<P> The historic peoples encountered by the Europeans did not make up unified tribes in the modern sense, as they were highly decentralized, operating in bands of a size adapted to their semi-nomadic cultures . From the 16th to the 19th centuries, the European explorers, missionaries, traders and settlers referred to the different groups of Apache and Navajo by various names, often associated with distinctions of language or geography . The people identified as Diné, which means "the people". The Navajo and Apache made up the largest non-Pueblo Indian group in the Southwest . These two tribes led nomadic lifestyles and spoke the same language . </P> <P> Some experts estimate that the semi-nomadic Apache were active in New Mexico in the 13th century . Spanish records indicated that they traded with the Pueblo . Various bands or tribes participated in the Southwestern Revolt against the Spanish in the 1680s . By the early 18th century the Spanish had built a series of over 25 forts to protect themselves and subjugated populations from the traditional raiding parties of the Athabaskan . </P> <P> The Navajo Nation, with more than 300,000 citizens the largest federally recognized tribe in the United States, is concentrated in present - day northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona . The Mescalero Apache live east of the Rio Grande . The Jicarilla Apache live west of the Rio Grande . The Chiricahua Apache lived in southwestern New Mexico until the late 19th century . </P> <P> Francisco Vásquez de Coronado assembled an enormous expedition at Compostela, Mexico in 1540--1542 to explore and find the mythical Seven Golden Cities of Cibola, as described by Cabeza de Vaca, who had just arrived from his eight - year ordeal of survival . He traveled mostly overland from Florida to Mexico . Cabeza de Vaca and three companions were the only survivors of the Panfilo de Narvaez expedition of June 17, 1527 to Florida, losing 80 horses and several hundred explorers . These four survivors had spent eight arduous years getting to Sinaloa, Mexico on the Pacific coast and had visited many Indian tribes . </P>

What was unique about the spanish colonization of the lands of new mexico