Fiesta de Santa Fe
| Fiestas de Santa Fe | |
|---|---|
| Official name | Fiestas de Santa Fe English translation: "Festival of Santa Fe" |
| Also called | Santa Fe Fiesta |
| Observed by | New Mexico |
| Type | Local, Historical, Cultural, Religious |
| Significance | First held on September 16, 1712, to commemorate Diego de Vargas' Bloodless reconquest of Santa Fe in Nuevo México |
| Celebrations | The lighting of Zozobra, processions, parades, and New Mexico music performances (typically mariachi) |
| 2016 date | September 2 to September 11 |
| Frequency | annual |
Fiestas de Santa Fe is a festival held every autumn in Santa Fe, New Mexico, usually during the second week of September.
On September 16, 1712 the first Fiesta council signed a proclamation declaring there should be a celebration to commemorate the anniversary of the 1692 reconquest of New Mexico by General Don Diego de Vargas (1643–1704). The Spanish were earlier expelled from the city by neighboring Pueblo people during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and spent the next 12 years in exile in El Paso del Norte (now Ciudad Juárez, Mexico). The King of Spain appointed de Vargas to lead the exiled colonists in their reoccupation of Santa Fe by surrounding the city with cannons and threatening the Pueblo Indians residing inside with death. He re-entered the city on September 14, 1692; however the war for reoccupation of New Mexico raged on until 1694.
Fiesta was revamped in 1912 by a group led by the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce and Edgar Lee Hewett. Hewett re-envisioned the Fiesta as a celebration of the history of New Mexico from prehistoric times to the annexation by the United States and rooted in the culture of the Indians, Hispanos and Anglos. In protest to Hewett's charging of admission to the Fiesta, a group of artists and writers decide to stage their own admission-free Fiesta called "El Pasatiempo" in 1926. "El Pasatiempo" featured a Hysterical Pageant, a parody of the Fiesta historical pageant, and the burning of Zozobra, both of which later became part of the Fiesta celebration.
The start of Fiestas is marked by the beginning of the Novena masses, which start during the Knighting and Coronation of Don Diego de Vargas and La Reina de Santa Fe in which a procession which takes La Conquistadora from the Cathedral Basilica to the Rosario Chapel, at Rosario Cemetery in Santa Fe. From there 9 masses are held throughout the week and at the end of the week La Conquistadora is returned from Rosario Chapel to the Cathedral Basilica that following weekend. Those masses are carried out and are made as a tribute to the promise that Don Diego de Vargas made to La Conquistadora, and is carried through until September which includes the burning of Zozobra, also known as "Old Man Gloom", a 50 ft/15.2m tall marionette that symbolizes the hardships and despair of the past year. This is followed by 3 days of celebration that includes a reenactment of Don Diego de Vargas's return to the city, a children's pet parade, the Historical/Hysterical Parade, the Fiesta Ball and Roman Catholic masses of thanksgiving. During the festival, the Santa Fe Plaza is filled with arts & crafts and food booths, and mariachis play throughout the city. Fiestas concludes with mass at the St. Francis Cathedral followed by a candlelight procession to the Cross of the Martyrs.
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