Historian Marc Simmons is a founder and the first president of the Santa Fe Trail Association. His forty-nine books include six about the Trail and The Last Conquistador: Juan de Oñate and the Settling of the Far Southwest.
The history of hostile relations between New Mexico's Native Americans and their Hispanic conquerors is the subtext to this biography of the life of Onate, a Mexican of Basque descent who spent the years 1598 to 1607 exploring the Southwest from his colonial base in San Gabriel, just north of today's Santa Fe. Though he and his colonists owed their survival to the food and shelter provided by the Pueblo Indians, they were unable to coexist with other tribes, slaughtering many Native Americans. Onate achieved neither his goal of finding silver mines nor of gaining Christian converts. He ultimately left in disgrace. Historian Simmons rarely questions Onate's assumptions that the Native Americans owed him their land and their lives. His is a straightforward historical narrative occasionally relieved by insights into the Spanish character. No other recent or easily accessible biographies exist for this controversial figure, still known in some circles as the Father of New Mexico. Recommended for large collections where Southwest history or explorers are a priority.-- Keddy Ann Outlaw, Har ris Cty. P.L., Houston
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