Paraje del Perrillo (Place of the Puppy), was a dependable watering and stopping place along the

Camino Real de Tierra Adentro El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (), also known as the Silver Route, was a Viceroyalty of New Spain, Spanish road between Mexico City and San Juan Pueblo, New Mexico, San Juan Pueblo (''Ohkay Owingeh''), New Mexico (in the modern U.S.), that wa ...

, where it passed through the

Jornada del Muerto Jornada del Muerto was the name given by the Spanish conquistadors to the Jornada del Muerto desert Endorheic basin, basin, and the almost waterless trail across the Jornada beginning north of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Las Cruces and ending sout ...

in the vicinity of Point of Rocks in

Sierra County, New Mexico Sierra County () is a county located in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 11,576. Its county seat is Truth or Consequences. Geography According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , ...

. Paraje del Perillo was the next water to the north beyond the Paraje de San Diego overlooking the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

5 leagues beyond Paraje de Robledo and a half league from the River.George D. Torok, From the Pass to the Pueblos, Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, Dec 1, 2011
/ref>

History

The name of the place was coined during the initial crossing of the Jornada by the Oñate expedition on May 23, 1598. Oñate wrote they had traveled two days from the paraje, where they had just buried Pedro Robledo and were suffering from lack of water for themselves and their animals and were five or six leagues east of the

Río Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Me ...

near the Point of Rocks. When one of their dogs returned with muddy paws, they went in search of the water following the tracks of the little dog that had found the water. Not far away in the direction of the river, Captain Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá and Cristóbal Sánchez each found a waterhole.Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y colonización de las posesiones españoles en América y Oceanía, sacados bajo la direccion de J.F. Pacheco, F. de Cárdenas y L. Torres de Mendoza, Volumes 15-16, Jose Maria Perez, Madrid, 1871
/ref> The waterholes were named ''Los Charcos del Perrillo'' (The Puddles of the Puppy) and the stopping place became known as Paraje del Perrillo. Paraje del Perillo was near where the trail of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro passed Point of Rocks which is the southernmost point of the closed Jornada basin. From Paraje del Perillo the trail heads basically north through

mesquite Mesquite is a common name for some plants in the genera ''Neltuma'' and '' Strombocarpa'', which contain over 50 species of spiny, deep-rooted leguminous shrubs and small trees. They are native to dry areas in the Americas. Until 2022, these ge ...

scrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominance (ecology), dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbaceous plant, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally o ...

to another small intermittent watering place, La Cruz de Alemán, named for a fugitive

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

merchant who died of thirst there while attempting to cross the Jornada in the 1670s, at a time when it had no water. From the beginning of the Spanish Colonial trade caravans between Santa Fe and

Chihuahua City The city of Chihuahua or Chihuahua City ( ; Lipan language, Lipan: ) is the state capital of the Mexican state of Chihuahua (state), Chihuahua. , the city of Chihuahua had a population of 925,762 inhabitants. while the metropolitan area had a popu ...

, Paraje del Perillo was the place that the soldiers guarding the caravans from Santa Fe handed it off to the escort for the journey to the south or picked it up when the caravan came north. Los Charcos del Perrillo were, long before the arrival of the Spanish, an important watering place for

Apache The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

in the Jornada region. The nearby Point of Rocks was used to watch and launch attacks on unwary travelers at or near this paraje.

Locations

The location of these waterholes is thought to have been about three miles south of Point of Rocks at what is now the site of Point of Rocks Tank in Rincon Arroyo. The other waterhole was a small pond in Rincon Arroyo or in the lower reach of Barbee Draw near Rincon Arroyo.Paraje del Perrillo
from newmexicohistory.org accessed July 23/2019.

References

Pre-statehood history of New Mexico Jornada del Muerto Locale (geographic) {{NewMexico-geo-stub