Paraje, a
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
term meaning in English place or spot. Paraje is a term from the original Spanish speaking settlers, in use among
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
speakers in the
southwestern United States, particularly in
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...
, that refers to a camping place along a
long distance trail
A long-distance trail (or long-distance footpath, track, way, greenway) is a longer recreational trail mainly through rural areas used for hiking, backpacking, cycling, horse riding or cross-country skiing. They exist on all continents exce ...
where travelers customarily stopped for the night. A paraje can be a town, a village or
pueblo
In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...
, a
caravanserai, or simply a good location for stopping.
Parajes typically are spaced 10 to 15 miles apart and feature abundant water and fodder for the travelers' animals (oxen, cattle, sheep, donkeys, mules and horses).
[ The early Spanish caravans were largely ox-drawn carts and the oxen and herds of cattle and sheep could only make these short distances in a day without cost to the animals, because they needed to graze for several hours each day to stay in health. Horses and mules could make much longer distances in a day, up to 60 miles without cost to the animal, so long as they had water and grazing, but after a few days would have to graze and rest for a day or two to recover if grazing was not available. In the most arid desert regions of these routes it was sufficient if the paraje had water, scarce at the best of times, but lethal if not available to man or beast, particularly in the hot, dry seasons of the year.
A route between two parajes, that is difficult but must be traversed in one day because there is no water along the way, was known as a '' jornada''. The Jornada del Muerto in ]New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...
, probably the oldest and most well known of these jornadas, along the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro
The Camino Real de Tierra Adentro ( en, Royal Road of the Interior Land), also known as the Silver Route, was a Spanish road between Mexico City and San Juan Pueblo (''Ohkay Owingeh''), New Mexico, USA, that was used from 1598 to 1882. It was ...
had parajes along its course, from south to north:
* Paraje de Robledo
Fort Selden was a United States Army post, occupying the area in what is now Radium Springs, New Mexico. The site was long a campground along the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. It was the site of a Confederate Army camp in 1861. The U. S. Ar ...
, a paraje with grazing located along the Rio Grande, the last stop before entering the Jornada.[George D. Torok, From the Pass to the Pueblos, Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, Dec 1, 2011]
/ref>
* Paraje de San Diego Paraje de San Diego was a camping place, overlooking the Rio Grande, along the route of the Jornada del Muerto. It was located 5 leagues north of the Paraje de Robledo and "half a league from the river".Itinerary of Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation f ...
, a paraje located on a plateau overlooking the water and grazing below in the Rincon Valley on the Rio Grande.[
* Paraje del Perrillo, a paraje located where two small waterholes were found in the Jornada in the vicinity of Point of Rocks.,][
* La Cruz de Alemán a paraje with only a small, unreliable spring, named for the German fugitive that died of thirst there in 1670.][
* Laguna del Muerto, a paraje at a desert playa, seasonally a lake, with grazing along its retreating shoreline.][
* Paraje de Fray Cristóbal, a paraje with grazing along the eastern bank of the Rio Grande on the northern end of the Jornada.][
The Jornada del Muerto is the most well known of these jornadas, but there were others. One was the jornada between ]Tucson
, "(at the) base of the black ill
, nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town"
, image_map =
, mapsize = 260px
, map_caption = Interactive map ...
and the Pima Villages on the Gila River. A second was the El Camino del Diablo
El Camino del Diablo ( Spanish, meaning "The Devil's Highway"), also known as El Camino del Muerto, Sonora Trail, Sonoyta-Yuma Trail, Yuma-Caborca Trail, and Old Yuma Trail, is a historic road that passes through some of the most remote and inho ...
, the route across the Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert ( es, Desierto de Sonora) is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States (in Ariz ...
between Caborca, Sonora and the Yuma Crossing
Yuma Crossing is a site in Arizona and California that is significant for its association with transportation and communication across the Colorado River. It connected New Spain and Las Californias in the Spanish Colonial period in and also durin ...
. A third was the Anza Trail
The Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail is a trail extending from Nogales on the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, through the California desert and coastal areas in Southern California and the Central Coast region to San Francisco.htt ...
between the Yuma Crossing and the coastal mountains of Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...
across the Colorado Desert.
In New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...
, one notable paraje on El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro is El Rancho de las Golondrinas in La Cienega, New Mexico
La Cienega is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States. It is part of the Santa Fe, New Mexico, metropolitan statistical area. The population was 3,007 at the 2000 census.
La Cienega is located on the site o ...
, located between the Rio Grande and Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a museum of an old paraje and of life in old Nuevo México.El Rancho de las Golondrinas – The Southwest's Premier Living History Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico
from golondrinas.org Accessed February 20, 2019
See also
* Paraje, New Mexico
* Paraje, Socorro County, New Mexico
References
External links
{{Wiktionary, jornada
New Mexico culture
Spanish words and phrases