Kirjahaku

A professional historian, author, editor, and translator, Marc Simmons has published numerous books and monographs on the Southwest as well as articles in more than twenty scholarly and popular journals.

Manuel Antonio Chaves' life straddled three eras of New Mexican history: he was born (1818) at the tag end of the Spanish colonial period, he grew to manhood in the rough and heady days of the Santa Fe trade during the quarter century of Mexican rule (1821–1846), and he spent his mature years under the territorial regime established by the United States. Manuel Chaves' long career (died 1889) was interwoven with almost every major historical event which occurred during his adult life—the Texan-Santa Fe Expedition, the Mexican War, the Civil War, skirmishes with Utes, Navajos, and Apaches. He was called El Leoncito, The Little Lion, having earned the name as an Indian fighter. He lived for two years in St. Louis and was a well-travelled man, doing business in New Orleans, New York, and Cuba. A hundred years ago when men still gathered around campfires and storytelling was a well-developed art, Chaves' exploits were known to all New Mexicans. But history has a capricious memory and his name became virtually forgotten. Around the turn of the century, Charles F. Lummis' flowery pen recalled brief attention to Chaves' life, and in 1927 he appeared as a minor character in Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop—but otherwise was virtually forgotten. Alas. Too few of our Spanish frontiersmen have been studied in depth. Manuel Chaves and his life should not be lost. He was one of the legendary but real men who pioneered and built the 19th century Southwest. Howard R. Lamar laments: "The Spanish-American population of New Mexico still lacks a historian." Marc Simmons' biography of Manuel Chaves helps fill that gap.

This book chronicles the life and frontier career of Don Juan de Oñate, 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, Oñate 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 first European settlement west of the Mississippi, launching a significant chapter in early American history.In his activities he displayed qualities typical of Spain's sixteenth-century men of action; in his career we find a summation of the motives, aspirations, intentions, strengths, and weaknesses of the Hispanic pioneers who settled the Borderlands.

For all who love New Mexico, and for those who aspire to know the state, this book is a graceful and compelling summary of what has made the Land of Enchantment its distinctive self. Originally published in 1977 to commemorate the bicentennial of American Independence, New Mexico is now available for the first time in a quality paperback edition with a new introduction by the author. In writing this book, Marc Simmons sets out to arrive at an understanding of the state's character. His is an interpretive, sensitive, individual--even personal--account. He shows that across the centuries the collision and mingling of cultures dominates New Mexico's history. Out of this complex interplay of human and natural forces he selects his examples of Pueblo life ways, Spanish domination, and Anglo control to make immediate and memorable the state's rich history.

Historian Marc Simmons is already a favourite among scholars, students, Hispanophiles, and borderland enthusiasts for his careful, readable histories of the American Southwest. In the twelve essays collected in here, the author's topical, in-depth approach to New Mexico's colonial period is skilfully deployed. His original research and unique insights transform New Mexico's colonial history into an engaging story of real people and the real events that shaped their lives - a true journey of discovery. Simmons finds in the commonplace moments of everyday life ways to place the reader fully within the realities of the past. Immersion in details permits us to understand the behaviour and character of a people and the true tenor of their times: how the average person lived and played, how he or she made economic choices, how worship and religious concerns were integrated into daily life. The book covers such topics as the Pueblo Revolt, New Mexico sheep and cattle ranching, Spanish irrigation practices, the settlement of Albuquerque, the smallpox epidemic of 1780-81, and the Feast of St. John. The society and economy of the upper Rio Grande were complex and richly textured, and the people who sustained themselves there became resilient and stoic, fashioning their own formulas for survival and forever impacting the directions taken by history's currents.

In anticipation of the tricentennial of Albuquerque's founding in 2006, this book presents an engaging, narrative history of the city from 1706 to 1846, its era as a Hispanic community. Written by the foremost historian of colonial and nineteenth-century New Mexico, this book is an abridgement of his award-winning 'Albuquerque: A Narrative History', first published in 1982 and long unavailable. Here is history to fascinate and inform. In re-examining the founding of the city, Simmons shows how contemporary land and water rights issues are tied to the original document creating the town. His account of commercial activities and relations with Native Americans is a reminder of the complexity of daily life in the colonial period.

Kit Carson (1809-1868) has long held a prominent place in the popular imagination of the American West. However, little is known about his family life thanks largely to Carson's own guardianship of his privacy. After almost four decades devoted to researching Kit Carson's personal life, Marc Simmons provides information here to further our understanding of Carson.Viewing Kit Carson's career as a husband and father sheds new light on the life choices he made. The changing economy of the 1840s made it increasingly difficult for a trapper and scout to support a growing family. Carson's years as an Indian agent in the 1850s provided him stability although he was never able to spend as much time with his family as any of them would have liked and he was never able to bring in a comfortable income.The Kit Carson Simmons portrays offers a welcome change from recent politicized interpretations of Carson's actions.

Written by the foremost historian on New Mexico, this popular fourth-grade-level textbook introduces the young reader to New Mexico's past and present. When students finish reading this book, they will better understand how different cultures shaped the way we live today as well as know about major events and key people in New Mexico's development. Simmons approaches history as a window to the past. That is, students come to understand they are part of a long flow of human events. This book surveys the experiences of first the Indians, then the Spanish, and finally those people who have come to New Mexico since it has been part of the United States.Supplementing each of the eleven chapters are maps and photographs, about a third of them in color.Reading level: grade 4.

The resource guide includes lesson plans keyed to the state's instructional standards for social studies, student activities and exercises, as well as tests and answer keys.

"I first saw New Mexico as a kid, in 1950," the author says. "At once I fell under its hypnotic spell, as have so many others. My commitment to become a writer about things New Mexican was born shortly thereafter. From more than a half century of prowlings along the byways of the state, I've managed to glean a fair knowledge of its peoples and culture."What continues to impress me is that history in New Mexico lies so close to the surface. Here one continually runs into Indians, Hispanos and fourth or fifth generation Anglos whose lives and outlook are firmly rooted in the years before yesterday. Moreover, their personal histories are enriched by the backdrop of an extraordinary landscape. These realities have provided me an abundance of material for carving out the series of short narratives compiled in the book." Marc Simmons is a professional author and historian who has published more than forty books on New Mexico and the American Southwest. His popular "Trail Dust" column is syndicated in several regional newspapers. In 1993, King Juan Carlos of Spain admitted him to the knightly Order of Isabel la Cat lica for his contributions to Spanish colonial history.

"I first saw New Mexico as a kid, in 1950," the author says. "At once I fell under its hypnotic spell, as have so many others. My commitment to become a writer about things New Mexican was born shortly thereafter. From more than a half century of prowlings along the byways of the state, I've managed to glean a fair knowledge of its peoples and culture."What continues to impress me is that history in New Mexico lies so close to the surface. Here one continually runs into Indians, Hispanos and fourth or fifth generation Anglos whose lives and outlook are firmly rooted in the years before yesterday. Moreover, their personal histories are enriched by the backdrop of an extraordinary landscape. These realities have provided me an abundance of material for carving out the series of short narratives compiled in the book." Marc Simmons is a professional author and historian who has published more than forty books on New Mexico and the American Southwest. His popular "Trail Dust" column is syndicated in several regional newspapers. In 1993, King Juan Carlos of Spain admitted him to the knightly Order of Isabel la Cat lica for his contributions to Spanish colonial history.

"Having written about New Mexico history for more than forty years," explains the author, "it was perhaps inevitable that in time I should publish a few articles on Billy the Kid. After all, he is the one figure from this state's past whose name is known around the world. The Kid's career, although astonishingly short, nonetheless, left an indelible mark in the annals of the Old West. And his name, William H. Bonney, alias Billy the Kid, seems locked forever into the consciousness of the starry-eyed public. Upon request," the author continues, "I was able to assemble a collection of my varied writings pertaining to some of Billy's real or imagined deeds. Each section opens a small window on an aspect of his tumultuous life, or casts light upon others whose fortunes intersected with his. In this book, I have stalked Billy in an erratic rather than a systematic way, taking pleasure merely in adding a few new and unusual fragments to his biography. I trust that readers who have a fascination with the history and legend of Billy the Kid will find in these pages something of interest and value. As Eugene Cunningham wrote more than seventy years ago, 'in our imagination the Kid still lives--the Kid still rides.'" Marc Simmons is a professional author and historian who has published more than forty books on New Mexico and the American Southwest. His popular "Trail Dust" column is syndicated in several regional newspapers. In 1993, King Juan Carlos of Spain admitted him to the knightly Order of Isabel la Cat lica for his contributions to Spanish colonial history.