Join the Arizona State Museum for this presentation by Dr. Michael M. Brescia, curator of ethnohistory, Arizona State Museum and professor of history, University of Arizona

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The Camino Real de Tierra Adentro—Royal Road of the Interior Lands—is one of the oldest and longest historic roads in the western hemisphere. Following the established trade routes of Indigenous peoples that dated to Mexican antiquity, Spaniards set out to explore and claim sovereignty over the North American continent in the wake of the conquest of the Aztec confederation in 1521. The Camino Real reflected the broader objectives of the Spanish colonial enterprise: identify and exploit precious metals such as silver and gold; promote trade based on local and global resources; establish farms and ranches to meet the needs of newly arrived settlers; and nurture among the Spanish and Indigenous peoples a colonial identity based on Catholicism and obedience to the Spanish crown. ASM historian Michael Brescia examines the dynamic yet unequal exchange that took place between European and Indigenous societies along the nearly 1600-mile route from Mexico City to Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, just north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the material culture that emerged as a direct result of that exchange, including, for example, artwork, household wares, and domestic goods, but also the construction of haciendas, chapels, bridges, and modes of transport.

This program is held in conjunction with the exhibit, Wrapped in Color: Legacies of the Mexican Sarape, showing through July 2022.