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Annual Board and Membership Meeting in Santa Fe
Saturday, October 16, 2010

The 2010 Annual Meeting will coincide with the Grand Opening of the El Hilo de la Memoria Exhibit from Seville.

About the Exhibit:

The exhibition El Hilo de la Memoria: Three Centuries of Spanish Presence in the United States of America, from the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain, opens its U.S. tour at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe on October 17, 2010. In tandem with the show, the Fall 2010 Chronicles will feature an interview with Frances Levine, director of the History Museum, and a detailed calendar of related events.

El Hilo de la Memoria will be on display at the New Mexico History Museum from October 17, 2010 to January 9, 2011; the El Paso Museum of Art from January 23 to April 24, 2011; and the Historic New Orleans Collection from May 11 to July 10, 2011.

Preview of the exhibit by Frances Levine, Ph.D., Director, New Mexico History Museum:

The Archivo General de Indias is a historic archive responsible for the custody of more than eighty million pages of documents spanning over three centuries of Spain's history in the Americas. Among these are rare documents of American history that provide a far-ranging survey of Spanish settlements in North America and speak to the importance of the Hispanic roots of American culture. El Hilo de la Memoria will be the first time that many of these documents have been displayed together in the United States.

The bilingual exhibition contains primary documents of vital significance to the Southwest, New Mexico, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro and the United States, bringing into focus the profound influence of Spain on our country. "Before Jamestown was settled and long before Western Expansion defined us, Spanish explorers began documenting and colonizing the nation. They gave Europeans some of their first glimpses of a faraway land and planted the seeds of a culture that flourishes today." Among the archival treasures on view are the 1609 instructions to Spanish colonial official Pedro de Peralta from the Viceroy of Spain establishing conditions for the founding of Santa Fe, and papers detailing aid given by Spain to United States during the American Revolution.

It will place New Mexico within the context of the Spanish settlement of the country. This exhibition will change American perspectives on our nation’s founding history, shifting widespread perceptions of the country's origins from colonial New England to the southern and western Spanish borderlands.