USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 12
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It was on the afternoon of September 17 that Colonel Cooke and his men surrendered at Anton Chico, having been betrayed by Captain Will- iam P. Lewis, a member of the expedition. Three days later they started on their long march toward the City of Mexico, the place of their cap- tivity. Lewis, who had made their capture easy by his treachery, was rewarded by Armijo by "safe conduct" through the province. The detach- ment of San Miguel were still retained in prison there. About three weeks later tremendous excitement was created in San Miguel by a re- port that the dreaded Texans were advancing in countless numbers. Octo- her 12 the remainder of the Texan prisoners, who had been captured near Laguna, Colorado, on the 9th, more than one hundred and fifty in num- ber, were marched into the plaza of San Miguel, and it soon became gen- erally understood that all the captives were to be sent to the City of Mex- ico. Armijo soon afterward released four of the prisoners, but the rest were soon compelled to begin their tiresome march to the capital. They started October 17, passing through the old ruin of Pecos-in former times a mission and fortress, but then crumbling into decay,-through Glorieta Pass, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, Algodones, Sandia, Alameda, and Albuquerque, where a stop of a few days was made. Thence they proceeded down the Rio Grande, passing through the villages then known as Valencia, Tome, Casa Colorado, La Hoya, Pajida, Socorro, Fray Cristo- bal, the Jornada del Muerto, El Paso and thence through Mexico to the capital, arriving in the city in several divisions in the spring of 1842. In April part of the prisoners were released, at the intercession of foreign ministers, on the plea that they were not Texans and had joined the ex- pedition without being aware of any ulterior motive on the part of its
Vol. I. 5
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promoters. The remainder, after being confined a few weeks in various Mexican prisons, some of them being compelled to work upon the public highways in chains, were released by order of General Santa Ana, June 13, 1842. The only exception was Navarro, a Mexican by birth and a member of a distinguished family, who was condemned to death. He escaped from prison, however, and ultimately returned to Texas.
When the news of the Texas expedition reached New Mexico, Armijo decided to send an appeal to the people of New Mexico warning them against the treachery of the Americans and attempting to persuade them that no just ground of complaint against their benign and wise governor could be found. This document, which was proclaimed from the house- tops, literally, throughout the northern towns of the Territory, read as follows :
"The Governor and Commandant of New Mexico to its inhabitants :
"New Mexicans-The well-known benignity which, in all times and circumstances, has characterized its Mexican government, and which he who has the honor to address you as Governor and Commandant General of this department, has taken for the rule of his conduct, makes me firmly believe that, if some of you, giving credence to false promises, have engaged themselves to support those who govern in Texas, in any attempt against Mexico, they will remember what they owe to their government, no matter in what form it may have been taken. By so doing they will assert anew their patriotism and fealty to the paternal government of the Republic, in the name of which, and under my word of honor, I promise to pardon them and to reinstate them in the full enjoyment of all their rights as citizens and heirs to the patrimony left to them by their ancestors.
"No, my dear countrymen, there is no reason for us to fear, and less to believe that any of us, at the risk of losing our religion, our native land and property, would hesitate even for an instant to surround our national flag and fight for it, no matter at what cost, rather than to take part with those ambitious traitors, the Texans and their supporters.
"Your Countryman and Chief, "MANUEL ARMIJO.
"New Mexico, September 13, 1841."
This appeal does not appear to have awakened the patriotic enthusi- asm of the indifferent natives to any great degree, for the American trad- ers and proprietors continued to pour into the Territory, and at a rate that actually increased after the promulgation of this appeal.
Historians are now agreed that the first Texan Santa Fé expedition was not, as Kendall appears to have believed, simply for the purpose of developing closer trade relations between Texas and Santa Fé by the division of some of the trade between the New Mexican capital and Missouri river points, but that the military character of the expedition and the well-known desires of the Texans were sufficient warrant for the belief that they could make good their claim to the territory lying east of the Rio Grande. Not daunted by the disasters which overtook the original party, a second expedition was planned a year later, though the actual descent upon the coveted country did not take place until 1843.
As early as November, 1843, reports reached Santa Fé that a party of Texans were upon the prairics on the eastern frontier, prepared to attack any Mexican traders who should attempt to cross the plains the succeeding spring. Little credence was placed in the story by the Ameri- can residents and traders, as rumors of this kind were common. So little did intelligent men believe the rumor that in February, 1843, Don Antonio
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Jose Chavez, a wealthy resident of the Territory, departed from Santa Fé for Independence, taking with him but five servants, two wagons and about fifty mules. He carried about ten thousand dollars in specie and gold bullion, besides a small quantity of furs. About April 10 he had reached a point near the Little Arkansas, fully a hundred miles within the borders of the United States, where he was met by fifteen men from the border of Missouri, who claimed to be Texas troops under the command of Jolin McDaniel. This party doubtless started with the intention of joining one Colonel Warfield, also said to hold a commission from the Texan gov- ernment, who for several months had lurked upon the plains near the mountains, with a small party, in the hope of attacking the Mexican traders.
When Chavez appeared McDaniel abandoned his original intention of joining Warfield and determined to secure the booty himself rather than to await a later party in partnership with Warfield. Chavez was cap- tured, taken a few miles south of the trail and his valuables taken from him. Seven of the party then departed for the settlements with their share of the booty, amounting to about five hundred dollars apiece. The remaining eight determined to kill the man who had been robbed, which was done; and further search revealed a quantity of gold in his trunk. Chavez's body, with his wagon and baggage, was thrown into a ravine, and the murderers departed for Missouri.
Though every possible preparation had been made by the United States troops to intercept this party at the outset, they escaped. Ten of them were afterward apprehended, tried before the United States Court at St. Louis, and convicted; some for murder, the remainder for larceny.
Early in May of 1843 Colonel Snively, at the head of about one hun- dred and seventy-five men who had organized in the northern part of Texas, set out with the avowed intention of attacking Santa Fé. The smallness of their force evidently appeared to them after leaving their rendezvous, and they changed the course of their march, planning to lay in wait for Mexican traders crossing the plains. Upon arriving at the Arkansas they were joined by Warfield and his men, who a short time before had sacked the little Mexican town of Mora, but had been over- taken by the outraged inhabitants, their horses stampeded, and they com- pelled to proceed afoot as far as Bent's Fort, where part of the men left the company. Soon after Warfield's arrival the Texans advanced along the Santa Fe trail, when he discovered that a party of Mexicans had passed towards the river. Pursuing them, they attacked, killed eighteen Mexicans and wounded as many more, five of whom afterward died. Two who escaped carried the news to General Armijo, who had a large force at Cold Spring, one hundred and forty miles beyond. No sooner was the news of the disaster broken to him than he turned and fled with his entire army to Santa Fé, abandoning a large amount of equipment in his haste to find a safe retreat. This cowardly action on his part produced a bad effect upon many of his followers. The small force killed or captured by the Texans was composed principally of inhabitants of the Taos valley, many of them Taos pueblo Indians. They had not only hated and despised Armijo since the rebellion of 1837, but it was notorious that they sympathized with Texas. So loth were they to fight the Texans that Armijo found it neces- sary to bind some of them upon their horses until they reached the open
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prairies, where escape would not be so easy. It seems probable that had the Texans attempted to persuade the Mexicans to surrender without battle, which might have been accomplished, they might have secured their services in leading them to Armijo's camp, with the result that the power of that unmitigated tyrant might have been broken forever. Captain Cook, commanding two hundred United States dragoons, afterward came upon Snively and his men and disarmed them, though not entirely, as some of the men had hid their weapons and gave up only the antiquated guns they had taken from the Mexicans.
This was the end of the second Texan Santa Fé expedition, as it has been called, though it was nothing more than an unauthorized piece of prairie piracy. Though the participants were wholly Texans, and the expedition was organized on Texan soil, and further, though the Ameri- can government took every possible precaution to protect the Mexican caravans while crossing American soil, the Mexican authorities made a formal demand upon the United States for damages. The most unfor- tunate outcome of this expedition was the abrupt ending of trade rela- tions between the United States and New Mexico, by decree of General Santa Ana, the dictator of Mexico. The interruption was only brief, for the ban was lifted on March 31, 1844, and the overland traffic continued with no decrease in volume until the American invasion.
General Manuel Armijo, the last of the Mexican governors of New Mexico, was born in Albuquerque. His early career was one of dissipation and vice. It was a notorious fact that while yet a youth he obtained pos- session of a large number of sheep, without funds for their purchase. Among his intimate friends he frequently boasted that he had sold to Fran- cisco Chavez, the wealthiest sheep owner in New Mexico, the same ewe, fourteen different times, and that he had stolen her from him even in the first instance. By suclı means, and by having what is termed a good run of luck at dealing monte, he amassed a considerable fortune. As his ambition now led him to learn to read and write Spanish, the foundation of his fut- ure influence and greatness among his timid and ignorant countrymen was substantially laid.
Prior to 1830, by appointment under the old territorial laws, he had been clothed with the executive authority in New Mexico, and his brief ad- ministration was signalized by acts of cruelty and reckless injustice. In 1837 he was appointed administrator de rentas, or principal custom-house officer, at Santa Fé; but in consequence of flagrant malfeasance in office he was soon removed from that office by Don Albino Perez, then governor.
"The effects of the central form of government were now just begin- ning to be felt in this isolated department of Mexico," writes George Wil- kins Kendall in his "Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition," "and the people were beginning to manifest no inconsiderable discontent at the new order of things. Armijo, perceiving that there was now a chance, not only to signalize himself, but to reap a rich harvest of revenge against his enemies then in power, took advantage of this feeling by secretely foment- ing a conspiracy. An insurrection was soon in agitation, and early in Au- gust, 1837, a heterogeneous force, numbering more than one thousand men, among whom were a large number of pueblos, or town Indians, assembled
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at La Cañada, a village about twenty-five miles north of the capital. Gov- ernor Perez conducted a small force against the insurgents ; but a majority of his men went over at the outset, leaving him with only twenty-five or thirty personal friends to contend with odds the most fearful. A slight skirmish told the story : one of his men was killed, two were wounded, while the rest fled precipitately toward Santa Fé. *
"Shrewdly conjecturing, now that he had raised a whirlwind, that he might easily direct the storm to his own personal advancement, Armijo, after the manner of his great prototype, Santa Ana, suddenly left his hacienda and made his appearance at Santa Fé. There he found everything in a state of frightful anarchy-the place in the hands of an ignorant mob, and the American and other foreign merchants in hourly expectation that their houses and stores should be sacked, and even their lives taken. The rabble dispersed, however, committing no other outrage than electing one of their own leaders, Jose Gonzales, governor of New Mexico They paid no attention to the claim set up by Armijo, the fomentor, as he had ex- posed himself in no way to the anticipated hard blows and knocks which had given them the ascendancy.
"Foiled in his ambition, Armijo once more retired to his hacienda, a fine estate he had purchased at Albuquerque. But an active and ambitious mind like his could not long remain inert. Through secret intrigues he managed, after a lapse of three or four months, to organize a counter- revolution, and collecting a numerous force, he declared in favor of feder- ation and marched towards Santa Fé. He took quiet possession of this place, as Governor Gonzales, finding himself without an army, had fled to the north. The latter was soon enabled, however, to rally around him no inconsiderable mob; but Armijo, in the meantime, had received heavy re- inforcements from the south, and succeeded in routing Gonzales without loss. The unfortunate governor was immediately shot, and four of his chief officers met with the same fate by order of Armijo. The latter were put out of the way more, it is said, to prevent disclosures than for any crime they had committed; for they had been Armijo's confidential emis- saries in the formation of his original plot.
"The ambitious tyrant, now that his enemies were either murdered or dispersed, reigned supreme in New Mexico. One of his first steps was to bribe the army to proclaim him governor and commander-in-chief; his next, to send off a highly colored account of his own exploits in favor of federalism to the City of Mexico, and no officer can more adroitly adopt the high-sounding fanfaronade style in wording a dispatch or an address than Manuel Armijo. * * A return of post from Mexico brought docu- * ments confirming him in his station of governor, with the additional title of Colonel of Cavalry.
"In the early part of 1839, without a shadow of law or authority, he deposed all the custom-house officers and appointed his own brother and his other creatures in their stead, in order that he might have the exclusive control and management of the customs in his own hands. He next, with- out regard to the federal tariff. established an arbitrary duty upon all mer- chandise entering from the United States-$500 upon each wagon-load, without reference to the quality of the goods it might contain, or their value.
"Foreigners are the especial object of his hatred; and acts and decis-
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ions affecting the well being of his whole province are as often founded upon a feeling of hatred towards a small class, or, perhaps, some luckless individual who has excited his jealousy or fallen under the ban of his most unaccountable caprice, as upon a sentiment of justice and necessity. * * * Still there is not that overt demonstration of malice towards foreigners that he daily makes towards his own cringing and servile countrymen. Not un- frequently do his own lusty sinews find congenial employment, in the open streets of Santa Fé, in wielding the cane and cudgel about the ears of his native subjects, and never has one been found bold enough to strike back.
"Out of a multiplicity I will record two anecdotes, in order to illustrate his system of righting wrongs. The first came near resulting in a serious quarrel between the American residents and the governor, and the difficulty was only avoided by the latter abandoning his objectionable ground. An American, named Daley, was wantonly murdered at the gold mines near Santa Fé, by two ruffians engaged in robbing a store which he was keeping at that place. The murderers, through the energy of foreigners, were soon apprehended, and fully convicted of the crime; but as they were Mex- icans, and had only shed the blood of a heretic, were permitted to go un- whipped of justice. In July, 1839, these murderers were again arrested through the interposition of the Americans, and a second time brought to Santa Fé for trial. The friends of the murdered man now drew up a pe- tition to the governor, in the most decorous language, praying him to mete out full justice to the assassins. Armijo, though he knew full well the justice of their prayer, affected to believe it a threat against his authority and government-a conspiracy.
"Upon this pretense he immediately collected all the militia he could raise and made preparations for one of his bravado demonstrations. The Americans, convinced that no justice could be expected from a tyrant so unprincipled, and fully understanding the 'fluffy game' he had resorted to, at once, with characteristic spirit, prepared to defend themselves. Their firmness and cool determination frightened the cowardly governor and in- duced him to send them an apologetical communication, in which he pro- tested that he had entirely misconstrued the petition, and that their just request should have due attention.
"In the year 1840, I think on the first day of January, two most re- spectable foreigners had the misfortune to kill a Mexican lad by the acci- dental discharge of one of their guns. They were returning to Santa Fé from the gold mines when the unfortunate accident occurred, and brought the body of the boy into town and at once reported the circumstance to the authorities. The principal alcalde consulted with Armijo as to the steps he should take, and the decision was, without form of trial, that the un- fortunate foreigners should be put into prison and held responsible for murder, unless they could prove themselves innocent. * * *
"In his rude palacio at Santa Fé he is more the despot than anywhere else, maintaining himself proudly, and enforcing all the regal homage and courtly ceremonial exacted by the veriest tyrant. A guard, musket on shoulder, marches before the entrance to his door, denying entrance to all unless they have first obtained the royal permission. Should his excellency feel in the humor of walking out, the cry from the centinela is, 'The gov- ernor and commander-in-chief appears!' and this is echoed and re-echoed from every guard in and about the barracks. When his majesty is in the
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street, each dutiful subject takes off whatever apology for a hat he may have on his head. Should the governor's wife issue from the building, the form is even more ridiculous, for then the cry of 'La gobernadora,' or 'La Commandante generala,' resounds on every side.
"It is strange how this man has been able to maintain his despotic and arbitrary sway among a people acknowledging no law but that of force. The inhabitants are far more dissatisfied with his administration than they were with that of Perez and his cabinet of Abreus; yet so far they have dared to do no more than plan revolutions against their oppressor. He continues to hold sway in a country where he has not a real friend upon whom he can depend; even his sycophantic favorites would prove his bitter enemies were he once in adversity.
"I might diversify this hasty biography of Don Manuel Armijo," con- cludes Kendall, "with stories of his atrocious acts that would bring a blush upon the brow of tyranny. I might detail many horrible murders which he has committed. I could relate many a thrilling story of his abuse of the rights of women. * * I might speak of his conniving with the Apache Indians, in their robberies of his neighbors in the State of Chi- huahua, by furnishing this hardy mountain tribe with powder and balls and guns, knowing that with them they would fall, like the eagle, from their fastnesses, upon his own countrymen. I could give a catalogue of men's names whom he has banished from their own families and homes, for no reason but because they were in his way. Assassinations, robberies, violent debauchery, extortions, and innumerable acts of broken faith are the themes upon which I am armed with abundant and most veritable detail. *
"The mien and deportment of Armijo are not ill calculated to strike a timorous people with awe; for, as I have before remarked, he is a large, portly man, of stern countenance and blustering manner. Not one jot or tittle of personal bravery does he possess. In all the revolutions that have taken place since first he courted power, his own person has never been exposed, if we except one instance. In a skirmish with some Indians he received a wound in the leg, from which he still limps; but the action was not of his own seeking, and his conduct on this occasion was that of a man engaged in a business anything but to his liking. He has made great capital, however, of his crippled leg, and, like his great exemplar, Santa Ana, is determined that his subjects shall never forget that he received it while encountering their enemy. But the master stroke of this great man was the capturing of the Texan Santa Fe expedition.
These small squads
of tattered soldiers, taken piecemeal, in his grandiloquent bulletin he mul- tiplied into a legion of Buckramites-for which act of most heroic daring he was, all in good time, knighted by Santa Ana. He knows his people thoroughly, having studied their character with a most acute discernment. A common remark of his is, 'Vale mas estar tornado por valiente que serlo,' it is better to be thought brave than really to be so."
Francisco Xavier Chavez, the last governor of the province of New Mexico under the Spanish regime, was the most distinguished man of that name in the history of the Territory. He was a native of Spain and re- ceived his commission as governor of the province some six or seven years after coming to America. He made his home in Los Padillas, Bernalillo county, and engaged in sheep raising. At one time he owned
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
about three hundred thousand head of sheep. He founded the little town of Los Padillas, built his own church, and for many years lived like a monarch, holding large numbers of the native inhabitants under a state of peonage. He lived to the age of ninety. He reared a family of four sons and seven daughters, among whom was divided his vast wealth. He gave all his children liberal educations, and several of his descendants be- came prominent in public affairs in New Mexico. His sons were : Mariano, and Jose, both of whom were governers under the Mexican regime; An- tonio Jose, who met his death on the prairie at the hands of a Missourian bound for New Mexico; and Tomas, a lawyer, who died in Durango, Mexico. The latter was the last surviving son. The daughters were; Barbara, who married Juan Gutierrez, of Pajarito; Manuela Antonia, who married Jose Maria Gutierrez, of Bernalillo; Josefa, who married Juan Perea, of Bernalillo; Juana, who married Juan Christobal Armijo, of Al- buquerque ; Mercedes, who married Juan Otero, of Peralta; Francisca, who married Antonio Jose Otero, who was appointed district judge in 1849; and Dolores, who married Jose Leandro Perea, of Bernalillo. Among the well-known descendants of Governor Chavez were Colonel J. Fran- cisco Chavez, Pedro Perea, dieceased, Nestor Armijo, Justo Armijo and Nicolas T. Armijo, deceased.
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THE AMERICAN CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO
THE AMERICAN CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO.
A resume of the situation in New Mexico just prior to the Mexican war reveals, on the one hand, a surprising passivity in political and eco- nomic affairs in that federal department which, as already stated, had advanced little during the first third of the nineteenth century; on the other hand, however, the development and expansion of the American republic had progressed with such amazing rapidity in the same period that its interests were already intertwined with those of the formerly iso- lated Spanish territory, and the hand of its commercial and territorial do- minion was reached out to seize the fertile valley of the Rio Grande.
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