The Old Spanish Trail () is a historic trade route that connected the Nuevo México settlements of (or near) Santa Fe with those of Los Angeles and the rest of Alta California. Approximately long, the trail ran through areas of high mountains, arid deserts, and deep canyons. It is considered one of the most arduous of all trade routes ever established in the United States. Explored, in part, by Spanish explorers as early as the late 16th century, the trail was extensively used by traders with pack trains from about 1830 until the mid-1850s. The area was part of Mexico from Mexican independence in 1821 to the Mexican Cession to the United States in 1848.
The name of the trail comes from the publication of John C. Frémont's Report of his 1844 journey (which crossed into Mexico) for the U.S. Topographical Corps, guided by Kit Carson, from California to New Mexico. The name acknowledges that parts of the trail had been known and used by the Spanish since the 16th century.History of The Old Spanish Trail MuseumTrail.org, San Luis Valley Museum Association. Retrieved on 2008-08-05.Old Spanish Trail Association. Retrieved on 2008-08-05 Frémont's report identified a trail that had already been used for about 15 years. The trail is important to New Mexico history because it established an arduous but usable trade route with California.
In 2002 this trail was designated by Congress as part of the National Trails System as Old Spanish National Historic Trail.
History The trail is a combination of a network of trails first established by indigenous people and later used by Spanish explorers, trappers, and traders with the Ute and other indigenous tribes. The eastern parts of what became called the Old Spanish Trail, including southwest Colorado and southeast Utah, were explored by Juan Maria de Rivera in 1765. Franciscan missionaries Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante unsuccessfully attempted the trip to California, which was just being settled, leaving Santa Fe in 1776 and making it to the Great Basin near Utah Lake before returning via the Arizona Strip. Other expeditions, under another Franciscan missionary, Francisco Garcés, and Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, explored and traded in the southern part of the region. They found shorter and less arduous routes through the mountains and deserts that connected Sonora to New Mexico and California, but these did not become part of the Old Spanish Trail, with the exception of some of the paths through the Mojave Desert. The Mohave Trail was first traveled by Garcés from the Mohave villages on the Colorado River westward across the Mojave Desert, between desert springs, until he turned northwestward to the Old Tejon Pass into the San Joaquin Valley, looking for a route to Monterey. Garcés returned to the Colorado River by following the whole length of the Mohave Trail from the San Bernardino Valley, over the San Bernardino Mountains at Monument Peak, down the Mojave River and eastward to the Colorado River. This same trail was used by the first Americans to reach California by land, via the expedition led by Jedediah Smith in November 1826.Smith, Jedediah S., [Harrison G. Rogers], and George R. Brooks (ed.). The Southwest Expedition of Jedediah S. Smith: His Personal Account of the Journey to California, 1826–1827. Lincoln and London, University of Nebraska Press, 1989. The Mojave desert section of the Mohave Trail is now a 4WD trail called the Mojave Road.
A route linking New Mexico to California, combining information from many explorers, was opened in 1829-30 when Santa Fe merchant Antonio Armijo led a trade party of 60 men and a caravan of mules to Alta California. Armijo's group blazed a trade route using a network of indigenous routes, incorporating parts of Jedediah Smith's routes of 1826 and 1827, and Rafael Rivera's route of 1828 to the San Gabriel Mission through the Mojave along the Mojave River. Armijo documented his route in a report to the governor, and this was published by the Mexican government in June 1830.Diario que formo yo el ciudando Antonio Armijo, como comandante, para el descubrimiento del camino para el punto de las Californias, Official Register of the Government the United States of Mexico, 1830, pp. 205–206 from Old Spanish Trail Association website, oldspanishtrail.org accessed February 14, 2016
After this date, traders generally used the trail for a single, annual round trip.Warren, Elizabeth von Till. "The Old Spanish National Historic Trail." Old Spanish Trail Association. Reproduced from Pathways Across America. (Summer 2004) by the Partnership for the National Trail System. Word spread about Armijo's successful trade expedition, and some commerce began between Santa Fe and Los Angeles. However, in 1830, due to resumed hostilities with the Navajo, the Armijo route west to the Colorado River Crossing of the Fathers was not practical. A new route north of the river had to be found, which used the trails of the fur traders and trappers of New Mexico through the lands of the Ute. This route ran northwest to the Colorado and Green rivers, then crossed over to the Sevier River, which it followed until crossing westward over mountains to the vicinity of Parowan, Utah. It passed southward to the Santa Clara River, linking up with Armijo's route to California.
This commerce usually consisted of one mule pack train from Santa Fe with 20 to 200 members, with roughly twice as many mules, bringing New Mexican goods hand-woven by Indians, such as serapes and blankets, to California. California had many horses and mules, many growing wild, with no local market, which were readily traded for hand-woven Indian products. Usually two blankets were traded for one horse; more blankets were usually required for a mule, which were considered hardier. California had almost no wool-processing industry and few weavers, so woven products were a welcome commodity. The trading party usually left New Mexico in early November to take advantage of winter rains to cross the deserts on the trail and would arrive in California in early February. The return party would usually leave California for New Mexico in early April to get over the trail before the water holes dried up and the melting snow raised the rivers too high. The return party often drove several hundred to a few thousand horses and mules.
Low-scale emigration from New Mexico to California used parts of the trail in the late 1830s when the trapping trade began to die. New Mexicans migrated to settle in Alta California by this route: some first settled in Politana then established the twin settlements of Agua Mansa and La Placita on the Santa Ana River the first towns in what became San Bernardino and Riverside counties. The family of Antonio Armijo moved to Alta California, where his father acquired the Rancho Tolenas. A number of Americans, most naturalized Mexican citizens in New Mexico, and formerly in the California trade over the Old Spanish Trail or in the fur trade, settled in Alta California. Several became influential residents in later years, such as Louis Rubidoux, John A. Rowland, William Workman, Benjamin Davis Wilson, and William Wolfskill.
The trail was also used for illicit purposes. Some raiders attacked the California ranchos for horses and captives to sell in the extensive Indian slave trade. Mexicans, ex-trappers and Indian tribes, primarily the Utes, all participated in the horse raiding. With allies, Walkara was known to steal hundreds to thousands of horses in a single raid. Native Americans along the route were at risk of being taken captive, especially the women and children of the Paiute, who were sold as domestic servants to Mexican ranchers and other settlers in both California and New Mexico. Mexican traders and Indian raiding parties both participated in this slave trade. The consequences of this human trafficking had a long-standing effect for those who lived along the trail, even after the trail was no longer in use. Intermittent Indian warfare along the trail often resulted from such slave raids by unscrupulous traders and raiding Indians.
John C. Frémont, "The Great Pathfinder", took the route, guided by Kit Carson, in 1844 and named it in his report published in 1845. The New Mexico-California trade continued until the mid-1850s, when a shift to the use of freight wagons and the development of wagon trails made the old pack trail route obsolete. By 1846 both New Mexico and California had been annexed as U.S. territories following its victory in the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848. After 1848 numerous Mormon immigrants began settling in Utah, Nevada, and California all along the trail, affecting both trade interests and tolerance for the slavery of American Natives.
Place names used in this article refer to present-day states and communities. Few (if any) settlements existed along the trail, except in the coastal plains of Alta California, before 1850, although many of the geologic features along the Trail retain their Spanish designations.
Description of the trail route
Armijo Route
The Armijo Route of the Old Spanish Trail was established by an expedition led by Antonio Armijo in 1829–1830. Leaving Abiquiu on November 7, 1829, Armijo's expedition traveled a route northwest and west of Santa Fe, following the Chama River and the Puerco River. He crossed to the San Juan River basin. From the San Juan, they entered the Four Corners area, and passed north of the Carrizo Mountains to Church Rock, east of present-day Kayenta. The trail ran to Marsh Pass and north through Tsegi Canyon into canyon country. At the Colorado River (then called the Rio Grande), the travelers forded at the Crossing of the Fathers above present-day Glen Canyon Dam.
Continuing west to Pipe Spring and on to Virgin River above present-day St. George, Utah, the expedition followed the Virgin to the mouth of the Santa Clara River, which they followed up to the vicinity of the Shivwits Reservation. They crossed southward over the Beaver Dam Mountains, at Utah Hill Summit to the Virgin River again, which they followed for three days down to the Colorado River. They traveled west parallel to the river, over difficult terrain in the Black Mountains, to avoid the deep narrow gorge of Boulder Canyon, to the riverside oases of Callville Wash and Las Vegas Wash. Armijo waited there for his scouts to return, especially Rivera who had visited the Mohave villages downriver before. Rivera returned, having recognized the Mohave Trail that led westward to Southern California. Perhaps because the Mohave had been antagonistic to parties of mountain men in recent years, or to save time, Armijo attempted a short cut route southwest to the mouth of the Mojave River.
From Las Vegas Wash on the Colorado River, Armijo's expedition passed southwestward to Eldorado Dry Lake in Eldorado Valley and the spring at Goodsprings Valley, then through Wilson Pass, across Mesquite Valley and California Valley, through what became known as Emigrant Pass to Resting Springs, then along the Amargosa River from near Tecopa to Salt Spring. From Salt Spring they crossed a two-day-long waterless stretch up Salt Creek to Laguna del Milagro ("Lake of the Miracle") (probably Silver Lake), then to Ojito del Malpais ("little spring of the badlands") on Soda Lake. They had another waterless day beyond Soda Lake, where they reached the Mojave River, only intermittently dependable for potable water, and the Mohave Trail leading up river.Warren, Elizbeth von Till (1974). "Armijo's Trace Revisited: A New Interpretation of the Impact of the Antonio Armijo Route of 1829–1830 on the Development of the Old Spanish Trail." (MA thesis). Las Vegas, Nevada: University of Nevada.