or not is a question) that when the Spaniards first entered the region
from the southern portion of Mexico, about 1542, they found a very
large Pueblo town on the present site of Santa Fe, and that its prior
existence extended far back into the vanished centuries. This is
contradicted by other historians, who contend that the claim of
Santa Fe to be the oldest town in the United States rests entirely
on imaginary annals of an Indian Pueblo before the Spanish Conquest,
and that there are but slight indications that the town was built
on the site of one.[9]

The reader may further satisfy himself on these mooted points by
consulting the mass of historical literature on New Mexico,
and the records of its primitive times are not surpassed in interest
by those of any other part of the continent. It was there the
Europeans first made great conquests, and some years prior to the
landing of the Pilgrims, a history of New Mexico, being the journal
of Geronimo de Zarate Salmaron, was published by the Church in the
City of Mexico, early in 1600. Salmaron was a Franciscan monk;
a most zealous and indefatigable worker. During his eight years'
residence at Jemez, near Santa Fe, he claims to have baptized over
eight thousand Indians, converts to the Catholic faith. His journal
gives a description of the country, its mines, etc., and was made
public in order that other monks reading it might emulate his
pious example.

Between 1605 and 1616 was founded the Villa of Santa Fe, or
San Francisco de la Santa Fe. "Villa," or village, was an honorary
title, always authorized and proclaimed by the king. Bancroft says
that it was first officially mentioned on the 3d of January, 1617.