In New Mexico—once a Spanish colony, then part of Mexico—Pueblo Indians and descendants of Spanish- and Mexican-era settlers still think of themselves as distinct peoples, each with a dynamic history. At the core of these persistent cultural identities is each group's historical relationship to the others and to the land, a connection that changed dramatically when the United States wrested control of the region from Mexico in 1848.

This extensive volume presents New Mexico history from its prehistoric beginnings to the present in essays and articles by fifty prominent historians and scholars representing various disciplines including history, anthropology, Native American studies, and Chicano studies. Contributors include Rick Hendricks, John L. Kessell, Peter Iverson, Rina Swentzell, Sylvia Rodriguez, William deBuys, Robert J. Tórrez, Malcolm Ebright, Herman Agoyo, and Paula Gunn Allen, among many others.

New Mexico's Spanish legacy has informed the cultural traditions of one of the last states to join the union for more than four hundred years, or before the alluring capital of Santa Fe was founded in 1610. The fame the region gained from artist Georgia O'Keefe, writers Lew Wallace and D.H. Lawrence and pistolero Billy the Kid has made New Mexico an international tourist destination. But the Spanish annals also have enriched the Land of Enchantment with the factual stories of a superhero knight, the greatest queen in history, a saintly gent whose coffin periodically rises from the depths of the earth and a mysterious ancient map. Join author Ray John de Aragón as he reveals hidden treasure full of suspense and intrigue.

Although their total numbers in New Mexico were never large, blacks arrived with Spanish explorers and settlers and played active roles in the history of the territory and state. Here, Bruce Glasrud assembles the best information available on the themes, events, and personages of black New Mexico history. The contributors portray the blacks who accompanied Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado and de Vargas and recount their interactions with Native Americans in colonial New Mexico. Chapters on the territorial period examine black trappers and traders as well as review the issue of slavery in the territory and the blacks who accompanied Confederate troops and fought in the Union army during the Civil War in New Mexico. Eventually blacks worked on farms and ranches, in mines, and on railroads as well as in the military, seeking freedom and opportunity in New Mexico’s wide open spaces. A number of black towns were established in rural areas. Lacking political power because they represented such a small percentage of New Mexico’s population, blacks relied largely on their own resources and networks, particularly churches and schools.

Highly regarded by Native Americans as well as Anglo and Hispanic historians, Sando's book covers the origins and development of Pueblo civilization, the Spanish conquest, the Pueblo Revolt, the influence of the United States government in Pueblo history, and the issues of land and water rights so vital to the survival of Pueblo people today.

Pull on the uncanny threads from the legendary tapestry of New Mexico's Native American heritage. Ancient Indian history and present Native American cultures are woven together in the Land of Enchantment. The threads of these tales stretch back to Mimbres burial grounds and prehistoric trade routes. Stories and traditions tie the land to its people, in spite of the cycles of slaughter and theft that have threatened to pluck them apart. Descend into the kivas of Chaco Canyon or seek out the high mountains where the clouds mark the stones. From legends of the Salt Woman to the legacy of the Ghost Dance, Ray John de Aragon examines the mysteries of the mesas.

For more than four hundred years in New Mexico, Pueblo Indians and Spaniards have lived “together yet apart.” Now the preeminent historian of that region’s colonial past offers a fresh, balanced look at the origins of a precarious relationship. John L. Kessell has written the first narrative history devoted to the tumultuous seventeenth century in New Mexico. Setting aside stereotypes of a Native American Eden and the Black Legend of Spanish cruelty, he paints an evenhanded picture of a tense but interwoven coexistence. Beginning with the first permanent Spanish settlement among the Pueblos of the Rio Grande in 1598, he proposes a set of relations more complicated than previous accounts envisioned and then reinterprets the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and the Spanish reconquest in the 1690s. Kessell clearly describes the Pueblo world encountered by Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate and portrays important but lesser-known Indian partisans, all while weaving analysis and interpretation into the flow of life in seventeenth-century New Mexico. Brimming with new insights embedded in an engaging narrative, Kessell’s work presents a clearer picture than ever before of events leading to the Pueblo Revolt. Pueblos, Spaniards, and the Kingdom of New Mexico is the definitive account of a volatile era.