San Antonio Church, Tajique, NM

Tajique was established in the early 1600s and became the seat of the San Miguel Mission.

It was the first Spanish settlement in the foothills of the Manzano Mountains, southeast of Albuquerque, and, at that time, there was a Tiwa pueblo near here, on the south bank of Tajique Creek, just to the northwest. Tajique is actually a corruption of "Tashike," the Tiwa word for the pueblo (and the creek, too, perhaps).

In 1674, there was a sudden influx of people into the pueblo after an Apache raid on nearby Quarai--now part of the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument--drove people to safer locales. The population here immediately doubled to about 600.

But one year later this pueblo was also abandoned due to another attack. Then the area was not resettled until 1834, when Manuel Sánchez petitioned for a land grant for himself and 19 others. Settlers began to make another go of it by planting crops in the surrounding valleys, and the once-vibrant pueblos were used for building materials.

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