The Last Conquistador: Juan de Onate and the Settling of the Far Southwest

by Marc Simmons

Book Overview

This book chronicles the life and frontier career of Don Juan de O?ate, the first colonizer of the old Spanish Borderlands. Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, in the mid-sixteenth century, Don Juan was the prominent son of an aristocratic silver-mining family. In 1598, in his late forties, O?ate led a formidable expedition of settlers, with wagons and livestock, on an epic march northward to the upper Rio Grade Valley of New Mexico. There he established the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0806123680
• ISBN13: 9780806123684
• Release Date: March 1993
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

History like a well told story

Marc Simmons can always be relied upon for giving acurate information in a compelling package. If you do not know the story of New Mexico's quasi feudal founding by Spanish Conqustidors in armor both the good and bad then you must buy this book quickly and correct your educational deficiency.

History with the Verve of a Novel

Marc Simmons does an excellent job of telling a story. I have endured novels that were much less engaging and well told. Simmons brings immediacy and life to events that occurred four hundred years ago. I wish he had written the history texts I was compelled to read in high school.

The real Onate

Many have made their views of Onate and opinions clear here around New Mexico, but few have ever made even a slight reference to the men around Onate ... the time Onate lived in, but alas, Marc Simmons has a captivating impartial review of the infamous Onate.