Coast-to-Coast Empire

Coast-to-Coast Empire
Manifest Destiny and the New Mexico Borderlands

William S. Kiser

U N I V ER SIT Y OF OK L A HOM A PR E SS : NOR M A N

This book is published with the generous assistance of the Kerr Foundation, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Name: Kiser, William S., 1986– author.

Title: Coast-to-coast empire : Manifest Destiny and the New Mexico borderlands /
William S. Kiser.
Description: Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017046329 | ISBN 978-0-8061-6026-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: New Mexico—History—19th century. | Manifest Destiny.
Classification: LCC F801 .K57 2018 | DDC 978.9/04—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017046329

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee
on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources, Inc. ∞

Copyright © 2018 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the
University. Manufactured in the U.S.A.

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
 In loving memory of
Tom Burch and Emily Hughes
 1   2

Contents

List of Illustrations | ix

Acknowledgments | xi

Introduction | 3

1. Merchant Capitalism and the Santa Fe Trade | 15

2. The Occupation and Conquest of New Mexico | 40

3. Indian Wars and the Contest for the Southwestern Frontier | 71

4. Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions | 101

5. Railroad Capitalism and the Transcontinental Line | 125

6. The Civil War and the Final Contest for New Mexico | 148

Conclusion | 182

Notes | 185

Bibliography | 241

Index | 261
 1   2

Illustrations

Figures

Zebulon Pike | 17

Thomas Hart Benton | 25

Stephen W. Kearny | 41

Manuel Armijo | 49

Charles Bent | 59

Sterling Price | 62

Donaciano Vigil | 67

Edwin V. Sumner | 72

Horace Greeley | 110

Andrew Johnson | 119

James DeBow | 129

Jefferson Davis | 135

Edward R. S. Canby | 152

John R. Baylor | 156

Henry H. Sibley | 159

James H. Carleton | 172

Bosque Redondo | 176

ix
x Illustr ations

Maps

Cartography by Bill Nelson

1. Santa Fe Trail Network, 1820s–1860s | 20

2. New Mexico Military Posts, c. 1850s | 78

3. The Bartlett–García Conde Agreement and Gadsden Purchase | 132

4. Pacific Railway Surveys, 1853–1854 | 136

5. New Mexico during the Civil War, 1861–1862 | 151

 1   2

Acknowledgments

A s with all book projects, this work benefited from the assistance of many scholars,
archivists, colleagues, and friends. I thank Amy Porter, Ed Westermann, and
John P. Wilson, each of whom read a draft of the manuscript and provided valuable
suggestions for improvement. I also appreciate Philis Barragan-Goetz, who helped
me access government reports, and Andrés Reséndez, who provided his personal
notes on documents in Mexican archives. I have benefited from many conversations
on the topics discussed in this book, including discussions with Durwood Ball,
Donald Critchlow, Brian DeLay, Donald Fixico, Francis Galan, Charles Harris, Rick
Hendricks, Janne Lahti, Kyle Longley, Katherine Osburn, Charles Rankin, Louis
Sadler, Calvin Schermerhorn, Brooks Simpson, Ed Sweeney, and Robert Wooster.
I thank my department chair, Bill Bush, for his support, and my home institution,
Texas A&M University–San Antonio, which not only funded production costs for
the maps contained in this volume but also provided a generous summer stipend to
complete final manuscript revisions. Archivists at the New Mexico State Records
Center and Archives in Santa Fe and the Center for Southwest Research at the
University of New Mexico were instrumental in providing access to documents.
Thanks are also in order for the librarians at my university, including Pru Morris,
Sarah Timm, and Emily Bliss-Zaks, who are always quick to acquire research
materials and other sources that I request.
Finally, as always, I appreciate the love and support of my wife, Nicole; my
parents, Dan and Jerine; and all of my friends and family members.

xi
Coast-to-Coast Empire
 1   2

Introduction

I n the summer of 1852 a former St. Louis mayor left his home state of Missouri
and traveled to New Mexico, where he had been appointed to serve as territorial
governor. Although he could claim little familiarity with the region, William Carr
Lane arrived in Santa Fe with an optimistic outlook. By the time he delivered his first
annual message to the legislative assembly in December, however, Lane had almost
nothing positive to say. His speech began with a diatribe outlining the discouraging
shortcomings that he saw. The landlocked territory was a long way from the eastern
states and difficult to reach. Indian tribes surrounded the settlements in all directions
and frequently raided them for livestock, provisions, and captives. The Hispanic and
Pueblo Indian population, dispersed over more than 200,000 square miles, barely
approached 60,000 souls. Because of its geographic enormity, Lane believed that
the region required more than twenty companies of troops for permanent military
service, since most civilians lacked the means to resist Indian raids. Stock raising
and agricultural production fell far short of potential output, and nearly all mining
operations had been abandoned. Roads were in poor condition, and very few schools
existed. Finally, he complained, most inhabitants spoke only Spanish and refused to
embrace American customs.1 Why, then, had the United States gone to such great
lengths and expended so much blood and treasure to acquire and retain a place that
many Anglo-Americans looked down upon as worthless, primitive, and degraded?
Governor Lane was not the first newcomer to express pessimism regarding
New Mexico and its Hispanic inhabitants, nor would he be the last. Disparaging

3
4 Coast-to-Coast Empire

remarks appeared over and over again in reports from civil officials, military officers,
merchants, and others who traveled to the Southwest. Following a bloody battle
at Taos in 1847, for example, a distraught Lieutenant A. B. Dyer described New
Mexico as a “fatal” enterprise for Americans and believed that “this country is not
worth what it will cost to keep it.” After watching his commander, Captain John
Burgwin, die alongside many others trying to sustain the recent conquest, Dyer
realized that keeping New Mexico under American control would not be cheap or
easy.2 Ten years later Lieutenant William W. Averell caught his first glimpse of Santa
Fe and was “grievously disappointed” by what he saw. “So much of expeditionary
force had been expended by the government to acquire this great Territory,” he
sighed, “and here was its capital of jacal and adobe boxes.”3 After the Civil War
General William T. Sherman summarized the feelings of many when he muttered
that “we have held this Territory since 1846 . . . at a cost to the national treasury
of full a hundred millions of dollars, and I doubt if it will ever reimburse to the
country a tithe of that sum.”4
Despite such negative perspectives, most people who disliked the Southwest
understood its importance to the United States in terms of expansionistic nation
building. Governor Lane himself recognized the territory as critical to his country’s
future. After blatantly condemning New Mexico in his aforementioned legislative
address, he placed it directly in the context of Manifest Destiny, explaining that
“this Continent must soon be crossed, from east to west, by railroads and telegraphic
lines,” and predicting that at least one, if not more, of those railways and telegraphs
would pass through the new territory. New Mexico, he realized, provided a crucial
geographic link between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and thus it constituted an
indispensable national resource. The governor lauded the “Anglo-Saxon wave which
is now rolling from East to West” and believed, as did other adherents to the idea
of American exceptionalism, that providential design favored United States rule
over the territory.5
Adolph Wislizenus, a doctor who passed through the region in 1846, described
New Mexico as an arid desert “entirely worthless for agriculture.” He abruptly
changed his tune, however, when explaining the area’s significance for “a great
commercial nation like the United States,” pointing out that the Southwest would
provide a pertinent connection between the preexisting nation and its new Pacific
shoreline. Once geopolitically absorbed into the American union, New Mexico
would become the “new thoroughfare” between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,
conveying emigrants westward, enticing commerce eastward, and facilitating
economic development in all directions. When the doctor’s report reached Congress
 Introduction 5

in 1848, senators found its expansionist rhetoric so inspiring that they printed five
thousand copies for public distribution.6
When Lieutenant William H. Emory ventured through New Mexico as a topo-
graphical engineer with the Army of the West, he affirmed what Wislizenus had
observed and expounded on the true meaning behind the impending annexation.
Despite its barren soil and seemingly limited resources, Emory wrote, the terri-
tory would prove essential as an “all-important military possession for the United
States.” Upon construction of a transcontinental railroad, which could follow the
well-worn wagon ruts of the Santa Fe Trail, “immense quantities of merchandise”
would pass through New Mexico and enrich the entire nation. With this in mind,
Major General Thomas Jesup of the Quartermaster Department identified six
possible railway avenues from the existing states to California, noting that the two
most logical routes both passed directly through New Mexico. As an army officer,
Emory perceived not only the commercial possibilities but also the strategic military
importance of the region. Its extensive international border allowed Apaches and
Comanches to pass back and forth from Mexican to American soil when trading
and raiding—creating a complicated diplomatic issue that would attract a strong
army presence for much of the nineteenth century—and indeed his remark on
transnational human trafficking across a militarized border remains relevant today
for different but equally pressing reasons.7
When he connected railroads with military imperatives, Emory struck on a
second important purpose for a transcontinental connection. In the mid-1850s
Secretary of War Jefferson Davis adopted this same line of reasoning, regarding the
so-called Pacific railway in terms of national defense and pointing out to the president
and Congress that a reliable linkage between the Mississippi valley and the Pacific
Ocean would be imperative in the event of war with any major maritime power. A
railroad would vastly improve communications between the two coasts in an age
before telegraph wires reached across the continent. Locomotives could also haul
vast quantities of supplies and transport troops to coastal California and Oregon
if an invasion of the United States were ever to threaten the Pacific Northwest.
Because of the vast distance separating the East from the West, this could mean the
difference between victory and defeat for America. According to Davis, the 32nd
parallel of latitude through Texas and New Mexico Territory (which at that time
included Arizona) offered the most plausible route for a railway, and the Southwest
therefore served a critical purpose for the common defense of the American people.8
President James K. Polk shared these views and fully appreciated New Mexico’s
strategic importance in the growing American empire. When delivering the State of
6 Coast-to-Coast Empire

the Union address in December 1848, he specifically mentioned the newly acquired
Southwest as a place that might one day become profitable for agriculture and
mining. Its immediate national significance, however, trumped all future pos-
sibilities. “From its position,” Polk declared, “it is the intermediate and connecting
territory between our settlements and our possessions in Texas, and those on the
Pacific coast.” To ensure American hegemony over California’s goldfields and ocean
ports, Polk asked Congress to establish a territorial government for New Mexico,
urging lawmakers to set aside sectional differences for the country’s greater good.
In making these remarks, the nation’s most powerful expansionist endorsed New
Mexico as a critical possession and added impetus for its political incorporation
and infrastructural development.9
In fact, the president mentioned New Mexico quite frequently over the course
of his four-year term, cementing the region’s position at the forefront of national
growth. Referring to the Mexican Cession generally, and to sparsely settled New
Mexico specifically, Polk said that the monetary worth of the land was inconse-
quential compared to its geographic importance, and he stressed that, in line with
the Monroe Doctrine, no European power should ever again claim jurisdiction
over it. These two factors alone constituted an “immense value” to the United States
as a burgeoning hemispheric superpower and justified any troubles and expenses
that the government might incur in retaining sovereignty over the area. “Although
none of the cities on our coast of California may ever rival the city of New York in
wealth, population, and business,” the president prophesied, large municipalities
would nonetheless rise around Pacific harbors and stimulate the American economy,
provided that reliable routes of commerce could be established and maintained.
Secretary of State James Buchanan echoed the president’s sentiments when he
wrote that California formed “an integral part of this great and glorious republic,”
so much so that the government would remain fully dedicated to its development.10
James D. B. DeBow, editor of a proslavery magazine in the South, wrote in 1856
that “the growth of California constitutes one of the most remarkable chapters in
the history of America.” The dollar value of customs receipts at the port of San
Francisco had skyrocketed by a factor of eight since the Gold Rush began in 1849.
Only New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans exported more goods annually
than San Francisco, which had grown from a small seaside town to a bustling
center of global commerce in just seven years. Farther south, Los Angeles and
San Diego offered additional enticements for economic expansion. At one point
DeBow estimated that western commerce would yield an astronomical $350 million
in wealth each year. Fearful that European interests might gain a foothold on the
 Introduction 7

Pacific coast, financiers and politicians in the South and North alike clamored for
exclusive access to and control of this lucrative new market.11
Between the eastern United States and California, however, lay New Mexico,
which thus bore strategic significance for the country’s ambitious imperial agenda.
Polk and other expansionists wanted California, but to retain possession of it and
realize its full economic and geopolitical potential, they needed New Mexico as a
connecting thoroughfare in their nation-building project. After 1845 this perceived
need held especially true for southerners—among whom Polk, a native of Tennessee,
could be counted—because New Mexico linked slaveholding Texas to coastal
California. For the following two decades, the political implications of the territory’s
existence and the daily lives of the people living there would be firmly grounded
in notions of Manifest Destiny, American imperialism, and the sectionalism sur-
rounding slavery debates.12 None of this is meant to diminish the significance of
places such as California, Oregon, or Utah in the broader context of westward
expansion; rather, I argue that New Mexico, primarily because of its geographic
location, was much more important to nineteenth-century U.S. expansion and the
evolving sectional crisis than historians have previously appreciated.
Politicians and newspaper columnists ranked among the nation’s most avid
proponents of expansion. Indeed, it was a journalist, John O’Sullivan, who coined
the phrase “Manifest Destiny” in 1845 to describe the idea that Americans acted
with God’s approbation when annexing territory, assimilating people, populating
the continent, developing resources, and spreading democracy. Senator Thomas Hart
Benton of Missouri, a leading spokesperson for American supremacy, delivered a
speech entitled “The Destiny of Race” in May 1846, just as hostilities commenced
between the United States and Mexico. His paean to Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism
typified the rhetoric of an era during which many leading citizens viewed them-
selves and their nation as the world’s leading light of moral democracy. “Since the
dispersion of man upon earth, I know of no human event, past or present, which
promises a greater, a more beneficent change upon earth than the arrival of the van
of the Caucasian race upon the border of the sea which washes the shore of eastern
Asia,” Benton gushed in characteristic purple prose. “The van of the Caucasian race
now top the Rocky Mountains, and spread down to the shores of the Pacific. In a
few years a great population will grow up there, luminous with the accumulated
lights of European and American civilization.” Because of its geographic position,
New Mexico fit nicely into these progressive schemes. Alluding specifically to the
Southwest, editors of a Santa Fe newspaper duplicated Benton’s feat of diction when
writing in 1848 that “the wave of Freedom, that rose so proud and powerful on the
8 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Atlantic shore—that rolled onward with its irresistible might across the Mississippi
waters, is now dashing its sparkling spray along the base of the lofty mountains
that tower around us—soon to mingle its torrent with the Pacific wave.” Similar
verbiage graced the pages of periodicals throughout the nation, disseminating the
Manifest Destiny ideology to all who would read or listen.13
Within this context and outlook, the United States went to war with Mexico in
1846, with a primary purpose being the acquisition of land. For many, the notion of
providential design—coupled with a prevailing view of Mexico as socially degraded,
religiously and racially inferior, politically corrupt, and financially insolvent—justi-
fied such a hawkish course of action. Polk recommended as early as December
1845 that Congress buttress existing naval forces and enlarge the standing army,
under the pretense of protecting American emigrants as they trekked westward. As
disagreements with Great Britain over the Oregon Territory continued to complicate
matters, the president reiterated the need to provide for the “public defense” and
suggested that two-thirds of all U.S. troops be stationed on the Texas frontier to
protect the new state from Indian raids on white settlements as well as from British
meddling. As this diplomatic posturing played out during the early months of
1846, the perceptive Dr. Wislizenus proclaimed—quite accurately, as it turned
out—that “the fate of Mexico is sealed.” He prophesized that the United States
would assume the paternalistic role of “enlightening the masses” in foreign regions
that it acquired through legal purchase, political annexation, or military conquest.
Another commentator, James Madison Cutts, phrased it even more bluntly. Mexico
had failed to put California to optimum economic use, he said, and it therefore
became America’s moral duty to assume ownership of a territory that was otherwise
wasting away. He praised his fellow countrymen as emigrants and entrepreneurs
“whose intelligence, enterprise, and capacity might well be confided in to develop
the character of the country.”14
By the mid-1800s the national population had grown larger and more diverse,
prompting American citizens to trickle and then stream westward. The economy
expanded in stride, and a market revolution predicated on capitalism and democracy
permeated many aspects of society. With its extensive coastline and numerous
harbors, California fell into the fixed gaze of U.S. imperialists. The commercial
possibilities attendant upon the acquisition of California seemed endless, and the
overriding weakness of the Mexican government that claimed sovereignty over it
enticed many of the era’s most powerful politicians and businessmen. Possession
of the Pacific coast would effectively globalize the American economy, creating a
continental empire that could trade with the Orient as well as Europe. Both the raw
 Introduction 9

materials harvested on the backs of southern slaves and the finished textiles flowing
out of northern factories and mills would then reach Asian markets with relative
ease. The vertical breadth of the California coast made it even more desirable and
attracted the interest of both northerners and southerners, thrusting the region into
the increasingly virulent sectional agitation that traced its origins to the dawn of
the republic. The port at San Francisco could tangibly send and receive goods over
a northern railway terminus at Chicago, while harbors at Los Angeles and San
Diego could do the same for the benefit of southern cities like New Orleans and
Galveston.15 These eventualities, however, depended not only on the acquisition of
California but also on the conquest of New Mexico.
As a Spanish colony, New Mexico was not an economic boon to the United
States, nor did it have much appeal to early migrants, largely because of the many
nomadic Indian groups who claimed the region as their own and fought violently
to protect their homelands from invasion and settlement. This lethal reality, com-
pounded by the arid climate, rough topography, lack of navigable waterways, and
unfamiliar Hispanic Catholic society, caused many U.S. citizens to resist the thought
of incorporating New Mexico into their political nation. But in 1821 the opening
of the Santa Fe–Missouri trade began to alter such opinions, and by midcentury
the region’s importance to federal nation-building projects had become apparent.
If the United States was to have California, it must also possess New Mexico;
without the latter, the economic potential of the former could not be fully realized.
Prior to completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, an expensive
and time-consuming alternative for shipping goods from one U.S. coast to the other
was to circumnavigate the faraway tip of South America. The absence of a canal or
railroad linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans near the hemisphere’s center did
not, however, preclude ambitious Americans from trying to create overland con-
nections through the narrower parts of Central America. In the 1850s, for instance,
Cornelius Vanderbilt and a group of speculative financial backers maneuvered to
gain foreign approval for railroads through Panama and Nicaragua, hoping to
shorten the distance that ships would have to sail or steam when delivering cargo.
At the same time, filibusters attempted to take control of Central American nations
using the clandestine force of mercenary armies, the most famous effort being
that of William Walker in 1855, whose initial success in Nicaragua gave way to
his eventual execution by firing squad. Although many federal leaders hoped that
these missions of intrigue would work—President Franklin Pierce went so far as
to recognize Walker as the legitimate ruler of Nicaragua in 1856—the political and
diplomatic implications of foreign meddling prevented open state sponsorship of
10 Coast-to-Coast Empire

such endeavors, and interested Americans had to hope for the best from afar. New
Mexico, however, was a different story. After 1848 the United States held undisputed
possession of the Desert Southwest and could develop the region accordingly,
provided Americans could nationalize and assimilate Hispanic inhabitants, pacify
Indian tribes, and agree on a pathway toward development. Despite the prospects
for privately funded commercial arteries across Central America, New Mexico
remained a more practical geographic solution to the nation’s transportation needs
prior to the Civil War.16
As these events played out during the antebellum era, territorial Utah still seemed
like an implausible avenue for a railway linking the two coasts. Throughout the
1850s the American democratic state and Brigham Young’s Mormon theocracy
faced off in quarrels of wit and rhetoric that very nearly erupted into open warfare
in 1857. Secretary of War John B. Floyd complained that the Mormon settlements
in Utah “lie in the great pathway which leads from our Atlantic States to the new
and flourishing communities growing up upon our Pacific seaboard.” Young’s
religious followers, the secretary regretfully concluded, “stand a lion in our path.”17
With ongoing tension between the United States and Zion, government officials
and private capitalists saw New Mexico as the most viable route through which
to construct a railroad to the Pacific Coast. In the fifteen years following the
Mexican-American War, nobody could have foreseen that the first transcontinental
rails would come together at Promontory Point, not far from Salt Lake City.18
As with most aspects of American life prior to the Civil War, sectionalism came
prominently into play whenever the Southwest was mentioned in political debate
or private conversation. Once the United States secured possession of California,
Utah, and New Mexico, what would be the ultimate political disposition of those
places? Their geographic seclusion and mostly arid climates effectively precluded
intensive plantation-style agriculture, and the actual implementation of chattel slav-
ery in those areas hardly seemed practical. Furthermore, the preexistence of Indian
captivity and debt peonage as alternative forms of involuntary servitude already
satisfied regional demand for labor.19 But the benefits entailed in the development
of those regions bore significant ramifications for the national economy, and once
the Mexican Cession lands did become a part of the United States after ratification
of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, people from all parts of the country
vied for supremacy over the vast new territorial appendages. The conquest and
retention of New Mexico occurred within the context of the political crisis leading
up to the Civil War, during which citizens from both the North and the South first
argued—and then fought—for control over the Southwest.20 Southerners sought
 Introduction 11

to make New Mexico a slave territory or state not because they actually intended
to transport large numbers of black slaves there, but rather to exercise ideological
control over the area in advancement of their own sectional economy and political
relevance. On the other hand, northerners who hoped to contain slavery where it
already existed (or abolish it altogether) and to check the proliferation of southern
political power endeavored to make New Mexico a free-soil territory or state. Debates
over the Pacific Railroad Surveys in the 1850s came to epitomize the sectional strife
that accompanied admittance of the Mexican Cession lands into the United States.21
In 1821, when Mexican independence prompted the nullification of restrictive
Spanish commerce laws and the Santa Fe trade opened as a result, foreign merchants
filtering into New Mexico had little, if any, imperial purpose attached to their
endeavors. Their primary motivation in traveling to the Southwest was profit—not
settlement, conquest, or annexation. But even as a handful of American merchants
and French Canadian fur trappers began operating in and around Santa Fe, two
larger and more powerful economic forces were simultaneously unfolding in the
United States. Starting in the early 1800s, the proliferation of a capitalist market
revolution and the emergence of a Southern Cotton Kingdom would have a profound
impact on the purposes that Americans attached to business and settlement in the
Southwest. The market revolution and Cotton Kingdom were largely interdependent,
indelibly linking southern slavery to northern industrialization and facilitating the
growth of America’s increasingly global economy.22 One aspect of these broader
economic phenomena involved the Santa Fe trade and merchant capitalism, which
pulled the Hispanic Southwest into the commercial orbit of the United States and
laid the groundwork for future military conquest.23
The rise of the Cotton Kingdom during this age of commercial intensification
and technological innovation also helped to sectionalize New Mexico’s political
existence. Southerners held considerable sway in the Southwest, because trade with
the region mostly involved merchants from Missouri—a slave state—who influenced
regional opinion on issues like slavery and popular sovereignty.24 Territorial expan-
sion for the purposes of geographic conquest and political hegemony—rather than
just commercial profit—originated in part with southern efforts to spread slavery
beyond its existing boundaries, and New Mexico became a pawn in federal debates
revolving around sectionalist politics and westward migration.25 The far-reaching
implications of the South’s growing economic power and political self-identity
can be gleaned in part from events in contemporaneous New Mexico. During the
1850s a new territorial constitution prohibited chattel slavery but left peonage and
captivity fully intact as alternative forms of coercive labor; legislators enacted strict
12 Coast-to-Coast Empire

slave codes modeled on those of eastern states; proslavery interests aimed to build a
railroad from Texas to California; and the Confederacy hatched an ambitious plot
at the onset of the Civil War to invade New Mexico and establish a coast-to-coast
empire of its own.26
In the nineteenth-century popular imagination, Manifest Destiny was romanti-
cized as a rapid, unilateral process of peaceful American expansion and settlement,
one that pulled millions of square miles of western land into the national domain
while civilizing groups of people seen as culturally, racially, or religiously inferior.
But in New Mexico, Manifest Destiny operated in mysterious, multifarious,
and manipulative ways for a period of almost three decades before the climactic
Mexican-American War brought the region into America’s geopolitical fold. Imperial
expansion was not always overt, purposeful, and immediate; it sometimes involved
indirect and measured tactics. From the 1820s through the 1840s, gradual processes
of multilateral acculturation between trappers, merchants, and Hispanos in New
Mexico enabled communities to hybridize for their own prosperity and livelihood.
After more than two decades of merchant capitalism, intermarriage, and increasing
land ownership through Mexican grants, Americans had created an atmosphere
ripe for military conquest, prompting a swift and systematic (though somewhat
superficial) nationalization of New Mexico’s land and people. Although the region’s
inhabitants remained predominantly Catholic and retained Indian and Hispanic
majorities in ethnicity and culture, its economic orientation leaned more and more
toward the United States, and its political attachment soon followed.27
By the time U.S. troops marched on Santa Fe in 1846, pro-American elements
of society exercised significant political power in the province, largely because of
the growing influence of American businessmen and their ideas about trade and
democracy. Thus, while most outsiders who traveled between Missouri and New
Mexico after 1821 had economic incentives foremost in mind, they also set in motion
the imperial and ideological processes that enabled military occupation twenty-five
years later. Part of that gradual evolution involved the emergence of shared and
even competing nationalisms, which took shape in New Mexico’s Hispanic factions
of liberal pro-American and conservative anti-American leaders. Once U.S. forces
occupied Santa Fe, federal officers sought to control the region by appointing
members of the congenial pro-American clique to positions of authority, but in
so doing they alienated a significant portion of the population and drove them to
open rebellion. More than two decades of exposure to merchant capitalism created
a complex society that had become, in many ways, economically dependent on
the United States but politically allegiant to Mexico. When nomadic and Pueblo
 Introduction 13

Indians—whose loyalties often lay with their tribes of origin—were mixed into
this cultural crucible, America’s conquest and retention of the Southwest became
exceedingly complicated and remained so for many years.28
Many historians of nineteenth-century New Mexico have treated the Santa Fe
trade, Stephen W. Kearny’s occupation, the antebellum Indian Wars, debates over
slavery, the Pacific railway, and the Confederate invasion as separate events. In
contrast, the present work approaches these topics as comprising a single, intercon-
nected process of imposed political and ideological transformation. Armed forces
played a critical role in these events. Concentrating on the activities of a large
standing army in a civilian setting informs our understanding of how powerful
nation-states obtain territory through warfare and retain it during peacetime.
Soldiers and their commanders left an indelible imprint on the social, cultural,
political, judicial, and economic systems that developed in the Southwest. They
marched into the territory at the onset of the Mexican-American War and ensured
possession of it through continuous occupation. Even after territorial organization
in 1850, army officers continued to hold enormous influence in local matters. Tens
of thousands of Hispanic and Anglo citizens relied on soldiers for protection from
Indian depredations and for the stability of their local economy, and the War
Department pumped millions of dollars into New Mexico each year for supplies,
forage, shelter, and troop salaries. Regiments of infantry and cavalry participated
in nation-building projects by escorting explorers, settlers, boundary adjudicators,
and railway surveyors across the territory. When the Civil War began, the South-
west again became the backdrop for armed conflict, and federal troops backed by
regiments of Hispanic volunteers united to repel a Confederate invasion. For the
remainder of that war, citizens lived under martial law and suffered its attendant
hardships, while thousands of Navajos endured the devastating Long Walk and
subsequent incarceration at Bosque Redondo, all under military supervision.29 The
federal government’s unwavering commitment to these military projects stemmed
from the broader importance of New Mexico in the context of nineteenth-century
expansionism.
Having been born and raised in a frontier community where danger lurked
in all directions—a place where endemic hostilities with numerous Indian tribes
impacted most peoples’ lives—Hispanic residents of New Mexico understood
the interconnectivity of martial and civil affairs all too well. When not otherwise
occupied with pastoral or agricultural pursuits, many of them enlisted in local
militias and embarked on aggressive expeditions into Apache, Comanche, Navajo,
or Ute country. This did not, however, mean that all New Mexicans welcomed
14 Coast-to-Coast Empire

American soldiers into their territory with open arms, nor did they enthusiastically
assimilate or acculturate to Anglo customs and politics. A New Mexican rico named
Mariano Chávez told his son in 1841 that “the heretics are going to overrun all [of]
this country.” Using “heretics” as a catchall term that by that time included Texan
filibusters, Missourian merchants, French Canadian fur trappers, German-Jewish
businessmen, and a seemingly boundless cadre of other Euro-American interlop-
ers, he instructed his son, José Francisco, to “go and learn their language and be
prepared to defend your people.” The assault on New Mexico to which he referred
had begun more than three decades earlier, even before Mexican independence,
and perceptive men like Chávez realized that the climax was drawing near. The
next two decades, from the U.S. conquest in 1846 until the end of the Civil War
in 1865, would determine the long-term role of New Mexico in America’s growing
political nation.30
 1 1 2

Merchant Capitalism
and the Santa Fe Trade

I n 1807 Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike—for whom Colorado’s best-known mountain

peak is now named—found out the hard way about Spain’s restrictive foreign-
commerce laws. Ostensibly reconnoitering a portion of the recently acquired Louisi-
ana Purchase, the twenty-eight-year-old military officer and his fifteen companions
wandered a bit too far west. By March of that year Pike found himself incarcerated
in Santa Fe, where he desperately tried to explain the situation to a New Mexico
governor who gave him a “haughty and unfriendly reception.” Conversing in broken
French, the officer-turned-voyager swore that he had “no hostile intentions toward the
Spanish government,” insisting that his sole purpose was to explore American terri-
tory. Unconvinced, the governor confiscated Pike’s personal belongings, disarmed and
arrested his cohorts, and sent them all south—under a military guard commanded
by Facundo Melgares—to plead their case before the commandant general in Nueva
Vizcaya. Wary of generating an unwanted diplomatic debacle between Spain and
the United States, the governor treated Pike to a lavish dinner before sending him
away, and indeed the entire group enjoyed relatively humane treatment throughout
the ordeal. The wayward Americans eventually returned unharmed to the United
States, and in 1810 Pike published an account of his tribulations on New Spain’s far
northern frontier.1 His descriptions of the region elicited considerable attention in the
United States and sparked his country’s earliest economic interest in the Southwest.2
In Santa Fe inhabitants began speculating about “whether the Anglo-Americans will
come and the possibility that they may make themselves masters of this Province.”

15
16 Coast-to-Coast Empire

A concerned Governor Joaquín del Real Alencaster noticed that some citizens even
seemed excited about the prospects of an American takeover.3
After being arrested and marched through a thousand miles of foreign terri-
tory, Pike became more acquainted with northern Mexico than he intended or
wished. Explaining the strictly regulated commercial structure of New Spain, he
noted “the extreme dearness of imported goods” to inhabitants who seldom owned
items of overseas manufacture because of Spanish laws prohibiting most forms of
international exchange. He also saw that many locally produced wares could be
acquired cheaply, providing an attractive two-way market in which Americans could
sell their own goods at high prices, obtain local products like mules and bullion
inexpensively, and transport them back to the United States for profitable resale.4
According to Pike, legalization of trade with New Mexico might offer American
businessmen a lucrative enterprise, if only Spain would lift its embargo. However
ill-fated the 1806–7 expedition might have been, it aroused American interest in
New Mexico, and thus Pike initiated the process of settlement and conquest that
played out there over the ensuing five decades.5
Despite the prospects for profitable trade, no demonstrable evidence yet existed
that such commerce could be sustained, nor did Spain’s protective laws allow
traders or trappers to toil in Spanish territory without risk of imprisonment and
confiscation of property. Pike was just the first of many Americans to encounter
difficulties in the precarious borderlands separating the far western United States
from northern New Mexico. Others followed in his footsteps over the ensuing years,
and many of them similarly landed in jail as accused spies. A group of ten men,
including fur trappers Robert McKnight and James Baird, went to prison in New
Mexico in 1812 and did not return to the United States for nearly a decade. After
learning of the arrest, Missourians were “astonished at the barbarity” of Santa Fe’s
officials and hoped that the U.S. government would take immediate steps to have
the men liberated.6 The State Department did indeed take up the cause, but not
until five years later, when John Quincy Adams began prodding Spain’s minister
plenipotentiary, Luis de Onís, to affect their release. Onís sent a dispatch to Don
Ruiz de Apodaca, the viceroy in New Spain, but his communication was either lost
or disregarded and nothing came of it. A year later, under increasing pressure from
Secretary of State Adams, Onís renewed his efforts to free the hapless prisoners but
was again ignored, demonstrating both the ambivalence of royal officials as well as
the stiff enforcement of Spanish commerce laws.7
Foreigners caught near New Spain’s northern borders faced serious risks, but
American and French Canadian opportunists could not resist the temptation of
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 17

Zebulon M. Pike, c. 1814.

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

profit and continued to venture into the region. In 1817 Auguste Chouteau and Julius
Demun were trading with Indians near the headwaters of the Arkansas River in today’s
southeastern Colorado (the international boundary at that time) when Spanish military
authorities apprehended them, confiscated their merchandise, shackled them in irons,
and deposited them “in the dungeons of Santa Fe” for six weeks. When the men finally
appeared before Governor Pedro María de Allande, the schizophrenic head of state
started pounding tables with his fists and became so enraged that he temporarily lost
the ability to speak, lapsing into a bizarre state of psychological impairment. After
returning to his senses, the governor realized that the party had remained on the
American side of the river, traded only with Arapahoes and other Southern Plains
tribes, and possessed a passport from the governor of Missouri. Based on these facts,
the men were set free with instructions to return immediately to their homes. The
aggrieved traders submitted a claim to Congress for remuneration in the amount of
$30,000, stating that the seizure of their possessions “brought us to the brink of ruin,”
but they experienced considerable hardship in seeing their petition executed. Chouteau
and Demun were still appealing for redress in 1836—twenty years after the fact—and
eventually received the disheartening news that stipulations in the 1819 Adams-Onís
Treaty mandating that Spain pay certain indemnities did not apply to their case.8
18 Coast-to-Coast Empire

In 1820 David Meriwether—who later succeeded Henry Clay as a Kentucky sena-

tor—encountered similar circumstances. Spanish troops confronted his encampment
on the Canadian River, arrested Meriwether and his black servant, Alfred, and killed
a number of the Pawnee Indians accompanying them. The two men, accused of
spying for the United States, were ushered into Santa Fe to appear before Governor
Facundo Melgares, the same man who, thirteen years earlier, had escorted Zebulon
Pike to Nueva Vizcaya under identical pretenses of espionage. “This was the most
miserable day of my life,” Meriwether recalled of his capture, “for I felt as though I
would as soon die as live.” Once in Santa Fe, the nineteen-year-old was tossed into a
tiny prison cell at the Palace of the Governors. During the interrogation, Melgares
told Meriwether that “Americans are bad people,” mentioning Andrew Jackson’s
forceful occupation of Spanish Florida the year before as evidence of this universal
indictment. When asked about the purpose of his expedition, Meriwether assured
the governor that he intended only to “find out if it was practicable to make a road
to New Mexico by which we could transport our articles of merchandise in wagons
and exchange them for gold and silver.” Upon hearing this, Melgares shook his head
in disbelief and ordered that the Kentuckian be returned to his cell. Eventually,
authorities freed the young man and his slave after they promised never to return
to New Mexico.9 Meriwether broke his promise thirty-two years later when he
came back to Santa Fe, ironically carrying an appointment as territorial governor.
Although such injurious and humiliating occurrences irked some Americans
and offended their nationalistic pride, there was little that could be done to reverse
Spanish policy at that time. With the War of 1812 having recently ended in stalemate,
the fledgling United States had come to realize that its military might still lagged
behind that of leading European powers. Humbled by the failure to achieve decisive
victory over Great Britain, uncharacteristically apprehensive war hawks balked at the
thought of a costly conflict with Spain over seemingly petty commercial laws and
an unproven trade with Santa Fe. But fortuitously for those wishing to initiate such
commerce, Spain’s New World possessions fell into an irreversible process of mass
rebellion, with one Latin American colony after another declaring independence
in the decades after America’s own democratic revolution set an example in 1776.
Mexico would be among the last colonies to break free from Spanish dominion;
as one of its earliest independent acts, in 1821 the new country abolished restrictive
commercial codes and established free trade with the United States and other
nations. In 1825 Augustus Storrs explained that the Spanish government had “viewed,
with extreme jealousy, an intercourse of other nations with her American depen-
dencies,” and he lauded the fact that Enlightenment-era revolutions and Mexican
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 19

independence “entirely altered its policy in this respect.”10 For Anglo-Americans

itching to capitalize on the potential wealth of New Mexico, the foremost obstacle
to commercialization—Spanish hegemony—had been removed.
Santa Fe and Taos lay at the extreme northern terminus of the Camino Real, and
prior to 1821 New Mexico remained a widely neglected and highly dependent eco-
nomic entity at the periphery of the Spanish empire.11 After Mexican independence
and the abrogation of commercial restrictions, the advent of trade with Missouri
transformed these two towns into international crossroads and vibrant ports of
entry. This placed them in a position for capitalist development and, incidentally,
for the concomitant processes of Americanization that culminated in military
conquest twenty-five years later. Just as this burgeoning inland commerce between
the United States and Mexico permanently altered the configuration of the latter’s
economy, so too did it prove important for Missouri, an infant state born just one
year before Mexico’s independence in the sectional compromise bearing its name.
As Mexico’s northernmost province and America’s most westerly state, New Mexico
and Missouri became mutually interdependent frontier zones, sparsely populated
regions whose inhabitants benefited from multilateral trade networks that helped
to ensure political legitimacy and economic viability.
For Missouri, international trade with New Mexico augmented its preexisting
north-south commercial orientation astride the Mississippi River, rendering the new
slave state important for the national—and particularly the southern—economy.
During the early 1800s millions of dollars in American goods crossed the southern
plains to Santa Fe, from whence caravans and teamsters transported much of that
merchandise to markets in California, Sonora, Chihuahua, and even Mexico City.
At the other end of the trail, St. Louis served in a similar capacity as a conduit
through which Mexican products and specie filtered into U.S. markets for resale
and redistribution, and many Missouri residents benefited from their position at the
interstices of these business networks.12 It comes as little wonder that Missourians
so feverishly clamored for the establishment of this trade, so fervently defended
their commercial interests in New Mexico, and so adamantly demanded federal
support to sustain these economic endeavors.
The Missouri–Santa Fe trade that developed in the 1820s provided a prototype
for transcontinental commerce and economic policy in the United States. Unlike
the Oregon Trail and other routes westward, the primary purposes of which were
to convey one-way settlers to new frontier homes, the Santa Fe Trail retained a
predominantly commercial and military imperative from the time of its founding in
1821 until its abandonment after the railroad entered New Mexico in 1879. Ports of
20 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Mi
ssour
i R iv
iver

er
N oR
Santa Fe Trail Independence St. Louis

i
Oh
Bent’s Fort

Ar
Taos ns

ka
as
Santa Fe Rive
r
Cimarron Cutoff

er
Albuquerque

Mississippi Riv
Red River

El Paso

El Camino Real
R io
SONORA
Gr
an

Chihuahua
de

CHIHUAHUA
COAHUILA

NUEVO
GULF OF MEXICO
LEÓN
to Mexico
City
TAMAULIPAS 0 300 mi

0 500 km

Map 1. Santa Fe Trail Network, 1820s–1860s.

entry were established at opposite ends of the lengthy overland highway, connecting
two separate nations with a wagon road in a region where navigable waterways did
not exist. This transnational connection allowed for the dissemination of a wide
array of goods across an entire continent through mutually negotiated laws and
treaties, such as that signed in 1831 promoting “amity and commerce” between
the United States and Mexico and ensuring free trade by sea and by land.13 The
Missouri–Santa Fe–Chihuahua trading network also necessitated government
action in the form of drawback and debenture measures that relieved American
capitalists from excessive foreign fees and double taxation, further invigorating
the commercial system.
As Lieutenant Pike and others had already proven, a wagon trail across the south
plains would be the only practicable trade route connecting the western United
States with northern Mexico. Neither the Arkansas River nor the Rio Grande
could be navigated far enough inland for freighting purposes, eliminating any
possibility for the use of steamboats.14 For New Mexico the nearest major seaport
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 21

was Vera Cruz, located more than 1,600 miles from Santa Fe and almost twice as
far away as Missouri.15 Thus, when William Becknell placed an advertisement in a
St. Louis newspaper on June 25, 1821—two months before the Treaty of Córdoba
officially recognized Mexican independence—seeking men to accompany him on
a maiden voyage to New Mexico, he was pursuing what seemed to be a logical
course of action.16 Although the inaugural journey to Santa Fe carried only $15,000
worth of goods and did not produce the astronomical profits that later caravans
enjoyed—U.S. Consul Manuel Alvarez downplayed Becknell’s venture as “merely an
experiment” by a handful of “enterprising individuals”—the expedition succeeded
in “awakening the attention of speculators” and ensured continued American
interest.17 According to Augustus Storrs, Becknell and subsequent U.S. merchants
(extranjeros) encountered a New Mexican population that seemed largely amenable
to foreign trade. “The door of hospitality is opened with a cheerful welcome,” he
observed after traveling to Santa Fe in 1825, “and in all their principal towns the
arrival of the Americans is a source of pleasure, and the evening is dedicated to
dancing and festivity.”18 As late as June 1846, just two months before General
Stephen W. Kearny’s arrival in New Mexico, Donaciano Vigil gave a speech to
the legislative assembly praising the American trade for spreading “the spirit of
mercantile enterprises” throughout the country.19
As Becknell and his teamsters worked to establish commerce with New Mexico,
others began eyeing the region for beaver trapping and fur trading, an extractive
undertaking that, unlike the merchant trade over the Santa Fe Trail, entailed little
to no benefit for the Mexican economy.20 Prior to their arrest in 1817, Chouteau
and Demun had petitioned Spanish authorities for permission to trap beaver along
the northern tributaries of the Rio Grande, but that request was denied and they
instead wound up in prison.21 In 1822 William H. Ashley led the first organized
expedition of American trappers into the southern ranges of the Rocky Mountains.
Similar excursions, sometimes including up to one hundred men, occurred annually
until the mid-1830s, when the combination of overhunting and insufficient natural
increase began to take a heavy toll on beaver populations.22 Southwestern trapping
and the Santa Fe trade began and grew contemporaneously throughout the 1820s,
and both activities had a complementary commercial impact within New Mexico.
Men like Charles Beaubien, Jim Beckwourth, William and Charles Bent, Jim
Bridger, Kit Carson, Antoine Leroux, Robert McKnight, Antoine Robidoux, Jede-
diah Smith, Ceran St. Vrain, William Sublette, and Bill Williams became household
names in northern New Mexico during their own lifetimes.23 Many trappers of either
American or French Canadian origin dabbled in peltries as well as mercantilism
22 Coast-to-Coast Empire

over the course of their lives, which in many cases spanned the Mexican national
and American territorial periods. Most of them married Hispanic or Indian wives,
learned Spanish and even some Indian languages, and became naturalized Mexican
citizens as strategies for commercial success and social stature.24 Matt Field, a
journalist for the New Orleans Picayune in the 1840s, observed in Santa Fe that any
American who became fluent in Spanish and resided in New Mexico for an extended
period “becomes a man of great importance.” He specifically mentioned Robidoux
as one foreigner whose local influence rivaled that of the Hispanic priests and
governors.25 With men like these as intermediaries, the early American West became
inextricably linked to the Mexican north, not only commercially but also culturally
and ideologically, through processes of acculturation and mutual accommodation.26
Senator Thomas Hart Benton once referred to these assimilative strategies during
a congressional speech about race and American expansion: “Commerce is a great
civilizer—social intercourse as great—and marriage greater.”27
These processes, as they played out after Mexican independence, would prove
pivotal to the American takeover at midcentury. Missourians understood the benefits
that emigrants derived from marrying Hispanic women, informing Congress in an
1838 petition that such liaisons created “mutual advantages” that in turn allowed
Americans “to pass their goods favorably through the custom-house.”28 Between
1821 and 1846 there were at least 122 marriages between white men and Hispanic
women, most of which took place in the Taos region. An unknown number of
informal liaisons, in the form of concubinage and cohabitation, also transpired
without church sanction and beyond the official record. Intermarriage became an
important social strategy in New Mexico, allowing male outsiders access to goods
and services, relieving them from excessive taxation as foreigners, and preventing
misunderstandings within the community that could undermine their economic
interests and even endanger their lives. Because paid Spanish interpreters were in
high demand among American merchants, those who married Hispanic women
could eliminate that cost by employing their wives to translate documents and
mediate verbal transactions. Even Americans who naturalized as Mexican citizens
and spoke Spanish fluently had difficulty writing the formal language and enlisted
the services of native speakers for official documents like bills of sale and commercial
passports.29
Mexican law in fact encouraged miscegenation between foreign men and His-
panic women as a method for naturalizing entrepreneurial American outsiders,
providing them with a pathway to citizenship, and, theoretically at least, stripping
them of their allegiance to the United States through national incorporation. Traders
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 23

and trappers often adopted Hispanicized versions of their names (James Giddings,
for example, became Santiago Girens) and needed only to marry into a local family,
reside in New Mexico for two years, and join the Catholic Church to become
Mexican citizens.30 In a culturally negotiable borderland environment, nationality
remained moderately fluid, and many foreigners changed citizenship multiple times
as opportunity and caprice dictated. Ceran St. Vrain and Antoine Robidoux both
evolved in nationality from French Canadian to Mexican to American during their
lifetimes. Notions of cultural hybridity and hyphenated nationalities have remained
firmly implanted in the multicultural Southwest and trace their precedent back to
this early period of interaction.31
For Charles Beaubien, intermarriage and naturalization brought far more than
access to prime beaver streams and lower taxes. After marrying a member of the
influential Lobato family in 1827, Beaubien became one of New Mexico’s most
powerful land owners when Governor Manuel Armijo issued large tracts to him,
including the Beaubien-Miranda (or Maxwell) Land Grant. Voluntary assimilation
made him a candidate for landownership and increased his economic and social
clout. It also augmented growing foreign control over the region, undercut Mexican
political power, and perpetuated the process of Americanization that began with
the liberalization of commerce laws and concomitant influx of merchants and
trappers.32 For these reasons such men eventually became the targets of armed
uprisings in the months following the 1846 U.S. conquest, when Beaubien and
others of foreign ancestry were suddenly viewed as occupiers and conquerors among
their adoptive kinfolk.33
Ironically, the governor who awarded several of the largest tracts to foreign
settlers, Manuel Armijo, would be the same man faced with the American invasion
in 1846, a takeover that his own generous land policies helped to encourage. Armijo
bore responsibility for doling out the Sangre de Cristo Grant (1,038,195 acres), the
Beaubien-Miranda Grant (1,714,764 acres), and additional conveyances totaling
more than 15 million acres. He initially hoped to attract entrepreneurial immigrants
who, with the backing of personal funds and financier investments, might develop
commercial infrastructure and bring material wealth into New Mexico.34 Instead, his
incredibly liberal land-giving scheme empowered foreigners in much the same way
that Mexican settlement policies elevated American empresarios like Stephen F. Austin
to positions of control in Texas during the 1820s.35 As a result, by the mid-1840s
both New Mexico and Texas fell into the orbit of American geopolitical control.
Armijo was hardly alone in his attempts to attract American investment in a
region that suffered from the political and economic neglect of its fledgling and
24 Coast-to-Coast Empire

fragile national government.36 Most Hispanic politicians and citizens had good
reason to support international traffic and trade. Between 1800 and 1860, Mexico’s
federal revenue declined by approximately 10 percent, while that of the United
States increased by 1,270 percent, an economic disparity attributable in part to the
market revolution and ongoing industrialization in the latter country. Trapped in
the doldrums of an insolvent economy and an indifferent government, some New
Mexicans began to see the logic of international commerce and aligned themselves
with the more-prosperous United States. Recognizing the financial benefits of
import duties and external markets for local products, Governor Bartolomé Baca
dispatched commissioners to Missouri and Washington, D.C., to discuss the
prospects for free trade. Voicing support for the establishment of an international
highway connecting the two frontiers, Baca also took unprecedented action when
he issued beaver trapping licenses to foreign applicants, with the sole condition
that they be accompanied by a native New Mexican when in the field. This small
concession initiated a domino effect, wherein trappers first secured a license and
then established residency and applied for Mexican citizenship, thus eliminating
any supervisory provisions and enabling them to operate free of regulations and
fees. Baca ranked among the more open-minded of New Mexico’s governors when
it came to free trade with the United States, just as Armijo would one day prove
amenable to foreigners seeking land. Both heads of state contributed to an ongoing
process of commercial liberalization, although only Armijo would be around to
witness the effects of it during the Mexican-American War.37
While simple profit motives might have been the original objective of American
merchants and investors, a more powerful but less apparent force also attended
their efforts. Hoping to secure federal funding for the survey and demarcation of
the Santa Fe route, Missourians explained to Congress in 1825 that trading with
Mexico’s internal provinces would “promote the spread of republican principles
and diffusion of knowledge.”38 Utilizing the stereotype of a politically, culturally,
racially, and socially backwards Mexican republic, Missouri governor Alexander
McNair appealed to Secretary of State John Quincy Adams’s sense of patriotic
duty when assuring him that federal support for trade with New Mexico would
“awaken the inhabitants . . . to the blessings of a republican system of government.”39
Senator Benton, too, gave speeches in Congress voicing support for the Santa Fe
trade. He believed that commerce would not only benefit the United States but
also uplift New Mexicans through capitalism and democracy, thus providing for
“the improvement of their moral and social condition.”40 Benton thought that
the new trail to New Mexico would be “a stage only in the progress” of American
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 25

Senator Thomas Hart Benton, c. 1840s.

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

expansion, with Santa Fe serving as “a new point of departure for our invincible
citizens.”41 The first-term senator made no attempt to deceive his colleagues about
the multifarious nation-building purposes that the Santa Fe trade entailed. He
proudly boasted that the new overland highway would “open an easy channel of
communication . . . not for merchandise only, but for thoughts and ideas,” and
would therefore enable “the preservation of the republican system” through its
geographic and ideological spread into New Mexico.42
Within three years of Mexican independence, merchant caravans consisting of
over one hundred men and every imaginable type of dry goods were setting out for
Santa Fe on an annual basis.43 In 1824 one expedition left Missouri with $18,000
in merchandise and returned from New Mexico with an estimated $180,000 in
Spanish coins and bullion, an astronomical profit margin of 1,000 percent.44 Less
than a decade later Secretary of War Lewis Cass reported with satisfaction that the
volume of commerce between the United States and Santa Fe steadily increased
with each passing year, Missouri was awash in Mexican silver and gold, and “many
of our citizens are profitably engaged in the trade.”45 When the Panic of 1837 struck
America’s financial institutions, Missouri weathered the economic crisis more easily
than other states because so much specie, in the form of Mexican silver, circulated
26 Coast-to-Coast Empire

there, and merchants relied less heavily on risky paper money and unbacked credit.46
In 1837 alone, more than $4.5 million in Mexican pesos (which remained legal tender
in the U.S. until 1857) filtered into the American economy, and the total amount
from 1821 to 1842 exceeded $74 million in face value.47
This economic growth occurred despite Mexican governors who charged exor-
bitant and allegedly illegal import fees on each American wagon entering their
country. Governor Baca, for example, levied a 25 percent customs duty on all goods
bound for Santa Fe.48 Referring specifically to Manuel Armijo, who taxed each
wagonload at the rate of $500, one disgruntled trader wrote that customs fees served
“the sole use and benefit of his obesity, the Governor.”49 Augustus Storrs complained
that officials imposed duties arbitrarily, noting that none of the citizens professed
any knowledge of such a tax being mandated by the Mexican government. The
customs-house officer in Santa Fe could produce no credentials when asked, and
one Chihuahuan legislator, Manuel Almeja, confirmed that he knew of no nation-
ally imposed import fee. “There is very little system or consistency in the political
arrangements of this Provincial Government,” Storrs grumbled, “[and] they look
to temporary expedients, rather than permanent and general results.”50 In a letter
to Secretary of War Cass, another informant hinted at clandestine schemes when
explaining that “the unsettled state of the Mexican Government gives encourage-
ment, and ensures success to the machinations of crafty men.”51 According to Josiah
Gregg—whose 1844 travelogue influenced American popular opinion in much the
same way as Pike’s published account had three decades earlier—governors collected
duties that averaged fifty to eighty thousand dollars per year, “of which nearly half
has been embezzled by the officers of the customs.”52
Americans quickly developed their own methods to dodge excessive fees and
circumvent regulations. As individual traders or entire caravans approached the New
Mexico settlements, customs officers would stop them to search the wagons, check
their guías (commercial passports), and assess import duties. Because some governors,
including Armijo, charged a flat fee per wagon, crafty merchants simply combined
the cargo from multiple carriages, cramming a single cart to overloaded capacity
before reaching the location where they expected to encounter Mexican officials.
They either abandoned the empty wagons or stashed them in the mountains and
recovered them on their return trip to Missouri. Traders also removed contraband
items like gunpowder and tobacco prior to inspection and smuggled them into
Santa Fe on pack mules.53
Trappers devised similar strategies to avoid paying Mexico’s fees and eventually
developed an underground trade in furs and peltries. As a transient profession in
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 27

which many men worked alone in remote areas, trapping was exceedingly difficult
for authorities to regulate. James Baird, a naturalized Mexican citizen who had
spent time in a Santa Fe prison during the Spanish period, estimated in 1826 that
foreigners without trapping licenses smuggled $100,000 worth of pelts out of the
Southwest each year.54 One person nonchalantly termed such tactics “sub-treasury
operations.”55 Occasionally, however, trappers did get caught and were punished for
working illegally. In 1826 Mexican authorities detained Silvester Pratt for unlawful
beaver hunting near Taos; in 1828 three Americans—Richard Campbell, Philip
Thompson, and Vincent Guion—were arrested for unlicensed possession of pelts;
and later that same year Antoine Leroux and Simon Carat underwent extensive
questioning in Santa Fe for similar charges. Legal proceedings could be drawn out
over a long period, as Ira Emmons learned when authorities charged him with illicit
fur trading, confiscated his belongings, and then took two years to settle his case.56
These circumstances led Senator Benton to begin pressuring Congress to approve
funding for a national highway between Missouri and Santa Fe. On January 3, 1825,
he introduced the Storrs report to the Senate, explaining that “the journey to New
Mexico, but lately deemed a chimerical project, has become an affair of ordinary
occurrence.” Recalling the sectional turmoil surrounding Missouri statehood just
five years earlier, he pointed out that cotton would be among the main articles of
trade with New Mexico and wisely emphasized that commerce with Santa Fe would
benefit both the South and the North, because the former grew the raw materials
and the latter produced the finished textiles in New England factories.57 In so doing,
however, he drastically overstated the actual impact of trade with Mexico in the
context of the overall American economy. In 1826, the year after Benton made his
proposals, imports from Mexico totaled over $3.9 million in value, but that sum
constituted just 5 percent of United States imports from around the globe. That
same year, the $6.3 million worth of American goods sent to Mexico represented
8.6 percent of all national exports.58
Benton also introduced a bill to finance the survey and improvement of a new
international wagon road and to fund military assignments to escort merchant
caravans and supervise Indian treaty negotiations. The senator even took personal
responsibility for the Santa Fe Trail when referring to it as “my road to Mexico.”59
Benton sought to convince congressmen of the necessity for such a trade route by
outlining multiple justifications for federal funding, despite the fact that a consider-
able portion of the proposed road (320 out of 746 miles) traversed Mexican territory.60
In the four years since Becknell blazed the trail, commerce between Missouri and
New Mexico had, according to Benton, already proven “sufficiently valuable to
28 Coast-to-Coast Empire

merit the favor of the national protection.” His fellow statesmen and constituents
repeatedly urged him to promote the project and requested that the government
appoint consuls in Santa Fe and Chihuahua to protect Americans on foreign soil.
Appealing to national interests, Benton again couched his persuasive exposé in the
language of shared sectional prosperity. “It is not the West alone which has benefited
by this trade,” he declared. “The North and the South participate in her profits.
The South grows the cotton, the North works it up, and the West exports it, thus
displaying one of the most beautiful operations of agriculture, manufactures, and
commerce, mutually dependent upon and mutually aiding one another.” Perhaps
unwittingly, the Missouri senator had acknowledged the interconnectedness of
southern slavery and northern industrialization, a reality that few in the North
would have readily admitted.61
Given the controversial nature of federally funded internal improvement proj-
ects—an obstacle that grew even larger once Andrew Jackson became president in
1829—Benton knew that his proposal to build a road into a foreign country would
meet with opposition, especially from northerners who understood that the trail
would mostly benefit a southern slave state. Senator James Lloyd of Massachusetts
offered the most legitimate objection, pointing out that almost half of the route to
Santa Fe, beginning at the Arkansas River, traversed Mexican territory and should
not be funded by the U.S. treasury. He first wondered if it was even legal for Congress
to underwrite such a project, and secondly, he questioned whether it constituted
an appropriate expenditure of taxpayer dollars. Federal legislators had a difficult
enough time agreeing to fund internal improvements in the eastern states—as
Henry Clay had come to realize after proposing the American System—much less
a transnational project across a faraway frontier. “There was a very great difference
between making a road in our own territory and in that of another Power,” Lloyd
concluded, explaining that he felt a “strong impropriety in making roads for other
people.”62
Another potential problem involved the ability and willingness of the Mexican
government to pay for portions of the Santa Fe Trail in their own national domain.
Senator William Kelly of Alabama had little faith in newly independent and cash-
strapped Mexico to fund the development of their section of the road. Concerned
about wasting money, Kelly had a hunch that the United States would have to
subsidize the entire project; otherwise, the road would go only part way to Santa
Fe and end abruptly at the international boundary. Even if Congress paid for and
developed the entire route, however, permission from Mexican leaders would be
needed in order to build the road over foreign soil.63 Despite these misgivings, the
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 29

Senate approved the measure and the president signed it on March 3, 1825.64 Passage
of Benton’s Santa Fe Trail bill was, in the words of one observer, “strong evidence of
the fostering care of the government” and represented the country’s earliest national
investment in what would become the American Southwest.65
A few months later Secretary of State Henry Clay wrote to Joel Poinsett, the U.S.
minister to Mexico, regarding the Santa Fe road. Poinsett would be responsible for
negotiating a free-trade agreement to allow for construction of the new international
highway. This would be no easy task, as Clay himself acknowledged when informing
the minister that both he and President Adams expected Mexican leaders to balk
when asked to sign off on such a project. The slew of legal requirements that applied
to foreign businessmen—passports, import tariffs, per diem taxes, subjection to
search and seizure, and risk of imprisonment—betrayed the Mexican government’s
paranoia about American meddling, although authorities in Mexico City had dif-
ficulty enforcing most of these laws.66 Poinsett assured his diplomatic counterparts
that “the road was intended for purely commercial purposes” and would benefit
citizens of both nations, stressing that the United States harbored no intention of
geographic expansion or territorial acquisition. According to Clay, no harm would
come to either country by marking the road and providing a safe passageway, and
bureaucrats therefore had a duty to their constituents to approve the project.67
Assuming they could strong-arm foreign leaders, antsy U.S. officials (Benton
foremost among them) had no intention of waiting for Mexican dignitaries to grant
permission, and a surveying party was outfitted and dispatched before Poinsett
even began his negotiations. With George C. Sibley, Benjamin H. Reeves, and
Thomas Mather serving as co-commissioners, the group left Missouri in mid-1825
and proceeded as far as the Arkansas River, hoping to receive word en route that
Mexico would allow the project. After arriving at the international boundary,
however, “they were obliged to suspend their operations for want of the expected
authority to proceed through Mexican Territory.” Sibley marched on to Taos with a
small surveying corps, while the remaining commissioners and employees returned
to Missouri without completing the mission.68 Arriving at Santa Fe in November
1825, Sibley spent the winter there while awaiting news about ongoing negotiations in
Mexico.69 He met multiple times with Governor Antonio Narbona, who assured the
American commissioner that “he hoped the two Governments would agree perfectly
in relation to the Trade between the two countries.” In contrast to the cool receptions
that Pike, Chouteau, and Meriwether had once received, the New Mexico head of
state not only welcomed Sibley but feted him at every opportunity, inviting him
to fandangos and weddings on an almost nightly basis.70 Narbona clearly felt little
30 Coast-to-Coast Empire

apprehension about American interference, although the same could not be said for
administrators in Mexico City. In December Sibley received news that President
Guadalupe Victoria refused to allow the demarcation of any roads until a formal
treaty stipulated precise national boundaries.71 The exasperated commissioner could
do nothing but attend parties in Santa Fe and await further instructions.
Poinsett finally obtained permission to survey the remainder of the Santa Fe
Trail on May 13, 1826—exactly twenty years to the day before the United States
declared war on Mexico—but the agreement allowed only for a visual examination
of the route.72 The commissioners subsequently informed the president and Congress
that it would be “a very useless expense of money & labor” to actually mark the
path through Mexican territory, because it followed easily identifiable landmarks
and traversed mostly flat and unobstructed plains. Referencing the restrictive
Spanish laws that landed earlier traders in prison, the commissioners proclaimed
that “that barrier is now removed; the way is open, plain, and direct; and a stream
of Commerce is already flowing upon it.”73 Unable to envision the technological
innovations that the transportation revolution would soon bring, an elated Senator
Benton gushed that the new wagon road from Missouri to New Mexico would be
an important thoroughfare “for Ages and Centuries to come.”74
In granting permission for the United States to supervise activity on the inter-
national highway, Mexico unwittingly consented to the future conquest of its far
north, as it was the Santa Fe trade that sparked early American interest in the region,
provided an avenue for the flow of American people and ideas, and quite literally
conveyed General Kearny’s army of conquest into the capital in 1846. During the
Mexican-American War, the well-worn wagon ruts also provided the primary route
for the resupply and reinforcement of troops in New Mexico, making it a pivotal
wartime lifeline. With Fort Leavenworth in Kansas serving as the supply depot for
most western forts, the trail retained an important military purpose until railroads
reached New Mexico several decades later.75
Because of the military value of a road to Santa Fe, Senator Benton prevailed
upon Congress in 1825 to pay for the highway that American troops would one day
use to conquer New Mexico and to sustain that takeover for three decades thereafter.
Although this may not have been the intention of lawmakers in 1825, it proved to
be a convenient outcome in the broader context of Manifest Destiny. Aside from
mapping the route, cementing a diplomatic agreement to ensure its permanence,
and subsidizing the road’s maintenance, American legislators also understood the
necessity of negotiating treaties with Southern Plains tribes whose homelands lay
astride the trail. Foreshadowing a flurry of pacts that the United States would
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 31

arrange in 1825 and 1826, Benton suggested that rights-of-way be purchased from
the Indians, allowing traders and settlers to pass through their territory peacefully.
Summarizing several Indian attacks that had occurred since trade with Mexico com-
menced in 1821, the senator insisted that Congress had a duty to protect American
citizens and create an “unmolested passage” to New Mexico. Derisively referring
to Indians as “miserable barbarians” and “Arabs of the desert,” Benton believed
that a new highway through the southern portion of the Louisiana Purchase would
serve the grander moral purpose of civilizing and assimilating them. He also cited
numerous roads through Cherokee and Creek country in the Old Southeast as
precedent for congressional appropriations to underwrite the Santa Fe Trail.76 When
Commissioner Sibley completed his surveys in 1826, he offered specific advice for
dealing with the Indians, suggesting that Mexico and the United States “act in
concert” to alleviate what he believed to be the only real hindrance to international
trade. Echoing Benton’s unflattering perception of Indians—whom Sibley called
“Pirates of the Plains”—he explained that “none of them have any Respect for the
Mexican authorities” and believed that only Americans could negotiate effective
and lasting agreements with Indian groups.77
Following the advice of Benton and Sibley, U.S. commissioners set out for
the southern plains in 1825 to arrange treaties with the Cheyenne, Crow, Kansas,
Maha, Missouri, Osage, Otoe, Pawnee, and Sioux tribes. Nearly identical in their
stipulations, the treaties mandated that each group refrain from hostilities with
any Americans on the trail, allow surveyors to construct stone markers along the
route, render aid to travelers in distress, permit emigrants to hunt along the way,
and keep the road open year-round. In exchange for these concessions, the com-
missioners distributed $800 worth of gifts to each tribe that signed an agreement.78
The compacts essentially purchased terrain for the international road while stripping
Indians of their sovereignty and laying the groundwork for more aggressive land-
grabs like the 1862 Homestead Act and 1887 Dawes Act.
As with most treaties between the U.S. government and the Indians, neither
side abided by the terms for long. The Pawnees, whom Josiah Gregg called “the
Ishmaelites of the Prairies,” violated their end of the bargain less than two years
later by raiding a caravan near Pawnee Fork on the Arkansas River and carrying
away most of the merchandise and animals.79 Fur trappers also suffered from Indian
attacks, as the tendency to work alone or in small groups at remote locations
imperiled their operations. Between 1826 and 1830 the trapping partnership of
Smith, Jackson, and Sublette lost $43,500 worth of goods during raids, and in 1831
a group of Comanches killed Jedediah Smith, one of the most famous trappers,
32 Coast-to-Coast Empire

along the Santa Fe Trail.80 In the first decade after legal trade began, contemporary
accounts claimed that Indians murdered or robbed 234 people on the road, and
pecuniary losses totaled an estimated $150,000 in merchandise and animals.81
Gregg later concluded, rather simplistically, that “these wanton cruelties had a
most disastrous effect upon the prospects of the trade.”82 For their part, American
emigrants disregarded the stipulation that they remain on the road, straying at will
onto Indian lands and further aggravating tense relations that grew increasingly
violent as years passed. As one careful observer wrote in 1831, “I have no doubt
that, in most of the misunderstandings . . . the fault is with the white people.”83
Over the next two decades the U.S. government continued to increase its stake in
the Santa Fe trade. Payments to Indian tribes for rights-of-way constituted just one
of the many costs of doing business in New Mexico. Where gifts and bribes failed to
secure peace, military intervention would be used as a more forceful and expensive
alternative. To this end, Congress in the 1830s created the First and Second Regiments
of Dragoons to provide the War Department with cavalrymen trained to fight Indians,
a move that reflected increasingly firm commitments to national commerce and
expansion in the Southwest borderlands despite the financial strains entailed in such
operations.84 In 1829, 1834, 1843, 1845, and 1846 military escorts accompanied merchant
caravans across the plains, costing taxpayers considerable sums for troop salaries and
army supplies.85 Such campaigns, according to Missouri congressman John C. Edwards
in 1842, were necessary because they “impressed upon the wild Indians an idea of our
determination to protect that trade.”86 By 1848, as Americans assumed sovereignty over
New Mexico and commercial traffic on the trail further intensified, military officers
realized that periodic troop movements would be insufficient for discouraging Indian
raids. In addition to mobile columns in the field, permanent forts needed to be built
to control and subdue powerful tribes like the Arapahoes, Cheyennes, Comanches,
and Kiowas.87 Referring to the Plains Indians generally, Secretary of War Charles
Conrad complained in 1850 that “all the roads leading into [New Mexico] are infested
by them, and cannot safely be traveled without a military escort.”88 Superintendent
of Indian Affairs James Collins proposed a three-pronged military campaign, citing
recent depredations and suggesting that the Comanches and Kiowas “will certainly
have to be chastised before we can have any security in passing the Plains.”89 With
the military already stretched thin across the western frontier, these bureaucrats could
do little to ensure safe passage to all emigrants.
In 1850 authorities received a stark reminder of the dangers that attended Ameri-
can travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. In May of that year, allied Utes and Jicarilla
Apaches attacked a caravan near Wagon Mound, killing eleven civilians and littering
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 33

the prairie with unopened letters that the mail contractors had been carrying.
When Lieutenant Ambrose E. Burnside investigated the scene, he discovered the
bodies stripped naked and two of the men scalped; all he could do was collect
what remained of the mail and deliver it to nearby Las Vegas.90 President Millard
Fillmore used his 1850 State of the Union address to bring national attention to
Indian raiding along western trails, complaining that “the great roads leading
into [the Mexican Cession] are infested with them, whereby traveling is rendered
extremely dangerous, and immigration is almost entirely arrested.”91 Throughout the
1850s New Mexico legislators memorialized Congress, seeking additional military
aid to control Indian raiding by pointing out that “hardly a [wagon] train passes
that is not compelled to give tribute to these red freebooters.”92 Dealing with these
issues cost immense sums of money, and by the 1850s New Mexico had become the
costliest military department in the nation to equip and maintain.93
The Indian wars, which erupted in part because of irresponsible or irreverent
civilian travelers, cost the government significant blood and treasure. And, as with
all highways, basic maintenance required continuous funding. Categorizing trail
upkeep as an internal improvement, Congress repeatedly passed subsidies for the
Santa Fe road beginning in 1825, when Benton’s first bill secured $35,000 for that
purpose. Almost annually thereafter, lawmakers approved additional appropriations
totaling at least $20,000 per year, so that by the time the Mexican-American War
began in 1846, the United States government had invested hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars in road maintenance alone.94 When paired with War Department
expenditures for patrolling the route and fighting Indians, the salaries for agents
and commissioners who dealt with the tribes, and other contingent expenses, the
commercial network between Missouri and New Mexico became a considerable
national expense that, in the eyes of many imperialistic Americans, justified the
conquest and geopolitical incorporation of the region at midcentury.
As conflict with Indians continued, Americans participating in the Santa Fe
trade also began to develop grievances revolving around double taxation. Trader
Alphonso Wetmore suggested in 1831 that relief measures be enacted; almost every
year thereafter, memorialists from both Missouri and New Mexico petitioned
Congress for drawback and debenture statutes that would provide financial assistance
for overburdened traders and financiers.95 Essentially, both concepts represented
nineteenth-century versions of today’s corporate tax breaks that limit operating
costs and cushion profit margins. Drawback involved a refund of duties imposed
on an imported product that was directly exported again for resale, thus alleviating
the merchant from paying two tariffs on the same item. Debenture allowed rebates
34 Coast-to-Coast Empire

of American customs fees, since businessmen paid an import duty when they
entered New Mexico, and much of that merchandise had already been taxed prior
to leaving the United States.96 Without these benefits, overland traders operated at
an estimated 25 percent disadvantage compared to European seagoing merchants
who brought similar goods into Mexico through the port at Vera Cruz. Passage of
drawback and debenture bills would “infuse into the trade new vigor and life” by
leveling the commercial playing field.97
The most vigorous attempt at this came in 1842, when a group of Missouri
merchants in Santa Fe enlisted U.S. Consul Manuel Alvarez to lobby Congress on
their behalf. Thinking strategically, Alvarez played on American exceptionalism
and aspirations for hemispheric hegemony. He pointed out that drawback privileges
for U.S. merchants would undermine transatlantic commerce between Mexico
and powerful European nations like France and England, diverting some of that
business to Americans operating out of Missouri and thus solidifying the national
economy. Tax benefits would elevate the United States as a regional powerhouse by
strengthening trade with neighboring countries at the expense of Europe. Alvarez
estimated the value of foreign commerce at Chihuahua City (where much of the
merchandise transported to Santa Fe eventually wound up) at $2 million annually,
and emphasized the positive economic impact of this trade on the U.S. economy.
With demand for foreign goods “steadily increasing” throughout Mexico, Alvarez
noted that the ultimate benefactors of drawback and debenture would be American
manufacturers in the North and farmers in the South, who collectively supplied
most of the raw materials and finished goods that filtered into New Mexico.98
Even though the fundamental economic logic of this reasoning was sound, it
took Congress seven years to finally approve the first drawback bill. Passage of the
measure in 1845 brought almost instantaneous financial stimulus. Trade between
Missouri and Santa Fe skyrocketed from $342,000 in goods to more than $1 million
within one year.99 By the time federal lawmakers approved the tax breaks, however,
it made little difference. The American conquest of New Mexico in 1846 eliminated
all import and export duties, domesticated the overland trade, and created benefits
that far exceeded reduced taxation on international commerce. Even more ironic
was a claim that Alvarez made in 1842 when he wrote that vibrant trade between
the United States and Mexico “would tend greatly to promote and strengthen those
feelings of mutual amity and confidence” between the two nations.100 In reality,
the profitability of the Santa Fe trade, which rose dramatically after passage of the
drawback bill, gave added impetus to the expansionist policies that soon wrested
the Southwest from Mexico.
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 35

Indian attacks and thefts along the trail provided a constant concern for Ameri-
can merchants and bureaucrats, and Missourians lobbied obsessively for tax perks
like drawback and debenture, but it would be the fledgling Republic of Texas
that had the most immediate impact on American commerce with Mexico. In his
inaugural address incoming president Mirabeau Buonapart Lamar revealed his
expansionistic agenda, envisioning a Texas empire that would soon span “from the
Sabine to the Pacific.”101 When Lamar dispatched a contingent of several hundred
troops and a merchant caravan into New Mexico in 1841—ostensibly to initiate trade
but covertly, many believed, to conquer and annex the territory—the aggressive
maneuver startled Santa Fe officials. Governor Armijo and his colleagues scrambled
to thwart the invaders, capturing General Hugh McLeod’s beleaguered Texan force
on the eastern plains of New Mexico and forcing the prisoners of war to march in
brutal winter conditions all the way to Mexico City. Many of them died along the
way, and those who survived—including a deeply embittered New Orleans journalist
named George Wilkins Kendall, who in 1844 published a narrative of the event
that conjured widespread American hatred toward Mexico—held a grudge for the
remainder of their lives. The ill treatment of several U.S. citizens accompanying
the expedition, all of whom purportedly held valid passports, infuriated federal
politicians who felt that Mexican authorities had blatantly disregarded international
law. A group of Kentuckians sent a memorial to Congress imploring lawmakers
“to use the most prompt, vigorous, and efficient means to restore to liberty and
their country those men, and to vindicate, to Mexico and the world, the proud
declaration that American citizenship is a shield against wrong and oppression
throughout the globe.”102
Some hawkish American expansionists, including former president Andrew
Jackson, saw this not only as an opportunity to gain support for annexation among
Anglos living in Texas but also as justification for a war with Mexico that would take
additional territory from that country.103 Although the expansionists initially failed
in this objective, the groundwork for conflict had been established, and war would
become a reality in just a few years. Most immediately, however, Americans became
concerned about the impact that the Texas invasion might have on international
trade, as many Mexican officials drew little distinction between Texans and U.S.
citizens and feared what was fast becoming an insatiable thirst for expansion among
both groups. As a kneejerk reaction to the Texan–Santa Fe Expedition, Governor
Armijo suspended activity along the trail, and shortly afterwards, on August 7,
1843, Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna issued a formal decree
closing the customs houses at Taos, Santa Fe, and Paso del Norte.104 Concerned
36 Coast-to-Coast Empire

that recent events had jeopardized his constituents’ profitable commercial network,
Senator Benton remained committed to Texas annexation but now implored his
congressional colleagues to consider peaceful means toward that end, in order to
avoid disrupting trade with New Mexico.105
Although American politicians began discussing Texas annexation in the 1830s,
they revisited the topic in earnest near the end of John Tyler’s presidency, at which
point the geopolitical absorption of Santa Fe and its hinterlands suddenly became
a real possibility. When Texas achieved independence in 1836, its leaders had staked
a disputable claim to the Rio Grande as its western boundary, placing Taos, Santa
Fe, and most other New Mexican towns within its limits. Were the United States
to annex Texas and recognize its controversial border claim, most of New Mexico’s
residents would be absorbed into the American nation. Benton thus found himself
in a quandary. A fervent expansionist, he remained committed to the commercial
infrastructure between Missouri and New Mexico that he himself had helped to
establish two decades earlier, and his constituents depended on him to protect
their interests in Congress. On the other hand, Benton ranked among the leading
voices of American exceptionalism, delivering bigoted and even slanderous speeches
throughout his career denouncing Hispanics and Indians as unworthy of political
participation in the enlightened American democracy. If Texas were annexed with
the Rio Grande as a western boundary, tens of thousands of Mexicans and Pueblo
Indians would be “suddenly converted, by a stroke of the President’s pen, into
American citizens, or American rebels.” Vacillating between the pros and cons,
Benton believed that the absorption of Texas and New Mexico represented “an act
of unparalleled outrage on Mexico” and would be a veritable declaration of war.
In the next breath, however, he returned to the imperialist rhetoric for which he
was known, proclaiming with characteristic bravado, “We want Texas . . . for great
national reasons, obvious as day, and permanent as nature. We want it because it
is geographically appurtenant to our division of North America, essential to our
political, commercial, and social system.”106
Debates over the Texas boundary claim often took on sectional overtones,
with northern representatives like Luther Severance of Maine, Charles Hudson
of Massachusetts, and Jacob Brinkerhoff of Ohio speaking adamantly against any
annexation that included portions of New Mexico. Brinkerhoff pointed to the 1831
treaty of commerce between the United States and Mexico, noting in his objection
that “we ourselves are daily in the habit of recognizing the right of Mexico to this
province by the protection we afford to the Santa Fe trade, and by the payment of
duties we export to that city.” Alluding to the disastrous Texan–Santa Fe Expedition
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 37

three years earlier, he quipped that the only Texans ever to step foot on New Mexico
soil had done so as prisoners of war. “If, therefore, New Mexico shall ever become
a part of our territory,” the Ohioan prophetically concluded, “we must first acquire
it by purchase, or take it by conquest.”107 Phrasing his support of annexation in
the parlance of Manifest Destiny, another politician saw New Mexico as the most
pivotal component of the entire expansionist scheme. “We must not suffer a rival
power to supersede our greatness,” he began. “The trade of New Mexico may be
lost to us; the trade of the Californias may be transferred to other hands, and even
that great commerce which is opening with China may, through the revolution of
steam and railroads and Panama canals, be diverted from the Atlantic and, crossing
the Pacific and the Isthmus, center in Texas. . . . Empires rise and fall, but their
mutations are consequent upon the actions of men.” With the simultaneous political
incorporation of New Mexico and Texas, he declared, the United States would
comprise “a great family of nations that may defy the world.”108 These arguments
conveniently sidestepped the central issue of slavery and free soil that so deeply
divided the nation over Texas annexation, indicating the complexity of the topic
and the desire of some lawmakers to downplay the most incendiary issue of all in
pursuit of broader Manifest Destiny goals.
Ultimately, Congress refuted Texas’s claim to the Rio Grande as its western
boundary, but this would be a moot point once General Kearny’s Army of the West
invaded New Mexico and seized the entire province in 1846. In a matter of less than
two years, Texas, California, and New Mexico fell permanently into American
hands, altering the nature of trade in the West and forever redefining America’s
commitment to the region. With seaports on the gulf coast of Texas and the Pacific
coast of California, New Mexico became a critical geographic connection between
the two oceans, and the vast desert region suddenly took on tremendous importance
for a nation seeking to develop and sustain a continental empire. The early Santa
Fe trade, as it turned out, was only the beginning of an even larger process.
The Santa Fe Trail physically and materially linked New Mexico’s capital city to
a hemispheric economy. Goods from factories and mills in New England traveled
down a network of turnpikes and waterways to the Mississippi River, while the
South’s raw materials—and even some European imports—were loaded onto steam-
ships at New Orleans and sent upriver to the same points of embarkation in Missouri.
From there, annual caravans shipped the merchandise overland to New Mexico.
Prior to these formalized commercial mechanisms, the closest Santa Fe came to a
continental trading network was an eighteenth-century frontier exchange economy
in which a number of Indian tribes served as intermediaries between Spanish New
38 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Mexico and French Louisiana.109 Some merchandise did filter up the Camino Real
from central Mexico, but during the colonial era that flow of goods was nominal in
the broader context of the Spanish economy, and it never equaled the quantity or
value of commodities coming from Missouri after 1821. To be sure, New Mexico’s
economy was not entirely stagnant prior to American investment but was instead
largely dependent on Chihuahua and Mexico City.110 The international highway
between Santa Fe and Missouri invigorated and reoriented an internal commercial
relationship between New Mexico and Chihuahua that had previously relied on
pastoral and agricultural produce as the primary articles of exchange.111 The Santa
Fe trade therefore shifted New Mexico’s economic dependency from Chihuahua to
Missouri, effectively externalizing the local economy to the eventual detriment of
Mexico.112 By the Civil War era, these economic processes had wrought significant
social change, propagating the emergence of a powerful Hispanic class of mercantile
elites who skillfully transitioned from pastoral land barons to market capitalists.113
Commercial intensification and the concomitant tariff revenue that it pumped
into New Mexico’s coffers also provided money to pay local militiamen, who in turn
protected residents from the debilitating Indian raids that had plagued the region’s
settlers since colonial times. As Missourians were quick to point out whenever
confronted with accusations that they exploited Nuevomexicanos for the benefit
of American capitalists, “The local authorities of the province of New Mexico, by
their custom-house receipts, would be enabled to maintain a sufficient military
force to reduce into subjection her Indian neighbors.”114 This made the inhabitants
indirectly dependent on the Santa Fe trade for protection from Indian groups. In
the years following Mexican independence, for example, both regular army and
militia struck the Navajos in their homelands during several expeditions, the size,
scope, and frequency of which would not have been possible prior to the increasing
infusion of capital and supplies after 1821.115
From the 1820s through the 1840s, merchant capitalists and fur trappers integrated
New Mexico into a growing continental trading network—one that the United
States worked with increasing determination to control—by fostering multiple levels
of dependency among Hispano inhabitants. In 1843 alone some 350 traders stuffed
230 wagons with half a million dollars in American merchandise (over $16 million
today) and transported it overland to New Mexico, constituting a major component
of the local economy. By 1861 the average value of yearly imports had reached $3
million (about $81 million today). Prior to the American conquest, tax revenue
from such goods provided more than 70 percent of the entire territorial budget,
paying the salaries of three militia companies and all provincial administrators,
 The Santa Fe Tr ade 39

including the governor.116 By the 1840s political officeholders, military leaders, and
landholders—three elements of Mexican society that fostered dependency among the
masses through coercive labor systems like captivity and peonage—had ironically
become dependent on American commerce for their own prosperity. Furthermore,
forceful rhetoric and unilateral declarations like the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which
forbade European countries from meddling in the western hemisphere, reaffirmed
the United States as a burgeoning regional power broker. While their primary
objective may have been profit, trappers and traders also served as a conduit for the
westward flow of American democracy and capitalism, and in so doing they primed
the region for military and political conquest during the Mexican-American War.117
American interest in New Mexico began in 1810 with the publication of Zebulon
Pike’s narrative and was legalized in 1821 when William Becknell opened formal
commercial relations between Santa Fe and Missouri. That tenuous economic link,
however, could not persist between two nations so disparate in political power and
imperialistic aspiration. Within twenty-five years of Becknell’s inaugural trip, the
United States came to see New Mexico as far more than a foreign trading partner.
With the Jacksonian era’s transportation and communication revolutions creating
technological possibilities for efficient long-distance commerce, American capital-
ists saw a new future for the Southwest, one in which Mexico played no political
part. The annexation of Texas, along with the election of the expansionist James
K. Polk as president, affirmed that Americans were casting their gaze westward
with increasing vigor, all but cementing New Mexico’s role as a critical piece in
the mosaic of Manifest Destiny. In the summer of 1846, it would be up to a group
of 1,600 U.S. soldiers to officially initiate this process of conversion from Mexican
to American dominion.
 1 2 2

The Occupation and Conquest

of New Mexico

O f all the men who might have overseen America’s midcentury military conquest
of the Southwest, Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny ranked among the
most qualified but least likely candidates. Born in 1794 to Irish parents in Newark,
New Jersey, he attended Columbia University in New York City and went on to
become a decorated military leader, serving in the U.S. Army from 1810 until his
death in 1848. When Congress created the First Regiment of Dragoons in 1833,
Kearny received an appointment as the second in command, and a direct order
from President Andrew Jackson promoted the strict disciplinarian to full colonel just
three years later. An admiring observer referred to Kearny as “the idol of the west,”
and Susan Shelby Magoffin, one of the first American women to enter Santa Fe
after the occupation, found him to be a polite gentleman.1 Although he campaigned
throughout North America during his thirty-eight-year career, the lifelong soldier
never permanently settled in the Southwest, nor did he express much personal or
professional interest in the region beyond his duties as an army officer. Given his
impressive résumé and military pedigree, Kearny might have been well suited to
lead troops in the occupation of central Mexico, and in so doing earn the battlefield
honor and political laurels that colleagues like Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield
Scott enjoyed, but his orders to command a contingent of soldiers out of Missouri
would instead cement his place in history as the so-called conqueror of New Mexico.
Despite his lack of familiarity with Mexico’s far north, the War Department
placed the veteran Kearny in command of some 1,600 troops—collectively christened

40
 Occupation and Conquest 41

Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny, c. 1840s.

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

the “Army of the West”—whom he marched down the Santa Fe Trail from Fort
Leavenworth at the onset of the Mexican-American War.2 In a testament to the
importance that the United States placed on the economic relationship between
Missouri and Santa Fe, one of the first instructions that Kearny received required
him to avoid disrupting trade and commerce between the two regions and to protect
American merchants from any injury to their property rights that might occur
during the military operation.3 Additional orders directed Kearny not only to occupy
Santa Fe but also to provide for its safe and permanent retention, and he was therefore
authorized to requisition the governor of Missouri for volunteer reinforcements if
needed. Kearny also was instructed to establish a civil government under wartime
military rule before proceeding to Southern California for the same purpose. In
the course of creating laws for these new bureaucracies, federal officials informed
him that it “would be wise and prudent” to retain former Hispano officeholders in
their positions of authority, provided that they first recite an oath of allegiance to the
United States and express a favorable disposition toward American democracy. To
this end, Secretary of War William Marcy told Kearny to maintain a conciliatory
temperament toward all peaceful inhabitants and to reassure them that “it is the
wish and design of the United States to provide for them a free government.”4
42 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Like the Mexican-American War itself, the activities of Kearny’s Army of the
West came under harsh criticism from those who saw the conflict with Mexico as
nothing more than an antagonistic project of expansion.5 Congressional debates
on the causes and prosecution of the war seemed at times interminable, and some
politicians specifically criticized Kearny’s conquest of New Mexico as an egregious
example of American imperialism under the guise of wartime strategy. Northerners
in particular opposed both the war and Polk’s purported agenda for extending slavery
westward, an accusation that the president himself fervently denied throughout his
incumbency.6 Vermont representative Solomon Foot pointed to Kearny’s expedition
to New Mexico and California—two sparsely populated provinces located far
from Mexico City—as evidence that Polk and his cabinet were waging the war for
more than just a quick and conclusive military victory.7 Representative Alexander
Harper of Ohio ventured a step further when he asked, somewhat rhetorically,
why the War Department had not simply dispatched all troops “into the heart of
Mexico” to strike a decisive blow. He read aloud Kearny’s orders from the secretary
of war, citing those instructions as evidence that Polk and others intended to gain
territory in the Southwest.8 “Two days after the declaration of war,” Massachusetts
congressman Charles Hudson grumbled, “the president had resolved to make it a
war of conquest.”9
Whatever the misgivings of antiwar politicians and protesters, the invasion of
New Mexico went forward as planned. Accompanied by a melting pot of soldiers
that included army regulars, Missouri volunteers, and even a battalion of Mormons,
Kearny’s virtually uncontested military triumph—not a single shot was fired while
occupying Santa Fe—signaled the conversion of the province from Mexican to
American jurisdiction.10 Major General Winfield Scott, commanding the Army of
Occupation in central Mexico, assured Kearny in November 1846 that his remark-
able success would win him “the emphatic approbation” of the president.11 Just one
month later, Polk did indeed praise Kearny in his annual message to Congress,
declaring that New Mexico “has been captured without bloodshed,” and com-
mending the officers who affected that outcome.12
Despite the lack of fanfare as U.S. forces took possession of Santa Fe, their
march from Fort Leavenworth to the distant southwestern capital was not entirely
without incident. As Kearny’s column approached New Mexico on August 1, 1846,
he scribbled the first of several communiques to Governor Manuel Armijo and
entrusted it to Lieutenant Philip St. George Cooke and a small advance party that
would meet with the head of state in the days ahead. “I come as a friend,” Kearny
began, “and with the disposition and intention to consider all Mexicans and others
 Occupation and Conquest 43

as friends who will remain quietly and peaceably at their homes.” He gave his word
that this objective would be fulfilled to the utmost of his ability.13 Cooke delivered
Kearny’s dispatch to the governor on August 12, the same day that he and Santa
Fe merchant James W. Magoffin—whom President Polk tapped as a confidante to
“render important services” during the occupation of New Mexico—met privately
with Armijo to dissuade him from fighting the Army of the West.14 Senator Thomas
Hart Benton later took credit for hatching the plan and convincing Polk and his
cabinet of Magoffin’s capabilities.15 Affixing a white handkerchief to the point of
his sword as a flag of truce, Cooke and his small party approached the New Mexico
capital and were escorted to the governor’s palace. Entering the building, he found
Armijo seated amongst half a dozen military officers and wearing a formal blue army
coat, complete with shining epaulettes and a red sash. The governor—whom an
acquaintance once insulted as “a mountain of fat”—received the commission politely,
offering to quarter them overnight and graze their horses while they parleyed.16
As attendants passed around chocolate and whiskey, discussions between the
opposing sides began.17 Once presented with Kearny’s letter, the seemingly defiant
governor set pen to paper in response, mockingly addressing it to “Your Lordship”
in a thinly disguised accusation of tyrannical imperialism. New Mexicans, he
told Kearny, “have risen en masse as an immovable force” and would turn back
the invasion at all costs. In a confusing reverberation between direct threats and
implicit submissiveness, Armijo admitted that his forces were unlikely to defeat
the Americans and suggested that they meet north of Las Vegas to discuss the
conditions of occupation. Emphasizing his people’s right to “self-preservation,” he
concluded his letter by harkening back to the menacing claim that “I have more
than enough forces to repel your aggression.”18
The most difficult man to placate was not the governor, but Diego Archuleta, a
colonel in the Mexican army who would go on to mastermind an insurrection four
months later. As a career military officer, the ambitious Archuleta saw armed conflict
as a stepping stone to prestige and political office, and he at first seemed unwilling
to allow the American occupation to proceed unopposed. Magoffin assured the
colonel that Kearny’s sole purpose was to “give peace and quietude to the good
people of the country” and that no harm would befall any of the inhabitants. Cooke
later commended the merchant-turned-diplomat for “neutralizing the contrary
influence of young Colonel Archuleta,” but he did not specify the methods used to
do so. Magoffin informed Secretary of War William H. Crawford that Archuleta
“would have fought [but] I quieted him,” thus preventing a violent clash like those
that Generals Taylor, Wool, and Scott experienced in other theatres of the war.
44 Coast-to-Coast Empire

“Bloodless possession of New Mexico was what President Polk wished,” Magoffin
concluded, proudly emphasizing that “it was obtained through my means.” In
1849 he submitted a claim for $37,780 to the U.S. government and asked to be
remunerated for expenses incurred and business lost as a result of his activities
during the war. “As for the services themselves they cannot be valued in money,”
Magoffin reminded federal officials. “The bloodless conquest of a province and the
conciliation of the feelings of an invaded people, are services above money value.”19
Kearny’s dictate and Magoffin’s entreaties, coupled with the efforts of U.S.
Consul Manuel Alvarez just weeks earlier to dissuade Armijo and his political
cohorts from mounting any resistance, may well have had a psychological effect on
the already nervous and insecure New Mexico governor.20 The meeting with Cooke
and Magoffin also convinced Armijo of the Americans’ military superiority and the
futility of resistance; he suddenly recanted earlier assurances that he would fight to
the death and instead began telling officers that he could not in good conscience
sacrifice troops for a hopeless cause.21 Ironically, while Kearny’s manifesto and the
persuasive testimonials of Cooke’s advance party convinced Armijo that he would
die in shame if he needlessly allowed New Mexicans to be butchered at the hands
of U.S. soldiers, the opposite came to pass. It was Armijo’s decision to flee and give
up the capital that propagated his political and personal downfall.
Directed toward the New Mexico people generally and Governor Armijo
specifically, Kearny’s next edict explained his orders to occupy the province and
assured enemies that he would be “amply sustained in the accomplishment of this
object,” an allusion to his superior manpower and the military might of the United
States. Hoping to avoid civilian resistance and unnecessary bloodshed, Kearny told
New Mexicans that if they stayed at home and remained peaceful, the occupying
American forces would not harass or otherwise inconvenience them, nor would
their religious or civil rights be jeopardized. With this affirmation, however, came
a stern warning to those who might consider resisting the invaders. All who took
up arms against the United States, Kearny swore, “will be regarded as enemies,
and will be treated accordingly.”22
An increasingly frenzied Armijo issued a proclamation of his own in which he
bluntly acknowledged the “strength and power” of the United States and his vain
hope that God might side with Mexico. It sounded like the desperate appeal of a
downtrodden leader who knew that his government would fail to reinforce him but
who nonetheless saw the political prudence in broadcasting a nationalistic public
statement. “Behold, fellow patriots,” Armijo declared with feigned bravado, “the
invasion is the sign of alarm that must prepare us for the combat . . . to defend the
 Occupation and Conquest 45

most just and holiest causes.” Criticizing the Americans as arrogant and greedy, the
governor invoked memories of Father Hidalgo’s 1810 revolution in hopes of inspiring
a similar patriotic fervor among his own people. He begged New Mexicans to
contribute their money and their lives for the cause of freedom and disingenuously
assured them that he himself was “ready to sacrifice his life and interests in defense
of his beloved country.”23
If Armijo enjoyed one advantage, it was that he had plenty of time to prepare. As
early as January 10, 1846—four months before the first shots of the war were fired
in the contested Texas space between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande—the
governor had issued a circular to the prefects of various New Mexico towns warning
them of a possible conflict.24 In March, Armijo received a notice from President
Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga relative to deteriorating relations between the United
States and Mexico.25 Once the war between the two nations began, Armijo circu-
lated a proclamation imploring New Mexicans to defend their homeland from the
onslaughts of a neighboring enemy.26 And on June 30 Armijo received news of the
coming invasion from Adolph Wislizenus, a German doctor who arrived in Santa
Fe two months ahead of U.S. troops.27
Two days after speaking with Wislizenus, a disturbed Armijo attended a meet-
ing of the legislative assembly and informed his fellow administrators that a large
contingent of soldiers accompanied the annual caravan of Missouri traders as they
moved westward toward the capital. During a special session of the assembly that
convened just days before American emissaries entered Santa Fe and met with
the governor, Armijo swore that approaching U.S. forces numbered more than
five thousand men, a gross exaggeration that reflected both his anxiety as well
as conflicting reports from spies in the field.28 The legislators present on August
10—the last time that the assembly met under the Mexican flag—criticized Armijo
for failing to inform them of the circumstances earlier, so that they might have
“secured for him the funds necessary” to mount a concerted defense of the capital.29
On August 14, as Kearny’s army approached the village of Las Vegas just seventy
miles east of Santa Fe, four Mexican soldiers “dressed in their best bib and tucker”
rode up waving a white flag. They delivered a message from Armijo “expressing his
determination to resist,” claiming that 600 armed men had congregated ahead and
suggesting that the two leaders meet north of the town. Undeterred by this bold
posturing, Kearny probed forward without opposition.30 With a crowd of Mexican
citizens looking on, the general and his interpreter, longtime fur trader Antoine
Robidoux, climbed atop an adobe roof in Las Vegas and addressed the townspeople
“to the purport that they no longer owed allegiance to the government of Mexico”
46 Coast-to-Coast Empire

and would henceforth be considered American citizens. Seemingly unmindful of

his audience’s lifetime fidelity to a foreign nation, and naively believing that the
entire population would instantaneously embrace American democracy, Kearny
declared that “we come amongst you as friends—not as enemies; as protectors—not
as conquerors. We come among you for your benefit—not for your injury.”31
As Kearny approached Santa Fe over the coming days, he gathered the villagers
at each town he came to and “harangued them much in the same manner” as he had
at Las Vegas, assuring all who listened that “resistance is useless” and asserting that
they must therefore succumb to the inevitable. He also required each village alcalde
(mayor) to look him directly in the eyes and take an oath of allegiance to the United
States—an act that Lieutenant Emory called “a bitter pill” that invariably elicited
“downcast eyes”—although a few hinted of coming unrest by refusing to make the
pledge.32 The general strategically forced the town leaders to promise loyalty to the
American government in a public spectacle as a method of encouraging villagers
to do the same, essentially coercing the alcaldes into a disingenuous profession of
American nationalism in hopes that others would follow their example without
questioning the meaning or intent behind such action.
The immediate extension of citizenship to this foreign population irked some
of the soldiers, particularly those of nativist proclivities who perceived Hispanic
Catholics as unworthy of political participation in the American system. Lieutenant
Cooke, for one, lamented that with Kearny’s proclamations “the great boon of
American citizenship thus [was] thrust, through an interpreter . . . upon eighty
thousand mongrels who cannot read,—who are almost heathens.” While his com-
ments might have been rooted in racism, the young lieutenant, who led the Mormon
Battalion during Kearny’s conquest, also discerned a serious tactical blunder in
naturalizing the population of an enemy nation during wartime. “The people of
this territory are declared citizens of the United States,” Cooke grumbled, “and
the invaders are thus debarred the rights of war to seize needful supplies.”33 The
insinuation of citizenship would also have serious legal and political ramifications
a few months later during revolts at Taos and Mora.
As the Army of the West approached the steep defiles of Apache Pass east of
Santa Fe, Kearny received another boisterous notice from Armijo, who threatened
battle if the Americans advanced any further. As it happened, however, the Mexican
soldiers came “under the effects of fear and discord” and retreated before U.S. troops
arrived.34 Susan Shelby Magoffin, the teenage wife of merchant Samuel Magoffin,
mocked Armijo in her diary, writing that “a trembling for his own personal safety
seized his mind and he dispersed his army.”35 The trader Josiah Gregg, who knew
 Occupation and Conquest 47

Armijo personally, called him “an ambitious and turbulent demagogue.”36 His
exorbitant import duties on goods arriving over the Santa Fe Trail added to his
unpopularity, and his issuance of immense land grants to foreigners like Charles
Beaubien further demoted him in popular opinion. Widely known for his shameless
self-aggrandizement, Governor Armijo was disliked and even despised throughout
parts of New Mexico.37 While some Americans—especially those associated with
the ill-fated Texan–Santa Fe Expedition of 1841—expressed stronger distaste for
Armijo than others, his resonating unpopularity can be gleaned from the fact that
even fellow Hispanic officeholders like U.S. Consul Manuel Alvarez repeatedly
chastised the governor.38
Armijo took what personal belongings he could carry and left his wife behind
at the family home in Albuquerque as he fled south toward Chihuahua.39 As a final
gesture, he dispatched a messenger to Kearny, who had already occupied Santa Fe,
informing him that he planned to return the following day with a large body of
Mexican troops. The warning turned out to be nothing more than “a ruse to obtain
time to make a more effectual escape,” leaving one U.S. officer to echo the opinion
of American troops and the New Mexican people alike when he wrote him off as
nothing more than “a coward and a rascal.”40 Realizing that his failure to engage
American troops at Apache Pass would tarnish his reputation and might even result
in disciplinary action, Armijo commenced a letter-writing spree to clear his name of
wrongdoing. He first wrote to Colonel Mauricio Ugarte, commandant-general of
Mexican troops in Chihuahua, explaining his decisions. Expressing sorrow at the
circumstances and aware that everything he said would be entered into the official
record for government authorities to review, the embattled governor told Ugarte
that he had spiked his cannons and retreated with a few dozen loyal men, whom
he dubbed “The Valiant Seventy.”41 He believed that the majority of New Mexicans
had turned against him and harbored pro-American sentiments, despite the fact
that more than 3,000 of them had picked up arms and rallied behind him just
days earlier. Claiming that Kearny’s force numbered at least 2,500—a number that
Armijo exaggerated by almost 40 percent—he explained that he had no alternative
but to abandon Santa Fe, “where the United States flag is at present raised.”42
Armijo eventually arrived in Chihuahua, where he was placed under arrest and
escorted to Mexico City for a meeting with government officials.43 He found time
before departing to compose his official report of the incident, which he dispatched
to the minister of foreign relations. Armijo no doubt hoped his written account
would smooth things over before he arrived in the Mexican capital. The United
States—“that perfidious and faithless power”—had sent nearly 4,000 soldiers to
48 Coast-to-Coast Empire

conquer New Mexico, a number that Armijo now exaggerated by 60 percent instead
of 40. He also understated the number of New Mexicans who answered his muster
call in August, claiming that only 1,800 people came to his service when in fact the
figure was at least 3,000. By flip-flopping the statistics, he made it appear that the
numerical advantage belonged to Kearny, when Armijo in fact led the larger body
of fighting men. Furthermore, he claimed to have taken every possible preparatory
measure by sending out scouts, enlisting citizens as militia, and communicating with
authorities in Durango and Chihuahua to request reinforcements that never arrived.
The failure of the commanders in those two districts, the governor believed, was to
blame for his inability to organize an armed resistance to the American invasion.44
A group of 105 New Mexico citizens, including many members of the most
prominent and influential Hispano families in the province, had a very different
story to tell. In a formal proclamation to the Mexican president, these eyewitnesses
lambasted Armijo for his actions. In the vitriolic language of these men can be
discerned the seeds of discord that would sprout in violent climax at Taos and
Mora four months later. Indeed, one of the first signatures on the document was
that of Tomás Ortíz, an acknowledged mastermind behind the initial plans for a
civilian revolt in December 1846. Hoping to preserve their “good reputation and
fame” after Armijo’s embarrassing capitulation, the supplicants pointed out that
the governor knew of Kearny’s expedition months ahead of time. They explained
the muddled process of vacillation whereby Armijo ordered all men between the
ages of sixteen and fifty-nine to arms, sent them back to their homes a week later,
recalled them yet again as U.S. troops neared Santa Fe, and finally dispersed the
volunteers a second time as the Americans approached.45
“We wish that the conduct of our governor and commandant-general, Don
Manuel Armijo, had been other than it was,” the exasperated individuals concluded,
noting that the governor’s actions alone were to blame for Santa Fe having been
occupied “without the slightest resistance.” Had they been permitted to mount
military opposition, the New Mexicans felt certain that they could have at least
maintained some semblance of pride. “It would be a great deal for us to venture
that victory would have crowned our efforts,” they admitted, “but at least we would
have had the honor of having tried.” Instead, they lamented, “nothing, absolutely
nothing, was done. And Sr. Armijo can say full well, I have lost everything, including
honor.”46 Many New Mexico citizens felt humiliated by the uncontested occupation
of their homeland and nation. But some of the more politically attuned signatories
also realized that, in the event Mexico won the war, they might be punished for
their failure to resist the American invasion. In defense of their reputations and
 Occupation and Conquest 49

Governor Manuel Armijo, c. 1840s.

Courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives,
New Mexico History Museum/DCA, Santa Fe (negative no. 050809).

future livelihood, many Nuevomexicanos sought to distance themselves from

Armijo while reaffirming their own patriotism as Mexican citizens.
Armijo eventually appeared before a tribunal in Mexico City. Donaciano Vigil,
a New Mexico official who became temporary governor after the American occupa-
tion, claimed that Armijo accepted a bribe of 24,000 pesos from James Magoffin just
days before Kearny’s arrival; others claimed that the payoff consisted of 500 ounces
of gold. Fortunately for the ex-governor, proof of these accusations never surfaced,
and hearsay alone did not convict him. During the course of the hearings—which
included official statements from New Mexico legislators and military leaders—the
events surrounding Armijo’s flight were recounted in what to him must have seemed
like excruciating detail.47 Citing his meritorious gubernatorial service dating back
to 1837, the embattled Armijo hoped to rationalize his political and military deci-
sions and clear his name of wrongdoing, dismissing the accusations against him as
slanderous inaccuracies and assuring the tribunal that he had committed his life,
family, and fortune to the protection of Mexican nationhood.48
With Armijo thus preoccupied, Kearny entered Santa Fe on August 18, 1846,
and took quarters in the Palace of the Governors, a symbolic gesture that cemented
50 Coast-to-Coast Empire

the occupation he had accomplished.49 The remainder of the troops encamped on a

bluff overlooking the town and aimed their cannons at the houses below, a further
demonstration of militaristic power and political authority.50 As Lieutenant James
W. Abert put it, the troops positioned themselves in such a manner that “ten guns
may be brought to bear upon the city” should the need arise.51 After settling on
the high ground, the army of over a thousand men marched directly through the
city streets to the central plaza, where they raised an American flag over the adobe
governor’s mansion to the tune of a thirteen-gun artillery salute.52 Awestruck locals
looked on in “gaping wonder” at the scene unfolding before them.53 A sympathetic
Lieutenant Richard Smith Elliott could not help but notice the “surly countenances
and downcast looks” among many Hispanos as he rode through Santa Fe. “Strange,
indeed, must have been the feelings of the citizens,” he wrote, “all the future of
their destiny vague and uncertain.” The young officer realized the fear and anguish
that many New Mexicans must have felt as they were subjected to unknown rulers
whose customs, culture, language, and religion differed so starkly from their own.54
As straggling detachments of U.S. troops ventured into Santa Fe over the com-
ing days, their first sight was a flagpole “from which the banner of freedom now
waves” over the town plaza.55 “In this way,” trader Lewis Garrard wrote with a
hint of condescension, “the province was Americanized.”56 At Kearny’s insistence,
what remained of Santa Fe’s presidial garrison of Mexican troops presented them-
selves to the victorious general and surrendered their guns.57 There would be no
violent defense of the capital like the one that Major General Scott’s army faced at
Chapultepec. Their conquest seemingly complete, Kearny and his ranking officers
enjoyed several bottles of wine and slumbered peacefully in the Governor’s Palace
that night.58 “Here we are in Santa Fe,” Lieutenant Elliott exclaimed, “and New
Mexico is ours!”59
Kearny, who seemed to relish oratorical grandstanding, once again climbed
a roof and spoke through an interpreter to the New Mexican people, hundreds
of whom congregated in the open spaces below him. All individuals who quietly
subjected themselves to American rule would be respected in their person and
property, could continue worshipping as Catholics, and would enjoy protection from
the Indian raids that had plagued Rio Grande settlements since the colonial era.
Those who left their homes and took up arms against his troops, however, would
“be considered as enemies and traitors.” Pending the organization of a new civil
government, Kearny informed his listeners that preexisting Mexican statutes would
remain in force “until changed or modified by competent authority.” Finally, he
absolved all residents of their Mexican nationality and pronounced them American
 Occupation and Conquest 51

citizens. This unauthorized unilateral action later met with the disapproval of
President Polk, who refuted immediate citizenship for New Mexicans in a special
congressional address.60
Having secured possession of New Mexico, Kearny’s officers began drafting a
set of civil regulations for the new government.61 Intended to be temporary until
Congress could enact more permanent measures, these “rigid but just and equitable”
laws came to be called the Kearny Code, although the commanding general himself
played no role in actually writing them and merely lent his name and endorsement
to the treatise.62 Instead, Colonel Alexander Doniphan, who had formerly worked
as an attorney in Missouri, would be tasked with writing most of the new legal
apparatus. With the assistance of a well-educated team that included Private Willard
Hall (graduate of Yale), Captain David Waldo (graduate of Transylvania College),
and Francis P. Blair Jr. (graduate of Princeton), Doniphan based the Kearny Code
on several preexisting codices, including the Missouri organic law and Texas state
statutes. In a testament to the conciliatory nature of the new government, even some
of Mexico’s laws were integrated into the document.63 Kearny sought to assuage the
Hispanic inhabitants by appointing a number of former Mexican officials to head
the new bureaucracy, including Donaciano Vigil as secretary, along with Antonio
José Otero and Charles Beaubien as superior court judges.64 To fill the office of
governor, he selected Charles Bent, a longtime resident of northern New Mexico
whose well-established trading networks and marriage into the prominent family of
María Ignacia Jaramillo strengthened his connections to local society and culture.65
Officially entitled the “Organic Law of the Territory of New Mexico,” the Kearny
Code was over fifty pages long and outlined all aspects of civil government authority.
Secretary Manuel Alvarez was paid $500 to translate the lengthy document into
Spanish, and Oliver P. Hovey printed five hundred copies for local distribution.66
The law established three branches of government, extended voting rights to “all
free male citizens”—a phrase that implicitly recognized the existence of slavery
in the form of unfree Indian captives and Hispanic peons—and even concluded
with a bill of rights. The statutes codified the promises that Kearny made during
his numerous proclamations to the New Mexican people, protecting their rights
to religious freedom, private property, free speech, and due process of law. Finally,
the organic law attempted to maintain brevity and simplicity by retaining all
preexisting laws “which are not repugnant to, or inconsistent with, the constitution
of the United States and the laws thereof.”67
The Kearny Code came under harsh criticism later that year when President
Polk condemned portions of it as overbearing and unconstitutional.68 In a special
52 Coast-to-Coast Empire

message to politicians on December 22, 1846, Polk worried that portions of New
Mexico’s organic act established a permanent rather than temporary territorial
government and that in so doing Kearny had overstepped his wartime authority as
a military officer. Such stipulations, the president bluntly declared, “have not been
approved and recognized by me.” While seeking to correct this mistake, however,
Polk carefully refrained from criticizing the victorious leader of the Army of the
West, postulating instead that Kearny’s “departure” from orders emanated from “a
patriotic desire to give to the inhabitants the privileges and immunities so cherished
by the people of our own country.”69 Secretary of War William Marcy informed
Kearny that his legal code went “in some respects, beyond the line designated
by the President” because it conferred constitutional rights on the New Mexico
population without congressional approval, and he added that the president had
nullified those portions of the document he deemed unlawful.70
The code also surfaced during congressional debates that reflected the increasingly
sectional political climate of the time. Recognizing that the law did not explicitly
establish slavery in New Mexico and did allow “universal suffrage,” in the sense that
all free adult males could vote, Representative Luther Severance lauded the statutes
as a “new feature in democratic progress” that should be emulated throughout the
Mexican Cession lands. “I must say,” Severance antagonistically declared about
the recently adopted Texas state ordinances, “I like Kearny’s constitution much
better.” Noting that the Lone Star State claimed jurisdiction over part of New
Mexico, the Maine congressman hoped that Kearny’s laws might supersede those
of slaveholding Texas in that region.71 Missouri representative James B. Bowlin
stated that the Kearny Code did nothing more than extend “the blessings of our
free institutions” to the people of New Mexico, in effect codifying the democratic
ideologies that had been flowing into the territory since the Santa Fe trade opened
more than two decades earlier.72 Falsely believing that the mandate precluded
slavery from the Southwest, Kentucky representative Garrett Davis thought that
Kearny had egregiously transcended his authority. Sarcastically referring to the
general as a “law-giving warrior,” Davis rebuked his northern counterparts and
compared Kearny to a totalitarian dictator, proclaiming that “no absolute autocrat
in Europe could have done more.”73 While these controversies surrounding New
Mexico’s new legal apparatus erupted in the national capital, U.S. soldiers in Santa
Fe and the surrounding villages also acted in ways that jeopardized American
control over the region.
Despite his promises of an amicable occupation, Kearny and his men behaved
condescendingly in their interactions with Nuevomexicanos. Conciliation toward
 Occupation and Conquest 53

Mexican civilians was an important wartime strategy of American military leaders,

and many commanding officers (including Scott, Taylor, and Wool) pursued that
approach to varying degrees. Because Mexico suffered from a bankrupt treasury,
lacked foreign support, and had a weak standing army, U.S. troops feared mass civil-
ian uprisings and mob violence as much as they did professional Mexican soldiers.
Passing through Santa Fe just weeks before Kearny’s troops arrived, Dr. Wislizenus
recognized the importance of mollifying native inhabitants during the war. “The
official leeches who consider themselves privileged to rule will, of course, make
some opposition—if not openly, at least by intrigue,” the doctor wrote, criticizing
New Mexico’s elite aristocracy and the extreme imbalance of power in that society.74
He understood that careful attention to the peoples’ cultural, social, and religious
sensibilities might help to avert future problems associated with the occupation.
In New Mexico the strategy of conciliation fell far short of its intent. Irreverent
behavior among the occupying American forces began at the uppermost reaches
of the military chain of command and trickled down to the enlisted men. U.S.
officers in Santa Fe frequently attended fandangos “and even less reputable places
of dissipation,” setting a poor example for the men under their command.75 On
August 27, as on many other nights, noisy and rowdy partiers frolicked, smoked, and
drank into the early morning hours.76 “Instead of being the strong arm on which
the civil authority can depend to enforce order and law and administer justice to
all,” one anonymous observer complained, “the soldiery have degenerated into a
military mob, are the most open violators of law and order, and daily heap insult
and injury upon the people of the territory.”77 The failure of the officers to enforce
discipline among their troops ranked among the reasons why New Mexicans became
so upset over the occupation.
As the months passed the U.S. regulars living at Fort Marcy and the Missouri
volunteers who bivouacked near town exacerbated this trend with unruly behavior
of their own. In an ominous portent of things to come, a riot broke out among
a group of soldiers the day after they entered Santa Fe.78 Describing the army
campsites just south of the capital, Lieutenant Elliott wrote, “Their quarters are but
little better in condition than pig-sties, and their officers pay no attention to them.”
Entering the makeshift lodgings, Elliott “found the rooms so filthy that he could
scarcely endure the noisome smell and sights of untold dirtiness.”79 At nighttime,
according to Lieutenant Abert, these filthy, foul-mouthed soldiers made their way
into town, where they could be found at all hours “mingling with the motley groups
of Mexicans and Pueblo Indians.”80 As he traveled through the territorial capital
shortly after the occupation, Englishman George Ruxton quipped that “crowds
54 Coast-to-Coast Empire

of drunken volunteers filled the streets, brawling and boasting” while “Mexicans,
wrapped in sarape, scowled upon them as they passed.” American troops appeared
to Ruxton as “the dirtiest, rowdiest crew I have ever seen collected together.”81 With
this in mind, Donaciano Vigil informed Secretary of State James Buchanan that all
volunteers in New Mexico should be replaced with professional soldiers for reasons
of “economy, expediency, and efficiency” and claimed that “both the interests of
the United States and this Territory clearly demand it.”82
Reports from Kearny and his successor, Colonel Sterling Price, were replete with
descriptions of aberrant behavior, the suppression of which occupied a considerable
amount of time and attention and distracted from other important duties. On
September 17, 1846, Private William Bray drunkenly pulled a knife on an officer,
who then shot and killed him. A week later an altercation between two enlisted men
ended when one soldier threw a hatchet at the other, nearly severing his hand. Dozens
of courts martial convened to investigate soldiers for a variety of charges, including
“habitual drunkenness,” “disobedience of orders,” “highly unsoldierlike conduct,”
and even “worthlessness”—a catchall term used when nothing more specific could
be decided. For his part, Kearny “regretted to see such a want of discipline and
subordination” among his army and ordered all company commanders to exercise
greater vigilance in the prosecution of their duties.83
To reduce tension Governor Bent declared a civilian curfew, and the military
forbade troops from being out past 10:00 p.m., at which time a sentinel’s gunshot
signaled that all men must return to quarters.84 Colonel Edward W. Newby issued
an order banning civilians from selling liquor without a license and levying a
five-dollar fee on all fandangos, citing “a woeful want of sobriety and good order”
among the troops as justification for such requirements.85 Throughout New Mexico,
Ruxton wrote, “the most bitter and most determined hostility existed against the
Americans.”86 The lifestyle and behavior of some U.S. troops—along with the
grandiose proclamations of conquest and coerced pledges of loyalty that officers
demanded—added insult to injury to inhabitants of the province and pushed them
closer to rebellious action.
The soldiers themselves noticed very few signs of discontent, and indeed some
community leaders strategically lured the Americans into a false sense of security.
Lewis Garrard, who arrived at Taos in January 1847, wrote that “designing men—
artful & learned natives—were busily, insidiously sowing the seeds of discontent
among the more ignorant class of the community, more especially the Pueblo
Indians.”87 According to James Madison Cutts, the uncontested occupation of
Santa Fe turned out to be as much a curse as a blessing, because it “lulled all into
 Occupation and Conquest 55

the belief of a quiet submission,” and many of the American officers failed to
detect nonchalant hints of disgruntlement.88 Just days after Kearny entered Santa
Fe, Lieutenant Emory watched as groups of people from Taos arrived to profess
allegiance and ask for protection from the Indians. He believed residents of the
Rio Arriba region to be “the best disposed toward the United States” in the entire
territory.89
Despite these public displays of fidelity, rumors of impending armed resistance
began to swirl among the locals, and many people believed that Armijo was raising a
force in Chihuahua to reclaim possession of New Mexico. Kearny’s officers summar-
ily dismissed such reports, however, and did not foresee any tangible threat from the
former governor.90 Because of their military training and disdainful opinion of the
largely illiterate Hispanic population, many American officers did not believe that
the citizens posed any danger. One officer speculated that mischievous individuals
purposely spread rumors of approaching Mexican armies and mass uprisings to
induce the War Department to dispatch additional troops to Santa Fe. Some of
these people would accrue handsome profits in their stores and saloons if more
soldiers garrisoned the town. Of one rumored revolt at Santa Fe in October 1846,
Lieutenant George R. Gibson wrote that “the best informed lay it at the doors of
a few men who have been reaping a rich harvest from the soldiers, and who adopt
this plan to retain a large force at this point.”91
At least one soldier under Kearny’s command did notice hints of discontent
among the population, but he concluded that “I cannot be made to believe that these
people are either so hardy or foolish to attempt anything in the shape of a revolt.”
All rumors of potential violence, the informant believed, could be attributed to “the
broad head of Mexican braggadocio.”92 A handful of other American officers also
noticed signs of displeasure and unrest among New Mexico’s people. As Lieutenant
Abert approached the town of Manzano in November, inhabitants there greeted
him with guns drawn, although they eventually shouldered their weapons. “These
people still have a lingering inclination for the old [Mexican] government,” Abert
wrote after this eye-opening experience, postulating that “it will be some time before
they will regard the entrance of the Americans otherwise than as an intrusion.”93
Lieutenant Cooke noted that American merchants in the Rio Abajo entertained
strong suspicions of their Hispanic neighbors, believing them to be hatching “a
conspiracy to rise and throw off the American rule in this territory.”94 Lieutenant
Elliott similarly explained that “there prevails, among many of the New Mexicans, a
very bitter feeling towards our Government and people.” The wealthier landholding
class, he noticed, seemed especially averse to American democracy, largely because
56 Coast-to-Coast Empire

they suspected that their political and economic power might be wrested from
them as a result of the conquest.95 Lieutenant A. B. Dyer likewise perceived that
the clergy as well as the “wealthy men”—or as Cooke phrased it, “a few of the
millionaires”—of New Mexico remained inimical to political transformation for
reasons of personal interest.96
Influenced by favorable reports from field commanders, President Polk delivered
an address to Congress on December 8, 1846, in which he proclaimed that “little
if any further resistance is apprehended from the inhabitants” of New Mexico.97
Had the president delivered his speech a couple of weeks later, he might have
taken a different tone. Even as Polk spoke, suspicious American officers in Santa
Fe had begun keeping “a sharp eye” on a number of individuals rumored to be
contemplating some sort of uprising.98 On December 17, Governor Bent met with
an unnamed Mexican confidante and learned of a conspiracy among residents of
the four northernmost counties to expel all U.S. troops and civil authorities through
a “far and wide” insurrection.99 Bent took quick and decisive action to ascertain
the names of those involved and had them detained and questioned by military
personnel.100 U.S. officials arrested Miguel Quintana, Francisco Gutiérrez, Juan
Ortega, Matías Alire, and Pablo Domínguez for plotting a rebellion, although four
of them were released due to insufficient evidence. Only Domínguez, who carried a
muster roll bearing the names of former Mexican soldiers in Santa Fe, was held under
suspicion of intrigue. Shortly thereafter, authorities jailed five more men—Manuel
Piño, Nicholas Piño, Manuel Chaves, José María Sánchez, and José Francisco Baca
y Torres—who purportedly concocted an ambitious scheme to storm Santa Fe,
capture Governor Bent and Colonel Price, occupy Fort Marcy, seize the cannons
there, and “kill off the whole army.” The two ringleaders, Tomás Ortíz and Diego
Archuleta, remained at large, supposedly somewhere in Chihuahua.101 A complete
investigation of the conspiracy revealed that a number of the most influential
citizens in northern New Mexico had actively planned the revolt.102 According to
trader Benjamin Franklin Coons, some local women, “whose hearts our caballeros
have won,” were to be credited as the informants who notified authorities of the
plot and prevented the rebellion from materializing.103
Of the two plot leaders, Archuleta boasted an accomplished military background
while Ortíz, whose brother served as vicar of New Mexico, represented the powerful
ecclesiastical element of the Catholic society in which they lived. Politically, both
the army and the church tended to fall on the conservative anti-American side,
while their liberal opponents—the ones that Kearny appointed to office after the
occupation—usually wedded themselves to the United States cause. As prominent
 Occupation and Conquest 57

men with large followings, Archuleta and Ortíz had grown accustomed to active
participation in local affairs, and the impetus to rebel found inspiration in their
omission from Kearny’s newly instituted government of American sympathizers.
This budding political factionalism, with roots in the Santa Fe trade and Mexico’s
self-destructive issuance of land grants to foreigners, long predated Kearny’s arrival
but did not fully blossom until this wartime climax. New Mexico’s unstable gov-
ernmental structure—one in which multiple administrations held office in the
two years prior to the war—emanated from factionalized political, economic, and
ecclesiastic elites with varying levels of nationalistic dedication to Mexico. Kearny’s
arrival and subsequent appointment of pro-American liberals like Donaciano Vigil
and Antonio José Otero to positions of political control pushed this power struggle
to the point of conflagration.104
The paranoia emanating from these clandestine activities did not dampen the
officers’ Christmas spirits. Just one week after arresting the alleged participants,
and with the masterminds yet to be apprehended, leaders in Santa Fe organized
lavish fandangos and feasts to mark the occasion. Troops paraded through the
plaza during the day while their commanders prepared for the evening festivities.
Governor Bent hosted an elegant supper at the Palace of the Governors, complete
with fine wines, champagne, and imported delicacies that spoiled the attendees
with “all the luxuries of an eastern table.”105 Christmas offered the perfect occasion
to celebrate the suppression of the uprising. Unbeknownst to Bent, he had just
twenty-five days to live.
As holiday hangovers and rumors of intrigue cooled in the days after Christmas,
Bent delivered a powerful proclamation on January 5, 1847, outlining steps taken to
counteract the unrest. Echoing Kearny’s earlier speeches, he informed New Mexicans
that they now, one and all, “compose a part of the Union, the cradle of liberty,”
and he encouraged them to embrace their new political and national identity. Bent
condemned Ortíz and Archuleta as “anarchists” and “old revolutionists,” portraying
them as metaphorically blind men who were unwilling to embrace the benefits of
American democracy and liberty. To reiterate the futility of resistance, the governor
spoke of Colonel Doniphan’s recent Christmas Day victory over Mexican troops
at Brazito, describing the ease with which the Missouri volunteers achieved total
victory in that battle. He assured his audience that no help would ever come from
Chihuahua and warned them that they would be well served to “remain quiet in
[their] domestic occupations.”106 Americans believed that their discovery of the
scheme, coupled with Doniphan’s military triumph, would be “sufficient to nip the
plot in the bud,” and Lieutenants Elliott and Cooke both thought the conspiracy
58 Coast-to-Coast Empire

had ended.107 Satisfied that all threats had dissipated, Governor Bent left Santa Fe
on January 14 and returned to his home and family in Taos without noticing the
shifting fortunes around him.
In the months since the Army of the West entered New Mexico, deaths by
illness and transfers to alternative theatres of war had sapped military strength
and manpower. A force that had originally numbered almost 1,600 men had been
depleted to fewer than 1,000 by the time the New Year rolled around. Kearny took
100 dragoons with him to California in September, and Doniphan led some 500
men of the Missouri volunteers toward Chihuahua in December. Still other soldiers
remained on detached service in neighboring towns or were manning remote grazing
camps, and a significant number of those stationed in Santa Fe were bedridden
with measles and various fevers.108 One observer estimated that only 500 healthy
troops garrisoned Santa Fe, and in Taos there was no military presence at all.109
As U.S. manpower diminished, would-be rebels took note, recognizing that their
chances of success increased with each detachment that marched out of the territory
and with every sick soldier who died. Psychologically, the decreasing numbers
of Americans not only empowered those plotting rebellion but also influenced
undecided locals who at first might have seen the ploy as hopeless. The fact that no
troops occupied the Rio Arriba helps to explain why, when an insurrection finally
materialized, it occurred in the northernmost reaches of the territory and not in
Santa Fe or Albuquerque.
On the morning of January 19, Taos became “the culminating point of all the
differences between the Americans and the New Mexicans.”110 Although it seemed
at the time like a spontaneous uprising, the groundwork for the rebellion had been
developing for months, and the outbreak of violence in 1847 signified a climax to
the rising action. From the moment U.S troops arrived, the behavior of the rank-
and-file and their commanding officers provoked disdain and bitterness among
many New Mexico residents who resented the onslaughts of Anglo-Americans.
Kearny’s insistence that every Hispanic official take a public oath of allegiance to the
United States humiliated and embarrassed many people, making them increasingly
averse to the American presence. The pomp and show that the Army of the West
displayed when entering Santa Fe—parading triumphantly through the streets,
firing deafening cannon salutes, taking up residency in the Governor’s Palace, and
building a fortress directly overlooking the town—irked the native Hispanos as
they looked on in muffled contempt. While Kearny’s initial occupation of New
Mexico transpired without bloodshed, this particular winter night in Taos would
be anything but tranquil.
 Occupation and Conquest 59

Governor Charles Bent.

Courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives,
New Mexico History Museum/DCA, Santa Fe (negative no. 007004).

A violent crowd of Pueblo Indians and Hispanos—which one American observer

called “as merciless a band of savages as ever went on the war path”—made their
way to Governor Bent’s home near the center of town, where they broke down doors
and climbed atop the roof to gain entry.111 Hearing the commotion, Bent sprung
from his bed in time to grab a pistol, while his wife and children, wearing only their
nightgowns, used small utensils to dig their way out of the besieged home through a
soft adobe wall.112 Although his terrified spouse and the couple’s four children made
it to safety after a harrowing escape and a two-week hideout at a friend’s house,
the governor was not so lucky. Outside the front door, angry men shouted to Bent
that “they did not intend to leave an American alive in New Mexico; and as he was
Governor, they would kill him first.”113 He yelled out for help, but the only response
portended the inevitable: “That they could do nothing—that he must die.”114 And a
martyr’s death it would be. The assailants tortured Bent, shooting him with arrows
and scalping him alive before nailing both the hairy trophy and the writhing body
to a wooden plank, whereupon they “carried it in triumph through the streets.”115
Unbeknownst to Bent and other American transplants in New Mexico, the U.S.
conquest had altered their social and political status. Despite their family ties
60 Coast-to-Coast Empire

and standing in the community, they had become conquerors living among the
conquered, and Bent’s new role as governor made him the foremost target of an
ambitious rebellion intended to oust every American from the territory.116
Alongside Bent, prefect Cornelio Vigil, Sheriff Stephen Lee, and circuit attorney
James Leal were among the first to die when an angry crowd stormed the town jail,
freed two Pueblo Indian prisoners, and burned most of the Taos County records
stored there.117 Despite being a native New Mexican, Vigil had contributed to the
American takeover by approving land grants to non-Hispanics, and in so doing he
invoked the ire of his surrounding community and made himself a target during the
uprising. Nor, for that matter, did Lee’s marriage to María Luz Tafoya in 1829 save
him from his fate as an American outsider.118 As the sheriff lay dying, the insurgents
“cut his body to pieces, severing all the limbs from it.” Nearby, Leal suffered a similar
fate: “They shot arrows into his body for some time, not sufficiently deep to destroy
life, and, after that, they shot them into his face and eyes, and then scalped him
alive.” The perpetrators then tossed his naked corpse into the street for stray hogs to
feast on. Veteran fur trapper Jim Beckwourth recalled “barbarities [that] exceeded
in brutality all my previous experience with the Indians.” In a scene reminiscent
of the Pueblo Revolt in 1680, the leaders dispatched runners to nearby towns and
villages to spread the word: it was time to expel the unwelcome American invaders.119
Narciso Beaubien, the son of Judge Charles Beaubien and María Paula Lobato,
was the next to perish as he and an Indian slave hid in an outhouse.120 The attackers
killed both, mistaking Narciso for his father, who, as an American judicial appointee,
was the intended target.121 The elder Beaubien, along with Attorney General Hugh N.
Smith, had left Taos the day before, and their fortuitous absence on January 19 saved
them from the same fate as their colleagues. While the assailants’ gruesome torture,
murder, and dismemberment of the victims seemed motivated by a spontaneous
fit of rage, they had in fact been carefully selected in advance. The objective of the
rebellion was not merely to kill Americans but to eliminate all who supported their
cause, including native New Mexicans of Hispanic ancestry who had accepted
official appointments from Kearny.122 The rebels targeted those directly associated
with the new government, including Anglos like Bent and Hispanics like Vigil.
Because they had supported the conquest and accepted political appointments in
the new regime, these men were viewed as traitors to the adoptive communities in
which they had lived for almost two decades. As a New York newspaper reported,
“The Mexicans slew not only the Americans there, but all the Spaniards supposed
to be favorable to the American cause.”123 From the rebels’ perspective, Bent’s
role as governor and Beaubien’s position as both a judge and co-owner of the
 Occupation and Conquest 61

immense Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant—which impinged on ancestral Taos

Pueblo land—trumped community connections derived from longtime residency
and intermarriage.124
That same night nine Americans died at nearby Rio Colorado and Arroyo Hondo,
and a separate attack on Turley’s Mill claimed the lives of seven more men.125 These
deeds accomplished, “most of the lower order of Mexicans . . . rose en masse and
joined the Pueblo Indians in the work of pillage and murder,” Donaciano Vigil
recalled. He estimated the total number of insurgents at between 1,500 and 2,000,
far from a complete citizen uprising, but an impressive showing nonetheless.126 Near
Santa Fe vigilant troops intercepted couriers as they rode south into the Rio Abajo
to disseminate news of the revolt, thus preventing the vitriol from spreading even
further.127 To quell those dissidents already involved in the scheme, Price frantically
marched his troops toward Taos.
Before leaving Santa Fe the colonel recalled Major D. B. Edmonson’s Mis-
souri volunteers and Captain John Burgwin’s U.S. Dragoons from their station at
Albuquerque to reinforce his command. Edmonson’s troops would remain at the
capital to keep the peace, while Price and Burgwin trekked to Taos with 353 soldiers
and four howitzers. On January 24 an advance guard under Captain Ceran St.
Vrain struck the rebels’ position outside of La Cañada, whereupon Price ordered
a double-quick march in preparation for an attack. Many of the Nuevomexicanos
occupied high ground outside the village, and others fortified themselves in mud
huts overlooking the valley. All four cannons began shelling the insurgents’ position,
but many of the missiles sailed over the enemy’s heads and exploded harmlessly
beyond. “In a few minutes,” Price later reported, “my troops had dislodged the
enemy at all points, and they were flying in every direction.” As an estimated 1,500
New Mexicans retreated into the surrounding hills, U.S. officers counted 36 enemy
fatalities and at least 45 wounded.128 When newspaper editors in New York learned
of the incident two months later, they hailed the routing as just punishment “for
the sanguinary massacres which they [the New Mexicans] effected.”129
Price’s column reached Taos on February 3 and found their opponents holed
up in the heavily fortified Taos Pueblo for “a last desperate struggle.”130 With two
multistory residential towers and an imposing mission church built of two-foot-thick
adobe walls, the complex was “admirably calculated for defense.”131 Considered
the strongest fortress in the Southwest, Taos Pueblo had “always been regarded by
the Mexicans as impregnable,” and the ensuing two-day assault on the compound
proved to be a difficult and deadly undertaking.132 When the troops arrived they
encountered the grisly murder sites, and, according to Beckwourth, hogs and other
62 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Colonel Sterling Price, c. 1860s.

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

animals continued to feast on corpses. “Such scenes of unexampled barbarity filled

our soldiers’ breasts with abhorrence,” the fur trapper recalled, noting that this
fueled a “craving for revenge” among the Americans.133
Lieutenant A. B. Dyer positioned his artillery within range of the Taos Pueblo
church and commenced a fusillade that lasted into the evening. Although the shells
“busted handsomely,” the explosions failed to penetrate the thick adobe walls. Early
the next morning the soldiers resumed their attack, fully expecting a “hard and
bloody fight.” Two hours of incessant artillery fire once again failed to breach the
church walls, whereupon frustrated U.S. troops stormed the building in a desperate
charge akin to the American attack on Chapultepec Castle later that year.134 At Price’s
order the infantry and dragoons swept like a wave across the battlefield, crashing
into the exterior walls while the enemy, fortified within, unleashed a “galling fire”
of musketry into the crowd of American soldiers.135 Those who reached the building
unhurt began pounding at the adobe bricks with axes and eventually knocked a
hole in the edifice. Dyer repositioned his cannons within thirty yards of the breach
and began firing grapeshot into the church interior, effecting devastation on the
Hispanos and Indians inside. After twenty minutes the soldiers set the church roof
ablaze, causing it to collapse on those within.136 Captain Burgwin fell mortally
 Occupation and Conquest 63

wounded, shot through the chest as he charged the compound.137 When news of his
death reached Fort Leavenworth several weeks later, it “cast a gloom over the hearts
of all at this post who ever knew him professionally or personally,” and when the
army built a permanent post at Taos in 1852, they named it Cantonment Burgwin
in his honor.138 American forces lost seven men killed and forty-five wounded.
Estimates of enemy losses varied, but out of a total force numbering just over 600
men, between 150 and 200 rebels died, and at least that many more were hurt,
leaving an astonishing 65 to 70 percent casualty rate.139 “They never had so severe
a chastising,” Lieutenant Elliott wrote with undisguised pride.140
American authorities prevented the rebellion from spreading into the Rio Abajo,
but they were unable to stop its flow to the villages lining the eastern fringe of
the Sangre de Cristos. At Las Vegas the alcalde received the rebel manifesto on
January 20 but advised the townspeople against participating because more than
two hundred U.S. troops garrisoned the town. Three days later residents of nearby
Mora joined the rebellion and shot four Americans who lived there. Despite being
desperately short on ammunition, Captain Israel Hendley collected eighty troops
at Las Vegas and marched toward the scene. Before embarking he wrote to head-
quarters in Santa Fe and requested two cannons and “plenty of ammunition” for
his soldiers so that he might “subdue and keep in check every town this side of the
mountains.”141 At Mora, Hendley’s men clashed with 150 Nuevomexicanos, who had
fortified themselves in anticipation of the looming fight.142 Hendley himself died,
and three other soldiers sustained wounds during the course of a three-hour affair
in which the Americans “slew a number of the insurgents, and utterly destroyed
the town.”143 With the leading officer dead and supplies running low, the second
in command, Lieutenant T. C. McKarney, ordered the Americans back to Las
Vegas. “If we had one or two pieces of artillery to scare them out of their dens,” the
lieutenant later reported, “we could whip all the Mexicans this side of the ridge.”
Less than one week later, Captain Jesse I. Morin and a force of Missouri volunteers
returned to Mora, where they torched houses, burned cornfields, and killed several
Hispanos in retaliation.144
Back at Taos, Colonel Price demanded that the vanquished Pueblo Indians
turn over their leader, Tomás, for prosecution as a treasonous rebel.145 After Tomás
was arrested, an “exasperated soldier” murdered the prisoner in cold blood, an act
that the guards enabled through their salutary negligence.146 An apathetic Dick
Wootton later wrote that “the Indian deserved to be killed and would have been
hanged anyhow.”147 President Polk praised “the prompt, spirited, and energetic
action, on the part of the officers and men, in putting down the insurrection” and
64 Coast-to-Coast Empire

commended them for valor and bravery.148 Having dampened the insurrectionary
spirit, Price made arrangements at Taos “for the security and tranquility of New
Mexico” and then returned to Santa Fe.149 Those preparations amounted to military
tribunals for the men accused of treason. “If any man supposes that this people
are contented with the change in their political relations, he is most egregiously
mistaken,” Lieutenant Elliott wrote as these events transpired. “They have no love,
but, on the contrary, a large majority of them entertain a very cordial hate, for
Americans and American rule.”150
The trials that occurred after the revolt contributed to this hatred toward Ameri-
cans and their government. District Attorney Francis P. Blair Jr. served as prosecutor
and Charles Beaubien, whose son was killed in the uprising, sat alongside Joab
Houghton as a presiding judge.151 If the manner in which American occupiers had
coercively administered oaths of allegiance, if the soldiers’ unruly behavior had
offended the citizenry, and if the destructive use of force to crush the rebellion had
provided impetus for dissent among many New Mexicans, then the trials of the Taos
rebels and the public hangings that followed served only to exacerbate political and
cultural tensions. Of the several alleged masterminds, Jesús Tafoya and Pablo Chávez
died during the fighting at the Taos church; Pablo Montoya had been executed—or,
in the words of Beckwourth, “was swung in the wind”—after the surrender; Tomás
was shot while sitting in jail (as described above); and two others, Diego Archuleta
and Manuel Cortés, had escaped and their whereabouts remained unknown. Cortés
eluded capture for more than a year and led a number of raids on American grazing
camps before eventually escaping into Chihuahua.152 Montoya, who “styled himself
the Santa Anna of the North,” had been one of the principal instigators of the 1837
Chimayó Rebellion and received no sympathy from Governor Donaciano Vigil
(Bent’s successor), who referred to him as both insane and brutal in his revolutionist
exertions.153 Lacking sufficient evidence, American officials also released twenty-four
other accused rebels before holding trials for the remaining culprits.154
Six prisoners sauntered into a courtroom at 9 a.m. on the appointed day to meet
a fate that they must have known was coming. The judges and prosecutor all came
from the United States, and the room stood under the guard of American soldiers.
“It certainly did appear to be a great assumption on the part of the Americans to
conquer a country and then arraign the revolting inhabitants for treason,” Garrard
wrote, noting that the militaristic atmosphere of the tribunals ensured a precon-
ceived outcome while dissuading local spectators from further opposition. Beaubien
sentenced the rebels to be hung until “muerto, muerto, muerto” (dead, dead, dead),
whereupon “the poor wretches sat with immovable figures” in the courtroom.155 The
 Occupation and Conquest 65

court decided to move forward with the executions as soon as possible lest federal
authorities intervene. The following Friday would be “hangman’s day” in Taos, and
Garrard watched as the last chapter of the Taos Revolt unfolded before him. “Los
Yankees at El Casa Americano drank their juleps and puffed their cigarillos in silence”
as they awaited the impending spectacle. Lacking ropes to hang the condemned,
the sheriff improvised nooses from borrowed rawhide lariats. A military escort led
the six condemned men from their jail cells to the gallows. With heads shaven and
arms tied behind their backs, the convicts marched through the streets as women
and children gathered to watch the procession. “A death-like stillness reigned”
throughout the town as they spoke their last words; one of the men “showed a spirit
of martyrdom” and yelled, “Caraho, Los Americanos!” or “Fuck the Americans!”156
As the trapdoors fell below the men’s feet, their bodies swung from the improvised
lariat nooses while “convulsive shudders shook their frames [and] the bodies writhed
most horribly.”157 Remembering the gruesome deaths of Bent and Burgwin, the U.S.
soldiers felt little remorse as they looked on. The men dangled for forty minutes
before the ropes were cut, whereupon the sheriff returned the bodies to their weeping
families. “A more merited doom was never visited on any scoundrels in the world,”
Elliott concluded unrepentantly.158 With the execution complete, many of the
Americans headed for the local tavern, where they spent the remainder of the day
in “drunken merriment,” consuming brandy and Taos Lightning in the company
of “handsome señoras.”159 As the liquor wore off over the ensuing days, one soldier
wrote that “everything appears to be quiet here at this time.”160
One of the men convicted of treason, Antonio María Trujillo, had his sentence
remitted through an unlikely bureaucratic process that actually reached President
Polk’s desk. A petition for his pardon based on old age and infirmity was sent to
Washington, D.C., soon after the trial, but Polk declined to interfere with civil affairs
in the territory. Realizing the shaky legal ground on which the accusations of treason
stood, and hoping that clemency in this case might calm heated passions in Taos,
Polk recommended that Trujillo’s life be spared, but he deferred official judgment
to Colonel Price as the leading authority in New Mexico.161 Price’s commutation
of Trujillo’s death sentence confirmed that a treason charge could not justifiably be
levied on an enemy combatant holding citizenship in an opposing nation. During
their trial, in fact, the accused had insisted in vain that they could not be guilty of
treason against the United States because of their Mexican citizenship. Describing
the incident from a Hispanic perspective, George I. Sánchez wrote in 1940 that
“Trujillo and his followers were Mexican patriots who made a belated attempt to
repel an invader; they were guilty of armed revolt but not of treason.”162
66 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Secretary of War Marcy believed that the legal error lay in the use of the word
‘treason’ to describe the crime and determine the punishment. As citizens of an
occupied territory, Marcy wrote, the inhabitants owed allegiance to the United States
and became subject to its laws, but they could not be accused of treason until the
territory in question had been officially transferred to American sovereignty by act
of Congress.163 Senator Benton also called the convictions absurd, stating that the
men had been “tried by some sort of a court which had no jurisdiction of treason.”164
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo included a clause outlining the conditions of
citizenship for former residents of the Mexican Republic; the pact aimed to avoid
future resistance by allowing any person wishing to remain a citizen of Mexico
one year to migrate south of the new international boundary line.165 The treaty,
however, was not signed until February 2, 1848, nearly a year after the Taos execu-
tions. President Polk, aware of the legal problem but seemingly ambivalent to the
outcome, wrote that “the offenders deserved the punishment inflicted upon them.”
He admitted the initial error in charging them with treason and acknowledged
that their Mexican citizenship should have prohibited their execution as traitors,
but he took no action beyond this basic admission of wrongdoing.166
After the trials Governor Donaciano Vigil understood the precarious nature
of the peace and knew that strong undercurrents of dissent remained. Realizing
that terms of enlistment for volunteer troops would soon expire, he requested that
Secretary of State Buchanan muster 2,000 more soldiers to occupy New Mexico.
“Late events and present circumstances, I think, prove the necessity of that force,” the
governor concluded, hoping to avoid the same fate as his predecessor by saturating
the territory with military might.167 When the volunteers began mustering out in
June 1847, Secretary of War Marcy assured Colonel Price that replacements were
being sent in an amount “sufficient to hold that country.”168 While these requisitions
for reinforcements seemed to emanate from wartime necessity and civil unrest, the
officials who advocated such a strong military presence did so realizing the economic
stimulus that so many salaried men would bring to the region.169
In the summer of 1847 American control over New Mexico remained tenuous,
and another uprising threatened to materialize when a group of Hispanos attacked
and killed an army lieutenant and two enlisted men near Las Vegas. Troops imme-
diately arrested seven men implicated in the murders and marched them to Santa
Fe, where, in a scene reminiscent of that in Taos, a military tribunal found six of
them guilty and sentenced them to be hanged for murder. “They were immediately
executed,” wrote Lieutenant Dyer, who served as judge advocate during the hearing.
Notably, the court forewent the accusation of treason, realizing now the appropriate
 Occupation and Conquest 67

Governor Donaciano Vigil.

Courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives,
New Mexico History Museum/DCA, Santa Fe (negative no. #011405).

parameters of prosecution for such a crime. Based on the evidence, Dyer believed
that the alcalde at Las Vegas had ordered the men to kill the soldiers, citing this
as further evidence of the power and control that a small proportion of politically
and socially empowered men exercised over the general population. “The miserable,
ignorant, deluded wretches dared not disobey his order,” Dyer wrote with an air
of nativism, adding that “the mass of the people are so degraded, and have been
so long under that kind of despotism, that they are wholly unfit to be citizens of
a free government.”170
Having quelled the January rebellion and executed the primary masterminds,
American officers became much more adept at recognizing public perception and
worked to preempt future outbreaks of violence. In response Hispano rebels shifted
their activities to more-remote locations, where military force could not immediately
reach them. Major Robert Walker, commanding a battalion of soldiers at Socorro,
once again attributed leadership of this resistance movement to Manuel Cortés,
now a captain in the Mexican army’s Batallón Activo de Chihuahua, who rode
at the helm of thirty men and at one point skirmished with a detachment of U.S.
troops near the Pecos River.171 “A body of Mexicans and Indians, embodied for
68 Coast-to-Coast Empire

predatory purposes, have been very annoying,” Price grumbled, noting that people
in northeastern New Mexico continually harassed government authorities and
army grazing camps, sometimes with deadly consequences. On May 20, 1847,
armed bandits attacked soldiers near Wagon Mound, inflicting three casualties and
driving off two hundred horses and mules. A detachment of seventy-seven troops
from Las Vegas overtook the raiders in a canyon of the Canadian River, and an
intense skirmish ensued during which soldiers killed forty-one Hispano combat-
ants.172 One month later, a group of Missouri volunteers pursued another band of
rustlers who had stolen horses from the post at Las Vegas. When the overmatched
soldiers confronted the thieves, all four were killed and the culprits made off with
their loot. An incensed Major D. B. Edmonson marched back into town, where
his men shot several people and took at least forty others prisoner. Less than two
weeks later Hispanos ambushed yet another grazing camp in an attack that claimed
the lives of five more soldiers. Clearly many New Mexicans “entertain[ed] deadly
hatred against the Americans,” and Price noted with grave concern that the local
population had adopted an effective strategy of hit-and-run attacks on secluded
campsites.173 In these three raids alone, Nuevomexicanos slew over a dozen troops
and stole hundreds of horses and mules.
Despite these difficulties, President Polk recommended in August 1848 that
the country’s military force be reduced to the prewar size of approximately ten
thousand men, a number that he believed “sufficient” for peacetime purposes. His
order not only conformed to public sentiment during a time when many American
citizens distrusted a large standing army but also reflected the philosophy of a
government commitment to fiscal conservatism. With the Mexican-American
War over and no additional violence expected, Polk based his recommendation
for cutting military strength on reports from Secretary of War Marcy and Com-
missioner of Indian Affairs William Medill. Marcy conservatively estimated that
only three or four military posts, garrisoned by 1,200 soldiers, would be needed to
control New Mexico’s Indians and Hispanos and to maintain American control
over the territory.174
General Kearny died less than two years after the Army of the West captured
Santa Fe, and thus he never witnessed the controversies that arose over the nation’s
retention of that Hispanic and Indian frontier. From a tactical standpoint, Kearny
played an important part in New Mexico’s inception into the American union of
states and territories. The proclamations that he delivered to the Spanish-speaking
inhabitants triggered the nation’s military obligation to the regional population;
he promised locals that U.S. troops could protect them from Indian raids, and in
 Occupation and Conquest 69

so doing would reverse the prior twenty-five years of neglect shown them by the
chronically insolvent and unstable Mexican government. Recognizing that New
Mexicans owed allegiance to a foreign nation and had been reared under laws and
customs that differed widely from those about to be imposed on them, Kearny
also ordered his troops to exercise conciliatory measures when interacting with
the civilian population so as to foster amity and goodwill, although many of the
men failed to uphold a high standard, and their behavior instead fostered deep
resentment among Hispanos.175
Ultimately, Kearny’s military colleagues were tasked with administering the new
civil government, quelling civilian and Indian uprisings, and laying the groundwork
for American settlement and infrastructural development. As the editors of the
Santa Fe Republican wrote, echoing the nationalistic jargon of the times, the United
States hoped that New Mexico would emerge “from the blood-stained wave of war
that dashes its fearful torrent around us, arising the fairer and lovelier form of the
Goddess of Freedom.”176 Establishing political, economic, and legal stability in New
Mexico would be crucial to sustaining it as an American possession over the decades
to come, although U.S. officials soon realized that the ease with which Kearny’s
Army of the West wrested the territory from Mexico, and the supposed simplicity
of democratic enlightenment reflected in the Santa Fe newspaper, had both been
misleading. By February 1847 Lieutenant Dyer understood that the unimpeded
occupation of Santa Fe had led everyone to believe that the political transformation
“would be hailed with delight by the people.” General Kearny, he mused, departed
“in the full belief that no effort would be made to wrest the government from us,”
a fatal assumption for some of the U.S. troops who remained in New Mexico.177
Although rumors of intrigue would circulate throughout the region over the
ensuing years, much of the impetus to rebel dissipated by 1848.178 As memories of
the Taos Revolt faded, native New Mexicans became increasingly reconciled to the
new government, and some residents recognized potential benefits in American
citizenship. This was especially true regarding Kearny’s promise that U.S. troops
would protect them from the deadly and unrelenting Indian raids that had plagued
Rio Grande settlements since the Spanish colonial era. In October 1848, after the
Mexican-American War ended and civil unrest subsided, a contingent of Nuevo-
mexicanos under the leadership of Taos priest Antonio José Martínez joined with a
handful of American officials to memorialize Congress, requesting the organization
of a government “purely civil in its character” to replace the wartime military
regime. They explained that the Kearny Code, with a few minor alterations, could
form the basis of an acceptable territorial administration and asked only that a ban
70 Coast-to-Coast Empire

on “domestic slavery” be added to it—a topic that the original doctrine purposely
sidestepped—before Congress took official action.179 The petitioners must have
known that any request relative to slavery would be incredibly controversial. U.S.
politicians spent the next two years debating the expansion of slavery and popular
sovereignty in the West, placing New Mexico in the center of the tensest sectional
controversy yet faced by the republic.180 Now the task of political incorporation,
either with or without slavery, would become a pressing concern for Americans
wishing to exert power and control over the southwestern domain. For their part,
the local memorialists understood that the new government offered a chance to
quell Indian raids and pacify a New Mexico frontier that had been enveloped by
violence for generations. These two issues—slavery and Indian conflict—would
occupy American soldiers and politicians for years to come.
 1 3 2

Indian Wars and the

Contest for the Southwestern Frontier

C olonel Edwin V. Sumner never really liked New Mexico. The officer first visited
in 1846, when he and his company of dragoons escorted General Stephen W.
Kearny from Santa Fe to southern California. In July 1851 the fifty-four-year-old
Sumner—who received the moniker “Bull Head” during the Mexican-American
War—returned to the Southwest, this time to serve as commander of the Ninth
Military Department.1 Secretary of War Charles M. Conrad specifically assigned
Sumner to the task, recognizing him as a no-nonsense administrator who would
implement controversial new policies without hesitation. In compliance with orders,
the colonel promptly removed the troops from New Mexico’s towns—where they
had been stationed since the conquest five years earlier—and reassigned them to
new forts in isolated locations. The soldiers, he said, had become demoralized from
their residency in places like Santa Fe, which he called a “sink of vice and extrava-
gance,” and needed to be distanced from injurious social influences.2 Although
the military command lauded Sumner’s action, many civilians detested the move
because it deprived them of soldiers’ business at local stores and saloons and left
towns vulnerable to Indian raids. Sumner also imposed tighter regulations on army
expenditures, reducing the high costs of sustaining over one thousand troops in the
remote territory while simultaneously eliminating many of the lucrative government
supply contracts that residents previously fulfilled.3 By December 1852, however,
the frustrated colonel had requested a transfer elsewhere, and even his successor as

71
72 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Colonel Edwin V. Sumner, c. 1855.

Courtesy MOLLUS Mass Photo Collection,
United States Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

department commander, General John Garland, wrote soon after his arrival that
“there is undoubtedly a strong disinclination to serve in New Mexico.”4
As an authoritarian fiscal conservative who viewed New Mexico through the
lens of economic rationality, Sumner despised almost everything about it. After
less than one year in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, he wrote to War Department
officials outlining the difficulties of maintaining an operational military force in the
Southwest borderlands. The colonel implored his superiors to abandon the region
for the Mexicans and Indians to fight over amongst themselves, as they already
had been doing “for over 200 years.”5 Sumner advised Conrad that the government
ought to “withdraw all the troops and federal officers,” leaving only a supervisory
commission to oversee political activities and prevent any rebellion like that at Taos
five years earlier. “With regard to their protection from the Indians,” Sumner wryly
remarked, “they would have the same that was extended to them by the Mexican
government—that is to say, permission to defend themselves.”6 The abandonment
of New Mexico turned out to be among the few things that Sumner and his civilian
counterpart, Governor James S. Calhoun, agreed on during their tenures in office.
An irritated Calhoun, in fact, had once explained to the commissioner of Indian
 Indian Wars 73

affairs that “the military officers and the executive cannot harmonize, and I am
not certain that the public interest would not be promoted by relieving us all from
duty in this territory.”7
The department quartermaster seemed to echo Sumner and Calhoun when
opining in 1851 that “the inhabitants of the towns and large settlements should be
taught to depend upon themselves” for protection from the Indians, noting that
civilian militias might become “valuable partisan soldiers” who could contribute
to their own defense.8 The secretary of war concurred, positing that all Anglo-
Americans residing in New Mexico should be relocated and remunerated for any
property lost or abandoned during the transition. “Even if the government paid for
the property quintuple its value,” Conrad mused, “it would still, merely on the score
of economy, be largely the gainer by the transaction,” because the soldiers could
be reassigned to places where their services might be of greater immediate benefit
to the United States. As far as Sumner and Conrad were concerned, protecting a
population of Hispanics—who just half a decade earlier revolted against the U.S.
government and threatened to do so again at the time these men wrote—did not
warrant the effort and expenses involved.9 A team of federal commissioners later
reported that “since we acquired New Mexico [in 1846] the military expenditures
connected with Indian affairs have probably exceeded $4,000,000 annually in that
territory alone.” They alluded to Sumner’s recommendation that New Mexico be
abandoned, postulating that “upon the score of economy it would doubtless have
been a great saving to the government.”10
Many New Mexicans did not particularly like Colonel Sumner either. Upon
learning of his correspondence with the secretary of war, a Santa Fe newspaper
editor obtained copies of the letters and published them for all to read. Derogatorily
nicknaming Sumner “The Big Bug of Albuquerque,” the writer believed that citizens
had been “gratuitously and maliciously assailed.” According to the editors, removal
of troops from Santa Fe had exacted a heavy toll on the capital and thrust local
merchants into an economic downturn. Comparing the colonel to a dictatorial
Caesar and sarcastically christening him “High Constable,” the journalist William
Kephart accused him of acting with preordained malice toward New Mexicans
and believed him unfit to serve as department commander.11 When Indian agent
John Greiner asked the colonel to reconsider transferring troops to frontier posts,
Sumner’s response—that he would do as he wished—did not endear him to either
civil authorities or the general public.12 Perhaps the most heated rivalry, however,
occurred when William Carr Lane arrived in 1852 to assume the governorship.
Sumner, who sat temporarily in the Palace of the Governors during the four-month
74 Coast-to-Coast Empire

interim between Calhoun’s and Lane’s tenures, promptly removed his headquarters
from Santa Fe to Albuquerque just prior to the latter’s arrival, distancing himself
from civil authority and personally offending the new head of state.13 The unfriendly
relationship between the two, according to congressional delegate Richard Weight-
man, was “a renewal of the contest for power in New Mexico between the civil and
military” branches of government.14 Richard Kern, an artist who accompanied the
colonel to Navajo country in 1851, confided to his brother that “everybody hates
old Sumner and all are afraid of him,” a sentiment that many shared but few dared
to express in public.15
Sumner and Conrad epitomized the frustration that many government officials
experienced when attempting to administer public affairs in New Mexico, and
they were not alone in their opinions about abandoning the region and diverting
money and manpower to other areas of the West. The fact that federal bureaucrats
ignored such suggestions and continued to pump significant resources into the
territory—maintaining a standing army of well over one thousand troops there
throughout the antebellum period—indicates just how much importance congres-
sional leaders placed on the region as a geographic and commercial link between
Texas and California. If they hoped to establish national infrastructure there,
however, Americans would first have to pacify half a dozen nomadic Indian tribes
whose homelands overlapped the geopolitical boundaries of the newly established
U.S. territory.
The fiscal strategies that Conrad and Sumner espoused in reorganizing the
territorial military department came in response to an inspection of New Mexico’s
posts that Quartermaster Thomas Swords conducted in 1851. Aware of skyrocketing
War Department expenditures and wondering what could be done to lessen operat-
ing costs in the West, Swords and other officers assessed the regions acquired from
Mexico and reported extensively on adverse conditions. Their findings corroborated
what Major General Thomas Jesup had already reported to the secretary of war:
America’s rapid acquisition of Texas, Oregon, California, Utah, and New Mexico
between 1845 and 1848 carried unforeseen costs for the nation, especially in the
way of military spending. Prior to the annexation of Texas, the War Department
maintained 63 military posts in frontier regions that included today’s Upper Midwest
and many of the states astride the Mississippi River. After 1848 the army added 46
forts in Oregon, California, New Mexico, and Texas, nearly doubling the number
of outposts to be equipped and maintained. By 1857 troops manned 138 stations
across three million square miles.16 Furthermore, since the new states and territories
were so far removed from preexisting U.S. boundaries, operating costs proved
 Indian Wars 75

much higher in those areas. The War Department bore the brunt of the expense,
because enforcing Indian policy cost more money and required greater manpower
than administrating the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).17
The federal acquisition of vast territories pushed the military frontier westward
from the Mississippi River’s north-south axis all the way to the Pacific Ocean in
less than four years, practically doubling the distance that troops and supplies had
to be transported.18 “When it is recollected that large accessions have, within a
few years past, been made to our territory; that an extensive seaboard will require
fortifications, and an enlarged inland frontier needs protection against the Indians,
it will appear manifest that the present military establishment of the country is
entirely inadequate for its wants,” Secretary of War Conrad told the president in
1850.19 Over the preceding four decades, Congress had failed to increase the size
of the federal army in proportion with the annexation of new territory, creating a
glaring weakness in national defense. In 1808 the legislated size of the regular army
was 9,991 men. After Mexican-American War discharges and downsizing in 1848,
the military counted 13,821 soldiers—despite the national population having grown
by eighteen million people over the preceding forty years and the incorporation
of more than one million square miles of additional territory. An army roughly
the same size as it had been at the turn of the century, then, had to patrol a vastly
larger geographic area and protect far greater numbers of American citizens, and
by the 1850s those responsibilities stretched the military to its limits. Secretary of
War Jefferson Davis estimated in 1854 that 400,000 Indians occupied the western
domain, but only 11,000 troops patrolled the countryside.20
One reason for the lackadaisical support of the military involved a pervasive Ameri-
can perception of true warfare in the nineteenth century. Enamored with Manifest
Destiny ideology and empowered by a sense of racial superiority, most citizens did
not view Indians as worthy opponents, and thus Congress never officially declared
war on any of New Mexico’s tribes.21 Despite Chief Justice John Marshall’s reasoning
in 1831 that Native Americans constituted “domestic dependent nations”—a legal
principle that insinuated tribal sovereignty—federal lawmakers did not see Indians as
political entities in the same way that they viewed European countries like England
or France.22 Despite the fact that the treaty-making process implicitly acknowledged
tribes as sovereignties, this designation did not influence the popular perception of
formal warfare as a conflict between civilized nations.23 Instead, Americans viewed the
standing army as a peacetime establishment—a constabulary body to maintain order
and protect settlers—and did not therefore support greater troop levels or monetary
expenditures.24 As Secretary of War John Floyd pointed out, “Whilst appropriations
76 Coast-to-Coast Empire

have been made to sustain our Army upon a peace footing, it has been called upon
to prosecute an active and sanguinary war” against many different tribes inhabiting
half a continent.25 Herein lay one of the primary dilemmas of Indian warfare in the
nineteenth-century American West. Congress did not recognize frontier conflicts with
American Indians as real warfare and refused to raise enough troops or provide ample
funding to sustain military operations during “peacetime.” The Indian Wars—which
lasted for decades and involved dozens of tribes—were just as expensive and logistically
challenging as any traditional war with a foreign country, yet the army fought them
with the bare minimum of resources and manpower. Nowhere did this discrepancy
prove more problematic than in the antebellum Southwest.
During the 1850s War Department officials viewed Texas and New Mexico as
the most critical regions for military protection and stationed more than half of the
entire standing army in those two departments. To bring each company to its full
legislated strength, federal personnel intensified recruitment in eastern cities and
practically begged Congress to increase the size of the army.26 Conrad repeatedly
asked politicians to approve the formation of at least one new regiment because
until they had more troops at their disposal, field officers could not effectively
patrol and protect the western frontier. Severe limitations in troops and supplies
dictated that officers in New Mexico would chase Indians only if they had an
extremely high likelihood of overtaking them.27 When Jefferson Davis took office
as secretary of war in 1853, he remarked that even if Congress enlisted three times
the number of troops currently employed for service, his agency could not properly
defend the western states and territories, much less the entire nation. In January
1855 President Franklin Pierce finally recommended an enlargement of the army,
whereupon lawmakers authorized the recruitment of four additional regiments.
Even so, America’s standing army never exceeded 16,000 soldiers in the decade
prior to the Civil War.28
Whereas provisions could be shipped via steamboat or railroad to army outposts
in Louisiana, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Missouri, those same supplies had
to be carted overland across great distances to faraway forts and encampments
in the Southwest. This required much more money and took a lot more time,
causing military expenses to increase more than ninefold and transportation costs
for troops and supplies to rise by 1,500 percent between 1844 and 1851.29 Protecting
the landlocked New Mexico frontier proved particularly problematic because of
its exposure to multiple Indian tribes and its incredibly isolated location compared
to Oregon, California, and Texas—all of which had coastlines and harbors. Large
numbers of troops needed to be stationed in New Mexico, and at greater cost
 Indian Wars 77

than anywhere else in the country. The army paid high rent for privately owned
barracks and storehouses in the towns that they garrisoned: the post at Las Vegas
cost over $5,000 per year, the one at Doña Ana nearly $4,500, and the remaining
locations were not much cheaper. At department headquarters in Santa Fe, leases
for officers’ quarters totaled $1,800 annually, and the quartermaster department
employed 134 people at wages reaching $60 per month. As of April 1851 the Ninth
Military Department was paying 377 civilian employees in addition to over 1,000
military personnel. Thomas Swords estimated the cost of feeding and maintaining
a single mule at $310 per year, noting that many posts had at least six mule teams
with an equal number of teamsters on the payroll. By his calculations, the War
Department paid over $190,000 each year just to feed and maintain mules in
New Mexico, and with expenses for sustaining the dragoons’ horses added to the
equation, fees in 1851 came to $308,000 for animals alone. Considering the costs
of horses and mules, rent at eleven locations, salaries for over 1,000 soldiers and
officers, wages for hundreds of civilian workers, daily rations, and other contingent
expenses, New Mexico truly was a drain on federal coffers.30 In addition, graft only
added to the War Department’s headaches: for example, the army quartermaster
in Santa Fe, Captain Alexander W. Reynolds, used his position to issue fraudulent
supply contracts and embezzled an estimated $122,000 between 1849 and 1851.31
Even removing troops from their urban posts and stationing them at frontier
forts would not significantly cut the army’s costs, because the arid countryside
could not support the irrigation systems necessary to grow food and forage for so
many troops and animals. The only way that reliance on civilian grain and grass
contracts could be eliminated, Major General Jesup said, would be to construct
extensive dams and aqueducts and create a sophisticated system of irrigation. He
also recommended that turnpikes be built to connect the Mississippi River with
New Mexico and hoped that the Rio Grande might be dredged and channelized to
make it navigable farther inland from the Gulf of Mexico, but none of those fanciful
schemes came to fruition. Although he advocated these internal improvements for
the sake of national defense, the quartermaster general also understood that such
projects would incur astronomical costs that hardly justified the slight savings on
military subsistence.32 The primary means of supply would continue to be civilian
contracts and goods shipped over the Santa Fe Trail.
Even if military operations in New Mexico were made more affordable through
government-financed improvements, another major obstacle hindered fiscal solvency.
“From the experience of the past,” Jesup wrote, “I entertain not the slightest hope
that the expenses for transportation, forage, and several of the items under the
78 Coast-to-Coast Empire

COLORADO
U TA H TERRITORY
TERRITORY
KANSAS
Bent’s Fort
Arka
UT E S nsas River
N

OS
AJ

Rio Cha
COM AN CH ES
A V Taos (Cantonment Burgwin)
N Abiquiu a Rayado

m
Fort Defiance Jemez Fort Union (1851)
(1851) Cebolleta Pueblo Santa Fe
Las Vegas
Fort Wingate
(1863)
Albuquerque
Los Lunas
ARIZONA
rande

Bosque Redondo/
TERRITORY Fort Sumner
Socorro
(1863)
Rio G

Fort Conrad
(1851)
Fort Stanton
(1855) Pecos River
MESC TEXAS
Gila River
S
E

Fort Thorn/Apache Agency

H

Fort Webster (1854)

AL
C

(1852) Doña Ana

A

Fort Fillmore
ER

Fort Buchanan
AP

(1857) (1851)
El Paso/Fort Bliss
O

(1851)
APA
CHES

SONORA CHIHUAHUA

0 100 200 mi

0 100 200 300 km

Map 2. New Mexico Military Posts, c. 1850s.

incidental head, can be much reduced unless an entire change be made in our Indian
as well as military policy.” Before an effective Indian policy could be formulated,
he believed that the new international boundary separating the United States from
Mexico must be secured, and he advocated militarization of the border to curb illicit
Apache and Comanche slave raiding across a geopolitical boundary that indigenous
groups did not recognize within their own cultures.33 Once the military secured
the border, Jesup suggested that smaller forts be abandoned and their garrisons
consolidated with those at larger posts. Major concentrations of soldiers would
 Indian Wars 79

then occupy sizable frontier forts with reservations at or near those compounds; the
Indians would be dismounted, demobilized, and forced into permanent settlement
at remote locations under direct army supervision. Once the Indians were taught
a sedentary agrarian lifestyle, they would sustain themselves, rendering military
campaigns unnecessary—the so-called “Indian problem” thus mitigated forever.
Through this wishfulness, Jesup predicted a 75 percent reduction in War Depart-
ment expenditures while opening the region for settlement and development.34
In many ways, his ideas on Indian policy anticipated those that the government
followed throughout much of the late nineteenth century, although the outcomes
rarely equaled the expectations, and terrible demographic and cultural tolls beset
many tribes as a result.
In 1866 Governor William F. M. Arny estimated that New Mexico’s nomadic
groups had plundered 2,407 horses, 1,155 mules, 13,473 head of cattle, and 294,740
sheep—valued at almost $1.4 million in total—in the twenty years since Kearny’s
conquest. The human cost came to at least ninety U.S. citizens killed and many
more wounded or taken captive, to say nothing of Indian casualties during that
same period.35 As astonishing as they sound, Arny’s numbers seem to have been
on the conservative side. Boundary Commissioner John Russell Bartlett claimed
that half a million animals had been stolen between 1846 and 1850 alone, although
he included stock taken from below the U.S.-Mexican border in that estimation.36
During the first eight years of American sovereignty, territorial residents filed 244
indemnity claims for Indian raids with the Department of the Interior totaling
over $500,000.37 Although these figures represented only civilian losses and did
not include animals stolen from the military, Colonel John Munroe—Sumner’s
predecessor as department commander—suggested that the government honor
all requests for remuneration and dole out hundreds of thousands of dollars in
payments, despite strong suspicions that some of the claims were either nefarious
or exaggerated. Colonel Thomas Fauntleroy expressed his frustration that New
Mexicans concocted stories of raids and thefts in hopes of being paid for their losses
and to ensure a strong military presence in the territory. As far as Fauntleroy was
concerned, crafty civilians had discovered a way to use the government, vis-à-vis
the army, to personal advantage for profit and protection.38 Additionally, some
Hispanos abetted the theft of livestock by purchasing stolen animals directly from
the Indians. In one such instance, an infuriated Captain Henry Judd accused civic
leaders in the Rio Arriba of complicity in contraband trafficking and swore that
the culprits would be apprehended and punished.39 Munroe stressed the need to
regulate commerce between New Mexicans and Indians, pointing out that Hispanic
80 Coast-to-Coast Empire

and Anglo opportunists illicitly traded guns and ammunition that warriors in
turn used to kill residents.40 The War Department, however, continued to handle
these conflicts with vigor and resolve, placing a high level of importance on the
pacification of the Southwest.
Just as controlling government spending and maintaining some modicum of
fiscal solvency vexed military administrators, so too did formulating and enforcing
viable policy prove difficult. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, officials from the War
Department and the BIA continually argued over the proper course of action toward
New Mexico’s indigenous tribes. This should have come as no surprise to the Indians
themselves; since the 1700s Spanish and Mexican authorities had similarly oscillated
between policies of total warfare and cautious peace—and confusing combinations
of the two.41 From the moment that responsibility for Indian affairs shifted from the
War Department to the newly created Department of the Interior in 1849, tension
arose between the civil and military branches regarding the appropriate disposi-
tion of western tribes, and within a decade the secretary of war began pressuring
Congress to return the BIA to his agency’s purview.42 Fundamentally, however,
both bureaucracies sought an end to conflict with American Indians in order to
promote settlement, facilitate economic development, and create safe avenues for
multidirectional travel and commerce.
For the most part, BIA officials pursued an agenda that involved feeding and
caring for Indians at agencies on or near reservations, although this approach
proved financially draining and politically untenable until after the Civil War.43
New Mexico’s first superintendent of Indian affairs, James S. Calhoun (soon to
be territorial governor), advocated four reservations: one each for the Apaches,
Comanches, Navajos, and Utes. If those major tribes could be induced (or forced)
to remain on secluded reservations and provided with enough food to prevent
starvation, Calhoun believed that raiding would decline and permanent peace
might ensue. Hugh Smith, New Mexico’s congressional representative, supported
the plan and suggested that reserves be set aside and indigenous groups removed
to those locations.44 With the Pueblo Indians, who numbered over 10,000 souls
and occupied twenty-two permanent compounds, Calhoun worked to cultivate
friendship and cooperation. Already struggling to contain the four nomadic tribes
within his jurisdiction, he negotiated treaties with numerous Pueblos and even
enlisted some of their men as paid auxiliaries. Calhoun placed so much importance
on sustaining friendly relations with the Pueblos that he used funds from his personal
salary for that purpose when the treasury ran low. His constituents approved of
these measures, writing in a petition to the president that the Pueblo Indians
 Indian Wars 81

“should be constantly watched and cared for” because “their affections towards
us, must not be alienated.”45
Had it been implemented, Calhoun’s reservation strategy would have been
problematic, as it did not account for the complexities of tribal structure and
internal strife between subgroups and bands. The Apaches, for instance, would have
been grouped simply by virtue of their name, despite the fact that the Chiricahuas,
Mescaleros, and Jicarillas lived great distances from one another and constituted
distinct peoples who rarely coalesced for any reason besides barter.46 Others with
knowledge of the situation pointed out that reservations simply fulfilled a tempo-
rary humanitarian agenda that would assuage the guilty consciences of American
conquerors. Indian Agent Edmund Graves, posted in southern New Mexico to
oversee the Gila Apaches, offered a pessimistic view in 1854. “All that can be expected
from an enlightened and Christian government, such as ours is, is to graduate and
smooth the pass-way of their final exit from the stage of human existence,” Graves
wrote, alluding to the reservation and rationing policy as the most compassionate
means toward that end.47
James L. Collins, who edited Santa Fe’s only newspaper and served as superin-
tendent of Indian affairs in the 1850s, outlined the civilian perspective on Indian
policy clearly and concisely. The Chiricahua Apaches, he wrote, should be confined
to a reservation along the Gila River (in what is today southeastern Arizona), an
area at that time uninhabited. After a campaign through there in 1857, Colonel
Benjamin Bonneville reported it ideal for the Apaches, explaining that its remoteness
would discourage Americans from settling in the region and disturbing the tribe.
This idea would ultimately come to fruition, but not until the creation of the San
Carlos Reservation in 1872. The Utes, Collins continued, should have their own
reserve on the San Juan River of northwestern New Mexico, another area in which
few settlers resided. As for the Navajos, the superintendent believed that their
own homelands near Canyon de Chelly were sufficiently distant from the settled
Rio Grande towns, and he deemed that region could serve as their reservation if
enforcement measures could be put in place. Collins left the Southern Comanches
out of the equation, hoping that Texas officials would address their fates. These
proposed locations might plausibly receive congressional approval, he remarked,
because rough terrain excluded them from consideration for railroads. If the Indians
did not wish to comply with the policy, he declared, “they should be compelled
to submit to it.” Collins insisted that the government had an obligation to protect
its non-native citizens through whatever means necessary, be they humanitarian,
militaristic, or some combination of the two.48
82 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Another problem with the reservation strategy involved geographic location.

Despite the territory’s immense size—stretching horizontally from Texas to Cali-
fornia and vertically from Mexico to Utah—neither New Mexicans nor federal
lawmakers could agree on specific areas for permanent Indian settlement. For
one thing, to limit raiding most civilians insisted that reservations be located a
tremendous distance from their homes. Nor could the four reservations be placed
near one another, because the tribes might commit hostilities against their Indian
neighbors. At the federal level, the primary concern involved the unforeseeable
future. Lawmakers worried about creating permanent Indian settlements in areas
through which they might one day wish to construct a transcontinental railroad
or where valuable mineral deposits might be discovered.49 These causes for unease
precluded almost the entire territory of New Mexico from the establishment of
reservations and made Calhoun’s preferred policy a difficult sell in Congress, but
leading BIA officials continued to press for this outcome by requesting appropria-
tions and soliciting legislative support.50 Should these ideas fail, Commissioner
Bartlett advised Secretary of the Interior Alexander Stuart that the Apaches ought
to be “annihilated or removed” deep into southern Mexico. Placing the tribe a
thousand miles away on foreign soil, he projected, would prevent raids on American
citizens and shift responsibility for the Indians’ care onto another government. This
unworkable scheme would have been a direct violation of the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, and it never made it beyond the secretary’s desk.51
Civil administrators knew that reservations would be difficult to create and sustain,
so they began with small steps toward that end. William Carr Lane tried to address
the problem during his one-year term as governor and head of Indian affairs in 1852.
He negotiated preliminary peace pacts with some tribes and established agencies
near military posts, including one at Fort Webster in southwestern New Mexico.
Ostensibly bound by unratified treaties, Indian groups were intended to live perma-
nently near their agencies, receive rations from the field agent in charge, and learn
how to farm in the Jeffersonian image of republican yeomanry. This was essentially a
civilizing project that sought to avert violence and demographic decline while ensuring
that American settlers enjoyed unhindered access to the land they wanted. Santa
Fe’s newspaper at first lauded Lane’s policy as an economical one, gushing that it
provided “security to our citizens, and [is] humanist towards the Indians themselves.”
Within a year, however, the strategy had failed. Most nomadic groups could not be
forced to remain in one location. Many of them loathed the agricultural lifestyle and
continued to commit depredations, and agents overissued rations at great expense to
the government. By the time Lane left New Mexico in 1853, his program had created
 Indian Wars 83

a large deficit in the territorial treasury with little to show in the way of results. Local
journalists quickly retreated from their praise, calling Lane’s policy “ruinous” and
claiming that its broken promises and inadequate oversight actually drove agency
Indians to the warpath.52 Shortly thereafter, acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs
Charles Mix opined that the policy of issuing rations and supplies amounted to a
counterproductive welfare program that fostered dependency on the government
and discouraged tribes from becoming self-sufficient agriculturists. Secretary of the
Interior Jacob Thompson called this approach “expensive and radically defective.”53
Of all the Indian agents who passed through New Mexico’s revolving door of
civil officials in the 1850s, none upheld the humanitarian agenda more consistently
than Michael Steck. Originally a medical doctor from Pennsylvania, Steck reached
the territory in 1852 with his ailing wife, hoping that the salubrious climate would
improve her declining health. After a brief stint as an agent for the Utes in north-
central New Mexico, he accepted an assignment to oversee the Chiricahua and
Mescalero Apaches. In 1854 he established the Southern Apache Agency near Fort
Thorn, where he administered policy and monitored the Indians over the next five
years.54 Steck believed in providing food as a matter of humanity as well as feasibility,
explaining that “self-preservation is the first law of nature” and insisting that any
man, regardless of race or creed, would steal before he would starve. “Human nature
exhibits itself as well in the Indian as in the Anglo-Saxon,” he wrote. “Supply the
wants of either, and the disposition to revolt is suppressed or materially weakened.”
Annual ration allotments of a few thousand dollars, he believed, would prevent most
tribes from raiding during the bleak winter months. In Steck’s view, which mirrored
that of Commissioner George Manypenny, carefully measured BIA expenditures
were a preemptive strategy to avoid much costlier military campaigns and higher
troop enlistments. Should the government fail to provide for the Indians, Steck
warned Governor David Meriwether, “they will again be reduced to the extremity
of choosing between stealing or starvation.” Federal authorities eventually granted
the governor permission and funds to negotiate treaties, and in 1855 he met with
several tribes for that purpose.55 However, during the antebellum era officials in the
War Department viewed Indian conflict much differently than their counterparts in
the Interior Department, and army personnel continually advocated heavy-handed
approaches that called for violent military action to precede peace negotiations.
Colonel Sumner had formulated the military strategy of unlimited warfare
toward Indian tribes soon after he assumed command of New Mexico’s military
department in 1851. His proposed tactics—targeting noncombatants, destroying
homes and food stores, and using indiscriminate violence to crush Indian enemies
84 Coast-to-Coast Empire

into submission—originated during the colonial era and represented what historian
John Grenier calls America’s “first way of war.”56 Secretary of War Conrad, who
hoped that a humane outcome might ultimately be achieved, supported Sumner’s
approach and believed that “the most effectual way to protect our settlements is
to overawe the Indians by a constant display of military force in their immediate
neighborhood.” Conrad’s successor, Jefferson Davis, echoed that opinion when
he reported to Congress that peace could be attained only by stationing massive
numbers of troops on the frontier “to restrain aggression by the exhibition of a
power adequate to punish.”57
Taking a cue from Major Enoch Steen, who in 1850 recommended large mili-
tary campaigns as punishment for unrelenting raids, Sumner planned to dispatch
numerous expeditions into Indian country and establish permanent posts in their
homelands. With troops near watering holes and camping spots, Sumner reasoned,
the Indians “will never venture to make distant hostile expeditions, and have their
families and property within striking distance of vigilant garrisons.” Building forts
was only the beginning. From those installations, mounted soldiers could more
easily embark on destructive operations against the Indians, razing their crops and
making no distinction “between the friendly and unfriendly.”58 The commander’s
new administrative plan transformed the military from a defensive body, whose
troops garrisoned and protected civilian settlements, to an offensive force that
occupied Indians’ homelands and actively campaigned in their midst.
Whereas Colonel Sumner articulated the policy of unlimited warfare, his suc-
cessors perpetuated it and even elaborated on it. After taking command of New
Mexico’s military department in 1853, General John Garland explicated his own
approach to Indian affairs. “The marauding propensities of these half-starved
vagabonds will have to be checked by the strong arm of the military,” he declared,
reiterating the army’s continued commitment to controlling and defending New
Mexico. Like Sumner before him, Garland’s policy relied on overt violence. Outlin-
ing for a junior officer the objectives of a Ute campaign in 1855, Garland’s office
urged the use of force over diplomacy, explaining that the military “does not
recognize the principle urged by peace establishment men, that we can wage war
upon one part and not the whole of a nation.”59 In 1857, during Colonel Benjamin
Bonneville’s command of the department, the policy remained unchanged, and
the military that year embarked on the largest Indian campaign New Mexico had
yet seen. Three years later, when a full-fledged war broke out with the Navajos,
Colonel Thomas Fauntleroy pursued the same outcome as each of his predecessors.
“If a war against the Navajos becomes necessary, I desire to make it as decisive as
 Indian Wars 85

possible, by striking a blow that they will never forget,” he exclaimed.60 By the time
the Civil War began, more than a decade of campaigning had failed to subdue any
of the region’s major tribes, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Dole
criticized unlimited warfare as “nothing more than the killing or capture of a few
Indians, and the destruction of some of their villages, leaving the power of the
Indians almost unimpaired.”61
Disagreements over policy came into stark relief when Superintendent of Indian
Affairs James Collins and his subagents squared off against the department com-
mander, Colonel Fauntleroy, over the prosecution of war with the Navajos. Collins
felt confident that BIA personnel had faithfully executed their duties to care for the
Navajo people, whereas War Department authorities continually failed to enforce
treaty stipulations. Collins believed that “humanity demands that we should deal
with them in such a manner as will prevent their destruction,” a mindset funda-
mentally at odds with that of Fauntleroy, who was planning a military expedition
to Canyon de Chelly. “I care nothing about Colonel Fauntleroy or his opinions,
except so far as a misunderstanding with him may affect the public service,” Collins
wrote in a missive to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Alfred Greenwood.62 Agency
officials also quarreled with the commanding officer at Fort Defiance, Major Oliver
Shepherd, whom Collins characterized as contemptible. Navajo Indian agent Silas
Kendrick found Shepherd to be an impossible colleague who blocked all efforts
to treat with the Navajos on peaceful terms while refusing to take decisive action
when the Indians broke treaty stipulations.63 Meanwhile, Secretary of War John B.
Floyd warned Fauntleroy that he must not allow BIA officials to hamstring military
plans, and Floyd empowered him to punish the Navajos outside the parameters of
civil policy should the need for prompt and judicious action arise.64 Hamstrung by
dichotomous bureaucratic objectives, the federal government struggled to devise a
workable plan for the southwestern tribes.
Excessive expenditures and quibbles over policy were only two of the problems
with which military and civil officials had to contend. High costs drained the
federal treasury and siphoned off taxpayer dollars, and interagency disagreements
tested men’s patience, but neither of those aspects incurred any human toll. The
same could not be said for the living conditions at most of the territory’s forts,
where soldiers suffered from a slew of painful and debilitating illnesses that at best
left them bedridden for weeks and at worst sent them to the cemetery in a coffin.
Kearny’s Army of the West had suffered many illness-related casualties in the
months following the occupation of Santa Fe in 1846, and that trend continued
until post–Civil War sanitation improvements and medical advancements remedied
86 Coast-to-Coast Empire

certain maladies and lessened the severity of others. In an 1855 report on sickness
and mortality in the frontier army, Assistant Surgeon General Richard H. Coolidge
described New Mexico as “little else than a great sterile mountainous desert, not
calculated for the residence of man in a state of civilization.” He concluded even
more pessimistically that “New Mexico can boast of nothing on a very extensive
scale, unless it be . . . actual worthlessness.”65 From a medical standpoint as well
as an economic one, many Americans thought it absurd to continue the costly
occupation of the Southwest.
Testimony from the field seemed to substantiate Coolidge’s report. Doctor J.
F. Hammond, an army medical technician stationed in New Mexico, had little
positive to say about either the territory or its Hispanic inhabitants, whom he
derogatorily described as impotent, pandering, and lacking any “spark of culture.”
In the first eighteen months of Fort Conrad’s existence, from 1851 to 1853, the doc-
tor treated 562 patients, whose most severe afflictions derived from alcohol abuse
and sexually transmitted diseases. Between 1849 and 1854, army medics in New
Mexico treated 11,867 cases, or an average of nearly 2,000 per year. Approximately
1,000 troops were stationed in the territory throughout that six-year period, so
the probability of each man being treated averaged twice per year. Rudimentary
medical treatments and poor hygiene, coupled with the seclusion of forts and their
lack of adequate hospital facilities, posed serious threats to enlisted men and officers
alike, as disease did not discriminate based on rank or status. During the same
six-year time frame, 173 men succumbed to illness, their deaths almost invariably
attributable to common fevers or other ailments that in today’s world rarely claim
the life of a patient.66
The problem of soldier mortality in antebellum New Mexico was exacerbated
by unsanitary living conditions. To quench the thirst of horses and mules, irrigate
crops, and sustain the men, the army built most posts near perennial water sources,
which often meant swampy lowlands plagued by swarms of malarial mosquitoes.
Fort Thorn, established in 1854 along the Rio Grande in south-central New Mexico,
provides a case in point. The post surgeon, P. A. Quinan, wrote a scathing report
describing the installation. “The buildings constituting the fort are placed within
a stone’s throw of the swampiest portion of this flat or bottom,” he explained, “and
in the most admirable manner, if the object be that the garrison shall inhale . . .
the pestilential alluvia arising therefrom.” For at least six months of every year the
lowlands skirting the fort’s walls were nothing more than “a surface of oozy mud,
covered with green slime, and interspersed with pools of stagnating water [and]
a rank vegetation of weeds and grasses.” Given these conditions, Quinan wrote,
 Indian Wars 87

“scarcely a man of this command can be considered fit for the performance of
ordinary garrison duty, so debilitated are they by disease.” More than two hundred
miles to the southwest, Fort Buchanan was equally deplorable. The barracks sat on
a low bluff overlooking a swampland, and the doctor reported that malaria afflicted
“every person at the post during the last year, except the sutler’s employees and an
old negro woman.” In 1858 alone he treated 769 cases of disease among a garrison
numbering only 151 men, meaning that on average each soldier at Fort Buchanan
was sick five times that year.67
Between 1849 and 1860 New Mexico’s military doctors treated an astonishing
34,823 cases among a territorial garrison averaging fewer than 2,000 annually.
During that time, 289 troops died from their ailments—far more than the number
of army regulars who perished while fighting Indians over those same years.68 For
soldiers at most forts, New Mexico was a miserable and dangerous place to live.
In 1849 Captain William Grier of the First Dragoons notified headquarters that
a dozen men under his command suffered long-term debilitation stemming from
arduous winter campaigning and “the vices of this country.” Roughly a quarter of
his troops had become “worthless to the company” and needed to be discharged.69
At Cebolleta the post commander complained that the adobe quarters “are old,
cramped, and inconvenient, and filled with bed bugs . . . of a larger class and greater
numbers than you could easily conceive.”70 Small wonder that so many soldiers
detested living in New Mexico and spoke so maliciously of the region. Nonetheless,
the number of men dispatched to the territory increased throughout the 1850s; the
War Department was fully willing to put enlistees in harm’s way to advance the
American nation-building project.71
In addition to poor living conditions and illness, warfare between Indians and
Americans claimed many lives in a seemingly endless and at times desperately violent
conflict. By prosecuting warfare with the territory’s tribes, the federal government
sought not only to secure unchallenged possession of the region for settlement
and development but also to fulfill an obligation to protect civilians already living
there. When Kearny entered New Mexico, he had declared that the United States
would address the issue of Indian raiding and ensure that all Nuevomexicanos
could live in safety.72 His promise would prove difficult to keep because reciprocal
hostility had characterized relations between Indians and Hispanics for generations.
“It has from time immemorial been the custom of the Indians to steal from the
New Mexicans and then the Mexicans to steal from them,” agent Steck explained.
“This system of thievery and retaliation has been kept up, and under the Mexican
rule organized parties were permitted to make campaigns for the avowed purpose
88 Coast-to-Coast Empire

of stealing Indian stock.”73 Superintendent of Indian Affairs Collins criticized

Kearny for having “considered it an easy matter to relieve them from the war, and
to protect them against all further depredations from this formidable foe.” Collins
specifically mentioned the interminable Navajo wars, noting that annual military
campaigns and numerous treaties had all failed to prevent raids on Rio Grande
villages. “These murderers have at no time since they have been under the control
of the United States ceased their depredations,” the superintendent admonished,
“and the Mexicans inform us that it has been the same for the last forty years.”74
In a candid confession, the commissioner of Indian affairs wrote in 1863 that “it is
now fifteen years since we acquired possession of the Territory, and, so far as I can
judge, the security and protection afforded by government to the lives and property
of our citizens is but little if any better than at the outset.”75
Less than a year after Kearny assured New Mexicans that they need not fear the
hostile inroads of neighboring tribes, Governor Donaciano Vigil could already sense
impending difficulties in upholding those guarantees. Even some enlisted men under
Kearny’s command perceived the folly in such promises. “General Kearny has taken
the treacherous population of New Mexico under his fatherly care and protection,”
Private Marcellus Edwards quipped, lamenting that he might be among the troops
ordered into Indian country.76 Claiming that American proclamations had “been
shamefully violated and disregarded,” Vigil prophetically informed Secretary of
State James Buchanan that residents would justifiably complain about continuing
Indian raids.77 Just as the governor predicted, Congress began receiving petitions
from New Mexicans begging for protection and reminding the government of its
obligation to defend them. In 1851 Superintendent Calhoun informed his superiors
that murderous raids would continue to occur “until the powers at Washington
shall accord to the people of this Territory ample protection.” If the government
failed to do this, he stressed, then the people would be forced either to abandon
New Mexico altogether “or consent to be murdered” by Indians.78
In an 1850 memorial to federal lawmakers, citizens criticized the government
for failing to protect their “rights in person and property” and reminded congress-
men once again of Kearny’s pledge. “Barbarous invaders drive off our flocks and
herds by thousands,” they wailed, “and men women and children are murdered
or carried into captivity.” New Mexico, the petitioners believed, was in a worse
condition than before Americans took control, a bold and perhaps exaggerated claim
considering the ruinous neglect that Mexico had shown toward its northernmost
province prior to 1846.79 When rumors abounded in the 1850s that some California
tribes might be relocated to reservations in western New Mexico (now Arizona),
 Indian Wars 89

panicked citizens again protested the management of Indian affairs, submitting

a petition directly to President Pierce outlining the innumerable problems they
already endured with nearby Indian groups.80 The territorial legislature submitted
a formal complaint to Congress claiming that Navajos, Apaches, and Utes had
destroyed every vestige of mining and agriculture and “rendered industry of no
avail.”81 Sounding like a broken record, New Mexicans petitioned Congress again
in 1857, grumbling that “our Indians are not under proper control, nor awed into
submission by the power of the general government.”82 Throughout the 1850s and
into the 1860s, similar appeals arrived at the doorstep of the Capitol Building almost
annually. The entreaties invariably criticized the military for failing to control the
Indians, demanded that all tribes be removed to faraway places, and insisted that
more soldiers be assigned to the territory. Coupled with the nation’s objective of
retaining control over the Southwest for imperial and commercial purposes, these
constant petitions placed added pressure on federal officials to devise and enforce
Indian policy in New Mexico.
Military campaigns against Indians commenced just weeks after Kearny’s
occupation of Santa Fe. At least 30,000 Indians (12,000 Comanches; 4,000–5,000
Utes; 7,000–14,000 Navajos; and 6,000–7,000 Apaches) occupied quadrants of
the Southwest, and the outnumbered U.S. troops were overtasked trying to protect
residents and punish raiders. Each of the four tribes could muster hundreds of
skilled warriors at almost any time to resist enemy encroachment.83 In October 1846
Colonel Alexander Doniphan led his First Regiment of Missouri Volunteers into
Navajo country, where he met Zarcillos Largos and other leaders at Ojo del Oso.
Attempting to fulfill Kearny’s promises, the Missourians avoided hostilities with
their Indian counterparts and negotiated the first treaty between that tribe and the
United States. The colonel explained the circumstances of the American conquest
to Navajo leaders, informing them that future raids along the Rio Grande would
result in warfare not with Mexico but with the more powerful U.S. government.84
Expeditions against and treaties with the formidable Navajos would become a
common theme over the next two decades. Having lived in New Mexico for almost
twenty years before the cession, Governor Bent understood the superficiality of
Doniphan’s agreement and informed Secretary of State Buchanan that “I have but
little ground to hope that it will be permanent.”85 Doniphan’s treaty—like previous
pacts between the Navajos and their Spanish and Mexican neighbors—proved a
failure, and hostilities recommenced shortly thereafter.
A group of confused Navajos ventured to Santa Fe in March 1847, where they
informed Colonel Sterling Price that “they cannot understand the conduct of the
90 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Americans, who came here to fight Mexicans, and are now so friendly that they
protect them.” The headmen offered to ally with Americans to fight and kill Hispanic
residents, a proposal that Price refused.86 Matters devolved so rapidly that Colonel
Edward Newby brokered a second agreement with Zarcillos Largos, Narbona, and
José Largo on May 20, 1848. Almost a carbon copy of Doniphan’s treaty, the contract
between Newby and the Navajos mandated an exchange of stolen property and
captives along with a permanent end to hostilities.87 The stipulations of this latest
pact once again unraveled in the face of ongoing conflict between the tribe and
their New Mexican enemies, who were criticized by many U.S. officers as cowards
for their lackluster efforts at resisting Navajo inroads.88
The first incident of overt violence between Navajos and Americans occurred
in 1849, when Colonel John M. Washington led several companies of infantry,
dragoons, and artillery into Dinétah. Accompanied by Superintendent Calhoun,
the colonel held a council with Narbona, José Largo, and Archuleta, during which
the Indians renewed their commitment to Newby’s treaty. The diplomatic mission
quickly devolved into conflict, however, when a disagreement over a stolen horse
erupted into musketry and artillery fire. Armed with four cannons, Washington’s
forces unleashed deadly volleys at the Indians as they fled, killing the eighty-year-
old Narbona and six others. Unfazed, the troops marched onward to Canyon de
Chelly. In early September they met with another Navajo delegation, members of
which “regretted that, for so trifling a thing as a horse, so much damage had been
done.” Despite the violent encounter, Chiefs Mariano Martínez and Chapitone
promised that their people would respect the agreement and refrain from further
raiding. Satisfied with the results, Washington countermarched to Santa Fe, where
he learned just one day after his arrival that Navajos had already broken the treaty
and killed five Mexicans in a raid near Sandía Pueblo.89 “It is as natural for them
to war against all men, and to take the property of others, as it is for the sun to give
light by day,” Calhoun joked after learning of the incident.90
Even though Doniphan, Newby, and Washington had all failed to exact mean-
ingful commitments to peace, the characteristically confident Sumner believed
that he could succeed. In September 1851 he took a break from his controversial
reorganization of the Ninth Military Department to lead troops back into Navajo
country, retracing Washington’s route westward from Santa Fe in what would
become the first manifestation of his unlimited warfare approach. His men entered
the seemingly impregnable Canyon de Chelly, where they ate from the Navajos’
watermelon patches, cornfields, and peach orchards until, according to Private James
Bennett of the First Dragoons, bullets began to “fall thickly” from the muskets
 Indian Wars 91

of angry Indians standing atop adjacent cliffs.91 When the column returned to
headquarters a month later, an exasperated Sumner grumbled that his foes “never
forced us, or gave us an opportunity to inflict upon them any signal chastisement.”
The Navajos had been wise to avoid the colonel, who had no intentions of negotiat-
ing peace. “My object was to attack the Indians . . . and to destroy their crops,”
an embittered and dispassionate Sumner confessed following the unproductive
excursion.92 Unbeknownst to the dragoons, bands of Navajos used the campaign
as an opportunity to raid along the Rio Grande, where the withdrawal of troops
for the expedition left some settlements unprotected and vulnerable. “They have so
successfully committed murders and depredations,” Calhoun wrote while Sumner
was in the field, “that they do not fear the possibility of being caught by the troops.”93
Before returning to headquarters Sumner ordered Major Electus Backus and
several companies of soldiers to remain behind and establish Fort Defiance in the
heart of Navajo lands. “I believe a large post at the Cañon Bonito will in a short
time effectually restrain these Indians,” he optimistically reported. “If this post
does not put a stop to the Navajo depredations, nothing will do it but their entire
extermination.”94 The psychological effect seemed immediate: Backus reported just
two months later that a party of Navajos came to the fort seeking peace, “as they
seem to dread the idea of our establishing new posts” in their country.95 Although
Sumner’s active campaigning produced even fewer meaningful results than those of
his predecessors, his decision to construct Fort Defiance at one of the tribe’s favorite
camping and grazing grounds would have significant ramifications.
While Doniphan held council with the Navajos at Ojo del Oso in 1846, General
Kearny was marching through southwestern New Mexico on his way to California,
a trek that brought him into contact with the Chiricahua Apaches. After the column
met with Chief Mangas Coloradas near the Gila River, Captain Henry Smith
Turner predicted that “should this country ever get in the possession of the U.S.
there will be much difficulty in keeping these Indians in order.” He ominously
but accurately foresaw the impending difficulties that would plague the next four
decades of interaction between Americans and Apaches. Turner postulated that
the federal government would have to “buy them up with annuities” in order to
purchase good behavior; otherwise “a war with them would be almost as endless
as the Florida war with the Seminoles.”96 On his tour through New Mexico and
Chihuahua that same year, Dr. Adolph Wislizenus observed that none of the region’s
agricultural, pastoral, or mining resources could be developed profitably until “the
wild Indians . . . have first been subdued.”97 In southern New Mexico, the initial
responsibility for achieving this outcome fell to Major Enoch Steen and his dragoons
92 Coast-to-Coast Empire

at Doña Ana, from whence the military launched numerous campaigns against the
Chiricahua and Mescalero Apaches in the early 1850s.
Already frustrated by relations with the Navajos, Superintendent of Indian Affairs
Calhoun complained in February 1850 that Apaches in southern New Mexico “are
becoming more troublesome and impudent.” During several recent raids near
Doña Ana, warriors had murdered Hispanic herders, stolen their livestock, and
carried away women and children as captives.98 In one of their most brazen strikes,
a small band of Apaches decoyed Steen’s dragoons away from the town, enabling a
larger group to raid at will. Embarrassed and irate, Steen wrote to Santa Fe asking
for permission to lead a campaign into the Apaches’ homelands and destroy their
camps. Calhoun liked the idea, proclaiming that “a just and severe chastisement
awaits these people for their numerous butcheries.” During the two years that U.S.
troops occupied Doña Ana, they embarked on no fewer than seven expeditions
into Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache country, with little to show in the way of
positive results. Following one reconnaissance of the Mimbres River valley, Steen
recommended that a satellite post be established in that vicinity, and in January
1852 the department built Fort Webster at the Santa Rita copper mines to monitor
the Chiricahuas and dissuade them from further depredations.99
Meaning to achieve a permanent end to the Apache conflict, Colonel Sumner
traveled to Acoma Pueblo on July 1, 1852, to negotiate a treaty with numerous
tribal chiefs, including Mangas Coloradas and Cuchillo Negro. The accord disal-
lowed raiding in both Mexico and the United States, forcing the Indians to submit
unequivocally to American rule. The tribe also agreed that forts could be built
wherever the army pleased, settlers could pass freely through any portion of their
homelands, and all captives would be surrendered to U.S. authorities. In exchange
for these concessions, the Apaches would receive gifts and supplies in an amount
that the federal government “may deem proper” at a future date. The lopsided pact
marked Sumner’s only real attempt at nonviolent Indian diplomacy during his tenure
as military commander.100 The colonel afterwards satisfied himself that “if I can
keep the Mexicans from committing depredations on them, I have no doubt but
the peace will be lasting.”101 Although the Senate ratified the treaty, its provisions
went widely ignored and hostilities recommenced in short order.
In August 1853 Sumner transferred command of New Mexico’s military depart-
ment to General John Garland, who would spend the next four years grappling with
the same difficulties as his predecessors. Governor David Meriwether informed the
general in January 1855 that the Indians “are every day becoming more bold in their
attacks.”102 With violence continuing mostly unabated throughout the southern half
 Indian Wars 93

of the territory, Garland dispatched a large winter campaign against the Mescalero
Apaches, aiming to force the tribe into permanent submission. Captain Richard
Ewell led a contingent of dragoons and infantry into the Sacramento Mountains of
southeastern New Mexico, where he rendezvoused with a second column from Fort
Fillmore under Colonel Dixon Miles. Plagued by heavy snows and sparse forage,
the troops and animals suffered for the duration of the campaign, and Private
James Bennett named one of their nightly stopping places “Camp Starvation.”103
In the expedition’s only armed engagement, Captain Henry Stanton, a revered
officer, fell dead from a gunshot to the head. Two other dragoons also perished,
including Private Thomas Dwyer, who was “dismounted, surrounded, and lanced”
after he killed one of the Indians.104 The loss of Stanton infuriated military leaders
throughout the department and heightened their resolve to punish the Mescalero
Apaches. Within three months, Garland had selected the site for Fort Stanton, a
post that, like Fort Defiance in Navajo country, situated troops permanently within
tribal homelands.105 Less than two months after the fort’s construction, humbled
Mescalero leaders traveled to Fort Thorn and accepted Governor Meriwether’s
terms for peace, an outcome that reaffirmed the propriety of building posts on the
Indian frontier.106
The largest military campaign yet assembled in New Mexico took the field in May
1857 and targeted Apaches who, seven months earlier, had murdered Navajo agent
Henry L. Dodge. The unprovoked execution of Dodge sparked a fury throughout
the department that exceeded even the ire surrounding Captain Stanton’s combat
death two years earlier. After identifying the Mogollon subgroup of Chiricahua
Apaches as the culprits, the assistant adjutant general fumed that “these Indians
may be thoroughly chastised, and their band so broken up that they will not be
heard from again as a distinct people.” Colonel Bonneville swore to avenge Dodge’s
murder and began planning an operation in which nearly 1,000 troops would
converge on Apache territory from three different directions. In a transnational
effort, U.S. authorities contacted the Mexican governors of Chihuahua and Sonora,
enlisting their support in defeating “a common enemy” should the Apaches flee
south of the border.107
From May through July the commanding officers—Bonneville, Miles, Ewell,
and William Loring—scoured southwestern New Mexico with detachments of
dragoons, infantry, and mounted riflemen, but the troops encountered Apaches
on only two occasions. In the first incident, Colonel Loring attacked a camp near
the Mimbres River; the headman, Cuchillo Negro, and six others were killed, all
of them members of the Gila Apache subgroup, which had not been implicated
94 Coast-to-Coast Empire

in Dodge’s death.108 Two months later, the entire command probed westward,
traversing the Gila River into today’s southeastern Arizona, where they stumbled on
a large Coyotero Apache ranchería. Catching the Indians by surprise, the attackers
killed twenty-four men and women and took twenty-six others prisoner. Bonneville’s
command suffered just eight troopers wounded in the lopsided affair. “It was a sad
sight,” Lieutenant John DuBois confided to his diary. “I could not avoid asking
myself why we had killed these poor harmless savages,” he pondered, noting that
the Coyoteros had committed no acts of hostility on American settlements and
previously had directed their raids only toward Sonora.109 Back in Santa Fe, General
Garland had a different take on the incident. “The chastisement they have received
will be long remembered by them,” he gleamed. “The effect . . . will doubtless prove
most salutary.”110
Ignominiously dubbed the “Campaign of Clowns” by one disenchanted junior
officer, the expedition came to a close on July 26, 1857, when Bonneville abandoned
his makeshift headquarters at the Gila Depot and ordered all troops back to their
posts after three grueling months in the field. Colonel Miles called the excursion
“the most fatiguing march I ever experienced,” and Loring complained of mountains
so steep and rugged that “many of the strongest mules fell backwards with their
packs.” Agent Steck later noted that the Apaches “have never recovered from the
effects of the campaign made into their country two years ago,” estimating that half
of their warriors had since perished. The tribe, he remarked, had been “compelled
to scatter in every direction for safety,” and the majority fled into northern Mexico
seeking asylum.111 For its part, the military did not emerge unblemished either.
The campaign consumed vast resources and, because of the number of troops
involved, sapped the department of much-needed manpower. Lieutenant Henry
Lazelle offered the pithiest description of Bonneville’s campaign, figuring that 800
men had traveled over one thousand miles and expended half a million dollars’
worth of supplies for “the recovery of 500 sheep and 10 Indians.”112 The lieutenant’s
calculation simplified the messy details and contingencies of field operations into
the pertinent categories of money, manpower, and distance—the three things
that most confounded federal officials in their prosecution of the Indian Wars.113
As these events transpired in the southern half of the territory, Utes and Jicarilla
Apaches in the northernmost regions also posed problems for civil and military
commanders, who responded to dozens of reported raids, kidnappings, and murders
throughout the antebellum period. One of the most infamous killings occurred in
1849 when an allied force of Utes and Jicarillas massacred the civilian wagon train of
J. M. White and family on the Santa Fe Trail. The Indians slew the men and rode
 Indian Wars 95

away with Mrs. White, her young daughter, and a black female slave as captives.
Superintendent Calhoun immediately dispatched scouting parties to search for the
women and even authorized the payment of ransoms if necessary. The elder Mrs.
White was killed during an attack on her Jicarilla captors, but the whereabouts of
the other two women remained a mystery for two more years. Congress appropriated
$1,500 to locate and recover the two missing girls, and bureaucrats at the highest
level of government collaborated in a feverish but futile attempt to save their lives.
In a petition to President Zachary Taylor, New Mexicans declared that “the sav-
age butchery of poor White and the male part of his party . . . and the yet more
horrible fate of Mrs. White, call for a vengeance that there is not power enough in
this territory to inflict.”114 Although thousands of Hispanics and Indians lived in
a state of captive slavery at the time of Kearny’s conquest, it took the abduction of
two Anglo women to finally spur U.S. officials to action.
While the death and capture of the Whites directed increased military attention
toward the Utes and Jicarillas, a much deadlier encounter incited open warfare with
the two tribes. When sixty troops of the First Dragoons marched out of Cantonment
Burgwin on March 29, 1854, their commander, Lieutenant John Davidson, had no
idea that most of his men would be dead or wounded by the following evening. As
the soldiers trekked southward from Taos, they discovered an Indian camp at a site
known as Cieneguilla. Motivated by a skirmish earlier that month during which
soldiers had killed the Jicarilla chief Lobo and four others, the Indians mounted an
offensive that overwhelmed the dragoons. After a fierce three-hour battle against
an estimated 300 Jicarillas, Davidson—himself wounded in action—ordered his
beleaguered combatants to retreat. Twenty-two soldiers died, twenty-three more
sustained injuries, and forty-five horses lay dead on the battlefield. Only a handful
of men emerged unhurt from the deadliest firefight yet to occur between federal
troops and Indians in New Mexico, an engagement that also claimed the lives of
many Jicarilla warriors.115
Revenge would be swift, unrelenting, and decisive. Interim Governor William S.
Messervy declared war on the Jicarillas—whom he designated an enemy of the
state—and threatened the death penalty for anybody who aided or abetted the
tribe in any way.116 For the Indians, the hostile feelings were mutual: while raiding
on the upper Arkansas River, Jicarillas and Utes told survivors that “they would
murder every American and Mexican they met” so long as a state of hostility
existed.117 In the days following the Battle of Cieneguilla, General Garland dis-
patched Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke with two hundred dragoons
and a company of artillery to comb the mountains of northern New Mexico in
96 Coast-to-Coast Empire

search of Indians. The column engaged a band of Utes, killing at least six warriors,
and soon afterward Garland proclaimed that Messervy’s so-called enemies of the
state had been “thoroughly humbled” and would beg for peace.118 In reality, the
war between allied Utes and Jicarillas and their American foes had just begun, and
army officers spent the next year scouring the countryside. Throughout 1854 military
operations claimed the lives of dozens of Indians, resulting in the complete destruc-
tion of numerous camps and crushing the tribes’ will to fight.119 Even civilians
participated in the assaults, with hundreds of New Mexicans filling the ranks of
four militia companies under the command of Ceran St. Vrain. In 1855, with more
than 1,000 soldiers and hundreds of armed residents actively campaigning, the
Jicarilla Apaches and Muache Utes met with the governor to discuss terms for
peace.120
As violence between Utes, Jicarillas, and Americans escalated, a member of the
Navajo tribe committed an act that very nearly catapulted his kinsmen into a war of
their own. In an unprovoked attack, a Navajo man killed Private Nicholas Hefbiner
of the Third Infantry—who was cutting hay for the animals at Fort Defiance—and
then fled to safety in the nearby mountains. Major Henry Lane Kendrick called
the incident an atrocity and lamented that it “threatens very serious consequences,”
although he acknowledged the murder as an independent act of a miscreant and
not a tribal declaration of hostility. An Indian agent subsequently met with several
Navajo leaders and stressed the gravity of the situation. If they failed to surrender
the killer to U.S. officials, then “war of the most stringent character would be the
inevitable result.” The agent also reminded Navajos that the coming winter months
would provide troops with the perfect opportunity to wage war against the tribe,
as cold temperatures and snowfall immobilized women and children and limited
the provisions on which their people could draw for subsistence. In November
the tribe averted further violence by turning over the murderer at Fort Defiance.
Kendrick gathered as many Navajos as he could find, strung a noose around the
man’s neck, and hung him in plain view for all to see.121
The major planned the execution as a warning to the Indians, but the impression
faded and the lesson was soon forgotten. In 1858 a similar incident occurred at Fort
Defiance, with deadlier consequences for both sides. The commanding officer at that
time, Major William Brooks of the Third Infantry, owned a twenty-year-old African
American slave named Jim, who had accompanied the major when he transferred to
New Mexico several years earlier. On July 12 a Navajo man who had been loitering
at the fort shot Jim as he walked across the grounds; the killer then fled astride his
horse into the adjacent mountains. A doctor tried to extract the metal arrow point
 Indian Wars 97

from Jim’s lungs, but to no avail; Jim died of the wounds four days later. Furious
about the loss of his slave, Brooks demanded that Chief Zarcillos Largos reimburse
him for Jim’s pecuniary value as human property, promising that any failure to
pay for the boy and surrender the escaped murderer “will be considered cause for
war.” A group of Navajo headmen eventually rode to Fort Defiance and dropped
off a corpse that they claimed to be that of Jim’s killer. Post surgeon James Cooper
McKee determined through an autopsy that the body in fact was that of a young
Hispanic man, most likely a captive who was being held as a servant among the
tribe. In killing one of their own slaves, Navajos sought to atone for Brooks’s loss
in the most equitable way they could devise, hoping to bring closure to the issue
and avert war with American troops.122
Rather than calming the situation, the deceptive gesture infuriated military
officials, who felt that the tribe had attempted to shield the culprit from execution.
The murder of Jim at Fort Defiance sparked five years of continuous fighting
between Americans and Navajos, a conflict that Senator Charles Sumner called “a
war of the most bloody nature.”123 Secretary of War John B. Floyd acknowledged
that the Navajos constituted “an extremely formidable force” and estimated that
they could muster over 3,000 warriors at any time, meaning that prolonged conflict
would be deadly for everybody involved.124 Matters climaxed in 1860, when Navajos
perpetrated a number of daring attacks on soldiers near Fort Defiance. In January
of that year, 300 Indians executed a hit-and-run assault on the army’s beef herd,
ambushing a 35-man detachment at a grazing camp just eight miles from the fort.
Before the soldiers could grab their guns and gather their thoughts, three troopers
lay dead and the Navajos had retreated safely into their mountainous strongholds.
A month later Chief Huero led 500 tribesmen in another raid, targeting troops
assigned to monitor a herd of cattle seven miles from the post. This time, however,
the soldiers repulsed the attack without sustaining any casualties, while the Navajos
suffered at least ten warriors injured.125
When he learned of these incidents, Superintendent James Collins felt simultane-
ously enraged and saddened. The Navajos and the U.S. government had affixed
their marks and signatures to six treaties over the previous twelve years, he fumed
in a letter to Governor Abraham Rencher, “not one of which seems to have been
thought of, either by the Indians or ourselves, after they were signed and agreed to.”
He called the disingenuous treaty-making process a farce, the result being that “the
Indians have really learned to believe that the signing of a treaty places them under
no obligations.” The blame for this, he understood, rested as much with lackadaisical
administration and enforcement on the part of American officials as it did on any
98 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Navajo intransigence or dishonesty.126 As he reflected further over coming days, Col-

lins lamented that “a war with the tribe is now beyond the possibility of prevention.”
Relations had devolved to the point of unmitigated violence, “not only on account
of the heavy cost in which it will involve to the government, but it will most likely
destroy the means which the tribe now possesses for self-support.” With a downcast
tone, he concluded that “I seriously dread the consequences for the Navajos.”127
In response to these hostile encounters, headquarters ordered troops at every
installation to be prepared to take the field at a moment’s notice. Colonel Fauntleroy
hoped to enlist 300 Ute warriors as auxiliaries, pointing out that these longtime
Navajo enemies would accept the plunder taken during armed engagements in lieu of
the cash salaries that conventional militiamen demanded. He also collaborated with
Kit Carson to formulate a plan for invading Navajo country.128 Before any troops
took the field, however, the tribe launched one of the boldest Indian attacks in the
annals of western history. In the predawn hours of April 30, 1860, an estimated 1,000
warriors descended on Fort Defiance from three different directions, catching 206
infantrymen completely by surprise. Fighting lasted past sunrise, when the Indians
fled the scene after failing to overwhelm the better-armed soldiers. Twenty-eight-
year-old Private Sylvester Johnson died of an arrow wound to the chest, and at least
a dozen Navajos also perished in the melee. Given the intensity of combat and the
number of men involved, the casualty count was remarkably low. But the brazen
premeditated assault on U.S. regulars at a federal post would have a tremendous
impact on Americans’ resolve to crush the tribe into submission.129
Within months of the attack, Colonel Edward Canby gathered fourteen companies
of troops in preparation for a massive punitive expedition into Navajo country. March-
ing in several columns, the men rendezvoused at Fort Defiance before probing deeper
into tribal homelands. Throughout September and October hundreds of troops scoured
the Chuska Mountains, Pueblo Colorado Wash, and Canyon de Chelly regions. The
elderly chief and medicine man Zarcillos Largos, born in the late 1700s and widely
regarded among Americans as a levelheaded man of peace and diplomacy, was killed
during the relentless campaigning. Skirmishes between soldiers and Indians claimed
the lives of dozens more, and weeks of intense marches so severely broke down the
dragoons’ horses that many of the mounts would never again be serviceable.130
Meanwhile, in southwestern New Mexico a deadly and treacherous incident with
the Chiricahua Apaches set the stage for more violence in that quarter. After members
of the tribe raided John Ward’s ranch near the Sonora border on January 27, 1861,
Lieutenant George Bascom and a detachment of dragoons rode out of nearby Fort
Buchanan in pursuit. When the troops arrived at Apache Pass, they encountered
 Indian Wars 99

Cochise and his followers. The two respective leaders met inside an army tent, and
Bascom informed Cochise that he would detain his family as prisoners until the tribe
returned a captive boy taken during the raid on Ward’s ranch. Cochise escaped only
after drawing a large bowie knife and slicing his way through the canvas and out
of the tent, leaving behind his brother and two nephews. In the days that followed,
Apaches ambushed a civilian wagon train and took four prisoners, hoping to exchange
them for those whom Bascom held, but to no avail. On the morning of February 8,
a tense skirmish broke out near the Apache Pass mail station, during which at least
three Indians died and Bascom lost dozens of mules and horses. Before retreating,
Cochise and his followers tortured and mutilated the four American prisoners and
left their bodies for the troops to bury. Not to be outdone, the soldiers hanged
Cochise’s family members and three other captives in retaliation, thus concluding
the so-called Bascom Affair and initiating more than two decades of unremitting
warfare between American troops and Apache warriors.131
Colonel Canby’s Navajo offensive wrought a severe toll on all involved, and
Lieutenant Bascom’s betrayal of Cochise sealed the fates of many American troops
and settlers over coming years. Before any decisive outcomes could be reached in
either case, however, a far graver conflict erupted off the coast of South Carolina.
By 1861 New Mexico was poised to serve as a backdrop for multiple theatres of
warfare. Not only would federal troops face a Confederate invasion at the dawn of
the Civil War, but in the coming months and years they also would be called on
to prosecute violent conflicts with Navajos, Apaches, and Comanches. Once again
the U.S. government would be tested in its resolve to hold the Southwest, this time
from the dual threats of Indian raids and Rebel attack.
When read individually, most antebellum military campaigns in New Mexico
appear to have produced mixed results at best. Troops suffered immeasurably from
the hardships of illness, warfare, and isolation, while taxpayers footed the enormous
bill for ceaseless military maneuvers. Relations between Americans and Indians grew
steadily worse, erupting in open warfare with the Apaches and Navajos in the early
1860s. Implementing reservation policy failed to produce the desired results, leading
many government officials to adopt Colonel Sumner’s unlimited warfare approach
as a precursor to peace. Ultimately, few Indians died as a direct result of intensive
army operations, and even fewer combat engagements occurred. But when the
military campaigns are read together in the broader context of westward expansion,
the impact becomes clearer. Short-term goals went unmet as troops attempted to
contain the Indians and exact lasting commitments to peace. However, achievements
that were not immediately apparent would become more obvious as time wore on.
100 Coast-to-Coast Empire

With limited populations, tribes could not easily replace warriors lost in battle,
nor could they weather the demographic decline propagated by fierce tactics that
destroyed all means of subsistence and forced them into a lifestyle of constant motion
to avoid soldiers.132 As agent Steck warned the Chiricahua Apaches in 1854, the
United States “has more soldiers than you can count, they are like the grass on the
prairie or the leaves on the trees—you might kill all that are here but [we] would send
ten times as many.”133 He not only cautioned the Indians against future resistance
but also alluded to America’s determination to control the Southwest. Frontier
warfare in North America differed drastically from conventional conflict between
nation-states: large, decisive battles rarely occurred, and the results usually remained
uncertain. Throughout the antebellum era, private citizens and government agents
came to appreciate the protection afforded by a strong military as they attempted to
develop mines, farm fertile valleys, graze cattle on open ranges, and survey railroads
in advancement of a Manifest Destiny that no longer seemed so simple. The full
consequences of antebellum military campaigns were not immediately apparent,
but in the years following the Civil War little doubt remained that the soldiers were
indispensable to nation-building enterprises. While U.S. troops waged relentless
warfare against the Southwest Indian tribes to assert physical dominance over the
land and its people, Americans 2,000 miles away undertook a difficult conflict of
their own, as lawmakers from the North and South grappled to control the political
ideology of New Mexico in relation to slavery and free soil.
 1 4 2

Popular Sovereignty
and Peculiar Institutions

T he Missouri Compromise of 1820, which marked the beginning of fervent

sectionalist politics in the United States, ranked among the most important
pieces of slavery legislation in the antebellum era. The act stipulated that Missouri
be admitted as a slave state and Maine as a free state, thus maintaining a balance
of representation in the Senate and establishing a precedent for the admission of
new states in pairs or groups to avoid lopsided shifts in sectional power. A second
component of the law banned slavery in any future U.S. territory or state situated
above the 36˚30' line of north latitude, from Missouri’s southern border to the
shores of the Pacific.1 Wittingly or not, congressional leaders had established clear
geographic parameters for the boundary of a southern domain that might one day
stretch uninterrupted from ocean to ocean. Lawmakers all but preordained a vast
empire of slavery spanning the lower half of the continent, laying the groundwork for
the increasingly virulent agitation over that issue that would characterize the nation’s
next forty-five years. Most Hispanics living in New Mexico—which remained a
province of New Spain at that time—probably heard nothing of this new American
law, and those who did catch wind of it could scarcely have imagined the political
implications that it would one day have for them.
In January 1861—with southern states rapidly seceding in response to Abraham
Lincoln’s election as president—Ohio representative Thomas Corwin spoke specifically
in the context of the Missouri Compromise when he called New Mexico “the great
battlefield on which the South and North meet in wicked, foolish, fratricidal strife.”2

101
102 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Another Ohioan, Representative John Sherman, echoed that sentiment when he

declared, in clear frustration, “Shall New Mexico be free or slave? This is the question
upon which this government is to be disrupted, our flag dishonored, and upon which
state after state goes out of the Union.”3 Both men echoed Richard Weightman,
who had served as a territorial representative to Congress in the early 1850s. The
New Mexican people, Weightman had once complained, “have suffered too much
already, by having our soil made use of by others as a political battlefield over which
to settle the slavery question.”4 Given the territory’s ongoing role as a controversial
pawn in the slavery debates, these comments were less hyperbolic than some might
have imagined. Numerous events over many decades combined to bring about the
Civil War, but territorial New Mexico played an important role in the eleventh-hour
arguments that ripped the nation apart and sparked a long and bloody conflict.
When it came to supporting the interests of slave owners in the decades leading up
to the Civil War, Senator John C. Calhoun never minced words. Many southerners,
in fact, held the South Carolinian expansionist in high regard as their foremost
political philosopher: the fire-eating Virginia author George Fitzhugh christened
Calhoun as the South’s own reincarnation of Aristotle.5 During and after the war
with Mexico, the former war hawk spoke frequently and passionately about land
that the United States had acquired from its defeated foe, stressing the importance
of a perceived Constitutional right to slave property in newly appended territories
and states. A lifelong politician, Calhoun abhorred the efforts of abolitionists and
Free-Soilers—the radical Northern counterparts to his own Southern extrem-
ism—to prohibit slavery in New Mexico and California. If adopted, that course
would deprive his native South of critical votes in Congress and further upset the
balance of political power in a way that the Missouri Compromise had sought to
avoid. The North, Calhoun roared in one speech, was making “the most strenuous
effort to appropriate the whole [Mexican Cession] to herself, by excluding the South
from every foot of it.”6 He demanded that the new western domain be accessible to
all Americans, not merely those of one or the other section, and insisted that every
free white male citizen be able to enjoy equal rights should they choose to emigrate
there. Speaking of New Mexico and California specifically, Calhoun contended
that “they are as much the territories of one state as another. . . . They are the ter-
ritories of all, because they are the territories of each.”7 In the years following the
Mexican-American War, federal leaders, as well as New Mexicans themselves, would
have much to say about the ideologies that undergirded Calhoun’s proclamations,
as New Mexico was thrust headlong into the intense sectional disputes that would
plague Congress and the nation throughout the next decade.
 Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions 103

The Mexican-American War brought divergent American perspectives on

Manifest Destiny into sharp relief, as citizens and legislators debated vigorously
over the political disposition of immense tracts of land acquired from Mexico. Once
a treaty of peace brought the conflict to an end, congressional leaders considered
the conditions under which new western territories and states would be admitted
into the Union. By the late 1840s the South and the North had drastically dif-
fering visions for the future of the western half of the continent, and those ideas
revolved primarily around slavery. When Henry Clay and the Senate Committee of
Thirteen convened in April 1850 to review possible conditions for the admittance of
California and New Mexico, they did so knowing that “out of our recent territorial
acquisitions, and in connection with the institution of slavery, questions most grave
have sprung, which . . . endanger the safety of the Union.”8 New Mexico came to
represent America’s sectional contentions in microcosm, as northern Free-Soilers
vied with southern radicals over the ultimate disposition of the Southwest. As with
the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the debate surrounding New Mexico’s entry
into the Union as either a territory or a state—with or without slavery—incited
tremendous discord and portended of greater conflicts to come. As it had since the
beginning of the Santa Fe trade in 1821, New Mexico would continue to play an
important role in American expansion—both geographic and ideological—during
the crisis-ridden 1850s. This time, however, not all U.S. citizens found themselves
united in their respective desires for New Mexico’s future.
Arriving at an agreement over popular sovereignty for the western territories
proved difficult given the sectional turmoil arising from Texas’s annexation and the
Mexican-American War.9 Politicians spent months debating the issue of slavery in the
vast lands that Mexico’s diplomats ceded in 1848, and New Mexico became a subject
of heated exchanges in the two houses of Congress, in newspaper editorials, and
during everyday conversations throughout eastern cities and backwater towns. The
editors of a Santa Fe newspaper hinted at the coming unrest in January 1848—before
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had even been signed—when they informed
readers that “the slave question is of incalculable importance” and predicted that
southerners would work assiduously to expand slavery westward from Texas.10 That
forecast proved accurate, as Americans spent the next two and a half years arguing
about the future role of the peculiar institution in the Southwest.
One of the first meaningful congressional debates over slavery in New Mexico
occurred during the summer of 1848, just weeks after the Senate ratified the Treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo and officially incorporated the Mexican Cession lands as U.S.
possessions. North Carolina representative Richard Donnell offered his thoughts
104 Coast-to-Coast Empire

in a speech that must have reminded some listeners of the Wilmot Proviso argu-
ments just eighteen months earlier. “New Mexico and California are the apples of
discord,” he said, lamenting that “we are already reaping the bitter fruit of national
cupidity” over the issue. The United States, he believed, would have been better
off had it never acquired territory from Mexico, because the resulting political
division might well prove irreparable. Despite being a southerner himself, Donnell
opined that slavery could not exist in New Mexico without special congressional
action along the same lines as the Missouri Compromise three decades earlier. He
noted that previous Mexican laws already abolished African slavery but astutely
pointed out that the existence of “peon slavery” precluded New Mexico from any
legitimate claim to free-soil status. The North Carolinian concluded by admitting
that discussions over slavery in the Southwest had much more to do with political
ideology and congressional representation than any desire on the part of southerners
to transport large numbers of African American bondsmen there.11
Northern radicals also had plenty to say about slavery in the territories. Repre-
sentative George Marsh of New Hampshire responded to Donnell’s comments with
a diatribe that addressed everything from the laws of Mexico to the laws of nature.
Regarding the former, he noted that the preexisting codes of another country did
not apply in New Mexico once that territory shifted to U.S. jurisdiction. Marsh also
questioned whether the Mexican congress had a right to abolish slavery as it did in
1837 (the third time that country had outlawed slavery since gaining independence
in 1821), opining that Mexico’s national constitution left that issue to each state and
province to decide individually. The New Hampshire representative was shrewdly
applying the American notion of states’ rights, as specifically outlined in the U.S.
Constitution, to another country’s laws and government. However fallacious or
misapplied his logic, the purpose was to demonstrate that Congress needed to take
concrete action of its own relative to involuntary servitude in the land acquired
from Mexico. Marsh insisted that a definitive law—passed by the U.S. Congress,
not the Mexican congress—would be necessary to prohibit the peculiar institution
in New Mexico. He recommended that the example of the New England states,
many of which had independently outlawed slavery years earlier, be followed in
the Southwest.12
Pennsylvanian David Wilmot rose to his feet after Marsh finished and added his
own thoughts to the debate. “The law of slavery is the law of violence and aggres-
sion,” he provocatively asserted, noting that slavery already had a strong foothold
in Texas and that it would soon exist in an unbroken swath across North America
unless the government acted to prevent its spread. Wilmot accused slaveholders of
 Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions 105

conspiring to push their peculiar institution all the way to the Pacific Ocean in order
to “insure the ultimate subjugation of the whole southern half of this continent”
to southern control. In the eyes of antislavery activists like Marsh and Wilmot,
New Mexico formed the last geographic bulwark against the westward spread
of slavery. If southerners had their way in New Mexico and California, Wilmot
feared, it would represent “the certain triumph of slavery, and the last struggle of
freedom.” Reiterating the provisions of his infamous Wilmot Proviso of 1846, the
Pennsylvanian advocated a policy of nonintervention and containment whereby
slavery would be left alone where it already existed, and forever prohibited in any
new land incorporated into the United States, including New Mexico. He felt certain
that anything other than this course would lead directly to national division and
civil war. The topic of slavery in New Mexico therefore bore tremendous importance
for the future of the federal union.13
A group of New Mexicans injected additional tension into these debates when
they petitioned Congress in October 1848, requesting incorporation as a territory
without slavery. Several state legislatures in the North advocated this path by passing
resolutions in favor of a federal law to prohibit slavery in New Mexico.14 Missouri
senator Thomas Hart Benton sponsored the territorial bill, while his rival John C.
Calhoun complained vehemently against any “insolent” action that would outlaw
slavery in the Southwest. Texas senator Thomas Rusk also objected, because the
petition did not recognize his own state’s claim to eastern New Mexico.15 The request
for territorial status fell flat in the prevailing environment of sectional dispute,
and the issue remained temporarily undecided. In arguing against New Mexico’s
admission on the premises of popular sovereignty and the Texas boundary claim,
however, Calhoun and Rusk presaged the negotiations that would ultimately result
in sectional compromise.
Congressional leaders rekindled the issue two years later in a series of heated
discussions that lasted for months. Senators John Berrien of Georgia and Jefferson
Davis of Mississippi were among the many outspoken southerners who fought hard
to make New Mexico a bastion for slavery. In February 1850 Berrien revisited the
Mexican antislavery laws, announcing that the United States could never “subject
ourselves to the laws of a foreign nation” and that another country’s legal mandates
should not dictate American jurisprudence or politics. He also claimed that the
only reason racial slavery remained unpopular and unnecessary in New Mexico
was because it had been “easily substituted by the system of peonage.” The fact
that involuntary servitude existed there in the alternative forms of Indian captivity
and debt bondage demonstrated to Berrien that Mexico’s antislavery edicts had
106 Coast-to-Coast Empire

little basis in the lived reality of its citizens.16 The following day Davis added his
own invective to the debate. “Did we admit territory from Mexico subject to the
constitution and laws of Mexico?” he asked rhetorically. “Did we pay fifteen mil-
lions of dollars for jurisdiction over California and New Mexico, that it might be
held subordinate to the law of Mexico?” The fiery Mississippian also pointed out
that Nicholas Trist, the American agent who negotiated the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, explicitly told Mexican diplomats that a prohibition of slavery could
not, under any circumstances, be included in the treaty of cession because of the
political firestorm it would incite. All of this, Davis proclaimed, meant that slavery
could, and indeed should, exist in New Mexico—if not in practice, then at least
in political and legal principle.17
Connecticut senator Truman Smith led the rebuttal for free-soil northerners,
laying out a complex argument that named national legal issues, regional social
concerns, and the physical environment of the Southwest as three obstacles to
slavery’s expansion. Mexico’s prior abolition of racial slavery, Smith believed, posed
a major hurdle to southerners wishing to implant the chattel system in any land
acquired through the Mexican Cession. The senator predicted that ambiguity
about the right to own slaves in New Mexico would discourage most masters from
taking their human property there in the first place. Equally important, Smith
continued, were uncertainties revolving around Hispanic sentiment toward slavery.
The local population “are all opposed to negro bondage,” he stated, claiming that
Nuevomexicanos did not entertain the same prejudices against blacks as did many
white Americans. “The negro laborer would find himself on a footing of equality
with the white, Indian, or mixed laborer” in New Mexico, Smith asserted, postu-
lating that the racial hierarchy that sustained chattel slavery in the South would
never materialize in the multiethnic Southwest. Furthermore, an arid climate,
high altitude, infertile soil, and lack of navigable waterways or other sources of
transportation would also hamper efforts to make slavery a profitable institution in
New Mexico. Citing numerous reports from topographical engineers as supporting
evidence, the senator insisted that the natural features of the Southwest conspired
against the existence of mass slavery in a region where subsistence agriculture and
a largely localized economy predominated. When one considered the presence of
thousands of Indian captives and Mexican peons who already filled the demand for
labor, it became clear—in Smith’s mind, at least—that the southern system would
not proliferate to any significant degree in the region. Chattel slavery could not, the
Connecticut statesman concluded, “be advantageously used in competition with
the cheap peon labor of New Mexico,” and any person planning to migrate there
 Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions 107

would be better off first to sell their slaves and then use the proceeds to reinvest in
the “native labor of that country.” Although most of Smith’s claims were accurate,
he seemed to miss the overarching fact that the debates about New Mexico revolved
around ideology and politics rather than experiential reality.18
Smith was not the only senator who struggled to grasp the true ideological
underpinnings of these deliberations. The veteran Whig Daniel Webster of Mas-
sachusetts supposed that the climate and geography of the Southwest were so
antithetical to slavery that he did not think the arguments were even worth having.
Believing that God had created the entire American West in such a fashion as to
preclude the existence of plantation-style agriculture, he spoke adamantly about “the
impossibility of the existence of African slavery in New Mexico.” Webster proposed
a laissez faire approach, hoping that the nation could avoid sectional tension if his
fellow congressmen would leave the matter alone and allow providential design to
dictate the slavery question. Once again, however, a prominent northern politician
was overlooking the bigger picture. Topography and environment did not limit
or even dictate the flow of ideas, and indeed it was precisely that—the political
ideology of slavery—that most southerners sought to nurture in New Mexico.19
As deliberations continued into the summer of 1850, another possibility arose
that troubled antislavery radicals. In July Senator James Cooper of Pennsylvania
expressed the pervasive fear among abolitionists that “Texas may swallow up New
Mexico, and plant slavery upon the soil of the Territories.”20 Cooper saw this as the
most likely scenario whereby Southern interests might gain political control over
New Mexico, even though President Zachary Taylor thought that “there is no reason
for seriously apprehending that Texas will practically interfere with [a] possession
of the United States.”21 The Texan–Santa Fe Expedition a decade earlier, coupled
with Texas’s claim to the Rio Grande as its western boundary, supported Cooper’s
assertion that the nation’s newest slave state had cast a fixed gaze on New Mexico
for future expansion. Senator Rusk, whose experiences in the Texas borderlands
gave him some familiarity with local institutions, discerned a path in 1850 for
the legal establishment of slavery in New Mexico. Realizing that the territory’s
powerful landholding class relied on involuntary servitude in the forms of captivity
and peonage, he espoused the popular sovereignty approach, stating that “the best
plan that we can adopt is to leave this matter to the regulation of the people among
whom it exists.” Rusk cared little about peonage and captivity in practice, but he
knew that New Mexican policymakers would legalize both systems if allowed the
opportunity. Local authorization of involuntary servitude could then be ideologically
expanded to include chattel slavery, thus placing New Mexico within the orbit of
108 Coast-to-Coast Empire

the Southern cause.22 Based on Rusk’s comments, the perceptive Senator Cooper
pointed out that even if Congress banned slavery per se in the Southwest, it would
not be enough. The existence of peonage offered ample pretext for southerners to
implant their peculiar institution under that guise, and a separate law forbidding debt
bondage would therefore be necessary to supplement any abolition measures that
Congress might pursue. The slavery situation in New Mexico, Cooper understood,
was far more complex than most of his colleagues realized.23
Texan antagonism over the boundary dispute, mingled with the state’s involve-
ment in the combustible slavery issue, created increasing tension as the year wore on.
Texas commissioner Robert S. Neighbors directly intervened in New Mexico politics
when he demanded that Colonel John Munroe, commander of the regional military
department, put a stop to statehood conventions in light of the unsettled boundary
claim.24 In August 1850 Secretary of War Winfield Scott dispatched 750 troops to
Santa Fe in anticipation of hostilities, ordering Munroe to “repel force by force” if
necessary.25 The fact that the War Department assigned so many men for a task that
would put them in direct conflict with fellow Americans from Texas—and possibly
incite a civil war—indicates the importance that some federal leaders placed on the
retention of New Mexico as a free-soil territory. A Texan takeover of New Mexico
would have empowered slavery’s political base and expanded Southern geography
much closer to California and the Pacific coast. The reassignment of federal soldiers
to New Mexico served as a preemptive measure to block the South from gaining a
stronger foothold in the region and to prevent the extension of slavery westward.
The unexpected death of President Taylor on July 9, 1850, further complicated
these matters. Despite being a slave-owning Kentuckian, Taylor had expressed sup-
port for the admission of both California and New Mexico to statehood and would
have lent his backing to the antislavery constitution that local citizens submitted
to Congress.26 Nonetheless, Taylor’s brash handling of the Texas boundary dispute
seemed to fuel, rather than stifle, sectional strife in the months preceding his death.
His successor, Millard Fillmore, proved more adroit at managing the delicate
political situation and helped to bring about the conciliatory legislation that resolved
the main issues.27 The compromise measure that ultimately passed on September
9, 1850, admitted California as a free-soil state, added New Mexico and Utah as
popular sovereignty territories, solved the Texas–New Mexico boundary dispute
through the federal assumption of $10 million in debt that the Texas Republic had
accrued prior to 1845, abolished the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and enacted
a strict fugitive slave law in the North. The secretary of war immediately wrote to
Colonel Munroe in Santa Fe, informing him that no aggression from Texas was
 Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions 109

forthcoming and that the military should “abstain from all further interference
in the civil or political affairs” of the region.28 If New Mexicans felt any sense of
relief over this peaceful outcome and their new territorial status, however, it would
prove short-lived.
Hints of looming unrest emerged as early as 1852, when James Gadsden attempted
to establish a slave colony in California under the pretense that southerners had
been unfairly excluded from the new state because of its free-soil standing. Gadsden
echoed Senator Calhoun’s arguments when he pointed out that men from the South
had shed blood alongside their northern brethren in the Mexican-American War,
that funds from the common federal treasury paid for the Mexican Cession, and
that people from the South therefore had as much of a right to settle in California
and New Mexico as did those from the North. California’s admission as a free state,
Gadsden and Calhoun griped, had cheated the South out of equal access to that
land because they could not migrate there with slave property.29 Southern radicals
intended to fight for California in spite of agreements outlined in the Compromise
of 1850, and residents of New Mexico might have experienced similar intervention
had the territorial legislature not taken numerous actions throughout the 1850s that
explicitly supported institutions of slavery in both principle and practice.
The first indication of a proslavery swing in 1850s New Mexico was a mere
tremor compared to the seismic shifts in territorial policy that came toward the
end of that decade. In July 1851 the legislature passed a “Master-Servant Act” to
protect the traditional system of debt peonage that had characterized regional labor
relations for multiple generations. The new law was enacted in part as a response
to the antislavery provisions attached to New Mexico’s admittance into the Union
as a territory, as influential Hispanic policymakers and landholders perceived a
threat to their own institution of involuntary servitude and sought to implement
firm legal measures to shield it from meddling abolitionists. The year before, New
York newspaperman Horace Greeley—one of the nation’s most outspoken critics
of slavery—had featured a damning editorial describing New Mexico’s system of
debtor servitude and demanding that Congress act to eradicate it. Hoping to spark
public outrage in the North, Greeley called peonage “much more repugnant” than
the race-based chattel system.30 Other journalists picked up the story, and within
days articles about the purported horrors of peonage were being widely disseminated
via several newspapers. “If peonage is not slavery, we should like to know what
it is,” wrote an editor for the New York Herald in July 1850. “The creditor has as
much command over the labor of the debtor, as the Southern slaveholder has over
that of the negro.”31 Headlines simultaneously appeared in an Albany periodical
110 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Newspaper editor and abolitionist Horace Greeley, c. 1860s.

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

that informed readers about “peon slavery” in New Mexico and warned of the
possibility that sly southerners might use that type of labor as a surrogate for their
own chattel system.32 Influenced by these developments, one U.S. senator proposed
an amendment to the 1850 compromise bills that would have “forever abolished
and prohibited” peonage, but the suggestion failed to pass when it came to a vote.33
The system of debt peonage that U.S. congressmen debated and journalists wrote
about appeared in New Mexico during the late Spanish colonial era and prolifer-
ated throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. By the time U.S. troops
occupied Santa Fe in 1846, large numbers of destitute Hispanics labored as peons
on the haciendas and farms of their creditors and benefactors. Through unspoken
agreements between masters and servants, many indigent Nuevomexicanos took out
small loans from landowners and political elites to pay for baptismal ceremonies,
weddings, funerals, and even to purchase everyday items like clothing and food.
Debtors would repay what they owed through manual labor, but manipulative
masters often used accruing interest to extend the term of servitude for a lifetime.
This form of coerced labor, coupled with the enslavement of Indian captives abducted
during violent raids on surrounding tribes, thrust thousands of people into a condi-
tion of harsh servitude.34
 Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions 111

American perceptions of peonage were largely derived from the published

memoirs and reports of travelers who visited New Mexico, many of whom drew
direct comparisons to Southern slavery. James Josiah Webb, a Santa Fe merchant,
noted that peons earned just enough in monthly wages to buy overpriced food and
clothing from their master’s store, meaning that they could never repay the amount
of their initial loan plus compounding interest. In most cases, such persons would
remain in bondage until death.35 John Reid, a military officer, wrote that peons
constituted the most numerous socioeconomic class in the territory. He specifically
blamed the 1851 Master-Servant Act for ensuring that “generation after generation”
of New Mexicans remained in a degrading state of servitude and dependency.
“The provisions of this system result in enslaving thousands during their health
and manhood,” Reid observed with disdain.36 Territorial Secretary William Davis
similarly described peonage as a dreadfully oppressive system and referred to it as
nothing more than a “charming name for a species of slavery.”37 These were just
three of the many witnesses who described New Mexico’s alternative systems of
involuntary servitude during the antebellum period, and the majority of those
portrayals highlighted unmistakable similarities between captivity and peonage
in the Southwest and chattel slavery in the South.38
These unfamiliar methods of bondage in the Southwest presented one of the
most complex cases in the entire decades-long dilemma over American slavery
and westward expansion. New Mexican lawmakers understood this, and they
took concrete action in 1851 with the Master-Servant Act, which represented a
thinly disguised ideological shift toward a Southern brand of politics that would
predominate in the territory until the Civil War. Although the law said nothing
about racial slavery, it protected the right of a creditor to exercise ownership over a
debtor’s labor through verbal agreements that sufficed as legally binding contracts.
The law outlined the conditions of servitude for laborers, who would be required to
toil in the pastures or fields “from sunrise until sunset” until they repaid their debts
plus interest—a nearly impossible feat, given the skillful ways masters manipulated
account books. Parents were barred from contracting children under twenty-one
years to work in their stead, although this provision went widely ignored. A sub-
section sought to disallow inheritable peon status by forbidding the transfer of a
deceased person’s debt to family members, but that too was seldom enforced. Local
justices of the peace had a legal obligation to hunt down and capture runaway
servants, much like law enforcement officials in the East were tasked with pursuing
runaway slaves following passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. Taken as a whole, the
1851 edict unequivocally protected the rights of masters to hold servants and force
112 Coast-to-Coast Empire

them to work under oppressive conditions, stripping thousands of indigent men

and women of their basic freedoms.39 Through this codification of peonage, New
Mexico had taken its first official step toward becoming a slave territory.
Six years later legislators took a more pronounced stride toward proslavery
ideology when they approved an “Act Concerning Free Negroes.” Although it did
not specifically promote racial slavery in the territory, the new law established tight
regulations on free blacks who either lived in New Mexico or passed through on
their way somewhere else. The territory’s 1857 law—the first of two so-called black
codes that would appear on its books prior to the Civil War—prohibited “free
negroes” from making the territory their permanent home and levied hefty fines
and at least one year of hard labor for those who stayed longer than thirty days.40
The idea and purpose behind the mandate closely resembled the system of convict
leasing that emerged decades later in the Jim Crow South.41 Given that only a couple
dozen African Americans resided in all of New Mexico in 1857, the law had little
discernable impact on daily life and was almost purely symbolic, coinciding with
the infamous Dred Scott decision, which Chief Justice Roger Taney rendered that
same year. Primarily segregationist in its intent, New Mexico’s 1857 act served as
an ideological stepping stone toward a far more pervasive slave code two years later.
On February 3, 1859, legislators passed a bill entitled “An Act to provide for
the protection of property in Slaves in this Territory.” Modeled on similar slave
codes in the southern states, New Mexico’s law contained thirty-one sections that
regulated master-slave relations. The act dictated the terms of social interaction by
prohibiting interracial marriages, forbidding citizens from selling any type of goods
to slaves, and banning people from playing cards or other games with servants.
Sheriffs were to pursue and detain runaways, advertise their arrest in the newspaper,
and auction off any recaptured slaves who went unclaimed. Anybody convicted of
aiding or abetting an escape, providing weapons or falsified documents, or inciting
rebellion among slaves faced stiff fines and a lengthy prison sentence. If a slave
used “insolent language” of any kind, they could expect thirty-nine lashes with
the whip. Conviction of a misdemeanor would result in “corporal punishment by
branding or with stripes,” and slaves were not permitted to testify in court against
their accusers. Finally, the code absolutely forbade the emancipation of any black
slave within New Mexico’s boundaries.42 The legislature enacted these measures
despite the fact that the census enumerated just sixty-four African Americans in
the entire territory, only a handful of whom were actually enslaved.43 Lawmakers
had gone to great lengths to devise and pass a slave code with no practical purpose
aside from political symbolism, casting an unmistakable ideological gesture toward
 Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions 113

the Southern platform. Fire-eaters did indeed take notice, with one prominent
New Orleans editor exalting New Mexico legislators for their “undeniable legal
recognition of slaveholding there.”44
According to some observers, New Mexico’s newly enacted laws derived from
the machinations of proslavery ideologues who exerted their influence on territorial
policymakers and citizens. Sergeant Major William Need estimated, with some
exaggeration, that 80 percent of the regional population “are utterly opposed to the
incorporation of the Slave Code in the statutes.”45 New Mexico’s U.S. representative
had to assure Hispanic lawmakers that such a code would not interfere with the
longstanding systems of captivity and peonage before they would vote favorably on
the measure.46 The law passed, Need claimed, because of the resounding sway of
Southern sympathizers like territorial secretary Alexander Jackson and congressional
representative Miguel Otero. Jackson, a native Mississippian and an outspoken
Southern radical, worked closely with Otero—who married into a slave-owning South
Carolina family—to concoct the 1859 slave code and ensure that legislators approved
it. Mindful of this, Major Need espoused a conspiracy theory that originated with
Jefferson Davis himself. While serving as secretary of war during the 1850s, Davis had
stationed secessionist military officers in New Mexico, and Democratic presidents
Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan reputedly buttressed those assignments by
appointing men from the South to serve as territorial governors. All of this, according
to Need, transformed New Mexico into a slave territory, and the enactment of the
two codes represented the culmination of a decade of Southern intrigue.47
Northern journalists, paranoid of Southern conspiracies, embraced this line of
reasoning. A Vermont newspaper informant described the circumstances surround-
ing the 1859 law, writing that Otero hoped to curry personal favor for himself and
gain political perks for New Mexico. Horace Greeley’s New-York Daily Tribune
claimed that the slave code served no real purpose and that Otero and Jackson
ushered it into law as a propagandist initiative to achieve “political capital” with
the southern states.48 In the ten years since the Compromise of 1850, Greeley
wrote, slavery had been implanted in New Mexico “both in the abstract and the
concrete—in the form of the slave law and in that of slaves.” The controversy over
slavery, he explained to his readers, did not depend on the number of slaves in any
given state or territory but rather on the legality and the political ideology of the
institution.49 Throughout 1861 Greeley continued to print editorials in which he
denounced New Mexico’s slave code as “one of the most atrocious slave laws ever
known” and condemned Otero as “an avowed secessionist” who had no business
representing New Mexicans in Congress.50
114 Coast-to-Coast Empire

While the legislature tightened restrictions on African American freedom and

legalized chattel slavery, the territorial supreme court pursued a course of judicial
activism that worked as a counterbalance against the codes. Judges in Santa Fe heard
two cases in 1857 involving debt peonage, and in both they ruled in favor of the
servants. Thus, while policymakers worked to validate racial slavery as a symbolic
gesture, their peers on the bench endeavored to undermine peonage; the resulting
legal decisions would have deep ramifications in a territory that counted thousands
of debtor servants among its population. The two court rulings in New Mexico
occurred just weeks before the Dred Scott decision, so Taney’s federal court was
producing proslavery decisions and stripping black bondsmen of their legal rights
at almost the same time that Kirby Benedict’s territorial court was liberating peons
and expanding their legal privileges.51
Both New Mexico cases pertained to young women held as peons, and in
each instance the judges liberated the aggrieved party from her state of servile
bondage. The first hearing dealt with the issues of gifting a child to a master, a
servant mother’s fitness for custody of her offspring, and the status of children
conceived through extramarital relationships between masters and servants. The
ruling revolved primarily around the 1851 Master-Servant Act, which prohibited
adults from holding minors in servitude. The enslaved mother, Juana Analla, sued
for the freedom of her daughter, Catalina Bustamento, on grounds that the child
was detained unlawfully “as a peon or a servant,” in violation of habeas corpus.
Their masters, Marcellina and Carpio Bustamento of Santa Fe, claimed ownership
of young Catalina, who had been born through an illicit sexual liaison between
the patrón Carpio and the slave Juana. Judge C. J. Deavenport ruled in favor of the
biological mother despite her peon status, declaring Marcellina’s claim to ownership
of the girl as her surrogate mother and matriarch to be nefarious. The court returned
Catalina to her true mother’s custody and chastised Marcellina Bustamento for
having “restrained [the] child of her liberty as a peon.” In so doing, Deavenport
undermined the notion of inheritable servant status in New Mexico and marked a
shift toward emancipatory ideology in the territory’s judicial branch.52
The second trial—also in January 1857—involved contracts between masters
and servants and, like the Bustamento case, addressed the legality of servitude for
minors. In this instance, Mariana Jaremillo had been bound to labor as a peon in
repayment of her father’s fifty-one-dollar debt. The girl eventually ran away from
her master, José de la Cruz Romero, whereupon he sued to have her remanded
to his service. Chief Justice Benedict heard the case on appeal in his Santa Fe
courtroom. Realizing that the system of debt peonage lacked a clear legal definition,
 Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions 115

Benedict—a former colleague and lifelong friend of Abraham Lincoln—researched

the institution to identify its origins and characteristics, with specific emphasis on
its comparability to the South’s chattel system. Given the ongoing national debates
over involuntary servitude, the judge seemed acutely aware of the potential impact
of his ruling on the future of free labor in the United States. Benedict traced the
evolution of master-servant law through colonial, provincial, and territorial New
Mexico before crafting his own concise definition. “The term peon is now used in
this country as synonymous with servant,” he concluded, noting that legislators
carefully regulated the system to the benefit of the master class while officials and
judges colluded to subjugate the poorer masses. He called peonage “a system of
service between masters and servants” and likened it to the peculiar institution
prevailing in the Slave South. Jaremillo was released from bondage because she
had not received due process of law at the magistrate level. The judge criticized
local authorities for their blatant oversight, lamenting “the unscrupulous disregard
which too often prevails in justices’ courts in this country as to the legal rights of
the unfortunate, the peon and the feeble, when contesting with the influential and
more wealthy.” As additional supporting evidence, Benedict stressed that Jaremillo’s
servitude clearly violated a provision of the Master-Servant Act that forbade parents
from contracting out their children as peons.53 In a reversal of judicial fortunes
that stunned Hispanic elites, both Catalina Bustamento and Mariana Jaremillo
received their freedom at the hands of American judges whose commitment to
democracy foreshadowed the demise of coerced labor systems during the Civil
War and Reconstruction eras.
New Mexico’s 1859 slave code would be the first item addressed at the federal
level, although abolitionists and Radical Republicans eventually dealt with peonage
and Indian captivity as well. In 1860 the U.S. House of Representatives formed
a special committee to investigate the controversial law. The final report, entitled
“Slavery in the Territory of New Mexico,” recommended that Congress repeal the
code in its entirety. A group of ardent Southerners submitted a dissenting minority
report, claiming that the provision for popular sovereignty in the Compromise
of 1850 allowed New Mexico to pass any laws it wished regarding slavery within
territorial borders. In attempting to supersede that mandate by disapproving the
slave code, Congress was contradicting the fundamental premise behind popular
sovereignty. To rescind the slave law, the minority contingent insisted, would be
nothing less than “a palpable disregard of the rights of the people” and a “usurpation
of power by Congress.” Southern radicals also pointed to the Master-Servant Act
and its guarantee of “the right on the part of one to whom labor or service is due” as
116 Coast-to-Coast Empire

equally applicable to black slaves, and therefore they claimed that New Mexico had
sanctioned all forms of slavery in 1851, shortly after its incorporation as a territory.
The congressional report about slavery in New Mexico revealed a major deficiency
in the concept of popular sovereignty. In theory, territories could decide on slavery
for themselves. In reality, Congress retained the right to approve or disapprove all
territorial legislation, so federal politicians ultimately had the last word, as exemplified
in debates surrounding the unsuccessful effort to repeal New Mexico’s slave code in
1860.54 As a strong proponent of popular sovereignty, Democratic Senator Stephen
A. Douglas of Illinois was satisfied with New Mexico’s law upholding slavery. “The
people of Kansas have had their own way, and the people of New Mexico have had
their own way,” he stated in reference to the residents of those two territories exercising
the fundamental tenets of popular sovereignty. “Kansas has adopted a free state;
New Mexico has established a slave territory. I am content with both. If the people
of New Mexico want slavery, let them have it.” Basing his opinion on the premise
of popular sovereignty, Douglas believed that only New Mexicans had the right to
repeal a slave code of their own creation. “Nonintervention by Congress with slavery
in the territories is the platform on which I stand,” the elder statesman concluded.55
Across the aisle a fellow Democrat, Senator John Reagan of Texas, also took a
hardline stance, insisting that the Dred Scott decision legalized the right to transport
slaves into U.S. territories. New Mexico’s slave code, he contended, aligned with
Chief Justice Taney’s decision in that landmark case and provided a commonsense
protection of the right to own slave property.56 Debates over a largely symbolic
slave law in a remote, sparsely populated western territory revealed, once again, the
irreparable damage that sectional politics and slavery had wrought on the American
republic. As the year 1860 drew to a close, the ideological tenets undergirding the
Compromise of 1850 no longer placated sectional interests, as the New Mexico
case clearly demonstrated.
The existence of the slave code also impeded those who hoped that New Mexico
might be elevated from territorial status to statehood. The prospect for statehood
emerged during the 1860–61 session of Congress, but once again the issue of slavery
dominated the debates and prevented politicians from taking favorable action on
the initiative. New Mexico presented a unique situation in the ongoing sectional
discord, inasmuch as the primary topic of discussion—the political ideology of
chattel slavery—did not really concern most territorial residents. Because New
Mexicans already used their own traditional forms of coerced labor, they had
little practical need for the controversial system of racialized slavery as practiced
in the South, making the territory’s slave code even more confounding to outside
 Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions 117

observers. Representative John Sherman of Ohio summarized the situation when he

told his peers that New Mexico statehood revolved around two similar but distinct
issues—chattel slavery and “their system of peonage.” Sherman understood the
vagaries of involuntary servitude in the Southwest and, like many of his northern
colleagues, refused to vote in favor of statehood because of the continuing presence
of peonage, captivity, and slave codes.57
Free-Soilers and abolitionists lined up behind Sherman to form a united
opposition to New Mexico statehood on the eve of the Civil War. Representative
Cadwallader Washburn of Wisconsin argued that admission of the territory as
a state would amount to nothing more than two additional pro-Southern, pro-
slavery votes in the Senate. Anybody who believed that New Mexico would enter
the Union as a free state was delusional, Washburn alleged, pointing to the slave
code as proof of the territory’s stance on that critical issue.58 Representative John
Bingham of Ohio, who led the congressional effort to repeal the slave code, spoke
vehemently against New Mexico statehood and alluded to three separate laws—the
1851 Master-Servant Act, the 1857 Act Concerning Free Negroes, and the 1859 slave
code—as undeniable evidence that the territory leaned ideologically and politically
toward the South.59 Pennsylvanian Thaddeus Stevens—one of the most vitriolic
abolitionists—told listeners that the slave code “established the most cruel” kind of
slavery in New Mexico, and he verbally attacked Miguel Otero for sponsoring the
law.60 Representative Mason Tappan of New Hampshire echoed those sentiments
when he concluded that if Congress welcomed New Mexico to statehood, it would
amount to a tacit approval of the slave code and would “bring her into the Union as
a slave State.”61 With much of the South already in the process of secession and the
nation on the brink of a bloody war, New Mexico’s slave codes, coupled with the
preexisting systems of captivity and peonage, had become a severe political liability.
Prior to the Civil War attempts to overturn the slave code at the territorial level had
failed—largely because of the influence of Otero and Jackson—and a deeply divided
Congress also fell short of overturning the measure, so it remained on the books.62
But the Southern rebellion that divided the nation in 1861 completely transformed
the issue of slavery in New Mexico, which remained in the Union throughout the
Civil War. The existence of slave codes in a federal territory whose citizens fought
as Bluecoats against the Confederacy was a blatant anomaly, and it demanded
immediate political attention.63 Determined to rid New Mexico of involuntary
servitude, northern politicians renewed their efforts to rescind the slave code once the
war began. In the summer of 1861, a U.S. Congress composed strictly of Unionists
rejected Otero’s reappointment as New Mexico representative, largely because of
118 Coast-to-Coast Empire

his complicity in enacting the slave code.64 That Abraham Lincoln sought to retain
Otero at all had much to do with his cautious approach to New Mexico, where he
appointed loyal Democrats to reach across party lines and assuage local inhabitants.
Throughout his time in office, the finesse with which Lincoln approached New
Mexico politics resembled the manner in which he treated the four so-called border
states—Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware—because he recognized the
faraway southwestern territory as an important Union possession that could thwart
Confederate expansion while empowering the Union’s political and military base.65
Territorial Governor Henry Connelly (another Democratic Lincoln appointee)
addressed the local legislature in December 1861 and recommended that the slave
code be “modified or entirely repealed.”66 With Confederate troops from Texas
already occupying the southern portion of New Mexico, policymakers in Santa
Fe understood the direness of the situation and reversed course by nullifying the
slave code during the 1861–62 legislative term. Facundo Piño, serving as president
of the council, declared that “we have condemned, and put slavery from among
our laws,” proclaiming somewhat disingenuously that “it is not congenial with
our history, our feelings, or interests.” Seemingly unmindful of the fact that the
slave code had been enacted just two years before the war began, he said that the
Confederates who invaded the territory had come to “force upon us by the cannon
and rifle, slave institutions, against our will, protests, and tastes.”67 The exigencies
of war changed the perspective of many New Mexicans, who relied heavily on
Union support to prevent a Texan takeover and understood that the slave code
forced federal leaders to question their loyalty.
As the Civil War progressed, the federal government enacted a number of
measures that directly impacted slavery in New Mexico, helping to hasten the
territory’s transition to a free-labor model. On August 6, 1861, Congress passed
the First Confiscation Act, marking the beginning of legislative emancipation as a
federal policy.68 Lawmakers expanded that mandate less than a year later by banning
all forms of involuntary servitude in U.S. territories, including chattel slavery and
Indian captivity.69 The Second Confiscation Act (July 17, 1862) went a step further,
codifying military emancipation by enabling officers and soldiers to protect runaway
slaves who escaped to Union lines.70 The confiscation acts demarcated a gradual
transition in Lincoln’s objectives, as he moved from a course of limited to complete
manumission for all American slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1,
1863—a declaration that granted freedom to slaves in states or parts of states still in
rebellion—represented the final shift in that direction.71 Although Lincoln and his
fellow Republicans aimed these landmark initiatives primarily toward southern black
 Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions 119

President Andrew Johnson, c. 1860s.

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

slaves, the political ideology of free labor also enveloped New Mexico, as the wave
of emancipation swept westward during and after the Civil War. On June 9, 1865,
President Andrew Johnson signed an executive order prohibiting Indian slavery, and
on December 6 of that same year the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution
banned slavery and involuntary servitude in all U.S. states and territories.72 A year
and a half later, on March 2, 1867, Johnson signed a law barring debt peonage in
New Mexico, marking the final legal abolition of coerced labor and bringing the
territory into the orbit of national freedom.73
The enforcement of these laws almost invariably met with resistance in the
Southwest, where lawmakers, landowners, and patrones scrambled to retain tra-
ditional systems of labor bondage. William Arny, an antislavery Republican who
served intermittently as New Mexico’s governor during and after the Civil War,
recognized the difficulties entailed in achieving freedom for the Indian captives and
debt peons living there. When Congress passed the law in 1862 prohibiting slavery
in the territories, Arny explained the implications to the legislature in hopes of
securing its compliance. He informed colleagues in Santa Fe that the new regulations
pertained not only to black slaves but also to Indian captives and urged them to “do
away with all involuntary servitude.” Realizing that he would meet with staunch
120 Coast-to-Coast Empire

opposition, the governor proposed a form of compensated emancipation whereby

masters would be paid a fair market value for each captive that they liberated. This
idea had originated more than a decade earlier, when Superintendent of Indian
Affairs James S. Calhoun advocated a program of compensated manumission as
the only plausible approach to liberating the territory’s indigenous slaves, but that
suggestion fell flat until its revival in 1862. Arny also implored territorial officials
to amend the Master-Servant Act, which legalized the subjugation of indigent
debtors in a system of “oppressive servitude” that flew in the face of federal law.74
Spurred by Arny’s comments, territorial legislators sent a message to Congress
asking what exactly they should do with their Indian slaves. Alluding to the 1862
act that guaranteed freedom to all persons in U.S. territories, they claimed that
most captives had no desire to be set free and insinuated that most of them had
become bound to their masters through deep personal feelings of dependency
and fictive kinship. The memorialists believed that separating captives from their
adoptive families and overseers would be a cruel injustice to the slaves themselves,
but they grudgingly agreed to do so if Congress would appropriate money to pay
the owners and transport the slaves back to their respective tribes of origin.75 Little
was achieved toward this end, and Superintendent of Indian Affairs Michael Steck
admitted two years later that at least two thousand Indians—mostly Navajos, but
also some Apaches, Comanches, Paiutes, and Utes—remained in captivity and that
the traffic in slaves continued “almost daily, without an effort to stop it.” Neither
legislated nor compensated emancipation, Steck wrote, would do much to liberate
New Mexico’s Indian servants. Much like black slaves in the South, only the strong
arm of the military could effectively force the manumission of captives, and the
superintendent suggested that the War Department issue orders to Brigadier General
James Carleton, commander of the Military District of New Mexico, to that effect.76
This approach had already been attempted to a limited extent in September 1862,
when Colonel Edward Canby circulated an order to post commanders throughout
the territory instructing them to harbor and protect any absconded Indian captives
that arrived at their forts.77 Although that initial mandate proved limited in its overall
impact, Steck—an antislavery Republican from Pennsylvania—believed that it was
worth a second try since the legislature seemed disinclined to take definitive action.
Ultimately, the release of Indian captives required an executive order, which
President Johnson issued shortly after the Civil War ended. The missive came a full
six months before ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed involuntary
servitude. “Indians in New Mexico have been seized and reduced into slavery,”
Johnson conceded, ordering that executive branch personnel work to ensure “the
 Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions 121

effectual suppression” of a mode of enslavement that violated “the rights of the

Indians” as well as federal law.78 Secretary of the Interior James Harlan informed
BIA employees that they must “use all lawful means” to inhibit the captivity of
Indians in New Mexico, lecturing that such a system “should not be tolerated in
a country professing to be free.”79 In Santa Fe, Superintendent Felipe Delgado
complained about the executive order and claimed that the abduction of Indi-
ans “has not been to reduce them to slavery, but rather from a Christian piety.”
Nonetheless, he promised to comply with the order and instructed his field agents
accordingly.80 Contemporaneous federal investigations revealed that at least 3,000
captives remained to be liberated in New Mexico alone, meaning that antislavery
crusaders had their work cut out for them.81
Special Agent Julius Graves reported in 1866 that many Indians, especially Navajos,
“are now held as unwilling captives amongst the people of [the] territory—being
bought, sold, and compelled to labor in the most menial capacities.” He asked the
governor for advice on the best strategy to affect “the speedy abolition of this erroneous
and inhuman practice.”82 Despite the enormity and complexity of the task, many of
those Indians would indeed be freed from bondage in the years immediately following
the Civil War, and the system of captive slavery slowly ended under abolitionist
pressure and Radical Republican activism. In his annual message to the legislature
in 1866, interim governor Arny lamented that at least several hundred Indians
remained in captivity and insisted that all such servants be liberated in accordance
with Johnson’s executive order and the Thirteenth Amendment.83 Shortly thereafter
territorial lawmakers approved an act abolishing “all involuntary servitude” in New
Mexico and repealed preexisting laws that conflicted with the Constitution.84 In so
doing, however, they managed to retain the system of debt peonage by cunningly
redefining it in the statutes as a form of voluntary, rather than involuntary, labor.85
Even with their defiant redefinition of peonage—which came a mere five weeks
after ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment—New Mexican policymakers
could not easily avoid the issue, especially with Radical Republican reformers and
judicial activists taking increasingly sharp aim at any lingering vestiges of slavery
in the American republic. The first major blow to debt bondage came when the
New Mexico Supreme Court ruled once again in favor of an aggrieved peon. In
1865 Tomás Heredia had run away from his patrón, José María García, and the case
came before the territory’s highest tribunal the following year. At the district court
in Mesilla, Judge Joab Houghton had originally found against the peon Heredia
and returned him to the service of his master. When the case reached Santa Fe on
appeal, however, a much different decision resulted. The justices concluded that
122 Coast-to-Coast Empire

the Master-Servant Act, despite its modification to describe debtor servitude as

a voluntary institution, directly violated multiple federal statutes, including the
1862 act of Congress forbidding involuntary servitude in U.S. territories and the
recently ratified Thirteenth Amendment. These national laws, the judges explained,
superseded territorial codes, and thus Heredia could not be held in bondage based on
the stipulations of the 1851 law regulating masters and servants. From the standpoint
of legal doctrine, the case overturned that territorial edict and affirmed the illegality
of peonage—and all other forms of coerced labor—in New Mexico.86
Although the Heredia ruling provided a juridical foundation upon which activists
staged an attack on the institution of peonage, government officials would have to take
additional steps to liberate those who remained in servitude. Agent Graves, who had
also reported on Indian captivity, told Governor Connelly in 1866 that debt bondage
needed to be eradicated “by legislative action.”87 He also informed Commissioner of
Indian Affairs Dennis Cooley that “this pernicious system [of peonage] still exists to
an alarming extent in all parts of the Territory of New Mexico” and recommended
that the government “adopt vigorous measures tending to its immediate abolition.”88
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Orville Browning similarly referred to peonage as “the
qualified slavery still prevalent in New Mexico, authorized by its laws, and encour-
aged and practiced by its people,” lamenting that his subagents had tried in vain to
eliminate it.89 Given territorial officials’ repeated defiance of emancipatory laws and
court rulings, neither Graves nor Browning had much faith that they could exact
compliance, and the federal lawmakers understood that any truly effective legislation
and enforcement initiatives must emanate from Washington, D.C.
When Senator Charles Sumner, a Radical Republican, received a letter from an
anonymous group of New Mexicans in 1867 that described peonage and captivity
in explicit detail, he took immediate action. As one of the country’s foremost
abolitionists, the Massachusetts congressman was appalled by what he read in the
message. “As for the peonage of Mexicans, neither the military authorities, nor civil
authorities, nor the enactments of Congress can reach it except in cases which are
brought to the notice of the courts,” the informants wrote. The recent revision of
territorial statutes to identify peonage as a voluntary form of labor had effectually
circumvented the Thirteenth Amendment and severely complicated efforts to abolish
the system, they told Sumner.90 A specific law, expanding on the Constitutional
amendment of 1865, would be needed to eliminate debtor servitude in New Mexico.
Senator Sumner was happy to sponsor such a bill, and he did so in January
1867. During preliminary congressional discussions he stressed that peonage con-
tinued to exist throughout New Mexico despite multiple federal statutes outlawing
 Popular Sovereignty and Peculiar Institutions 123

slavery and involuntary servitude. Salutary neglect on the part of local officials, he
claimed, enabled the retention of servants throughout the territory, and he urged
that regional inhabitants be forced into conformity with the law. Senator John
Conness of California, who had some familiarity with the issue due to his own state’s
troubles with lingering modes of involuntary servitude, added that army officers
sometimes acted with complicity by capturing and returning runaway peons and
captives. “The administration of military affairs in the Territory of New Mexico
has been a standing disgrace to this government,” Conness exclaimed, lambasting
Brigadier General Carleton for his lack of concern as the district’s commander.91
Senator Henry Wilson denounced peonage as a form of “modified servitude” that
the U.S. inherited from Mexico, and the Massachusetts lawmaker lamented that
the institution “in most cases is forcible.” Republican James R. Doolittle, who had
previously overseen extensive investigations on Indian affairs in the West, added that
“the peons live upon the lands and cultivate them as serfs” and lent his support to
the measure.92 Congress passed the bill, and on March 2, 1867, President Johnson
signed “An Act to abolish and forever prohibit the System of Peonage in the Territory
of New Mexico and other Parts of the United States.”93 Debt peonage was thus the
last remnant of involuntary servitude to be outlawed in the reunified American
republic, and New Mexico represented the final bastion of legalized slavery.
Cognizant of prior difficulties with emancipation, government officials imme-
diately set out to enforce the new laws prohibiting Indian captivity and Hispano
peonage. Superintendent of Indian Affairs A. B. Norton and his subagent, John
Ward, notified Pueblo Indian leaders that “peonage in New Mexico is abolished and
forbidden” and instructed them to ensure compliance with the new regulations.94
Governor Robert Mitchell issued a proclamation on April 14, 1867, to inform citizens
of the peon law, declaring that all persons held in servitude must be unbound and
threatening that anybody who defied his order “will be severely dealt with.”95 His
gubernatorial successor, Herman Heath, made a similar announcement in which he
proclaimed peonage to be “at variance with the principles of a Republican Government
and repugnant to the moral, social and political advancement of the victims of this
system of slavery.” The peon law, he said, had been “inspired by the true republican
spirit of the age” and must be strictly upheld. Heath couched his rhetoric in the context
of piety and morality, proclaiming that anybody who continued to hold persons in
bondage was engaging in a crime not only against mankind but also against God.96
Even with these powerful pronouncements and initiatives, the liberation of peons
and captives proved to be painstakingly slow. As Reconstruction progressed and the
nation moved toward free labor, the occasional retention of peons in servile bondage
124 Coast-to-Coast Empire

continued to elicit reports from witnesses throughout the Southwest. The BIA finally
dispatched Radical Republican William Griffin to the territory in 1868 with orders
to investigate the situation.97 While touring New Mexico’s settlements, he discovered
that almost 90 percent of households that formerly harbored captives or peons had
liberated most of them, although a significant number of families continued to
hold at least one servant.98 A diligent detective, Griffin eventually prosecuted 363
individuals (70 cases involving peons and 293 pertaining to Indian captives) for
retaining slaves in direct violation of the Thirteenth Amendment, the peon law, and
President Johnson’s executive order. The proceedings were mostly successful, and
all but 11 of the 363 servants received their freedom.99 Griffin informed the newly
liberated men, women, and children that they were “free to live where and work
for whom they desired” and would henceforth be “at perfect liberty to go where
and when they pleased.”100 The masters and servant-holders, among whom could be
counted some of the territory’s most influential politicians, priests, and landowners,
escaped without prison time or fines, as the predominantly Hispanic grand jury failed
to return a single indictment against their peers.101 Although at least a handful of
Hispanos and Indians remained in servitude for the rest of their lives, those instances
were relatively few after 1868, and the era of Radical Reconstruction marked the
veritable demise of New Mexico’s longstanding forms of involuntary labor.
Congressmen Thomas Corwin, John Sherman, and Richard Weightman had
not exaggerated when they stated prior to the Civil War that New Mexico was a
battleground upon which northerners and southerners sparred in sectional discord.
The existence of two alternative forms of servitude in the Southwest further com-
plicated matters, and indeed legalized permutations of slavery persisted in New
Mexico even longer than on the nation’s tobacco fields and cotton plantations.
For southern radicals, the desire to implement slavery in New Mexico was mostly
ideological, as they saw an opportunity to expand their section’s political power
and economic clout. But proslavery men also had a second, and equally important,
motive when fighting for supremacy over New Mexico. They saw the territory as a
natural geographic extension of their slave empire, and the transportation revolution
of the mid-nineteenth century created new possibilities for entrepreneurial southern
capitalists and nation builders. In the years following the Mexican-American War,
the idea of a railroad spanning the entire continent became less far-fetched, and New
Mexico emerged as one of the most logical routes for such a line of transportation.
Much like the controversy over slavery in the territories, deliberations about the
future location of a railway to the Pacific would thrust New Mexico into the middle
of the most intense sectional arguments the nation had yet seen.
 1 5 2

Railroad Capitalism
and the Transcontinental Line

I n 1864 New Mexico’s legislative assembly sent a message to Congress in hopes

that federal leaders might consider their territory as a thoroughfare for a trans-
continental railroad. If approved, a route traversing either the 32nd or 35th parallel
of latitude would pass directly through New Mexico and Arizona on its way to the
Pacific coast. Keenly aware of the Union’s need to finance the ongoing Civil War,
the legislators claimed that such a railway “would open and develop the resources
of the gold fields and silver mines of the three territories of Colorado, New Mexico,
and Arizona, which are believed to contain more gold and silver . . . than can be
found in any other portion of the world.” The legislators offered multiple logical
arguments in furtherance of their cause. They assured congressional leaders that a
railroad could be built and operated at minimal cost because of the region’s favorable
terrain and mild weather. It would not interfere with the proposed construction of
the more northerly Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines, which Congress had
approved in 1862, and a southern route would facilitate migration and economic
development in the Southwest.1 Governor William Arny called New Mexico “the
most feasible, practicable, and economical route for a Pacific Railway,” noting that
the territory provided a year-round option with few major obstacles and would
be the cheapest of several possible alternatives in terms of overall cost.2 As Arny
understood, New Mexico held a somewhat unique position in the debates over a
transcontinental railroad because the territory had not just one but two potential
avenues that passed through it. Many New Mexicans therefore saw the construction

125
126 Coast-to-Coast Empire

of a federally financed railway through their territory as a simple matter of common

sense, but events over the preceding fifteen years had already proven the issue to
be painfully complex.
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, one of the earliest lines in the United States,
laid its first rails in 1829, and a frenzy of speculation soon followed as investors
pumped capital into new corporate enterprises. By 1852, however, the B&O’s tracks
stretched barely three hundred miles west of Baltimore.3 That one of the nation’s
most well-known lines had yet to reach even Ohio in the 1840s indicated the many
complications entailed in constructing and operating railroads across long distances
and rough terrain. Yet knowledge of these difficulties did not discourage entrepre-
neurial dreaming. Asa Whitney, a pioneer of railroad development, introduced the
concept of a Pacific connection in 1845 when he pitched to Congress his vision of
a northern route that would link Lake Michigan to Oregon Territory. Not to be
outdone, southerners rallied behind the South Carolina Railroad Company and
its president, James Gadsden, to offer competing proposals during a convention at
Memphis. Even former Texas president Sam Houston chimed in with an opinion,
suggesting a railroad from Galveston to San Diego as a feasible alternative to any
northern route. Whitney, Gadsden, and Houston had sectionalized the transcon-
tinental railroad within one year of the original idea, and political tensions arising
from the annexation of Texas and the ongoing war with Mexico prevented any
of their plans from gaining traction.4 But the acquisition of California in 1848,
coupled with the discovery of gold there, spurred American capitalists from North
and South alike to begin plotting anew to build what would come to be known
as the Pacific railway.
In 1849 a House of Representatives select committee produced a seven-hundred-
page report on the topic, declaring that the nation must have “easy and rapid
communication between the two oceans.” Congressmen hoped that the acquisition
of the Mexican Cession lands and the development of new railroad technology
would enable the United States to create the fabled but as yet apocryphal Northwest
Passage, and New Mexico presented one of the most obvious possibilities for that
route, albeit in a different geographic location. Senator Jefferson Davis emerged as
an adamant proponent of a Pacific railroad, submitting a supplementary report in
January 1849 that stressed the financial and political imperatives of the project. Lay-
ing steel rails to California, the Mississippi statesman declared, would “perpetuate
the political union of the Atlantic and Pacific slopes by continuous lines of settlement
from ocean to ocean.”5 Later that year Lieutenant James H. Simpson, a topographical
engineer, was ordered to map and survey a possible course westward from Santa Fe,
 R ailroad Capitalism 127

which he did while accompanying Colonel John M. Washington’s Navajo expedi-

tion. Although his report provided no definitive solutions, he concluded that the
35th parallel would be a feasible right-of-way to Los Angeles or San Diego should
the government one day choose that path for a road to the Pacific. Simpson thus
reasserted New Mexico’s importance as a transportation corridor, and his findings
would inform future congressional discussions on the matter.6
In the East politicians and capitalists easily concluded that a railway connection
with the Pacific coast would allow Americans to compete with Europeans for the
Asiatic trade, valued at an estimated $250 million per year, and would facilitate rapid
migration to the booming California goldfields.7 The economic possibilities seemed
endless, if only the technology could meet the demand. As with the Santa Fe trade
in the 1820s and 1830s, Missourians once again led the charge for a new route west.
In St. Louis people were “profoundly impressed with the importance of opening a
commercial communication from the Mississippi to the Pacific,” realizing that if
they could centralize hemispheric commerce in their own state, they could thereby
reap previously unimagined wealth and prosperity. One newspaper contributor wrote
that Missouri, with steamboat ports on the Mississippi and a railroad to the Pacific,
might soon become “the Empire State of the Union.”8 The merchant trade with
Santa Fe—once so vital to Missouri’s interests—suddenly seemed inconsequential in
comparison to the commerce that a railroad connecting two oceans could bring. St.
Louis hosted a railroad convention in 1849, attended by 835 delegates from fourteen
states. Illinois statesman Stephen A. Douglas served as the conference president,
and the powerful Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton made his presence known
throughout the meeting. As attendees discussed the prospects for a transcontinental
line to California, they relied chiefly on recent reports from western traveler John C.
Frémont, who also happened to be Benton’s son-in-law.9
The convention debates did not revolve around whether such a project was
possible or even feasible at that early date, but rather focused on the most practical
route for the line. Any railroads through the West would have to surmount enormous
geographic obstacles, including the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada of
California, and in many ways the discussions at St. Louis prefigured similar talks
in the halls of Congress during the 1850s. Environmental determinism favored the
southerners, who knew the only passageways devoid of dense winter snowpack and
steep mountain ridges crossed Texas and New Mexico. The choice of St. Louis to
host the conference, however, insinuated a possible compromise, since delegates
understood that any new railroad would be controversial due to increasingly volatile
sectional politics. Its comparatively central geographic location between North
128 Coast-to-Coast Empire

and South made Missouri a location that all Americans might ultimately accept
as the starting point for a Pacific railroad. In an ominous portent of things to
come, however, the delegates left the meeting with little accomplished aside from
an agreement that Congress should take up the matter.10
The official report of the St. Louis convention, published that same year (1849) and
distributed to national leaders, provided an early glimpse into the political struggles
that would accompany transcontinental railroad projects. Recognizing a potential
controversy in the making, a Missouri lawyer named John Loughborough added a
subtitle to the conference treatise declaring that its purpose was “harmonizing all
sections and parties of the union, and rendering these great works truly national in
their character.” He seemed also to have realized the improbability of this, because
the pamphlet that he authored concluded with a prophetic statement: “There is great
reason to doubt, whether party warfare, sectional jealousy, and personal ambition
may not delay [the railroad’s] construction for many years to come.” Loughborough
not only summarized the convention debates but offered his own opinions as well.
The Pacific railroad, he wrote, must have its eastern terminus in either Memphis
or St. Louis. Anywhere farther North or South “would be unjust, unequal, and
impolitic, and calculated to divide instead of bind these States together,” unless
a private corporation tackled the internal improvement project independently
without government financing or endorsement. This was an impossibility, however,
because federal land grants would be needed to build a railroad through the West’s
public domain.11
Loughborough disqualified the two potential southern routes through New
Mexico, claiming that the 35th parallel option would have to traverse impassable
mesas and canyons west of Albuquerque and that the 32nd parallel through El Paso
was likewise infeasible because Mexico retained ownership of a portion of that course
south of the Gila River. He bluntly criticized U.S. minister plenipotentiary Nicholas
Trist for failing to include this region as part of Mexico’s cession of territory in the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Loughborough instead proposed a central pathway to
the Pacific that would cross the Great Plains and follow the Platte River westward,
a solution that reflected his own bias as a Missourian. Regardless of the location,
however, Loughborough understood that the railroad’s importance to American
commerce, empire, and nationalism was unprecedented. Couching his analysis in
the typical rhetoric of Manifest Destiny, he thought that the Pacific railroad—even
if it went through New Mexico and Texas rather than Missouri—would enable
“the principles of constitutional liberty . . . [to] be diffused over the whole earth”
and bring about “the permanent, uniform, and final condition of human society.”12
 R ailroad Capitalism 129

Journalist and secessionist James DeBow.

From an engraving in the June 1867 issue of DeBow’s Review.

The St. Louis convention of 1849 had set the tone for many debates to come, and
New Mexico, because of its geographic location, would play a prominent role in
those discussions.
By the late 1840s James D. B. DeBow of New Orleans had emerged as one of the
leading public voices for southern economic development and railroad construction.
He began printing a monthly magazine, DeBow’s Review, just before the Mexican-
American War and used his success as a publisher to promote southern interests,
featuring mostly scientific articles about slavery, agriculture, transportation, and
economic policy. As editor of the South’s highest-circulating periodical, DeBow’s
ultimate goal was to uphold slavery as an institution and facilitate the expansion
of a sectional economy that could operate independently of northern factories and
financiers. Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, DeBow’s Review dedicated considerable
editorial energy to the development of transcontinental railroads and a direct
southern connection to the Pacific, recognizing that such a link would go a long
way toward boosting economic power and achieving sectional self-sufficiency.13
From 1846 until the first year of the Civil War, DeBow’s Review editors closely
attended to the proposals for a Pacific railway, perceiving the project as an oppor-
tunity to excite sectionalized Southern nationalism.14 In 1847 Asa Whitney used
130 Coast-to-Coast Empire

the periodical to publish his conceptualization of a transcontinental line, although

his proposal to build it in the North no doubt irked many of the readers.15 DeBow,
however, saw great merit in the idea and undertook a personal crusade to inspire
southern capitalists and financiers. Without a railway connection to the Pacific, he
argued in 1849, the newly acquired California coast would remain “isolated and
alone.” He believed that a railroad was important not only for commercial purposes
but also to ensure a strong sense of nationalistic unity throughout a country that
now spanned an entire continent. An ardent sectional ideologue, DeBow spent
years arguing for a route that would originate either in New Orleans or Memphis
and pass through Texas and New Mexico before reaching San Diego. “We want
the road, finally, to complete for us that commercial empire after which we have
sighed . . . which appears to be ours by a manifest and inevitable destiny,” he wrote
with characteristic rhetorical flourish. “As a Southron,” he continued, “we confess
a deep and abiding interest in these schemes to connect the two oceans.” He
foresaw that a railroad binding the slave states to the Pacific coast could stimulate
economic prosperity in cities like Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile,
creating vibrant commercial metropolises comparable to those in the North. Accord-
ing to another ambitious observer, it might also “make a Southern New York of
New Orleans.” With this broader hope in mind, men like DeBow understood
the importance of New Mexico as the geographic solder that could weld these
nation-building visions into a reality.16
Despite his enthusiasm, however, DeBow was also a pragmatist who grasped
that a southern transcontinental railroad would be unlikely to materialize unless his
section achieved independence. As early as 1850 he echoed South Carolina senator
John C. Calhoun when he complained about the increasingly lopsided political
representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, as the industrializing North
continued to attract thousands of European immigrants who rapidly bolstered
urban populations and added representatives to the House. After hearing of the
Compromise of 1850, which named New Mexico a popular sovereignty territory
and California a free-soil state, the editors of DeBow’s Review feared that a southern
railway was slipping from their grasp. “If there were all the merit in the world in
its favor, the numerical strength of the north is against us,” they lamented, adding
that prospects for a railroad across the 32nd or 35th parallels “are destined . . . to lie
upon the table until doomsday.”17 That comment proved more prophetic than even
DeBow could have imagined. In 1869, when the last spike of the transcontinental
railroad was driven into the ground at Utah’s Promontory Point—connecting
Northern California directly to the upper Midwest—the magazine’s embittered
 R ailroad Capitalism 131

editors said nothing about the technological and commercial accomplishment,

which they saw as yet another Yankee triumph over their beleaguered regional
economy and wounded sectional pride.
With the idea of a transcontinental railroad garnering so much interest in the
East, the U.S. government began to dispatch exploring and surveying parties
westward as early as 1850. The first such expedition in New Mexico emerged out of
an oversight in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, wherein American and Mexican
diplomats used an inaccurate map to delineate the new international boundary. John
Russell Bartlett, a New York bookseller with an abiding interest in Indian cultures
and the western frontier, accepted an appointment as federal commissioner and
was tasked with resolving the dispute. His work would have profound implications
for the ongoing debates over a Pacific railway, and it placed New Mexico firmly
within those sectional arguments. Following several meetings in December 1850,
Bartlett and his counterpart, Mexican commissioner Pedro García Conde, reached
an agreement stipulating that the boundary would be drawn westward from the
Rio Grande beginning at a point near Doña Ana, some forty miles north of El
Paso.18 In so doing, both men felt that they had achieved a diplomatic victory for
their respective countries. García Conde wrote that the accord “is resolved most
favorably in the interests of the [Mexican] Nation,” and Bartlett took “very great
satisfaction” in having secured possession of the Santa Rita del Cobre copper mining
region of southwestern New Mexico.19
Despite Bartlett’s momentary enthusiasm, this outcome deprived the United
States of a potential railroad route, and southerners—including his own surveyor,
Andrew B. Gray of Virginia—would condemn him as a northern Whig who, they
believed, purposely relinquished the region south of the Gila River.20 Texans were
especially perturbed with Bartlett’s boundary agreement, recognizing that the
cession of the 32nd parallel, or Gila River Route, all but eliminated the possibility
of a Pacific railway through their state. Democratic Congressman Volney Howard
of Texas complained that the U.S. Boundary Commission had “surrendered the
best route for the railroad.”21 Texas senator Thomas Rusk supported a resolution
to block congressional funding for the surveying project, declaring that he would
not “vote another dollar to this boundary commission.”22 The fact that Bartlett’s
party continued to waste vast sums of money—Lieutenant William H. Emory
referred to the group as “a useless multitude of officers” who proved themselves
“worse than useless”—made the decision that much easier for politicians.23 By July
1852 all appropriations had been withdrawn, the commission was disbanded amid
intense controversy, and no definitive solution to the boundary dispute was in sight.
132 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Gadsden Purchase (1854)

Bartlett–García Conde Treaty Line (1851)
32nd Parallel of north latitude

nde
Gra
N

R io
NEW MEXICO TERRITORY

River
Gila Santa Rita
Copper Mines
Doña Ana
32°N Tucson Mesilla Valley 32°N
El Paso
0 50 100 150 mi Gadsden Treaty Line (1854) TEXAS
0 100 200 km Current International Boundary
MEXICO

Map 3. The Bartlett–García Conde Agreement and Gadsden Purchase.

Just as the U.S. Boundary Commission was being recalled from New Mexico,
businessmen from five southern states met at a railroad convention in Little Rock,
Arkansas, to discuss a route from the Mississippi River to “the golden shores of
the Pacific Ocean.” They focused specifically on the Desert Southwest as the most
favorable right-of-way, acknowledging the “worldwide importance” of opening
trade between the United States and Asia via what they termed “the Highway of
Nations.” In support of their argument for a transcontinental railroad, the delegates
predicted that the iron horse could generate a profit of $15 million annually through
freight revenue and passenger fares, meaning that the estimated $100 million in
construction costs could be repaid within a few years. To woo investors they pointed
out that the government would also pay enormous sums to transport soldiers,
agents, mail, and munitions of war. It was a clever—albeit largely fanciful—sales
pitch that looked great on paper, and indeed the American railroad industry would
gain widespread renown for scandalous investment schemes rooted in graft and
corruption. Dubbing the proposed project “The Mississippi and Pacific Railroad,”
the conference attendees concluded that the tracks should begin at Memphis and
strike westward through Texas and New Mexico before reaching a terminus in
southern California.24 Almost simultaneously, U.S. Representative John D. Freeman
 R ailroad Capitalism 133

of Mississippi proposed a bill calling for a “Southern Atlantic and Pacific Railroad”
that would originate at Vicksburg and terminate in San Diego, passing through
Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico on the 1,625-mile journey to California.25 Even
amongst themselves southerners remained deeply divided over which riverside city
should host the eastern railhead.
By this time, would-be developers were emerging throughout the country. In
1852 Henry O’Reilly, an Irish-American capitalist whose entrepreneurial experience
included a role in the construction of New York’s Erie Canal, proposed a telegraph
line to the Pacific Coast. Believing that this recently invented technology provided
the perfect complement to any transcontinental railway, he heralded “the extraor-
dinary events connected with the sudden colonization of California” and believed
that politicians should think seriously about internal improvements in the West.
In a message to Congress, O’Reilly stipulated that he neither wanted nor expected
direct financial assistance from the government, but he did request that the War
Department station soldiers at twenty-mile intervals to protect the cables from
Indian attack or enemy sabotage. Although he preferred a geographically central
location for this new line of communication—one that began in Missouri and
ended at San Francisco—O’Reilly expressed a strong interest in stringing branch
wires through New Mexico and acknowledged that the same Gila River Route that
southern railroad magnates coveted would also be ideal for a telegraph.26
Sensing an opportunity to enhance the territory’s role in national politics and
economics, members of the New Mexico legislative assembly memorialized Congress
on December 31, 1852, regarding recent development proposals. “The citizens of this
territory have heard with delight,” the petitioners began, “that a project which is
worthy of the Great American Republic and of the age is seriously entertained by
many enlightened statesmen.” They insisted that New Mexico would be an excel-
lent location for steel tracks to the Pacific as well as an electric telegraph line. To
support their cause, New Mexicans cited their geographic position between Texas
and California, the directness of the route, a mild regional climate with minimal
snowfall, the availability of cheap land, and a local abundance of crucial natural
resources like stone, timber, and coal.27 Southerners would repeat these arguments
for years to come in hopes that the federal government might lend support to a
railroad through the region, and indeed the Pacific Railroad Surveys confirmed
most of these claims as early as 1853.
By the end of 1852 Congress had heard six different proposals for a railroad to
California, but sectional gridlock prevented any definitive decisions on government
support and financing. Across the nation journalists followed the proceedings with
134 Coast-to-Coast Empire

obsessive interest, and many newspapers printed daily updates on the congressional
deliberations. Writers for the New York Times called the transcontinental railroad
“one of the greatest problems of the time” and voiced support for a central line
terminating at San Francisco. “The telegraph . . . will accompany the rails in their
long course,” they continued, “and whenever a golden lump of extraordinary size
turns up in the morning on the banks of the San Joaquin, it will be known the same
day in Wall Street.” Editorialists insisted that the federal government promote such
a project “at any necessary cost,” writing that “it is upon the details alone that any
disagreement exists.”28 The pages of DeBow’s Review revealed where southerners
stood on these details, noting that the regional economy would benefit from the
trade of Russia, the Indies, and China, to the tune of at least $200 million annually,
if only national leaders selected a route along the 32nd parallel.29
During the 1852–53 congressional session, Senator William Gwin of California
emerged as a leading proponent of a railroad across New Mexico’s 35th parallel, a
line that would terminate at San Francisco in the west and in Arkansas in the east.
Given the political infighting between northerners and southerners, however, Senator
Rusk of Texas thought that Congress should gather additional evidence before
making any choices.30 The main purpose of Rusk’s suggestion, like other sectional
compromises before it, was to delay official action and avert immediate disunion.
Betting that objective scientific surveys of the possible routes would support the
southern argument for a line through New Mexico and his home state of Texas,
Rusk hoped to circumvent sectional ideology and political bias using indisputable
science. Although some northerners objected to the idea—the New York Times
prophetically speculated that a postponement for surveying would “put off, to an
indefinite future, the commencement and completion of the work”—congressional
leaders approved it and earmarked the army appropriations bill with an addendum
granting oversight of the railroad surveys to the War Department.31 By the end of
its 1853 session, Congress had spent a significant amount of time debating railroad
routes, the sole outcome being an allowance of a paltry $150,000 for studies of
four possible avenues to the Pacific. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, who bore
responsibility for commissioning the surveying parties, scoffed when he learned
that such a negligible sum of money was supposed to finance “so gigantic a project,”
but he quietly relished having authority over such an important issue.32
As one of the era’s most renowned sectional ideologues, Davis dedicated much
of his political career to the promotion of Southern interests before he ultimately
assumed the presidency of the Confederate States of America. While serving as
secretary of war from 1853–57, the Mississippian was deeply absorbed with economic
 R ailroad Capitalism 135

U.S. secretary of war and Confederate president Jefferson Davis, c. 1858.

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

development and military security on the western frontier. Straying from a strict
constructionist view of the Constitution, he personally believed that the national
government should finance large internal improvements like the transcontinental
railroad, arguing that such infrastructure would promote the common defense of
the American people. In this Davis represented in microcosm the South’s new legal
dilemma arising from the idea of a Pacific rail connection. Andrew Jackson had
fought vigorously against federally funded improvements during his two terms as
president, making him a symbolic standard-bearer for southern Democrats who
traditionally opposed such projects. But now, given the enormity of the undertaking,
any entity—public or private—wishing to lay tracks across the continent would need
federal assistance by way of subsidies and land grants. The debates surrounding the
Pacific railroad had resurrected and even exacerbated the old issue of federal dollars
spent on internal improvements, placing men like Davis in an ideological quandary
by pitting their sectional aspirations directly at odds with their interpretations of
the Constitution.33
When Congress delegated the Pacific Railroad Surveys to the War Depart-
ment in 1853, they unwittingly placed the project in the hands of a southerner who
harbored preordained sectional biases. Davis attempted to deflect allegations that
136 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Ft. Vancouver

Ft. Snelling

Salt Lake City N

San Francisco Independence

St. Louis
Bent’s Fort

iveriR
Ft. Smith

ipp
Los Angeles
Albuquerque

Mississ
San Diego Pima Villages
Preston
Ft. Yuma Tucson Vicksburg
El Paso
Big Spring

New Orleans
San Antonio
Galveston
47th Parallel survey
38th Parallel survey 0 300 mi
35th Parallel survey, Amiel W. Whipple
32nd Parallel survey, segment surveyed by William Emory in 1840s 0 500 km
32nd Parallel survey, segment surveyed by John G. Parke
32nd Parallel survey, segment surveyed by John Pope
Route proposed by A. B. Gray

Map 4. Pacific Railroad Surveys, 1853–1854.

he acted with self-interest, insisting in one annual report that scientific fact alone
should determine the route of the railway.34 Much of his enthusiasm for the surveys
stemmed from Davis’s strong hunch, like Senator Rusk’s, that science would rule on
the side of the South. Through the Pacific Railroad Surveys, Davis commissioned
four major investigations in the West. The northernmost study traversed the 47th
parallel of latitude and followed portions of the path that Asa Whitney had proposed
several years earlier. A second party examined a Great Plains route that followed
the 38th parallel, the most geographically neutral of the four options and a favorite
of Missouri’s Senator Benton. The final two surveys—which examined the 35th
and 32nd parallels of latitude—focused on New Mexico Territory as a connecting
thoroughfare.35 Both corridors had been analyzed and surveyed in the past, but
not with specific attention to railroad construction. While working as part of the
 R ailroad Capitalism 137

U.S. Boundary Commission, John Russell Bartlett and his team had studied and
described much of the 32nd parallel from El Paso to San Diego, and some of their
work would later be cited in the 1853 reports. In 1851 Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves
had explored the 35th parallel from the Rio Grande to the Colorado River, but his
work focused on wagon transportation and the navigability of waterways.36 The two
surveys conducted in 1853 would provide more definitive evidence on these possible
southern routes, and both spoke favorably of New Mexico as a pathway to California.
Lieutenant Amiel W. Whipple, a native of Massachusetts who later fought for
the Union army, was tasked with surveying the 35th parallel from Fort Smith,
Arkansas, to Los Angeles. His party examined a route that traversed the Texas
Panhandle, crossed the southern Rocky Mountains at a point twenty miles below
Santa Fe, and bridged the Rio Grande at San Felipe Pueblo. This section of New
Mexico contained coal deposits that could be mined to provide fuel for locomotives,
while an abundance of pine trees in the region might provide timber for the railroad
bed. West of the Rio Grande, Whipple reported, “the route was excellent, nearly
devoid of hills, with frequent springs and streams of water,” and he saw no severe
obstacles to construction. Albert H. Campbell, an engineer with the expedition,
paid close attention to the steepness of grades and sharpness of curves that would
have to be negotiated along the way. Laying the tracks from Fort Smith to the Pecos
River would be relatively simple, he believed, because no major geographic barriers
blocked the path. Campbell proposed a Rio Grande crossing near Isleta Pueblo
south of Albuquerque, enabling the road to follow the established wagon trail to
Zuñi Pueblo and beyond. He also predicted that only three points along the entire
route—the steep westward descent from the Pecos River, the Rio Grande crossing,
and California’s Cajon Pass—would pose any difficulty during construction.37
Whipple concluded his report with an overview of New Mexico’s benefits,
reiterating that regional snowfall would rarely inhibit the passage of trains, the
natural abundance of wood and coal would provide plenty of fuel, and the relatively
level terrain would limit the time, effort, and money required to build the tracks.
He acknowledged just one potential drawback, explaining that the Navajos, “a
warlike and predatory tribe,” might pose a threat to workers along the way. Once
completed, the project would span 1,849 miles with an estimated construction cost
of $94 million. Despite the price tag, however, Whipple informed Secretary Davis
that “a more favorable location for a railway than that described could scarcely
be desired.”38 Back in Arkansas editors of one Fort Smith newspaper praised the
findings and opined, “Whipple’s route is the right road to the land of gold.”39 Four
years later, when Lieutenant Joseph C. Ives explored the Colorado River valley and
138 Coast-to-Coast Empire

its watershed, he reaffirmed Whipple’s findings and told his superiors that the area
remained ideal for the Pacific railway.40
Equally suitable for a railroad, according to surveyors, was the 32nd parallel of
latitude through central Texas and southern New Mexico. This pathway was mapped
through a patchwork of expeditions that cobbled together new information from
topographical engineers John G. Parke, Andrew B. Gray, and John Pope, as well as
incorporating previous scientific reports from William H. Emory and John Russell
Bartlett. In his instructions to the respective savants, Davis specifically mentioned
that the availability of water to cool locomotive engines would rank among the
greatest concerns for the arid desert route, and each of the parties were to investigate
the potential for artesian wells to mitigate this shortcoming.41
Lieutenant Parke’s survey in 1854 required just twenty-seven days to cover a 373-
mile stint from the Pima villages of Arizona to the Mesilla Valley of New Mexico,
an area that had been acquired through the Gadsden Purchase earlier that year.
Much of that distance consisted of “an elevated plain . . . made up of a series of
smooth slopes” that would be perfect for laying steel. With little rainfall, however,
a railroad through the area would be almost entirely dependent on natural springs
and manmade wells for its water supply. He estimated that the 545-mile segment of
track from El Paso, on the Rio Grande, to Fort Yuma, on the Colorado River, would
cost just $19.6 million but might take eight years to complete. Much like the 35th
parallel, the primary benefits of this course were its salubrious climate, hard-packed
soil, and an absence of geographic obstructions, although Parke conceded that the
dearth of water and fuel would pose logistical problems.42
Andrew B. Gray, who had been previously embroiled in the U.S. Boundary
Commission controversy, received an appointment to survey a second portion of
the 32nd parallel and focused his investigations on the region between El Paso
and the Gulf Coast. A southerner, Gray prefaced his report by emphasizing “the
practical advantages of the route through the State of Texas,” which spanned 783
miles, or roughly half of the entire distance to California. With a clear sense of
sectional preference, he predicted that a railroad across the Lone Star State could be
completed in under five years and at lower cost than any other section of the line.
To minimize labor fees, he recommended the employment of Indians and “Mexican
peons,” in much the same fashion as Chinese coolies in California.43 Corporations
building railroads in the Old South already used slave labor, and they planned to
employ similar tactics on a transcontinental line. James DeBow estimated that the
use of bondsmen—in any form—to construct the Pacific railway would reduce
employment costs by a factor of seven, proving “how easily and cheaply railroads
 R ailroad Capitalism 139

may be built with slave labor.”44 Another southern commentator compared railroads
in the North to those in the South and concluded that “the leading element of
the superior success of our roads was their construction by slave labor.” Referring
specifically to the transcontinental project, he wrote, “Experience has settled the
wisdom of this policy, and in the future prosecution of the work of the Southern
Pacific Road, the plan of depending on this class of [slave] labor is to be carried into
more perfect execution.”45 In this way, a railway connection along either the 32nd
or 35th parallel would not only benefit the South financially, it would also expand
the institution of slavery westward, which helps to explain some of the vehement
northern objection to these projects. As Gray recognized, however, New Mexico’s
preexisting forms of involuntary servitude could fulfill the demand for workers
with Indian captives and Hispanic peons rather than black slaves.
As Gray continued his report, he sounded more like a self-interested promoter
than an objective analyst. He estimated that revenue from day-to-day freighting
operations might reach $15 million annually, while maintenance outlays would
never exceed $6 million per year, netting handsome profits for investors. The only
significant pitfall involved the scarcity of water, although he believed that enough
productive wells could be dug to satisfy the thirst of steam locomotives. Gray
pushed hard for a western terminus in southern rather than northern California,
contending that “there are few harbors, on either coast of North America, superior
to San Diego.” Assuming a nationalistic tone, he attempted to assuage any critics
who might accuse him of sectional bias. “The benefits to be derived from the
construction of the railway along the parallel of 32˚ north latitude, are not alone
confined to the State of Texas,” he insisted. “Incalculable as the advantages may be
to her, yet every State in the Union must be deeply interested in it, as likewise the
nations of Europe.” In answer to competing proposals for more northerly avenues
through North America, as well as potential passages across Central America’s
Panamanian and Tehuantepec isthmuses, he touted his route’s “accessibility at all
seasons of the year, free from the drifting snows of the North and malignant diseases
of the tropics.” Not only would the railroad bolster global trade between Australia,
Asia, Europe, Mexico, and the United States, but it also would provide substantial
economic benefits to residents of California, New Mexico, and Texas. In Gray’s
report, conjecture periodically superseded fact, and empirical data were sometimes
distorted into conformity with sectional stances. But from an engineering standpoint,
he reached the same conclusion as his peers regarding the practicality of the route.46
Captain John Pope, also a topographical engineer, conducted a third and final
survey in 1854 that pursued a slightly different course, exploring a possible roadway
140 Coast-to-Coast Empire

from El Paso to Preston, 640 miles to the east on the Texas side of the Red River.
About one-third of that route traversed the Llano Estacado, a remarkably flat and
featureless plain that Pope described as a “famous desert, without wood or water.”
The smooth terrain and dense soil were great for railroad construction, Pope wrote,
but heavy machinery would be needed to bore artesian wells along much of the route.
With this in mind, his crew spent most of their time drilling test shafts to determine
just how much water could be brought to the surface in arid West Texas. Despite these
challenges, the lieutenant concluded that “the peculiarly favorable character of the
ground along the route of the 32nd parallel, the directness of this route over it, and
the difficulties to the north and south, would seem to present inducements eminently
favorable to the construction of these wells.” Like his colleagues Parke and Gray,
Pope believed that the greatest obstacle to a Pacific railway along the southern route
would be insufficient water, but all three men saw that problem as surmountable.47
Pope provided Davis with seven good reasons to build the transcontinental
railroad through Texas and New Mexico: easy grades, reasonable construction costs,
availability of timber, proximity to navigable rivers, the ease with which artesian
wells could be dug, the potential development of agriculture and mining along the
corridor, and a mild regional climate.48 In addition, he reminded the secretary that
a railroad could be built through the entire extent of Texas without any controversy
over federal land grants, because the state legislature had already pledged to donate
the right-of-way. Taken collectively, the Pacific Railroad Surveys provided Davis
with scientific evidence to support the viability of a southern route, and he would cite
the work of his topographical engineers in furtherance of that objective.49 The field
reports also seemed to justify the purchase from Mexico of additional territory south
of the Gila River, which would be needed if the southernmost route was chosen. To
accomplish this, Davis dispatched a fellow southerner, the South Carolinian James
Gadsden, to negotiate a deal with Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna.
In anticipation of impending negotiations, Gadsden was appointed minister to
Mexico on May 24, 1853, and received formal instructions from Secretary of State
William L. Marcy before departing for Mexico City. Marcy admitted up front that
Gadsden would face a difficult task, because “the hostile feelings engendered by the
late war with Mexico, embittered by the severe wounds inflicted on her national
pride, have not wholly subsided.” The secretary referred to the ongoing boundary
debacle in southern New Mexico as “a very serious difficulty” and stressed the need
to properly adjudicate the international line to the satisfaction of both countries. The
touchy situation had been further inflamed when New Mexico governor William
Carr Lane traveled to the Mesilla Valley earlier that year and declared American
 R ailroad Capitalism 141

ownership of the contested territory, prompting Mexican officials to threaten military

action. In reference to the Pacific railway, Marcy reminded his agent that “a very
eligible route for such a road” had been found south of the Gila River—through
Mexican territory—and that the acquisition of that land had become a national
necessity. Marcy expected Santa Anna to “cede to the United States such a strip of
country as may be necessary to bring within our territory a feasible route for such a
railroad,” and he postulated that a track near the border would benefit Mexican as
well as American citizens. “The sole object” in these negotiations, Marcy reiterated,
was “an eligible route for a railroad,” although Gadsden also hoped to defuse the
tensions arising from Governor Lane’s actions.50 President Franklin Pierce alluded
to the mission in his first annual message, calling the boundary disagreement an
issue of “considerable magnitude” and explaining that the U.S. government was
working to ameliorate the situation.51
Gadsden reached Mexico City in August 1853 and met with Santa Anna multiple
times thereafter. In October special agent Christopher L. Ward visited Gadsden in
Mexico and delivered secret verbal instructions from President Pierce. The new orders
outlined four acceptable options for the purchase of land and named the price that
the government was willing to pay for each. American officials hoped to acquire as
much territory as possible, and authorized the agent to dole out as much as $50 million
for the largest of the four parcels, which would have included Baja California. At
the very least, however, Gadsden was ordered to secure enough land for “an eligible
route for a railroad from the Rio Grande to California.” He held six conferences with
Mexican ministers Manuel Diez de Bonilla and José Salazar Ylarregui, finalized and
signed the treaty on December 30, and returned to the United States two weeks later.
From New Orleans he sent a telegram to Marcy informing him that “all issues with
Mexico [have been] reconciled on conditions honorable and just to both countries.”52
The treaty that Gadsden and Diez de Bonilla signed in December 1853 delineated
very specific latitude and longitude points for a new international line that would
originate just north of El Paso and then strike westward to the California coast. The
new pact also annulled articles five and eleven of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
negating the basis for the boundary dispute and freeing the U.S. government from
the burden of repatriating Mexican captives taken during Indian raids. After several
rounds of amendments that reduced the purchase price from $15 million to $10 mil-
lion, the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty on June 29, 1854. Mexican leaders complained
that the modified sections were “not reciprocal, but onerous and offensive to the
weaker party in all its provisions,” and Gadsden returned to Mexico to lobby for
Santa Anna’s final approval, which came shortly thereafter.53
142 Coast-to-Coast Empire

As word of the treaty negotiations and subsequent Senate debates trickled in to

eastern newspaper offices, journalists found themselves divided on the issue. In his
New-York Daily Tribune, abolitionist Horace Greeley railed against the government
for spending millions of dollars on a “heaven-forsaken” plot of uninhabitable ground
with no purpose other than to provide the South with its thoroughfare for a railroad.
“We presume we shall never refuse to buy any land that may be offered to us till
after we shall have got all between Terra del Fuego and the North Pole,” Greeley
exclaimed in a sarcastic critique of American expansionism.54 In support of this
stance, he printed a personal letter from John Russell Bartlett relating his recollec-
tions of the region that the United States had just acquired. Southern New Mexico
“does not contain one half of one percent of arable land,” Bartlett wrote, quipping
that “I would consider it a severe punishment to be compelled to live there.”55
Editors at the New York Times, a recent upstart that had printed its first edition just
three years earlier, also held strong opinions about the latest land-grab scheme. In
contrast to Greeley, however, the staff of this fledgling Northern newspaper voiced
cautious support for the measure. With an eye toward international diplomacy rather
than domestic sectionalism, New York Times contributors hoped that the Gadsden
Treaty would “restore and perpetuate relations of amity and good will” between the
United States and Mexico. The editorialists also expressed measured contentment
that so little territory had actually been gained through the purchase, pointing out
that the other options Gadsden proposed to Santa Anna would have absorbed far
more acreage and cost much more money.56 The newspapermen voiced a sense of
relief that the United States had not bought all of Sonora, predicting that “were it
in American hands, no doubt it would be speedily developed into a choice spot for
the growth of our most peculiar institution.” Somewhat sardonically, they added,
“Among those institutions would be a Pacific Railroad.”57
Few if any men were more excited about the deal than James DeBow, who cooed
in his monthly periodical that Gadsden possessed all of the “merits of a pioneer”
for securing the southern pathway to the Pacific.58 With the Gadsden Purchase
having expanded New Mexico Territory, it would be up to southern capitalists
and promoters to make a reality of DeBow’s vision for a transcontinental railroad.
Albert Pike, a proslavery author and attorney who would fight for the Confederacy
during the Civil War, understood the importance of the project as well as anybody.
Wherever the Pacific railroad went, Pike wrote in December 1854, “political and
commercial power will go as its inseparable companions.” He provocatively raised
the specter of secession by declaring, “Much as we need a Southern railroad to the
Pacific now, while in the Union, we should need it infinitely more, it would be
 R ailroad Capitalism 143

absolutely and literally indispensable, if the North and the South were to separate.”
A railroad through Texas and New Mexico, Pike concluded, “would bind California
to us with hooks of steel,” thereby fostering nationwide financial dependency
on the Slave South.59 Such prospects excited southerners, including Francis M.
Dimond, president of the Texas Western Railroad Company, who followed these
developments with keen interest. After the Gadsden Purchase he republished Gray’s
railway survey and distributed copies throughout the United States. At the same
time, Jefferson Davis issued his first public statements on the matter, announcing
that the Pacific Railroad Surveys demonstrated the 32nd parallel to be “the most
practical and economical route” westward. This thrilled DeBow, who hailed Davis
as an “eminent statesman and honored citizen.”60
The Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company (A&P) also reproduced information
from Gray’s report, and when they released annual stockholder statements, corporate
executives expressed strong interest in the southernmost route to California.61 By
1855 the company had begun negotiations with Texas officials for a right-of-way
through that state, recognizing that the Texas Railroad Act of 1854 allowed the
legislature “to provide for the construction of the Mississippi and Pacific Railroad.”62
Although this solved part of the problem, the corporation would need federal land
grants and congressional backing to push the rails through New Mexico. Basing
their conclusions on information from the Pacific Railroad Surveys, A&P executives
informed shareholders and potential investors that the 32nd parallel “is shown to
be perfectly easy and practicable.” They envisioned the New Mexico thoroughfare
as “the great ultimate route of the commerce of the world, the route for mails, for
passengers, for the gold of California and Australia, for the teas, spices, and other
light goods of Asia, and for costly articles and package goods of all the continents.”
Company officials also postulated, with counterintuitive logic, that “a common
road through Texas to the Pacific” would unite the North and South in shared
commerce and “render our Union indissoluble.” The ultimate effect, they hoped,
would be a shift in global trade networks, linking “the triple markets of the Atlantic,
the Pacific, and the Mississippi” while giving the United States “command of the
exchanges and commerce of the world.”63
Although the A&P went broke before completing any transcontinental lines,
the company’s approach to the project set a precedent of dishonesty and corruption
that would characterize the nation’s transcontinental projects for decades to come.
Corporate managers overhyped potential profits and underestimated construction
and operating costs to dupe gullible investors through unethical—if not blatantly
fraudulent—business techniques. Much of the report relied on fanciful guesswork
144 Coast-to-Coast Empire

and outright lies as the basis for financial projections. Because they so egregiously
misjudged construction costs at a mere $22,000 per mile (more accurate estimates
suggested $75,000 per mile), A&P executives claimed that their profits would dwarf
those of “any other railroad on this continent.” Like transcontinental investors
of the post–Civil War era, stakeholders in the A&P Railroad hoped to derive
most of their short-term gains from the sale of checkerboard land grant parcels in
Texas and New Mexico. According to the annual report, sponsors could expect
the company to sell 6,553,600 acres of land at a starting price of $2.50 per acre, an
amount that would purportedly quadruple to $10 per acre once the railway boosted
regional economies and carried droves of emigrants into the Southwest. The A&P
assured its financiers that land sales alone would produce $85 million in profits.
Stockholders could also count on a “perpetual” annual return of 28 percent on
their investments, with additional dividends being distributed on an estimated
$23 million cash surplus each year. Once land values skyrocketed, an extra $70
million in cash would be dispersed. “In the worst possible aspect of the case,” they
concluded, “the stockholder . . . would receive twenty-eight per cent, per annum,
forever on his investment.” This hypothetical scenario was nothing more than
a scam—historian Richard White has called these tactics a nineteenth-century
Ponzi scheme—and it revolved around the widespread assumption that only one
cross-country line would ever be built, meaning that the company would operate
free from competition for freight, passenger transit, and government contracts.
Fifteen years before the first transcontinental railway was actually completed, the
very concept of one was already bringing out the worst in American businessmen.64
Robert J. Walker, a Mississippi politician and capitalist with speculative interests
in land, cotton, and slaves, served as president of the A&P Railroad Company and
had a hand in authoring the misleading reports. A second contributor was Thomas
Butler King, a Georgia lawyer and lobbyist who also acted as vice president of the
Texas Western Railroad Company. In an ironic twist, these southern men controlled
the New York–based A&P Railroad, and they fought hard to convince the rest of
the nation that the course through Texas and New Mexico ought to be chosen for
the line. Northerners were not so easily fooled, however, and New Yorker Horace
Greeley lambasted the entire scheme as ridiculous and foolish. He sarcastically
referred to the 32nd parallel as the “Moonshine Route” and called Walker “the great
blarney-chief of the Moonshine Railroad.”65 Another New York journalist, C. Glen
Peebles, published a pamphlet exposing Walker and King for their fraudulent scams
and warning the American people “of the impolicy [sic] of paying any money to
the trust branch of this Company.” In a scathing indictment of railroad capitalists,
 R ailroad Capitalism 145

Peebles analyzed the company’s finances and discovered that actual investor returns
amounted to just one-tenth of one percent—a far cry from the 28 percent that A&P
executives advertised. “In organizing the company, it was sought to give it an odor
of nationality, and to that end Southern men were brought in,” Peebles explained
before slandering Walker as an “old flibberty-gibbet.” Pointing out that southern
men held the managerial positions even though most of the company’s capital came
from Northern financiers, Peebles saw the entire operation as a scheme “to milk the
North as far as possible.”66 Far from unifying the North and South through shared
economic interests, as some promoters had claimed it would, the transcontinental
railroad continued to drive a wedge between the two sections.
In a further reflection of the growing political and ideological divide, an organiza-
tion emerged in the 1850s to advance a radical Southern conceptualization of expan-
sion. With sectional turmoil increasing in the wake of the Pacific Railroad Surveys, the
Gadsden Purchase, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, southerners formed the Knights of
the Golden Circle (KGC) to promote the idea of a sovereign slave empire extending
outward in all directions from the Gulf of Mexico. A railroad along a southerly
route of the continental United States would have contributed to the realization of
this vision. In theory, the so-called Golden Circle—encompassing, clockwise, the
Deep South states, Florida, Cuba, Central America, Mexico, and the gulf coast of
Texas—would form the economic core of an independent nation predicated on
slavery. Wide-eyed dreamers envisioned an empire stretching as far as the Amazon
River basin of South America. The transcontinental line, following either the 35th
or 32nd parallel of latitude, would project that ideological and economic influence
westward to the Pacific coast and help to complete a powerful hemispheric empire.
To this end, the railroad, as well as New Mexico Territory itself, held an important
place in the Slave South’s globalization and nation-building schemes, to the point
that a unique Southern brand of Manifest Destiny developed around these ideas.67
Even as organizations like the KGC fueled sectional passions and journalists
scrutinized every political move, federal lawmakers still considered new Pacific
railroad proposals as the decade wore on. In 1856 Congress reviewed a bill that
would have allowed numerous private firms to construct railways through the West,
including one from Shreveport, Louisiana, to the Southern California coast. “A
railroad across the continent would open up a vast extent of country to settlement,”
the congressional committee declared in a tired refrain, “and much of what is now
believed to be sterile and barren will, no doubt, be found to yield bountifully to the
agriculturist.” However exciting the prospects, many American statesmen still chafed
at the astronomical costs associated with such a venture. Some people questioned
146 Coast-to-Coast Empire

whether the commerce of California, valued at $14 million in 1855, justified the
expenditure of an estimated $200 million to construct the tracks. Thomas Hart
Benton, still deeply enamored with the project, suggested a line across New Mexico’s
35th parallel, but he wanted the path to veer northward as it crossed the southern
plains, finding a midway point at St. Louis before eventually terminating at Baltimore
on the East Coast. As usual, politicians from the slave states objected to Benton’s idea
because it would deprive their section of the southernmost route.68 Exasperated with
the ongoing uncertainty, editors of the North American Review concluded, somewhat
wryly, “Whatever may be the ultimate fate of the railroad . . . there can be no doubt
as to the great advantages resulting from the explorations themselves” in terms of
scientific knowledge.69 Once again, sectional differences had prevented any decision
or even compromise regarding a transcontinental railroad through New Mexico.
The Virginian John B. Floyd, who succeeded Jefferson Davis as secretary of
war in 1857, perpetuated bureaucratic support for the southern route during James
Buchanan’s presidential administration. In his first annual report to Congress,
Floyd upheld the 32nd parallel as the best option, but he also opined that at least
two additional transcontinental lines should be built.70 That same year, a new
syndicate challenged the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad for access to the 32nd parallel
route. Founded in New Orleans, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company aimed
to construct a line from Louisiana to California. As its president, George S. Yerger,
explained in 1857, “I consider it not only as a great national enterprise, but one that
will be especially beneficial to the South, and no city in the Union would derive
more lasting benefit from its completion than the city of New Orleans.” He proposed
to build the line through El Paso, the Mesilla Valley, and the Gadsden Purchase
lands south of the Gila River and concluded that “a large part of the immense trade
of the Pacific, the Mexican Provinces, western Texas, [and] New Mexico” would
thereby be centered in the Deep South. Hopeful of securing congressional approval,
the Southern Pacific had already sold half a million dollars in speculative stock
certificates and was advertising additional shares at prices ranging from $2.50 to
$100 each. Before a single piece of track had even been laid, the Southern Pacific’s
modus operandi already resembled that of its insolvent and corrupt competitors.71
Hoping to make the most of the secretary of war’s favorable opinion, lawmakers
in Santa Fe sprang to action. The legislature passed a resolution in February 1860
granting the New Mexican Railway Company a right-of-way “to locate, construct,
own, and maintain a railway” through the territory. With this local support, the
company petitioned Congress to consider their desired route. The memorialists
protested government subsidies for more northerly lines, arguing that a thoroughfare
 R ailroad Capitalism 147

through New Mexico offered greater value than any other option. They also con-
tended that “the services to be rendered by a railroad on the southern route will be
of much greater value to the United States,” citing the need for military defense on
the international border as another reason to build the line there. Much as Atlantic
& Pacific Railroad executives had done five years earlier, the New Mexican Railway
Company’s officers insisted that the southwestern territory was the only logical
choice for transcontinental rails, and they asked Congress to provide $35 million to
kick-start work on the project. Much to the chagrin of the company’s benefactors,
the Civil War intervened less than a year after their inquiry, ensuring that no route
would be chosen that would benefit the South and significantly altering the course
of New Mexico’s economic future.72
In 1858 an engineer named Robert G. Rankin pointed out that the Pacific railroad,
if ever completed, would be far more than just a commercial connection for the world.
Such a linkage would also be a conduit for ideas and culture, he wrote, because “each
line of iron rail is a line or train of thought.”73 Rankin’s metaphor goes a long way
toward explaining the broader significance of the transcontinental railroad in terms
of American politics, economics, society, and democratic ideology. Throughout the
antebellum era, congressional speeches, newspaper editorials, engineering surveys,
and eyewitness accounts suggested that the Pacific railway was purely an economic
enterprise that would benefit either the North or the South depending on the location
of the tracks. In reality, however, a railroad connecting one North American coast
to the other would irreversibly transform the nation by facilitating the movement
of people and their ideas. Although most interested parties never admitted it, the
spread of ideology had as much to do with the sectional conflict as did any economic
imperatives. A railroad following either of the proposed routes through Texas and
New Mexico would not only boost the South’s economy to the possible detriment of
the North, but it would also propagate the flow of Southern ideas westward, meaning
that the railway would be the means whereby proslavery ideology consumed the
American West. A railway along a northern route would have a similar but inverse
effect, spreading free-labor ideology westward at the potential peril of slavery. A project
as transformative as the Pacific railway presented more at stake than money. To some
Northern and Southern ideologues, the very future of slavery and free labor—and
the perpetuation of American democracy and political union—depended on the
route that the steel rails would follow. Thus, when the southern states finally did
revolt in 1861, the Confederacy launched an ambitious plot to expand its plantation
economy and proslavery ideology through New Mexico and beyond.
 1 6 2

The Civil War and the

Final Contest for New Mexico

M any people contributed to America’s decades-long nation-building project in

the Southwest, but few understood the region’s strategic importance better
than Henry Hopkins Sibley. As a military officer in New Mexico during the 1850s,
he became closely acquainted with the area’s geography, resources, and inhabitants.
Sibley resigned his U.S. Army commission on April 28, 1861, and traveled to Virginia
for an interview with Jefferson Davis, who was a former Mexican-American War
compatriot and fellow West Point graduate. Hopeful that the Confederate president
might place him in command of an expeditionary force, Sibley provided detailed
information on Union troop strength in New Mexico, noted supplies and provisions
upon which an invading army could draw, and described local sentiment toward the
Confederacy. With his long-standing interest in the Southwest, Davis hardly needed
convincing to adopt the scheme, but Sibley nonetheless reminded him that New
Mexico would be the key geographic element in a coast-to-coast Southern empire
stretching westward from Texas. Once the Stars and Bars flew above the Santa Fe
plaza, the fledgling Confederacy could move on to claim California’s goldfields and
the rich silver deposits in Colorado and Arizona, all of which would help to fund
the war effort. Southern merchants would gain direct access to Pacific commercial
networks, and imperial success might attract diplomatic recognition from European
countries like England and France. After achieving these objectives, Confederate
agents could negotiate with Mexico to acquire northern Chihuahua and Sonora,
further expanding the empire and gaining control of ports on the Gulf of California.

148
 The Civil War 149

It sounded like an ingenious plan—not unlike that of the KGC—especially for

two visionaries whose respective military and political careers had revolved around
and contributed to American expansion and Manifest Destiny. Transforming the
idea into reality, however, proved far more difficult than either man imagined.1
When the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 spurred several
southern states to secede, the Louisiana-born Sibley, like many federal army officers,
made plans to join the Confederacy. Before leaving the Southwest, however, he
and fellow secessionist William Loring—who assumed command of New Mexico’s
military department in March 1861—hatched a plot to lead several companies of
federal troops with them into Texas to fight for the Rebel army. Once Sibley reached
friendly territory at El Paso, he penned an emotional but incriminatory letter to
Loring. “We are at last under the glorious banner of the Confederate States of
America,” he joyously exclaimed, expressing a strong sense of loyalty to the Southern
cause and vaguely describing the clandestine activities in which he and Loring had
collaborated before Sibley departed New Mexico.2 Although the two officers did
not follow through with the treasonous scheme, Loring remained in command of
New Mexico until June 11, hampering the ability of U.S. personnel to prepare for
the war.3 Loring’s extended stay as an imposter in Santa Fe kept him apprised of
Union strategy and troop strength during the first three months of the war. It also
allowed Texans to seize military equipment at Fort Bliss (El Paso), augmenting
the supplies of Confederate forces who had already confiscated federal provisions
at San Antonio when General David Twiggs, commander of the Department of
Texas, surrendered his command without resistance.4
The Confederate government wasted little time in setting the expansionist plan
into motion. Sibley left Richmond on July 8 with orders to raise an army in Texas and
march toward Santa Fe. Bestowed the rank of brigadier general, Sibley was entrusted
“with the important duty of driving the Federal troops” out of New Mexico. In the
process, he had the authority to confiscate arms and munitions for the use of his
own men and to muster disaffected Union soldiers into the Rebel army. All of this
was to be pursued “in the speediest manner possible” to capitalize on any element
of surprise that might remain and to achieve the conquest of a western empire at
an early stage of the war.5 Before Sibley returned to San Antonio to raise his army
of invasion, however, Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor mustered a force of several
hundred Texan volunteers and led them to El Paso, where he staged a campaign
that preceded Sibley into southern New Mexico by several months.
Federal officers did not lounge idly on the sidelines as their Confederate coun-
terparts plotted the invasion of New Mexico. When Loring departed Santa Fe
150 Coast-to-Coast Empire

in June 1861, his successor as department commander, Colonel Edward Canby,

made immediate preparations for a looming Confederate attack and developed a
multifaceted plan for defending the territory. The same day that he assumed control
of New Mexico’s military forces, Canby acknowledged the prevailing sentiment
in the southern portion of the territory, where Rebel sympathizers congregated in
Mesilla and Tucson. Mesilla in particular had become a hotbed of secessionism in
the months leading up to the Texan invasion.6 Speakers at an extralegal Arizona
territorial convention held on March 30, 1861, implored all delegates to choose sides
in a sectional conflagration that erupted in open warfare less than two weeks later
with the shelling of Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Those who cast their lot with
the North would find “anarchy, blight, ruin, and neglect,” while those favoring the
Southern cause might enjoy “freedom, equal rights, and the blessings of a govern-
ment,” according to the unabashedly biased editors of Mesilla’s newspaper.7 The
same editorialists claimed that at least 90 percent of the white population in that
vicinity favored “a disruption of the Union” and cursed the election of Abraham
Lincoln as “disastrous.”8 When Union sympathizer W. W. Mills passed through
the town just weeks ahead of Baylor’s troops, he sneered that “the Mesilla Times
is bitterly disunion, and threatens with death anyone who refuses to acknowledge
this usurpation.”9 As for New Mexicans living north of the Mesilla Valley—who
composed the bulk of the territorial population—Canby believed that “with few
exceptions [they] are loyal, but they are apathetic in disposition,” meaning that they
may or may not prove reliable if called on to defend the territory.10
Predicting that Confederate authorities would try to capitalize on regional
sympathies by occupying the Mesilla Valley, the Union commander planned to
abandon Forts Buchanan and Breckenridge, transfer the soldiers at both locations
to Fort Fillmore, and arrange for strong defensive measures at that position.11 He
also ordered that Forts Craig and Union be heavily reinforced, as those posts
would likely be “the initial points both for offensive and defensive operations.”12
Through frantic but vigilant construction efforts, sophisticated earthworks had
been completed at both installations by the end of September, well ahead of the
Rebel advance up the Rio Grande.13
During the pivotal weeks preceding Baylor’s invasion, Canby also took a calcu-
lated risk to his own reputation and career when he deliberately disobeyed orders
to transfer most of New Mexico’s federal troops to the eastern theatres of war.
Recognizing the veracity of the Texan threat, the colonel stalled in his fulfillment
of the instructions. He explained to the adjutant general that the department lacked
sufficient modes of transportation for the troops and their equipment and that they
 The Civil War 151

N
Canyon de Chelly
Ft. Union
Ft. Defiance Santa Fe a dian River
Battle of Glorieta Can
Albuquerque
Cubero Peralta
NEW MEXICO Ft. Sumner/
CONFEDERA Socorro Bosque Redondo
TE ARIZONA
River
Gila Ft. Craig Battle of Ft. Stanton
Valverde
Tucson Ft. Thorn
Mesilla Ft. Fillmore
El Paso/Ft. Bliss P
ecos
Ri ve
Austin

r
Ft. Davis Ft. Lancaster
R io
Gra

nd San Antonio
e

0 100 200 300 mi

0 100 200 300 400 500 km

Sibley's route to New Mexico

Map 5. New Mexico during the Civil War, 1861–1862.

must therefore remain in New Mexico a while longer. By the time he procured
adequate transportation, Confederates under Baylor had already entered the Mesilla
Valley, and Canby had a viable reason to keep his men in the territory.14 A command-
ing officer’s decision to disregard orders and stall for time would prove to be among
the deciding factors in the federal government’s ability to hold New Mexico for the
duration of the Civil War. From the moment he took charge, Canby was deeply
committed to sustaining control in the Southwest, and his thoughtful planning
and intuitive foresight played a pivotal role in repelling the Confederate advance.
When Texan forces congregated near El Paso, Union officers felt confident
that the invasion would be carried out “the moment the instigators feel assured
of a probability of success.” With the assistance of secessionists in Mesilla, Rebel
troops stood a better than average probability of absorbing southern New Mexico
into the Confederacy.15 As the Civil War progressed, Canby faced growing threats
from multiple directions, and both Confederates and Indians posed problems
on the southern and eastern peripheries of the territory.16 To meet these threats,
Canby dispatched scouting parties to monitor New Mexico’s Rio Grande, Pecos,
152 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Colonel Edward R. S. Canby, c. 1860s.

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

and Canadian River valleys. As late as June 30, 1861, the colonel believed that the
invasion would come from the Texas panhandle—by way of the Canadian River—in
order to funnel Confederate forces directly toward the supply depot at Fort Union,
where enough munitions had been stockpiled to last the territory’s federal troops
for an entire year of fighting.17
Federal officers also organized small groups of Hispanic civilians to pose as
Comancheros, “under the ostensible object of trading with the Indians,” because
such groups would be less likely to attract suspicion while carrying out their under-
cover operations.18 Department headquarters authorized the commanding officers
at Forts Union and Stanton to hire dozens of Mexicans and Pueblo Indians to
serve as spies in the Pecos and Canadian River valleys.19 The army also employed
Kiowa Indians to report any Texan movements that they detected in eastern New
Mexico.20 Within a short time scouts were watching every possible approach to
Santa Fe, and no adversarial force of any size could enter the territory unnoticed.21
As president of New Mexico’s legislative assembly, Facundo Piño also implored his
fellow Nuevomexicanos to join in the fight against a Texan enemy that threatened
their families, property, and honor.22 Representative Miguel A. Otero likewise
pledged his support and assured the secretary of state that his countrymen were
 The Civil War 153

“unanimous” in their loyalty to the Union.23 Canby’s clever machinations, coupled

with the efforts of influential locals, made the federal defense of New Mexico a
collective effort that relied on Union troops, citizen volunteers, Hispanic lookouts,
and Indian spies to ensure that no Confederate army maneuvered undetected.
The final element of Canby’s defensive strategy involved recruiting and train-
ing volunteer forces to buttress federal military power and ensure that Union
troops held the numerical advantage in any hostile engagements.24 Canby began
mustering militiamen immediately upon assuming command, and in September
1861 he informed Governor Henry Connelly that four regiments of infantry and
cavalry, totaling more than 3,700 men, would be needed to fight alongside the
army regulars already stationed throughout the territory. With less than half that
number enrolled, Canby contacted Governor William Gilpin of Colorado and
requested additional volunteers to fill New Mexico’s regiments to capacity.25 By
the end of the year, an impressive 4,755 regulars and volunteers reported themselves
for duty in Canby’s Union army.26 The commander hoped that as many as 6,000
soldiers would be in service before Sibley made his way up the Rio Grande, and the
ordnance department at Fort Union stockpiled 1.2 million rounds of ammunition
in anticipation of impending clashes.27 Although the Hispanic volunteers endured
repeated criticism for mediocre performance in battle, their overall contribution
to the federal war effort in the Southwest would prove critical to the retention
of New Mexico. Canby himself reflected the varied opinions about volunteers,
condemning them as inefficient and ignorant while simultaneously praising their
role as “valuable auxiliaries” who remained indispensable to territorial defense.28
Setting aside the nativist rhetoric that marginalized the role of Nuevomexicanos,
Governor Connelly praised the “patriotic outpouring of men” that attended his call
to arms, and interim Governor William Arny later praised Hispanics who fought
for the Union as devoted Americans and thanked them for their faithful service.29
As federal officers undertook these preparatory measures, in July 1861 Baylor
led his Texan forces into the Mesilla Valley. Just a few years earlier, editors of a
prominent Southern periodical had written that this region—which included the
Gadsden Purchase lands—could produce high-quality cotton and could be “adapted
to slavery, and hence an angry struggle may be expected.”30 When they wrote these
words in the late 1850s, the editors’ assumption involved yet another political debacle
over slavery in a western territory, but in fact some of the earliest fighting of the Civil
War would take place on that very ground to which they referred. Recognizing that
Fort Fillmore would be the first point of contact, Canby placed Major Isaac Lynde
in command at that post and provided every resource possible for its defense. The
154 Coast-to-Coast Empire

hope was that Lynde would be able to “repress any revolutionary movement that
may be set on foot” in the region and repel Baylor’s outnumbered soldiers.31 In case
Lynde needed even more men, Canby authorized him to raise two companies of
volunteers at nearby Las Cruces and Mesilla.32 The major never pursued that course,
hoping instead that four companies of dragoons en route from Fort Buchanan would
arrive in time to augment his forces.33 As the Confederate invasion materialized
in the final days of July, Lynde had two straightforward objectives to ensure that
New Mexico remained under federal control. His orders directed him to suppress
secessionist sentiment in Mesilla and to turn back the Texan assault at all costs. If
he could accomplish those tasks, Confederate dreams of conquering New Mexico
and planting the Dixie flag on California’s coast would dissolve, bringing an end
to Sibley’s scheme before he even set the larger plan into motion.
Lynde grew increasingly nervous as days passed, and those around him began
to sense that New Mexico’s fate was in the wrong hands. The major revealed his
lack of fortitude three weeks before Baylor’s arrival when he informed Canby
that “I do not think this post or the valley worth the exertion to hold it.”34 He
later described Fort Fillmore as “indefensible against artillery” and too far away
from a reliable water source to enable a prolonged stand against an organized and
persistent assault.35 Among the officers serving under Lynde, several were suspected
of sympathizing with the Confederacy, and the post sutlers also expressed their
proclivities toward the South.36 When W. W. Mills arrived in Mesilla on June 23,
1861, he reported a scene of anti-Union sentiment, explaining that “a disunion flag
is now flying from the house in which I write, and this country is now as much in
the possession of the enemy as Charleston [South Carolina] is.”37 Lydia Spencer
Lane, the wife of an officer in the Regiment of Mounted Rifles, described the
confused state of affairs inside the fort’s walls in a scathing indictment of Lynde’s
leadership and competence. The major “seemed utterly oblivious of the danger, and
took no means to strengthen the place,” she wrote, concluding that “there could not
have been a better man in command to help the Southern cause, nor a worse for
the government, than Major Lynde.”38 If Canby made one glaring mistake when
preparing for the invasion, it was his decision to place Lynde in command of New
Mexico’s southernmost military position.
On the morning of July 25—just four days after Confederate soldiers won their
first major victory of the Civil War at the Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) in northern
Virginia—Baylor’s troops bypassed Fort Fillmore unopposed and occupied Mesilla,
where secessionists “received [them] with every satisfaction of joy.”39 With his hand
now forced, Lynde led 380 troops to meet the Confederates in battle. As the two
 The Civil War 155

armies formed skirmish lines in cornfields south of the village, residents climbed
atop their houses to watch the spectacle unfold.40 The brief firefight—the first
between Union and Confederate soldiers in New Mexico—resulted in a Rebel
victory and induced Lynde’s federals to retreat after sustaining ten casualties. Baylor,
who opted not to pursue his foe, witnessed the confusion that ensued when the
Union riflemen, riding horses, trampled several of their infantry comrades during
the chaotic withdrawal from the battlefield.41
The following morning, a stunned Baylor stood on an adobe rooftop in Mesilla,
peering through binoculars as he observed the entire Union garrison from Fort
Fillmore—which outnumbered his troops two to one—retreating over the Organ
Mountains on the road to Fort Stanton. Under panicked orders from Lynde, the
federals had destroyed the fort’s hospital provisions and burned or buried most of
the remaining supplies before hastily deserting the post under cover of darkness.42
Baylor immediately called his men to arms and rode in pursuit, overtaking more
than one hundred “fainting, famished soldiers,” strung out over more than five miles,
most of whom surrendered without incident.43 Some of the soldiers had filled their
canteens with whiskey as they abandoned Fort Fillmore the night before, and the hot
summer sun took a brutal toll on the dehydrated men as they stumbled toward San
Augustine Springs, which did not emit enough water to resupply so many people
and animals. When Baylor confronted him near the springs, Lynde surrendered
despite adamant protests from fellow officers.44 His command had marched more
than twenty miles without water, many of the Union men had already been taken
prisoner, and 103 women and children—who should have been evacuated from the
post long before the Confederates arrived—burdened the command and “paralyzed
[them] when in the presence of the enemy.”45 Two days later, the secessionist editors
of the Mesilla Times celebrated with a front-page headline reading “Arizona Is Free
at Last!”46 Lynde had failed in both of his objectives, and his capitulation would
have serious consequences in the months ahead.
With limited supplies and only three hundred men under his command, Baylor
could not guard and feed the Union prisoners, so he offered generous terms of
surrender by paroling the enlisted men and releasing the civilians.47 James Cooper
McKee, the post surgeon at Fort Fillmore, referred to the surrender as an episode
of “cowardice and imbecility” and condemned Lynde as a traitor to his country.48
Comparing Lynde to the infamous Revolutionary War turncoat Benedict Arnold,
editors of a New York newspaper wrote that his timidity was “the most shameful
thing ever done by an officer of the United States Army” and expressed fear that
New Mexico would be forever lost to the Confederacy.49 In capitulating his entire
156 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor, c. 1860s.

Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico,
Keleher Collection, ZIM CSWR 000-742-0014.

command without firing a shot, Lynde became the Civil War–era version of Manuel
Armijo, and like the former Mexican governor he underwent formal investigation
and court martial for his actions. Major Alfred Gibbs of the Regiment of Mounted
Rifles pressed charges against Lynde for abandoning his post and violating the
Articles of War, Colonel Canby arrested the major when he arrived at Albuquerque,
and President Lincoln personally dropped him from the rolls of the Army.50 “Under
the circumstances I considered our case hopeless,” Lynde later wrote in an attempt to
exonerate himself of wrongdoing, explaining to War Department officials that “it was
worse than useless to resist.”51 His surrender of New Mexico’s southernmost point of
defense left the remainder of the territory vulnerable to attack, imperiled the Union
war effort in that region, and reinvigorated the Confederates’ expansionist mission.
With Fort Fillmore evacuated, Union troops disarmed and paroled, and local
sentiment in his favor, Baylor had achieved the first major Confederate victory in
the Southwest. To assert political control over the conquered region, he issued a
proclamation establishing the new Confederate Territory of Arizona and named
himself governor.52 He took these actions under the assumption that his superiors
would approve them at a later date, recognizing the immediate importance of his
 The Civil War 157

accomplishments and fearing that the Confederacy might lose its grasp on the
region should he fail to act quickly and decisively. Writing to General Earl Van
Dorn, commander of the Department of Texas, Baylor proudly proclaimed that
“the vast mineral resources of Arizona, in addition to its affording an outlet to the
Pacific, make its acquisition a matter of some importance to our Government.”53 He
understood the imperial and economic purposes behind his invasion and appreciated
the importance of sustaining the so-called Arizona Strip as a Confederate possession.
Ironically, however, Baylor’s initial victory would prove more of a curse than a
blessing. In addition to justifying Canby’s retention of the Union regulars in New
Mexico, the surrender of the Fort Fillmore garrison and subsequent occupation
of the Mesilla Valley provided federal officials with an early warning of Sibley’s
impending march from San Antonio. This realization spurred the Union Army to
feverish action in recruiting reinforcements and building defensive bulwarks around
the territory’s most critical forts, and the long delay between Baylor’s entrance in
July and the arrival of Sibley’s second wave of troops in December left ample time
for Union soldiers to prepare for conflict.
From his station at Mesilla, Baylor made it clear to Sibley that they needed to
act quickly to make the most of the Texans’ temporary advantage. Having held the
town for two months and desperate for support, an exasperated Baylor informed
Sibley in October that Canby had collected more than 2,500 federal soldiers and
stationed them at Fort Craig, where they would mount a defensive posture to block
the Confederate advance up the Rio Grande. Rumors that General Edwin V. Sumner
had landed thousands of additional Union troops at Guaymas on the Mexican
coast and was preparing to move eastward toward Baylor’s position strained his
patience even more. “Hurry up if you want a fight,” Baylor cried in a frantic message
to Sibley.54 Infuriated by Sibley’s stalled expedition and feeling abandoned on the
fringe of enemy territory, Baylor said that he would commence guerrilla attacks on
Union scouts and pickets to stall for time, but added that he might have to abandon
the entire mission if reinforcements did not arrive.55 Sibley calmly promised that
he would “move very soon” out of San Antonio and offered that, in the meantime,
he had faith that Baylor would do “everything of which your small force is capable
to hold the enemy in check.”56 It seemed to Baylor as though the man who devised
the imperialistic plot had little urgency or motivation in actually executing it.
After three months of recruiting and training at San Antonio, the Sibley Brigade
finally marched toward El Paso on November 18, 1861.57 Aware of Baylor’s precarious
position and fearful that he would come under intense scrutiny for poor manage-
ment and slow preparation, Sibley mailed a longwinded letter to Confederate
158 Coast-to-Coast Empire

leaders in Richmond offering numerous excuses for the delays. Realizing that the
lengthy postponement of the expedition had already diminished his chances for a
successful invasion of New Mexico, the general preemptively deflected blame on
Texas governor Edward Clark, who, according to Sibley, had shown lackadaisical
zeal in helping to raise the two regiments.58 Not only did Sibley’s Army of New
Mexico spin its wheels for three months in preparation for the march, but it also
suffered from inadequate equipment and supplies, which further hampered the
men as they trekked across arid West Texas. They would be forced to live off the
land and hoped to capture Union supply depots to sustain the campaign. Sibley
was betting on a quick and decisive conquest of New Mexico and expected the
cooperation of its civilian population. He failed to devise any contingency plans,
so it would be an all-or-nothing expedition.59
When Sibley joined Baylor at Mesilla on December 20, 1861, he issued a public
announcement outlining the Confederate purposes in mounting the invasion.
Hispanic New Mexicans who remembered the proclamations General Kearny made
fifteen years earlier must have felt a sense of déjà vu. Sibley confidently announced
that his army had “come as friends” to New Mexico “to take possession of it in
the name and for the benefit of the Confederate States.” He assured inhabitants
that resistance would be futile and that his force of 3,000 men was more than
sufficient to seize and hold the territory. Parroting Kearny, he informed his listeners
that the new government would be composed primarily of native New Mexicans
and that their religious, civil, and political liberties would be “maintained sacred
and intact.” Sibley also implored residents to go peacefully about their daily lives,
pledging that they “had nothing to fear” from either him or the troops under his
command—a promise that proved baseless once Rebels began confiscating food
and supplies from the people. Despite the violent rebellions and individual acts of
resistance that had followed Kearny’s conquest a decade and a half earlier, Sibley
pursued a nearly identical course of action, employing the rhetoric of conciliation
and friendship to attract Hispanos to his cause.
Sibley’s closing statements revealed the true intent and scope of the invasion.
“By geographical position, similarity of institutions, by commercial interests, and
by future destinies,” he declared, “New Mexico pertains to the Confederacy.”60
To advance this prophecy, Rebel leaders hoped to enlist the support of Mexican
statesmen in neighboring Chihuahua and Sonora. Sibley dispatched a diplomatic
agent, Colonel James Reily, on a secret mission to visit with the governors of both
states. Reily clearly felt the weight of the Southern cause on his shoulders. “We
must have Sonora and Chihuahua,” he wrote. “With Sonora and Chihuahua we
 The Civil War 159

Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley, c. 1860s.

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

gain southern California, and by a railroad to Guaymas render our State of Texas
the great highway of nations.”61 Sibley sent letters of introduction to each governor,
cryptically explaining that the Confederate government wished to foster relations
“not merely of peace, but of amity and good will” with Mexico. In addition to
establishing commercial relations, Sibley proposed an agreement in which soldiers
from either country could freely cross the international boundary in pursuit of
Apaches, a common foe of both nations. The Texan commander was trying to use
ongoing Indian warfare as an entree for a military alliance between the Confederacy
and Mexico, hoping that such a coalition might evolve into a broader partnership
in which Mexico would join in the fight against the Union.62
Hoping to take advantage of the political turmoil surrounding the contempo-
raneous French imperialist project in Mexico, Reily set out on January 2, 1862,
to meet with Chihuahua governor Luis Terrazas and Sonora governor Ignacio
Pesqueíra. The transparent part of his plan was to arrange for Sibley’s army to
purchase supplies from Mexico and to establish a depot at the Guaymas port. The
more clandestine portion of his assignment, which echoed James Gadsden’s mission
to Mexico a decade earlier, entailed the prospect of Mexico selling or otherwise
ceding its northern frontier states to the Confederacy. Both governors granted the
160 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Confederates permission to buy provisions from Mexican farmers and merchants,

but they denied the request for Texas troops to cross the border in pursuit of
Apaches and said little about their thoughts on annexation. Their partial support
of the Confederacy—which could have jeopardized Mexican neutrality in the Civil
War—embraced the economic benefits of supplying Sibley’s troops, but Mexican
authorities stopped short of any military or political alliance. Because Terrazas
and Pesqueíra both received Reily amicably, he lauded this as the first diplomatic
recognition of the Confederate States of America by a foreign nation.63 But by
the time Reily had met with both governors, Sibley had already suffered defeat at
Glorieta, and his army was retreating to Texas. The entire undertaking in northern
Mexico thus became inconsequential.64
In the early months of 1862, Canby’s army of Union regulars, volunteers, and
conscripted militiamen would fight vigorously to ensure that Sibley’s mission failed.
As the Confederates gradually made their way northward from the Mesilla Valley,
Union soldiers dug in at Fort Craig, where the two armies clashed on February 21
in the Southwest’s largest Civil War battle. Although the number of men involved
and the casualty counts paled in comparison to engagements like Gettysburg,
Antietam, and Shiloh, the Battle of Valverde demonstrated the resolve with which
both armies would fight for control of New Mexico.65 Initial reports indicated
another Rebel victory as many of the Union combatants retreated to the safety of
Fort Craig. Regardless of the final body count, Canby believed that his troops had
inflicted enough damage on the poorly equipped and ill-fed invaders to ensure that
their mission of conquest would ultimately fail.66 Focusing on the bigger picture
of winning the war, Canby was willing to lose a battle if it meant wearing down
his enemies, exhausting their resources, and sapping morale.
As officers filed their reports over the coming days, the human costs and tactical
implications of the battle became clearer. An outnumbered Confederate force of
about 2,600 men met more than 3,800 Union regulars and volunteers in the wooded
bottomlands of the Rio Grande, within earshot of Fort Craig. Canby later claimed
that the numerical balance was about the same between the two sides, because more
than 1,000 of the Union men were volunteers and unorganized militia who, in the
minds of the regular officers, did not count toward their troop strength.67 Attempting
to inflate the laurels of his accomplishment, Sibley submitted an exaggerated report
claiming that Union forces numbered over 8,000 men while he himself had only
about 1,750 soldiers.68 The Confederate general, however, was incapacitated—either
from illness, intoxication, or a combination of the two—and spent the duration
of the battle in a covered wagon.69 Bedridden and incapable of leading his army,
 The Civil War 161

Sibley temporarily relinquished command to Colonel Tom Green, who directed

Confederate operations during the engagement.70
The most pivotal moment in the Battle of Valverde occurred when the Rebels
charged a Union artillery battery under the command of Captain Alexander McRae,
a North Carolinian who remained loyal to the Union throughout the secession crisis.
Lieutenant William R. Scurry of the Fourth Texas Cavalry and his men stormed the
six-gun battery “unmindful of the driving storm of grape and canister and musket
balls hurling around them,” and in so doing they had “decided the fortunes of the
day.”71 Green praised his soldiers for the desperate assault, noting with admiration
that “never were double-barreled shotguns and rifles used to better effect.”72 Captain
Rafael Chacón of the New Mexico Volunteers helped to collect the bodies for burial
the next day, and he recalled that the “field was covered with blood, horses, torn and
dismembered limbs, and heads separated from their bodies.”73 With undisguised
anguish, Canby admitted that the defeat of McRae’s battery represented the turning
point of the battle and wrote of the artillery captain, who perished alongside most
of his men, that he “had lived as an example of the best and highest qualities that
man can possess.”74 Casualties totaled 111 killed and 160 wounded on the Union
side, along with 72 slain and 157 injured for the Confederates—hardly breathtaking
numbers when juxtaposed with other Civil War battles, but significant nonetheless
for the theatre of action in which they occurred.75
After spending two days burying the dead, Sibley ordered his troops north, decid-
ing against an assault on Fort Craig because of his scant provisions and supplies.76
In choosing this option the Rebel general committed a serious tactical blunder:
he left a strong and unvanquished enemy force in his rear while moving toward
an equally formidable opposing army ahead of him. The Confederates’ strategy of
living off the land was already working against them. The Texans did manage to
capture some provisions from federal supply stations at Albuquerque and Cubero,
but those items would not sustain the large army long enough to complete their
mission.77 Had the Union commander at Albuquerque, Captain Herbert Enos, not
burned most of the supplies there before withdrawing toward Fort Union, and had
Major James Donaldson not removed 120 wagonloads of provisions from Santa Fe,
the Confederates might have gathered enough goods to sustain their expedition.78
As one member of Sibley’s Army of New Mexico later noted, the brigade “would
never have experienced any inconvenience” had it not been for the destruction of
these crucial supplies.79 In order to defeat Canby’s federals and secure a pathway
to the Pacific, Sibley’s men needed to capture not only the federal quartermaster
depots along the Rio Grande but also the enormous storage facility at Fort Union.
162 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Leaving Fort Craig behind them, the Confederates pushed further into New
Mexico and occupied Santa Fe in early March. Although federal troops had aban-
doned the territorial capital and concentrated themselves at heavily guarded Fort
Union, they would not allow Sibley to approach within striking distance of that
crucial strategic position. With the fate of New Mexico hanging in the balance,
U.S. soldiers had clear instructions “to protect Fort Union at all hazards and leave
nothing to chance.”80 On March 26, as the Texans trekked eastward on the Santa
Fe Trail, they ran headlong into enemy forces near Apache Pass—the same location
where Armijo’s Mexicans had planned to meet Kearny’s Americans in combat
fifteen years earlier. This time, however, neither side intended to retreat without
fighting. The Battle of Glorieta would be the climactic scene at which the fate of
Confederate imperialism was decided.81
As had happened at Valverde, Sibley himself was not present at Glorieta. In
the broader context of the Civil War, the Confederate campaign in New Mexico
proved singular in that the ranking general never participated in any of his army’s
major battles, instead relinquishing command to subordinate colonels. One can
only imagine the difficulties that Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia
might have faced had he been absent during clashes with the Union’s Army of
the Potomac, and indeed Sibley’s ineffective leadership undermined his own cause
in the Southwest. When the fighting at Glorieta subsided, Sibley had little to say
about the engagement, informing Adjutant General Samuel Cooper that he had
“the honor and pleasure to report another victory” and requesting reinforcements
to carry on the campaign. He referred to the battle as a “glorious action” in which
the enemy had been driven away “with great loss.” As the more detailed reports of
field commanders trickled in, however, it became clear that Sibley was wrong in his
assessment.82 The Confederates had in fact suffered a devastating logistical defeat
that would force them to abandon their New Mexico campaign and retreat to Texas.
Over the course of two days the opposing armies had clashed numerous times at
different locations near Apache Pass. Confederate trooper Theophilus Noel described
desperate hand-to-hand combat in which men used their muskets as clubs and
shrieked with “demonic yells.”83 At Pigeon’s Ranch and Kozlowski’s Ranch, fierce
firefights claimed the lives of dozens of soldiers on each side. Casualty reports varied,
but approximations placed Union losses at or above 48 killed and 70 wounded, while
the Confederates suffered roughly identical numbers of dead, wounded, and captured.
Each side lost about 10 percent of their forces during the fighting at Glorieta.84
The most critical moment of the battle occurred away from combat lines and
well behind the Confederate front, when Colonel John M. Chivington led 357
 The Civil War 163

Colorado volunteers in an attack on the Rebel supply train below Apache Pass.
There, at Johnson’s Ranch, a mere 200 Texans guarded eighty wagons loaded with
food, clothing, and ammunition—the main provisions for the entire Rebel army.
With the element of surprise in their favor, the Coloradoans surrounded the enemy,
forced their surrender, and burned the wagons.85 Colonel Scurry, who retreated to
Santa Fe after Chivington’s maneuver, later admitted that “the loss of my supplies
so crippled me that after burying my dead I was unable to follow up the victory.”
The Texans he commanded had not eaten in more than two days—since before the
battle even began—and their provisions now lay in ashes at the foot of Apache Pass.
As the sun slipped below the western horizon on March 28, Rebel officers raised
a flag of truce to collect the wounded and deceased. They then countermarched
to Santa Fe and, eventually, out of the territory entirely.86 Those New Mexicans
who had grasped the irony of Sibley’s proclamation in December must have again
shaken their heads in astonishment: the Confederacy’s imperialistic aspirations had
dissolved at the exact place where America’s expansionist fortunes had been won
fifteen years earlier. During the Civil War, as in the Mexican-American War before
it, New Mexico had become an important theatre of operations, its control in both
instances representing a strategic component of broader goals for the armies involved.
Trapped deep inside enemy territory without a supply line, Sibley’s army had no
choice but to abandon its mission in New Mexico. By April 12 Union forces retook
Santa Fe after thirty-four days of Confederate occupation, and Henry Connelly
returned to the Palace of the Governors.87 Three days later, during a skirmish at
Peralta, Connelly’s hacienda was ransacked and destroyed as Sibley’s beleaguered
army retreated toward El Paso.88 Sharpshooters from both armies periodically
“exchanged compliments” across the Rio Grande as the withdrawal continued. By
the time they reached Cañada Alamosa—still more than one hundred miles from
the safety of Texas soil—starving Rebel soldiers were surviving on small morsels of
meat picked from the butchered ribs of their own malnourished horses and oxen.
A witness described the column as “weary, tired, sore-footed, more sick than well,
and half-starved,” noting that some of the men wept from hunger and fatigue.89
Throughout the campaign, Sergeant Alfred Peticolas and his comrades had to
“trudge along day after day with nothing to eat save beans.”90
From his post at Fort Craig, Colonel Benjamin Roberts wrote that the Texans
“have abandoned their sick and wounded everywhere on their line of retreat, and
are leaving in a state of demoralization and suffering that has few examples in any
war.”91 One Northern sympathizer wrote to Secretary of State William Seward to
share news of “the final expulsion of the Texans from our territory, demoralized,
164 Coast-to-Coast Empire

disheartened, and evidently much wiser than when a few months ago they entered
our territory.”92 As some of the Confederates themselves admitted, Canby could
have overtaken them and imprisoned the entire Sibley Brigade had he chosen to do
so. But with his own animals worn out and supplies scarce, the Union commander
left his vanquished foe to fall back with relatively little pressure, believing that
the California Column, approaching from the west, would arrive in time to force
Sibley’s final surrender. As it turned out, the Californians—numbering nearly 3,000
men—arrived in the Rio Grande valley just after the Confederates slipped back into
Texas, and Sibley avoided complete annihilation by a mere stroke of lucky timing.93
At the safe haven of Fort Bliss, Sibley sat down on May 4, 1862, to write his final
report of the campaign, his despair perhaps equaling what fellow commander Robert
E. Lee would feel a year later when defeat at Gettysburg turned back the Confeder-
ate invasion of the North. A long list of struggles marked Sibley’s expedition. He
ranked Indian attacks, illness, and insufficient food and supplies foremost among
the reasons for failure. Sibley also complained that his government had neglected
to provide funding to purchase articles of subsistence from New Mexico’s people
and that the reinforcements he requested in February never arrived. The battles at
Valverde and Glorieta, along with several smaller engagements, sapped his fighting
strength and strained his army’s scant provisions. Finally, the numerical strength
of Canby’s forces, which included thousands of Hispanic volunteers and Army
regulars equipped with plenty of supplies and ammunition, made it impossible for
Sibley to sustain his mission. The crestfallen Confederate officer admitted, “Except
for its political geographical position, the Territory of New Mexico is not worth
a quarter of the blood and treasure expended in its conquest.” In a stark reversal
from the enthusiasm that he had shown Jefferson Davis the previous summer,
Sibley concluded rather gloomily: “I cannot speak encouragingly for the future,
my troops having manifested a dogged, irreconcilable detestation of the country
and the people.”94 In a message to his beleaguered brigade, Sibley attempted to ease
the sting of defeat, praising them for participating in “one of the brightest pages in
the history of the Second American Revolution.” Few, if any, of the starving and
vanquished men bought his false declaration of glory.95
Casting aside the proclamation as pure nonsense, many of those under Sibley’s
command struck a different tone, blaming his poor leadership and heavy drinking
for the campaign’s failure; some wanted to see him court-martialed.96 Sergeant
Peticolas spoke for many of the men when confiding to his diary that “every man
in the brigade” hated Sibley for his “poor generalship and cowardice.”97 Hal Hunter,
a medical doctor who had accompanied the Rebels into New Mexico, remarked
 The Civil War 165

that “the flight of our army . . . will flush with shame the cheek of every Texian
when he thinks of [this] unmanly move.”98 Between the commander’s periodic
inebriation—which seemed to occur at the worst possible moments—and the
force’s woefully inadequate provisions, the Confederate campaign had little hope
for success from the outset. Seeking to exonerate his leader of full blame, Theophilus
Noel placed partial responsibility on Baylor’s preliminary invasion in the summer
of 1861. This, Noel believed, had spurred Union forces to frantic defensive action
and afforded them time to prepare for Sibley’s arrival. Baylor’s advance, he wrote,
“was one conceived, concocted, and born . . . in wicked foolishness.” Had Baylor
and Sibley acted in concert, Noel wrote with the benefit of hindsight, their chances
of victory would have drastically improved.99
Major Trevanion Teel, a commander of artillery in Sibley’s army and a member
of the KGC, waited twenty-five years before publishing his thoughts on the doomed
Confederate offensive. “The objective aim and design of the campaign was the
conquest of California,” he wrote matter-of-factly, noting that Utah, Colorado,
Arizona, and New Mexico would have provided significant space for the expan-
sion of slavery. He also acknowledged the economic and strategic importance of
a Confederacy spanning from Texas to California. Sibley himself had discussed
these objectives with Teel at the outset of the campaign in 1861. According to the
artillerist, his commander believed that Mexican officials would jump at the chance
to sell land because of ongoing political upheavals, the French crisis involving
Emperor Maximilian I, and a supposedly amicable relationship between President
Benito Juárez and Confederate diplomats. Teel blamed the mission’s failure on
Sibley, criticizing him as an inept administrator and poor tactician. Had Baylor
commanded the invasion instead of Sibley, Teel postulated, “the result might have
been different.”100
Sibley’s inability to claim and hold the territory was just one of several major
setbacks that the Confederacy faced in the early months of 1862. On February 25,
just as the Texans finished burying their dead at Valverde, Union forces occupied
Nashville—one of the few industrialized areas in the South—and would hold
that city for the remainder of the war. Less than two weeks later Rebels suffered
a resounding defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas, and in April 1862 the
U.S. Navy captured New Orleans, one of the most important southern commercial
centers. In a matter of weeks the Confederacy surrendered two critical cities to
permanent Union occupation, was defeated at a major battle in the trans-Mississippi
theater, and lost all hope of capturing New Mexico and California. Had Sibley’s
fortunes been different, his success in the Southwest might have helped to allay
166 Coast-to-Coast Empire

some of Jefferson Davis’s other wartime difficulties, but instead the failed New
Mexico campaign merely compounded those losses.
Sibley’s debacle in New Mexico did not deter other Confederate sympathiz-
ers from scheming to reinvade the territory and try the mission a second time.
By November 1862 Baylor had begun plotting a new campaign, hoping to raise
an army of 6,000 Texas troops for the project. However far-fetched the scheme,
rumors of another Rebel attack sent the new department commander, Brigadier
General James H. Carleton, into a fit of anxiety. Fresh memories of Colonel Reily’s
diplomatic mission to Chihuahua and Sonora earlier that year also continued to
worry Unionists. Carleton believed that officials in Richmond were still planning
either to purchase the northern Mexican states or to somehow prompt their secession
from Mexico in order to join the Confederacy. “That there will be a strong effort
made to this end, sooner or later, unless we are more successful in the east than we
have recently been, is more than probable,” Carleton explained to Governor John
Evans of Colorado.101
With these fears in mind, Carleton asked Colonel Chivington to prepare his
volunteers at Denver for a possible repeat of Glorieta, saying that he “had great faith
in the fighting qualities of your Colorado boys.”102 The same day he ordered officers
stationed in eastern New Mexico to send scouting parties down the Canadian and
Pecos Rivers to monitor those approaches to the territory. Hoping to gain the help
of local residents, he directed military personnel to inform citizens that they could
keep any property captured from the Texans if only they would harass them and
delay their march into New Mexico.103 Local recruiters planned to enlist as many
as ten new companies of volunteers, troops at Fort Union returned once more to
the task of reinforcing that critical post, and Carleton appealed to Nuevomexicanos
to “show their patriotism by volunteering their labor.”104 In southern New Mexico
Colonel Joseph R. West received orders to purchase, confiscate, or destroy all of
the grain and other provisions in the Mesilla Valley in order to prevent returning
Rebels from feeding themselves.105
By 1863 Union officers in New Mexico fully expected another armed and bloody
Confederate invasion.106 After visiting El Paso in January and conferring with area
residents, however, Carleton’s fears subsided as he realized that no such attack
was forthcoming.107 Diplomatic interactions with Mexican statesmen also eased
Carleton’s concerns. Major David Fergusson, a Union agent sent to Chihuahua City,
reported that Governor Terrazas seemed eager to cooperate with U.S. officials.108
The following year, Governor Pesqueíra granted Carleton permission to transport
supplies through the port at Guaymas, Sonora, a clear indication that sentiment
 The Civil War 167

south of the border had shifted in favor of the Union government as Confeder-
ate fortunes on eastern battlefields flickered and dimmed.109 Both Carleton and
Governor Connelly suggested to Secretary of State Seward that the United States
attempt to purchase all of northern Mexico in order to crush any Confederate
illusions of acquiring a transcontinental empire, although by that point in the war
Richmond officials had abandoned any hope of wresting New Mexico from federal
control, and indeed Rebel forces in the East had far more urgent matters to deal with
after being defeated at Gettysburg in the summer of 1863.110 Nevertheless, for the
remainder of the Civil War Carleton continued to fear an alliance between Mexico
and the Confederacy and to anxiously anticipate the independent actions of Texan
bandits who might disrupt Union supply lines. He reminded field commanders to
remain vigilant and send out scouts to watch for Confederate “desperadoes” and
“mercenaries” who might cause trouble.111
Although Union forces prevailed over the most immediate threat of Confederate
attack, another pressing issue remained. In New Mexico, contrary to most other
Civil War theatres of combat, the federal army faced two distinct enemies, each with
vastly different motivations and purposes. While the Sibley Brigade had hoped to
conquer New Mexico, incorporate it into the Confederacy, and extend an empire
to the Pacific Ocean, the territory’s Indian tribes sought to protect the homelands
that they had been fighting for centuries to retain. This dynamic, unique to Civil
War–era New Mexico, put the military in a precarious position and forced the
department to divide its resources, manpower, and attention in multiple directions.
Confederate aggression and relentless Indian warfare would occupy most of the
territory’s federal troops for the duration of the Civil War.
In June 1861—at the very moment when Baylor’s first wave of Texans marched
into southern New Mexico—Colonel Canby grumbled that “our Indian relations
are still unsatisfactory” and lamented that most tribes, aside from the Pueblos,
“are openly at war with us.”112 In July, as troops at Fort Fillmore prepared for the
approaching Rebels, Apaches struck less than three miles from the post, killing
four civilians and driving away more than 2,000 sheep. Just days later a front-page
headline in the Mesilla Times read: “Another Apache Massacre—The California
Mail Destroyed—Seven Men Murdered.”113 Despite protests from local residents,
Major Lynde refused to send any soldiers in pursuit because of the looming threat
from Confederate invaders.114 Canby acknowledged that the entire southern half
of the territory had been “in a very disturbed condition in consequence of Indian
hostilities” and admitted that Apache raiding in that quarter complicated his strategy
for thwarting the Rebel onslaught.115
168 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Matters only grew worse for Canby and his field commanders as the months
wore on. In September a misunderstanding over a horse race between Navajos and
Bluecoats at Fort Fauntleroy erupted in violence, claiming the lives of twelve Indians
and all but ensuring open warfare between the two groups.116 With Confederate
troops in possession of the Mesilla Valley and Sibley’s reinforcements marching
westward from San Antonio, Canby anxiously informed War Department officials
that “our relations with the Indians in this department are daily becoming more
unsatisfactory.” In central New Mexico Navajos had begun raiding in retaliation
for the deadly horse racing incident. Mescalero and Chiricahua Apaches had also
taken to the warpath, filling the power vacuum that resulted from the sudden
abandonment of Forts Fillmore, Stanton, Buchanan, Breckenridge, and McLane. To
the east of Santa Fe, Kiowas and Comanches added to the mayhem by conducting
raids of their own.117
These developments were not limited to New Mexico. Throughout the West,
according to acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs Charles Mix, the Civil War
“afforded an extraordinary occasion for the development of the inherent war spirit
among a large number of Indians.”118 Few Civil War commanders, in any theatre
of combat, faced more threats from more directions than Colonel Canby in 1861.
By December he reached the conclusion that “there is now no choice between
[the Indians’] absolute extermination or their removal and colonization at points
so remote from the settlements as to isolate them entirely from the inhabitants
of the territory.”119 With New Mexico at risk of reverting to Confederate control,
Canby feared the logistical hazards of a multifront war with numerous tribes while
simultaneously defending against Sibley’s invasion from the south. The responsibility
for coping with those difficulties, however, would ultimately fall on the shoulders
of another military officer.
Having been promoted to the rank of brigadier general, Canby was reassigned
to the eastern theatre of combat. On September 18, 1862, the army replaced him as
department commander with Brigadier General Carleton, who promptly instituted
a program of total warfare against all southwestern tribes.120 Few commanders in the
annals of western history dedicated themselves so adamantly and adhered so rigidly
to the doctrine of unlimited and relentless warfare against the Indians. A protégé
of Colonel Edwin Sumner, Carleton came to New Mexico as a major with the U.S.
Dragoons in the early 1850s. He led numerous campaigns against Jicarilla Apaches
and Utes, and by the time he took charge of the territory’s military department
in 1862 he had a firm understanding of the issues at hand. Carleton attempted to
mesh the militaristic ideology of Sumner with the humanitarian approaches of
 The Civil War 169

former civil officials like James S. Calhoun and William Carr Lane. He sought
to achieve a degree of compatibility between two hardline mindsets on Indian
affairs, trying to balance the inherently antithetical strategies of assimilation and
extermination. The general saw brutality as a necessary precursor to any lasting
peace on a reservation. Carleton reasoned that long-term amity could be reached
only by first killing large numbers of tribe members, butchering their animals, and
destroying all means of subsistence.121
With the Confederate troops already gone when he assumed command of the
department, Carleton was free to direct most of his attention toward the defeat and
removal of New Mexico’s Indians. Multiple factors motivated his determination to
bring hostilities with these groups to a permanent end, and the vigor with which
Carleton pursued this objective demonstrated his commitment to eliminating any
threat that American settlers might face. Nation-building considerations ranked
foremost in Carleton’s mind. His communications revealed an obsession with
New Mexico’s potential to yield vast amounts of gold. Indeed, these untapped gold
deposits, Carleton believed, had motivated the Confederate invasion in the first
place. Writing to General-in-Chief of the Army Henry Halleck in 1863, he described
southwestern New Mexico as “one of the richest gold countries in the world” and
called it “the new El Dorado,” citing this fanciful vision as “one reason why the
Rebels want, and why we may not permit them ever to have, a country evidently
teeming with millions on millions of wealth.” Realizing that most government and
military officials continued to look disdainfully upon New Mexico, he reminded
Halleck that California had not inspired much American interest either—until
the discovery of gold there in 1848—and implored the general “not [to] despise
New Mexico as a drain upon the general government. . . . The money will all come
back again.”122
The discovery of gold in 1863 near Prescott, capital of the newly established
Arizona Territory, fueled Carleton’s resolve, prompting him to request additional
troops to facilitate mining operations and ward off Indian attacks.123 “Providence
has indeed blessed us,” the giddy officer proclaimed in a letter to the adjutant
general. “Now that we need money to pay the expenses of this terrible war, new
mines of untold millions are found, and the gold lies here at our feet to be had by
the mere picking of it up!” Hyperbolizing the discovery that was made in central
Arizona—which never remotely equaled that of California fifteen years earlier—
Carleton claimed that the gold at Prescott “can be weighed by the steel yards.” A
bit more accurately, he predicted that these events would draw waves of settlers into
the region. Echoing the imperialistic rhetoric of southerners who had long eyed the
170 Coast-to-Coast Empire

region for territorial expansion, the Union officer prophesized that the presence of
gold would finally induce the construction of a transcontinental railroad through
northern New Mexico and Arizona, “thus uniting the two extremes of the country
by bars of steel, until from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we become homogenous in
interests as in blood.” Carleton worked tirelessly to secure government funding and
procure more troops to help dig the gold and protect settlers; at one point, he even
mailed a specimen of Arizona gold to President Lincoln. The successful develop-
ment of mining in the Southwest, he reasoned, would have a twofold importance
for the federal government. First, it would provide revenue to fund the Civil War,
and second, it would prevent the South from using those mineral resources for the
same purpose, as indeed Sibley had hoped to do.124
Dreaming of a second great gold rush, Carleton wasted no time in seeking the
destruction of the greatest obstacle standing in the path of American expansion.
The mineral wealth of Arizona and New Mexico, he lamented, remained “sealed
up by dangers from Indians, [and] should now, and permanently, be unsealed and
open to development by the capitalist as well as by the enterprising poor.”125 With
thousands of soldiers at his disposal, the commander saw no reason why the Indians
could not be summarily and permanently defeated. Such a large contingent of
well-armed troops, Carleton quipped, “ought not to be run over or hooted at by a
few naked Indians armed with bows and arrows.”126 Within two weeks of assuming
command, Carleton outlined a plan to crush the Navajos, Apaches, and Comanches
into submission.127 He even attempted to make Indian warfare a transnational
effort, soliciting the aid of Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs Sebastián Lerdo
de Tejada in defeating Apache groups who used the international border to their
strategic advantage in avoiding U.S. troops.128
Carleton started with the Mescalero Apaches in southeastern New Mexico,
dispatching Colonel Kit Carson to Fort Stanton with orders to subdue the entire
tribe and remove them to a new reservation on the Pecos River. In a confidential
message, Carleton instructed that “all Indian men of that tribe are to be killed
whenever and wherever you can find them.” He stripped Carson of any power to
negotiate an armistice, reiterating that “you are there to kill them wherever you
can find them.”129 Just one month after Carson began his operations, a delegation
of Mescalero chiefs rode to Santa Fe and sued for peace. With Governor Connelly
sitting at his side, Carleton demanded unconditional surrender and insisted that
the headmen settle their people at Bosque Redondo. Carson would remain in the
field prosecuting total warfare, the department commander promised, until the
tribe relocated to the reservation at Fort Sumner.130
 The Civil War 171

While Carson and his volunteers conducted devastating field operations against
the Mescaleros, other troops targeted the Chiricahua Apaches west of the Rio
Grande. In January 1863 Carleton sent his soldiers to the Gila River headwaters in
southwestern New Mexico, hoping to punish groups of Chiricahuas who had been
raiding near the Piños Altos mines.131 Soldiers at nearby Fort McLane took Chief
Mangas Coloradas into custody after miners treacherously captured him under a
flag of truce. As the venerable headman slept in the fort’s prison cell on the night
of January 19, 1863, the guardsmen repeatedly poked his bare feet with scorching
bayonets heated in their campfire. When the chief cursed his tormentors, they
shot him dead, decapitated him, and shipped his head to New York for scientific
examination and display in a museum.132 The execution struck a double blow to the
Chiricahuas, for not only did the tribe lose its most respected leader, but the mutila-
tion of his body meant that, according to Apache beliefs, their chief would enter the
afterlife in that same desecrated condition.133 After the murder, an unsympathetic
Carleton bragged that his men had “already killed Mangas Coloradas” and more
than sixty of his followers, and he promised to continue battling the Chiricahuas
“until people can live in that country and explore and work the veins of precious
metals which we know about there.”134 The assassination of their leader drove the
Apaches to the warpath with greater resolve than ever before. By 1867 BIA personnel
could only report that the tribe remained “in open hostility against the people and
against the government . . . [and] scarcely a week or a day passes but someone is
the victim of their savage ferocity.”135
As Union soldiers carried out these multifront campaigns against the Apaches,
another large detachment marched westward from Albuquerque to Ojo del Gallo,
south of present-day Grants, where they constructed Fort Wingate as headquarters
for campaigns against the Navajos. Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Dole
expressed frustration with the tribe, writing that its members “have been a continual
scourge upon the people of New Mexico” and mentioning their “innumerable
depredations” as ample justification for definitive action. Dole realized, however,
that “the idea of exterminating these Indians is at once so revolting and barbarous
that it cannot for a moment be entertained.”136 As New Mexico’s military com-
mander, Carleton juggled these contradictory objectives by devising a harsh policy
of destructive attrition that stopped short of tribal extermination. To eliminate
any future threats—real or imagined—that the Indians might pose to American
settlers, while simultaneously placating moralists who opposed genocidal tactics,
Carleton decided to gather as many Navajos as possible and move them to the
Bosque Redondo reservation, where the majority of Mescalero Apaches had been
172 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Brigadier General James H. Carleton, c. 1860s.

Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.

relocated. “You can feed them cheaper than you can fight them,” he believed at that
time.137 Carleton recalled Kit Carson to headquarters and briefed him on the new
mission.138 The famous frontiersman would proceed to Fort Wingate, outfit and
equip his troops, and march deep into Navajo homelands on a winter campaign,
striking the tribe at precisely the time of year when they would be most vulnerable
to attack. “The Navajo Indians have got to be whipped,” Carleton instructed.
Carson would deliver a stern message to every Navajo that he encountered: “Go
to the Bosque Redondo, or we will pursue and destroy you.”139
Governor Connelly voiced support for this effort to relocate Navajos along the
Pecos River.140 The reservation program, the governor believed, should be pursued
with all Southwestern tribes, “peaceably if possible, forcibly if necessary.” Connelly
complained that the territory’s Indians had “roamed lords of the soil over this
extensive and valuable tract of country” for far too long. “The white man has an
urgent necessity for the lands which have heretofore been thus dedicated to the
unprofitable use of the savages,” he concluded in his second annual gubernatorial
address, stating that relocation of the Apaches, Comanches, Navajos, and Utes would
ultimately benefit the tribes and was the only alternative to warfare and extinction.
Sylvester Mowry, an Indian agent and mining speculator, was even more succinct.
 The Civil War 173

The Apaches, he ranted, stood as “the great obstacle to the settlement of Arizona,
to the transportation of the mails overland to the Pacific, and to the development
of the immense mineral wealth of the Territory.” For Connelly and Mowry, as for
most civil officials, incarceration on remote reservations and continuous government
oversight of Indian tribes seemed to be the only option aside from extermination.141
With the assistance of Ute scouts, U.S. troops and New Mexico volunteers
infiltrated the daunting twin chasms of Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto
in January 1864 to fulfill Carleton’s orders. One detachment under Captain Albert
Pheiffer traversed the gorges for four days, capturing nineteen Navajo women and
children and killing three others.142 In the months that followed, soldiers destroyed
crops, slaughtered sheep, razed peach orchards, and burned wooden hogans to the
ground. Leaving behind a path of destruction, Carson’s soldiers swept through
the Navajo strongholds with devastating ferocity.143 The campaign of total warfare
flushed the Indians from the impregnable canyons, demolished their means of
subsistence, and left most of them with little alternative but to lay down their
arms. Carson eventually held a council with three tribal spokespersons to demand
unconditional surrender and removal.144 The Navajo Long Walk had begun. Within
one month over 3,000 Indians arrived at Bosque Redondo, and thousands more
would follow.145 From his desk in Santa Fe, Carleton praised Carson’s “unparalleled
success” where so many military commanders had previously failed. “I believe this
will be the last Navajo war,” Carleton concluded in February 1864. Governor Con-
nelly declared April 7 a territorial holiday in celebration of “our happy deliverance
from the evils with which we have been so long afflicted.”146
Seeking to capitalize on their logistical momentum, Carleton’s field commanders
continued their relentless operations against the Navajos in hopes of interning the entire
tribe at Bosque Redondo. Throughout 1864 soldiers marched through tribal strongholds
in search of any families who had not yet surrendered. The destruction continued
with each successive expedition. In August thirty-five New Mexico volunteers under
Captain John Thompson captured Chief Barboncito and his followers, confiscated 1,500
sheep, and felled 4,150 peach trees as they patrolled Canyon de Chelly.147 The Navajo
campaigns claimed an untold number of Indian lives and destroyed nearly every mode
of tribal sustenance, leaving some areas deserted and apocalyptic. By September nearly
8,000 Navajos were incarcerated at the Bosque Redondo reservation.148 “The exodus
of this people from the land of their fathers, is not only an interesting but a touching
sight,” Carleton scribbled in one report, commending the Navajos for what he called
a heroic but futile defense of their homelands.149 For Carleton and his cohorts, the
project of Indian removal was off to an auspicious start.
174 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Navajos remembered these proceedings with much less enthusiasm than the U.S.
soldiers and commanders who participated in them. Few events, except perhaps
the 1930s Navajo Livestock Reduction program, hold such a prominent place in the
tribe’s oral histories. Of Carson’s expedition, Akinabh Burbank recounted that “it
was in the fall, when it was about to snow, that a frightened feeling settled among the
Navajo people—a feeling of danger from enemies.”150 Not long after this ominous
portent, soldiers approached from the eastern horizon. “Word was sent out warning
Diné that troops were on the move, destroying property, having no pity on anyone,”
Howard W. Gorman related.151 Many Navajos either abandoned their homes and
fields and fled the region or hid in caves hoping to elude capture. Those who did
surrender, according to Curly Tso, “were herded . . . like bunches of wild cattle, and
from there they were moved to Hwééldi [Bosque Redondo].” Many Navajos feared
that the government was relocating the tribe for the purpose of “killing them by
means of subjecting them to different diseases, starvation, and exposure.”152
Carson’s brutal campaigns took a toll, but the suffering grew worse once the Long
Walk commenced. Gorman’s grandparents “had to keep walking all the time, day
after day,” for nearly three weeks until reaching Bosque Redondo three hundred
miles away.153 “It was horrible the way they treated our people,” Tso explained.
“Some old handicapped people, and children who couldn’t make the journey,
were shot on the spot, and their bodies were left behind for crows and coyotes to
eat.”154 According to Florence Charley, “Women carried their babies on their backs
and walked all the way hundreds of miles. They didn’t know where they were
headed.”155 Traumatized families struggled to comprehend the underlying purposes
of the unlimited warfare being directed at them.156 Some blamed Mexicans and
Utes—both traditional enemies with whom the Navajos had quarreled for many
generations—for leading the army into Canyon de Chelly and helping to prosecute
the removal. Others, like Dugal Tsosie Begay and Eli Gorman, thought that their
own Navajo ancestors bore some responsibility. Begay believed that “it was our
own fault that we were rounded up and taken to Fort Sumner,” while Gorman
supposed that “the U.S. government was getting tired of the situation and looked
at the Navajos as real potential trouble-makers.”157
The trauma of the Long Walk paled in comparison to the ordeal that the Navajos
would face over the next four years at Hwééldi. From the onset the government
failed to appreciate the humanitarian difficulties and astronomical monetary costs
entailed in keeping over 8,000 hungry people on an overcrowded reservation.
Bosque Redondo sat in a remote area where insufficient food could be grown and
where meat and grain had to be shipped overland at great cost, which compounded
 The Civil War 175

those logistical problems. “After several years at Fort Sumner, life became very hard
for the Navajos,” Gorman explained. “There was no wood for fires; there weren’t
enough seeds to grow their crops, which hardly could grow in the poor ground,
anyway; and insects ate what did come up. The White Man used to kill cattle for
[the Navajos], but there was not enough meat to go around, just a small piece for
each person.”158
As the first Navajos arrived at Fort Sumner in October 1864, Superintendent of
Indian Affairs Michael Steck—an outspoken opponent of Carleton’s reservation
plan—foresaw the predicament that lay ahead. “I have, from the commencement
of the scheme to remove the tribe from their own country, protested against it,” he
grumbled. The military’s plan to detain so many Indians at such a poor location
would be a failure unless the War Department dispatched a proportional number
of troops to monitor the reservation. Steck also understood that, because of the
number of Navajos living there, Bosque Redondo would require “a larger sum
of money appropriated than I believe Congress will be willing to appropriate for
one tribe of Indians.”159 Whether he appreciated these dilemmas or not, Carleton
remained deeply committed to the project. When Steck began pressuring federal
administrators to abandon the experiment and send the tribe back to their home-
lands, Carleton furiously responded that “the Navajos should never leave the Bosque,
and never shall if I can prevent it.”160
As the project commenced Carleton believed that “there is no reason why [the
Navajos] will not be the most happy and prosperous and well-provided-for Indians
in the United States.”161 He even arranged for “sisters and lay brothers” to provide
their pietistic services, thinking that only a proper Christian education could
civilize the young generation and ensure a permanent end to the Navajo wars.
Foreshadowing Richard Henry Pratt’s Indian boarding school experiment at Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, Carleton asked Secretary of the Interior John Usher for approval to
build a school and dormitories near Fort Sumner. Missionaries could then begin
instructing approximately 3,000 Navajo children in reading, writing, and “the
truths of Christianity.”162 To occupy the parents while boys and girls attained
their enlightenment, Carleton proposed the construction of a gristmill so that
Navajos could produce their own flour and feed. The Indians would thereby learn
the value of hard work and become accustomed to the stationary and productive
lifestyle that Americans wished them to espouse.163 But reality quickly set in, and
the once-enthusiastic Carleton was forced to reckon with Bosque Redondo’s many
shortcomings. No other issue demanded as much public attention in New Mexico
as the controversy surrounding the reservation at Fort Sumner. After arriving in
176 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Navajos under armed guard at the Bosque Redondo Reservation.

Courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives,
New Mexico History Museum/DCA, Santa Fe (negative no. 028534).

Santa Fe in 1865, Interior Department agent Julius Graves found “the Indian ques-
tion the all absorbing topic of conversation among the entire community,” noting
that Carleton’s experiment on the Pecos River had become the subject of intense
disagreement throughout the territory.164
With so many Navajos having surrendered and the military operations against
them winding down, Carleton confidently assumed that “the great drain upon the
treasury, which has been kept up by these Indian Wars,” would come to an end.165
As all of this occurred, however, the nation remained embroiled in the Civil War
and federal leaders had far more pressing concerns than the disposition of an Indian
tribe in a remote territory. At first Congress humored Carleton and went along with
his plan, earmarking $100,000 in funding for the reservation in 1864. Hwééldi might
have remained fiscally sustainable if this level of appropriations had sufficed. That
same year, however, the 3,000-acre corn crop at Fort Sumner failed due to a worm
infestation. As maggots feasted on the Navajos’ maize, early frosts and hail storms
destroyed fields throughout northern New Mexico, and the entire territory descended
into hunger and hardship. The government would have to feed the Indians, but with
demand for food far outstripping local supply, officials had to obtain those provisions
elsewhere. After just four months of operation, the cost to purchase and import
grain and beef rations reached $400,000, with no end to the expenditures in sight.166
 The Civil War 177

In an alarming projection, Superintendent Steck estimated that the recurring

annual cost of providing food to all Navajos at the reservation would exceed $1.2
million, while others placed this estimate significantly higher. By 1866 the expense
of feeding nearly 9,000 Indians at Fort Sumner had reached $70,000 per month,
leading General William T. Sherman to remark nervously that War Department
coffers could not sustain such disbursements without additional congressional
appropriations. If the entire tribe of 12,000–14,000 souls reached Bosque Redondo—
and Carleton insisted that this must happen—Steck predicted that the yearly
expense would surpass $2.6 million.167 Referring specifically to New Mexico, the
commissioner of Indian affairs reported that “the care and control of the tribes of
this superintendency is enormously expensive to the government.”168
As Carleton continued to request massive appropriations to keep Bosque Redondo
running, he pushed his superiors beyond their limit. In a barrage of letters to Wash-
ington, D.C., he asked for money to buy two million pounds of bread, thousands
of agricultural implements like hoes and spades, and 4,000 beef cattle. He also
wanted a recurring annuity of $150,000 for clothing, along with extra funds to
pay the salaries of Indian agents, subagents, bookkeepers, supervisors, and other
administrators. Meanwhile, the military department faced the impending discharge
of Union troops whose terms of enlistment were due to expire. Fearing that the
territory might fall into a “defenseless condition” and that Navajos and Mescaleros
would be left unguarded at Fort Sumner, Carleton begged the adjutant general to
either extend soldier enlistments or send reinforcements.169 Politicians cringed at
the costs of sustaining Carleton’s project and believed that they could find more
useful ways to spend treasury money.170 Carleton had drastically underestimated
the expense of relocating the Navajos, and to compensate for that oversight he was
asking Congress for a king’s ransom. It became far more than federal bureaucrats
would—or even could—commit to a single Indian tribe, especially with the Civil
War still raging. By 1865 Indian Department personnel had begun pressuring the
secretary of the interior to abandon the experiment, recommending that the Navajos
be returned to a reservation “in their own country” to reduce annual appropriations
and promote “good policy, economy, and humanity.”171 Once again, New Mexico
was proving to be very costly for the United States government to manage.
Although Carleton’s oversight was eliminated when BIA officials assumed
jurisdiction over the reservation in 1867, little was done to allay the problems at
Fort Sumner. Superintendent A. B. Norton laid the matter bluntly before the com-
missioner of Indian affairs. He explained that Navajos relied on mesquite roots for
firewood, and they had to walk at least twenty-four miles round-trip to procure the
178 Coast-to-Coast Empire

precious commodity. Alkaline water in the Pecos valley sapped the soil’s fertility,
and an estimated one-quarter of the Indians suffered ailments from drinking the
brackish liquid.172 The hospital at Fort Sumner had been built to accommodate
twenty patients, but within one year the post surgeon was turning away many of
the approximately four hundred Navajos seeking treatment for the multifarious
illnesses that afflicted them. Each month—especially during the bleak winters
when food and forage were scarce—dozens of Navajos died.173 “What a beautiful
selection this is for a reservation,” Norton wrote with poignant satire. “It has cost
the government millions of dollars . . . as I verily believe, from first to last, over
$10,000,000.” He pointed out that no “white man” would ever live contentedly
under such deplorable conditions and demanded that the tribe be returned to their
homelands. “The idea of keeping these wild brutes of the forest, if you call them
not human beings, subjected to such torture is a disgrace to the age we live in and
to the government we support,” Norton concluded.174
By the time General Sherman and his team of peace commissioners arrived in
May 1868, hundreds of Indians had already perished from starvation and sickness.
“At Fort Sumner our people spent four years of a miserable life,” Navajo elder
Yasdesbah Silversmith said in a remarkably measured understatement. “Send us back
to Canyon de Chelly!” many Indians cried out as Sherman’s officers inspected the
woebegone reservation.175 In light of the extreme costs that the project continued
to incur, the U.S. government was finally willing to entertain the possibility of
abandoning Bosque Redondo.176 In reference to the expensive reservation, the
general once quipped that it would be cheaper to room and board the entire tribe
at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York City.177 With this and other considerations
in mind, Sherman helped to arrange the Navajo Treaty of June 1, 1868—the last
treaty ratified between the federal government and an Indian tribe—and sent the
Diné home by establishing a permanent reservation centered within their four sacred
peaks.178 One relieved Indian agent wrote three months later that the Navajos “are
now located upon a reservation in their old country . . . and are living peaceably,
happy, and contented.”179 Years of gut-wrenching hardship for the Indians and
dizzying expenditures for the federal government had come to an end.
While most of the Navajo tribe sat in confinement at Bosque Redondo, Kit
Carson led a third Indian campaign targeting Southern Plains tribes whose recent
depredations in the Texas panhandle had roused the military’s ire, an anger bolstered
by suspicions that they had aided Confederates by providing information on Union
troop movements.180 Carleton initially hoped to send 2,000 soldiers against the
Comanches and Kiowas, proposing that the two tribes be “so roughly handled as
 The Civil War 179

to make them refrain from these depredations for years to come.”181 Carson had
become Carleton’s foremost agent of conquest, but his November 1864 encounter
with a combined force of Kiowas and Comanches at the Adobe Walls trading
post would have a noticeably different outcome than the Mescalero and Navajo
campaigns that he previously commanded.182 Ongoing armed conflicts, coupled with
devastating smallpox epidemics during the Civil War years, had cut the Comanche
population to just 5,000 souls by the time Carson took the field.183 Still, the tribe
was a formidable fighting force, especially when allied with their Kiowa neighbors.
After a brief rendezvous at Fort Bascom, 335 California cavalrymen and New
Mexico volunteers took the field alongside 75 Ute and Jicarilla Apache auxiliaries,
hoping to strike the Indians during the difficult winter months. The colonel led
his column two hundred miles down the Canadian River before discovering, on
the morning of November 25, an Indian village upstream from Adobe Walls. The
soldiers impulsively attacked but met staunch resistance. Indian warriors “made
several severe charges” before the devastating fire of two mountain howitzers drove
them away. After a brief interlude during which a remarkably calm Carson ordered
his men to eat breakfast, a reinforced contingent of “at least 1,000 warriors” sur-
rounded the soldiers inside the adobe compound, and their situation suddenly
became dire. “The Indians charged so repeatedly and with such desperation that
for some time I had serious doubts for the safety” of the troops, Carson reported.
Incessant cannon fire ultimately repulsed the onslaught, and troops destroyed an
Indian village of 150 lodges before retreating toward safer ground. The campaign
suffered two soldiers killed and ten wounded, while Kiowa and Comanche forces
lost an estimated sixty men. “I must say they acted with more daring and bravery
than I have ever before witnessed,” Carson later admitted. He claimed the poor
condition of his horses and insufficient ammunition prevented pursuit of the Indians
after his troops had torched their village.184 Taking Carson for his word, Carleton
heaped lavish praise on his trusted Indian fighter, calling the engagement at Adobe
Walls a “brilliant affair.”185
A more accurate assessment of the battle emerged in a report that Carson submit-
ted after returning to Fort Bascom. The colonel suggested that a second expedition
be outfitted and dispatched, but he implicitly admitted failure by insisting that
seven hundred reinforcements and four additional cannons be sent to buttress his
manpower. At least one thousand troops would be needed, Carson believed, if he
was to have any hope of defeating the Kiowas and Comanches. He also demanded
that authorities suppress the Comanchero trade before sending him back afield,
pointing out that most of the guns, ammunition, and powder that the Indians
180 Coast-to-Coast Empire

used against him had been obtained from Nuevomexicanos bearing passes from
Superintendent Steck.186 The fact that a second expedition was needed, coupled
with a request that his force be quadrupled in size, indicated the true extent to
which he had vanquished his enemy. The soldiers under Carson’s command had in
fact been overwhelmed during the confrontation at Adobe Walls, and only the use
of heavy artillery had prevented a disaster that might have rivaled that of Custer’s
Seventh Cavalry at Little Bighorn twelve years later. When Major Edward Bergmann
parleyed with several Indian leaders in March 1865, he had orders from Carleton to
relay a potent message: “Tell the Comanche chiefs,” the department commander
instructed him, “that if they attack our trains [on the Santa Fe Trail] we will make
a war upon them which they will always remember.”187 Another decade would pass,
however, before the Comanches suffered their final military defeats at the Second
Battle of Adobe Walls and Palo Duro Canyon in 1874.188
As the Civil War drew to a close in March 1865, Congress appointed a special
commission to investigate Indian affairs. The voluminous testimony contained in
the Doolittle Report contradicted the claims of military officers and BIA agents
that efforts to subdue Indian groups had summarily failed. Instead, the evidence
unmasked the tremendous toll that decades of warfare had taken on the continent’s
tribes. With the exception of those living in Indian Territory, all other indigenous
groups were “rapidly decreasing in numbers,” the commissioners explained, noting
that a combination of disease, intemperance, warfare, and immigration had propa-
gated rapid demographic decline.189 Despite their staunch resistance to conquest and
settlement, New Mexico’s Indians fell gradually into that same cycle, as American
policy initiatives contributed to the battlefield losses that Southwestern tribes
sustained during the Civil War era. Although his prosecution of total warfare and
implementation of martial law made him one of the most hated men of his time,
Carleton accomplished more than any other official in the effort to secure New
Mexico for American expansion. When the Civil War ended, the territory remained
firmly under Union control, and regional tribes had suffered disastrous defeats that
forever altered Anglo-Indian relations, making Carleton one of the most influential
agents of empire that New Mexico had ever known.
Just as federal forces asserted an unprecedented aura of authority over territorial
Indian affairs, so too did they retain control of New Mexico in the face of Confeder-
ate onslaughts. In 1861 Henry Hopkins Sibley had commanded the second large
army to invade the region within fifteen years. In terms of imperialistic objectives,
military planning, and the number of troops involved, the Confederate expedition
bore striking similarities to that of Stephen Watts Kearny in 1846. In execution,
 The Civil War 181

however, Kearny and Sibley could hardly have achieved more dichotomous results.
In 1846 Missouri volunteers and U.S. dragoons met an untrained, poorly equipped
Mexican force under Manuel Armijo, an inept commander who surrendered Santa
Fe without resistance. In 1861 the Rebels faced a much more formidable force in
Canby’s Union regulars and Hispanic volunteers. The Confederate defeat had
been a cooperative effort in which Anglos and Hispanos joined for the first time
in unified military action against a common enemy. In the face of determined
opposition, Sibley failed where Kearny had succeeded, and the Confederate dream
of transcontinental empire dissolved in the early months of 1862.
In 1861, as in 1846, New Mexico fell into the sights of imaginative American
expansionists who saw the region as a pivotal component of their Manifest Destiny
schemes. When the Army of the West approached in August 1846, three decades
of merchant capitalism and American trade over the Santa Fe Trail had primed
the region for conquest, making Kearny’s mission the formal consummation of a
long process of indirect geopolitical incorporation. By the time Sibley’s Army of
New Mexico marched northward from El Paso in the winter of 1861–62, however,
social and political conditions had shifted dramatically throughout the Southwest.
Fifteen years under the banner of U.S. sovereignty had transformed many Hispanics
into loyal American citizens, and thousands of them answered the call to arms
at the onset of the Civil War. Even those New Mexicans who did not shoulder
a rifle helped to oppose the invasion by refusing to assist the Texans or provide
them with food and supplies. Within one year of the shelling of Fort Sumter in
South Carolina, Confederate leaders came to realize that Kearny’s feat could not
be duplicated. Their reliance on the conquest of New Mexico as a means toward
an imperial end meant that the Confederacy’s odds of winning independence
diminished as Sibley’s men retreated into Texas. Kearny’s successful mission during
the Mexican-American War had asserted New Mexico’s geopolitical importance
to the growing U.S. republic, and Sibley’s failed expedition during the Civil War
reaffirmed the region’s significance to the idea of a transcontinental empire.190
 1   2

Conclusion

N ever one to mince words, General William T. Sherman suggested in 1869 that
the federal government do away with the southwestern territories. The cost of
maintaining a standing army in that region was “out of all proportion to its value as
part of the public domain,” he remarked, wisecracking that “we had one war with
Mexico to take Arizona, and we should have another to make her take it back.”1
Despite this influential officer’s wishes, the effort to return “undesirable” land to
Mexico never materialized beyond the daydreams of disenchanted men burdened
with the oversight of government affairs in the area. The Desert Southwest was
simply too important to an expansionist nation, and the passage of time would
continue to meld New Mexico’s people and political institutions more tightly to
the American republic. Although merchants, soldiers, railroad capitalists, sectional
ideologues, and other newcomers to New Mexico succeeded in drawing the territory
into the United States prior to the Civil War, their efforts did not immediately
Americanize the Hispanic and Indian Southwest. The ensuing decades would be
fraught with additional struggles, as New Mexicans pursued statehood and economic
dynamism while the army continued to wage war on nomadic tribes.
Merchant capitalism, military occupation, political incorporation, economic
expansion, slavery debates, and the fighting that resulted from Southern secession
all exerted strong American influences over New Mexico in the decades after 1821.
Each of these events and processes permanently altered the territory’s political,
economic, social, and cultural institutions as it was absorbed into the United States.

182
 Conclusion 183

Concurrently, however, New Mexico had a reciprocal impact on its adoptive country
and played a prominent role in the sectional and secession crises of the mid-nineteenth
century. The area’s geographic importance as a connection between Texas and Cali-
fornia caused the North and South to vie for supremacy over these borderlands. As
Americans of different ideological and political persuasions grappled over the future
of New Mexico in terms of slavery and the railroad, the territory became enthralled
in the sectional debates that tore the nation asunder and drove it into the Civil War.
The Southwest’s role in bringing about the nation’s second democratic revolution
has long been underappreciated. Many events—Texas annexation, the Mexican-
American War, the Wilmot Proviso, California statehood, the release of Harriet
Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Pacific Railroad Surveys, Bleeding Kansas,
the Dred Scott case, John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, Southern filibustering
in Latin America, radical abolitionism and the publication of slave narratives, the
breakdown of the Second Party System and the demise of the Whig Party, the rise
of the Republican Party and subsequent election of Abraham Lincoln—have been
credited with bringing about Southern secession. What has received less attention,
however, is the important role that New Mexico played in the nation’s sectional
conundrum.
For many years leading up to the Civil War, Americans continued to view the
Hispanic Southwest as pivotal to their larger nation-building interests despite the
extreme costs and hardships entailed in retaining that territory. The large armed
force that Kearny led into Santa Fe in 1846, coupled with the remarkable extent to
which the federal government dedicated financial resources and military manpower
to the region, indicated the nation’s intent to hold New Mexico permanently. Tense
congressional debates over slavery in the Southwest and the ongoing competition for
the railway route in the 1850s demonstrated that Americans not only wanted physical
possession of the region but also meant to assert their ideologies and institutions
over its people. The bloody contest for control of New Mexico at the outset of the
Civil War reaffirmed this strong dedication, as northerners and southerners fought
hard to make the territory their own. Both the Union and the Confederacy sought
complete hegemony over the Southwest, recognizing its broader importance to the
achievement of a coast-to-coast empire. For more than four decades that quest proved
more difficult than most American expansionists anticipated, as New Mexico—with
its ethnically and culturally diverse population, unforgiving terrain, and geographic
isolation—did not lend itself easily to outside control. But despite the associated
burdens and costs, the United States and its agents of conquest worked assiduously
to realize an outcome favorable to the growing nineteenth-century American nation.
184 Coast-to-Coast Empire

Despite its frequent marginalization (and even condemnation by historical

observers), New Mexico played an important role in the sweeping nineteenth-
century transformations of American capitalism and democracy. As the United
States forged a continental empire, the Southwest borderlands served as a backdrop
for economic and demographic expansion and provided a geographic thoroughfare
to California and the Pacific coast. New Mexico’s southerly location along an inter-
national border, its adjacency to both slaveholding Texas and free-soil California,
and its predominantly Hispanic and Indian population ensured that the territory
would be a politically contentious possession for the American nation. Only after
the Civil War did those struggles subside, allowing New Mexico to shed its status
as a pawn in the sectional difficulties that defined the country at midcentury. But
from 1821 through the immediate postwar years the Southwest proved to be a
vexing political and financial concern for the growing United States as its leaders
attempted to assert control over the region’s land and people in advancement of
prevailing expansionist ideology. The fact that many Americans, from North and
South alike, exerted so much attention toward the possession and retention of New
Mexico demonstrates the territory’s overarching importance to national expansion
during the era of Manifest Destiny.
 1   2

Notes

Introduction

1. “Message of William Carr Lane to the Legislative Assembly,” Dec. 7, 1852, New Mexico
State Records Center and Archives, Territorial Archives of New Mexico (hereafter cited
as NMSRCA, TA), Roll 98. For a biographical sketch of Lane, see Calvin Horn, New
Mexico’s Troubled Years: The Story of the Early Territorial Governors (Albuquerque: Horn
& Wallace, 1963), 37–49.
2. A. B. Dyer to Col. Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA, Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1,
File 5.
3. Edward K. Eckert and Nicholas J. Amato, eds., Ten Years in the Saddle: The Memoir of
William Woods Averell (San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1978), 113. A jacal was a small residential
hut made of mud and sticks.
4. Report of William T. Sherman, Nov. 5, 1866, in 1866 Annual Report of the Secretary of War,
39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 22. On anti-Hispanic stereotypes, see
Raymund A. Paredes, “The Mexican Image in American Travel Literature, 1831–1869,”
New Mexico Historical Review 52 (Jan. 1977): 5–29; David J. Weber, “‘Scarce more than
apes’: Historical Roots of Anglo-American Stereotypes of Mexicans,” in New Spain’s
Far Northern Frontier: Essays on Spain in the American West, 1540–1821, ed. David J.
Weber (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979), 293–307.
5. “Message of William Carr Lane to the Legislative Assembly,” Dec. 7, 1852, NMSRCA,
TA, Roll 98.
6. Dr. A. Wislizenus, Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, Connected with Col. Doniphan’s
Expedition, in 1846 and 1847 (Washington, D.C.: Tippin & Streeper, 1848), 85–86.
7. Ross Calvin, ed., Lieutenant Emory Reports: Notes of a Military Reconnaissance (Albuquer-
que: University of New Mexico Press, 1951), 61; “Report of Thomas S. Jesup,” Oct. 8,

185
186 Notes

1847, in “Documents from War Department,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc.
1, pp. 233–34. On New Mexico’s climate and resources, see “Report of Lieut. J. W. Abert
of his Examination of New Mexico in the years 1846–47,” in “Report of the Secretary of
War,” Feb. 10, 1848, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 23, p. 1.
8. 1 853 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 33rd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1,
pp. 24–25; 1855 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 34th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec.
Doc. No. 1, pp. 15–16; “Necessity of a Military Road to the Pacific,” DeBow’s Review,
Nov. 1859, pp. 603–5; “Memorial of a Committee Appointed at a Railroad Convention,”
Dec. 27, 1852, 32nd Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Misc. Doc. No. 5, p. 3. See also Alvin M.
Josephy Jr., The Civil War in the American West (New York: Knopf, 1991), 11–12.
9. “Message from the President of the United States,” Dec. 5, 1848, 30th Cong., 2nd Sess.,
House Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 9, 13–15.
10. “Message of the President of the United States, New Mexico and California,” July 24,
1848, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 70, pp. 6–7; James Buchanan to William V.
Vorhies, Oct. 7, 1848, “Correspondence Relating to Civil Government in California and
New Mexico,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 1, p. 47; James Madison Cutts,
The Conquest of California and New Mexico, by the Forces of the United States, in the Years
1846 and 1847 (Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1847), 3.
11. J. D. B. DeBow, “How California Progresses,” in DeBow’s Review, Dec. 1857, pp. 640–44,
quotation on 640; John F. Kvach, DeBow’s Review: The Antebellum Vision of a New South
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2013), 62. On DeBow generally, see ibid.,
1–10.
12. On American expansion into Texas, see Andrew J. Torget, Seeds of Empire: Cotton,
Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800–1850 (Chapel Hill: Uni-
versity of North Carolina Press, 2015), 9–14.
13. Thomas Hart Benton, Speech of Mr. Benton, of Missouri, on the Oregon Question: Delivered
in the Senate of the United States, May 22, 25, & 28, 1846 (Washington, D.C.: Blair & Rives,
1846); “New Year’s Address,” Santa Fe Republican, Jan. 1, 1848. On Manifest Destiny, see
Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American
History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1935); Gene M. Brack, Mexico Views
Manifest Destiny, 1821–1846: An Essay on the Origins of the Mexican War (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1975); Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The
Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1981); Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian
America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), 173–214; Richard Kluger, Seizing
Destiny: How America Grew from Sea to Shining Sea (New York: Knopf, 2007); Amy
S. Greenberg, A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico
(New York: Knopf, 2012). There has been some scholarly dispute on the origins of the
phrase “Manifest Destiny.” See Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The
Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 703.
14. “Message from the President of the United States,” March 24, 1846, 29th Cong., 1st
Sess., Senate Doc. No. 248; Wislizenus, Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, 84–85;
Cutts, Conquest of California and New Mexico, 16, 23.
 Notes 187

15. See Steven Hahn, “The Widest Implications of Disorienting the Civil War Era,” in Civil
War Wests: Testing the Limits of the United States, eds. Adam Arenson and Andrew R.
Graybill (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 271. On the impact of these
processes in early America, see Howe, What Hath God Wrought.
16. Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom
(Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013), 366–94; Calvin
Schermerhorn, The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism, 1815–1860
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), 229–32. See also Robert E. May, Manifest
Destiny’s Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2002).
17. 1857 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 35th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No.
11, pp. 6–9; 1858 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 35th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate
Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 7. On the Mormon conflict, see David L. Bigler and Will Bagley,
The Mormon Rebellion: America’s First Civil War, 1857–1858 (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 2011); Durwood Ball, Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 1848–1861
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001), 153–71.
18. R ichard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America
(New York: Norton, 2011), 1–38; Howard R. Lamar, The Far Southwest, 1846–1912: A
Territorial History (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000), 265–306.
19. James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest
Borderlands (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); William S. Kiser,
“‘A charming name for a species of slavery’: Political Debate over Debt Peonage in the
Southwest, 1840s–1860s,” Western Historical Quarterly 45, no. 2 (Summer 2014): 169–89;
William S. Kiser, Borderlands of Slavery: The Struggle over Captivity and Peonage in the
American Southwest (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017).
20. David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 (New York: Harper & Row, 1973);
Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s (New York: Norton, 1978).
21. William R. Brock, Parties and Political Conscience: American Dilemmas, 1840–1850
(Millwood, NY: KTO Press, 1979); Christopher Childers, The Failure of Popular Sover-
eignty: Slavery, Manifest Destiny, and the Radicalization of Southern Politics (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 2012); William H. Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the
American West, 1803–1863 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), 209–340.
22. Johnson, River of Dark Dreams; Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery
and the Making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014); Schermerhorn,
Business of Slavery.
23. William G. Robbins, Colony and Empire: The Capitalist Transformation of the American
West (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994); Stephen G. Hyslop, Bound for Santa
Fe: The Road to New Mexico and the American Conquest, 1806–1848 (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 2002).
24. Megan Kate Nelson, “Death in the Distance: Confederate Manifest Destiny and the
Campaign for New Mexico, 1861–1862,” in Arenson and Graybill, Civil War Wests, 36.
25. Loomis M. Ganaway, New Mexico and the Sectional Controversy, 1846–1861 (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1944); Robert W. Larson, New Mexico’s Quest for
188 Notes

Statehood, 1846–1912 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968); Alvin

R. Sunseri, Seeds of Discord: New Mexico in the Aftermath of the American Conquest,
1846–1861 (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1979); Mark J. Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and
the Compromise of 1850: Boundary Dispute and Sectional Crisis (Kent, OH: Kent State
University Press, 1996); Lamar, The Far Southwest.
26. Jack D. Rittenhouse, The Constitution of the State of New Mexico, 1850 (Santa Fe: Stage-
coach, 1965); Mark Stegmaier, “A Law that Would Make Caligula Blush? New Mexico
Territory’s Unique Slave Code, 1859–1861,” New Mexico Historical Review 87 (Spring
2012): 209–42; Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the American West; Josephy, Civil War
in the American West, 11–30; Donald S. Frazier, Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire
in the Southwest (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1995), 13.
27. David J. Weber, The Mexican Frontier, 1821–1846: The American Southwest under Mexico
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982); David Montejano, Anglos and
Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836–1986 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987);
Andrés Reséndez, Changing National Identities at the Frontier: Texas and New Mexico,
1800–1850 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
28. See Reséndez, Changing National Identities, 93–123.
29. Averam B. Bender, The March of Empire: Frontier Defense in the Southwest, 1848–1860
(Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1952); William S. Keleher, Turmoil in New
Mexico, 1846–1868 (Santa Fe: Rydal Press, 1952); Robert M. Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue:
The United States Army and the Indian, 1848–1865 (New York: MacMillan, 1967); Frank
McNitt, Navajo Wars: Military Campaigns, Slave Raids, and Reprisals (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1972); Robert W. Frazer, Forts and Supplies: The Role
of the Army in the Economy of the Southwest, 1846–1861 (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1983); Ball, Army Regulars on the Western Frontier; James M. McCaffrey,
Army of Manifest Destiny: The American Soldier in the Mexican War, 1846–1848 (New
York: New York University Press, 1992); Robert Wooster, The American Military Frontiers:
The United States Army in the West, 1783–1900 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 2009); William S. Kiser, Dragoons in Apacheland: Conquest and Resistance in
Southern New Mexico, 1846–1861 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012); Jerry D.
Thompson, A Civil War History of the New Mexico Volunteers and Militia (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 2015).
30. Charles Montgomery, The Spanish Redemption: Heritage, Power, and Loss on New Mexico’s
Upper Rio Grande (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 39, 52–53, quotations
on 39.

Chapter 1

1. Elliott Coues, ed., The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, vol. 2 (1895; reprint,
New York: Dover, 1987), 608–9; Zebulon M. Pike to Nemesio Salcedo, April 4, 1807, in
Donald Jackson, ed., The Journals of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, with Letters and Related
Documents (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), 2:173–78; Memorandum
of Joaquín del Real Alencaster, April 10, 1807, ibid., 2:193–95. See also Robert Glass
 Notes 189

Cleland, This Reckless Breed of Men: The Trappers and Fur Traders of the Southwest (New
York: Knopf, 1950), 121–22; Max L. Moorhead, New Mexico’s Royal Road: Trade and
Travel on the Chihuahua Trail (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958), 57–58;
Stephen G. Hyslop, Bound for Santa Fe: The Road to New Mexico and the American
Conquest, 1806–1848 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002), 3–20.
2. “A Memorial to the Congress relative to the Santa Fe trade,” Dec. 27, 1838, in 26th
Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 472, p. 5.
3. A lencaster to Nemesio Salcedo, April 15, 1807, in Jackson, Journals of Zebulon Montgomery
Pike, 2:197–200, quotation on 199–200.
4. Moorhead, New Mexico’s Royal Road, 85–86, 186–90; James Josiah Webb, Adventures
in the Santa Fe Trade, 1844–1847, ed. Ralph P. Bieber (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark,
1931), 101. See also “Alphonso Wetmore’s Report,” Oct. 11, 1831, in “Message from the
President of the United States,” 22nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 90, p. 32.
5. Coues, Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, 2:738–40. See also W. Eugene Hollon,
The Lost Pathfinder: Zebulon Montgomery Pike (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1949); George R. Matthews, Zebulon Pike: Thomas Jefferson’s Agent for Empire (Santa
Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2016).
6. Missouri Gazette, Oct. 9, 1813.
7. “Message from the President of the United States . . . Relative to the Arrest and Imprison-
ment of Certain American Citizens at Santa Fe,” 15th Cong., 1st Sess., April 15, 1818,
House Doc. No. 197, pp. 9–13.
8. A. P. Chouteau and Julius Demun to Henry Clay, May 3, 1825, “Message from the President
of the United States,” 24th Cong., 1st Sess., Unspecified Doc. No. 400, quotation on 2;
“Message from the President of the United States,” 15th Cong., 1st Sess., April 15, 1818,
House Doc. No. 197, pp. 14–23, quotations on 17, 22; “Relations with Mexico,” Congressional
Globe, 25th Cong., 2nd Sess., April 11, 1838, p. 300; “Internal Trade with Mexico,” Gales
and Seaton’s Register of Debates in Congress, 18th Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 25, 1825, p. 344;
Chouteau to Lewis Cass, Nov. 12, 1831, “Message from the President of the United States,”
22nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 90, pp. 60–61. See also Cleland, This Reckless Breed
of Men, 123–26; Anne F. Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families: A New History of the North
American West, 1800–1860 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 6–8, 40–43.
9. David Meriwether, My Life in the Mountains and on the Plains: The Newly Discovered
Autobiography, ed. Robert A. Griffen (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965),
82–103, quotations on 87, 90.
10. “Trade and Intercourse between Missouri and the Internal Provinces of Mexico,” Jan. 3,
1825, 18th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 7; Moorhead, New Mexico’s Royal Road,
67.
11. See Marc Simmons, “The Chacón Economic Report of 1803,” New Mexico Historical
Review 60 (Jan. 1985): 81–88; “1812 Exposition of Pedro Bautista Pino,” in David J. Weber,
Foreigners in Their Native Land: Historical Roots of the Mexican Americans (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1973), 41. See also Susan Calafate Boyle, Los Capitalistas:
Hispano Merchants and the Santa Fe Trade (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 1997), 1–13; Weber, The Mexican Frontier, 1–14.
190 Notes

12. See Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families, 6–8.

13. “Treaty of Amity, commerce, and navigation, between the United States of America
and the United Mexican States, concluded on the 5th of April, 1831,” 22nd Cong., 1st
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 11.
14. See, for example, “Report of Commissioners,” Oct. 27, 1827, in Kate L. Gregg, ed., The
Road to Santa Fe: The Journal and Diaries of George Champlin Sibley and Others Pertaining
to the Surveying and Marking of a Road from the Missouri Frontier to the Settlements of
New Mexico, 1825–1827 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1952), 210.
15. “Trade and Intercourse between Missouri and Mexico,” Jan. 3, 1825, 18th Cong., 2nd
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 7, p. 8; “Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of the State of
Missouri,” Feb. 14, 1825, 18th Cong., 2nd Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 79.
16. Larry Beachum, William Becknell: Father of the Santa Fe Trade (El Paso: Texas Western
Press, 1982), 17–19; Cleland, This Reckless Breed of Men, 131.
17. Josiah Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, ed. Max L. Moorhead (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1954), 332; “Extending Privilege of Drawback,” March 8, 1842, 27th
Cong., 2nd Sess., House Report No. 328, p. 17; “A Memorial to the Congress relative
to the Santa Fe trade,” Dec. 27, 1838, 26th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 472, p. 6;
George C. Sibley to Owen Simpson, May 1, 1825, in K. Gregg, Road to Santa Fe, 214–15;
“Trade and Intercourse between Missouri and Mexico,” Jan. 3, 1825, 18th Cong., 2nd
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 7, p. 3; Wetmore to John Scott, Aug. 19, 1824, in “Petition
of Sundry Inhabitants of the State of Missouri,” Feb. 14, 1825, 18th Cong., 2nd Sess.,
House Exec. Doc. No. 79, p. 6. On the experimental nature of the trade, see “Alphonso
Wetmore’s Report,” Oct. 11, 1831, 22nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 90, pp. 30–31.
For an analysis of an 1820s-era expedition on the trail, see David J. Weber, “Señor
Escudero Goes to Washington: Diplomacy, Indians, and the Santa Fe Trade,” Western
Historical Quarterly 43 (Winter 2012): 417–35.
18. “Trade and Intercourse between Missouri and Mexico,” Jan. 3, 1825, 18th Cong., 2nd
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 7, p. 7. Josiah Gregg noted in 1844 that “the arrival of
a caravan at Santa Fe changes the aspect of the place at once. Instead of the idleness
and stagnation which its streets exhibited before, one now sees everywhere the bustle,
noise and activity of a lively market town.” Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 80. See
also Weber, The Mexican Frontier, 125–30.
19. David J. Weber, ed., Arms, Indians, and the Mismanagement of New Mexico: Donaciano
Vigil, 1846 (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1986), 4.
20. The classic account of the fur trade is Hiram Martin Chittenden, The American Fur
Trade of the Far West, 2 vols. (Stanford, CA: Academic Reprints, 1954).
21. “ Message from the President of the United States,” 15th Cong., 1st Sess., April 15, 1818,
House Doc. No. 197, p. 18.
22. Cleland, This Reckless Breed of Men, 56–57; David J. Weber, The Taos Trappers: The Fur
Trade in the Far Southwest, 1540–1846 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971);
Weber, The Mexican Frontier, 130–34.
23. Cleland, This Reckless Breed of Men, 121; Weber, The Taos Trappers, 229; Lamar, The Far
Southwest, 37–41.
 Notes 191

24. See Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families.

25. John E. Sunder, ed., Matt Field on the Santa Fe Trail (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1960), 213.
26. See Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 228–34. For New Mexico marriages, see Ramón A.
Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power
in New Mexico, 1500–1846 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991), 271–97.
27. Benton, Speech of Mr. Benton, 30.
28. “A Memorial to the Congress relative to the Santa Fe trade,” Dec. 27, 1838, in 26th
Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 472, p. 7.
29. Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 78–80; Rebecca McDowell Craver, The Impact of
Intimacy: Mexican-Anglo Intermarriage in New Mexico, 1821–1846 (El Paso: Texas Western
Press, 1982), 5–8, 49–57. See also Janet Lecompte, “The Independent Women of Hispanic
New Mexico, 1821–1846,” Western Historical Quarterly 12 (Jan. 1981): 17–35; Reséndez,
Changing National Identities, 81.
30. Craver, Impact of Intimacy, 9–10, 27–29; Weber, The Taos Trappers, esp. ch. 11; Cleland,
This Reckless Breed of Men, 210–11.
31. See George J. Sánchez, Becoming Mexican-American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity
in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Anthony
Mora, Border Dilemmas: Racial and National Uncertainties in New Mexico, 1848–1912
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011).
32. Craver, Impact of Intimacy, 31–36; Weber, The Taos Trappers, esp. ch. 11; Barton H.
Barbour, “Kit Carson and the ‘Americanization’ of New Mexico,” in New Mexican
Lives: Profiles and Historical Stories, ed. Richard W. Etulain (Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press, 2002), 163–92.
33. Reséndez, Changing National Identities, 248–49.
34. Ibid., 34, 37; Charles Montgomery, The Spanish Redemption: Heritage, Power, and Loss
on New Mexico’s Upper Rio Grande (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 41.
35. Torget, Seeds of Empire, 62–66.
36. See Brian DeLay, War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-Mexican War
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).
37. Reséndez, Changing National Identities, 93, 118, 123; Weber, The Taos Trappers; Moorhead,
New Mexico’s Royal Road, 124; Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Personal Narrative
of James O. Pattie of Kentucky (Cleveland, OH: Arthur H. Clark, 1905), 77. See also
Andrés Reséndez, “National Identity on a Shifting Border: Texas and New Mexico in
the Age of Transition, 1821–1848,” Journal of American History 86 (Sept. 1999): 668–88.
For economic disparities between the United States and Mexico, see Thomas D. Hall,
Social Change in the Southwest, 1350–1880 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989),
181.
38. “Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of the State of Missouri,” Feb. 14, 1825, 18th Cong., 2nd
Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 79, p. 5.
39. A. McNair to J. Q. Adams, April 27, 1824, in Annals of Congress, May 1824, pp. 2703–4.
40. “Internal Trade with Mexico,” Gales and Seaton’s Register of Debates in Congress, 18th
Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 25, 1825, p. 344.
192 Notes

41. “Inland Trade between Missouri and Mexico,” ibid., Jan. 3, 1825, pp. 109–10.
42. “Inland Trade with Mexico,” ibid., Jan. 25, 1825, p. 345.
43. “Petition of Sundry Inhabitants of the State of Missouri,” Feb. 14, 1825, 18th Cong., 2nd
Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 79, p. 6.
44. “Trade and Intercourse between Missouri and Mexico,” Jan. 3, 1825, 18th Cong., 2nd
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 7, p. 6.
45. Report of Secretary of War Lewis Cass, Feb. 8, 1832, in “Message from the President
of the United States,” Feb. 9, 1832, 22nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 90, p.
33; Moorhead, New Mexico’s Royal Road, 187–89.
46. Moorhead, New Mexico’s Royal Road, 189; Henry Pickering Walker, The Wagonmasters:
High Plains Freighting from the Earliest Days of the Santa Fe Trail to 1880 (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), 45; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 502–4.
47. Hall, Social Change in the Southwest, 151, 198; Schermerhorn, Business of Slavery, 26.
48. “Trade and Intercourse between Missouri and Mexico,” Jan. 3, 1825, 18th Cong., 2nd
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 7, p. 6.
49. R ichard L. Wilson and Benjamin F. Taylor, Short Ravelings from a Long Yarn, or, Camp
and March Sketches, of the Santa Fe Trail (Chicago: Geer & Wilson, 1847), 151; Gregg,
Commerce of the Prairies, 79–80, 159–63, 262.
50. “Trade and Intercourse between Missouri and Mexico,” Jan., 1825, 18th Cong., 2nd
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 7, pp. 6–7.
51. Wetmore to Cass, Oct. 22, 1831, in “Message from the President of the United States,”
Feb. 9, 1832, 22nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 90, p. 33.
52. Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 336; Webb, Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade. On New
Mexico trade regulations, see Boyle, Los Capitalistas, 19–21; Weber, The Mexican Frontier,
147–57.
53. Cleland, This Reckless Breed of Men, 212. In 1826 New Mexico issued fifty-nine guías,
and in 1827 it granted twenty-six. “Notebook of Guías 1826–1827,” NMSRCA, Mexican
Archives of New Mexico, Roll 6, Frames 472–512.
54. Cleland, This Reckless Breed of Men, 218–19.
55. Wilson and Taylor, Short Ravelings, 129–30, 140–41, quotation on 141. See also Sunder,
Matt Field on the Santa Fe Trail, 221–25; Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 265–68. For
scholarly accounts, see Walker, The Wagonmasters, 137–40; Moorhead, New Mexico’s
Royal Road, 123–51; Boyle, Los Capitalistas, 45–56.
56. Proceedings against Silvester Pratt, Nov. 12, 1826–Aug. 8, 1827, NMSRCA, Mexican
Archives of New Mexico, Roll 5, Frames 1321–90; Proceedings re: the legality of beaver
pelts, Feb. 23, 1828–April 10, 1828, ibid., Roll 8, Frames 371–437; Proceedings re: trap-
ping of nutria by extranjeros, June 4, 1828–June 14, 1828, ibid., Roll 8, Frames 475–503;
Proceedings against Ira A. Emmons, April 23, 1827–March 2, 1829, ibid., Roll 7, Frames
204–6; Ewing Young Contraband Proceedings, July 12, 1832–July 25, 1832, ibid., Roll
15, Frames 162–68.
57. “Inland Trade between Missouri and Mexico,” Gales and Seaton’s Register of Debates in
Congress, 18th Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 3, 1825, pp. 109–10.
58. Hall, Social Change in the Southwest, 197.
 Notes 193

59. “Inland Trade with Mexico,” Gales and Seaton’s Register of Debates in Congress, 18th
Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 25, 1825, p. 347.
60. “Report of the Commissioners,” Oct. 27, 1827, in Gregg, Road to Santa Fe, 204.
61. “Internal Trade with Mexico,” Gales and Seaton’s Register of Debates in Congress, 18th
Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 25, 1825, pp. 341–44.
62. Ibid., Jan. 26, 1825, p. 356.
63. I bid., 359.
64. Ibid., 361; Moorhead, New Mexico’s Royal Road, 67–68; Gregg, Road to Santa Fe, 3–7;
Walker, The Wagonmasters, 19–22.
65. George C. Sibley to Owen Simpson, May 1, 1825, in Gregg, Road to Santa Fe, 216.
66. “Alphonso Wetmore’s Report,” Oct. 11, 1831, 22nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No.
90, p. 32. See also Moorhead, New Mexico’s Royal Road, 145–46.
67. Henry Clay to Joel Poinsett, Sept. 24, 1825, in American State Papers, Foreign Relations
(Cornelius Wendell, 1859), 6:581–82.
68. “Report of the Commissioners,” Oct. 27, 1827, in Gregg, Road to Santa Fe, 8–48, 116,
199.
69. I bid., 111–18.
70. Ibid., 118, 134–35.
71. P oinsett to Sibley, Dec. 3, 1825, in ibid., 267n.137.
72. “Report of the Commissioners,” Oct. 27, 1827, in ibid., 201, 232–33.
73. Ibid., 203–5.
74. Benton to Sibley, June 30, 1825, in Gregg, Road to Santa Fe, 213. See also Hyslop, Bound
for Santa Fe, 48–49.
75. See Frazer, Forts and Supplies, 34–36, 40–42; Leo E. Oliva, Soldiers on the Santa Fe Trail
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967).
76. “Internal Trade with Mexico,” Gales and Seaton’s Register of Debates in Congress, 18th
Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 25, 1825, pp. 344–46.
77. “Report of the Commissioners,” Oct. 27, 1827, in Gregg, Road to Santa Fe, 206, 210.
Emphasis in original.
78. “Treaties with Sundry Indian Tribes,” Jan. 11, 1826, 19th Cong., 1st Sess., Treaty and
Nomination Reports and Documents; “Treaties with the Kansas and Osage Indians,”
Jan. 30, 1826, 19th Cong., 1st Sess., Treaty and Nomination Reports and Documents.
On the treaties generally, see Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families, 294–98.
79. Senate Report, Dec. 30, 1847, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Rep. Com. No. 11; Gregg,
Commerce of the Prairies, 428. For more on Indian depredations on the Santa Fe Trail,
see “Alphonso Wetmore’s Report,” Oct. 11, 1831, 22nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc.
No. 90, pp. 31, 40; Johnathan Dougherty to William Clark, Oct. 25, 1831, in ibid., 52;
Oliva, Soldiers on the Santa Fe Trail, 93–130; William Y. Chalfant, Dangerous Passage:
The Santa Fe Trail and the Mexican War (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994),
21–27; Walker, The Wagonmasters, 255–63.
80. Cleland, This Reckless Breed of Men, 117–20.
81. Table of men killed or robbed by Indians, in “Message from the President of the United
States,” 22nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 90, pp. 81–86.
194 Notes

82. Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 19.

83. Forsyth to Cass, Oct. 24, 1831, in “Message from the President of the United States,”
22nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 90, pp. 75–76.
84. K iser, Dragoons in Apacheland, 20–21.
85. Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 19–21. On military escorts, see Robert M. Utley, Fort
Union and the Santa Fe Trail (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1989), 12–17; Oliva, Soldiers
on the Santa Fe Trail, 25–54; Walker, The Wagonmasters, 230–38; Chalfant, Dangerous
Passage.
86. “Reorganization of the Army,” Congressional Globe, 27th Cong., 2nd Sess., Aug. 3, 1842,
p. 838.
87. William Gilpin to Roger Jones, Aug. 1, 1848, in “Documents from War Department,”
30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 1, p. 139.
88. 1850 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 31st Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No.
5, p. 4.
89. Collins to A. B. Greenwood, Dec. 5, 1859, in “Indian Hostilities in New Mexico,” 36th
Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 69, pp. 48–49.
90. E . B. Alexander to L. McLaws, May 24, 1850, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll
2; A. E. Burnside to John Ward, May 23, 1850, ibid.; John Munroe to J. McDowell,
May 23, 1850, in Annie H. Abel, ed., The Official Correspondence of James S. Calhoun
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1915), 207–8.
91. “Message from the President of the United States,” Dec. 2, 1850, 31st Cong., 2nd Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 11.
92. “Memorial to Congress,” Feb. 9, 1857, NA, RG46, Territorial Papers of the U.S. Senate,
New Mexico 1840–1854, M200, Roll 14.
93. K iser, Dragoons in Apacheland, 60–62, 89–123. For military activities on the southern
plains, see Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue, 108–41.
94. “Internal Improvements since 1824,” 20th Cong., 2nd Sess., House Doc. No. 7; “Message
from the President of the United States,” Feb. 10, 1829, 20th Cong., 2nd Sess., Unspecified
Doc. No. 69, pp. 7, 14, 21; “Internal Improvements,” Jan. 5, 1831, 21st Cong., 2nd Sess.,
House Exec. Doc. No. 30, p. 17; “Expenditures for Internal Improvements,” Dec. 11,
1834, 23rd Cong., 2nd Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 18, p. 12.
95. “Alphonso Wetmore’s Report,” Oct. 11, 1831, 22nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 90,
pp. 32–33; “A Memorial to the Congress relative to the Santa Fe trade,” Dec. 27, 1838,
in 26th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 472; “Memorial of the General Assembly of
Missouri,” Feb. 16, 1839, 25th Cong., 3rd Sess., Senate Doc. No. 225; “Extending Privilege
of Drawback,” March 8, 1842, 27th Cong., 2nd Sess., House Report No. 328; “Message
of the President,” Congressional Globe, 26th Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 5, 1841, p. 6. See also
Drawback Bills of Dec. 14, 1840; Dec. 14, 1841; Dec. 14, 1842; Jan. 20, 1843; and Jan. 6,
1845, all in NA, RG46, Territorial Papers of the U.S. Senate, New Mexico 1840–1854,
M200, Roll 14.
96. On drawback and debenture as they pertained to the Santa Fe trade, see Moorhead,
New Mexico’s Royal Road, 72–74, 93–94; Thomas E. Chávez, Manuel Alvarez, 1794–1856:
A Southwestern Biography (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1990), 87–88.
 Notes 195

97. “A Memorial to the Congress relative to the Santa Fe trade,” Dec. 27, 1838, in 26th
Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 472, pp. 6–7, quotation on 7.
98. “Extending Privilege of Drawback,” March 8, 1842, 27th Cong., 2nd Sess., House Report
No. 328, p. 18.
99. Moorhead, New Mexico’s Royal Road, 75.
100. “Extending Privilege of Drawback,” March 8, 1842, 27th Cong., 2nd Sess., House
Report No. 328, p. 18.
101. Inaugural Address of Mirabeau B. Lamar, Dec. 19, 1838, in Charles A. Gulick Jr. and
Katherine Elliott, The Papers of Mirabeau Buonapart Lamar (Austin, TX: J. C. Baldwin
& Sons 1922), 2:320.
102. “Santa Fe Expedition,” Congressional Globe, 27th Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 14, 1842, pp.
131–32. The classic account of the expedition is George Wilkins Kendall, Narrative of
the Texan–Santa Fe Expedition (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1844). See also Thomas
Falconer, Letters and Notes of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, 1841–1842 (New York:
Dauber & Pine, 1930); Noel M. Loomis, The Texan–Santa Fe Pioneers (Norman: Uni-
versity of Oklahoma Press, 1958); Fayette Copeland, Kendall of the Picayune: Being His
Adventures in New Orleans, on the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, in the Mexican War, and
in the Colonization of the Texas Frontier (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1943),
57–107. On the role of Texas, see Hall, Social Change in the Southwest, 185–89, 199.
103. “General Appropriation Bill,” Congressional Globe, 27th Cong., 2nd Sess., April 15, 1842,
p. 428; “In Senate,” ibid., July 14, 1842, p. 752.
104. Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 344.
105. “Speech of Mr. Benton of Missouri, Annexation of Texas,” Congressional Globe, 28th
Cong., 1st Sess., May 1844, Appendix, 485.
106. Ibid., 475–79. On the Texas boundary claims, see Robert W. Larson, New Mexico’s
Quest for Statehood, 1846–1912 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968),
15–23; Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850, 7–62.
107. Congressional Globe, 28th Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 15, 1845, pp. 367–71; ibid., Jan. 1845,
Appendix, 336; ibid., Feb. 25, 1845, p. 347.
108. I bid., Jan. 1845, Appendix, 108.
109. Daniel H. Usner Jr., Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The
Lower Mississippi Valley before 1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1992).
110. See Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 333–36.
111. Moorhead, New Mexico’s Royal Road, 28–55, 194; John O. Baxter, Las Carneradas:
Sheep Trade in New Mexico, 1700–1860 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
1987), 62–80; Hall, Social Change in the Southwest, 146–57; Ross Frank, From Settler
to Citizen: New Mexican Economic Development and the Creation of Vecino Society,
1750–1820 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 119–75, 226. For an analysis
of the New Mexico economy that emphasizes the role of Indians, see Brooks, Captives
and Cousins, 208–28.
112. See Reséndez, Changing National Identities, 123; Hall, Social Change in the Southwest,
154–55, 199–200.
196 Notes

113. Boyle, Los Capitalistas, 57–72, 89–99; Reséndez, Changing National Identities, 101.
114. “A Memorial to the Congress relative to the Santa Fe trade,” Dec. 27, 1838, in 26th
Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 472, pp. 7–8.
115. McNitt, Navajo Wars, 52–91; Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 250–54.
116. Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 332; Reséndez, Changing National Identities, 249;
Montgomery, The Spanish Redemption, 40–41; Walker, The Wagonmasters, 294. For the
impact of capitalism in New Mexico, see Deena J. González, Refusing the Favor: The
Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820–1880 (New York: Oxford University Press,
1999), 41–43.
117. See Hall, Social Change in the Southwest, 167–200.

Chapter 2

1. George Croghan, Army Life on the Western Frontier: Selections from the Official Reports
Made between 1826 and 1845, ed. Francis Paul Prucha (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1958), 43nn.140–43; Susan Shelby Magoffin, Down the Santa Fe Trail and into
Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846–1847, ed. Stella M. Drumm (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1926), 106. See also Cutts, Conquest of California and
New Mexico, 33–35. For a biographical account, see Dwight L. Clarke, Stephen Watts
Kearny: Soldier of the West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961).
2. Calvin, Lieutenant Emory Reports, 30–31; Keleher, Turmoil in New Mexico, 3–35; Oliva,
Soldiers on the Santa Fe Trail, 55–76; Chalfant, Dangerous Passage, 3–20; Hyslop, Bound
for Santa Fe, 325–69; Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families, 378–88.
3. “Messages of the President of the United States,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec.
Doc. 60, p. 155.
4. Ibid., 153–55. See also Milo Milton Quaife, ed., The Diary of James K. Polk during His
Presidency, 1845 to 1849 (Chicago: A. C. McClung, 1910), 1:443.
5. On the antiwar movement, see Amy S. Greenberg, A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln,
and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico (New York: Knopf, 2012).
6. Quaife, Diary of James K. Polk, 2:289; John J. Farrell, ed., James K. Polk, 1795–1849:
Chronology-Documents-Bibliographic Aides (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana, 1970), 32.
7. Congressional Globe, 29th Cong., 2nd Sess., Appendix, Feb. 10, 1847, p. 337.
8. Ibid., Feb. 13, 1847, p. 204.
9. I bid., 368.
10. Clarke, Stephen Watts Kearny, 3–10, 57, 69, 101–45; Lamar, The Far Southwest, 52; “Mes-
sages of the President of the United States,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 60,
p. 170. On the Army of the West, see John T. Hughes, Doniphan’s Expedition: Containing
an Account of the Conquest of New Mexico; General Kearny’s Overland Expedition to
California; Doniphan’s Campaign against the Navajos; His Unparalleled March upon
Chihuahua and Durango; and the Operations of General Price at Santa Fe (Cincinnati:
J. A. and U. P. James, 1848), 35; George Rutledge Gibson, Journal of a Soldier under
Kearny and Doniphan, 1846–1847, ed. Ralph P. Bieber (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark,
1935), 125–26; Ralph Emerson Twitchell, Leading Facts of New Mexican History (Cedar
 Notes 197

Rapids, IA: Torch Press, 1912), 2:213n.150. For a transnational history of the occupation,
see Reséndez, Changing National Identities, 237–63.
11. Scott to Kearny, Nov. 3, 1846, in “Messages of the President of the United States,” 30th
Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 60, p. 164.
12. “Message from the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress,” Dec.
8, 1846, 29th Cong., 2nd Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 4, pp. 21–22. See also Quaife,
Diary of James K. Polk, 2:169–70.
13. Kearny to Armijo, Aug. 1, 1846, in Max L. Moorhead, ed., “Notes and Documents,”
New Mexico Historical Review 26 (Jan. 1951), 80.
14. William L. Marcy to Kearny, June 18, 1846, in “California and New Mexico,” 31st Cong.,
1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 17, pp. 240–41; Quaife, Diary of James K. Polk, 1:472, 474–75.
15. Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years’ View, or, A History of the Working of the American
Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850 (New York: D. Appleton, 1856), 2:683–84;
James W. Magoffin to William H. Crawford, April 4, 1849, NMSRCA, Ralph Emerson
Twitchell Collection (hereafter Twitchell Collection), Serial #8472, Folder 65.
16. George F. Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1848), 110; Magoffin to Marcy, Aug. 26, 1846, NMSRCA, Twitchell Collection,
Serial #8472, Folder 65; Philip St. George Cooke to Magoffin, Feb. 21, 1849, ibid.
17. Philip St. George Cooke, The Conquest of New Mexico and California: An Historical and
Personal Narrative (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1878), 28–32.
18. A rmijo to Kearny, Aug. 12, 1846, in Moorhead, “Notes and Documents,” 81–82. Italics
in original. See also Bieber, Marching with the Army of the West, 98; Reséndez, Changing
National Identities, 250–51.
19. Magoffin to Marcy, Aug. 26, 1846, NMSRCA, Twitchell Collection, Serial #8472, Folder
65; Cooke to Magoffin, Feb. 21, 1849, ibid.; Magoffin to Crawford, April 4, 1849, ibid.;
Claim of James W. Magoffin, undated, ibid.
20. Thomas E. Chávez, Manuel Alvarez, 1794–1856: A Southwestern Biography (Niwot:
University Press of Colorado, 1990), 107–8; Moorhead, New Mexico’s Royal Road, 157–61,
183.
21. See Daniel Tyler, “Governor Armijo’s Moment of Truth,” Journal of the West 11 (April
1972): 313; Frances Leon Swadesh, Los Prímeros Pobladores: Hispanic Americans of the Ute
Frontier (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), 64; Reséndez, Chang-
ing National Identities, 250–51, 252n.49. On Magoffin, see “Later from New Mexico,”
New-York Daily Tribune, March 9, 1847; Claim of James W. Magoffin, NMSRCA,
Twitchell Collection, Serial #8472, Folder 65.
22. “Messages of the President of the United States,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec.
Doc. 60, p. 168
23. Manuel Armijo Proclamation, Aug. 8, 1846, NMSRCA, Benjamin Read Collection,
Box 1, Folder 20. For Armijo’s activities, see Lansing B. Bloom, “New Mexico under
Mexican Administration: Part 3—New Mexico as a Department, 1837–1846,” Old Santa
Fe 2 (April 1915): 351–65.
24. Manuel Armijo circular to the Prefects of the Northern Districts, Jan. 10, 1846, NMS-
RCA, María G. Duran Collection, Folder 10.
198 Notes

25. Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga to Armijo, March 25, 1846, NMSRCA, Donaciano Vigil
Collection, Box 3, Folder 109.
26. Manuel Armijo Proclamation, June 6, 1846, NMSRCA, Mexican Archives of New
Mexico, Roll 41, Frames 277–78.
27. Wislizenus, Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, 20. See also Antonio Serna Proclama-
tion, July 19, 1846, NMSRCA, Donaciano Vigil Collection, Box 3, Folder 121.
28. Bloom, “New Mexico under Mexican Administration,” 356, 361.
29. Minutes of the Legislative Assembly, Aug. 10, 1846, quoted in Bloom, “New Mexico
under Mexican Administration,” 364–65.
30. Dwight L. Clarke, ed., The Original Journals of Henry Smith Turner: With Stephen Watts
Kearny to New Mexico and California, 1846–1847 (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1966), 70–71; Calvin, Lieutenant Emory Reports, 46, 47–49; Gibson, Journal of a
Soldier under Kearny, 193, 199; Bieber, Marching with the Army of the West, 153.
31. Clarke, Journals of Henry Smith Turner, 71–72; Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico and
California, 34, 37; Gibson, Journal of a Soldier under Kearny, 193–94; “Diary of an Officer
of the Army of the West,” New-York Daily Tribune, Oct. 3, 1846; Calvin, Lieutenant
Emory Reports, 49–52. For Robidoux’s involvement, see Keleher, Turmoil in New Mexico,
122n.36.
32. Clarke, Journals of Henry Smith Turner, 71–72; Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico and
California, 34, 37; Calvin, Lieutenant Emory Reports, 49–52; Jacob S. Robinson, A
Journal of the Santa Fe Expedition under Colonel Doniphan (1848; reprint, Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1932), 23; “Diary of an Officer of the Army of the West,”
New-York Daily Tribune, Oct. 3, 1846.
33. Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico and California, 34–35, 40. For congressional discussion
of Kearny’s citizenship oaths, see “House of Representatives,” Congressional Globe, 29th
Cong., 2nd Sess., Dec. 9, 1846, p. 14; “Constitution of Iowa,” ibid., Dec. 15, 1846, p. 39.
34. Unidentified soldier to Dearest Wife, Aug. 22, 1846, NMSRCA, Getty Family Collection,
Box 1, Folder 1.
35. Magoffin, Down the Santa Fe Trail, 110.
36. Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 95.
37. Gibson, Journal of a Soldier under Kearny, 201, 210. Armijo collected annual import
duties between $50,000 and $60,000 and charged a fee of $500 per wagonload. Calvin,
Lieutenant Emory Reports, 61. For Armijo’s treatment of New Mexicans, see Gregg,
Commerce of the Prairies, 79–80, 262; Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky
Mountains, 157; Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico and California, 32–33; W. W. H. Davis,
El Gringo, or, New Mexico and Her People (Santa Fe: Rydal Press, 1938), 115, 202–3; Wilson
and Taylor, Short Ravelings, 140, 151; “Diary of an Officer of the Army of the West,”
New-York Daily Tribune, Oct. 3, 1846. On administrative corruption, see Moorhead,
New Mexico’s Royal Road, 127–28, 185; Weber, Arms, Indians, and the Mismanagement of
New Mexico, 26. For secondary accounts, see Daniel Tyler, “Gringo Views of Governor
Manuel Armijo,” New Mexico Historical Review 45 (Jan. 1970), 23–46; Tyler, “Governor
Armijo’s Moment of Truth,” 309–10; Chávez, Manuel Alvarez, 57–58; DeLay, War of a
Thousand Deserts, 255.
 Notes 199

38. Tyler, “Gringo Views of Governor Armijo,” 24–25. See also Kendall, Narrative of the
Texan–Santa Fe Expedition, 1:295–98, 359–60.
39. Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico and California, 32, 38; Mark L. Gardner, ed., Brothers on
the Santa Fe and Chihuahua Trails: Edward James Glasgow and William Henry Glasgow,
1846–1848 (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1993), 91; Calvin, Lieutenant Emory
Reports, 53, 67, 70, 79.
40. “Report of Lieut. J. W. Abert,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 23, p. 3. See also
Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, 119; Clarke, Original Journals
of Henry Smith Turner, 73, 142; Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico and California, 50–51;
Calvin, Lieutenant Emory Reports, 58.
41. A rmijo to Ugarte, Aug. 20, 1846, in Diario Oficial de la Federación, Sept. 10, 1846;
“Report of Gov. Manuel Armijo to the Minister of Foreign Relations,” Sept. 8, 1846,
in Moorhead, “Notes and Documents,” 78.
42. A rmijo to Ugarte, Aug. 20, 1846, in Diario Oficial de la Federación, Sept. 10, 1846.
43. Moorhead, “Notes and Documents,” 79; Tyler, “Governor Armijo’s Moment of Truth,”
314.
44. “Report of Gov. Manuel Armijo to the Minister of Foreign Relations,” Sept. 8, 1846,
in Moorhead, “Notes and Documents,” 76–78; Henry Connelly to Magoffin, Sept.
20, 1848, NMSRCA, Twitchell Collection, Serial #8472, Folder 65; Magoffin to Marcy,
Aug. 26, 1846, ibid.
45. “Report of the Citizens of New Mexico to the President of Mexico,” Sept. 26, 1846, in
Moorhead, “Notes and Documents,” 69–74. See also Tyler, “Governor Armijo’s Moment
of Truth,” 309.
46. Moorhead, “Notes and Documents,” 73–75. Italics in original. See also D. Carlos Ma.
De Bustamante, El Nuevo Bernal Diaz del Castillo, ó sea, Historia de la invasion de los
anglo-americanos en México (1847; reprint, Mexico: Secretaría de Educación Pública,
1949), 223–24.
47. “Proceedings against Manuel Armijo,” March 1847, Archivo de la Defensa Nacional,
Expediente 2588, Roll 11, at Bancroft Library. I thank Andrés Reséndez for providing
his copies and annotations of these documents.
48. A rmijo to Minister of War and Navy, March 30, 1847, ibid.; José Antonio Heredia to
Minister of War and Navy, Jan. 26, 1847, ibid.
49. Gibson, Journal of a Soldier under Kearny, 212–13.
50. Calvin, Lieutenant Emory Reports, 57; Kearny to Roger Jones, Sept. 16, 1846, NMSRCA,
Albert H. Schroeder Papers, Serial #10787, Folder 1143; J. F. Gilmer to Richard S. Elliott,
Nov. 1, 1846, in The Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, eds. Mark L.
Gardner and Marc Simmons (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 95–96;
Hughes, Doniphan’s Expedition, 122–23.
51. “Report of Lieut. J. W. Abert,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 23, p. 38.
52. Hughes, Doniphan’s Expedition, 78; Clarke, Journals of Henry Smith Turner, 72–73;
Gibson, Journal of a Soldier under Kearny, 235. The cannons had been loaded with
empty cartridges as the army entered the town, in preparation for this ceremony. Bieber,
Marching with the Army of the West, 159.
53. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 71.
200 Notes

54. Ibid., 74–76; Gibson, Journal of a Soldier under Kearny, 216. See also González, Refusing
the Favor, 41.
55. “Report of Lieut. J. W. Abert,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 23, p. 32. See
also Magoffin, Down the Santa Fe Trail, 103.
56. L ewis H. Garrard, Wah-To-Yah and the Taos Trail (Palo Alto, CA: American West,
1968), 175.
57. General Kearny Order of Sept. 3, 1846, NMSRCA, Donaciano Vigil Collection, Box
3, Folder 123.
58. Calvin, Lieutenant Emory Reports, 56–57.
59. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 73.
Emphasis in original.
60. “Messages of the President of the United States,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec.
Doc. 60, pp. 150, 170–71. See also Kearny Proclamation, Aug. 19, 1846, NMSRCA,
Bloom-McFie Collection, Folder 1; “Diary of an Officer of the Army of the West,”
New-York Daily Tribune, Oct. 3, 1846; Hughes, Doniphan’s Expedition, 85–87. On New
Mexican citizenship, see John M. Nieto-Phillips, The Language of Blood: The Making
of Spanish-American Identity in New Mexico, 1880s–1930s (Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 2004), 51–57.
61. Cutts, Conquest of California and New Mexico, 39.
62. “Excerpt from William H. Glasgow’s ‘Memorandums,’” Aug. 1846, in Gardner, Brothers
on the Santa Fe and Chihuahua Trails, 165; “The Government of New Mexico,” Santa
Fe Republican, Oct. 30, 1847.
63. Kearny to Jones, Sept. 22, 1846, in “Messages of the President of the United States,”
30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 60, p. 176; Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico
and California, 63; Hughes, Doniphan’s Expedition, 120. See also Joseph G. Dawson
III, Doniphan’s Epic March: The 1st Missouri Volunteers in the Mexican War (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 1999), 85–87.
64. Polk Message of Dec. 22, 1846, in “Messages of the President of the United States,”
30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 60, p. 150; Hughes, Doniphan’s Expedition,
121. On the role of Hispanics in territorial government, see Montgomery, The Spanish
Redemption, 42–43.
65. Kearny to Jones, Sept. 22, 1846, in “Messages of the President of the United States,”
30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 60, p. 176. On Bent’s marriage, see Craver,
Impact of Intimacy, 11, 21–22.
66. Receipt dated Oct. 20, 1846, NMSRCA, L. B. Prince Personal Papers, Serial #14023,
Folder 29; “Report of the Committee on Territories,” Jan. 10, 1857, 34th Cong., 3rd
Sess., House Report No. 60.
67. For the full text of the code, see “Organic Law of the Territory of New Mexico,” Nov.
23, 1846, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 60, pp. 177–229. On Indian
affairs, see Lamar, The Far Southwest, 86.
68. Marcy to Polk, Dec. 21, 1846, in “Messages of the President of the United States,” 30th
Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 60, p. 151.
 Notes 201

69. Polk Message of Dec. 22, 1846, in “Messages of the President of the United States,”
30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 60, p. 150; “Occupation of Mexican Territory,”
Dec. 22, 1846, 29th Cong., 2nd Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 19, pp. 1–3; Quaife, Diary
of James K. Polk, 2:282.
70. Marcy to Kearny, Jan. 11, 1847, in “Message of the President of the United States, New
Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 70, pp. 13–14; Chávez,
Manuel Alvarez, 117–19.
71. Congressional Globe, 29th Cong., 2nd Sess., Feb. 4, 1847, p. 285.
72. Ibid., Appendix, Dec. 24, 1846, p. 75.
73. Congressional Globe, 29th Cong., 2nd Sess., Feb. 26, 1847, p. 520. For congressional
debate on the Kearny Code, see ibid., Dec. 9, 1846, p. 16; Appendix, Dec. 22, 1846, p.
200; Appendix, Feb. 8, 1847, p. 316; Feb. 9, 1847, p. 354; Congressional Globe, 30th Cong.,
1st Sess., July 10, 1848, p. 912.
74. Wislizenus, Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, 85.
75. A nonymous letter published in Niles Weekly Register 72, June 19, 1847, p. 252.
76. Clarke, Journals of Henry Smith Turner, 74.
77. A nonymous letter published in Niles Weekly Register, June 19, 1847, p. 252.
78. Kearny Report, Aug. 19, 1846, NA, RG94, T-1115, Roll 1.
79. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 174.
80. “Report of Lieut. J. W. Abert,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 23, p. 32.
81. Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, 190.
82. Vigil to Buchanan, March 26, 1847, “Insurrection against the Military Government in
New Mexico and California, 1847 and 1848,” 56th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No.
442, p. 32. For a biographical sketch of Vigil, see Manuel G. Gonzales, The Hispanic
Elite of the Southwest (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1989), 12–15.
83. General Orders No. 28, Sept. 19, 1846, NA, RG94, T-1115, Roll 1; General Orders No.
31, Sept. 24, 1846, ibid.; General Orders No. 1, Nov. 1, 1848, ibid.
84. Governor Bent Proclamation, Oct. 21, 1846, NMSRCA, Donaciano Vigil Collection,
Box 3, Folder 124; Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith
Elliott, 94.
85. Santa Fe Republican, Sept. 24, 1847.
86. Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, 197.
87. Garrard, Wah-To-Yah and the Taos Trail, 175. On Garrard generally, see Roy W. Meyer,
“New Light on Lewis Garrard,” Western Historical Quarterly 6 (July 1975): 261–78.
88. Cutts, Conquest of California and New Mexico, 217.
89. Calvin, Lieutenant Emory Reports, 58; Clarke, Journals of Henry Smith Turner, 74.
90. Clarke, Journals of Henry Smith Turner, 75; Hughes, Doniphan’s Expedition, 35; Gibson,
Journal of a Soldier under Kearny, 99.
91. Gibson, Journal of a Soldier under Kearny, 259.
92. “ Later from New Mexico,” New-York Daily Tribune, March 3, 1847.
93. “ Report of Lieut. J. W. Abert,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 23, pp. 67, 69.
94. R alph P. Bieber, ed., Exploring Southwestern Trails, 1846–1854 (Glendale, CA: Arthur
H. Clark, 1938), 88; “Later from New Mexico,” New-York Daily Tribune, March 3, 1847.
202 Notes

95. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 106. See
also Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 282.
96. Dyer to Col. Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA, Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1, File
5; Bieber, Exploring Southwestern Trails, 88. See also Ralph Emerson Twitchell, The
History of the Military Occupation of the Territory of New Mexico from 1846 to 1851 by the
Government of the United States (Chicago: Rio Grande Press, 1963), 330–31; George I.
Sánchez, Forgotten People: A Study of New Mexicans (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1940), 15–16.
97. “Message from the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress,”
Dec. 8, 1846, 29th Cong., 2nd Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 4, p. 23.
98. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 131; Cooke,
Conquest of New Mexico and California, 111.
99. Charles Bent to Buchanan, Dec. 26, 1846, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong.,
1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 17; Dyer to Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA,
Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1, File 5.
100. Bent to Buchanan, Dec. 26, 1846, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st
Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 17.
101. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 131–35;
Magoffin, Down the Santa Fe Trail, 188; Sterling Price to Roger Jones, Feb. 15, 1847,
in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p.
520; “Report of Lieut. J. W. Abert,” Feb. 10, 1848, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec.
Doc. 23, p. 95.
102. Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 520.
103. “Further Particulars from Santa Fe,” New-York Daily Tribune, March 10, 1847. There
was speculation that the infamous Santa Fe gambler and saloonkeeper Doña Gertrudis
Barceló acted as one of the informants. See Deena J. González, “La Tules of Image
and Reality: Euro-American Attitudes and Legend Formation on a Spanish-Mexican
Frontier,” in Building with Our Hands: New Directions in Chicana Studies, eds. Adela
de la Torre and Beatríz M. Pesquera (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),
75–90; Mary J. Straw Cook, Doña Tules: Santa Fe’s Courtesan and Gambler (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 2007), 37–49; Twitchell, Leading Facts of New Mexican
History, 2:233n.168.
104. Reséndez, Changing National Identities, 244–46, 255–56; Brooks, Captives and Cousins,
282. See also Benton, Thirty Years’ View, 2:683.
105. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 137;
“Report of Lieut. J. W. Abert,” Feb. 10, 1848, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc.
23, pp. 97–98.
106. Proclamation of Charles Bent, Jan. 5, 1847, NMSRCA, Ina Sizer Cassidy Collection,
Folder 5.
107. Dyer to Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA, Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1, File 5;
Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 138;
Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico and California, 111.
 Notes 203

108. Cutts, Conquest of California and New Mexico, 220; Gibson, Journal of a Soldier under
Kearny, 270; Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith
Elliott, 83, 92–93, 107–10, 157; George Rutland Gibson, Over the Chihuahua and Santa Fe
Trails, 1847–1848: George Rutledge Gibson’s Journal, ed. Robert W. Frazer (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1981), 39.
109. Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 521; Cutts,
Conquest of California and New Mexico, 222.
110. Garrard, Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail, 174.
111. Howard Louis Conard, Uncle Dick Wootton: The Pioneer Frontiersman of the Rocky
Mountain Region, ed. Milo Milton Quaife (Chicago: R. R. Donnelley, 1957), 156; “The
Story of Governor Bent’s Massacre as Told by His Daughter Teresina Bent Scheurich
Who Was a Witness,” NMSRCA, Jaramillo-Bent-Scheurich Family Papers, Folder 13.
112. Cutts, Conquest of California and New Mexico, 222–23. See also Hyde, Empires, Nations,
and Families, 385–86.
113. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 139. See
also “Story of Governor Bent’s Massacre,” NMSRCA, Jaramillo-Bent-Scheurich Family
Papers, Folder 13.
114. Cutts, Conquest of California and New Mexico, 222.
115. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 139; Cutts,
Conquest of California and New Mexico, 222–23. For firsthand accounts of Charles Bent,
see James Hobbs, Wild Life in the Far West: Personal Adventures of a Border Mountain
Man (Hartford, CT: Wiley, Waterman & Eaton, 1874), 18; “Report of Lieut. J. W. Abert,”
30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 23, pp. 32, 125; Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico
and California, 111–12; Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, 200.
116. Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families, 385–88. On the Taos Revolt, see “Late Insurrection
and Atrocities in New Mexico,” New-York Daily Tribune, April 19, 1847; L. Bradford
Prince, Historical Sketches of New Mexico from the Earliest Records to the American
Occupation (Kansas City, MO: Ramsey, Millett & Hudson, 1883), 313–25; Twitchell,
History of the Military Occupation, 124–32; E. Bennett Burton, “The Taos Rebellion,”
Old Santa Fe 1 (Oct. 1913), 176–209; David Lavender, Bent’s Fort: A Historical Account of
the Adobe Empire that Shaped the Destiny of the American Southwest (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1954), 277–93; M. Morgan Estergreen, Kit Carson: A Portrait in Courage
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962), 172–79; Chris Emmett, Fort Union and
the Winning of the Southwest (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), 48–70;
Michael McNierney, ed., Taos 1847: The Revolt in Contemporary Accounts (Boulder, CO:
Johnson Publishing, 1980); James A. Crutchfield, Revolt at Taos: The New Mexican and
Indian Insurrection of 1847 (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2015), 61–113; Hyslop, Bound for
Santa Fe, 381–403; Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 281–86.
117. Cutts, Conquest of California and New Mexico, 222; “March Term 1847,” NMSRCA,
Dorothy Woodward Penitente Collection, Box 4, Folder 88; Vigil to Buchanan, Feb.
16, 1847, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No.
70, p. 18–19.
118. Lamar, The Far Southwest, 43–44; Craver, Impact of Intimacy, 11, 41–45.
204 Notes

119. Cutts, Conquest of California and New Mexico, 222–23; Gardner and Simmons, Mexican
War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 139–43, quotation on 143; Garrard, Wah-
to-Yah and the Taos Trail, 166–67; James P. Beckwourth, The Life and Adventures of
James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation
of Indians, Written from His Own Dictation by T. D. Bonner (London: Sampson Low
& Son, 1856), 485–86, quotation on 485; “Late Insurrection and Atrocities,” New-York
Daily Tribune, April 19, 1847.
120. Narciso was of French-Canadian and Hispanic lineage; his father, Charles Beaubien,
married María Paula Lobato at Taos in 1827. Craver, Impact of Intimacy, 11.
121. Garrard, Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail, 167; Conard, Uncle Dick Wootton, 159.
122. Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in Report of the Secretary of War, 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 520.
123. “ From Santa Fe,” New-York Daily Tribune, March 19, 1847.
124. Craver, Impact of Intimacy, 11, 41–45; Lamar, The Far Southwest, 44.
125. Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 520; Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains,
226–30.
126. Vigil to Buchanan, Feb. 16, 1847, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st
Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 18. For a biographical sketch of Vigil, see Twitchell,
History of the Military Occupation, 207–13.
127. Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 521; Beckwourth, Life and Adventures, 484–85.
128. Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 521–22, 527; Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War
Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 148; Dyer to Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA,
Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1, Folder 5; Vigil to Buchanan, Feb. 16, 1847, in “New
Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 18; Cooke,
Conquest of New Mexico and California, 113–14.
129. “Battle in Santa Fe: Mexicans Completely Routed,” New-York Daily Tribune, April 7,
1847; “From Santa Fe,” New-York Daily Tribune, April 8, 1847.
130. Vigil to Buchanan, Feb. 16, 1847, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 18–19; Dyer to Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA, Misc.
Letters and Diaries, Box 1, Folder 5. On the Battle of Embudo, see Price to Jones, Feb.
15, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc.
No. 1, pp. 523–24; 527; Rufus Ingalls to C. Wharton, Feb. 16, 1847, in “Insurrection
against the Military Government,” 56th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 442, pp.
16–17; Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott,
149; Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico and California, 114–15.
131. Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 523–24; Garrard, Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail, 176.
132. Dyer to Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA, Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1, Folder 5;
Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 180; “The
Troops of New Mexico,” Santa Fe Republican, Aug. 31, 1848.
 Notes 205

133. Beckwourth, Life and Adventures, 486.

134. Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 524–25; Dyer to Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA, Misc.
Letters and Diaries, Box 1, Folder 5; Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence
of Richard Smith Elliott, 150.
135. Ingalls to Wharton, Feb. 16, 1847, in “Insurrection against the Military Government,”
56th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 442, p. 17.
136. Dyer to Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA, Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1, Folder 5;
Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 524–25; Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence
of Richard Smith Elliott, 152; Garrard, Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail, 176–78; Conard,
Uncle Dick Wootton, 165–66; Beckwourth, Life and Adventures, 487–88.
137. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 153–54,
quotation on 176; Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico and California, 121; William N. Grier
to H. W. Staunton, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Insurrection against the Military Government,”
56th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 442, pp. 15–16.
138. C. Wharton to Jones, April 1, 1847, in “Insurrection against the Military Government,”
56th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No. 442, p. 17. For military activities at Taos, see
Lawrence R. Murphy, “The United States Army in Taos, 1847–1852,” New Mexico
Historical Review 47 (Jan. 1972): 33–48.
139. Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 525, 528–29; Dyer to Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA,
Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1, Folder 5; Donaciano Vigil Circular, Feb. 12, 1847, in
“New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 24;
Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 154–55;
“Battle of Pueblo de Taos,” New-York Daily Tribune, April 19, 1847.
140. G  ardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 152.
141. I. R. Hendley to Price, Jan. 23, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 531–32; W. S. Murphy to Headquarters, Jan. 25, 1847, in
“Insurrection against the Military Government,”56th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc. No.
442, p. 20; Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott,
145. For events at Mora, see Prince, Historical Sketches of New Mexico, 325–27; James W.
Goodrich, “Revolt at Mora, 1847,” New Mexico Historical Review 47 (Jan. 1972): 49–60.
142. Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 530. On Captain Hendley, see Francis B. Heitman, Historical
Register and Dictionary of the United States Army (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1903), 2:55.
143. T. C. McKarney to Price, Jan. 25, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong.,
1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 532–33; Murphy to Price, Jan. 25, 1847, in ibid.,
533; Vigil to Buchanan, Feb. 16, 1847, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong.,
1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, pp. 18–19.
144. “Insurrection against the Military Government,” 56th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Doc.
No. 442, p. 26; Goodrich, “Revolt at Mora,” 56.
206 Notes

145. Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 525
146. Garrard, Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail, 147; Dyer to Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA,
Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1, Folder 5; Conard, Uncle Dick Wootton, 169.
147. Conard, Uncle Dick Wootton, 169.
148. William L. Marcy to Price, June 11, 1847, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong.,
1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 32–33.
149. Price to Jones, March 31, 1848, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st
Sess., House Exec. Doc. 1, p. 113.
150. G ardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 156.
151. Frank P. Blair to John Y. Mason, April 1, 1847, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th
Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 27; Chávez, Manuel Alvarez, 101.
152. Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 286–87.
153. Beckwourth, Life and Adventures, 486–87; Circular of Donaciano Vigil, Jan. 22, 1847, in
“New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 22.
For the 1837 uprising, see Janet Lecompte, Rebellion in Rio Arriba, 1837 (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1985).
154. Donaciano Vigil Circular, Feb. 12, 1847, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong.,
1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, pp. 23–24; Price to Jones, Feb. 15, 1847, in “Report
of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 525.
155. Garrard, Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail, 162–63.
156. Ibid., 163, 181–89. See also Garrard to Dear Mother, May 15, 1847, in Meyer, “New Light
on Lewis Garrard,” 271; Lewis Garrard to Kenner Garrard, Sept. 10, 1847, ibid., 274–75.
157. Garrard, Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail, 189.
158. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 164, 181.
159. Garrard, Wah-to-Yah and the Taos Trail, 189–91.
160. D  yer to Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA, Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1, Folder 5.
161. Marcy to Price, June 11, 1847, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 32. On the Trujillo proceedings, see Emmett, Fort Union,
62–64; Chávez, Manuel Alvarez, 113–14.
162. Sánchez, Forgotten People, 48.
163. Marcy to Polk, July 19, 1848, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 12; Marcy to Price, June 26, 1847, ibid., 33–34.
164. Benton, Thirty Years’ View, 2:683. See also “Resolutions,” Congressional Globe, 30th
Cong., 1st Sess., Dec. 20, 1847, p. 58.
165. Hunter Miller, ed., Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1931–48), 5:219–22.
166. “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 5. See
also Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 156.
167. Vigil to Buchanan, Feb. 16, 1847, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 19; Bent to Buchanan, Dec. 26, 1846, ibid., 17; Antonio
José Martínez to Price, April 12, 1947, NMSRCA, Papers of Governors Kearny, Bent,
and Price, Serial #13888, Folder 6. An army inspector reported in 1850 that at least 2,200
 Notes 207

soldiers were needed in New Mexico. Colonel George Archibald McCall, New Mexico
in 1850: A Military View, ed. Robert W. Frazer (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1968), 181.
168. Marcy to Price, June 26, 1847, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
House Exec. Doc. No. 70, pp. 27–28, 34; Santa Fe Republican, Sept. 10, 1847. See also
Robert E. Shalhope, Sterling Price: Portrait of a Southerner (Columbia: University of
Missouri Press, 1971), 61–62; Chalfant, Dangerous Passage, 103–18.
169. Wooster, American Military Frontiers, 119–21.
170. D yer to Talcott, Aug. 11, 1847, NMSRCA, Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1, File 5.
171. Robert Walker to W. E. Prince, Dec. 29, 1847, NA, RG94, AGO, LR 1805–89, File
P-94–1848, Entry 12, with enclosed muster rolls of the Chihuahua Battalion. I thank
John P. Wilson for bringing this document to my attention.
172. Price to Jones, July 20, 1847, in “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 534–35; D. B. Edmonson to Price, June 14, 1847, ibid.,
535–38; Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 286.
173. Price to Jones, July 20, 1847, “Report of the Secretary of War,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 534–35; Edmonson to Price, June 14, 1847, ibid., 535.
174. “Message of the President of the United States,” Aug. 2, 1848, 30th Cong., 1st Sess.,
House Exec. Doc. 76, pp. 1–4.
175. Twitchell, History of the Military Occupation of the Territory of New Mexico, 65–67.
176. “New Year’s Address,” Santa Fe Republican, Jan. 1, 1848.
177. A. B. Dyer to Col. Talcott, Feb. 17, 1847, NMSRCA, Misc. Letters and Diaries, Box 1,
File 5.
178. On rumors of rebellion after 1848, see James S. Calhoun to Luke Lea, June 30, 1851, in
1851 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 197 (hereafter cited as RCIA);
Calhoun to Lea, July 25, 1851, ibid., 199; Calhoun to Edwin V. Sumner, Aug. 4, 1851,
ibid., 203; Calhoun to William Medill, Oct. 14, 1849, in Abel, Correspondence of James
S. Calhoun, 51–52; Calhoun to W. C. Dawson, April 12, 1852, in ibid., 523–24; John
Greiner to Lea, April 30, 1852, NA, RG75, OIA, LR, NMS, M234, Roll 547; Sumner
to Daniel Webster, May 8, 1852, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1; Sumner to
Charles M. Conrad, Oct. 29, 1852, ibid. See also Ball, Army Regulars on the Western
Frontier, 21.
179. “Petition of the People of New Mexico,” Oct. 14, 1848, 30th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate
Misc. Doc. 5, pp. 1–2.
180. For the debate on the New Mexico petition, see “New Mexico,” Congressional Globe,
30th Cong., 2nd Sess., Dec. 13, 1848, pp. 33–37.

Chapter 3

1. On Sumner, see Heitman, Historical Register of the U.S. Army, 2:936; Ball, Army Regulars
on the Western Frontier, 20–22, 66; Kiser, Dragoons in Apacheland, 95. For praise of
Sumner’s policy, see Thomas Swords to Thomas S. Jesup, Oct. 25, 1851, in “Report of
the Quartermaster General,” 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 2, p. 239.
208 Notes

2. S umner to Roger Jones, Oct. 24, 1851, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1.
3. Conrad to Sumner, April 1, 1851, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 383;
Sumner to Jones, Oct. 24, 1851, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1; 1851 Annual Report
of the Secretary of War, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 106, 111–12.
For civilian protests, see Petition of El Paso residents to Sumner, Aug. 4, 1851, NA,
RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll 4; Petition of Doña Ana residents to Calhoun, Aug.
8, 1851, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 402–3. On Sumner’s military
reorganization, see Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue, 86–89; Frazer, Forts and Supplies, 61–85;
Wooster, American Military Frontiers, 125–27.
4. Sumner to Samuel Cooper, Dec. 19, 1852, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1; John
Garland to Lorenzo Thomas, Nov. 27, 1853, ibid.
5. Sumner to Jones, Nov. 20, 1851, ibid.
6. Sumner to Conrad, May 27, 1852, in 1852 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 32nd
Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 23–25.
7. Calhoun to Luke Lea, Oct. 1, 1851, in 1851 RCIA, 205.
8. Swords to Jesup, Oct. 25, 1851, in “Report of the Quartermaster General,” 32nd Cong.,
1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 2, p. 239; 1850 Annual Report of the Secretary of War,
31st Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 5, p. 5. Calhoun wanted to raise a militia
of one thousand men but did not receive permission to do so. Calhoun to George
Crawford, May 22, 1849, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 14–15. A decade
later, Secretary of War John Floyd again suggested that civilian militias be incorporated
into the territorial defense system. See 1859 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 36th
Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 2, p. 4; Croghan Ker to Lafayette McLaws, Jan.
29, 1849, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll 1.
9. 1 852 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 32nd Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc.
No. 1, pp. 5–6; Sumner to Conrad, Oct. 29, 1852, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll
1.
10. “ Condition of the Indian Tribes,” 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, p. 7.
11. “Col. Sumner and his Movements,” Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, Dec. 25, 1852; “Hon.
Charles M. Conrad Secretary of War,” ibid., Feb. 19, 1853; “The Big Bug of Albuquerque,”
ibid.; “The Cessation of Indian Hostilities in New Mexico,” ibid., Feb. 26, 1853; “Col.
Sumner’s Letter on New Mexico,” ibid., March 5, 1853.
12. Greiner to Sumner, Aug. 30, 1852, and Sumner to Greiner, Aug. 31, 1852, in “Letterbook
of Communications sent by the Secretary of the Territory, 1852–1859,” NMSRCA, TA,
Roll 27.
13. On the feud between Sumner and Lane, see Sumner to Jones, May 8, 1852, RG393,
M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1; Sumner to Cooper, Oct. 25, 1852, ibid.; Sumner to Lane,
Oct. 24, 1852, ibid.
14. Weightman to Lane, Oct. 7, 1852; Weightman to Lane, Nov. 18, 1852; Weightman to
Lane, Jan. 13, 1853, all from Missouri Historical Society, William Carr Lane Papers.
For civil-military disputes, see Sumner to Calhoun, Aug. 8, 1851, in 1851 RCIA, 204;
Calhoun to Lea, Oct. 1, 1851, ibid., 204–5.
 Notes 209

15. R ichard Kern to Edward Kern, Aug. 24, 1851, in David J. Weber, Richard H. Kern:
Expeditionary Artist in the Far Southwest, 1848–1853 (Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1985), 145.
16. “Report of the Quartermaster General,” Nov. 22, 1851, in 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., House
Exec. Doc. No. 2, p. 219; 1857 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 35th Cong., 1st
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 11, p. 3.
17. William P. Dole to J. P. Usher, Nov. 15, 1864, in 1864 RCIA, 17.
18. S ee Wooster, American Military Frontiers.
19. 1 850 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 31st Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No.
5, p. 3; 1851 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec.
Doc. No. 1, pp. 108–10.
20. 1853 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 33rd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1,
pp. 11–12; 1854 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 33rd Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec.
Doc. No. 1, p. 6; “Report of the Secretary of War on the Subject of Indian Hostilities,”
33rd Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 22. The actual strength of the army was
typically 30–40 percent less than the legislated strength. See 1850 Annual Report of the
Secretary of War, 31st Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 5, p. 3; 1852 Annual Report
of the Secretary of War, 32nd Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 3; McCall,
New Mexico in 1850, 184; Ball, Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, xix–xxxi. On the
failure of Congress to increase the size of the army, see Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue,
10–17.
21. On Americans’ views toward southwestern Indians, see DeLay, War of a Thousand
Deserts, 291–96.
22. On tribal sovereignty, see N. Bruce Duthu, Shadow Nation: Tribal Sovereignty and
the Limits of Legal Pluralism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 12–16. For
Marshall’s decision, see Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia 30 U.S. 1 (1831).
23. On the treaty-making process, see Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Treaties: The
History of a Political Anomaly (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 1–21;
Colin G. Calloway, Pen and Ink Witchcraft: Treaties and Treaty Making in American
Indian History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 2–8.
24. Ball, Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, xii; Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue, 18.
25. 1860 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 36th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc.
No. 1, p. 5.
26. 1850 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 31st Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No.
5, p. 3.
27. J. H. Dickinson to O. H. P. Taylor, March 30, 1849, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM,
Roll 1. See also Calhoun to Medill, Aug. 15, 1849, in Abel, Correspondence of James S.
Calhoun, 20.
28. 1850 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 31st Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No.
5, p. 5; 1851 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec.
Doc. No. 1, p. 105; 1853 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 33rd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate
Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 5–6; “Report of the Secretary of War on the Subject of Indian
210 Notes

Hostilities,” 33rd Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 22, p. 1; 1855 Annual Report of
the Secretary of War, 34th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 3. See also Ball,
Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, xx–xxii. On the role of Davis in expanding the
armed forces, see Matthew Karp, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm
of American Foreign Policy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 209–16.
29. “Report of the Quartermaster General,” Nov. 22, 1851, in 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., House
Exec. Doc. No. 2, pp. 220–21; 1850 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 31st Cong.,
2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 5, pp. 8–9; 1851 Annual Report of the Secretary of War,
32nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 110. For transportation costs, see Jerry
Thompson, ed., Texas and New Mexico on the Eve of the Civil War: The Mansfield and
Johnston Inspections, 1859–1861 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001),
50. On army expenses, see Frazer, Forts and Supplies, 33–163.
30. Swords to Jesup, Oct. 25, 1851, in “Report of the Quartermaster General,” 32nd Cong.,
1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 2, pp. 235–51; ibid., 220; “Consolidated Report of J.C.
McFerran,” April 1851, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll 3; Calhoun to Alexander
Stuart, March 31, 1851, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 306. See also Ball,
Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 28–29. On rent expenses, see McCall, New Mexico
in 1850, 111–76.
31. Weymouth T. Jordan Jr., John D. Chapla, and Shan C. Sutton, “‘Notorious as the
Noonday Sun’: Capt. Alexander Welch Reynolds and the New Mexico Territory,
1849–1859,” New Mexico Historical Review 75 (Oct. 2000): 464.
32. “Report of the Quartermaster General,” Nov. 22, 1851, in 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., House
Exec. Doc. No. 2, pp. 223, 226.
33. Ibid., 223–25. On the militarized U.S.-Mexico border, see Samuel Truett, Fugitive
Landscapes: The Forgotten History of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2006), 13–32; Rachel St. John, Line in the Sand: A History of the
Western U.S.-Mexico Border (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 39–62.
34. “Report of the Quartermaster General,” Nov. 22, 1851, in 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., House
Exec. Doc. No. 2, pp. 223–25.
35. “Second Annual Message to the Legislative Assembly,” William F. M. Arny, Dec. 1866,
NMSRCA, TA, Roll 98. For other estimates, see Julius K. Graves to Cooley, Undated
Report of Jan. 1866, in 1866 RCIA, 136.
36. John Russell Bartlett, Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New
Mexico, California, Sonora and Chihuahua, 1850–1853 (New York: D. Appleton, 1854),
2:386.
37. “Claims for Depredations by Indians in the Territory of New Mexico,” 35th Cong., 1st
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 55; Calhoun to Lea, Feb. 2, 1851, in 1851 RCIA, 187. See
also Kiser, Dragoons in Apacheland, 45–46; McCall, New Mexico in 1850, 178.
38. Munroe to Jones, March 30, 1851, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1; 1851 Annual
Report of the Secretary of War, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, pp. 107–8;
Thomas T. Fauntleroy to Lorenzo Thomas, Nov. 6, 1859, in “Indian Hostilities in New
Mexico,” 36th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 69, pp. 10–11.
 Notes 211

39. Circular of Capt. Henry B. Judd, April 3, 1849, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll
1.
40. M unroe to Jones, June 11, 1850, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1.
41. See McNitt, Navajo Wars, 3–91; William B. Griffen, Utmost Good Faith: Patterns of
Apache-Mexican Hostilities in Northern Chihuahua Border Warfare, 1821–1848 (Albu-
querque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988); Edwin R. Sweeney, Mangas Coloradas:
Chief of the Chiricahua Apaches (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), 27–136;
David J. Weber, Bárbaros: Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 138–77; Ned Blackhawk, Violence over
the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2006); Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2008).
42. 1860 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 36th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc.
No. 1, p. 5. See also Donald L. Fixico, Bureau of Indian Affairs (Santa Barbara, CA:
Greenwood, 2012), 1–22; Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father: The United States
Government and the American Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984),
1:319–23; Ball, Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 13–23.
43. On the reservation system, see Robert A. Trennert Jr., Alternative to Extinction: Federal
Indian Policy and the Beginnings of the Reservation System, 1846–1851 (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1975), 94–130. For the BIA’s policy, see Dole to Usher, Nov.
15, 1864, in 1864 RCIA, 147–49.
44. Calhoun to Orlando Brown, Feb. 3, 1850, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun,
141; Calhoun to Medill, July 29, 1849, ibid., 19–20; Calhoun to Medill, Oct. 15, 1849,
ibid., 55–57; Hugh N. Smith to Brown, March 9, 1850, in 1850 RCIA, 142. For Calhoun’s
orders, see Medill to Calhoun, April 7, 1849, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun,
3–5.
45. Calhoun to the Indians of the Pueblo of Taos, Feb. 2, 1850, in Abel, Correspondence of
James S. Calhoun, 136–38; Calhoun to Brown, July 16, 1850, ibid., 227–28. On personal
expenses, see Calhoun to Brown, Aug. 30, 1850, ibid., 255. For the petition, see “Petition
to the President of the United States,” Feb. 27, 1850, ibid., 159.
46. See Morris E. Opler, An Apache Life-Way: The Economic, Social, and Religious Institutions
of the Chiricahua Indians (New York: Cooper Square, 1965).
47. E . A. Graves to George W. Manypenny, June 8, 1854, in 1854 RCIA, 181–83, quotation
on 181.
48. “The Indians of New Mexico,” Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, Oct. 18, 1856; Bonneville to
Collins, Sept. 22, 1857, in 1857 RCIA, 295. On proposals for a Navajo reservation, see
Michael Steck to Dole, Oct. 10, 1864, in 1864 RCIA, 184–86.
49. William Pelham to Steck, Oct. 3, 1855, Center for Southwest Research, Inventory of the
Michael Steck Papers, Roll 2; Bonneville to Collins, Sept. 22, 1857, in 1857 RCIA, 295.
50. Denver to Jacob Thompson, Nov. 30, 1857, in 1857 RCIA, 9; Dole to Caleb B. Smith,
Nov. 27, 1861, in 1861 RCIA, 20.
51. Bartlett to Alexander Stuart, Feb. 19, 1852, NA, OIA, LR, M234, Roll 546.
212 Notes

52. Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, Dec. 18, 1852; “The Indians Becoming Troublesome, The
Policy of Governor Lane,” Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, Dec. 31, 1853; Lane to Steck, July
11, 1853, Center for Southwest Research, Inventory of the Michael Steck Papers, Roll 1;
Meriwether to Manypenny, Sept. 1, 1854, in 1854 RCIA, 166–68.
53. Charles E. Mix to Thompson, Nov. 6, 1858, in 1858 RCIA, 6; Report of Jacob Thompson,
in 1860 RCIA, 5. See also Levi J. Keithly to Steck, Sept. 22, 1863, in 1863 RCIA, 115.
54. K iser, Dragoons in Apacheland, 149, 152–53.
55. Steck to Dole, Sept. 19, 1863, in 1863 RCIA, 111; Steck to Meriwether, Oct. 1854, Center
for Southwest Research, Inventory of the Michael Steck Papers, Roll 1; Meriwether
to Steck, April 28, 1855, ibid.; Manypenny to Meriwether, Aug. 8, 1854, NA, RG75,
OIA, NMS, T21, Roll 2; Steck to Collins, Aug. 10, 1858, in 1858 RCIA, 198. For Indian
Department expenses, see Calhoun to Brown, March 30, 1850, in Abel, Correspondence
of James S. Calhoun, 175–81; Manypenny to R. McClelland, Nov. 25, 1854, in 1854 RCIA,
14; Meriwether to Manypenny, Sept. 1855, in 1855 RCIA, 186–90; Collins to Denver,
Aug. 30, 1857, in 1857 RCIA, 278; Collins to Greenwood, Sept. 17, 1859, in 1859 RCIA, 336.
For Meriwether’s treaties, see Ball, Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 16; Prucha,
American Indian Treaties, 241–42.
56. See John Grenier, The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607–1814
(Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 1–12.
57. 1850 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 31st Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 5,
p. 5; 1851 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc.
No. 1, p. 106; 1853 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 33rd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate
Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 6. See also Ball, Army Regulars on the Western Frontier, 38–55; Utley,
Frontiersmen in Blue, 56–57.
58. S umner to Jones, Jan. 27, 1852, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1.
59. Garland to Thomas, Nov. 27, 1853, ibid.; Nichols to Fauntleroy, Feb. 6, 1855, ibid. On
Garland as department commander, see Frazer, Forts and Supplies, 87–115.
60. Fauntleroy to Thomas, Jan. 29, 1860, in “Indian Hostilities in New Mexico,” 36th
Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 69, pp. 29–30; Collins to Greenwood, Feb. 10,
1860, ibid., 62–63.
61. Dole to Usher, Oct. 31, 1863, in 1863 RCIA, 14.
62. Collins to Greenwood, Nov. 27, 1859, in “Indian Hostilities in New Mexico,” 36th
Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 69, p. 47; Collins to Greenwood, Jan. 7, 1860,
ibid., 51–52; Collins to Greenwood, Feb. 4, 1860, ibid., 56.
63. Collins to Greenwood, Feb. 5, 1860, ibid., 59; Silas F. Kendrick to O. L. Shepherd, Oct.
25, 1859, ibid., 48; Kendrick to Shepherd, Jan. 20, 1860, ibid., 60; Kendrick to Collins,
Jan. 23, 1860, ibid., 61.
64. Floyd to Fauntleroy, Jan. 10, 1860, in “Indian Hostilities in New Mexico,” 36th Cong.,
1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 69, p. 27.
65. “Statistical Report on the Sickness and Mortality in the Army of the United States . . .
From January 1849 to January 1855,” prepared by Richard H. Coolidge, 34th Cong., 1st
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 96, pp. 415, 417.
 Notes 213

66. I bid., 415, 417, 423, 432–35. On medical facilities, see W. G. Freeman to Munroe, May
27, 1850, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll 2; Electus Backus to John C. McFerran,
Feb. 13, 1852, ibid., Roll 4.
67. “Statistical Report on the Sickness and Mortality in the U.S. Army,” 36th Cong., 1st
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 52, pp. 214–16, 224; Thompson, Texas and New Mexico on
the Eve of the Civil War, 64. See also E. H. Abadie to Nichols, Dec. 9, 1855, NA, RG393,
M1120, LR, DNM, Roll 4.
68. “Statistical Report on the Sickness and Mortality in the U.S. Army,” 36th Cong., 1st
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 52, p. 225.
69. G rier to McLaws, Dec. 3, 1849, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll 1.
70. John Buford to McLaws, June 1, 1850, ibid., Roll 2. Emphasis in original.
71. On military health, see Paul Kraemer, “Sickliest Post in the Territory of New Mexico:
Fort Thorn and Malaria, 1853–1860,” New Mexico Historical Review 71 (July 1996):
221–35.
72. Calvin, Lieutenant Emory Reports, 50.
73. Steck to Manypenny, May 1853, Center for Southwest Research, Inventory of the Michael
Steck Papers, Roll 2.
74. Collins to Mix, Sept. 27, 1858, in 1858 RCIA, 188–90.
75. Dole to Usher, Oct. 31, 1863, in 1863 RCIA, 14.
76. Bieber, Marching with the Army of the West, 177.
77. Donaciano Vigil to James Buchanan, March 26, 1847, in “New Mexico and California,”
30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 70, pp. 25–26.
78. Calhoun to Lea, Feb. 16, 1851, in 1851 RCIA, 191.
79. 1850 Memorial to Congress, NA, RG46, Territorial Papers of the U.S. Senate, New
Mexico 1840–1854, M200, Roll 14. See also Calhoun to Medill, Oct. 1, 1849, in Abel,
Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 32; “Petition to President Millard Fillmore,” June
30, 1851, ibid., 366–68.
80. Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, June 4, 1853.
81. Undated Memorial to Congress (1850s), NA, RG46, Territorial Papers of the U.S. Senate,
New Mexico 1840–1854, M200, Roll 14.
82. Memorial to Congress, Feb. 9, 1857, ibid.
83. For population estimates, see “Message of the President of the United States,” Aug. 2,
1848, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. 76, p. 11; Charles Bent to Medill, Nov.
10, 1846, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 6–9.
84. For the 1846 Navajo treaty, see Doniphan to Jones, March 4, 1847, 30th Cong., 1st
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 496; Hughes, Doniphan’s Expedition, 188–89. See also
McNitt, Navajo Wars, 117–20.
85. Bent to Buchanan, Dec. 26, 1846, in “New Mexico and California,” 30th Cong., 1st
Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 70, p. 17.
86. Gardner and Simmons, Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott, 156.
Emphasis in original.
87. McNitt, Navajo Wars, 127–31. For the treaty, see Frank McNitt, ed. Navaho Expedition:
Journal of a Military Reconnaissance from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Navaho Country,
214 Notes

Made in 1849 by Lieutenant James H. Simpson (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,

1964), 253–57.
88. “Report of Lieut. J. W. Abert,” 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. 23, p. 46; Alfred
Pleasonton to J. W. Alley, March 28, 1851, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll 3.
89. McNitt, Navaho Expedition, 65–69, 88–95, 165, quotation on 73; Calhoun to Medill, Oct.
1, 1849, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 26–37. For Washington’s treaty, see
Charles J. Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1904), 2:583–85. For overviews of the campaign, see McNitt, Navajo
Wars, 137–54; Weber, Richard H. Kern, 67–113. On antebellum Navajo relations, see
Peter Iverson, Diné: A History of the Navajos (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 2002), 35–56.
90. Calhoun to Medill, Oct. 1, 1849, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 33.
91. James A. Bennett, Forts and Forays: A Dragoon in New Mexico, 1850–1856 (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1948), 28–31, quotation on 31. For a similar account,
see Eckert and Amato, Ten Years in the Saddle, 177–82.
92. S umner to Jones, Jan. 27, 1852, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1.
93. Calhoun to Conrad, Aug. 31, 1851, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 413;
Calhoun to Lea, Aug. 31, 1851, ibid., 414.
94. Sumner to Jones, Jan. 27, 1852, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1; Sumner to Lane,
June 15, 1853, ibid.; Sumner to Jones, Oct. 24, 1851, ibid. On the Sumner campaign, see
McNitt, Navajo Wars, 193–99.
95. Backus to AAAG, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll 4. On Fort Defiance, see Henry
L. Kendrick to Nichols, Nov. 13, 1853, ibid., Roll 7; 1851 Annual Report of the Secretary
of War, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 106.
96. Clarke, Journals of Henry Smith Turner, 85, quotations on 103. On the meeting between
Kearny and Mangas Coloradas, see Sweeney, Mangas Coloradas, 143–44; Kiser, Dragoons
in Apacheland, 16–17.
97. Wislizenus, Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, 83.
98. Calhoun to Brown, Feb. 28, 1850, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 155.
99. Steen to McLaws, Feb. 5, 1850, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll 1; Calhoun to Brown,
June 12, 1850, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 209. On Fort Webster, see
Buford to McFerran, Dec. 19, 1851, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll 4. For military
activities at Doña Ana, see Kiser, Dragoons in Apacheland, 66–73, 112–13, 235–37; William
S. Kiser, “Louis Geck,” in Soldiers in the Southwest Borderlands, 1848–1886, ed. Janne
Lahti (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017), 35–56.
100. For the treaty, see Kappler, Indian Affairs, 2:598–600. See also Annie H. Abel, ed., “The
Journal of John Greiner,” Old Santa Fe 3 (July 1916): 220–22; Richard Weightman to
Lane, Oct. 7, 1852, Missouri Historical Society, William Carr Lane Papers; Santa Fe
Weekly Gazette, Nov. 20, 1852.
101. S umner to Jones, July 21, 1852, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1.
102. M  eriwether to Garland, Jan. 24, 1855, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM, Roll 4.
103. Garland to Miles, Dec. 26, 1854, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1; Bennett, Forts
and Forays, 59–63, quotation on 62.
 Notes 215

104. E  well to Nichols, Feb. 10, 1855, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM, Roll 4.
105. Garland to Thomas, Feb. 28, 1855, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1. On Stanton’s
death, see Miles to Nichols, Feb. 5, 1855, ibid.; Garland to Cooper, Feb. 2, 1855, NA,
RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1; Bennett, Forts and Forays, 61–63. On the establishment
of Fort Stanton, see Miles to Garland, April 28, 1855, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM,
Roll 4; Garland to Thomas, May 31, 1855, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1. See
also C. L. Sonnichsen, The Mescalero Apaches (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1958), 74–81; John P. Ryan, Fort Stanton and Its Community, 1855–1896 (Las Cruces, NM:
Yucca Tree, 1998), 1–32.
106. Treaty with the Apaches at Fort Thorn, June 9, 1855, Center for Southwest Research,
Inventory of the Michael Steck Papers, Roll 1. See also Steck to Garland, March 6,
1855, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM, Roll 4.
107. Nichols to Steen, Feb. 17, 1857, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2; Bonneville to
Thomas, Jan. 31, 1857, ibid.; Nichols to Thomas, April 28, 1857, ibid.
108. Loring to Bonneville, May 1857, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM, Roll 6; Bonneville to
Nichols, May 1857, ibid.
109. George P. Hammond, ed., Campaigns in the West, 1856–1861: The Original Journal and
Letters of Colonel John Van Deusen DuBois (Tucson: Arizona Pioneers Historical Society,
1949), 30.
110. G arland to Thomas, Aug. 1, 1857, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2.
111. Nichols to Bonneville, July 26, 1857, ibid.; Miles to Bonneville, May 30, 1857, NA, RG393,
M1120, LR, DNM, Roll 6; Loring to Bonneville, May 1857, ibid.; Steck to Collins, Aug.
12, 1859, in 1859 RCIA, 345. For the “campaign of clowns” quote, see Dan L. Thrapp,
Victorio and the Mimbres Apaches (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974), 54.
112. Frank D. Reeve, ed., “Puritan and Apache,” New Mexico Historical Review 24 (Jan.
1949): 50–51.
113. For the Gila Campaign, see Kiser, Dragoons in Apacheland, 203–31; Sweeney, Mangas
Coloradas, 352–56.
114. In Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, see: Calhoun to Medill, Oct. 29, 1849, pp.
63–66; Calhoun to Brown, Nov. 2, 1849, pp. 68–69; Calhoun to Brown, Nov. 30, 1849,
p. 88; Brown to Calhoun, Dec. 28, 1849, pp. 94–95; Auguste Lacome to Calhoun, March
16, 1850, p. 170; Calhoun to Brown, March 25, 1850, pp. 170–72; Lea to Calhoun, Nov.
18, 1850, pp. 269–70; “Petition to the President of the United States,” Feb. 27, 1850, p.
158. See also McLaws to Grier, Oct. 29, 1849, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1;
Meriwether to Manypenny, Sept. 1, 1854, in 1854 RCIA, 170.
115. J. W. Davidson to George A. H. Blake, April 1, 1854, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM,
Roll 4; Garland to Thomas, April 1, 1854, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1;
Bennett, Forts and Forays, 54. On the death of Chief Lobo, see Garland to Thomas,
March 29, 1854, ibid. For the Battle of Cieneguilla, see Will Gorenfeld and David
M. Johnson, “The Battle of Cieneguilla,” in Battles and Massacres on the Southwestern
Frontier: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives, eds. Ronald K. Wetherington and
Frances Levine (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014), 9–76. This analysis of
216 Notes

the battle criticizes Davidson’s leadership and postulates, without substantial supporting
evidence, that the soldiers were all intoxicated.
116. Proclamation of William S. Messervy, April 10, 1854, NMSRCA, TA, Roll 98.
117. Blake to Nichols, Jan. 24, 1855, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM, Roll 4.
118. Garland to Thomas, April 20, 1854, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1; Garland to
Thomas, June 30, 1854, ibid.; Garland to Thomas, July 30, 1854, ibid.
119. For reports of the campaigns, see Philip St. George Cooke to Nichols, May 24, 1854,
NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM, Roll 3; Carleton to Cooke, June 5, 1854, ibid.; George
Sykes to Cooke, July 2, 1854, ibid.; Fauntleroy to Samuel D. Sturgis, March 28, 1855,
ibid., Roll 4; Fauntleroy to Sturgis, May 5, 1855, ibid.; St. Vrain to W. Magruder, June
17, 1855, ibid.; Fauntleroy to L. C. Easton, July 15, 1855, ibid.; Nichols to Carleton, Jan.
13, 1855, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1; Garland to Meriwether, Jan. 22, 1855,
ibid.; Garland to Thomas, Jan. 31, 1855, ibid.; Meriwether to Manypenny, Sept. 1855,
in 1855 RCIA, 187; Jacqueline Dorgan Meketa, ed., Legacy of Honor: The Life of Rafael
Chacón, A Nineteenth-Century New Mexican (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 1986), 100–4. See also Blackhawk, Violence over the Land, 198–200.
120. Garland to Thomas, March 31, 1855, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 1. On militias,
see Meriwether to Garland, Jan. 30, 1855, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM, Roll 4. On
Indians seeking peace, see Fauntleroy to Easton, July 28, 1855, ibid.; Meriwether to
Garland, Sept. 14, 1855, ibid.
121. Henry Lane Kendrick to Nichols, Oct. 23, 1854, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM, Roll
3; Kendrick to Nichols, Nov. 11, 1854, ibid. See also McNitt, Navajo Wars, 251–54.
122. William T. H. Brooks to Nichols, July 15, 1858, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM, Roll 7;
Samuel M. Yost to Collins, Aug. 31, 1858, RG75, OIA, T21, LR, NMS, Roll 3; Yost to
Collins, Sept. 9, 1858, ibid.; Garland to William Brooks, July 26, 1858, RG393, M1072,
LS, DNM, Roll 2; James C. McKee to Yost, Sept. 9, 1858, in J. Lee Correll, ed., Through
White Men’s Eyes: A Contribution to Navajo History (Window Rock, AZ: Navajo Heritage
Center, 1979), 2:156; Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, July 24 and Aug. 21, 1858; Brooks to AAG,
Nov. 30, 1857, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM, Roll 6. Additional correspondence
relating to the incident is in Correll, Through White Men’s Eyes 2:133–56. For scholarly
accounts, see Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 310–14; McNitt, Navajo Wars, 325–28, 358.
123. “Peonage in New Mexico,” Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, Feb. 2, 1867. On Jim’s death as a
cause of war with the Navajos, see Collins to Mix, Sept. 27, 1858, in 1858 RCIA, 190–91;
and statements by Kirby Benedict, John Greiner, and James L. Collins, July 4, 1865, in
“Condition of the Indian Tribes,” 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, pp.
325, 328, 331.
124. 1858 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 35th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc.
No. 1, p. 4.
125. Shepherd to J. D. Wilkins, Jan. 17, 1860, in “Indian Hostilities in New Mexico,” 36th
Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 69, pp. 30–32; Shepherd to Wilkins, Feb. 14,
1860, ibid., 42–44. See also McNitt, Navajo Wars, 380–81.
126. Collins to Abraham Rencher, Jan. 21, 1860, in “Indian Hostilities in New Mexico,”
36th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 69, pp. 57–59, quotations on 58.
 Notes 217

127. Collins to Greenwood, Jan. 29, 1860, ibid., 54; Collins to Greenwood, Feb. 4, 1860,
ibid., 56.
128. General Orders No. 2, Feb. 18, 1860, “Indian Hostilities in New Mexico,” 36th Cong.,
1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 69, pp. 39–40; Fauntleroy to Thomas, Jan. 29, 1860,
ibid., 29–30; Collins to Greenwood, Feb. 10, 1860, ibid., 62–63.
129. McNitt, Navajo Wars, 382–84; Maurice Frink, Fort Defiance and the Navajos (Boulder,
CO: Fred Pruett, 1968), 51–61. For an analysis that emphasizes Indian slavery, see Andrés
Reséndez, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
(New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), 278–93.
130. McNitt, Navajo Wars, 391–407. For correspondence related to the campaign, see Correll,
Through White Men’s Eyes, 3:54–132.
131. George N. Bascom to Dabney H. Maury, Feb. 14, 1861, NA, RG393, M1120, LR, DNM,
Roll 13; Bascom to Pitcairn Morrison, Feb. 25, 1861, ibid.; Isaiah N. Moore to Maury,
Feb. 25, 1861, ibid. On the Bascom Affair generally, see Edwin R. Sweeney, Cochise:
Chiricahua Apache Chief (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 142–65.
132. See, for example, Michael Steck Monthly Report, July 30, 1855, in which Steck reported
that the Apaches “cannot bring into the field over half the number of warriors that they
could have 20 years ago.” Center for Southwest Research, Inventory of the Michael
Steck Papers, Series 2, Roll 1.
133. Michael Steck Personal Notes, Aug. 1854, ibid.

Chapter 4

1. Childers, Failure of Popular Sovereignty, 40–73.

2. Speech of Thomas Corwin, Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 21, 1861,
Appendix, 74–75.
3. “ Army Appropriation Bill,” ibid., Jan. 18, 1861, p. 455.
4. R . H. Weightman to H. S. Foote, Dec. 15, 1851, in “Contested Election from New
Mexico,” Congressional Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., March 17, 1852, p. 755. See also “Mr.
Weightman and New Mexico,” National Era, Jan. 1, 1852. For Weightman’s views on
slavery in New Mexico, see “Speech of Hon. Richard H. Weightman of New Mexico,”
March 15, 1852 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Globe Office, 1852).
5. George Fitzhugh, “The Politics and Economies of Aristotle and Mr. Calhoun,” DeBow’s
Review, Aug. 1857, pp. 163–72.
6. Quoted in Richard K. Crallé, ed., Speeches of John C. Calhoun, Delivered in the House
of Representatives and in the Senate of the United States (New York: Russell & Russell,
1968), 4:548.
7. Ibid., 497. See also “The Slavery Question,” Congressional Globe, 29th Cong., 2nd Sess.,
Feb. 19, 1847, pp. 453–55; “New Mexico,” Congressional Globe, 30th Cong., 2nd Sess.,
Dec. 19, 1848, pp. 33–34; “Slavery in the New Territories,” DeBow’s Review, July 1849,
pp. 62–73.
8. Senate Select Committee Report, May 8, 1850, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Rep. Com.
No. 123, p. 1.
218 Notes

9. S ee Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850.

10. “ The Slave Question,” Santa Fe Republican, Jan. 29, 1848.
11. “Slavery in the Territories,” Congressional Globe, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., Appendix, July 29,
1848, pp. 1060–61.
12. Ibid., Aug. 3, 1848, pp. 1072–74.
13. Ibid., Aug. 3, 1848, p. 1078.
14. “Relations of States,” Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., May 24, 1860, pp.
2311–12.
15. “New Mexico,” Congressional Globe, 30th Cong., 2nd Sess., Dec. 19, 1848, pp. 33–37,
quotation on 33. For Benton’s views on the Compromise of 1850, see Benton, Thirty
Years’ View, 2:749–65.
16. “Slavery in the Territories, Speech of Mr. Berrien,” Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st
Sess., Appendix, Feb. 12, 1850, pp. 207–8
17. “Slavery in the Territories, Speech of Mr. Davis,” ibid., Feb. 13, 1850, pp. 151–53, quotation
on 151.
18. Speech of Truman Smith, ibid., 31st Cong., 1st Sess., July 8, 1850, pp. 1180–86, quotations
on 1180.
19. Daniel Webster to R. H. Gardiner, June 17, 1850, in Daniel Webster, The Works of Daniel
Webster (Boston: C. Little & Jas. Brown, 1851), 6:568–75, quotation on 571.
20. Speech of James Cooper, Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., July 1, 1850, pp.
1010–12.
21. “Message from the President of the United States,” 31st Cong., 1st Sess., June 17, 1850,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 56, p. 1.
22. Speech of Thomas Rusk, Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., June 6, 1850, p. 1144.
23. Speech of Samuel Cooper, ibid., July 1, 1850, pp. 1010–12. On the congressional debates,
see Kiser, Borderlands of Slavery, 23–56.
24. Robert S. Neighbors to John Munroe, April 15, 1850, in “Message from the President
of the United States,” 31st Cong., 1st Sess., June 17, 1850, Senate Exec. Doc. No. 56,
p. 15. See also “Message from the President of the United States, relative to the claim
of Texas to jurisdiction over part of New Mexico,” Aug. 6, 1850, 31st Cong., 1st Sess.,
Senate Exec. Doc. No. 67.
25. Winfield Scott to John Munroe, Aug. 6, 1850, in Abel, Correspondence of James S.
Calhoun, 164–65.
26. For Taylor’s views, see “California and New Mexico,” Feb. 6, 1850, 31st Cong., 1st
Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 17, pp. 1–4. For New Mexico’s statehood constitution, see
Rittenhouse, Constitution of the State of New Mexico. See also “Proclamation of John
Munroe,” May 28, 1850, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 219–20. On the
1850 debates, see Larson, New Mexico’s Quest for Statehood, 13–61; Stegmaier, Texas,
New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850, 115–33; Lamar, The Far Southwest, 61–70.
27. Stegmaier, Texas, New Mexico, and the Compromise of 1850, 167–200, 317–19.
28. Charles Conrad to Munroe, Sept. 10, 1850, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun,
220–21.
 Notes 219

29. Stacey L. Smith, Freedom’s Frontier: California and the Struggle over Unfree Labor, Eman-
cipation, and Reconstruction (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 48.
30. “Peon Slavery on the Rio Grande—Letter from the Border,” New-York Daily Tribune,
July 15, 1850.
31. “Important from New Mexico—Slavery and Peonage,” New York Herald, July 18, 1850.
32. “New Mexico—Slavery Recognized in Her Constitution,” Daily Albany Argus, July 24,
1850; “The New Mexican Delegate,” ibid., July 26, 1850.
33. Congressional Globe, 31st Cong., 1st Sess., June 5, 1850, p. 1135, and June 6, 1850, p. 1144.
34. On debt peonage, see Charles H. Harris III, A Mexican Family Empire: The Latifundio of
the Sánchez Navarros, 1765–1867 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975), 218–20; Weber,
The Mexican Frontier, 211–12; Howard Lamar, “From Bondage to Contract: Ethnic
Labor in the American West, 1600–1890,” in The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist
Transformation, eds. Steven Hahn and Jonathan Prude (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1985), 299–300; Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making
of Texas, 76–82; Kiser, “‘A charming name for a species of slavery,’” 169–89; Reséndez,
The Other Slavery, 238–40, 245–46; Kiser, Borderlands of Slavery, 11–14, 16–17, 88–111.
35. Webb, Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade, 101–2.
36. John C. Reid, Reid’s Tramp, or a Journal of the Incidents of Ten Months Travel through
Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora, and California (Austin, TX: Steck, 1935), 143–45.
37. Davis, El Gringo, 98–99.
38. For firsthand accounts of peonage in New Mexico, see Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, We
Fed Them Cactus (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1954), 6; Wislizenus,
Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, 23–24; Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico and the
Rocky Mountains, 116; Brantz Mayer, Mexico, As It Was and As It Is (Philadelphia: G.
B. Zieber, 1847), 201–2; Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 182–84; James F. Meline, Two
Thousand Miles on Horseback: Santa Fe and Back (Albuquerque, NM: Horn & Wal-
lace, 1966), 120–21; John Ayers, “A Soldier’s Experience in New Mexico,” New Mexico
Historical Review 24 (Oct. 1949), 261; Cooke, Conquest of New Mexico and California,
34–35; McCall, New Mexico in 1850, 85; Irving Howbert, Memories of a Lifetime in the
Pikes Peak Region (Glorieta, NM: Rio Grande Press, 1970), 169; Henry Inman, The Old
Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great Highway (Topeka, KS: Crane, 1916), 374; Calvin,
Lieutenant Emory Reports, 87; Garrard, Wah-To-Yah and the Taos Trail, 138–39.
39. “Law regulating contracts between masters and servants,” NA, RG46, Territorial Papers
of the U.S. Senate, Roll 14 (New Mexico, 1840–1854).
40. “An Act Concerning Free Negroes,” in Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Sixth
Legislative Assembly, 1856–1857 (Santa Fe: Office of the Democrat, 1857), 48–50.
41. On convict labor in the New South, see Alex Lichtenstein, Twice the Work of Free Labor:
The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South (New York: Verso, 1996); Douglas
A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the
Civil War to World War II (New York: Anchor, 2009); Talitha L. LeFlouria, Chained
in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South (Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press, 2015).
220 Notes

42. “An Act to provide for the protection of property in Slaves in this Territory,” in Laws of
the Territory of New Mexico, Eighth Legislative Assembly, 1858–1859 (Santa Fe: A. DeMarle,
1859), 64–80; Stegmaier, “A Law that Would Make Caligula Blush?,” 209–42.
43. Abraham Rencher to William Seward, April 14, 1861, NA, RG59, U.S. State Department,
New Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851–1872, Microfilm T17, Roll 2.
44. “Slavery in New-Mexico,” DeBow’s Review, May 1859, p. 601. On New Mexico’s slave
codes, see Kiser, Borderlands of Slavery, 112–41.
45. William Need to Simon Cameron, Sept. 27, 1861, in The War of the Rebellion: A Compila-
tion of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (hereafter cited as OR)
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1882), ser. 1, vol. 50, part 2, p. 638.
46. “Interesting Letter from New Mexico,” Montpelier Watchman and State Journal, clipping
in E. P. Walton to A. B. Greenwood, June 9, 1859, NA, RG75, OIA, LR, NMS, M234,
Roll 549.
47. Need to Cameron, Sept. 27, 1861, in OR, ser. 1, vol. 50, part 2, p. 638. See also New-York
Daily Tribune: “Mr. Robinson’s Proposition,” Jan. 5, 1861; “Mistakes Corrected,” Feb.
22, 1861; and “The Slave Code of New Mexico,” April 16, 1861. For a background of
Alexander Jackson, see Martin Hardwick Hall, Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1960), 14–16. For a biographical sketch of Miguel Otero, see
Laura E. Gómez, Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race (New
York: New York University Press, 2007), 98–99. For Otero’s political activities, see
Mark Stegmaier, “New Mexico’s Delegate in the Secession Winter Congress, Part 1:
Two Newspaper Accounts of Miguel Otero in 1861,” New Mexico Historical Review 86
(Summer 2011): 385–92; Mark Stegmaier, “New Mexico’s Delegate in the Secession
Winter Congress, Part 2: Miguel A. Otero Responds to Horace Greeley, and Greeley
takes Revenge,” New Mexico Historical Review 86 (Fall 2011): 513–23. On Davis’s military
appointments while serving as secretary of war, see William J. Cooper Jr., Jefferson Davis,
American (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 251–52.
48. “The Slave Code of New Mexico,” New-York Daily Tribune, April 16, 1861.
49. “ Shall We Give Up New-Mexico?,” ibid., Feb. 25, 1861.
50. New-York Daily Tribune: “Mr. Robinson’s Proposition,” Jan. 5, 1861; “Governor of
New-Mexico,” July 15, 1861. For additional Greeley commentary, see ibid., “A Few
Questions about New Mexico,” Jan. 23, 1861; “Mistakes Corrected,” Feb. 22, 1861.
51. K iser, Borderlands of Slavery, 103–10. A handful of court cases involving peonage transpired
during the 1850s, although none of them would have the far-reaching legal implications
of the 1857 hearings. See José María Gutierres v. Pablo Maldonado et. al., April 5, 1854,
NMSRCA, San Miguel County District Court Records, Serial #13533, Folder 1, Case #21;
Lorenzo Labadi vs. Vicente Ortega, July 26, 1854, NMSRCA, Records of the District
Court of Valencia County; Cruz Marqués v. José Manuel Angel, Oct. 3, 1855, NMSRCA,
San Miguel County District Court Records, Serial #13533, Folder 1, Case #24; Manuel
Armijo v. Pablo Gamboa, Aug. 25, 1860, NMSRCA, Bernalillo County Probate Court
Records, Serial #13734, Folder #51.
52. Marcellina Bustamento v. Juana Analla, Jan. 1857, in Charles H. Gildersleeve, Reports of
Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the Territory of New Mexico from
 Notes 221

January term 1852 to January term 1879 (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft, 1881), 1:255–62,
quotations on 257, 259.
53. Mariana Jaremillo v. José de la Cruz Romero, Jan. 1857, in ibid., 190–208, quotations on
193, 206. For Kirby Benedict’s career in New Mexico, see Aurora Hunt, Kirby Benedict:
Federal Frontier Judge (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1961), 109–11; Pete Daniel, The
Shadow of Slavery: Peonage in the South, 1901–1969 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1972), 15–16; Arie W. Poldevaart, Black-Robed Justice: A History of the Administration
of Justice in New Mexico from the American Occupation in 1846 until Statehood in 1912
(Holmes Beach, FL: Gaunt, 1999), 49–66.
54. “Slavery in the Territory of New Mexico,” May 10, 1860, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., House
Report No. 508, quotations on 8–9, 32, 34.
55. “Admission of Kansas,” Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., March 1, 1860, p. 916.
56. “President’s Message, ibid., 928.
57. “Army Appropriation Bill,” Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 18, 1861, p. 455.
58. “ Enrolled Bills,” ibid., Jan. 22, 1861, pp. 514–15.
59. “State of the Union, Speech of Hon. J. A. Bingham,” ibid., Jan. 22, 1861, Appendix, 83.
60. “State of the Union,” Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 29, 1861, p. 623.
61. “Evening Session,” ibid., Feb. 5, 1861, p. 761.
62. “Report of the Special Committee . . . upon the Bill to repeal the Act of Feb. 3, 1859 for
the protection of property in slaves,” NA, RG59, U.S. State Department, New Mexico
Territorial Papers, 1851–1872, Microfilm T17, Roll 2.
63. See Mark Stegmaier, “‘An Imaginary Negro in an Impossible Place?’: The Issue of New
Mexico Statehood in the Secession Crisis, 1860–1861,” New Mexico Historical Review
84 (Spring 2009): 263–90.
64. Otero to Seward, Sept. 1, 1861, NA, RG59, U.S. State Department, New Mexico Ter-
ritorial Papers, 1851–1872, Microfilm T17, Roll 2.
65. Deren Earl Kellogg, “Lincoln’s New Mexico Patronage: Saving the Far Southwest for
the Union,” New Mexico Historical Review 75 (Oct. 2000): 511–29.
66. “First Annual Message of Governor Henry Connelly,” Dec. 4, 1861, NA, RG59, U.S.
State Department, New Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851-1872, Microfilm T17, Roll 2. Four
years later, Connelly attacked the 1857 Act Concerning Free Negroes, which outlived
the 1859 slave code and remained on the books even after the Civil War had ended.
Connelly said that the law “is equally in discord with the legislation of Congress, and
the proclamation of the president abolishing slavery and restoring to civil rights the
freedmen of the African race.” See “The Fourth Annual Message of Governor Henry
Connelly,” Dec. 1865, ibid., Roll 3.
67. Facundo Piño, “Address to the Legislative Assembly of New Mexico,” Jan. 29, 1862, in
NA, RG46, Territorial Papers of the U.S. Senate, New Mexico 1840–1854, M200, Roll
14; “Executive Message of His Excellency William F. M. Arny,” Dec. 2, 1862 (Santa Fe:
Office of the Santa Fe Gazette, 1862), 11–12.
68. “An Act to confiscate Property used for Insurrectionary Purposes,” Aug. 6, 1861, United
States Statutes at Large, Treaties, and Proclamations of the United States of America (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1863), 12:319.
222 Notes

69. “An Act to Secure Freedom to all Persons within the Territories of the United States,”
U.S. Statutes at Large, 36th Cong., 2nd Sess., ch. 112, p. 432.
70. “An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate
the Property of Rebels, and for other Purposes,” July 17, 1862, U.S. Statutes at Large,
12:589–92.
71. James Oakes, Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865
(New York: Norton, 2012), 143, 236–42, 344–45; Brooks D. Simpson, The Reconstruction
Presidents (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 33–35.
72. Executive Order of Andrew Johnson, June 9, 1865, RG75, OIA, T21, LR, NMS, Roll
6. For seminal works on the amendment, see Michael Vorenberg, Final Freedom: The
Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2001); Alexander Tsesis, The Thirteenth Amendment and
American Freedom: A Legal History (New York: New York University Press, 2004).
73. “An Act to abolish and forever prohibit the System of Peonage in the Territory of New
Mexico and other Parts of the United States,” U.S. Statutes at Large, 39th Cong., 2nd
Sess., ch. 187, p. 546.
74. “Executive Message of His Excellency William F. M. Arny,” Dec. 2, 1862 (Santa Fe:
Office of the Santa Fe Gazette, 1862), 13–14, quotation on 12, italics in original; Calhoun
to Orlando Brown, March 31, 1850, in Abel, Correspondence of James S. Calhoun, 183.
Some military officers also suggested compensated emancipation. See, for example, B.
L. Beall to J. H. Dickerson, March 12, 1849, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll 1;
Thomas Fitzpatrick to B. L. Beall, Feb. 24, 1849, ibid.
75. “Memorial to Congress,” Jan. 29, 1863, NA, RG46, Territorial Papers of the U.S. Senate,
New Mexico 1840–54, M200, Roll 14.
76. Michael Steck to William P. Dole, Jan. 13, 1864, NA, RG75, OIA, NMS, LR, 1849–1880,
M234, Roll 552.
77. Edward R. S. Canby, General Orders No. 81, Sept. 9, 1862, ibid. See also Thompson,
Civil War History of the New Mexico Volunteers, 19–20, 225.
78. Executive Order of Andrew Johnson, June 9, 1865, NA, RG75, OIA, NMS, 1849–80,
Microfilm T21, Roll 6.
79. James Harlan to Dole, June 12, 1865, ibid.
80. Dole to Felipe Delgado, June 4, 1865, ibid.; Delgado to Dole, July 16, 1865, ibid., M234,
Roll 552.
81. Testimony of James H. Carleton and Kirby Benedict, in “Condition of the Indian
Tribes,” 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, pp. 325–26. On the abolition of
Indian slavery, see Reséndez, The Other Slavery, 295–313.
82. Graves to Dennis N. Cooley, Undated Report of Jan. 1866, in 1866 RCIA, 133–34. See
also Reséndez, The Other Slavery, 299–300.
83. W. F. M. Arny, Second Annual Message to the Legislative Assembly, Dec. 1866, NMS-
RCA, TA, Roll 98.
84. Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, 1866–1867 (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1867), 44.
85. Journal of the Legislative Assembly, Dec. 4, 1865 to Feb. 1, 1866, NMSRCA, TA,
Microfilm Reel 3.
 Notes 223

86. Tomás Heredia vs. José María García, Dec. 4, 1865, Third Judicial District Court of New
Mexico, at NMSRCA, U.S. Territorial and New Mexico Supreme Court Records, Box
3, No. 36; Tomás Heredia vs. José María García, Jan. 26, 1867, New Mexico Territorial
Supreme Court, in ibid.; “The Supreme Court on Peonage,” Santa Fe Weekly Gazette,
Feb. 2, 1867.
87. Graves to Connelly, Jan. 9, 1866, NMSRCA, TA, Roll 98.
88. Graves to Dennis N. Cooley, Undated Report of Jan. 1866, in 1866 Annual Report of the
Secretary of the Interior (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1866), 133–34.
89. Ibid., 33.
90. “Peonage in New Mexico,” Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, Feb. 2, 1867.
91. “Peonage in New Mexico,” Congressional Globe, 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 3, 1867, pp.
239–40, quotation on 240.
92. “ Abolition of Peonage,” ibid., Feb. 19, 1867, pp. 1571–72.
93. “An Act to abolish and forever prohibit the System of Peonage in the Territory of New
Mexico and other Parts of the United States,” U.S. Statutes at Large, 39th Cong., 2nd
Sess., ch. 187, p. 546.
94. A. B. Norton to John Ward, Aug. 6, 1867, NA, RG75, OIA, NMS, T21, Misc. Docs.,
Roll 8.
95. “Proclamation by the Governor of the Territory of New Mexico,” April 14, 1867, NA,
RG59, T17, New Mexico Territorial Papers, Roll 3.
96. “ Proclamation of Governor Herman M. Heath,” June 10, 1868, ibid.
97. Lawrence R. Murphy, “Reconstruction in New Mexico,” New Mexico Historical Review
43 (April 1968), 106–9.
98. Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 240.
99. I bid., 385–403.
100. Griffin to Stephen B. Elkins, Sept. 28, 1868, NA, RG46, Territorial Papers of the U.S.
Senate, Roll 14, New Mexico, 1840–54.
101. Murphy, “Reconstruction in New Mexico,” 106; “Additional Evidence,” Grand Jury
Proceedings, NA, RG46, Territorial Papers of the U.S. Senate, Roll 14, New Mexico,
1840–54. See also Laura E. Gómez, “Off-White in an Age of White Supremacy: Mexican
Elites and the Rights of Indians and Blacks in Nineteenth Century New Mexico,” in
Colored Men and Hombres Aqui: Hernandez v. Texas and the Emergence of Mexican-
American Lawyering, ed. Michael A. Olivas (Houston: Arte Público Press, 2006), 36;
Gómez, Manifest Destinies, 89.

Chapter 5

1. “Memorial to Congress,” March 4, 1864, 38th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Misc. Doc. No.
52.
2. “Second Annual Message to the Legislative Assembly,” William F. M. Arny, Dec. 1866,
NMSRCA, TA, Roll 98.
3. John F. Stover, History of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue
University Press, 1987).
224 Notes

4. See DeBow’s Review: “Intercommunication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,”
Oct. 1847, pp. 164–76; “Internal Improvements,” May 1847, p. 447; “Intercommunication
between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,” July 1849, pp. 18, 20; “Railroad to the Pacific,”
Sept. 1860, pp. 339–42. See also George Leslie Albright, Official Explorations for Pacific
Railroads, 1853–1855 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1921), 10–20. On Asa
Whitney, see David Haward Bain, Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental
Railroad (New York: Viking, 1999), 3–46.
5. “Canal or Railroad between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,” Feb. 20, 1849, 30th Cong.,
2nd Sess., House Report No. 145, pp. 1, 34, 57–58, 413.
6. Abert to Simpson, May 5, 1849, NA, RG393, M1102, LR, DNM, Roll 1; McNitt, Navaho
Expedition, 160–62. See also “Route from Fort Smith to Santa Fe,” Feb. 21, 1850, 31st
Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 45, pp. 1–25.
7. “Canal or Railroad between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,” Feb. 20, 1849, 30th Cong.,
2nd Sess., House Report No. 145, p. 63.
8. “A Journey to the West,” DeBow’s Review, March 1858, p. 253.
9. John Loughborough, The Pacific Telegraph and Railway (St. Louis: Charles & Hammond,
1849), iii, iv. In 1845 Benton presented his own plan for a “national central railway”
extending westward from his home state of Missouri. Although retirement from the
Senate ended his direct political control over the situation after 1850, he continued to
lobby for Missouri’s railroad interests after leaving Congress. See “Col. Benton and
the Pacific Railroad,” New York Times, Nov. 25, 1852. On Benton and the railroad, see
Albright, Official Explorations for Pacific Railroads, 15–20; Bain, Empire Express, 37–38.
10. Loughborough, Pacific Telegraph and Railway, xii. On the convention generally, see
Albright, Official Explorations for Pacific Railroads, 22–25.
11. Loughborough, Pacific Telegraph and Railway, xix, 12, 31–32.
12. Ibid., xviii, 16, 31, 34, 51.
13. Kvach, DeBow’s Review, 1–10, 59–62, 95–96.
14. I bid., 4–6.
15. A sa Whitney, “Intercommunication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,” DeBow’s
Review, Oct. 1847, pp. 164–76.
16. J. D. B. DeBow, “Intercommunication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,” ibid.,
July 1849, pp. 1–37, quotations on 5, 32, 36; C. Graham to H. S. Fulkerson, March 6,
1860, in “Atlantic and Pacific Railroad,” ibid., Nov. 1860, p. 596.
17. “Pacific Rail-Road,” DeBow’s Review, Dec. 1850, p. 601.
18. See Bartlett, Personal Narrative of Explorations; “Report of the Secretary of the Interior,
in answer to . . . the boundary between the United States and Mexico,” Feb. 28, 1850,
31st Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 34, parts 1 and 2; “Report of the Secretary of
the Interior . . . in relation to the commission appointed to run and mark the boundary
between the United States and Mexico,” Aug. 31, 1852, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec.
Doc. No. 119. On the International Boundary Commission, see Robert V. Hine, Bartlett’s
West: Drawing the Mexican Boundary (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968);
Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the American West, 153–208; Joseph Richard Werne, The
Imaginary Line: A History of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, 1848–1857
 Notes 225

(Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 2007); William S. Kiser, Turmoil on
the Rio Grande: The Territorial History of the Mesilla Valley, 1846–1865 (College Station:
Texas A&M University Press, 2011), 47–69; St. John, Line in the Sand, 25–35.
19. Pedro García Conde to Mexican Minister of Relations, Dec. 24, 1850, quoted in Werne,
The Imaginary Line, 56; John Russell Bartlett to Alexander Stuart, Dec. 28, 1850, in
“Report of the Secretary of the Interior . . . in relation to the boundary between the
United States and Mexico,”32nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 119, p. 391; José
Salazar Ylarregui, Datos de los trabajos astronómicos y topográficos . . . por la Comisión
de Limites mexicana en la línea que divide esta república de la de los Estados-Unidos
(Mexico City: Imprenta de Juan R. Navarro, 1850), 8–9. See also Oscar J. Martinez,
“Surveying and Marking the U.S.-Mexico Boundary: The Mexican Perspective,” in
Drawing the Borderline: Artist-Explorers of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary Survey, ed. Dawn
Hall (Albuquerque, NM: Albuquerque Museum, 1996), 13–22. For the boundary conflict
as it related to the Mesilla Valley, see Mora, Border Dilemmas, 74–78, 82–88.
20. Werne, The Imaginary Line, 71–72, 139–42; John Mack Faragher, “North, South, and
West: Sectional Controversies and the U.S.-Mexico Boundary Survey,” in Hall, Drawing
the Borderline, 1–11.
21. “The Pacific Railroad,” Congressional Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., July 6, 1852, Appendix,
777.
22. “Mexican Boundary Commissioner,” Congressional Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., July
6, 1852, p. 1660.
23. “Report of the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey, Made under the Direction
of the Secretary of the Interior, by William H. Emory,” 34th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate
Exec. Doc. No. 108, vol. 1, p. 11. See also William H. Emory to A. D. Bache, Jan. 21,
1852, quoted in Hine, Bartlett’s West, 71; George Clinton Gardner to his Father, April 9,
1852, in Fiasco: George Clinton Gardner’s Correspondence from the U.S.-Mexico Boundary
Survey, 1849–1854, eds. David J. Weber and Jane Lenz Elder (Dallas: Southern Methodist
University Press, 2010), 188. For the itemized expenses through 1849, see “Report of the
Secretary of the Interior, in answer to . . . the boundary between the United States and
Mexico,” 31st Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 34, Part 1, pp. 49–53.
24. “Memorial of a Committee Appointed at a Railroad Convention,” Dec. 27, 1852, 32nd
Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Misc. Doc. No. 5, quotations on 2, 3, 7. On railroad corruption
generally, see White, Railroaded.
25. “Southern Atlantic and Pacific Railroad,” Congressional Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess.,
May 6, 1852, pp. 1271–74.
26. “Memorial of Henry O’Reilly,” April 6, 1852, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Misc. Doc.
No. 67, quotation on 1.
27. “Memorial to Congress,” Dec. 31, 1852, NA, RG46, Territorial Papers of the U.S. Senate,
New Mexico, 1840–54, Roll 14.
28. “The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad,” New York Times, Jan. 28, 1853; “The Pacific Railroad,”
ibid., Feb. 5, 1853.
29. “China and the Indies—Our ‘Manifest Destiny’ in the East,” DeBow’s Review, Dec.
1853, pp. 568, 571.
226 Notes

30. For congressional deliberations on the railroad, see “Railroad to the Pacific,” Congressional
Globe, 32nd Cong., 2nd Sess., Jan. 13, 1852, pp. 280–84; “Railroad to the Pacific,” ibid.,
Jan. 17, 1852, pp. 314–21; “Railroad to the Pacific,” ibid., Jan. 27, 1852, pp. 420–24.
31. “Pacific Railroad Schemes,” New York Times, Feb. 5, 1853; “Pacific Railroad and Penn-
sylvania,” ibid., Feb. 4, 1853. On the Pacific Railroad Surveys, see Albright, Official
Explorations for Pacific Railroads, 27–43; Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the American
West, 262–304; Bain, Empire Express, 48–52. Senator Gwin was purportedly an operative
for the Knights of the Golden Circle in California. See David C. Keehn, Knights of the
Golden Circle: Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press, 2013), 129–30.
32. 1853 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 33rd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No.
1, p. 23.
33. Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, 256–58; Felicity Allen, Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable
Heart (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999), 202–24; Nelson, “Death in the
Distance,” 33.
34. 1853 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 33rd Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No.
1, pp. 16–27.
35. A lbright, Official Explorations for Pacific Railroads, 29–43. For Benton’s views, see
“National Central Highway from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean,” Congres-
sional Globe, 30th Cong., 2nd Sess., Feb. 7, 1849, pp. 470–74; “Highway to the Pacific,”
ibid., 31st Cong., 2nd Sess., Dec. 16, 1850, pp. 56–58.
36. On the Sitgreaves expedition, see “Report of an Expedition Down the Zuni and Colorado
Rivers,” 32nd Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 59; S. W. Woodhouse, From Texas
to San Diego in 1851: The Overland Journal of Dr. S. W. Woodhouse, Surgeon-Naturalist
of the Sitgreaves Expedition, eds. Andrew Wallace and Richard H. Hevly (Lubbock:
Texas Tech University Press, 2007); and Weber, Richard H. Kern, 143–86.
37. “Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical
route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean,” 33rd Cong., 2nd
Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 78, vol. 3, part 1, pp. 4–31, quotations on 4, 14.
38. Ibid., vol. 3, part 2, pp. 63–76; “The Pacific Railroad: Indian Tribes on Mr. Whipple’s
Route,” New York Times, April 27, 1854. See also Grant Foreman, A Pathfinder in the
Southwest: The Itinerary of Lieutenant A. W. Whipple during his Explorations for a Railway
Route from Fort Smith to Los Angeles in the Years 1853 and 1854 (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1941); Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the American West, 287–89.
39. “Important News from Albuquerque,” Fort Smith Herald article reprinted in New York
Times, Dec. 27, 1853.
40. “Report upon the Colorado River of the West, explored in 1857 and 1858 by Lieutenant
Joseph C. Ives, Corps of Topographical Engineers,” 36th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec.
Doc. No. 90, pp. 6, 96. On the 35th parallel route, see H. Craig Miner, The St. Louis–San
Francisco Transcontinental Railroad: The Thirty-Fifth Parallel Project, 1853–1890 (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 1972).
41. “Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical
route for a railroad,” 33rd Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 78, vol. 7, Introduction,
 Notes 227

15; Wislizenus, Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, 85–86. See also Albright, Official
Explorations for Pacific Railroads, 121–22. For histories of the topographical engineers
and western surveys, see Edward S. Wallace, The Great Reconnaissance: Soldiers, Art-
ists, and Scientists on the Frontier, 1848–1861 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1955); William H.
Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of
the American West (New York: Knopf, 1966), 231–354.
42. “Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical
route for a railroad,” 33rd Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 78, vol. 7, part 1, pp.
19–42, quotation on 19.
43. A. B. Gray, Survey of a Route for the Southern Pacific R.R., on the 32nd Parallel (Cincinnati,
OH: Wrightson, 1856), 5, 85. On coolie labor, see Stacey L. Smith, Freedom’s Frontier:
California and the Struggle over Unfree Labor, Emancipation, and Reconstruction (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 193–98; White, Railroaded, 297–98.
44. “Superiority of Slave Labor in Constructing Railroads,” DeBow’s Review, March 1855, p.
406. See also “Is Slave Labor in the Construction of Southern Railroads to be Preferred
to Free Labor?,” ibid., Dec. 1855, pp. 728–29.
45. “ The Southern Pacific Railroad,” DeBow’s Review, Dec. 1859, p. 725.
46. Gray, Survey of a Route for the Southern Pacific R.R., 79, 89–90.
47. “Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical
route for a railroad,” 33rd Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 78, vol. 2, report no.
4 (John Pope), 5–12, quotations on 8, 9.
48. I bid., 47–50.
49. 1856 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 34th Cong., 3rd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No.
5, pp. 19–22.
50. Marcy to Gadsden, July 15, 1853, in Miller, Treaties and Other International Acts, 6:342–46.
On Governor Lane’s occupation of the Mesilla Valley, see Proclamation of William Carr
Lane, March 13, 1853, NA, RG59, U.S. State Department, Dispatches from United States
Consuls in Ciudad Juárez, 1850–1906, Microcopy 54, Roll 1; William G. B. Carson, ed.,
“William Carr Lane Diary,” New Mexico Historical Review 39 (Oct. 1964): 300; Lane to
his Wife, Feb. 15, 1853, in Ralph P. Bieber, ed., “Letters of William Carr Lane, 1852–1854,”
New Mexico Historical Review 3 (April 1928): 192. For Mexican perspectives on Lane’s
proclamation, see “From Mexico,” New York Times, July 20, 1853; “Agresión americana
en Chihuahua,” El Siglo Diez y Nueve, April 10, 1853; “Ministerio de Relaciones,” ibid.,
April 27, 1853; “Noticias nacionales: La cuestión de la Mesilla,” ibid., May 13, 1853; “La
cuestión de la Mesilla,” ibid., June 6, 1853; Angel Trías to Lane, March 28, 1853, Alcance
al Centinela, March 29, 1853.
51. “The President’s Message,” New York Times, Dec. 7, 1853.
52. Marcy to Christopher L. Ward, Oct. 22, 1853, in Miller, Treaties and Other International
Acts, 6:360–62, quotations on 362, 387.
53. Marcy to Gadsden, Oct. 13, 1854, ibid., 341. See also ibid., 376, 386. For the Gadsden
Treaty and related correspondence, see ibid., 293–438. On the Gadsden Purchase gener-
ally, see Paul N. Garber, The Gadsden Treaty (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1923); David Devine, Slavery, Scandal, and Steel Rails: The 1854 Gadsden Purchase
228 Notes

and the Building of the Second Transcontinental Railroad across Arizona and New Mexico
Twenty-Five Years Later (New York: iUniverse, 2004), 44–89.
54. “Gadsden’s Treaty,” New-York Daily Tribune, Jan. 26, 1854.
55. John Russell Bartlett to Horace Greeley, April 25, 1854, in “Gadsden’s Attack on Com-
missioner Bartlett,” New-York Daily Tribune, April 27, 1854; “The Pacific Railroad:
Letter from John R. Bartlett on the Southern Route,” New York Times, Dec. 29, 1853.
56. See the New York Times: “The New Mexican Treaty,” Feb. 15, 1854; “The Expected Vote
on the Nebraska Bill—The Gadsden Treaty,” Feb. 2, 1854; “The Gadsden Treaty,” Feb.
28, 1854; “A Few Words on the Treaty,” March 27, 1854; “The Gadsden Treaty Ratified,”
April 26, 1854; “Santa Anna and the Treaty,” June 16, 1854.
57. “Sonora,” ibid., Jan. 12, 1854.
58. “Some Notes on Mexico and General Jackson,” DeBow’s Review, July 1857, pp. 94–98,
quotation on 94.
59. A lbert Pike, “Pacific Railroad—Plan of the Southern Convention,” ibid., Dec. 1854,
pp. 593–99, quotations on 595, 596. Emphasis in original. For a similar perspective that
threatened secession, see W. Burwell, “True Policy of the South—Suggestions for the
Settlement of our Sectional Differences,” ibid., Nov. 1856, pp. 469–90.
60. “On What Route are we to have the Pacific Railroad?,” DeBow’s Review, Sept. 1855, pp.
336–41, quotations on 336, 337. For Jefferson Davis’s personal views on the railroad, see
1855 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 34th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No.
1, pp. 14–17. For correspondence related to his tenure as secretary of war, see Lynda
Lasswell Crist and Mary Seaton Dix, eds., The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 5:
1853–1855 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985).
61. Gray, Survey of a Route for the Southern Pacific R.R.; n.a., Circular to the Stockholders of
the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company (New York: Geo. F. Nesbitt, 1855). On the
Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company, see Albright, Official Explorations, 26–27.
62. “An act to provide for the construction of the Mississippi and Pacific Railroad,” quoted
in its entirety in “The Southern Route to the Pacific,” DeBow’s Review, May 1854, pp.
545–49.
63. Circular to the Stockholders, 6, 12, 14.
64. Ibid., 6–12, 16; Loughborough, Pacific Telegraph and Railway, xvi; “The Pacific Rail-
road,” DeBow’s Review, May 1854, p. 507. For the Ponzi scheme comparison, see White,
Railroaded, 201. In 1848 General Land Office commissioner Richard M. Young valued
the land in New Mexico and California at just twenty-five cents per acre, and he
wrote a letter directly to Robert Walker, president of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad
Company, informing him of that valuation. Young to Robert J. Walker, Nov. 22, 1848,
in “Correspondence Relating to Civil Government in California and New Mexico,”
Oct. 7, 1848, 30th Cong., 1st Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 72.
65. Untitled article on the Gadsden Treaty, New-York Daily Tribune, Jan. 30, 1854.
66. C. Glen Peebles, Exposé of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company (New York: New
York Examiner, 1854), 3, 9, 14.
67. Nelson, “Death in the Distance,” 33; Keehn, Knights of the Golden Circle, 1–4, 129–31;
Johnson, River of Dark Dreams, 330–420. On Southern control of Amazonia, see M. F.
 Notes 229

Maury, “Direct Foreign Trade of the South,” DeBow’s Review, Feb. 1852, pp. 126–48; for
a scholarly analysis, see Karp, This Vast Southern Empire, 141–48.
68. “Pacific Railroad and Telegraph,” Aug. 16, 1856, 34th Cong., 1st Sess., House Report
No. 358, pp. 2, 29–31, 36–37. For Benton’s advocacy of the central route, see “The Pacific
Railroad: Letter from Col. Benton to the Citizens of Missouri,” New York Times, Nov.
2, 1853.
69. “ The Pacific Railroad,” North American Review 82 (Jan. 1856): 235.
70. 1857 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 35th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No.
11, p. 13.
71. “The Southern Pacific Railroad,” DeBow’s Review, May 1857, pp. 509–13, quotations
on 510. This Southern Pacific Railroad Company should not be confused with a later
corporation by the same name that constructed its line from California eastward through
Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. That railway connected California to New Orleans
in 1883. See Devine, Slavery, Scandal, and Steel Rails, 102–214.
72. “Memorial of the New Mexican Railway Company in Relation to the Pacific Railroad,”
May 21, 1860, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., House Misc. Doc. No. 85, quotation on 1.
73. “The American Railroad System,” DeBow’s Review, May 1858, p. 386. Connecticut
senator Truman Smith voiced a similar opinion in 1853, saying that a railroad through
New Mexico would civilize the otherwise “wretched” Hispanics living there. See “The
Pacific Railroad: Remarks of Truman Smith in favor of the Road,” New York Times,
March 17, 1853.

Chapter 6

1. On Sibley’s resignation, see Dabney Maury to Henry Hopkins Sibley, April 30, 1861,
NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, M1072, Roll 2; Jerry Thompson, Henry Hopkins Sibley:
Confederate General of the West (Natchitoches, TX: Northwestern State University Press,
1987), 208–9. For his meeting with Davis, see Frazier, Blood and Treasure, 36, 46–50,
75; and Thompson, Henry Hopkins Sibley, 216–19. For Sibley’s objectives, see T. T. Teel,
“Sibley’s New Mexican Campaign—Its Objects and the Causes of its Failure,” in Battles
and Leaders of the Civil War, eds. Robert Johnson and Clarence Buel (New York: Century,
1887), 2:700. On the importance of Arizona, see Sibley to Samuel Cooper, Jan. 28, 1862,
in The Civil War in West Texas and New Mexico: The Lost Letterbook of Brigadier General
Henry Hopkins Sibley, eds. John P. Wilson and Jerry Thompson (El Paso: Texas Western
Press, 2001), 116. For accusations that Davis participated in secessionist schemes, see
William Need to Simon Cameron, Sept. 27, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 50, part 2, pp. 637–41.
On the role of Davis in westward expansion, see Josephy, Civil War in the American
West, 11–12. For Confederate expansion, see Nelson, “Death in the Distance,” 33–52.
2. S ibley to Loring, June 12, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 55–56.
3. On the Sibley-Loring plot, see Thompson, Henry Hopkins Sibley, 209–12. On Loring’s
resignation, see Loring to Lorenzo Thomas, March 22, 1861, NA, RG393, M1072, LS,
DNM, Roll 2; Edward R. S. Canby to AAG, June 11, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 1, p. 606;
Canby to AAG, Aug. 16, 1861, ibid., vol. 4, p. 63.
230 Notes

4. Frazier, Blood and Treasure, 28–29.

5. Samuel Cooper to Sibley, July 8, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 93.
6. Abraham Rencher to William H. Seward, May 18, 1861, NA, RG59, U.S. State Depart-
ment, New Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851–72, Microfilm T17, Roll 2.
7. Mesilla Times, March 30, 1861.
8. Mesilla Times article reprinted in San Francisco Herald, Nov. 4, 1860.
9. W. W. Mills to John S. Watts, June 23, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 56. See also W. W.
Mills, Forty Years at El Paso, 1858–1898, ed. Rex W. Strickland (El Paso: Carl Hertzog,
1962), 37–57.
10. Canby to AAG, Aug. 16, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 65. On the loyalties of Hispanic
New Mexicans, see Mora, Border Dilemmas, 88–94.
11. Canby to AAG, June 11, 1861, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2; A. L. Anderson
to Isaac Lynde, June 30, 1861, ibid.; Canby to AAG, June 16, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4,
pp. 35–36; Anderson to Lynde, June 16, 1861, ibid., 37–38.
12. Canby to AAG, Aug. 16, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 64.
13. Canby to AAG, Sept. 8, 1861, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2.
14. Canby to AAG, June 16, 1861, ibid.; Canby to AAG, July 22, 1861, ibid.; Abraham
Rencher to Seward, Aug. 10, 1861, NA, RG 59, U.S. State Department, New Mexico
Territorial Papers, 1851–72, Microfilm T17, Roll 2.
15. A nderson to Lynde, June 30, 1861, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2.
16. C  anby to Ft. Wise Commanding Officer, June 16, 1861, ibid.; Canby to Rencher, June
20, 1861, ibid.
17. Canby to AAG, June 30, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 50; W. R. Shoemaker to J. C.
Fremont, Aug. 17, 1861, ibid., 66.
18. A  nderson to William Chapman, June 19, 1861, ibid., 40.
19. A nderson to Ft. Stanton Commanding Officer, June 16, 1861, NA, RG393, M1072, LS,
DNM, Roll 2; Anderson to Ft. Union Commanding Officer, June 19, 1861, ibid.
20. Elmer Otis to Canby, Aug. 22, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 67.
21. C  anby to AAG, Jan. 11, 1862, ibid., 84.
22. Facundo Piño, “Address to the Legislative Assembly of New Mexico,” Jan. 29, 1862, in
NA, RG46, Territorial Papers of the U.S. Senate, New Mexico 1840–54, M200, Roll
14.
23. Miguel A. Otero to Seward, June 20, 1861, NA, RG59, U.S. State Department, New
Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851–1872, Microfilm T17, Roll 2.
24. A nderson to R. M. Morris, June 25, 1861, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2;
Anderson to N. R. Russell, June 25, 1861, ibid.; Anderson to B. S. Roberts, June 26,
1861, ibid.; Rencher to Seward, Aug. 10, 1861, NA, RG59, U.S. State Department, New
Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851–1872, Microfilm T17, Roll 2.
25. Canby to Henry Connelly, Sept. 8, 1861, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2;
Proclamation by Governor Abraham Rencher, Aug. 5, 1861, NA, RG59, U.S. State Depart-
ment, New Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851–1872, Microfilm T17, Roll 2; Proclamation
of Governor Henry Connelly, Sept. 9, 1861, NMSRCA, TA, Roll 98; Canby to William
Gilpin, Sept. 8, 1861, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2.
 Notes 231

26. “Abstract from Field Return,” Dec. 31, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 81; Jerry D. Thompson,
ed., New Mexico Territory during the Civil War: Wallen and Evans Inspection Reports,
1862–1863 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2008), 79–81. For troop
strength in New Mexico, see Thompson, Civil War History of the New Mexico Volunteers,
443.
27. William Nicodemus to W. R. Shoemaker, Nov. 22, 1861, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM,
Roll 2.
28. Canby to AAG, Dec. 8, 1861, ibid.
29. “First Annual Message of Governor Connelly,” Dec. 4, 1861, NA, RG59, U.S. State
Department, New Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851–72, Microfilm T17, Roll 2; “Sec-
ond Annual Message to the Legislative Assembly,” William F. M. Arny, Dec. 1866,
NMSRCA, TA, Roll 98. For a definitive treatment of the New Mexico volunteers, see
Thompson, Civil War History of the New Mexico Volunteers, esp. 13–431.
30. “The Cotton Fields of Arizona Territory,” DeBow’s Review, April 1858, p. 320; “The New
Territory of Arizona,” ibid., Nov. 1857, pp. 543–44.
31. A nderson to Lynde, June 16, 1861, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2; Canby to
AAG, June 23, 1861, ibid.
32. C  anby to Lynde, June 23, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 45.
33. A nderson to Lynde, June 30, 1861, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2; John P.
Wilson, “Retreat to the Rio Grande: The Report of Captain Isaiah N. Moore,” Rio
Grande History 2 (1975): 4–8.
34. Lynde to Canby, July 7, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 58.
35. Lynde to AAG, Aug. 7, 1861, ibid., 5.
36. John P. Wilson, “Whiskey at Fort Fillmore: A Story of the Civil War,” New Mexico
Historical Review 68 (April 1993): 117.
37. M  ills to John S. Watts, June 23, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 56.
38. Lydia Spencer Lane, I Married a Soldier, or, Old Days in the Old Army (1893; reprint,
Albuquerque, NM: Horn & Wallace, 1964), 105–7, 115, quotations on 105, 106; Jerry
D. Thompson, Colonel John Robert Baylor: Texas Indian Fighter and Confederate Soldier
(Hillsboro, TX: Hill Junior College Press, 1971), 31, 37.
39. “ Arizona Is Free at Last!” Mesilla Times, July 29, 1861.
40. Mesilla Times, July 27, 1861, and Oct. 17, 1861.
41. Report of John R. Baylor, Aug. 3, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 16; Baylor to T. A. Washing-
ton, Sept. 21, 1861, ibid., 17–18; Major Isaac Lynde, “Brief Statement of Facts,” undated,
in Wilson, When the Texans Came, 47–48. For firsthand accounts of the battle, see James
Cooper McKee, Narrative of the Surrender of a Command of U.S. Forces at Fort Fillmore,
New Mexico, in July, a.d. 1861 (Houston: Stagecoach, 1960), 17–21; Richard Wadsworth,
“The Battle of Mesilla: A Rebel View,” Southern New Mexico Historical Review (Jan. 2005):
8–9. On the Battle of Mesilla generally, see Kiser, Turmoil on the Rio Grande, 161–66.
42. Jerry D. Thompson, ed., From Desert to Bayou: The Civil War Journal and Sketches of
Morgan Wolfe Merrick (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1991), 11n.70, 25; Lane, I Married
a Soldier, 114; Undated Statement of Capt. F. J. Crilly, in Wilson, When the Texans
Came, 43.
232 Notes

43. Baylor to Washington, Sept. 21, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 18–20; “The Surrender of
New Mexico—The Treason of the Officers,” Oct. 19, 1861, in Wilson, When the Texans
Came, 50–51.
44. Baylor to Washington, Sept. 21, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 18–20; Alfred Gibbs to
Canby, Aug. 6, 1861, ibid., 7–8; Undated Statement of Alfred Gibbs, ibid., 9–11. See
also Wilson, “Whiskey at Fort Fillmore,” 109–32.
45. Undated Statement of J. Cooper McKee, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 12–13. See also Undated
Statement of Capt. C. H. McNally, ibid., 13; “Terms of Surrender,” July 27, 1861, ibid., 7.
46. Mesilla Times, July 29, 1861. See also “Particulars of the Surrender of the Federal Troops
in the Mesilla Valley,” Daily Alta California, Sept. 3, 1861.
47. “Terms of Surrender,” July 27, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 7; Report of John R. Baylor,
Aug. 3, 1861, ibid., 16–17. A total of 492 men surrendered to Baylor, of which 410 were
paroled, 26 deserted, 16 remained in confinement as prisoners of war, and 40 did not
receive parole. “Recapitulation of Troops Surrendered,” July 27, 1861, ibid., 15; Mesilla
Times, Aug. 10, 1861.
48. Undated Statement of J. Cooper McKee, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 12–13.
49. “New-Mexico,” New-York Daily Tribune, Sept. 5, 1861.
50. Gibbs to AAG, Nov. 7, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 9; Canby to AAG, Sept. 6, 1861, NA,
RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2; Canby to AAG, March 16, 1866, NA, RG94, File
L736, CB1866, Major Isaac Lynde Records; Thomas to Simon Cameron, Dec. 11, 1861,
OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 15; General Orders No. 102, Nov. 25, 1861, ibid., 16.
51. Lynde to AAG, Aug. 7, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 5–6. For overviews of Lynde’s sur-
render, see Richard Wadsworth, Incident at San Augustine Springs: A Hearing for Major
Isaac Lynde (Las Cruces, NM: Yucca Tree, 2002); Kiser, Turmoil on the Rio Grande,
166–74.
52. Proclamation of John R. Baylor, Aug. 1, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 20–21.
53. Baylor to Van Dorn, Aug. 14, 1861, ibid., 23.
54. Baylor to Sibley, Oct. 24, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 127–28; Baylor to Sibley, Oct.
25, 1861, ibid., 132–33; Sibley to Cooper, Sept. 2, 1861, in Wilson and Thompson, Civil
War in West Texas and New Mexico, 40. By December 1861 Rebel officers had reliable
information that no Union troops would land at Guaymas. Sibley to Cooper, Dec. 16,
1861, ibid., 81.
55. Baylor to Commander of Dept. of Texas, Oct. 25, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 129; Baylor
to Simeon Hart, Oct. 24, 1861, ibid., 128.
56. A. M. Jackson to Baylor, Nov. 11, 1861, in Wilson and Thompson, Civil War in West
Texas and New Mexico, 73.
57. For an accounting of Sibley Brigade enlistees, see Martin Hardwick Hall, The Confederate
Army of New Mexico (Austin, TX: Presidial, 1978).
58. Sibley to Cooper, Nov. 16, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 141–43; General Orders No. 9,
ibid., 143.
59. Thompson, Henry Hopkins Sibley, 222–46; Nelson, “Death in the Distance,” 33–52.
For Sibley’s reliance on New Mexicans, see Facundo Piño, “Address to the Legislative
Assembly of New Mexico,” Jan. 29, 1862, in NA, RG46, Territorial Papers of the U.S.
 Notes 233

Senate, New Mexico 1840–1854, M200, Roll 14. For accounts of Sibley’s campaign,
see Theophilus Noel, A Campaign from Santa Fe to the Mississippi; Being a History of
the Old Sibley Brigade from its First Organization to the Present Time . . . (Shreveport,
LA: Shreveport News, 1865), 5–39; Jerry Thompson, ed., Civil War in the Southwest:
Recollections of the Sibley Brigade (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001);
Don E. Alberts, ed., Rebels on the Rio Grande: The Civil War Journal of A .B. Peticolas
(Albuquerque, NM: Merit, 1993).
60. Proclamation of Henry H. Sibley, Dec. 20, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 89–90; Frazier,
Blood and Treasure, 127–36.
61. Reily to John H. Reagan, Jan. 26, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 50, pp. 825–26.
62. Jackson to Reily, Dec. 31, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 167–68; Sibley to Cooper, Jan. 3,
1862, ibid., 167; Sibley to Governors of Chihuahua and Sonora, Dec. 21, 1861, in Wilson
and Thompson, Civil War in West Texas and New Mexico, 86–88.
63. Reily to Sibley, Jan. 20, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 4, pp. 170–74; Luis Terrazas to Sibley,
Jan. 11, 1862, ibid., 171–72.
64. See Thompson, Henry Hopkins Sibley, 239–42; Martin Hardwick Hall, “Colonel James
Reily’s Diplomatic Missions to Chihuahua and Sonora,” New Mexico Historical Review
31 (July 1956): 232–45.
65. For reports of the Battle of Valverde, see Canby to AG, Feb. 22, 1862, OR, series 1, vol.
9, p. 487; Sibley to Cooper, May 4, 1862, ibid., 508–9; Benjamin Roberts to William
Nicodemus, Feb. 23, 1862, ibid., 493–97; Henry Connelly to Seward, March 1, 1862,
NA, RG 59, U.S. State Department, New Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851–72, Microfilm
T17, Roll 2; Noel, Campaign from Santa Fe, 19–23; Alberts, Rebels on the Rio Grande,
42–52, 63–66; Wilson, When the Texans Came, 242–56, 302–3; Thompson, Civil War in
the Southwest, 27–70; Meketa, Legacy of Honor, 166–73. For analyses of the battle, see
Hall, Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign, 83–103; Thompson, Henry Hopkins Sibley, 245–68;
John Taylor, Bloody Valverde: A Civil War Battle on the Rio Grande, February 21, 1862
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995).
66. Canby to AG, Feb. 22, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, p. 487; Canby to AG, March 1, 1862,
ibid., 492.
67. Canby to AG, March 1, 1862, ibid., 488, 492. On the role of volunteers and militia at
Valverde, see Thompson, Civil War History of the New Mexico Volunteers, 113–37.
68. Sibley to Cooper, May 4, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, pp. 507–9.
69. See Thompson, Henry Hopkins Sibley, 252, 261. One individual claiming familiarity
with these events refuted the widespread claim that Sibley was drunk during the Battle
of Valverde. See Willis L. Robards to Jefferson Davis, Dec. 8, 1862, in Crist, Papers of
Jefferson Davis, 8:536–37.
70. Sibley to Cooper, May 4, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, pp. 507–9; Thomas Green to Jackson,
Feb. 22, 1862, ibid., 522.
71. William R. Scurry to Jackson, Feb. 22, 1862, ibid., 513–16, quotations on 515; Henry W.
Ragnet to Jackson, Feb. 23, 1862, ibid., 516–18.
72. Green to Jackson, Feb. 22, 1862, ibid., 518–22, quotation on 520. See also Noel, Campaign
from Santa Fe, 20.
234 Notes

73. Meketa, Legacy of Honor, 171.

74. Canby to AG, March 1, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, p. 492.
75. Taylor, Bloody Valverde, 136, 142; Thompson, Henry Hopkins Sibley, 267.
76. Sibley to Cooper, May 4, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, pp. 507–9.
77. Ibid.; A. S. Thurmond to Commanding Officer of C.S. Forces, March 3, 1862, ibid.,
529–30.
78. J. L. Davidson to G. R. Paul, March 10, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, p. 527; Enos to
Donaldson, March 11, 1862, ibid., 527–28.
79. Noel, Campaign from Santa Fe, 22.
80. John P. Slough to AG, March 30, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, pp. 534–35.
81. On the Battle of Glorieta, see Connelly to Seward, March 30, 1862, NA, RG 59, U.S.
State Department, New Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851–1872, Microfilm T17, Roll 2;
various reports of participants, OR, series 1, vol. 9, pp. 532–45; Noel, Campaign from
Santa Fe, 23–25; Thompson, Civil War in the Southwest, 92–98; Alberts, Rebels on the
Rio Grande, 77–86. For analyses of the battle, see Ray C. Colton, The Civil War in the
Western Territories: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1959), 49–80; Hall, Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign, 141–60; Thompson,
Henry Hopkins Sibley, 269–307; Don E. Alberts, The Battle of Glorieta: Union Victory
in the West (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1998); Thomas S. Edrington
and John Taylor, The Battle of Glorieta Pass: A Gettysburg in the West, March 26–28, 1862
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998).
82. Sibley to Cooper, March 31, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, pp. 540–41; Sibley to Cooper, May
4, 1862, ibid., 509; Scurry to Sibley, March 30, 1862, ibid., 541–42; Scurry to Jackson,
March 31, 1862, ibid., 543–45.
83. Noel, Campaign from Santa Fe, 23.
84. A lberts, Battle of Glorieta, 138; Edrington and Taylor, Battle of Glorieta Pass, 130–31,
134–35.
85. J. M. Chivington to AG, March 28, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, pp. 538–39; Slough to AG,
March 30, 1862, ibid., 534–35.
86. Scurry to Sibley, March 30, 1862, ibid., 541–42; Scurry to Jackson, March 31, 1862, ibid.,
543–45.
87. Paul to Connelly, April 12, 1862, NA, RG59, U.S. State Department, New Mexico Ter-
ritorial Papers, 1851–72, Microfilm T17, Roll 2; Connelly to Seward, April 19, 1862, ibid.
88. Canby to AG, April 23, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, p. 551. For the fighting at Peralta, see
Alberts, Rebels on the Rio Grande, 103–6.
89. Noel, Campaign from Santa Fe, 27, 31.
90. A lberts, Rebels on the Rio Grande, 56, 61, 67.
91. Roberts to Thomas, April 23, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, pp. 553–54; see also Carleton to
Thomas, Oct. 10, 1862, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3.
92. Peter Connelly to Seward, May 4, 1862, NA, RG59, U.S. State Department, New Mexico
Territorial Papers, 1851–72, Microfilm T17, Roll 2.
93. G. Wright to Carleton, Jan. 31, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 91; Nicodemus to AAG, July 20,
1862, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 2. On the Confederate retreat, see Thompson,
 Notes 235

Henry Hopkins Sibley, 292–307. On the California Column, see Darlis Miller, The California
Column in New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982), 3–30. For
firsthand accounts from California Column soldiers, see Neil B. Carmony, ed., The Civil
War in Apacheland: Sergeant George Hand’s Diary (Silver City, NM: High-Lonesome, 1996);
John C. Cremony, Life among the Apaches (San Francisco: A. Roman, 1868), 144–322.
94. Sibley to Cooper, May 4, 1862, OR, vol. 9, pp. 506–12; Sibley to Cooper, June 2, 1862,
in Wilson and Thompson, Civil War in West Texas and New Mexico, 167–68. Sibley
had begged for reinforcements after the Battle of Valverde. See Sibley to Cooper, Feb.
22, 1862, OR, series 1, vol. 9, pp. 505–6. On the campaign’s failure, see Nelson, “Death
in the Distance,” 47–48.
95. Sibley to the Soldiers of the Army of New Mexico, May 1862, in Alberts, Rebels on the
Rio Grande, 135.
96. Thompson, Henry Hopkins Sibley, 302.
97. A lberts, Rebels on the Rio Grande, 118.
98. Hal Hunter to “Dear Advocate,” May 29, 1862, in Jerry Thompson, ed., “‘Is This to Be
the Glory of Our Brave Men?’: The New Mexico Civil War Journal and Letters of Dr.
Henry Jacob ‘Hal’ Hunter,” New Mexico Historical Review 75 (Oct. 2000): 584.
99. Noel, Campaign from Santa Fe, 15.
100. Teel, “Sibley’s New Mexican Campaign,” 2:700. At least two of the Confederate officers
under Sibley’s command—Thomas Green and Trevanion Teel—were members of the
KGC. See Keehn, Knights of the Golden Circle, 154.
101. Carleton to John Evans, Jan. 28, 1863, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Carleton
to Thomas, Feb. 1, 1863, ibid.; Carleton to Seward, Feb. 20, 1863, ibid.
102. C  arleton to Chivington, Dec. 8, 1862, ibid.
103. Carleton to Carson, Dec. 8, 1862, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Carleton to
Joseph Updegraff, Dec. 8, 1862, ibid.
104. C  arleton to Thomas, Oct. 10, 1862, ibid.; Carleton to St. Vrain, Dec. 9, 1862, ibid.
105. Carleton to West, Nov. 18, 1862, ibid.
106. See Arny to Seward, May 28, 1863, NA, RG 59, U.S. State Department, New Mexico
Territorial Papers, 1851–72, Microfilm T17, Roll 2.
107. Carleton to John Evans, Jan. 28, 1863, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Carleton
to Thomas, Feb. 1, 1862, ibid.
108. Carleton to Terrazas, Feb. 20, 1863, ibid.; Carleton to Thomas, Feb. 23, 1863, ibid. See
also Arny to Terrazas, Oct. 21, 1862, NA, RG59, U.S. State Department, New Mexico
Territorial Papers, 1851–72, Microfilm T17, Roll 2; Arny to Terrazas, March 17, 1863,
ibid.; Terrazas to Arny, March 24, 1863, ibid.
109. Carleton to Ignacio Pesqueíra, April 20, 1864, in “Condition of the Indian Tribes,”
39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, p. 177.
110. Carleton to Seward, March 8, 1863, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Carleton to
Seward, Sept. 13, 1863, ibid.; Connelly to Seward, Aug. 23, 1863, NA, RG59, U.S. State
Department, New Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851–72, Microfilm T17, Roll 2.
111. Carleton to Reuben Creel, April 23, 1863, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3;
Carleton to Joseph Smith, April 27, 1863, ibid.; Carleton to Edward B. Willis, April 28,
236 Notes

1863, ibid.; Carleton to West, May 17, 1863, ibid.; Carleton to Thomas, Oct. 9, 1864,
ibid.
112. Canby to AAG, June 23, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 44; see also Connelly to Seward,
July 27, 1862, NA, RG59, U.S. State Department, New Mexico Territorial Papers,
1851–72, Microfilm T17, Roll 2
113. Mesilla Times, July 29, 1861.
114. L ynde to AAG, July 21, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 60.
115. Canby to AAG, Aug. 16, 1861, ibid., 63.
116. Canby to AAG, Sept. 22, 1861, ibid., 71. See also McNitt, Navajo Wars, 410–29.
117. Canby to AAG, Dec. 1, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 77.
118. C harles E. Mix to O. H. Browning, Nov. 15, 1867, in 1867 RCIA, 2.
119. Canby to AAG, Dec. 1, 1861, OR, series 1, vol. 4, p. 77; Carleton to Thomas, Sept. 30,
1862, in Lawrence C. Kelly, ed., Navajo Roundup: Selected Correspondence of Kit Carson’s
Expedition against the Navajo, 1863–1865 (Boulder, CO: Pruett, 1970), 10–11.
120. Carleton attained the rank of major on Sept. 7, 1861, and was promoted again on April
28, 1862, to Brigadier General. Heitman, Historical Register of the U.S. Army, 1:282.
121. For Carleton’s approach to Indian affairs, see Sonnichsen, The Mescalero Apaches, 96–119;
Gerald Thompson, The Army and the Navajo: The Bosque Redondo Reservation Experi-
ment, 1863–1868 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976), 10–27; Wooster, American
Military Frontiers, 167–72. For a biographical sketch of Carleton, see Aurora Hunt,
Major General James Henry Carleton 1814–1873: Western Frontier Dragoon (Glendale,
CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1958), esp. 235–96.
122. C  arleton to Halleck, May 10, 1863, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3.
123. Carleton to Thomas, Aug. 2, 1863, ibid.; Connelly to Seward, Aug. 23, 1863, NA, RG59,
U.S. State Department, New Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851–1872, Microfilm T17, Roll
2.
124. Carleton to Thomas, Sept. 13, 1863, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Sibley to
Cooper, June 2, 1862, in Wilson and Thompson, Civil War in West Texas and New
Mexico, 167. See also Carleton to James R. Doolittle, Oct. 22, 1865, in “Condition of
the Indian Tribes,” 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, p. 98; Carleton to
Montgomery Blair, Sept. 13, 1863, in ibid., 136–37; Carleton to Salmon P. Chase, Sept.
20, 1863, in ibid., 140.
125. Carleton to John C. McFerran, May 15, 1865, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3.
Emphasis in original.
126. Carleton to Edwin A. Rigg, Aug. 6, 1863, in “Condition of the Indian Tribes,” 39th
Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, p. 124.
127. Carleton to Thomas, Sept. 30, 1862, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3. For an
overview of Carleton’s initiatives in 1862–63, see Thompson, Civil War History of the New
Mexico Volunteers, 267–98; Andrew E. Masich, Civil War in the Southwest Borderlands,
1861–1867 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2017), 106–48. In 1866 Governor
William F. M. Arny voiced support for Carleton’s approach, informing the territorial
legislature that “the mineral resources of New Mexico are scarcely known or appreci-
ated, and will not be until the Indians are subdued and placed upon reservations.”
 Notes 237

“Second Annual Message to the Legislative Assembly,” William F. M. Arny, Dec. 1866,
NMSRCA, TA, Roll 98, Frames 351–71.
128. Carleton to Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, Feb. 22, 1865, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM,
Roll 3. The year before, Carleton had made a similar request of Chihuahua governor
Luis Terrazas and Sonora governor Ignacio Pesqueíra. See Carleton to Terrazas, April
20, 1864, and Carleton to Pesqueíra, April 20, 1864, both in “Condition of the Indian
Tribes,” 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, pp. 177–78.
129. Carleton to Christopher Carson, Oct. 12, 1862, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3.
130. Carleton to Carson, Nov. 25, 1862, ibid.; Carleton to Thomas, March 19, 1863, ibid. See
also Lorenzo Labadi to Michael Steck, Oct. 22, 1864, in 1864 RCIA, 347–48; Labadi to
J. K. Graves, Jan. 4, 1866, in 1866 RCIA, 139–41. For an account of the Mescaleros at
Bosque Redondo, see Cremony, Life Among the Apaches, 197–309.
131. C
 arleton to Thomas, Jan. 2, 1863, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3.
132. See Sweeney, Mangas Coloradas, 450–65; Paul Andrew Hutton, The Apache Wars: The
Hunt for Geronimo, the Apache Kid, and the Captive Boy Who Started the Longest War
in American History (New York: Crown, 2016), 95–104; Thompson, Civil War History
of the New Mexico Volunteers, 286–87.
133. Eve Ball, In the Days of Victorio: Recollections of a Warm Springs Apache (Tucson: University
of Arizona Press, 1970), 48; Eve Ball, Indeh: An Apache Odyssey (Provo, UT: Brigham
Young University Press, 1980), 20.
134. Carleton to Samuel J. Jones, April 27, 1863, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3. See
also Carleton to Thomas, Feb. 1, 1863, ibid.
135. A. B. Norton to N. G. Taylor, Aug. 24, 1867, in 1867 RCIA, 193.
136. William P. Dole to Caleb B. Smith, Nov. 26, 1862, in 1862 RCIA, 188.
137. Carleton to Thomas, Sept. 6, 1863, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Carleton
to Carson, Aug. 18, 1863, in “Condition of the Indian Tribes,” 39th Cong., 2nd Sess.,
Senate Report No. 156, pp. 128–29.
138. C arleton to Carson and J. Francisco Chavez, June 23, 1863, ibid., 116.
139. Carleton to Chavez, Aug. 7, 1863, ibid., 126; Carleton to Carson, Sept. 19, 1863, ibid.,
139.
140. Thompson, The Army and the Navajo, 17, 71.
141. Second Annual Message of Henry Connelly, Dec. 9, 1863, NA, RG59, U.S. State
Department, New Mexico Territorial Papers 1851–1872, Microfilm T-17, Roll 2; Diego
Archuleta to J. W. Denver, Sept. 30, 1857, in 1857 RCIA, 284–87; Sylvester Mowry to
Denver, ibid., 298–99; Collins to Dole, Oct. 10, 1862, in 1862 RCIA, 385.
142. A lbert Pheiffer to Lawrence Murphy, Jan. 20, 1864, in Kelly, Navajo Roundup, 102–4.
On the use of Ute auxiliaries, see Carson to AAG, July 24, 1863, OR, series 1, vol. 26,
pt. 1, pp. 233–34; Carson to Carleton, July 24, 1863, ibid., 234; Statement of Colonel Kit
Carson, in “Condition of the Indian Tribes,” 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Report No.
156, p. 97. See also McNitt, Navajo Wars, 442–46; Clifford E. Trafzer, The Kit Carson
Campaign: The Last Great Navajo War (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982),
80–82, 140–62; Thompson, Civil War History of the New Mexico Volunteers, 299–326;
Reséndez, The Other Slavery, 284–93.
238 Notes

143. For Carson’s recollection of the campaign, see Undated Statement of Kit Carson, in
“Condition of the Indian Tribes,” 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, p. 97.
For additional correspondence relating to the Canyon de Chelly operations, see Kelly,
Navajo Roundup, 81–109.
144. Trafzer, Kit Carson Campaign, 160–62; Ruth Roessel, ed., Navajo Stories of the Long
Walk Period (Chinle, AZ: Navajo Community College Press, 1973), 130–31, 202.
145. Carleton to Thomas, Feb. 7, 1864, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Carleton to
Thomas, Feb. 27, 1864, ibid. For the Long Walk, see Iverson, Diné, 51–57; Trafzer, Kit
Carson Campaign, 169–97.
146. Carleton to Thomas, Feb. 7, 1864, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Proclamation
of Governor Henry Connelly, March 23, 1864, NA, RG59, U.S. State Department, New
Mexico Territorial Papers, 1851–72, Microfilm T17, Roll 2.
147. Stephen C. Jett, ed., “The Destruction of Navajo Orchards in 1864: Captain John
Thompson’s Report,” Arizona and the West 16 (Winter 1974): 365–78; Steck to Dole,
Oct. 10, 1864, in 1864 RCIA, 329. See also Thompson, Civil War History of the New
Mexico Volunteers, 327–44. For correspondence relating to the 1864 campaigns, see
Kelly, Navajo Roundup, 25–158; Correll, Through White Men’s Eyes, 4:19–180.
148. For statistics on Bosque Redondo, see Carleton to Thomas, Feb. 7, 1864, NA, RG393,
M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Carleton to Thomas, Feb. 27, 1864, ibid.; Carleton to Halleck,
March 20, 1864, ibid.; Carleton to Dole, Sept. 19, 1864, ibid.; Felipe Delgado to D. N.
Cooley, Sept. 10, 1865, in 1865 RCIA, 345; Report of William T. Sherman, Nov. 5, 1866,
in 1866 Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc.
No. 1, p. 22; Theo. H. Dodd to A. B. Norton, June 30, 1867, in 1867 RCIA, 203. In 1865
there were also 472 Mescalero Apaches living at the reservation; see Cooley to James
Harlan, Oct. 31, 1865, in ibid., 188. All but nine of those fled on Nov. 3, 1865, ending the
period of dual tribal occupancy. Dodd to Norton, Aug. 28, 1866, in 1866 RCIA, 149.
149. Carleton to Thomas, March 12, 1864, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3.
150. Roessel, Navajo Stories of the Long Walk, 127.
151. Ibid., 25.
152. Ibid., 103.
153. Ibid., 30.
154. Ibid., 103.
155. Ibid., 149.
156. O n unlimited war, see Grenier, First Way of War, 1–12.
157. Roessel, Navajo Stories of the Long Walk, 213, 200.
158. Ibid., 191. On Bosque Redondo generally, see Ruth M. Underhill, The Navajos (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1956), 127–43; James D. Shinkle, Fort Sumner and the
Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation (Roswell, NM: Hall-Poorbaugh, 1965); Thompson,
The Army and the Navajo; Katherine M. B. Osburn, “The Navajo at the Bosque Redondo:
Cooperation, Resistance, and Initiative, 1864–1868,” New Mexico Historical Review 60
(Oct. 1985), 399–413; Iverson, Diné, 57–63; Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 332–34. For
correspondence relating to Bosque Redondo, see Correll, Through White Men’s Eyes,
5:21–498.
 Notes 239

159. Steck to Dole, Oct. 10, 1864, in 1864 RCIA, 330. For disagreements between Steck and
Carleton, see Carleton to Thomas, March 19, 1864, in “Condition of the Indian Tribes,”
39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, pp. 168–69; Cooley to Harlan, Oct. 31,
1865, in 1865 RCIA, 188.
160. Carleton to Thomas, Feb. 7, 1864, and March 19, 1864, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM,
Roll 3.
161. C arleton to Thomas, Nov. 22, 1863, ibid.
162. Carleton to Thomas, Sept. 6, 1863, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Carleton
to Usher, Aug. 14, 1864, ibid.; Carleton to Usher, March 30, 1865, ibid.; Carleton to
Henry B. Bristol, July 17, 1864, in “Condition of the Indian Tribes,” 39th Cong., 2nd
Sess., Senate Report No. 156, pp. 187–88.
163. Carleton to John C. McFerran, May 15, 1865, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3.
164. Graves to Cooley, Undated Report, in 1866 RCIA, 131, 134. Graves sided with Carleton,
praising him as an efficient administrator and lauding the Bosque Redondo as the best
policy for New Mexico.
165. Carleton to Thomas, April 17, 1864, in “Condition of the Indian Tribes,” 39th Cong.,
2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, p. 176.
166. 38th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Bill No. 226, April 11, 1864, in NA, RG46, Territorial
Papers of the U.S. Senate, New Mexico 1840–54, M200, Roll 14; Carleton to Usher,
Aug. 27, 1864, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Carleton to Thomas, Oct. 30,
1864, ibid.
167. Report of William T. Sherman, Nov. 5, 1866, in 1866 Annual Report of the Secretary of
War, 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Exec. Doc. No. 1, p. 22; Steck to Dole, Oct. 10, 1864,
in 1864 RCIA, 327; Dole to Usher, Oct. 31, 1863, in 1863 RCIA, 14; Dole to Usher, Nov. 15,
1864, in 1864 RCIA, 19. The actual costs of subsisting the Navajos in 1865 exceeded $1.5
million. For expenditures at Bosque Redondo in 1865 and 1866, see Cooley to Harlan,
May 1, 1866, in 1866 RCIA, 142–44; Norton to Cooley, Sept. 28, 1866, ibid., 146–47;
Dodd to Norton, Aug. 28, 1866, ibid., 150.
168. D ole to Usher, Nov. 15, 1864, in 1864 RCIA, 161.
169. Carleton to Thomas, Feb. 7, 1864; May 31, 1864; and Aug. 27, 1864, all in NA, RG393,
M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3; Thompson, Civil War History of the New Mexico Volunteers,
367.
170. Carleton to Thomas, Feb. 7, 1864; March 6, 1864; and March 12, 1864, all in NA, RG393,
M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3.
171. Dole to Usher, Nov. 15, 1864, in 1864 RCIA, 163–64; Steck to Dole, Oct. 10, 1864, ibid.,
327–30.
172. Norton to N. G. Taylor, Aug. 24, 1867, in 1867 RCIA, 190. On the scarcity of firewood
at Fort Sumner, see Cremony, Life among the Apaches, 199–200.
173. See Thompson, The Army and the Navajo, 47–48, 80–81, 98–99, 128–29. On the Fort
Sumner hospital, see Thompson, New Mexico Territory during the Civil War, 129.
174. N orton to Taylor, Aug. 24, 1867, in 1867 RCIA, 190.
175. Roessel, Navajo Stories of the Long Walk, 119, 205.
176. See, for example, Taylor to O. H. Browning, Nov. 23, 1868, in 1868 RCIA, 4.
240 Notes

177. Sherman to John Rawlins, Sept. 21, 1866, in “Protection across the Continent,” 39th
Cong., 2nd Sess., House Exec. Doc. No. 23, p. 15.
178. For the treaty, see Kappler, Indian Affairs, 2:1015–20; Iverson, Diné, 63–65. On the
treaty negotiations, see John L. Kessell, “General Sherman and the Navajo Treaty of
1868: A Basic and Expedient Misunderstanding,” Western Historical Quarterly 12 (July
1981): 251–72.
179. N. M. Davis to Taylor, Sept. 15, 1868, in 1868 RCIA, 161.
180. Carleton to Steck, Oct. 29, 1864, NA, RG393, M1072, LS, DNM, Roll 3.
181. C
 arleton to Thomas, Aug. 29, 1864, ibid.
182. On Kit Carson as an Indian fighter, see Tom Dunlay, Kit Carson and the Indians
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000).
183. Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, 313.
184. Carson to Carleton, Dec. 4, 1864, OR, series 1, vol. 41, part 1, pp. 939–42. See also George
H. Pettis, Kit Carson’s Fight with the Comanche and Kiowa Indians, at the Adobe Walls on
the Canadian River, November 25th, 1864 (Providence, RI: Sidney S. Rider, 1878). On the
Battle of Adobe Walls, see Thompson, Civil War History of the New Mexico Volunteers,
367–75; Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 338–39; James Bailey Blackshear, Fort Bascom:
Soldiers, Comancheros, and Indians in the Canadian River Valley (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 2016), 103–12.
185. Carleton to Carson, Dec. 15, 1864, OR, series 1, vol. 41, part 1, p. 944.
186. C arson to Benjamin C. Cutler, Dec. 16, 1864, ibid., 943.
187. Carleton to Bergmann, March 15, 1865, in “Condition of the Indian Tribes,” 39th Cong.,
2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, p. 220.
188. Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, 313–20, 336–41.
189. “ Condition of the Indian Tribes,” 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Report No. 156, p. 3.
190. Thompson, Henry Hopkins Sibley, 307.

Conclusion

1. Sherman quoted in Hutton, The Apache Wars, 118.

 1   2

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 Bibliogr aphy 249

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Newspapers and Periodicals

Alcance al Centinela (Chihuahua City, Mex.)

Daily Albany (NY) Argus
Daily Alta California (San Francisco)
DeBow’s Review (New Orleans)
Diario Oficial de la Federación (Mexico City)
El Siglo Diez y Nueve (Mexico City)
Mesilla (NM) Times
Missouri Gazette (St. Louis)
Montpelier (VT) Watchman & State Journal
National Era (Washington, DC)
New Orleans Daily Picayune
New-York Daily Tribune
New York Times
Niles Weekly Register (Baltimore)
San Francisco Herald
Santa Fe Republican
Santa Fe Weekly Gazette
Weekly Reveille (St. Louis)

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 Bibliogr aphy 251

Allen, Felicity. Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart. Columbia: University of Missouri

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252 Bibliogr aphy

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 Bibliogr aphy 259

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Murphy, Lawrence R. “Reconstruction in New Mexico.” New Mexico Historical Review 43
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———. “The United States Army in Taos, 1847–1852.” New Mexico Historical Review 47
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Nelson, Megan Kate. “Death in the Distance: Confederate Manifest Destiny and the
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Osburn, Katherine M. B. “The Navajo at the Bosque Redondo: Cooperation, Resistance,
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Paredes, Raymund A. “The Mexican Image in American Travel Literature, 1831–1869.” New
Mexico Historical Review 52 (Jan. 1977): 5–29.
Reeve, Frank D., ed. “Puritan and Apache.” New Mexico Historical Review 24 (Jan. 1949):
12–53.
Reséndez, Andrés. “National Identity on a Shifting Border: Texas and New Mexico in
the Age of Transition, 1821–1848.” Journal of American History 86 (Sept. 1999): 668–88.
Simmons, Marc. “The Chacón Economic Report of 1803.” New Mexico Historical Review
60 (Jan. 1985): 81–88.
Stegmaier, Mark. “‘An Imaginary Negro in an Impossible Place?’: The Issue of New Mexico
Statehood in the Secession Crisis, 1860–1861.” New Mexico Historical Review 84 (Spring
2009): 263–90.
———. “New Mexico’s Delegate in the Secession Winter Congress, Part 1: Two Newspaper
Accounts of Miguel Otero in 1861.” New Mexico Historical Review 86 (Summer 2011):
385–92.
———. “New Mexico’s Delegate in the Secession Winter Congress, Part 2: Miguel A.
Otero Responds to Horace Greeley, and Greeley takes Revenge.” New Mexico Historical
Review 86 (Fall 2011): 513–23.
———. “A Law that Would Make Caligula Blush? New Mexico Territory’s Unique Slave
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Teel, T. T. “Sibley’s New Mexican Campaign—Its Objects and the Causes of its Failure.” In
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence
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Thompson, Jerry, ed. “‘Is This to Be the Glory of Our Brave Men?’: The New Mexico Civil
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Review 75 (Oct. 2000): 535–603.
Tyler, Daniel. “Gringo Views of Governor Manuel Armijo.” New Mexico Historical Review
45 (Jan. 1970): 23–46.
———. “Governor Armijo’s Moment of Truth.” Journal of the West 11 (April 1972): 307–16.
Wadsworth, Richard. “The Battle of Mesilla: A Rebel View.” Southern New Mexico Historical
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Weber, David J. “‘Scarce more than apes’: Historical Roots of Anglo-American Stereotypes
of Mexicans.” In New Spain’s Far Northern Frontier: Essays on Spain in the American
West, 1540–1821, edited by David J. Weber, 293–307. Albuquerque: University of New
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———. “Señor Escudero Goes to Washington: Diplomacy, Indians, and the Santa Fe
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Wilson, John P. “Retreat to the Rio Grande: The Report of Captain Isaiah N. Moore.” Rio
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———. “Whiskey at Fort Fillmore: A Story of the Civil War.” New Mexico Historical Review
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 1   2

Index

Abert, James W., 50, 53, 55 Apaches, 81, 93–94; Jicarilla Apaches,
abolitionists, 102, 105, 107, 109, 115, 117, 119, 32–33, 81, 94–96, 168, 179; Mescalero
121, 183. See also Free-Soilers Apaches, 81, 83, 92–93, 168, 170–72,
Acoma Pueblo, N.Mex., 92 177, 179, 238n148; population, 89;
Adams, John Quincy, 16, 24, 29 raiding, 92, 94–95; as slaves, 120
Adams-Onís Treaty, 17 Apodaca, Don Ruiz de, 16
Adobe Walls, Battle of, 179–80 Arapahoes, 17, 32
Albuquerque, N.Mex., 47, 58, 61, 72, 74, Archuleta, Diego, 43, 56–57, 64
128, 137, 156, 161, 171 Archuleta (Navajo), 90
alcohol, 53–54, 57, 65, 86, 155, 164–65 Arizona, 5, 81, 88, 94, 125, 138, 148, 150,
Alencaster, Joaquín del Real, 16 155, 165, 169–70, 173, 182, 229n71; as
Alire, Matías, 56 Confederate territory, 156–57
Allande, Pedro María de, 17 Arkansas, 76, 134, 137, 165
Almeja, Manuel, 26 Arkansas River, 17, 20, 28, 29, 31, 95
Alvarez, Manuel, 21, 34, 44, 47, 51 Armijo, Manuel, 23, 24, 26, 35, 42–49, 55,
Amazon River, 145 156, 181, 198n37
American System, 28. See also internal Army of Northern Virginia, 162
improvements Army of Occupation, 42
Analla, Juana, 114 Army of the Potomac, 162
Apache Pass, Ariz., 98–99 Army of the West, 5, 37, 40–42, 46–48, 52,
Apache Pass, N.Mex., 46–47, 162–63 58, 68–69, 85, 181
Apaches, 5, 13, 78, 80, 82, 159–60, 167, Arnold, Benedict, 155
170, 172–73; Chiricahua Apaches, 81, Arny, William F.M., 79, 119–21, 125, 153,
83, 91–94, 98–100, 168, 171; Coyotero 236n127
Apaches, 94; executions of, 99; Gila Arroyo Hondo, N.Mex., 61

261
262 Index

Articles of War, 156 Benton, Thomas Hart, 7, 22, 24–25, 27–31,

Ashley, William H., 21 36, 43, 66, 105, 127, 136, 146, 224n9
Asia, U.S. trade with, 8–9, 37, 127, 132, 134, Bergmann, Edward, 180
139, 143 Berrien, John, 105
assimilation, 12; of Americans, 22–23; Bingham, John, 117
of Hispanos, 7, 10, 14, 46, 50–51; of black codes, 112
Indians, 31, 82–83, 169, 175. See also Blair, Francis P. Jr., 51, 64
Indian policy (U.S.) “Bleeding Kansas,” 183
Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company, Bonneville, Benjamin, 81, 84, 93–94
143–47, 228n64 border, U.S.-Mexico, 5, 78–79, 131, 141,
Austin, Stephen F., 23 147, 159, 170
Australia, 139, 143 Bosque Redondo (N.Mex.), 13; expenses
Averell, William W., 4 of, 176–77, 239n167; Mescalero
Apaches at, 170–72, 238n148; Navajos
Baca, Bartolomé, 24, 26 at, 171–78
Baca y Torres, José Francisco, 56 Boundary Commission (U.S.), 131–32,
Backus, Electus, 91 137–38
Baird, James, 16, 27 Bowlin, James B., 52
Baja California, 141 Bray, William, 54
Baltimore, Md., 126, 146 Brazito, Battle of, 57
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, 126 Bridger, Jim, 21
banditry, 67–68, 167 Brinkerhoff, Jacob, 36
Barboncito (Navajo), 173 Brooks, William, 96–97
Barceló, Doña Gertrudis, 202n103 Brown, John, 183
Bartlett, John Russell, 79, 82, 131, 137–38, Browning, Orville, 122
142 Buchanan, James, 6, 54, 66, 88, 89, 113, 146
Bascom, George, 98–99 Bull Run, Battle of, 154
Bascom Affair (1861), 98–99 Burbank, Akinabh, 174
Batallón Activo de Chihuahua, 67 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), 75, 80, 82,
Baylor, John R., 149–50, 153–57, 165–67, 83, 85, 121, 124, 171, 177, 180. See also
232n47 Indian policy (U.S.)
Beaubien, Charles, 21, 23, 47, 51, 60–61, Burgwin, John, 4, 61, 62–63, 65
64, 204n120 Burnside, Ambrose E., 33
Beaubien, Narciso, 60, 204n120 Bustamento, Carpio, 114
Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant, 23, 61 Bustamento, Catalina, 114–15
Becknell, William, 21, 27, 39 Bustamento, Marcellina, 114
Beckwourth, Jim, 21, 60–62, 64
Begay, Dugal Tsosie, 174 Cajon Pass, Calif., 137
Benedict, Kirby, 114 Calhoun, James S., 72–74, 80–82, 88,
Bennett, James, 90–91, 93 90–92, 95, 120, 169
Bent, Charles, 21, 51, 54, 56–57, 65, 89; Calhoun, John C., 102, 105, 109, 130
death of, 58–61; proclamations of, 57 California, 7–9, 19, 37, 41, 58, 71, 74, 76,
Bent, William, 21 88, 105, 130, 138, 141, 154, 165, 184,
 Index 263

226n31; goldfields, 6, 126–27, 148, Chávez, Pablo, 64

169; railroads, 5, 132–33, 137, 139, Cherokees, 31
143, 145–47; slavery in, 102, 109, 123; Cheyennes, 31–32
statehood, 103–4, 108, 130, 183. See also Chicago, Ill., 9
Baja California Chihuahua, Mex., 19, 20, 28, 34, 38,
California Column, 164, 179 47–48, 55–58, 64, 91, 93, 148, 158–60,
Camino Real, 19, 38 166–67
Campbell, Albert H., 137 Chimayó Rebellion (1837), 64
Campbell, Richard, 27 China. See Asia, U.S. trade with
Cañada Alamosa, N.Mex., 163 Chivington, John M., 162–63, 166
Canadian River, 18, 68, 152, 166, 179 Chouteau, Auguste, 17, 21, 29
Canby, Edward R. S., 98–99, 120, 150–52, Chuska Mountains (N.Mex.), 98
154, 156–57, 164, 167, 181 Cieneguilla, Battle of, 95
Cañon Bonito, Ariz., 91 citizenship: U.S., 46, 50–51, 57, 65–66, 69,
Cantonment Burgwin, N.Mex., 63, 95 181; Mexican, 22, 27
Canyon de Chelly, Ariz., 81, 85, 90, 98, Civil War, 10–13, 117–18, 147, 153–54, 160,
173–74, 178 163, 167–68, 170, 176, 180–81; trans-
Canyon del Muerto, Ariz., 173 Mississippi theater of, 165
capitalism, 8, 10–12, 24, 39, 124, 126, 130, Clark, Edward, 158
133, 142–45, 170, 181, 182, 184 Clay, Henry, 18, 28–29, 102
captivity. See Indian captivity Cochise (Apache), 99
Carat, Simon, 27 Collins, James, 32, 81, 85, 88, 97–98
Carleton, James H., 120, 123, 166–67, Colorado, 148, 153, 165
237n128; background, 236n120; Indian Colorado River, 137
policy of, 168–70; leads Indian wars, Colorado Volunteers, 163, 166
170–80 Columbia University, 40
Carlisle, Penn., 175 Comancheros, 152, 179–80
Carson, Christopher (Kit), 21, 98, 170, Comanches, 5, 13, 31–32, 78, 80–81, 99,
172–73, 178–80 168, 170, 172; campaign against,
Cass, Lewis, 25, 26 178–79; population, 89; as slaves, 120
Catholicism, 9, 12, 22–23, 46, 50, 56 Compromise of 1850, 108–9, 115–16, 130
cavalry, 13, 153, 179. See also dragoons concubinage, 22
Cebolleta, N.Mex., 87 Confederate States of America, 134,
Central America, 9–10, 139 142, 149, 160, 178; diplomacy of, 148,
Central Pacific Railroad, 125 158–60, 165–66; imperialism of, 12, 118,
Chacón, Rafael, 161 147–49, 157–59, 162–63, 181; invasion
Chapitone (Navajo), 90 of New Mexico, 13, 99, 150–67, 180–81;
Chapultepec Castle, 50, 62 reinvasion of New Mexico, 166–67
Charleston, S.C., 130 Connelly, Henry, 118, 122, 153, 163, 167,
Charley, Florence, 174 170, 172–73, 221n66
Chaves, Manuel, 56 Conness, John, 123
Chávez, José Francisco, 14 Conrad, Charles M., 32, 71–76, 84
Chávez, Mariano, 14 convict leasing, 112
264 Index

Cooley, Dennis, 122 Department of the Interior, 79–80, 83

Coolidge, Richard H., 86 District of New Mexico, 84, 120, 149, 177.
coolies, 138 See also Ninth Military Department
Cooke, Philip St. George, 42–44, 46, 55, (New Mexico)
57–58, 95–96 Department of Texas, 149, 157
Coons, Benjamin Franklin, 56 Diez de Bonilla, Manuel, 141
Cooper, James, 107–8 Dimond, Francis M., 143
Cooper, Samuel, 162 diplomacy (U.S.), 8; with Indians, 5,
Cortés, Manuel, 64, 67–68 30–31, 75, 82–84, 89–90, 92–93, 96–98,
Corwin, Thomas, 101, 124 178; with Mexico, 20, 28–29, 36,
Cotton Kingdom, 11 42–44, 66, 93, 106, 131, 140–42, 158–60,
Crawford, William H., 43 166–67, 170, 237n128; with Spain, 16.
Creek Indians, 31 See also Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Crow Indians, 31 Dodge, Henry L., 93–94
Cubero, N.Mex., 161 Dole, William, 85, 171
Cuchillo Negro (Apache), 92–93 Domínguez, Pablo, 56
Custer, George Armstrong, 180 Doña Ana, N.Mex., 77, 92, 131
Cutts, James Madison, 8, 54 Donaldson, James, 161
Doniphan, Alexander, 51, 57–58, 89–90, 91
Davidson, John, 95 Donnell, Richard, 103–4
Davis, Garrett, 52 Doolittle, James R., 123
Davis, Jefferson, 75–76, 84, 105–6, 113, Doolittle Report (1867), 180
126; and Pacific railway surveys, 5, Douglas, Stephen A., 116, 127
134–36, 140, 143, 146; as president of dragoons, 32, 40, 58, 61, 71, 77, 87, 90–93,
Confederacy, 148–49, 164, 166 95, 98, 154, 168, 181. See also cavalry
Davis, William W. H., 111 Dred Scott decision (Scott v. Sandford,
Dawes Act (1887), 31 1857), 112, 114, 116, 183
Deavenport, C. J., 114 DuBois, John, 94
DeBow, James D. B., 6, 129–30, 138–39, Durango, Mex., 48
142–43 Dyer, A. B., 4, 56, 62, 66–67, 69
DeBow’s Review, 129–30, 134
debt peonage, 10, 11, 39, 51, 104–12, 117; Edmonson, D. B., 61, 68
court cases, 114–15, 121–22, 124; Edwards, John C., 32
outlawed, 119–24; and transcontinental Edwards, Marcellus, 88
railroad, 138–39. See also Master- El Paso, Tex., 128, 131, 137–38, 140–41, 146,
Servant Act (1851) 149, 151, 157, 163, 166, 181
Delaware, 118 Elliott, Richard Smith, 50, 53, 55, 57–58, 64
Delgado, Felipe, 121 Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 118
democracy, 7, 8, 12, 18, 24, 36, 39, 41, 55, 57, Emmons, Ira, 27
115, 147, 184 Emory, William H., 5, 46, 55, 131, 138
Democratic Party, 118, 135 empresarios, 23
Demun, Julius, 17, 21 England. See Great Britain
Denver, Colo., 166 Enos, Herbert, 161
 Index 265

Erie Canal, 133 France, 34, 38, 148, 159, 165

Evans, John, 166 Freeman, John D., 132–33
Ewell, Richard S., 93 Frémont, John C., 127
fur trappers, 11–12, 14, 16, 21–22, 24,
fandangos, 53–54, 57 26–27, 31, 38, 39, 60
Father Hidalgo, 45
Fauntleroy, Thomas, 79, 84–85, 98 Gadsden, James, 109, 126, 140–41, 159
Fergusson, David, 166 Gadsden Purchase, 138, 140–43, 145–46, 153
Field, Matt, 22 Galveston, Tex., 9, 126
filibustering, 9–10, 14, 183 García, José María, 121
Fillmore, Millard, 33, 108 García Conde, Pedro, 131
First Confiscation Act (1861), 118 Garland, John, 72, 84, 92–96
Fitzhugh, George, 102 Garrard, Lewis, 50, 54, 64–65
Florida, 18, 91 General Land Office (U.S.), 228n64
Floyd, John B., 10, 75–76, 85, 97, 146 Gettysburg, Battle of, 160, 164, 167
Foot, Solomon, 42 Gibbs, Alfred, 156
Fort Bascom, N.Mex., 179 Gibson, George R., 55
Fort Bliss, Tex., 149, 164 Giddings, James, 23
Fort Breckenridge, Ariz., 150, 168 Gila Depot, N.Mex., 94
Fort Buchanan, Ariz., 87, 98, 150, 154, 168 Gila River, 81, 91, 94, 128, 131, 133, 140–41,
Fort Conrad, N.Mex., 86 146, 171
Fort Craig, N.Mex., 150, 157, 160–63 Gilpin, William, 153
Fort Defiance, Ariz., 85, 91, 93, 96–98 Glorieta, Battle of, 160, 162–64, 166
Fort Fauntleroy, N.Mex., 168 Gorman, Eli, 174
Fort Fillmore, N.Mex., 93, 150, 153–57, Gorman, Howard W., 174–75
167–68 Graves, Edmund, 81
Fort Leavenworth, Kans., 30, 41, 42, 63 Graves, Julius, 121–22, 176
Fort Marcy, N.Mex., 50, 53, 56, 58 Gray, Andrew B., 131, 138–40, 143
Fort McLane, N.Mex., 168, 171 Great Britain, 8, 18, 34, 148
Fort Smith, Ark., 137 Greeley, Horace, 109, 113, 142, 144
Fort Stanton, N.Mex., 93, 152, 155, 168, 170 Green, Tom, 161, 235n100
Fort Sumner, N.Mex., 174–78. See also Greenwood, Alfred, 85
Bosque Redondo (N.Mex.) Gregg, Josiah, 26, 46–47
Fort Sumter, S.C., 150, 181 Greiner, John, 73
Fort Thorn, N.Mex., 83, 86–87, 93 Grier, William, 87
Fort Union, N.Mex., 150, 152–53, 161–62, Griffin, William, 124
166 Guaymas, Sonora, 157, 159, 166–67, 232n54
Fort Webster, N.Mex., 82, 92 Guion, Vincent, 27
Fort Wingate, N.Mex., 171–72 Gulf of California, 148
Fort Yuma, Ariz., 138 Gulf of Mexico, 77, 145
Fourth Texas Cavalry, 161 Gutiérrez, Francisco, 56
Free-Soilers, 11, 102–3, 106, 117. See also Gwin, William, 226n31
abolitionists
266 Index

Hall, Willard, 51 Indian policy (U.S.), 71, 75, 77–85, 88–89,

Halleck, Henry, 169 92–93, 99–100, 168–73, 180. See also
Hammond, J. F., 86 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
Harlan, James, 121 Indian raiding, 3, 8, 30–33, 38, 50, 68–70,
Harper, Alexander, 42 78–79, 87–88, 90–92, 94–95, 141, 151,
Harper’s Ferry, Va., 183 164, 167
Heath, Herman, 123 Indian reservations, 7, 79–82, 99, 169, 178.
Hefbiner, Nicholas, 96 See also Bosque Redondo (N.Mex.)
Hendley, Israel, 63 Indians, 9, 17, 22, 74, 178; populations,
Heredia, Tomás, 121–22 75, 89; as spies, 153; treaties, 75,
Hispanos, 3, 9, 12, 22, 24, 41, 52–53, 73, 87, 82–83, 89–90, 92, 97–98, 178; tribal
90, 92, 97, 101, 110, 158, 181; aristocracy, sovereignty, 75. See also names of
48, 53, 55–57, 67, 109, 115, 124; during individual Indian peoples
Civil War, 152–53; conspiracies of, Indian Territory, 76, 180
54–58; contraband trade of, 79–80; industrialization, 9, 11, 24, 27–28, 37,
executions of, 64–66, 68; merchants, 129–30
37; patriotism of, 49; revolts of, 23, 43, infantry, 13, 90, 93, 96, 153, 155
46, 58–68, 158; views on slavery, 106, intermarriage, 12, 22–23, 51, 60–61, 112, 114
113. See also New Mexico Volunteers; internal improvements, 28, 33, 77, 135. See
women also American System
Homestead Act (1862), 31 international boundary. See border,
Houghton, Joab, 64, 121 U.S.-Mexico
Houston, Sam, 126 Isleta Pueblo, N.Mex., 137
Hovey, Oliver P., 51 Ives, Joseph C., 137
Howard, Volney, 131
Hudson, Charles, 36, 42 jacales, 4, 185n3
Huero (Navajo), 97 Jackson, Alexander, 113, 117
Hunter, Hal, 164–65 Jackson, Andrew, 18, 28, 35, 40, 135
Jaramillo, María Ignacia, 51
immigration, 4, 8, 11, 19, 32, 130, 144, 169, Jaremillo, Mariana, 114–15
180 Jesup, Thomas, 5, 74, 77–79
imperialism (U.S.), 4, 7–9, 11, 12, Jim (slave), 96–97
42, 74–75, 142, 149, 169. See also Jim Crow Laws, 112
Confederate States of America; Johnson, Andrew, 119–21, 123–24
Manifest Destiny Johnson, Sylvester, 98
Indian boarding schools, 175 Johnson’s Ranch, N.Mex., 163
Indian captivity, 10, 11, 39, 51, 60, 78, 88, José Largo (Navajo), 90
92, 95, 97, 105–7, 110, 113, 115, 117, 122; Juárez, Benito, 165
outlawed, 119–21; statistics on, 120–21; Judd, Henry, 79
in Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 141
Indian Department. See Bureau of Indian Kansas Indians, 31
Affairs Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), 103, 116, 145
 Index 267

Kearny, Stephen W., 13, 21, 30, 37, Little Rock, Ark., 132
52–55, 57–58, 60, 68–69, 71, 79, 91; Llano Estacado, 140
background, 40; leads conquest of New Lloyd, James, 28
Mexico, 40–51, 87–88, 180–81, 183; Lobato, María Paula, 60, 204n120
proclamations of, 44–46, 50, 51, 57, 158 Lobo (Jicarilla Apache), 95
Kearny Code, 41, 50–52, 69–70 Loring, William W., 93–94, 149–50
Kelly, William, 28 Los Angeles, Calif., 6, 9, 127, 137
Kendall, George Wilkins, 35 Loughborough, John, 128
Kendrick, Henry Lane, 96 Louisiana, 76, 133, 146
Kendrick, Silas, 85 Louisiana Purchase, 15, 31, 38
Kentucky, 118 Lynde, Isaac, 153–56, 167
Kephart, William, 73
Kern, Richard, 74 Magoffin, James W., 43–44, 49
King, Thomas Butler, 144–45 Magoffin, Susan Shelby, 40, 46
Kiowas, 32, 152, 168, 178 Maha, 31
Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC), 145, Maine, 101
149, 165, 226n31, 235n100 Mangas Coloradas (Apache), 91–92, 171
Kozlowski’s Ranch, N.Mex., 162 Manifest Destiny, 4, 7–8, 12, 24–25,
30, 37, 39, 69, 75, 100, 102, 128, 145,
La Cañada, N.Mex., 61 149, 158–59, 169–70, 181, 184. See also
labor. See convict leasing; coolies; debt imperialism
peonage; Indian captivity; slavery Manypenny, George, 83
Lake Michigan, 126 Manzano, N.Mex., 55
Lamar, Mirabeau B., 35 Marcy, William, 41, 52, 66, 68
land grants, 47, 59; Mexican, 12, 23, 57; market revolution, 8, 11, 24
railroad, 128, 135, 140, 143–44 marriage. See intermarriage
Lane, Lydia Spencer, 154 Marshall, John, 75
Lane, William Carr, 3–4, 73–74, 82–83, martial law, 13, 180
140–41, 169 Martínez, Antonio José, 69
Las Cruces, N.Mex., 154 Martínez, Mariano (Navajo), 90
Las Vegas, N.Mex., 33, 43, 45–46, 63, Marsh, George, 104–5
66–68, 77 Maryland, 118
Latin America, 18 Master-Servant Act (1851), 109, 111–12,
Lazelle, Henry, 94 114–17, 120, 122
Leal, James, 60 Mather, Thomas, 29
Lee, Robert E., 162, 164 Maximilian I (emperor), 165
Lee, Stephen, 60 McKarney, T. C., 63
Lerdo de Tejada, Sebastián, 170 McKee, James Cooper, 97, 155
Leroux, Antoine, 21, 27 McKnight, Robert, 16, 21
Lincoln, Abraham, 101, 115, 118, 149–50, McLeod, Hugh, 35
156, 170, 183 McNair, Alexander, 24
Little Bighorn, Battle of, 180 McRae, Alexander, 161
268 Index

Medill, William, 68 Missouri Indians, 31

Melgares, Facundo, 15, 18 Missouri Volunteers, 41, 42, 53–54, 57–58,
Memphis, Tenn., 126, 128, 130 61, 63, 68, 89, 181
merchant capitalism. See capitalism Mitchell, Robert, 123
Meriwether, David, 18, 29, 83, 92–93 Mix, Charles, 83, 168
Mesilla, Battle of, 154–55 Mobile, Ala., 130
Mesilla, N.Mex., 121, 150–51, 157–58 Monroe Doctrine (1823), 6, 39
Mesilla Valley, N.Mex., 138, 140–41, 146, Montoya, Pablo, 64
150–51, 153, 157, 160, 166, 168 Mora, N.Mex., revolt at, 46, 48, 63
Messervy, William S., 95–96 Morin, Jesse I., 63
Mexican-American War, 7, 8, 10, 12–13, Mormon Battalion, 42, 46
24, 30, 33, 39, 40–42, 68, 71, 75, 102–3, Mormons, 10
109, 126, 140, 148, 163, 181 Mowry, Sylvester, 172–73
Mexican Cession, 6, 10, 11, 33, 52, 74, Munroe, John, 79–80, 108
102–3, 106, 109, 126, 128. See also Treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo Narbona, Antonio, 29–30
Mexico, 8, 34, 38, 39, 53, 66, 82, 89, 92, Narbona (Navajo), 90
94, 128, 131, 139–42, 146, 148, 157, 165; Nashville, Tenn., 165
currency of, 25–26; diplomacy with nationalism, 12, 18, 46, 57, 69, 128, 129–30
Confederacy, 158–60, 166; diplomacy nativism, 7–8, 9, 24, 36, 46, 55, 67, 73, 86,
with Union, 166–67, 170, 237n128; 229n73
economy of, 19, 21, 24, 27; government Navajo Livestock Reduction, 174
of, 69, 72, 80; independence of, 11, 14, Navajos, 38, 80–81, 96–98, 137, 168, 170,
18–19, 21, 25, 45, 104; laws of, 104–6; 179; at Bosque Redondo, 13, 171–78,
neutrality of, 160; soldiers (Mexican 239n167; campaigns against, 84–85,
army), 43, 45, 47, 50, 55–57, 181. See also 88–91, 127, 171–74; execution of, 96;
individual place-names in Mexico illness of, 178; Long Walk, 13, 173–74;
Mexico City, 19, 29, 30, 35, 38, 47, 49 oral history of, 174–75; population,
Miles, Dixon, 93 89; raiding, 90–91, 96–97; as slaves,
military. See dragoons; infantry; names of 120–21
individual units Navajo Treaty (1868), 178
militia, 13, 38, 48, 73, 96, 98, 153, 160 Need, William, 113
Mills, W. W., 150, 154 Neighbors, Robert S., 108
Mimbres River, 92, 93 Newby, Edward W., 54, 90
mining, 3, 6, 82, 89, 125, 131, 140, 169–70 New Mexican Railway Company, 146–47
miscegenation. See intermarriage New Mexico: administration costs, 3–4,
Mississippi & Pacific Railroad, 132, 143 13, 33, 73–77; admitted as a U.S.
Mississippi River, 5, 8, 19, 37, 74–75, 77, territory, 103–5, 109, 130; African
127, 132, 143 Americans in, 112–13; Confederate
Missouri, 3, 11–12, 19, 21, 24–25, 27, 34, 37, invasion of, 150–67; conquest of, 10–13,
51, 76, 118, 127–28, 133, 224n9 19, 23, 33, 34, 39, 40–51; constitution of,
Missouri Compromise, 19, 101–2, 104 11; described, 3–4, 142; economy of, 38,
 Index 269

71, 106, 147; geography of, 82, 106–7; Pacific Railroad Surveys, 5, 11, 133–40, 143,
government, 6, 50–52, 56–57; military 145, 183
posts, 68, 74–75; population of, 3, Pacific Railway, 5, 13, 125, 131, 138, 140–41,
112; slavery in, 11; Supreme Court of, 147
114–15, 121–22; statehood, 108, 116–17, Paiutes, 120
182; territorial legislature, 88–89, 109, Palace of the Governors (Santa Fe), 18, 43,
111–12, 114, 118, 121, 125, 133, 146–47, 49–50, 57, 58, 73, 163
152. See also District of New Mexico; Palo Duro Canyon, Tex., 180
Ninth Military Department (New Panama, 9, 37, 139
Mexico) Panic of 1837, 25
New Mexico Volunteers, 13, 152–53, Paredes y Arrillaga, Mariano, 45
160–61, 164, 173, 179, 181 Parke, John G., 138, 140
New Orleans, La., 6, 9, 37, 129–30, 141, Paso del Norte, Chihuahua, 35
146, 165, 229n71 Pawnees, 18, 31
New Spain. See Spanish colonies Pea Ridge, Battle of, 165
New York City, 6, 130 Pecos River, 67, 137, 151–52, 166, 170, 172,
Nicaragua, 9 176, 178
Ninth Military Department (New Peebles, C. Glen, 144–45
Mexico), 71, 77, 90. See also District of peonage. See debt peonage
New Mexico Peralta, N.Mex., 163
Noel, Theophilus, 162, 165 Pesqueíra, Ignacio, 159–60, 166–67,
Northwest Passage, 126 237n128
Norton, A. B., 123, 177–78 Peticolas, Alfred, 163
Nueces River, 45 Pheiffer, Albert, 173
Nueva Vizcaya, Mex., 15, 18 Philadelphia, Pa., 6
Nuevomexicanos. See Hispanos Pierce, Franklin, 9, 76, 89, 113, 141
Pigeon’s Ranch, N.Mex., 162
Ohio, 126 Pike, Albert, 142–43
Ojo del Gallo, N.Mex., 171 Pike, Zebulon, 15–16, 18, 20, 26, 29, 39
Ojo del Oso, N.Mex., 89, 91 Pima Villages, Ariz., 138
Onís, Luis de, 16 Piño, Facundo, 118, 152
Oregon, 5, 7–8, 74, 76, 126 Piño, Manuel, 56
Oregon Trail, 19 Piño, Nicholas, 56
O’Reilly, Henry, 133 Piños Altos, N.Mex., 171
Organ Mountains, N.Mex., 155 Platte River, 128
Ortega, Juan, 56 Poinsett, Joel, 29–30
Ortíz, Tomás, 48, 56–57 Polk, James K., 5–6, 7, 8, 39, 42–44, 51–52,
Osage, 31 56, 68; and Taos Revolt, 63–66
O’Sullivan, John, 7 Ponzi scheme, 144
Otero, Antonio José, 51, 57 Pope, John, 138–40
Otero, Miguel, 113, 117–18 popular sovereignty, 11, 70, 103–8, 115–16,
Otoes, 31 130
270 Index

Pratt, Richard Henry, 175 Sabine River, 35

Pratt, Silvester, 27 Sacramento Mountains, N.Mex., 93
Prescott, Ariz., 169 Salt Lake City, Utah, 10
Preston, Tex., 140 San Antonio, Tex., 149, 157, 168
Price, Sterling, 54, 56, 61–63, 65–66, 68, San Augustine Springs, N.Mex., 155
89–90 San Carlos Apache Reservation, Ariz., 81
Promontory Point, Utah, 10, 130 Sánchez, George I., 65
Pueblo Colorado Wash, Ariz., 98 Sandía Pueblo, N.Mex., 90
Pueblo Indians, 3, 12–13, 36, 53, 54, 80–81, San Diego, Calif., 6, 9, 126, 127, 130, 133,
123, 152, 167; at Taos Revolt, 59–64 137, 139
Pueblo Revolt (1680), 60 San Felipe Pueblo, N.Mex., 137
San Francisco, Calif., 6, 9, 133–34
Quinan, P. A., 86 Sangre de Cristo Land Grant, 23
Quintana, Miguel, 56 San Juan River, 81
Santa Anna, Antonio López de, 35, 64,
racism. See nativism 140–42
railroad conventions, 126–28, 132 Santa Fe, N.Mex., 11, 12, 15, 17–19, 21,
railroads. See land grants; Pacific Railway; 26–29, 35, 71–72, 89, 91, 121, 126, 146,
transcontinental railroad 152, 170, 173; described, 4; economy
Rankin, Robert G., 147 of, 55, 66, 73; Mexican soldiers at, 50;
Reagan, John, 116 occupied by Confederates, 148, 161–63;
Reconstruction, 115, 123–24 occupied by U.S. troops, 41–51, 58, 63,
Red River, 140 68–69, 77, 85, 89, 108, 110, 181; peonage
Reeves, Benjamin H., 29 in, 114; revolts at, 56, 61. See also Palace
Regiment of Mounted Rifles, 93, 154–56 of the Governors (Santa Fe)
Reid, John, 111 Santa Fe trade, 9, 11, 24, 45, 52, 57, 103, 127;
Reily, James, 158–60, 166 customs fees, 26, 29, 34, 37, 47, 198n37;
Rencher, Abraham, 97 described, 25–26; drawback and
Republican Party, 115, 118–24, 183 debenture, 20, 33–34; guías (passports),
Reynolds, Alexander W., 77 26, 192n53; smuggling, 26–27; value of,
Richmond, Va., 130, 149, 158, 166–67 19, 21, 27, 34, 38
Rio Abajo, N.Mex., 55, 61, 63 Santa Fe Trail, 5, 19–20, 21, 27, 31–32, 37,
Rio Arriba, N.Mex., 55, 58, 79 41, 47, 77, 162, 180–81; Indian massacre
Rio Colorado, N.Mex., 61 on, 94–95; surveying of, 28–30
Rio Grande, 20–21, 36, 45, 77, 86, 131, Santa Rita del Cobre, N.Mex., 92, 131
137–38, 141, 150–52, 157, 160, 164 Savannah, Ga., 130
Roberts, Benjamin, 163 Scott, Winfield, 40, 42–43, 50, 53, 108
Robidoux, Antoine, 21–23, 45 Scurry, William R., 161, 163
Rocky Mountains, 7, 21, 127, 137 secession (Southern), 142–43
Romero, José de la Cruz, 114 Second Confiscation Act (1862), 118
Rusk, Thomas, 105, 107–8, 131, 134, 136 sectionalism, 6, 7, 9, 10–12, 27, 36, 52, 70,
Russia, 134 101–9, 126–28, 131, 133–36, 142, 147,
Ruxton, George, 53–54 150, 183
 Index 271

Seminoles, 91 Steck, Michael, 83, 87, 94, 100, 120, 175,

Severance, Luther, 36, 52 177, 180
Seward, William, 163, 167 Steen, Enoch, 84, 91–92
Shepherd, Oliver, 85 Stevens, Thaddeus, 117
Sherman, John, 102, 117, 124 St. Louis, Mo., 3, 19, 21, 127–28, 146
Sherman, William T., 4, 177–78, 182 Storrs, Augustus, 18–19, 21, 26, 27
Shreveport, La., 145 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 183
Sibley, George C., 29–30, 31 Stuart, Alexander, 82
Sibley, Henry H., 148–49, 153, 157–66, 168, St. Vrain, Ceran, 21, 23, 61, 96
170, 180–81, 233n69 Sublette, William, 21
Sibley Brigade, 157–58, 161, 164, 167, 181 Sumner, Charles, 97, 122–23
Sierra Nevada, Calif., 127 Sumner, Edwin V., 71–74, 83–84, 90–92,
Silversmith, Yasdesbah, 178 99–100, 157, 168
Simpson, James H., 126–27 Swords, Thomas, 74, 77
Sioux, 31
Sitgreaves, Lorenzo, 137 Tafoya, Jesús, 64
slave codes, 12, 112–13, 115–18, 221n66 Tafoya, María Luz, 60
slavery, 10, 18, 28, 37, 42, 52, 70, Taney, Roger, 112, 114, 116
95–96, 110, 114, 116, 119, 129, 145, Taos, N.Mex., 19, 22, 27, 29, 35, 36, 54–65,
153, 165, 183; debates on, 7, 9, 11, 95
101–8; emancipation, 118–20, Taos County, N.Mex., 60
122–24; fugitive slave laws, 108, 111; Taos Pueblo, N.Mex., 61–63
and transcontinental railroad, 138–39. Taos Revolt, 4, 46, 48, 58–65, 69, 72;
See also coolies; debt peonage; Indian casualties in, 63; court trials, 64–65
captivity Tappan, Mason, 117
smallpox, 179 Taylor, Zachary, 40, 43, 53, 95, 107–8
Smith, Hugh N., 60, 80 Teel, Trevanion, 165, 235n100
Smith, Jedediah, 21, 31–32 Tehuantepec Isthmus, 139
Smith, Truman, 106–7, 229n73 telegraph, 4–5, 133
Socorro, N.Mex., 67 Terrazas, Luis, 159–60, 166, 237n128
Sonora, Mex., 19, 93–94, 98, 142, 148, Texan–Santa Fe Expedition, 35–37, 47, 107
158–60, 166–67 Texas, 6, 8, 51, 76, 81, 107, 127, 158, 164;
South America, 145 annexation of, 35–37, 39, 74, 103, 183;
South Carolina Railroad Company, 126 boundary claims, 37, 52, 105, 107–9;
Southern Apache Agency, N.Mex., 83 during Civil War, 149–66; colonization
Southern Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, 133 of, 23; railroads, 5, 126, 128, 130, 132–34,
Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 146, 139, 143, 146–47, 159, 229n71; Republic
229n71 of, 35, 108; slavery in, 7. See also
Spanish colonies, 9, 38, 80, 89, 101, 110; Department of Texas
commerce laws of, 11, 15–16, 30; soldiers Texas Panhandle, 137, 152, 178
in, 18 Texas Railroad Act (1854), 143
Stanton, Henry, 93 Texas Western Railroad Company, 143–44
Thirteenth Amendment, 119–22, 124
272 Index

Thompson, Jacob, 83 Utah, 7, 10, 74, 108, 165

Thompson, John, 173 Utes, 13, 32–33, 80–81, 83–84, 98, 172,
Thompson, Philip, 27 174, 179; campaigns against, 94–96;
Tomás (Pueblo Indian), 63–64 Muache Utes, 96; population, 89; as
transcontinental railroad, 4–5, 9–10, 19, slaves, 120
30, 82, 130–40, 147, 159, 170, 183; 32nd
parallel route, 125, 128, 131, 137–40, 143, Valverde, Battle of, 160–61, 164–65, 233n69
145–46; 35th parallel route, 125, 127–28, Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 9
134, 137, 139, 145–46; 38th parallel route, Van Dorn, Earl, 157
136; 47th parallel route, 136; cost of, Vera Cruz, Mexico, 21, 34
132, 137–38, 144–46; corruption, 132, Vicksburg, Miss., 133
143–46; economics of, 134, 139, 144–45; Victoria, Guadalupe, 30
slave labor on, 138–39 Vigil, Cornelio, 60
transportation revolution, 30, 39, 124 Vigil, Donaciano, 21, 49, 51, 54, 57, 61; as
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 10, 66, 82, governor, 64, 66, 88
103, 106, 128, 131, 141 Virginia, 154
Trist, Nicholas, 106, 128
Trujillo, Antonio María, 65 Wagon Mound, N.Mex., 32, 68
Tso, Curly, 174 Waldo, David, 51
Tucson, Ariz., 150 Walker, Robert J., 67, 144–45, 228n64
Turley’s Mill, N.Mex., 61 Walker, William, 9
Turner, Henry Smith, 91 Ward, Christopher L., 141
Twiggs, David, 149 Ward, John, 98–99, 123
Tyler, John, 36 War Department (U.S.), 13, 32, 33, 42, 55,
72–80, 83, 85, 87, 108, 120, 133, 135–36,
Ugarte, Mauricio, 47 156, 168, 175, 177
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 183 War of 1812, 18
Union Pacific Railroad, 125 Washburn, Cadwallader, 117
United States, economy of, 4, 6–7, 8, 11, Washington, John M., 90, 127
24, 26–27, 129; population of, 75 Webb, James Josiah, 111
U.S. Constitution, 104, 119, 135 Webster, Daniel, 107
Usher, John, 175 Weightman, Richard, 74, 102, 124
U.S.-Mexico War. See Mexican-American West, Joseph R., 166
War West Point Academy, 148
U.S. troops, 8, 12, 39, 66, 75–76, 133, 153, Wetmore, Alphonso, 33
160–61, 177; behavior of, 52–54, 57–58, Whig Party, 183
64–65, 69; campaigns against Indians, Whipple, Amiel W., 137
74, 84–85, 90–98, 167–80; illness and White, J. M., and family, 94–95
mortality, 58, 68, 85–88, 93, 95; surrender Whitney, Asa, 126, 129–30
of, 155–56, 232n47; at Taos Revolt, Williams, Bill, 21
61–64. See also dragoons; infantry; Wilmot, David, 104–5
militia; names of individual units Wilmot Proviso, 104–5, 183
 Index 273

Wilson, Henry, 123 Yerger, George S., 146

Wislizenus, Adolph, 4–5, 8, 45, 53, 91 Ylarregui, José Salazar, 141
women, 22, 40, 46, 56, 59, 65, 83, 94–95, Young, Brigham, 10
112, 154, 155, 173, 174; as peons, 114–15, Young, Richard M., 228n64
124
Wool, John, 43, 53 Zarcillos Largos (Navajo), 89–90, 97, 98
Wootton, Uncle Dick, 63 Zuñi Pueblo, N.Mex., 137