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Diego de Vargas Zapata y Luján Ponce de León y Contreras (1643–1704), commonly known as Don Diego de Vargas, was a Spanish Governor of the New Spain territory of Santa Fe de Nuevo México (currently covering the modern US states of New Mexico and Arizona). He was the title-holder in 1690–1695, and effective governor in 1692–1696 and ...
The claim that Don Diego de Vargas led a “bloodless” reconquest, reclaiming the capital of Santa Fe in New Mexico without the use of force and establishing peace in the region thereafter, is a false narrative.
Diego José de Vargas Zapata Luján Ponce de León y Contreras was born in Madrid in 1643 to Alonso de Vargas and María Margarita Contreras y Arráiz. His was an illustrious family, though not among the monarch’s inner circle.
After years of quarreling over who would go, Mexico City finally chose Diego de Vargas Zapata y Lujan Ponce de Leon as governor in 1688. A man of noble lineage, with nearly twenty years experience in New Spain including numerous government posts in northern Mexico, Vargas was perfect.
A strutting aristocrat hungry to perform glorious deeds in an inglorious age, Gov. Diego de Vargas, capable, cocksure, and visibly daring, on February 22, 1691, assumed command of the dispirited New Mexico colony in exile. He found El Paso a hole.
The Spanish governor responsible for the resettlement of Santa Fe in 1692 was christened Diego Jose de Vargas Zapata Lujan Ponce de Leon y Contreras at the church of San Luis in Madrid, Spain in 1643. For the last 309 years during the Fiesta de Santa Fe the legacy of De Vargas has endured.
Diego de Vargas Zapata y Luján Ponce de León y Contreras (1643–1704), commonly known as Don Diego de Vargas, was a Spanish Governor of the New Spain territory of Santa Fe de Nuevo México. He was the title-holder in 1690–1695, and effective governor in 1692–1696 and 1703–1704.
