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Scope of project
This project identifies members of the founding families of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1706.
Overview
On 23 April 1706 Francisco Cuervo y Valdés wrote to the king of Spain and to the viceroy of New Spain he had founded a new villa in New Mexico. Francisco Cuervo y Valdés named the community after the viceroy, Fernandez de la Cueva, Duque de Alburquerque. The governor, in his letter wrote:
I certify to his majesty: That I have founded a villa on the banks and in the valley of the River of the North in a place of good fields, waters, pastures, and timber, distant from this villa of Santa Fe about twenty-two leagues,... naming it the Villa of Alburquerque... There are now thirty-five families located there, comprising 252 persons, adults and children. The Church has been completed... the government buildings have been begun, and other houses of the settlers are finished with their corrals, irrigation ditches running, fields sowed—all without any expense to the Royal Treasury.
Photo is of statute of Gov. Francisco Cuervo y Valdés at Old Town, Albuquerque. (Rio Grand Blvd. and Mountain NW)
Links
Albuquerque Official City Website