonists in New Mexico. However, the violent struggle between the Spanish colonists and the Pueblos continued to plague New Mexico throughout the rest of the century.

Oñate’s capital at San Gabriel lasted for eight years. Philip II recalled the governor in 1606 after Spain received reports describing poor conditions and cruel leadership from the starving colonists. Because of his mismanagement of the Pueblo and Spanish colonists, the king stripped Oñate of his titles and his land, and then exiled him from Mexico for four years and from New Mexico forever. The colonial capital moved to Santa Fe in 1610, and a new governor took control of the colony. Though a small party of Spanish colonists may have remained, the Spanish authorities abandoned San Gabriel de Yunque-Ouinge, and the native Pueblo people reclaimed its adobe buildings.

Statue of Juan de Oñate, Captain General and First Governor of New Mexico, 1598 - 1610. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

With the site of San Gabriel lost to scholars, if not to the local Pueblo, American archeologists and historians searched for its location in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In the 1890s, a historian identified the site after comparing 17th century Spanish documents to ruins where local residents of a nearby town claimed the Spanish founded the first white settlement in New Mexico. In the 1930s, the National Park Service surveyed the area for physical evidence of Spanish occupation but was unable to find definite answers. In the 1940s, archeologists from the Museum of New Mexico and the School of American Research studied the site to excavate the adobe ruin. This dig turned up artifacts that suggest that this was the site of a 16th or early 17th century Hispanic settlement. A man from the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo found a piece of a bronze bell in 1946, and an archeologist identified an object from the site as the crown of a 15th-century helmet. A four-year excavation by the University of New Mexico in the 1960s found evidence of a military garrison, kitchen, and church in the ruins. During this period, the UNM archeologists excavated over 60 rooms and found evidence of a Spanish military garrison, food preparation, blacksmithing, and a church.

After these archeological investigations, San Gabriel fell into greater ruin. The residents of Ohkay Owingeh removed adobe from its exposed walls to use elsewhere. In 1984, the ruins of San Gabriel were leveled and the land used for alfalfa production. Today, a cross and a memorial mark the site, which is accessible to the public. Across the Rio Grande from the site of San Gabriel is the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. Home to Tewa-speaking people, this village offers visitors lodging at the OhKay Casino and a chance to see Pueblo arts and crafts. A replica of the San Gabriel Mission is located in Española, New Mexico, south of Ohkay Owingeh, and serves as the Misión Museum in the Plaza de Española.