Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)A Nation of Shepherds is a fascinating history of the first Spanish colonists in New Mexico who traveled from Spain with Juan de Onate to claim the land and its riches for God and the King. The book is much more than a "textbook" history lesson. It is a very personal study of one particular family from whom the author is a descendant. Lucero's careful and copious rendering of true events from actual journals leaves the reader breathless. The author's descriptions of the landscape, weather, flora, and fauna paint a vivid picture by which the reader can view the events as if participating in them. The hardships and horrors of the journey can be seen and felt. So can the triumphs be appreciated. As a native New Mexican who loves the land, I was deeply touched to learn what my own ancestors must have experienced along with the Robledo family (and many others)as they struggled to settle the wild, harsh, and beautiful place that is New Mexico.
Click Here to see more reviews about: A Nation of Shepherds
Driven into exile from Carmena, Spain, in 1577, to escape the threat of death by the Inquisition, the Robledo family immigrates first to New Spain and then joins the Onate colonial expedition in 1596 to New Mexico. Set against the historically accurate backdrop of the colonial enterprise, and conveying a sense of New Mexico's vast wilderness, freshness, beauty, and soul, the novel brings to life a courageous and devoted family bent on establishing a new homeland. Here is the true story of the Robledos' tragic year of 1598 in which they suffer the deaths of two family members: Pedro Robledo the elder, from a prolonged illness and the rigors of the trail; and his son, Pedro Robledo the younger, as the result of an Indian attack at the Pueblo of Acoma in which eleven Spanish soldiers are killed. The difficulties of maintaining the colony during an era which would later become known as 'The Little Ice Age' are revealed in intimate detail. Lacking adequate harvests, and semi-dependent upon their Pueblo Indian neighbors into whose villages the Spaniards have moved, the colonists are eventually reduced to eating roasted cowhides even as the Indians are eating dirt, coal, and ashes. In the end, some family members return to New Spain in 1601.
0 comments:
Post a Comment