In anticipation of the tricentennial of Albuquerque's founding in 2006, this book presents an engaging, narrative history of the city from 1706 to 1846, its era as a Hispanic community. Written by the foremost historian of colonial and nineteenth-century New Mexico, this book is an abridgement of his award-winning 'Albuquerque: A Narrative History', first published in 1982 and long unavailable. Here is history to fascinate and inform. In re-examining the founding of the city, Simmons shows how contemporary land and water rights issues are tied to the original document creating the town. His account of commercial activities and relations with Native Americans is a reminder of the complexity of daily life in the colonial period.