![]() National Historic Trail underscored the trail’s significance as North America’s longest cultural route and a vital commercial corridor for nearly 300 years. UNESCO further recognized El Camino Real’s “outstanding universal value” in linking Europe and the Americas through the human interchange of language, cultural traditions, rituals and objects of trade.Īn interpretive panel at a road stop in northern Mexico shows the route of El Camino Real.Įl Camino Real’s designation as a U.S. The designation highlighted five existing urban World Heritage sites that represent El Camino Real’s significant cultural, commercial, spiritual and geographical impacts, as well as 55 sites related to the use of the road-bridges, chapels, former haciendas and convents, natural landmarks and more. In 2010, UNESCO added sections of the Camino Real in Mexico to its prestigious World Heritage List. Today, both Mexico and the United States honor and preserve the international legacy of El Camino Real. Modern highways now overlay some parts of the trail, but the historic buildings, archeological sites and natural landmarks that survive hold memories of the valiant lives and often-violent deaths that characterize El Camino Real’s north-south narrative. ![]() Every wagon rut, earthen swale and gravestone is a record of the individuals who braved the trail to transplant their traditions and begin new lives in a foreign, faraway land. Once part of Spain’s global network of roads and maritime routes, the route weaves European history into the fabric of American life, beginning with the 1598 Spanish settlement of New Mexico to the 1881 arrival of the railroad.Īlthough the railway overpowered El Camino Real’s primary transportation purpose, the trail’s cultural and commercial influences remain imprinted on the region’s physical landscape, social psyche and living history. Its 400-mile thread through those states crosses deserts, rivers, mountains and more, from the lower El Paso Valley to the Mesilla Valley, from Socorro to Santa Fe to the pueblo of Ohkay Owingeh. The “Royal Road to the Interior Land” reaches 1,600 miles north from Mexico City to West Texas and New Mexico. The trail’s 16th-century origins pre-date both Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, while its historic faces, places and three-century legacy as a multiethnic point of cultural connection and exchange offer new touchstones of American history. Congress recognized an alternative path to understanding the diverse international history and cultural heritage of the U.S.Ī bi-national trail, three-quarters of which winds through the central highlands of Mexico, El Camino Real tracks a different European settlement story, one that emphasizes the shared history and heritage of Spain, Mexico and the American Southwest. With the designation of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro as a National Historic Trail on September 13, 2000, the U.S. Traditionally, the telling of the history of the United States moved from east to west, cast in a timeline of the notable people, places and events that shaped the country from the 1607 founding of Jamestown, Virginia, to today. Rush that led to the establishment of El Camino Real. The 1775 Templo de San Cayetano outside of Guanajuato, Mexico, isĪmong the many churches constructed in Mexico during the Spanish silver
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