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Onsite:
From a main east-west trail, dating from antiquity, rises the great sandstone promontory known at El Morro. Over the centuries, those who traveled this trail stopped to camp at the shaded oasis beneath these cliffs.
These travelers left the carved evidence of their passing: symbols, names, dates, and fragments of their stories that register the cultures and history intermingled on the rock. The symbols and pictures left behind communicate both the mundane and the spiritual.
Activities include hiking, camping, picnicking, exploring the visitor center and examining Inscription Rock.
Nearby:
The Zuni Indians descended from desert hunter-gatherers. About 2,000 years ago they joined in a general shift toward the cultivation of crops that gave birth to the Southwest's Pueblo culture. In time, small villages appeared along the streams of this arid land. As more centuries passed the Puebloans built large multi-storied towns laid out around plazas.
Atsinna Ruins atop El Morro dates from the time of larger towns. Archeological evidence shows that Atsinna and nearby massive pueblos were built about the same time - in the late 1200s. After only 75 years they were abandoned. (Perhaps they were meant to be only temporary: unusual heat and drought may have driven the Zuni from the river valleys to the high ground around El Morro.)
The Spaniards, New World Colonizers
The second generation of conquistadors - who missed the Mexican conquest - pursued a medieval myth of golden cities to be found at a place called Cibola. Shipwrecked soldiers wandering from Texas through New Spain's northern deserts heard tales of Indians living in cities yet farther north. If this was Cibola, it meant a chance to relive the glories and riches of Aztec Mexico.
For the explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and those he led in 1540, the Zuni and other Pueblo Indian towns proved disappointing. These Pueblo Indians lived in solid towns, pueblos built of masonry or adobe. They gained a sufficiency from their agriculture. But their riches were intangible - songs and ceremonies that kept them in harmony with the spirit world and with each other - not the gold of the Aztec or Inca.
Another expedition, sent to search for the two friars, resulted in the first historical record of El Morro. Antonio de Espejo headed north to the Rio Grande pueblos, where he confirmed that the Franciscans had been killed. Then he explored westerly toward Zuni. On March 11, 1583, he recorded his stop at a place he called El Estanque de Penol (pool at the great rock). In 1598 Don Juan de Onate officially colonized New Mexico. He brought 400 colonists and 10 Franciscans north, along with 7,000 head of stock. From the beginning, hard winters, lack of food, and the great distance from Mexico caused hardship and discontent among the colonists. Onate's explorations finally killed the last hopes for quick riches. Returning from one of these expeditions, Onate inscribed his name at El Morro on April 16, 1605 - the first known European inscription on the rock.
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