by RoseMary Diaz
Santa Fe’s history as the oldest capital city in the United States stretches back to 1610, when conquistador Don Pedro de Peralta established it as the capital of the Spanish “Kingdom of New Mexico.” Named at the time La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis (“The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi”), it is also one of the oldest seats of religious government in the Americas.
Going back even further, before the region was occupied by Spanish colonialists, the town had already been a center of trade and commerce for the region’s Indigenous people for centuries. Here in what is now the city’s historic plaza, tribesmen of the area—which, in addition to the Tewa, included the Tiwa and Towa Indians—gathered to barter with those from as far away as South America and Canada for the raw materials needed in the traditional arts of the Southwest as we know them today: basketry, wood carving, pottery, and, later, with the arrival of the Spanish, silversmithing and weaving.
Over time, these art forms evolved from the production of practical, everyday objects into the fine art collectibles that now comprise much of its commercial art market. As this happened, Santa Fe became synonymous with many of these cultural arts. A burgeoning tourist market developed, supported by the arrival of the railroad and an influx of tourists from the East, which contributed to the city’s evolution into an international art and craft mecca.