Major Stops and Sights Activity Martineztown

Paraje is the Spanish word for a place or spot. In the context of El Camino, parajes were places where people would stop and rest during their journey. Parajes were also places where people came together, exchanging goods and news. Many of these rest stops evolved and towns developed around El Camino trade. Many are now major cities in Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico today.
Read about each paraje and use details from each paragraph to fill in the blanks and complete the activity.
The text and accompanying activity was written by Bernalillo County Open Space as part of the El Camino Real Trade Fair. Thank you to our partners at Bernalillo County.

Stops and Sights Activity

Mexico City

Mexico City is the starting point of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Formerly known as Tenochtitlán, the Mexica (Aztec) people founded the city around 1200 CE.
Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés conquered the city in 1521 and established it as the capital of the colony of New Spain.
Mexico City became the center of economic and cultural life in New Spain and later in independent Mexico. It was the source for all goods and ideas flowing northward along the Camino Real, and the largest market for goods flowing southward from New Mexico. It was linked by another royal road to the coastal city of Veracruz, which was the main port for all ships arriving from Spain or from the Spanish colonies of the Caribbean.

City of Querétaro

Querétaro was settled by the Spanish after initially battling, then later cooperating with, the Otomi people in 1531.
Querétaro is located in the rich agricultural region of Bajío (meaning lowlands), which lies in the basin of the Rio Lerma Santiago. At the height of the colonial period in the 1700s, Querétaro was very important due to its strategic position with the northern territories and because of its livestock production and textile industry.
Until the 1700s, Querétaro was regarded as the last town before the frontier began. Many of the missionaries of New Spain were trained here, at several monasteries of different Catholic orders.
In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed in Querétaro.

City of Zacatecas

The city of Zacatecas, high in the mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental, was once the source of one-fifth of all the world’s silver. The city is named after the Zacateco people and means "people of the grasslands."
Long before the Europeans arrived, this area had been an important mining center. The Spaniards who founded the city in 1546 included Cristóbal de Oñate. His son, Juan de Oñate, born in Zacatecas in 1550, would become the first governor of New Mexico.
The settlement grew over the space of a few years into one of the most important and populous cities in New Spain.
The hazardous road between Mexico City and Zacatecas was called the Camino de Plata. It was protected by presidios, Spanish military outposts, that grew to form many of the present-day towns along the route. Zacatecas is still one of the richest states in Mexico.

City of Durango

In 1552, Spanish explorers discovered one of the world's largest iron ore deposits near modern-day Durango, in the territory of the Tepehuan people. In 1563, Basque explorer Francisco de Ibarra officially founded the city of Durango as the capital of a new province he named Nueva Vizcaya.
Despite its status as a capital, Durango grew slowly. As the Spaniards moved northward, they found an amazing diversity of indigenous groups, many of who waged wars of resistance against the Spanish throughout the centuries.
Unlike the more concentrated Indigenous groups of central Mexico, the northern peoples were referred to as "ranchería people" by the Spaniards. Their agricultural settlements (rancherías) were usually scattered over an area of several miles and one dwelling might be separated from the next by up to half a mile.

Cities of El Parral and Santa Bárbara

In 1567, Spanish explorers discovered silver ore and founded Santa Bárbara at the foot of the Sierra Madre Occidental, in the territory of the Conchos Indians.
In 1598, Juan de Oñate led the first caravan of settlers, leaving from the mission at San Bartolomé, near Santa Bárbara. They planned to establish a new province called Santa Fe de Nuevo México, so named because they thought they would find wealthy cultures similar to the Mexica (Aztecs) who originally inhabited Mexico City.
Oñate took a shorter route than earlier expeditions, heading due north from Santa Bárbara. The caravan was able to find water from the many tributaries of the Rio Conchos until they passed the site of present-day Chihuahua.
Even after the settlement of New Mexico, this area remained isolated and sparsely populated until the discovery of silver at Parral in 1629. By the 1640s, Parral was the most important population center of Nueva Vizcaya.

City of Chihuahua

The city of Chihuahua was founded in 1709. The location was chosen because it is the intersection of the rivers Chuviscar and Sacramento. It was also the midpoint between El Paso del Norte and Parral.
The Chihuahuan Desert between Chihuahua and El Paso del Norte was a major challenge for travelers on the Camino Real due to the scarcity of permanent sources of water. Many of Oñate's party were near death by the time they finally reached El Paso del Norte.
With the settlement of Chihuahua, yearly caravans to New Mexico were established, breaking much of the isolation of the region.
Chihuahua became a center of economic power in the 1700s, controlling much of the trade to Santa Fe. After the Mexican War of Independence, trade with the US was opened along the Santa Fe Trail to Missouri, and Chihuahua became a major destination for American traders traveling south from Santa Fe.

City of El Paso del Norte

El Paso del Norte, the predecessor of El Paso and Juárez, was important for two geographical reasons: it was the riverine oasis at the end of the stretch of desert separating it from Chihuahua, and it was the site of the most important crossing of the Rio Grande.
Here, on April 30, 1598, Oñate ceremonially took possession of the entire territory drained by the Rio Grande.
In 1659, Fray García de San Francisco founded Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe Mission, the oldest structure in the area still standing in Juárez. Heading north from El Paso, the Camino Real generally followed the Río Grande, a reliable source of water and a mostly level and unobstructed route.
In 1680, El Paso del Norte became a place of refuge for the Spanish colonists driven from New Mexico by the Pueblo rebellion. From here, they regrouped and eventually reoccupied the province.
The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established the Rio Grande as the border between Mexico and the United States, separating the settlements on the north bank from those on the south.

Paraje San Diego

Along the Camino Real, travelers stopped at parajes (rest stops) to get water, trade for food, rest, etc. Sometimes they stopped at actual towns, while other stops were often in the middle of nowhere. The one-day travel between parajes was known as a jornada.
Paraje San Diego was particularly important because it was the final opportunity for travelers to water their stock and prepare their caravans before entering the desolate Jornada del Muerto.
The Jornada del Muerto was a dreaded 90-mile waterless shortcut bypassing the 120-mile long westward bend of the Rio Grande. Following the river in this region was treacherous, with deep arroyos, canyons, and quicksand, slowing travel considerably, but the Jornada del Muerto presented its own challenges.
When Oñate’s group first took this shortcut, their water reserves reached a dangerous low. Luckily, they were saved when a dog discovered pools of rainwater. They named the campsite Paraje del Perrillo (the Camp of the Little Dog), in the area now known as Point of Rocks.

Paraje Fra Cristóbal

Paraje Fra Cristóbal was another important stop because it was the point at which travelers returned to the river after the dreaded Jornada del Muerto.
The paraje was named for Friar Cristóbal de Salazar, a member of Oñate's 1598 expedition; his fellow travelers said that the mountain range to the east resembled the friar’s profile.
There are many stories concerning how the Jornada del Muerto got its name, but the first use of the name is well documented in the late 1600s. In August 1680, the Pueblo Revolt forced the Spanish to leave New Mexico, and 2,520 refugees congregated at Paraje Fra Cristóbal. Most were already suffering from exposure, starvation, and sickness, but they had to continue 120 miles south to El Paso del Norte.
On September 14, 1680, they entered the desert passage for what turned into a grueling nine-day deadly march. More than 500 perished on the trail. Governor Antonio de Otermin called it the Jornada del Muerto –“Journey of Death.”

Socorro Mission

The Socorro Mission, founded in 1626 near the Piro Pueblo of Pilabo, was largely cut off from the main route of the Camino Real because it was on the opposite side of the river. A west branch was formed by fording the river at Valverde.
Until the time of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, New Mexico contained only scattered missions and ranches along the Rio Grande, and one civil settlement at Santa Fe. There were only about 2,900 Spanish settlers in the entire province at that time.
By the end of 1680, Socorro and the region from La Joya to El Paso were completely abandoned and remained so for another 100 years because of the Apache threat. Finally, in 1800, the area was opened again. By 1816, the mission was rebuilt and the west bank El Camino Real was again in use.
In 1862, Socorro was occupied by the Confederate Army, and southern New Mexico briefly became part of the Arizona Confederate Territory.

City of Alburquerque

La Villa de Alburquerque was founded in 1706 but didn’t experience much growth until after the opening of the Santa Fe Trail. The original church, built on the west side of the plaza, collapsed in 1792. San Felipe de Neri Church was built in 1793.
The Middle Rio Grande was a rich agricultural region, with clusters of families scattered throughout the valley.
The city’s economy for the first half of the 1800s was based on sheep-herding; New Mexico was the largest sheep producer in the US when it was annexed in 1848. Weaving became as important as farming and stock raising.
The Mexican period (1821-1847) was a time of dramatic change for Albuquerque. Prominent families took advantage of the Santa Fe Trail trade opportunities, buying goods from the American traders without having to pay Mexican import tariffs.
In 1846, US troops established a small post there, boosting the city’s economy. In 1862, the city was briefly occupied by Confederate forces in the American Civil War.

City of Santa Fe

Oñate established his capital at Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan de los Caballeros) in 1598. The next year, he moved the capital across the river and renamed it San Gabriel. This settlement represented the northernmost colony in the Spanish empire.
In 1606, Oñate was recalled to Mexico to be tried for mistreatment of the colonists and the native peoples.
In 1607, New Mexico's second Spanish governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, founded La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís. In 1610, he designated it as the capital of the province, making it the oldest state capital in the US.
The Santa Fe area was originally occupied by indigenous people, sometime after 900 CE. This Pueblo group built homes around the site of today's plaza and spread for half a mile to the south and west; the village was called Ogapoge.
In 1821, a Missouri trader named William Becknell reached Santa Fe by an overland route that became the Santa Fe Trail. It was the first trade route connecting Independent Mexico with the US.