Spanish explorer Don Juan de Oñate was the first European explorer known to have arrived at the Rio Grande near El Paso, in 1598,^[7] celebrating Thanksgiving Mass there on April 30, 1598 (several decades before the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving). However, it is thought that the 4 survivors of the Narváez expedition passed through the area in the mid-1530s.^[8] El Paso del Norte (the present day Ciudad Juárez), was founded on the south bank of the Río Bravo del Norte, (Rio Grande) in 1659 by Spanish conquistadors. In 1680 the small village of El Paso became the base for Spanish governance of the territory of New Mexico, remaining the largest settlement in New Mexico until its cession to the US in 1848, when Texas took it in 1850.