Martinez Hacienda

Hacienda

Hacienda is a Spanish word for an estate. Some haciendas were plantations, mines, or even business factories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities...

, also known as Hacienda de los Martinez, is a Taos

Taos, New Mexico

Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico, incorporated in 1934. As of the 2000 census, its population was 4,700. Other nearby communities include Ranchos de Taos, Cañon, Taos Canyon, Ranchitos, and El Prado. The town is close to Taos Pueblo, the Native American...

, New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

 hacienda

Hacienda

Hacienda is a Spanish word for an estate. Some haciendas were plantations, mines, or even business factories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities...

 built during the Spanish colonial

Spanish colonization of the Americas

Colonial expansion under the Spanish Empire was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions...

 era. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

. It is located on the bank of the Rio Pueblo de Taos

Rio Pueblo de Taos

The Rio Pueblo de Taos, also known as Rio Pueblo, is tributary of the Rio Grande in the U.S. state of New Mexico. From its source in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains it flows about , generally south and west, to join the Rio Grande in the Rio Grande Gorge...

.

Name

While it is a "hacienda

Hacienda

Hacienda is a Spanish word for an estate. Some haciendas were plantations, mines, or even business factories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities...

" in the Spanish sense of "large house" or "estate", the Martinez Hacienda is not a hacienda in the true sense of the word, which implied large land holdings as a part of the hacienda system of land ownership.

History

Until the original building was constructed, a small building existed on the site. In the late 18th century, the building was expanded to a hacienda of 21 rooms by Severino Martínez, father of Antonio José Martínez

Antonio José Martínez

Father Antonio José Martínez was a New Mexican priest, educator, publisher, rancher, farmer, community leader, and politician. He lived through and influenced three distinct periods of New Mexico's history: the Spanish period, the Mexican period, and the American occupation and subsequent...

, when the family relocated from Abiquiu to Taos in 1804. Don

Don (honorific)

Don, from Latin dominus, is an honorific in Spanish , Portuguese , and Italian . The female equivalent is Doña , Dona , and Donna , abbreviated "Dª" or simply "D."-Usage:...

 Severino dealt in trade along the Chihuahua Trail

Chihuahua Trail

The Chihuahua Trail is a major land route from New Mexico through the state of Chihuahua to central Mexico.In the late 16th century Spanish exploration and colonization had advanced from Mexico City northward by the great central plateau to its ultimate goal in Santa Fe...

 and was also Alcalde

Alcalde

Alcalde , or Alcalde ordinario, is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An alcalde was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian cabildo and judge of first instance of a town...

 of Taos. The building was built in the fortress

Fortification

Fortifications are military constructions and buildings designed for defence in warfare and military bases. Humans have constructed defensive works for many thousands of years, in a variety of increasingly complex designs...

 style to ward off attacks by Comanche

Comanche

The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...

 and Apache

Apache

Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...

 raiders. It is one of the few remaining Northern New Mexico

Northern New Mexico

Northern New Mexico may simply mean the northern part of New Mexico, but in cultural terms it usually means the area of heavy Spanish settlement in the north-central part....

-style Spanish haciendas that is open to the public.

In the years following the construction of the Hacienda Martinez, Severino Martinez built a flourishing mercantile business trading goods from Northern New Mexico, allowing him to send his son to study for the priesthood in Durango, Colorado

Durango, Colorado

The City of Durango is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of La Plata County, Colorado, United States. The United States Census Bureau said that the city population was 16,887 in 2010 census.-History:...

.

Modern tourism

Hacienda Martinez was purchased by Taos Historic Museums in 1972. It has been fully restored and hosts hundred of visitors every year as a living museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

 honoring the contributions of the early Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...

settlers in the Taos Valley.

It hosts the annual Taos Trade Fair every September 25th and September 26th when it recreates the atmosphere of early 19th century Taos.

External links

• Taos Historic Museums - official site