There are four primary groups that lived in the SR region: the Anasazi (Pueblo Indians), Apache, Navajo, and the Utes. The Pueblo Indians and their Anasazi ancestors lived in Northern NM, while the Apache and Navajo lived throughout the southern half of the Southern Rockies and often clashed with each other and the Pueblos. The Ute tribe lived in the northern half of the Southern Rockies (as well as southern Wyoming and Utah). All four tribes are rich in history and their culture is an integral part of the story of the Southern Rockies.

Native American History in New Mexico

Approximately 10,000 years ago, the Folsom Paleo-Indians roamed the Southern Rockies, leaving behind bison bones and fluted projectile points that remained undiscovered until the early 1900s. The river valleys west of their hunting grounds later became the base of the Anasazi in the SR region.

A people rich in culture, the 7,000-year-old Anasazi are the ancestors of today's Pueblo Indians. During their long history, the Anasazi evolved from a nomadic to a sedentary culture and existence. At first hunter-gatherers, in time the Anasazi began raising maize and other crops. They also produced skillfully woven baskets. By 700 AD, the Anasazi were building pueblos, or villages, along with pottery marked by elaborate black-on-white designs. Their villages, built at the top of mesas or in hollowed-out natural caves at the base of canyons, included multiple-room dwellings and complex apartment structures of stone or adobe. Despite their successful culture, the Anasazi way of life declined in the 1300s, probably because of drought and intertribal warfare. Today, Pueblo descendants of the Anasazi still live largely traditional lives in the American Southwest, farming the land, weaving baskets, and making pottery. Anasazi (from a Navajo Indian word meaning "the ancient ones") is the term archaeologists use to denote the cultures of the prehistoric Basket Makers and the Pueblo Indians of North America. The Anasazi built the numerous communal dwellings, or pueblos, many now in ruins, on the high plateau of the southwestern United States. The oldest remains are in the Four Corners region, where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet. At the time of its greatest extent, the Anasazi culture was spread over most of New Mexico, northern Arizona, southwestern Colorado, and much of Utah. This is a region comparable in size to modern France.

Sometime between A.D. 1130 and 1180, the Anasazi evolved into today's Pueblo Indians, so named by early Spanish explorers because they lived in sedentary communities much like the villages, or pueblos, of home (versus the nomadic Apache and Navajo).

Pueblo culture developed directly out of the Anasazi and continued the same basic mode of life, elaborated with inventions and enriched by other cultures. Pueblo people have traditionally made their living by farming, hunting, and trading. They developed and adapted farming and irrigation methods in the dry desert region to support crops of corn, beans, and squash, and cotton for fabric.

Around 1200 to 1400, a gradual abandonment of Pueblo lands began to take place. This may have been due in part to raids by other tribes, in part to quarrels among the Pueblo, and in part to a prolonged drought from 1276 to 1299 that caused famine. The people were forced to migrate to places with a better water supply. These areas included the drainage area of the Rio Grande in New Mexico, northeastern Arizona, and western New Mexico.

From the north, the latest-arriving Indians eventually burst onto the scene in the 1600’s - the Athapascans, which divided into two related groups: Apache and Navajo. As the tribes sorted out territorial differences through trading and raiding, the Spanish had arrived. The most successful expedition through the region by the Spanish was engineered by Don Juan de Oñate.

The Spanish occupation resulted in a triple domination of the Indians, with Spanish priests converting Indians, settlers pouring into the remote colony, and the presence of Spanish soldiers. However, the priests’ economic tribute system literally robbed and enslaved the Indians, leading to great unrest. In 1680, led by Taos Pueblo, the Indians revolted, killing many of the 3,500 settlers strung out from Santa Cruz to Socorro and driving the rest south to El Paso.

While the Spanish were gone, Utes, Navajos and Apaches harassed the Pueblos, some of whom now allied themselves with the Spanish. Meanwhile, the once-fierce Apaches, who had learned corn planting and homebuilding from the Pueblos, were driven south by invading Comanches, who terrorized the region until the Treaty of 1786.

Ute Indians

The presence of the Spanish and the mixing of the culture resulted in NM’s current “mestizo” culture, or mixed heritage, much like most of Latin America.

Two decades later railroads were constructed, forever changing New Mexico. Commerce improved, but under the U.S. legal system, dishonest lawyers robbed many natives of land they had held for centuries.

Despite injustices, New Mexicans remained patriotically committed to the United States. In 1898, Teddy Roosevelt recruited his "Rough Riders" from New Mexico, many from Las Vegas. During World War II, two New Mexico regiments endured the Bataan Death March in the Philippines. Navajo and other Indian "code talkers" also used their native languages to help confuse the Japanese.

Today, thanks to dams constructed during the Depression, dairies thrive where Comanches once raided Apache land. The lush Mesilla Valley produces alfalfa hay, pecans, onions and New Mexico's staple, the chile. But with agriculture and a growing population demanding more water, it has become an increasingly scarce resource in New Mexico.