Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History (1976). The extraordinary biography of a pioneer hero of the frontier Southwest from the author of Great River. Originally published in 1975, this Pulitzer Prize for History–winning biography chronicles the life of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy (1814–1888), New Mexico’s first resident bishop and the most influential, reform-minded Catholic official in the region during the late 1800s. Lamy’s accomplishments, including the endowing of hospitals, orphanages, and English-language schools and colleges, formed the foundation of modern-day Santa Fe and often brought him into conflict with corrupt local priests. His life story, also the subject of Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, describes a pivotal period in the American Southwest, as Spanish and Mexican rule gave way to much greater influence from the United States and Europe. Historian and consummate stylist Paul Horgan has given us a chronicle filled with hardy, often extraordinary adventure, and sustained by Lamy’s magnificent strength of character. “Lamy of Santa Fe stands as a beacon in American biography.” —James M. Day, author of Paul Horgan “Lamy of Santa Fe is a classic work. Not only is the research exemplary but so is the narrative artistry, the work of history as art.” —Robert Gish, author of Nueva Granada: Paul Horgan and the Modern Southwest “Historians, and general readers as well, seeking vivid portrayal of the Southwest’s political, social and cultural traditions will find [this book] rewarding . . . the historical and literary heritage of Americans in general will be the richer for Mr. Horgan’s painstaking effort.” —Southwestern Historical Quarterly

Noted scholar, student of New Mexican culture, and teacher Father Tom Steele has tracked down all the existing manuscript sermons of Jean Baptiste Lamy (1814-88), the first bishop of Santa Fe and the model for the title character of Willa Cather's novel Death Comes for the Archbishop. Lamy has been the subject of devotion, rumor, and attack for over a hundred years. In this new book Steele selects important and characteristic sermons and uses them to decipher the real Lamy, public and private. This book builds on previous scholarly work about Lamy, including Paul Horgan's Lamy of Santa Fe, and presents new information and insight based on Lamy's own writings. A fully searchable CD-ROM (for both PC and MAC) of Lamy's complete sermons in English and Spanish is also available.

Death Comes for the Archbishop is Willa Cather's best known novel. This epic, is a dream like, mythic story of a life lived simply in the southwestern desert. Father Jean Marie Latour is transferred to serve as the Apostolic Vicar to New Mexico. He finds a vast territory of hills, arroyos, and lonelness. Cather delivers a story of a simple life lived well and full in this her tour de force.

In the historical novel "Death Comes for the Archbishop," Willa Cather depicts Padre Antonio Jose Martinez as an unscrupulous, backward, rogue priest, and Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy as a civilizing, heroic, and monumental figure. Countering Cather's portrayal, de Aragon attempts to set the historical record straight.

Text and illustrations present the history, geography, people, politics and government, economy, customs, and attractions of New Mexico.

Ch. I (pp. 7-21) traces the Jewish presence in the state of New Mexico to the Spanish period when the region was colonized, between 1598-1680. Persecuted by the Inquisition in colonial Mexico in the 1590s and 1640s, many Portuguese Conversos fled north to New Leon and New Mexico to seek refuge. States that, until recently, many New Mexican Hispanics have been unaware that they observe Jewish traditions. Some have complained of being called "killers of Christ". The present Jewish population is composed mainly of descendants of German Jews who emigrated after 1846-48. In New Mexico there were almost no manifestations of antisemitism, apart from sporadic attacks against Jews (e.g. in 1867) in the press, which showed that personal politics or Jewish economic prominence could elicit latent antisemitism. In 1982 a controversy broke out about the use of the swastika and Nazi-like uniforms in the State University's yearbook, and in 1967 Reies Tijerina, a Christian fundamentalist, accused Jews of having stripped the Hispanics of their ancestral lands.

Chapter 15. Realized Political Parties, 1869-1871 -- Conclusions -- Appendixes -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index