ABSTRACT
There, everybody wanted to make a name for himself and to claim something for Spain. They asked Cabeza de Vaca if he would lead an expedition north, but he said, "No, are you crazy? I've been up there seven years, I just came back, I don't want to go anyplace." So he stayed in Mexico City, and that expedition was led by Esteban. This is all leading up to Juan de Onate finally coming to Nuevo Mexico. The Spaniards were looking for the seven cities of gold. But anyway, there was also great curiousity about what it was like up north, and that's when the expedition of Onate came. With him came a Capitan Cristobal Baca, my namesake, along with others, most prominently the Bacas and the Chaveses, to settle the area. That's the beginning of my family in New Mexico. We're from a little town south of Belen, called Veguita; it's also called Las Nutrias. It lies at the end of the Chihuahua Trail and the beginning of the Old Santa Fe Trail. That's where my parents grew up, and my family has been in that town forever.
