Tajique: Abandoned on the Salinas Frontier

The village of Tajique sits in the Manzano Mountains foothills on land that has been inhabited for centuries. A Pueblo community and a Spanish Franciscan mission called San Miguel de Tajique were established here in the sixteen twenties as part of Spain's effort to Christianize the Tompiro and Tiwa peoples of the Salinas jurisdiction.

But the eastern frontier of New Mexico was brutal. In the sixteen seventies, the combination of famine, epidemic disease, and relentless Apache raids made the Salinas region uninhabitable. The missions and pueblos were abandoned en masse around sixteen seventy-two to sixteen seventy-eight, the inhabitants fleeing west to El Paso and other communities. Modern Tajique was resettled centuries later. It is a small community today, but beneath and around it lies one of the more poignant chapters in the long colonial history of New Mexico.