The last two hundred years of New Mexico history are filled with cultural clashes, some serious, many pathetic. Fourteen years before Mexico obtained independence, Lt. Pike got himself caught in the San Luis valley in the middle of the winter. This area is often the coldest place in continental US at this time of the year. He and his party were both rescued and arrested by Spanish authorities. He claimed to be on a scientific expedition as part of the US purchase of the Louisiana area, similar to the previous Lewis and Clark expedition. The truth is almost certainly different, though having read a significant portion of his journals, well concealed. How the headwaters of the Red River on the high plains of Texas could be confused with the headwaters of the Rio Grande, having crossed the Sangre de Christo’s above La Veda pass, can only be explained by extreme ineptitude or, in the mind of the Spanish authorities, spying.
At about the same time French and Yankee fur trappers began showing up in the Taos area. Some became Spanish citizens, some adopted the Roman Catholic faith, all alarmed the Spanish authorities, aware of the expansionist tendencies of the US.
Very soon Fr. Hildalgo, educated at the Durango, Mexico, seminary, which was influenced by Enlightenment thought and the American Revolution, proclaimed Mexican independence. Though he was quickly captured and imprisoned in Cd. Chihuahua, later to be executed, this led to independence for Mexico.
Spain tried to keep all foreigners out. Under Mexico trade was accepted from the United States, to be taxed at points of entry and exit, of course. This was announced in 1821 as was the first trips along the Santa Fe trail. The first group of traders from Missouri essentially cleaned Santa Fe of all of its hard money. Thus, the second group of traders went on down the Camino Real, renamed the Chihuahua Trail, in search of hard money. This commerce through Santa Fe to Cd. Chihuahua and Durango continued for over a century, with Pancho Villa getting most of his munitions through El Paso and now drugs coming North on some of the same routes.
The merchants in Santa Fe welcomed the Anglo’s, for the most part, with open arms. A profit is well understood in both cultures. By American occupation in 1846 it is estimated that fully one half of the traders on the Santa Fe trail were citizens of Mexico, most from the Santa Fe community.
New Mexico had few priests, but those education in Durango were outstanding. Fr Martinez in Taos even worked with the Santa Fe traders to bring in a printing press and Spanish language type so that a Spanish language newspaper could be published for the benefit of the local people, though this was not completed until about the start of Yankee occupation.
Metals were very limited in New Mexico, having been poor under the pueblos, under the Spanish, and continued that way under Mexican administration. Thus, even the tin cans of the Santa Fe traders were recycled into usable and artistic items for home and business, a skill still on the market in New Mexico. The solid axles of the wagons returning to Missouri were hollowed out so that some of the hard cash could be concealed within and avoid the Mexican tax. The merchants of both countries clearly prospered through this trade. Some scholars have speculated that the presence of the Santa Fe trade in industrial materials and weapons may have preserved both the pueblo and Spanish cultures from collapse as the new government in Mexico had neither the tax base to support nor the military organization to provide protection to the residents of Northern New Mexico in face of the increased pressure from Apache, Navajo and Comanche raids.
In the 1840’s Yankees took almost one half on the nation of Mexico, an item stressed in the Mexican history books to this day. First Texas, though poor management from Mexico City encouraged a lot of the Spanish speaking population to join the revolt, and then the remaining portion of the Southwest by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. General Grant felt this was such an unjustified land grab that he said in his autobiography that the bloodletting of the Civil War was in part punishment for the treatment we gave Mexico in that war.
Northern New Mexico welcomed the United States army, for the most part, as profits and safety was more important than allegiance to the weak government in Mexico City. It is reported that Dona Tules, operator of the finest gambling establishment west of St. Louis and the richest woman in New Mexico, loaned General Kearney the money needed to pay the conquering troops when the pay wagon was delayed coming from Ft. Leavenworth. Most of the citizens of Northern New Mexico were strongly anti-slavery. The battle of Glorieta Pass decided the war in the west, though the presence of the Colorado Volunteers as well as knowledge of local geography certainly helped the Union cause.
The Apache and others ran wild during the war. Following the war efforts were made to settle the problems with the non-pueblo natives, including placing the Navajo on a reservation at Ft. Sumner. Kit Carson led the army. In violation of his orders to kill all the adult males, he brought them to Ft. Sumner and later testified before congress of the injustice, allowing them and other native peoples to return, where possible, to their ancestral homes. This he did though suffering from the aneurysm which was to kill him the next year.
As the bishop of Durango, Mexico, could not exercise the same authority over New Mexico after it became part of the United States, Rome appointed a French priest to come as bishop. Lamy commented to the bishop of New Orleans while en-route to his new assignment that he had misgivings about the Spanish and Native American savages that were to be his responsibility. As the New Mexico priests educated in Durango were as competent or more so that Lamy, and as his attempt to impose French and Italian traditions on the Spanish church, which had differed in administrative methods since the Middle Ages, cultural tensions developed which continue to this day.
The AT&SF railroad came over Raton pass late in 1879, to build on through the state in the next two years and junction with the Southern Pacific, building East, at Deming to make the second transcontinental route and profit for both systems. This brought in mining machinery, milling and other industrial supplies. Las Vegas became the largest town in the territory with the shipment of cattle, wool and sheep to eastern markets. New Mexico had enough population in 1848 to become a state. However, its Spanish/Mexican heritage was considered a detriment to many in Washington. This was complicated by the political wisdom of Santa Fe in sending a Jesuit priest, not capable of speaking English, as the representative from the territory to a protestant dominated congress. When ask, General Sherman advised that the correct solution to New Mexico’s status in the US was to “give it back to Mexico.” Thus statehood was delayed for sixty four years while various forms of corruption were practiced in the state, including a US Senator, after statehood, having the distinction of doing time for fraud concerning national assets. The Spanish speaking population suffered the most, with many of the Spanish grants being compromised. The tensions over this remain, with armed confrontations occurring within the last 50 years.
Albuquerque became the center of the railroad industry, with equipment for track repair manufactured here until the 1980’s. Coal mines opened up in a big way to meet the railroad’s needs. Cattle shipping expanded significantly, being a factor in the Lincoln County war and Billy the Kid. Large silver deposits were developed in the western mountains as well as the expansion of previously known copper mining which continues to this day. Homesteaders entered, resulting in the breaking of sod which made Northeastern New Mexico a significant part of the dust bowl. Patients suffering from TB flocked to the state, some of them actually recovering and really adding to the political leadership of the state. A hundred years ago federal irrigation projects increased agricultural production in a large way, with cotton and now pecans being large cash crops. With the second world war, air bases, and the Manhattan Project, military spending became a significant boost to the economy. Now computer chips, jewelry, and scientific instruments add to the complexity of the economy. Green energy is increasing, with the last of the coal fired electric generating plants closed and enough solar and wind being produced that some is being exported out of state. The status of being a poor state, one lacking in water, resistant to change, and with no major ethnic group remains part of the heritage, one which both attracts and repels those viewing the state from the outside.