Cafe San Estevan – Santa Fe, New Mexico (CLOSED)
In 1598, don Juan de Oñate led an expedition of Spanish colonists–including eight Franciscan friars–to the east bank of the Rio Grande near its confluence with the Chama River. There they founded San Gabriel, New Mexico’s first capital at a site close to present day Okay Owingeh, one of New Mexico’s great Tewa speaking Northern New Mexico Pueblos. Nine years later Don Pedro de Peralta, established as New Mexico’s capital, “La Villa Real de Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asisi,” or “The Royal City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi.” Spanish explorers and the sandal-shod sons of Saint Francis of Assisi who accompanied them planted the seeds of Catholicism by evangelizing to a large population of…