Rare Spanish Documents to Make U.S. Debut in Santa Fe

March 23, 2010 - PRLog -- The New Mexico History Museum and Department of Cultural Affairs proudly announce that El Archivo General de Indias (the General Archive of the Indies) in Seville, Spain, has chosen Santa Fe for the American debut of El Hilo de la Memoria  (“The Threads of Memory”) an exhibit of rare documents, illustrations and maps detailing Spain’s early presence in North America.

The exhibit – nearly 140 documents spanning Ponce de León’s first contact in Florida through New Mexico’s incorporation as a U.S. Territory – will premiere in the museum’s Albert and Ethel Herzstein Gallery from Oct. 17, 2010, to Jan. 9, 2011, before traveling to the El Paso Museum of History and the Historic New Orleans Collection. The exhibition is sponsored by the Fundación Rafael del Pino.

“As Santa Fe celebrates its 400th anniversary this year, this exhibit underscores a part of American history too often overlooked in our classrooms,” said Dr. Frances Levine, director of the New Mexico History Museum. “Before Jamestown was settled and long before Western Expansion defined us, Spanish explorers began documenting and colonizing the nation. They gave Europeans some of their first glimpses of a far-away land and planted the seeds of a culture that flourishes today.”

“It is fitting that this singular and historically significant exhibition from Spain debut in New Mexico’s high-profile new state History Museum,” said Department of Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman.  “What better place to further understand Spain’s impact in North America than in the shadow of the venerable Palace of the Governors, where much of Spain’s influence in our nation began.”

Most of the documents have never been seen in North America. Their journey to Santa Fe began when Tom Aageson, director of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, was visiting museums in Spain in 2008 as a guest of the Spanish Embassy. After seeing El Hilo, he urged Dr. Levine to see it, too. Equally impressed, she and Secretary Ashman joined Aageson in conversations with Spanish officials, who were considering which U.S. museums to display the exhibit and liked the idea of staging it during Santa Fe’s 400th anniversary celebration.

“This is truly a national story,” Aageson said. “The University of New Mexico’s library only has copies of these documents, and a retired librarian told me she could not believe they were releasing the originals from Spain.”

James T. Ortiz, a trustee of the foundation and a direct descendant of Beatriz Ortiz, who came to Spain’s far northern colony from Mexico City in 1598, said the exhibit holds special meaning for his family.

“Over our 14 generations, few family members had the chance to return to Old Spain or were even aware that such a collection existed,” he said. “To be able to spend time with so much of our ancestors’ history is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Of all the recorded history in all of the world and in all of the museums, archives and national vaults, none has the significance for my family as this singular exhibition.”

Along with the General Archive of the Indies, the exhibit is supported by the Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior (SEACEX), in collaboration with Spain’s Ministries for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation and Culture.

The exhibit, which will be presented in Spanish and English and includes a newly published catalogue, features such documents as Pedro de Peralta’s orders to establish Santa Fe, a letter signed by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado detailing his travels through the Tiguex province, and documents that detail the aid given by Spain to the United States during the Revolutionary. A small illustration of a buffalo, drawn in 1598 by Vicente Zaldivar, introduced Europeans to an animal whose herds then covered hundreds of miles.

Media contact: Kate Nelson
Marketing Manager
New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors
(505) 476-1141
(505) 554-5722 (cell)
kate.nelson@state.nm.us
http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/

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About New Mexico History Museum: The New Mexico History Museum is the newest addition to a campus that includes the Palace of the Governors, the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States; Fray Angélico Chávez History Library; Palace of the Governors Photo Archives; the Press at the Palace of the Governors; and the Native American Artisans Program. The New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors is a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs. For more information, visit www.nmhistorymuseum.org.