In the mid-eighteenth century, the Spanish crown provided land grants to genízaros here and in other places to establish buffer towns to defend the frontier from raiding tribes such as the Comanche.

Abiquiú was first settled in 1742 by 24 Tewa Pueblo families led by a Roman Catholic priest, Francisco Delgado.

Their settlement in Abiquiú was part of the strategy by New Mexican colonists to defend its frontiers against marauding indigenous peoples such as the Apache, Comanche, and Navajo.

[6] In 1747, in one of the numerous raids in the area, the Comanche took 23 women and children captive, forcing the temporary abandonment of Abiquiú.

[7] In 1754, to deal with the raids and the faltering settlement, New Mexico governor Tomás Vélez Cachupín gave 34 genízaro families a land grant in exchange for them taking a prominent role in frontier defense.

Because they had few rights under the casta laws of the Spanish, acceptance of land grants and resettlement on the dangerous frontier of New Mexico was the principal way for genízaros to become landowners.

Armijo's caravan left Abiquiú on November 7, 1829, and made the journey to San Gabriel Mission in 86 days, arriving on January 31, 1830.

The colorful canyons and mountains near Abiquiú have been featured in numerous movies, including Red Dawn (1984),[citation needed] Silverado (1985), Lonesome Dove (1989), City Slickers (1991), The Last Outlaw (1993),[16] Wyatt Earp (1994), The Wild Wild West (1999), All the Pretty Horses (2000), The Missing (2003), 3:10 to Yuma (2007), No Country For Old Men (2007), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Cowboys & Aliens (2011) and The Lone Ranger (2013),[17] and in the TV series Earth 2.

During the episode, a flashback shows Jesse Pinkman and Jane Margolis visiting a Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition, presumably the one in Abiquiú.