To the Royal Crown Restored

On 4 October 1693 don Diego de Vargas left El Paso with eight hundred settlers and soldiers to reoccupy New Mexico. His account of organizing the colonizing expedition, leading the march up the Rio Grande valley, and eventually conquering Santa Fe is presented in this volume, the third of six drawn from his reports.

Vargas's journal gives immediacy to the themes of reoccupation and pacification. Many of those he led into New Mexico were survivors of the Pueblo Revolt, and all, he noted, were now reduced to "abject poverty and nakedness." To organize the expedition, Vargas spent eight months in northern Mexico recruiting settlers and attempting to secure financing from the royal treasury.

When no funds were forthcoming, Vargas and the settlers nevertheless departed for Santa Fe before winter arrived. On their march north they survived by trading livestock for foodstuffs, and by the end of December they successfully reached the colonial capital and defeated the Pueblo Indians occupying it.

This documentary history in English translation is a key resource on New Mexico's cultural and political history. Its extensive annotation will be useful to genealogists as well.