[4] The New Mexican citizenry, primarily consisting of Hispano, Pueblo, Navajo, Apache, and Comanche peoples, became citizens of the United States as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848).

But as early as 1561 [5] (260 years before Mexican independence), Spanish colonial explorers used el Nuevo México to refer to Cíbola, cities of wealth reported to exist far to the north of the recently conquered Mexico.

[6][7][8] This name also evoked the Mexica people's accounts of their ancestral origin in Aztlán to the north before their migration to Mexico centuries prior.

"[9][10] Nuevo México was centered on the upper valley of the Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte): from the crossing point of Oñate on the river south of Ciudad Juárez, it extended north to the Arkansas River, encompassing an area that included most of the present-day American state of New Mexico and sections of Texas, Colorado, Kansas, and the Oklahoma panhandle.

Actual Spanish settlements were centered at Santa Fe, and extended north to Taos pueblo and south to Albuquerque.

Though the Spanish believed that cities of gold such as Tenochtitlan of the Aztecs, whom they had previously conquered, lay to the north in the unexplored territory, the major goal was to spread Catholicism[citation needed].

He hoped to make it a separate viceroyalty from New Spain in an original agreement made in 1595, but the terms failed when the Viceroy changed hands in 1596.

After a two-year delay and lengthy vetting by the new viceroy, Oñate was finally allowed to cross the Rio Grande River into modern-day Texas and New Mexico.

After compounding misdeeds and overbearing taxes by the Spanish invaders, the indigenous communities rebelled in what is now referred to as the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

The province came under the jurisdiction of the Real Audiencia de Guadalajara, with oversight by the Viceroy of New Spain at Mexico City.

The U.S. Army under Stephen Kearny occupied the territory in 1846 during the Mexican–American War, a provisional government was established, and Mexico recognized its loss to the United States in 1848 with the Mexican Cession in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

[13] Presidents Zachary Taylor and Abraham Lincoln both proposed that New Mexico immediately become a state to sidestep political conflict over slavery in the territories.