As It Fades
Pecos National Historic Park, New Mexico
The Pecos Valley is a crossroads of history, traversed down through the centuries by Ancestral Pueblo and Plains Indians, Spanish colonists and missionaries, Mexican, Confederate and Union armies, Santa Fe Trail settlers and adventurers, and tourists following the railroad and eventually nearby Historic Route 66.
Here at Pecos, the Park Service has preserved two historic structures symbolizing the clash of cultures from the Spanish colonial period; the ruins of the Pecos Pueblo village with their kivas and multi-story structures; and seen here in this photo, the slowly fading Spanish Mission Church from 1717.
Long before Spanish explorers entered North America, Pecos Pueblo Village was the juncture of trade between Rio Grande Valley Indians and hunting tribes of the buffalo plains. Pueblo inhabitants were middlemen, traders and consumers of the goods from different cultures on either side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. They were economically successful and comfortable with the customs of multiple peoples.
Then throughout the 17th Century, conquistadors and settlers drastically changed their history. The Pueblo People succumbed to foreign diseases and oppression and were gradually displaced. But the presence of settlers would fade from local history as well, their descendants eventually moving on along the Santa Fe Trail. Both village and church were abandoned.
Time is reclaiming them; both are slowly fading into obscure history.
Title from the song, As It Fades
*Press L or left click on the photo for best viewing.
Link to ~My best photos~
*** All my photos are © All Rights Reserved. ***
As It Fades
Pecos National Historic Park, New Mexico
The Pecos Valley is a crossroads of history, traversed down through the centuries by Ancestral Pueblo and Plains Indians, Spanish colonists and missionaries, Mexican, Confederate and Union armies, Santa Fe Trail settlers and adventurers, and tourists following the railroad and eventually nearby Historic Route 66.
Here at Pecos, the Park Service has preserved two historic structures symbolizing the clash of cultures from the Spanish colonial period; the ruins of the Pecos Pueblo village with their kivas and multi-story structures; and seen here in this photo, the slowly fading Spanish Mission Church from 1717.
Long before Spanish explorers entered North America, Pecos Pueblo Village was the juncture of trade between Rio Grande Valley Indians and hunting tribes of the buffalo plains. Pueblo inhabitants were middlemen, traders and consumers of the goods from different cultures on either side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. They were economically successful and comfortable with the customs of multiple peoples.
Then throughout the 17th Century, conquistadors and settlers drastically changed their history. The Pueblo People succumbed to foreign diseases and oppression and were gradually displaced. But the presence of settlers would fade from local history as well, their descendants eventually moving on along the Santa Fe Trail. Both village and church were abandoned.
Time is reclaiming them; both are slowly fading into obscure history.
Title from the song, As It Fades
*Press L or left click on the photo for best viewing.
Link to ~My best photos~
*** All my photos are © All Rights Reserved. ***