NEW MEXICO
Jemez State Monument
Photos
March 2000
The Jemez State Monument Heritage Area is one of the most beautiful prehistoric and historic sites in the Southwest. It includes the stone ruins of a 500 year old Indian village and San José de los Jemez church. The village of Giusewa was built in the narrow San Diego Canyon by the ancestors of the present-day people of Jemez (Walatowa) Pueblo. The name Giusewa refers to the natural springs in the area. In the 17th century, the Spanish established a Catholic mission at the village. The mission was short-lived; and, in time, the people abandoned the site and moved to the current location of Jemez Pueblo. The massive stone walls were constructed about the same time the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. The heritage center contains exhibitions that tell the story of the site through the words of the Jemez people. A 1,400-foot interpretive trail winds through the impressive site ruins. Jemez State Monument is off NM Hwy 4, mile marker 18, in the town of Jemez Springs, along the route which is now part of the Jemez Mountain Trails Scenic Byway, a National Scenic Byway.
Further information: 829-3530
The Pueblo of Guisewa was a thriving community for at least 200 years prior to the arrival of the Spanish. It was one of the largest and most impressive pueblos in the Jemez area. The pueblo is known to have extended under the present highway and beyond the monastery of Villa Coeli. All that is left of the pueblo are mounds of rock and dirt that mark the spot of the ancient homes.
"Passing over this river (Rio Grande) to the westward, at seven leagues one strikes the Jemez nation, the which, when I came in as Custodian, had been dissipated through all the Kingdom, and already almost depopulated by famine and wars which were on the way to finish them off. There the most part were already baptized, and had their churches, by the travail of sundry Religious. And so I promptly endeavored to reclaim it and to gather it again in the same province, and placed there a Religious who attended it with care. And we have congregated the nation in two pueblos; that is, in the pueblo of San Jose (Giusewa), which is still standing, with a very sumptuous and beautiful church and monastery; and in the pueblo of San Diego of the Congregation (the site of modern Jemez Pueblo), which for this purpose, we founded new, bringing thither what Indians there were of that nation who were going about astray. Likewise giving them a house and in it food for some days, and plowed lands for their planting. For these and other like expenditures of charity we Religious are wont to barter even unto the sackcloth which Your Majesty gives us in alms for our vesture. And so that congregation is today one of the best pueblos in the Indies; with its church and monastery and schools of all trades, as in the rest. And although more than half of this nation have died, Your Majesty has withal more than three thousand tributaries congregated there."
-- Fray Alfonso de Benavides, 1630
The first missionary assigned to the Jemez region was Fray Alonzo de Lugo, who accompanied Oñate in the original Spanish settlement of New Mexico in 1598. It is not known whether Fr. Lugo or his immediate successor began the actual missionary work at Giusewa, but two attempts at Christianizing the Jemez Indians (1601 and 1621-23) met with failure, probably through lack of adequate personnel.
The church of San Jose de los Jemez was founded by Fray Geronimo Zarate Salmeron in the winter of 1621-22. The church as seen today is constructed of sandstone with the exception of a few sections of adobe brick in and beneath the walls. The adobes suggest that an earlier church may have been constructed, or at least started, possibly by Fr. Lugo.
The ruins of this once-imposing complex are testimony to the religious zeal of the 17th Century Franciscans who were responsible for construction of most of the mission churches of the American Southwest. While living at San Jose de los Jemez, Fr. Salmeron founded a second mission, San Diego de la Congregacion, at the site of modern Jemez Pueblo.
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