Established on the site of an abandoned Indian pueblo, Abiquiú became in the mid-18th century a settlement of Spaniards and genizaros, Hispanicized Indians. In 1776, explorers Fray Francisco Atanacio Dominguez and Fray Silvestre Vélez de Escalante visited here. In 1830, the settlement became one of the stops on the Spanish Trail, which linked Santa Fe with Los Angeles, California.