Our Lady of the Conquest

As the Spaniards were preparing to reconquer Santa Fe from the Pueblo Indians in 1692, Captain-General Don Diego de Vargas solemnly vowed to build a special chapel for his own favorite statue of Our Lady of the Rosary should he gain a quick victory, and also to hold a yearly procession in her honor. The image was carried into battle and the Spaniards gained an effective conquista, and thereafter this particular image came to be known as La Conquistadora. Other legends and practices grew around these bare essentials of the story. Many people have tried, in all sincerity, to evaluate the historic aspects of the tradition and to draw the best plausible conclusions therefrom, but Fray Angélico Chávez seemed best suited to detail the origins and development of America's oldest devotion to the Virgin Mary in a scholarly yet devout manner.