Epilogue: Reflections and Refractions from the Southwest Borderlands

Abstract

Some nine miles downstream from where I write in Santa Fe, New Mexico, there thrives a “living history” museum known as El Rancho de Las Golondrinas (The Ranch of the Swallows). Its core buildings date from 1710, when the rancho served as a paraje, or resting place, along el camino real de tierra adentro (the royal road of the interior lands) that connected Mexico City to its far distant colonial settlements in the province of Nuevo Mexico. Established by Miguel Vega y Coca, the rancho flourished and grew with the increase in trade through the era of the Bourbon Reforms and, especially, after the 1821 opening of the St. Louis to Chihuahua “Santa Fe Trail” that linked American and Mexican producers and consumers in a vibrant international trade.KeywordsRoyal RoadImage CourtesyAtlantic WorldChattel SlaveryHuman BondageThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.