Building An Empire: The Spanish Frontier

Spanish influence on the American Southwest began long before the 1776 journey of Dominguez and Escalante. Spanish conquistadors explored the region in search of gold and silver as early as 1540, and Santa Fe, the capital of New Spain's northern province of New Mexico, was founded in 1610. As the English and French frontiers along the Atlantic seaboard expanded west across the Appalachian Mountains, the Spanish frontier moved north into the American Southwest. Before 1776, countless expeditions marched north from Santa Fe into northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, searching for precious minerals, spreading Christianity, and pursuing runaway Indian slaves from New Mexican settlements. Eleven years before Dominguez and Escalante camped on the river bank just east of this site, Don Juan Maria de Rivera explored as far north as the confluence of the Gunnison and Uncompahgre Rivers. From that point west until their return to New Mexico, Dominguez and Escalante were the first explorers of European ancestry to visit the land and record their discoveries. Although they failed in their primary goal of establishing a route to California, Father Escalante's detailed diary provided a wealth of information and a vivid description of the American Southwest in 1776, naming many rivers, mountains, and other prominent geographical features. Don Bernardo Maria y Pacheco's map of the explored region also helped cement Spanish land claims to the territory. Fathers Dominguez and Escalante made their 2,000-mile journey without firing a shot or incurring the wrath of the Indian people they encountered, and their message of Christianity was well received among the Utes of Grand Mesa and Utah Valley. Their 1776 journey shows that even as the world focused on the Thirteen Colonies in revolt, another nation was also struggling to expand its empire in the New World.

Colorado · United States