Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1990
Abstract
"Spain was but a stepmother to me, for she banished me to seek my fortune in strange lands" (130-31). Thus Diego de Vargas, a member of the untitled nobility, explained why he had set out for the Indies at age twenty-eight, leaving his wife and four children behind in Madrid. Thirty-two years later when Vargas died while on campaign against Apaches in New Mexico, he had not made his fortune nor returned to Madrid as planned. He had won fame, however, in New Mexico and New Spain. For his intrepid leadership of the reconquest of New Mexico following the stunning Pueblo Revolt of 1680, Vargas won the title of Marques de la Nava de Barcinas and a place in the history of a land that he described as "at the ends of the earth and remote beyond compare" (168).
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly SPRING 1990 .Copyright 1990 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska—Lincoln.