Part 2

The period from 1628 to 1680 was one of internal conflict and isolation for New Mexico. It lay far out on the frontier, alone and distant from its source of supplies. It lacked many of the items necessary for frontier life, particularly hardware and clothing. Its population was small, and in constant fear of Indian uprising, and its officials were too weak to act with vigor. Finally, there was a lack of genuine interest on the part of the central authorities. All these problems led to internal conflicts between soldier and colonist; between colonist and Indian; between colonist and official; and, perhaps most bitter of all, between church and state. This latter conflict would erupt time after time, openly, and with bitterness and denunciation from both sides. Governors were excommunicated as heretics; Franciscans were accused of all sorts of crimes and improper behavior. This, plus the other conflicts, gave rise to growing disrespect by the Indians for their European conquerors. The superiority of Christianity was questioned by the Indians as they watched the attacks and counterattacks made by priest and governor. The whole system of Spanish rule seemed a mockery. In 1680, the Indians decided their way was best after all and rose in rebellion.

Led by Po-pé from Taos, the various pueblos banded together in a mighty effort to remove the Spanish from traditional Indian lands. For the first time the pueblos came together, united by a single purpose. There were two exceptions; Isleta, just south of Albuquerque, and the Piro villages farther south (Socorro) remained loyal to the Spanish. Up and down the Rio Grande Valley, the Spaniards fell before the pent-up anger of the Indians. Survivors gathered at Santa Fe, but their water supply was cut, and they were forced to retreat south. At Isleta and later at the Piro villages, they received aid before continuing south to El Paso del Norte. With them went their Indian allies from Isleta and Socorro. It was a total defeat for the Spanish, and the Indian again was master of New Mexico.

But not for long, for at El Paso there gathered a force dedicated to revenge for their comrades who had died before the Indian onslaught. Ably led by Diego de Vargas, this expedition moved into New Mexico in 1692. The Indians, who had achieved such unity for the moment in 1680, were again badly divided. De Vargas, instead of having to subdue an alliance, had only to deal with one pueblo at a time. Very quickly New Mexico was returned to a mission area and frontier military post. The Pueblo Indians became permanently subjected to European domination. Their one and only attempt at unity had, in the final analysis, failed.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, New Mexico was the heart of the Spanish empire in the Southwest. Only in southwestern Arizona, western Texas, and California did the Spanish hold any land other than in the upper Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. During these centuries, this valley complex played out its dual role of mission area and military outpost. Its only connection with the resources and ideas of the world was a long hazardous road that stretched from Santa Fe to Chihuahua City and then south to Mexico City. This was New Mexico’s Royal Road, and over it moved everything needed by soldier, priest, and civilian. The trade was dominated by the merchants of Chihuahua, and New Mexico suffered. The tale of New Mexico during this period was one of poverty, hardship, and warfare. And several vital forces moved across the land.

One of these forces had long been in the Southwest, but latent. The Spanish adopted an Indian word meaning _enemy_ to describe it—Apache! The Spanish brought with them domesticated animals which quickly adapted to conditions of the New World and became available to the Indian. Most important was the horse, at least as far as the Apache was concerned. By the early eighteenth century, the Apache, and other groups on the plains, had adapted to the use of the horse. While dangerous as foot soldiers, the Apache became vastly more dangerous as mounted warriors. Whereas they had been satisfied with minor raids against the pueblos and the Spanish holdings prior to 1700, they exploded on a wave of terrorism during the eighteenth century which very nearly drove the Spanish from the frontier. Late in the century, the conflict between the Apache and the Spanish became increasingly bitter. The history of the Southwest became the history of incessant Indian incursions and Spanish attempts to control the raiders. The missions declined and in many instances gave way entirely to the presidio or fort. In New Mexico the military came to dominate the missionary, and only through the heroic efforts of the meager force at the Presidio of Santa Fe did the Spanish manage to hold New Mexico from total collapse. A poor province became poorer, population declined, both among the Spanish and Indian, and the future looked dark indeed.

Far from New Mexico, other forces were stirring which would have a profound effect on the province and the Southwest. Spain and the Spanish empire were in trouble. Spain had failed to develop the supply capability to keep her colonies alive and was forced to spend her wealth in other areas of Europe. After two and a half centuries, the cumbersome and inefficient colonial administrative machinery was breaking down. While Spain’s star was descending, other European nations were on the move. England, France, Holland, and Russia were contesting with Spain for control of the New World. England and France were digging in on the east coast of North America; Holland was penetrating the islands of the Caribbean, and Russia was pushing down the Pacific Coast from Alaska. The weakness of Spain and the failure of her colonial government, plus help from Napoleon by way of his invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 1808, brought about the collapse of the Spanish empire. In America, patriots, inspired by the earlier success of the American Revolution and afire with the ideas of the French Revolution, struck out at the remnants of Spanish rule. By 1825, all the Spanish colonies but the islands of the Caribbean were free and independent nations. New Mexico and the Southwest became part of the Mexican state.

Almost immediately, Mexico, without leaders, without a political heritage to lead it to stability, and torn by power struggles large and small, was plunged into a period of political anarchy and civil war which would last for half a century. The problems and dangers of a far-flung frontier were lost in the din of conflict, and New Mexico became a forgotten province. Its claims as a mission area were so weak as to be almost nonexistent. It was no longer needed as a military outpost, for the danger to Mexico was not external, but internal. Its reasons for being were forgotten, at least for the moment, and New Mexico had to survive on her own initiative. But for one very important fact, the Spanish salient into the Southwest might have collapsed under the weight of poverty and Indian attacks. That fact was the opening of the Santa Fe Trail in 1821, a trail which linked the Spanish world with the Anglo-Saxon world then pushing its frontiers out from Missouri. This trail, so rich in lore and adventure, so much a part of the history of both the American west and the Spanish north, was the door through which passed the characters for the final act in the history of the Southwest.

Before the final act, however, it is vital and necessary to set down the contribution of two hundred fifty years of Spanish occupation and rule. The coming of the Spaniard to the Southwest began a mixture of white and red races which resulted in a new mixed race. The first generation of those who came up from Mexico were Caucasians; their descendants were usually not. They came seeking wealth and security, but there was neither wealth nor security in New Mexico, and they remained poor, very poor. The society that evolved was to be based upon farming and stock raising, and its organization was to be feudal in nature. There would be no education; hence, there could be no intellectual advance. The world began to go ahead of the people of New Mexico. Only in the house of the rico was there any sign of the wealth and grandeur of Spain; everywhere else was poverty. Farming was left in the hands of the Indian, while the Spaniard chose to be a man on horseback, a cattleman, an aristocrat. In the final analysis, Spanish New Mexico would not develop as democratic and agricultural, but aristocratic and feudal. The hacienda was a part of old Spain in exile. The rico tried vainly to hold to his idea of chivalry and to a decorum suitable to his position. But what chance was there in the face of the increasing poverty, the constant danger to life and property, and time that did not move? While individual courage of the upper class remained, discipline and industry died. When the American army marched into the Southwest, the sons of the conquistadores could offer no armed resistance. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the society of the ricos in New Mexico was that it failed to contribute any lasting monument. It left no art, no music, no great highways, no adequate governmental system.

But many elements of Spanish culture were to persist, and these arose from the collective consciousness of the people of New Mexico. Around the great haciendas were small villages with their artisans and workers. It was among these people that the heritage of Spain clung to this land. Many of these towns yet remain and are not much different from those of two hundred years ago. To a large degree, their Spanish culture seems hidden and undiscovered, but the people, their loves and hates, pleasures and hopes, beliefs and fears, are governed by tradition, a tradition that finds its roots deep in the soil of Spain.

Today, when we look at the cultural scene in New Mexico, we can see direct evidence of Spanish occupation. The language of half the people in the state is Spanish, in some areas still the Spanish of the sixteenth century. Roman Catholicism, of which the Spanish were the most Catholic, dominates the religious scene. The Spanish heritage in political attitudes, in building and architecture, and in the legal tradition of the state is apparent. New Mexico, of all the states in the United States, is the only one that can claim a truly Spanish heritage.

ANGLO-AMERICAN VIGOR

While Spain lost its empire and New Mexico and the Southwest sank into poverty and decay, yet another force was on the march, a force that welled up in an Anglo-American people clinging to the Atlantic Coast of North America. As these people developed a nation, they also discovered a sense of destiny which turned their faces to the west and their footsteps toward the sunset. With them moved their culture. At first, it was a trickle, a few traders bent on profit, crossing the plains on the Santa Fe Trail. Then the trickle became a flood. For New Mexico, these men came as saviors. The Missouri traders broke the Chihuahua monopoly and goods from all parts of the world began to flow into New Mexico, resulting in higher standards of living. These Yankee traders, sensing a good thing, also penetrated the markets of Mexico, using New Mexico’s Royal Road to gain entrance.

Again there was conflict, not Spanish and Indian, but Latin and Anglo-American. Mexico owned the lands of the Southwest and intended to keep them. But this American, with his gaze glued on western skies, refused to turn aside, and he strode on, grinding the feeble efforts of Mexican resistance into the desert sands. The Mexican War in 1846, suddenly transferred ownership of Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California from Mexico to the United States. This was nearly half the territory of Mexico. New Mexico, with her already complex cultural pattern, was subjected to still another influence.

The history of the American occupation of the Southwest is as complex and diverse as its predecessors. Its ingredients include cattle, mining, railroads, agriculture, science, and the Indian. All these, and others, combined to give an Anglo-American slant to the Southwest. The Indian culture did not disappear, nor did the Spanish, but rather a new stratum was cast that was to complete the mosaic.

When the American arrived in New Mexico, he found a poor, backward area, hungry for trade and outside contacts. He found the Indians of the Southwest in open rebellion against the white men. The Navajo and other Apache groups, the Comanche, and some of the Pueblos were the primary offenders. This was to be the main problem occupying the time and energy of the American settler and soldier for forty years after 1846. Until the Indian situation was stabilized, there would be little economic and social development.

The method evolved for containing the vicious raids against friendly Indian, Spanish, and American communities was a series of forts placed at strategic passes or trails surrounding the traditional lands of the Apache. The Indian strongholds were located primarily in the mountainous regions of southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. The line of forts stretched along the Rio Grande south of Socorro to the vicinity of Las Cruces, and west along the southern edge of the mountain escarpment into Arizona. Then the defense complex ran north across the desert to an irregular line running east from Flagstaff through Gallup and back to the Rio Grande. These forts were well garrisoned and provisioned and began to carry the fight to the Indian. Early success was halted by the conflict generated by the American Civil War.

The center of the Civil War in the west was in New Mexico. There was conflict, argument, and some small degree of fighting in other western states and territories as settlers from the north or south struggled to carry this territory or that state into the Union or the Confederacy. These were, however, local matters and as much political as military. In New Mexico, there was a war and there were battles, battles which deserve to be a part of the general Civil War story but that are usually forgotten in the smoke and roar of eastern cannon.

Two major battles were fought in New Mexico, the first a Confederate victory, the second a Union victory which saved New Mexico, and the west, for the Union. The aim of the Confederate forces was to capture, intact if possible, the forts in New Mexico and Arizona with their great store of military provisions, provisions badly needed by the Confederate army. Also, there was a feeling among southern leaders that success in New Mexico might also lead to success in California, badly split on the question of secession, and in Colorado, rich in silver and gold. An army recruited in Texas and commanded by General Henry Sibley was sent to accomplish Confederate aims.

This army entered New Mexico along the traditional route, moving up the Rio Grande from El Paso. It quickly subdued the forts and Union troops in southern New Mexico and continued up-river. On February 21, 1862, it met a Union army commanded by Colonel E. R. S. Canby at Valverde, a small community about twenty miles south of Socorro, New Mexico. Kit Carson, New Mexico’s famous trapper and scout, commanded the New Mexico Volunteers, a part of the Union force. Canby’s troops were beaten and dispersed at the Battle of Val Verde, leaving the upper Rio Grande Valley virtually without defense. Within a few weeks, the Texans had taken Albuquerque and Santa Fe. But one stronghold in New Mexico remained in the hands of the Union forces. Fort Union, northeast of Las Vegas, New Mexico, became the focal point of action by both north and south. Sibley, marching from Santa Fe, knew success depended on the fall of Fort Union. The Union forces, equally aware of the importance of the fort, hurriedly reinforced it with a number of volunteers from Colorado.

Within Fort Union, a crisis developed over differing opinions on strategy. The fort commander wanted to keep the garrison at full strength and fight the Confederates from within the fort. The Colorado Volunteers wanted to go out and meet the enemy. The latter won and a Union force moved into the passes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to meet the Confederates in a fateful battle that would decide control of the west. It was fought at Glorieta Pass on March 28, 1862. Despite the fact that the two armies met on this field, the contest was not decided there. Early on the morning of March 28, a force of 400 Colorado Volunteers, commanded by Colonel John M. Chivington, began a flanking action in hopes of hitting the Confederate rear. This group moved out of the Pass into the mountains, and by a very difficult route moved back toward the Pass behind the Confederate force. On a ridge overlooking Apache Canyon, they saw below them the entire Confederate supply train and cavalry horse herd. In a lightning hit-and-run attack, the supply train and horses were destroyed. When word of this reached Sibley at Glorieta Pass, there was little for him to do but to retire from the field. The Confederate force never recovered from this disaster and gradually retreated to Santa Fe, then back down the Rio Grande into Texas.

With the end of the Civil War, New Mexico and the Southwest returned, not to peace, but to war, war against the Apache. It took twenty years for the American with all his modern weapons and tactics to bring the Apache under control. For the Apache, it ended on September 3, 1886, when Geronimo and his few ragged followers surrendered to General Miles in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona. Under the weight of steel and increasing numbers of white men, the Apache was doomed. Though civilization would swallow the Apache, as it has always succeeded against the barbarian, the Apache made a spectacular defense of his lands and his way of life against both Spaniard and American. He made himself master of the desert, and only the gods of science succeeded in overcoming him and his desert gods.

INDUSTRIAL BOOM

With the Indian situation settled, New Mexico underwent a boom in two important areas, mining and cattle raising. These industries, so much a part of the history of the American West, did and still play an important role in the well-being of the Southwest. Mining camps sprang up along the mountain fringes as new discoveries of silver and gold came to light. Around Socorro and Magdalena, in the Mogollon Mountains, at Hillsboro and Kingston in the Black Range, and hundreds of other places in New Mexico and the Southwest, men hungry for quick wealth swarmed over the hills and mountains and built their roaring camps. While miners were tapping the subsurface wealth, cattlemen were staking out their claims to the grasslands, both on the eastern plains and in the high mountain meadows. Cattle empires grew to staggering proportions, sometimes erupting into violent conflict over grazing and water rights, such as the Lincoln County War made famous by the participation of Billy the Kid.

The character of the Southwest still bears the stamp of the miner and the cattleman. Although the cattle and grazing industry has declined, as has the traditional mining camp, the past importance of these activities has had a tremendous impact upon the character of Southwest folklore, law, and music and on the thought of the people.

Other influences affected New Mexico as a result of the American occupation, things inherent in the American culture. Ribbons of steel across a continent, buildings of steel and stone, business and commerce, technology, common law, the English language, the Protestant religion, and, above all, the American-brought driving desire to dominate, to win. Certainly the American had to adapt his culture to the desert lands, but he did it in his own way, not in the way of the Indian or Spaniard. So Anglo-American culture became superimposed upon a Spanish culture that was superimposed upon an Indian culture.

_Disinherited_, that is the word that best describes contemporary New Mexico culture. A stronger race came and took away the inheritance of the Indian, though there did result a blood mixture. Only in superficial matters did the Spanish adopt any of the Indian ways. The Spanish, too, succumbed to a stronger people and have been denied the privilege commonly accorded to conquered peoples, that of mixing their blood with that of the conquerors. One finds today in New Mexico three distinct people—Indian, Spanish, and Anglo-American—as sharply contrasted as the strands in a Navajo blanket. There is pure red alongside white, and only rarely do the colors blend into pinks or grays. This is why we must say that New Mexico is a mosaic, not a synthesis, of many elements, clearly defined.

Across the span of time, great men, people, and ideas have molded New Mexico and Southwest history. Indian, Spanish, American—vital forces that are today working toward a genuinely unique culture in New Mexico. The modern world may well give to the Southwest the idea or catalyst that will blend these elements into a single force. Science, techniques, ideas are things of the present and are for the present to assess and synthesize. The Indian gods of air, earth, and sky and the white man’s gods of morality and science do not differ a great deal in their aspirations for their chosen people, and perhaps they will decree a splendid and unique synthesis from the cultural mosaic. Through understanding comes knowledge; from knowledge, creation.

The Exotic Plants of New Mexico

_by_ Ross Calvin

The problem of discussing plant life becomes complicated, for some of those arriving in New Mexico may be compound microscope botanists, some collectors, others pathologists, still others geneticists. Some will be chemists or mathematicians, some others untrained in the ways of growing things and mainly interested in seeing while they tour. But one thing is fairly certain—most visitors will come from a distance, so it may be useful to invite them to observe what they can readily see on the way hither, which will be a relatively painless method of amassing some information.

Yet the method of arrival itself suggests choices, options, and exercises in probability. Do visitors come in covered wagons, or in jet planes; by bus, car, train, or some other way? The most convenient way, doubtless, is by plane traveling six hundred miles an hour at a height of some thirty thousand feet; but the most rewarding way is by saddle or on foot as the early collectors came.

Since one cannot know his own country well if he knows no other, a visitor from the east arriving at an altitude of five miles will probably be more conscious than others of drastic changes in the landscape when he first looks down on New Mexico. Instead of the universal green of the east, he will note the earth as an unaccustomed tawny, reddish brown expanse, and this will be its common color through most months of the year. He will note the absence of rivers, but the presence of mountains which generally ring the horizon. He will wonder, after traversing the border counties at the western edge of the Great Plains, at the infrequency of plowlands, and will promptly conclude that New Mexico is one vast, bare desert—an impression that will be corrected rapidly when he visits the dark National Forests where the slim, crowded spruces and firs tower skyward.