Albuquerque’s nickname is The Duke City. Although it is the
biggest city in New Mexico, having roughly half of the state’s
population, it wasn’t always that way. There were many little
Spanish Colonial settlements in the Rio Grande Valley, and
Albuquerque was an outpost of one of them, Los Ranchos de
Albuquerque. (It is still there today, and has a great market on
the weekends.) The Camino Real, or Royal Road, (aka King’s
Highway), went right through this region and many of
Albuquerque’s modern day roads were built upon this historical
route that intertwined through Spain’s colonial lands in the
Americas. It was along this New Mexico route that Don Fransisco
Fernández de la Cueva, the viceroy of New Spain from August 1653
to September 1660, established the Villa of Alburquerque in
February of 1660. Later that year he returned to Spain and held
other positions of power including Viceroy of Sicily. He died in
March, 1676. Don Fransisco was the 8th Duke of Alburquerque. The
Spanish Alburquerque was a hamlet in t