Juan Domínguez de Mendoza

Book excerpt: Studies of seventeenth-century New Mexico have largely overlooked the soldiers and frontier settlers who formed the backbone of the colony and laid the foundations of European society in a distant outpost of Spain's North American empire. This book, the final volume in the Coronado Historical Series, recognizes the career of Juan Domínguez de Mendoza, a soldier-colonist who was as instrumental as any governor or friar in shaping Hispano-Indian society in New Mexico. Domínguez de Mendoza served in New Mexico from age thirteen to fifty-eight as a stalwart defender of Spain's interests during the troubled decades before the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. Because of his successful career, the archives of Mexico and Spain provide extensive information on his activities. The documents translated in this volume reveal more cooperative relations between Spaniards and Pueblo Indians than previously understood.