The history of Albuquerque, New Mexico dates back up to 12,000 years, beginning with the presence of Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherers in the region. Gradually, these nomadic people adopted a more settled, agricultural lifestyle and began to build multi-story stone or adobe dwellings now known as pueblos by 750 CE. The Albuquerque area was settled by the Tiwa people beginning around 1250. By the 1500s, there were around 20 Tiwa pueblos along a stretch of the middle Rio Grande valley. The region was visited by Spanish conquistadores beginning with the expedition of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in 1540–41, and began to be settled by Spanish colonists after the expedition of Juan de Oñate in 1598. By 1680, 17 Spanish estancias were reported along the Camino Real in the Albuquerque area.
The settlers were driven out by the Pueblo Revolt in 1680. When they returned in 1692, they were able to re-settle the abandoned estancias. In 1706, the recently appointed governor of New Mexico, Francisco Cuervo y Valdés, officially designated the community as a royally chartered town and named it Alburquerque. The settlement remained small and dispersed throughout the 1700s, eventually coalescing into a series of plazas of which the largest was today's Old Town. Possession of the town, along with the rest of New Mexico, passed to Mexico in 1821 and then to the United States in 1846. These developments brought increased commerce and Albuquerque prospered as a trading hub and U.S. Army post.
In 1880 the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway reached Albuquerque, but the establishment of the depot some distance from the plaza led to the creation of a rival "New Town" that quickly outstripped the older community. New Town was dominated by recently arrived Anglo-Americans and European immigrants who modeled its buildings and institutions on those they remembered back home. Albuquerque soon resembled a typical small American city, and was incorporated in 1891. The city grew rapidly in the early 20th century, spurred in part by the tuberculosis treatment industry, and then even faster after World War II when it became a major scientific and military hub. Since the 1940s, the city has seen major urban sprawl with a focus on decentralized, auto-oriented development. As the city has continued to grow, officials have tried to encourage denser development, revitalization of the Downtown area, and improved transportation.
Native American presence
Archaeological sites in the Albuquerque area show evidence of Paleo-Indian cultures dating back up to 12,000 years, including Folsom points and mastodon remains found at Sandia Cave. Gradually, the nomadic hunter-gatherers who roamed the area began to adopt a more settled, agrarian lifestyle, coinciding with the introduction of cultivated maize from Mexico during the Early Basketmaker II Era (1500 BCE–50 CE). By 750 CE, these Ancestral Puebloan people had begun to build multi-story stone or adobe dwellings now known as pueblos.
The middle Rio Grande valley was settled by Puebloans, specifically the Tiwa people, beginning around 1250. By the 1500s, there were around 20 Tiwa pueblos along a stretch of river from present-day Algodones to the Rio Puerco confluence south of Belen. Of these, 12–13 were densely clustered near present-day Bernalillo and the remainder were spread out to the south. The Pueblo people left thousands of petroglyphs carved into the basalt cliffs west of the city, now preserved as Petroglyph National Monument.
The Navajo, Apache and Comanche peoples are also likely to have visited the Albuquerque area, as there is evidence of trade and cultural exchange between the different Native American groups going back centuries before European conquest.
Early colonists
European exploration of New Mexico began with the expedition of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado in 1540–41. A small party led by Hernando de Alvarado reached the central Rio Grande valley in September 1540, followed later by Coronado himself. The explorers called the area Tiguex Province after its Tiwa inhabitants. Alvarado described the province as a "broad valley planted with fields of maize and dotted with cottonwood groves. There are twelve pueblos, whose houses are built of mud and are two stories high." The Spanish were welcomed at first, but relations became more hostile after Coronado's men commandeered one of the Tiwa pueblos for their winter quarters, forcing the inhabitants out without any supplies. The conflict culminated in the Tiguex War, in which Coronado attacked and burned several of the Tiwa pueblos. The surviving inhabitants were forced to flee and only returned to their pueblos after Coronado had left in 1542.
The first colonizing expedition into New Mexico was led by Juan de Oñate in 1598, after which settlers began to trickle into the middle Rio Grande valley along the Camino Real. In the vicinity of modern-day Albuquerque, missions were established at Isleta Pueblo in 1613 and Sandia Pueblo in 1617. In 1630 the Tiwa province was reported as having a population of 7,000 living in 15–16 pueblos. Subsequently, the number of Native Americans dropped drastically due to famine, Apache raiding, and a severe smallpox epidemic in 1636–1641. By the 1640s the Tiwa population was concentrated into four major pueblos: Isleta, Sandia, Puaray, and Alameda. The population loss of the pueblos opened new territory to Spanish settlers, who established scattered estancias along the Rio Grande. By 1680, 17 estancias were reported in the Albuquerque area.
While the Native Americans had reluctantly accepted the Spanish presence at first, they grew increasingly resentful after decades of poor treatment. The Spanish demanded tribute from each Pueblo household in the form of corn and blankets or hides, often seizing the goods by force, and Native laborers were conscripted into all manner of projects, often on an extralegal, unpaid basis. Furthermore, the Franciscan missionaries outlawed the native religion and burned sacred artifacts. After years of famine, mistreatment, and unchecked Apache raiding, the Native Americans rose up in a coordinated attack, the Pueblo Revolt, in 1680. The revolt succeeded in driving the Spanish out of New Mexico for the next 12 years.
Founding of Alburquerque
The Spanish returned in 1692 and were able to recapture the territory without much resistance. Returning settlers established communities at Bernalillo and Atrisco in the late 1690s. In 1705, Francisco Cuervo y Valdés arrived in Santa Fe as the newly appointed governor of New Mexico. Eager to prove himself, Cuervo decided to establish a villa, or royally chartered town, in the Rio Abajo region. This would be only the fourth New Mexican town to hold the prestigious title, after Santa Fe, El Paso (now in Texas), and Santa Cruz de la Cañada.
Cuervo chose a good site on the Camino Real, near a ford of the river, and stationed a detachment of soldiers there in order to encourage settlers to move in. On April 23, 1706, he drafted a formal document declaring that he had founded La Villa de San Francisco Xavier de Alburquerque. The town was named after Cuervo's superior, Viceroy of New Spain Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 10th Duke of Alburquerque, with whom Cuervo clearly hoped to curry favor. In order to also honor the recently crowned King Philip V, colonial authorities had the name changed to San Felipe de Neri de Alburquerque. (The first "r" in Alburquerque was later dropped by early English-speaking visitors and this misspelling has persisted.)
The Spanish Laws of the Indies dictated that a villa should be a compact settlement organized around a plaza, with a minimum of 30 families. In his report, Cuervo asserted that the new villa had 35 families with 252 residents and that the plaza and streets had been laid out, houses built, and the church was finished, thereby meeting the requirements. However, it later emerged that many of these claims were exaggerated. According to depositions recorded during an official inquiry in 1712, there had only been 19 founding families, which together with the ten soldiers and their families numbered 129 citizens in total. Furthermore, rather than building a new town, the settlers had just re-inhabited old haciendas abandoned during the revolt. These houses were spread out over a distance of unlike the compact town Cuervo had described. Despite these findings, the villa's charter was never revoked.
Spanish and Mexican rule
The Albuquerque plaza evidently was still not finished at the time of the 1712 hearings, but eventually the settlers did lay out a real town. Like other Spanish colonial settlements, the villa consisted of a central plaza surrounded by houses, government offices, and a church. For much of the 18th century, the homes around the plaza were inhabited only on Sundays as the residents spent the rest of the week on their farms. It was not until the late 1700s that a permanent population was established at the plaza.
According to a 1776 report by Fray Atanasio Domínguez, the villa had 157 families with 763 total inhabitants. Domínguez also gave a brief description of the community:
Frequent Apache and Navajo raids compelled the settlers to consolidate their scattered dwellings into a series of outlying plazas, which were easier to defend. Upriver from the main plaza, these included Los Duranes, Los Candelarias, Los Griegos, Los Gallegos, Los Poblanos, and Los Ranchos. The Spanish census of 1790 lists 248 families for all seven plazas (84 at the main plaza) with a total population of 1,136. The range of occupations listed shows that most of the residents were involved in farming or sheep-herding, with few specialized trades. The census records show that most of the inhabitants were mestizos and that interracial marriages were common. The villa's population was estimated as 2,625 in 1810 and 4,075 in 1816.
In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain following the Mexican War of Independence. While change was slow to come to the remote province of New Mexico, one major effect was the opening of the region for the first time to American trade. Beginning in the 1820s, the Santa Fe Trail brought American goods and merchants to New Mexico in ever-increasing numbers. Albuquerque's location on the Camino Real also made it a stopover for traders traveling south to the Mexican interior. The Mexican census of 1827 gives a population of 2,547, and shows a more diverse range of occupations than in 1790, including merchants, craftsmen, and a teacher.
Territorial period In 1846, during the Mexican–American War, U.S. forces under Stephen W. Kearny entered New Mexico and were able to take control of the territory without resistance. Kearny marched into Albuquerque in September to raise the U.S. flag and administer an oath of allegiance to the local residents. Kearny's troops established a U.S. Army post near the plaza, which brought an influx of goods and people over the next twenty years. In general, the townspeople welcomed the American military presence, which stimulated the local economy and helped put an end to decades of Native American raiding. An account of the town was given by U.S. Attorney William W.H. Davis in 1853 as he traveled the territorial District Court circuit: