Carnuel is a

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...

(CDP) in

Bernalillo County Bernalillo County (; ) is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Mexico.Bernalillo ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

, United States. The population was 1,232 at the 2010 Census. It is part of the

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Name

Robert Hixson Julyan reports that name of the community, which has been spelled both Carnuel and Carnué, likely derives from the

Tiwa Tiwa and Tigua may refer to: * Tiwa Puebloans, an ethnic group of New Mexico, US * Tiwa (Lalung), an ethnic group of north-eastern India * Tiwa language (India), a Sino-Tibetan language of India * Tiwa languages, a group of Tanoan languages of the ...

word for "badger place." This hypothesis is supported by indigenous residents.

History

Carnuel (full name San Miguel de Loredo de Carnué) is east of the original center of the city of

. The town was created in 1763 to defend Albuquerque from the raids of

Comanche The Comanche (), or Nʉmʉnʉʉ (, 'the people'), are a Tribe (Native American), Native American tribe from the Great Plains, Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the List of federally recognized tri ...

Kiowa Kiowa ( ) or Cáuigú () people are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe and an Indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colora ...

, and

Plains Apache The Plains Apache are a small Southern Athabaskan tribe who live on the Southern Plains of North America, in close association with the linguistically unrelated Kiowa Tribe. Today, they are headquartered in Southwestern Oklahoma and are federally ...

American Indians. The town is located at the mouth of

Tijeras Canyon Tijeras Canyon (sometimes also referred to as Tijeras Pass) is a prominent canyon in the central part of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It separates the Sandia Mountains subrange to the north from the Manzano Mountains subrange (specifically the l ...

, a strategic and natural corridor between the hostile Indians of the

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

and the Spanish settlements of the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

valley. Nineteen men some with families, comprised the first settlers at Carnuel. They were mostly from the lower

castas () is a term which means " lineage" in Spanish and Portuguese and has historically been used as a racial and social identifier. In the context of the Spanish Empire in the Americas, the term also refers to a theoretical framework which post ...

of Spanish society, "mestizo" (“half blood,” mixed race Indians and Spanish) and genízaros (Indians who lived among the Spanish and had adopted some elements of Hispanic culture). For the mestizo and genízaros the attraction to settle at Carnuel and other genízaro settlements was the opportunity to own land through a

land grant A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...

from the New Mexican government. Apache raiders killed several people in the area and the survivors abandoned the settlement in 1771. Carnuel was resettled in 1819 by descendants of the original settlers plus additional landless

mestizos ( , ; fem. , literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed Ethnic groups in Europe, European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to ...

. Twenty-two families were given land at Carnuel and another 22 received land at San Antonio, a community about northeast of Carnuel. By that time New Mexico had made peace with the Comanche and the threat to the eastern frontiers of the colony had decreased, making the settlement feasible. The genízaro heritage continued to influence land and water usage rights in the Carnuel land grant into the 21st century. Also within the original area of the land grant are the village of Tijeras and Cedar Crest CDP (census designated place).

Geography

left, Carnuel in Tijeras Canyon. According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the CDP has a total area of , of which , or 0.56%, is water.

Climate

Carnuel has a climate similar to that of nearby

, which is BSk in the

Köppen Classification Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

and BSak (

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without closed forests except near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the tropical and subtropica ...

, hot summers, cool winters) in the

Trewartha climate classification The Trewartha climate classification (TCC), or the Köppen–Trewartha climate classification (KTC), is a climate classification system first published by American geographer Glenn Thomas Trewartha in 1966. It is a modified version of the Köp ...

. The climate borders on being BW (desert). More than one half of the annual precipitation of is received from July to August.

Demographics

As of the

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of 2000, there were 872 people, 371 households, and 244 families residing in the CDP. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

was . There were 398 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the CDP was 69.27%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.34%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 1.72% Native American, 27.06% from other races, and 1.61% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race were 51.15% of the population. There were 371 households, out of which 25.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.4% were

married couples Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

living together, 8.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.0% were non-families. 29.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.32 and the average family size was 2.83. In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 20.9% under the age of 18, 6.1% from 18 to 24, 27.3% from 25 to 44, 30.3% from 45 to 64, and 15.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females, there were 106.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 111.0 males. The median income for a household in the CDP was $37,813, and the median income for a family was $46,250. Males had a median income of $38,281 versus $21,532 for females. The

per capita income Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year. In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...

for the CDP was $18,553. About 9.2% of families and 12.3% of the population were below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

, including 11.6% of those under age 18 and 12.6% of those age 65 or over.

Education

It is zoned to

Albuquerque Public Schools Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) is a school district based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1891, APS is the largest of 89 public school districts in the state of New Mexico. In 2022 it had a total of 143 schools with some 70,000 student ...

References

External links

{{authority control Census-designated places in Bernalillo County, New Mexico Census-designated places in New Mexico Albuquerque metropolitan area