New Mexico Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

A civil-law beginning

New Mexico's law began in the Spanish civil law. From the first Spanish settlement the colony was governed by the law collected in the Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias and the older Siete Partidas. Mexican independence in 1821 continued that system. Two features of it run through every early New Mexico record: property acquired during a marriage belonged to husband and wife together, and a parent had to leave a fixed share to each child¹.

The United States took the territory in 1846, and Congress organized it in 1850. The military government's Kearny Code kept the existing law in place. All laws then in force that were not repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States remained the rule of action and decision². Spanish and Mexican rules therefore continued to govern. The territorial legislature re-enacted large parts of them in Spanish and English on facing pages.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in 1848, protected the property of people already living in the territory and let them choose United States citizenship³.

The common law arrives in 1876

English common law is judge-made law, handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature. It became the rule in New Mexico through a single sentence in an act about where civil suits could be brought: in all the courts of the territory the common law as recognized in the United States was to be the rule of practice and decision⁴. The civil law and territorial statute govern before that date, and a mixture governs after it.

Community property interrupted and restored

Marital property kept its civil-law shape, though not without a break. Under the Spanish and Mexican law, and under the territorial statutes that carried it forward, property acquired during a marriage belonged to husband and wife together, each holding half.

An act of 1901 recast that. All property acquired by either husband or wife, before or during marriage, became his or her separate estate. In place of the community the act put onerous title, meaning everything acquired during the marriage except by gift, donation, bequest, devise, or descent. The act limited what either spouse could do with such property, both in selling it and in leaving it by will⁵.

An act of 1907 restored the community by name. Property owned before marriage, and property acquired afterward by gift, bequest, devise, or descent, was the separate property of the spouse who held it. All other property acquired after marriage by either of them or by both was community property⁶. Because those rules descend from the civil law of Spain and Mexico, the courts read them against that background⁷.

Legal Age of Adulthood

From twenty-five to twenty-one

Before 1846 the Spanish and Mexican civil law governed, and it divided childhood in two. A boy under 14 and a girl under 12 were under a tutor, a guardian the law gave them whether they asked for one or not. From those ages to 25 the judge gave the young person a curator instead. A curator was a guardian of the property rather than of the person, and a minor of sound mind could decline one unless he was suing or being sued. Full capacity came at 25⁸.

Full legal age in territorial and state New Mexico was 21, the same for both sexes. Guardianship ran until the minor reached 21, whether male or female⁹. The limitation act preserved the claims of anyone under 21 until three years after coming of age¹⁰. Poll tax liability and jury service both began at 21.

One age in the territorial codification of the civil law sits close to majority without being it. An heir had to be over 22 to demand a division of an inheritance in his own right¹¹. Heirs below that age, and those unable to manage their own property, asked through a guardian or curator whom the probate judge appointed. A curator is a person the court appoints to manage another's property. The probate court was the county court that handled estates, wills, and guardianships¹².

Twenty-one held through 1950, for both sexes, married or single, by rule of common law¹³.

What a minor could do

A minor could own property. What the law limited was the power to bind himself. Minors under 21 who were subject to a parent's authority could not make a contract of service. Those aged 14 to 20 who were free of parental authority and had no guardian could contract for themselves¹⁴.

In court a minor sued through his father, his mother, his curator, or a next friend approved by the judge. A next friend is an adult who brings a suit on the child's behalf. A minor who was sued had a curator ad litem, meaning "for the lawsuit," appointed before the case could go forward¹⁵. An appointment of that kind names the adult standing in for the child.

One other age sat near majority and is easy to confuse with it. The marrying ages were lower, and they are set out below.

Marriage

Who was old enough to marry

Into the 1870s the church-law ages carried over from the Spanish and Mexican period governed, which were 14 for a boy and 12 for a girl. The territorial marriage act left the ages there. It required instead that the officiant satisfy himself the parties were legally capable of marrying¹⁶.

An act of 1876 set statutory figures. A marriage of a male under 18 or of a female under 15 was absolutely invalid¹⁷. That is the line to apply to any New Mexico marriage from 1876 onward. The same figures were still printed in the compilation of 1897¹⁸ and in the Code of 1915¹⁹.

An act of 1923 raised the lowest age at which a girl could marry to 16. From that year no one could unite in marriage a male under 18 or a female under 16 at all. No one could unite in marriage a male under 21 or a female under 18 without the consent of the parents or guardians in whose care the minor was²⁰. Those were still the ages in 1938²¹, and they held through 1950.

An underage marriage stood until a court declared it void, and an act of 1927 set out how that worked. Only the minor could ask for the decree, and a party who was over the age could not. The children of a marriage so declared void were legitimate, with the right of inheritance from both parents. If the couple lived together until they reached the age at which marriage was allowed, the marriage became legal and binding²².

A parent's consent

The earlier rule reached males. A male under 21 married with the consent of his parents, his guardian, or the person in whose charge he was. The consent was proved by their presence or by an authenticated written certificate²³.

The 1876 act extended consent to both sexes at two different ages. An authorized person joined in marriage a male under 21 or a female under 18 only on the consent of the parents or guardians in whose care the minor was²⁴. Between 1876 and the end of this period, then, a bride of 16 married lawfully with consent, while a bride of 14 fell below the age at which a marriage could stand at all.

Common-law marriage was never valid here

A valid New Mexico marriage required a ceremony before an authorized officiant. A common-law marriage is one the couple make by agreement and by living together, without a ceremony, and New Mexico never recognized one contracted inside its borders. The Supreme Court of New Mexico held so in 1934 and traced the rule back through the territorial statutes to the church law that preceded them²⁵.

Any ordained clergyman of any denomination, and any civil magistrate, could solemnize a marriage²⁶. A religious society could celebrate marriage according to its own rites and customs²⁷. Marriage was treated as a civil contract requiring the consent of parties legally capable of contracting²⁸.

One exception matters to researchers. A marriage valid where it was celebrated was valid in New Mexico²⁹. A couple who made a common-law marriage in a state that allowed them, and then moved here, were married in the eyes of New Mexico law³⁰.

The statute placed the record with the county. Officiants kept a register and sent certificates of the marriages they performed to the clerk of the probate court twice a year, and religious societies sent a transcript to the same office³¹. For the Spanish and Mexican periods the marriage was a church act, and the record is a parish register held by the archdiocese or the state archives.

Relatives who could not marry

The 1876 act declared void as incestuous all marriages between ancestors and descendants of any degree, between brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood, between uncles and nieces, between aunts and nephews, and between first cousins. It applied the rule to children born outside marriage as well as within it³². The first-cousin bar was brief. An act of 1880 repealed every provision prohibiting the marriage of cousins of any degree³³. A first-cousin marriage is therefore void if celebrated in New Mexico between 1876 and 1880, and good on either side of those dates.

Marriage bars based on race or servitude

Before the Civil War the marriage act itself carried a status bar. The officiant had to establish by credible evidence that the parties were free persons³⁴. An enslaved person could not satisfy that requirement.

An act of 1857 made it a penitentiary offense for a Black or mixed-race man, free or enslaved, to marry or live with a white woman. It punished the white woman equally and fined the officiant, and it left marriages contracted before the act untouched. The same act required free Black residents to post a bond for good behavior, barred new free Black settlers, and required an owner who freed a slave to send that person out of the territory within thirty days³⁵.

A second and broader bar ran for three years. New Mexico adopted a slave code in February 1859. It declared marriages between white persons and slaves or free Black or mixed-race persons prohibited and void, and it punished the white party with a fine and up to six months in jail. The same act barred any slave or any free Black or mixed-race person from giving evidence in court against a free white person, prohibited emancipation outright, and expressly did not reach the relations of master and servant³⁶. The territorial legislature repealed the slave code in full in the 1861–62 session³⁷.

The act of 1857 was repealed in 1866³⁸. From that year no New Mexico statute barred a marriage on account of race, and none was enacted again before 1950.

Servitude in New Mexico commonly took the form of debt peonage, worked through registered contracts of service between master and servant. Those contracts named the servant, the master, and the debt, so they identify people who appear in no other record. The territory abolished all involuntary servitude within its limits in the 1866–67 session, and Congress abolished peonage by name the following year³⁹.

Property Ownership

Which men could own land

Any person or body politic holding any right or title to real estate in the territory, absolute or limited, could convey it⁴⁰. The right belonged to free men of every origin. Hispanic settlers, free people of color, and Anglo newcomers alike appear in the deed books.

Land came from three sources. The first was Spanish and Mexican grants to individuals and to communities, which after 1848 had to be confirmed through the Surveyor General and later through the Court of Private Land Claims. The second was federal public land. The third was ordinary purchase⁴¹.

How a deed was made and who witnessed it

A New Mexico conveyance took effect on acknowledgment, which means the grantor appearing before an official and confirming the deed. The grantor is the person making the deed. He appeared before a court having a seal, a judge, a clerk, or a justice of the peace, and the officer certified the fact⁴².

A witness of any age could serve, provided he understood an oath and could relate what he saw. Witnesses had a narrow role. Where the grantor was unknown to the officer, his identity was proved by the testimony of two reliable witnesses, and the certificate recorded it⁴³. Competency, not age, was the test, and in practice these witnesses were adults.

Women and land ownership

A single or widowed woman could buy, hold, and convey land on the same terms as a man. For a married woman the rule changed twice.

Her contracts bound her under the earlier law so far as was necessary to complete a conveyance⁴⁹. The 1884 act made her bound by her contracts and liable for her own torts, which are wrongs she committed such as injuring someone or damaging their property. It also left each spouse free of the other's debts⁵⁰.

One route out of these limits matters to researchers. Where a husband deserted his wife for a year, she could obtain a district court decree barring his interest and giving her full power to sell and convey alone. A certified copy went into the deed records of any county where her land lay⁵¹. Such a decree among the deeds is strong evidence that a marriage had collapsed.

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

The rule changed three times. Lawyers call the requirement that both spouses sign joinder.

Through the nineteenth century the husband managed the community property and could sell it alone. A wife's claim on her husband's land ran through the community property system rather than through dower, so the joinder rules below are the whole of what a buyer had to satisfy⁵².

From 1901 both had to sign. Neither husband nor wife could convey, mortgage, encumber, or dispose of real estate acquired during the marriage by onerous title unless both joined in executing the deed⁵³. The Supreme Court of the United States held a husband's sole deed ineffective even as to land acquired before the act⁵⁴.

The act of 1907 returned the management to the husband. He had the management and control of the community property, with the same absolute power of disposition, other than by will, that he had over his own separate estate. Three things still needed his wife's written consent: a gift of community property, a conveyance of it without valuable consideration, and any sale, conveyance, or mortgage of the homestead the couple occupied, of the furniture and fittings of the home, or of the clothing of the wife and the minor children⁵⁵. The Code of 1915 still printed the husband's power in the same words⁵⁶.

An act of 1927 brought joinder back, and went further than the 1901 rule had. The husband kept the management of the community personal property and the sole power to dispose of it. But husband and wife had to join in all deeds and mortgages affecting real estate, and a transfer of community real property attempted by either of them alone was void and of no effect. Two things were excepted. Either spouse could convey or mortgage separate property without the other, and either could convey directly to the other without joinder⁵⁷. The courts enforced it⁵⁸.

So a deed of community land carries both names from 1901 to 1907 and again from 1927. Between those dates a single name is ordinary, because the husband could sell community land for value alone. A single name after 1927 means one of three things: the land was that spouse's separate property, the deed ran from one spouse to the other, or the title is defective.

Which children could own land

A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or purchase. Managing and selling it fell to a guardian under the supervision of the probate court. The guardian gave bond and accounted to the court⁵⁹. A sale of a minor's land therefore runs through the guardianship file.

Pueblo and other Native land

Pueblo land was held communally, and Spanish and Mexican law protected it against sale⁶⁰. After 1848 its status turned on two decisions a generation apart. The federal courts first treated the Pueblos as holding ordinary fee simple title, meaning full ownership and free to sell, so that Pueblo land could be sold⁶¹. In 1913 the Supreme Court held the Pueblos to be dependent communities like other tribes, holding communal title subject to federal guardianship⁶². That clouded titles derived from Pueblo sales made in the intervening years, and Congress created a board to settle the resulting claims in 1924⁶³.

Land ownership by immigrants

New Mexico placed one restriction on land ownership by immigrants, and it ran through the second half of this period. A constitutional amendment ratified on 20 September 1921 barred any alien ineligible to citizenship under United States law, and any company a majority of which such aliens owned, from acquiring title, a lease, or any other interest in New Mexico real estate⁶⁴. "Ineligible to citizenship" meant Asian immigrants, who federal naturalization law barred from becoming citizens. The provision stayed in the constitution until 2006. The same section said that no distinction was ever to be made between resident aliens and citizens in the ownership or descent of property, so immigrants who could naturalize were unaffected⁶⁵.

Inheritance

Two systems divided by 1887

New Mexico ran a Spanish civil-law scheme of inheritance for its first two and a half centuries and then replaced it. The date of death decides which applied. Acts of 1889 and 1901 then changed the surviving spouse's share twice more.

Before 1887: forced heirs and the community

The legitimate children and descendants were herederos forzosos, or "forced heirs," entitled to a fixed share. Natural children were those born to parents who were free to marry each other. They inherited from their father where there were no legitimate children, and they were direct heirs of their mother. Children of other unions were direct heirs of their mother⁷⁰. Children legitimated by their parents' later marriage ranked as direct heirs⁷¹. Where there were no children the nearest ancestors took, and then collaterals, meaning relatives off the direct line such as brothers, sisters, uncles, and cousins⁷².

The estate was put together in a fixed order. First the wife's own property was taken out, meaning her dowry and anything else she had brought to the marriage or been given. What the couple had acquired during the marriage was called the acquests. That was split down the middle, half to the wife and half to the husband's estate⁷³. From the husband's half a fifth was set aside for his funeral and his legacies if he left children, or a third if his heirs were his parents or grandparents⁷⁴. If he left no children and the estate reached five thousand dollars, a further quarter could go to the widow⁷⁵. What remained was divided equally among the children. Each child's share was the legítima, the portion the law reserved to a child⁷⁶.

The widow took her own half of the acquests, and could demand a division of the estate in order to recover it along with her other rights⁷⁷. A widow appearing in a division of this period is claiming property she already owned.

From 1887: an ordinary descent statute

An act of 1887 replaced all of that⁷⁸. Real and personal property of a person dying intestate, meaning without a will, descended to the children in equal shares. Posthumous children, those born after the father's death, were included. Grandchildren and remoter descendants took by representation, stepping into the share their own parent would have taken⁷⁹. Where there was no issue, meaning no children or other descendants, half went to the parents and half to the brothers and sisters⁸⁰. Half-blood kindred, those who shared only one parent with the deceased, inherited equally with the whole blood⁸¹. Advancements are gifts made during the parent's life. They were charged against the child who received them, valued as of the date of the gift, and an excess stayed with that child⁸².

For two years the act of 1887 put a statutory substitute in place of the community. Dower would have given a widow the use of a third of her husband's land for life, with the land itself belonging to the heirs. Curtesy would have given a widower the same in his late wife's land. Neither ever took hold in New Mexico⁸³. From 24 February 1887 a widow instead took one-third of her husband's real estate outright and free of his creditors. That share fell to a quarter, and then to a fifth, as against creditors where the real estate was worth more than ten thousand dollars⁸⁴. The act was even-handed. A widower took one-third of his late wife's real estate on the same principle, and where a husband died leaving a widow and one child only, the real estate split half to each⁸⁵.

From 1889: the community restored with a quarter added

An act of 26 February 1889 repealed the widow's third and rebuilt the scheme around the community. The survivor first kept his or her own separate estate, meaning everything brought into the marriage or received by inheritance, gift, or legacy. The survivor then took half of the acquest property, meaning everything else the couple acquired during the marriage, after the common debts were paid. What was left formed the body of the estate. Of that remainder the surviving husband or wife took one-fourth and the children took the rest in equal shares⁸⁶. Several familiar rules sat alongside it. The heirs of a child who had died took that child's share. Where the deceased left no children at all, the whole estate went to the widow⁸⁷.

A widow's third in New Mexico therefore belongs to the two years between 24 February 1887 and 26 February 1889 alone. A widow taking half plus a quarter belongs to the years after that.

An act of 1901 fixed the survivor's share afresh, on much the same pattern. On the death of either husband or wife the survivor inherited one-half of that part of the deceased's estate acquired during the marriage by onerous title. Of what was left after that half came out, the survivor took one-fourth if it was not disposed of by will. The other three-fourths descended in equal shares to the children. Where there were no children the survivor took that three-fourths as well⁸⁸. The same act limited what either of them could give away by will: an undivided half of the onerous-title estate, and all of whatever they had brought to the marriage or received during it by gift or inheritance⁸⁹.

The act of 1907 said so in as many words. No estate was allowed the husband as tenant by curtesy on the death of his wife, and no estate in dower to the wife on the death of her husband⁹⁰.

Community property passed outside all of this. By the middle of the twentieth century the whole of it went to the surviving husband on the wife's death, without administration. The one exception was any part a court had set aside to her for her support, which went to her own descendants or heirs⁹¹. A wife's death often leaves no probate file for that reason.

One trap follows. A widow holding land from a first marriage could sell it during a second marriage only where no children of the first marriage survived. Otherwise it passed on her death to those children⁹².

Children born outside marriage

Under the 1887 act a child born outside marriage inherited from the mother as if legitimate, and through her if she was dead⁹³. Inheritance from the father was narrow. It ran only where the father died intestate leaving no heirs resident in the United States. It required proof that he had acknowledged the child in his lifetime, and the acknowledgment had to be established by evidence other than the mother's own testimony⁹⁴. A child became legitimate where the father married the mother and acknowledged the child as his own⁹⁵.

The act of 1889 rewrote that, and the new rule is the one to apply to a death after 26 February 1889. A child born outside marriage inherited from the mother, and the mother from the child. The child inherited from the father wherever the father had recognized the child as his own, but the recognition had to have been general and notorious or else in writing, and the child inherited only where the father left no legitimate children. Where the recognition had been mutual the father could inherit from the child, though the mother and her heirs took ahead of him. Children born outside marriage became legitimate by the later marriage of their parents⁹⁶.

Before the general statute, families sometimes went to the legislature instead. Private acts declaring a named child the legitimate son or daughter and heir of named parents appear among the session laws of the territory, and each volume indexes them under the child's name⁹⁷. An act of this kind is often the only surviving record of a child's parentage.

Guardians and the age of fourteen

The father during his life, and the mother after his death, was the natural guardian of the children and had charge of their persons and education. Managing their property required a separate appointment by the court⁹⁸.

The probate courts appointed guardians in defined circumstances. The first was where one or both parents had died and the minor had property in his own right, or where the court found a guardian necessary for the minor's personal welfare⁹⁹. The second was where a minor had no parents living, or the parents were adjudged incompetent or unfit¹⁰⁰. A parent could name a guardian by deed or by will, and the person named was appointed unless he refused to give security or there was other sufficient reason¹⁰¹. A person to whom the minor's estate would probably descend was barred, unless that person was a parent¹⁰².

At 14 a minor could choose his or her own guardian, and the court appointed the person chosen unless there was just cause against it. That appointment superseded the earlier guardianship¹⁰³. A guardianship record in which the child does the choosing is therefore evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year.

Guardianship ended at 21 for both sexes¹⁰⁴. By the twentieth century it ended at 21 or on the minor's marriage, whichever came first. Marriage released the minor from the guardian's control without making that person of full legal age¹⁰⁵. Guardians gave bond in double the value of the estate and settled their accounts with the court each year until a final settlement¹⁰⁶. That final settlement, filed when the minor came of age, dates the minor's majority and so approximates a birth year.

Wills and executors

The age to make a will was 14 for a male and 12 for a female. The territorial wills act allowed any person of either sex to make a will except those it barred. The first class barred was males who had not completed fourteen years and females who had not completed twelve¹⁰⁷. The act also barred the insane, a spendthrift whom a court had forbidden to manage his own affairs, and those deaf and unable to speak from birth who could not express their will in writing.

Those figures governed until 1889. They passed unchanged into the compilation of 1884, whose section 1378 barred males who had not completed fourteen years and females who had not completed twelve¹⁰⁸. An act of 26 February 1889 then rewrote that section. Any person of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, and in sound mind, could dispose by will of all his property, apart from enough to pay his debts and what the law gave as privileged property to his wife or family¹⁰⁹. That wording was carried into the compilation of 1897¹¹⁰, and the courts were applying it by 1903¹¹¹. It stood until the state adopted the Uniform Probate Code in 1975¹¹².

One rule of timing catches families out. Marriage revoked a will made before it, whether or not a child followed¹¹³. Where a single person made a will, married, and never made another, that person died intestate.

A written will was signed by the testator, the person making the will, or by another at his request if he could not sign. It was then attested, meaning signed by witnesses who watched him sign. The 1852 act required three or more able and qualified witnesses having the qualifications required of witnesses giving evidence in court¹¹⁴. The act of 1889 changed both the number and the form. Two witnesses were enough for any will made after it. They had to see the testator sign, or see another sign for him at his request, and then sign themselves at his request, in his presence and in the presence of each other¹¹⁵. Competency, not age, was the test for them.

A will witness had to be a stranger to the gifts. Persons becoming heirs, and those receiving benefits or legacies, were barred from witnessing the will in which they were interested¹¹⁶.

A spoken will was good. A verbal will required the same number of witnesses as a written one, and two more to testify that the testator was of sound mind and entire judgment¹¹⁷. Probate judges took the evidence of the witnesses present when the will was made and passed on its validity¹¹⁸. A later act directed that a will was to stand even where the usual formalities had been missed¹¹⁹. New Mexico wills of this period are correspondingly informal.

The age to serve as executor or executrix matched the age to make a will, and so rose with it in 1889. Persons capable of making a will could be appointed executors or administrators, and the statute drew no line between men and women¹²⁰. A testator was expected to name two or more¹²¹. Where the executor named was a minor or absent from the territory, letters of administration went to someone else for the duration. Letters of administration are the court's written authority to settle an estate¹²².

Taxation

What was taxed

Taxes on individuals ran in three phases. From the American occupation to about 1870 the territory raised its revenue from license taxes on trades and callings. From the early 1870s a general property tax and a school poll tax ran together. A poll tax is a flat tax on a person rather than on property, and it is also called a capitation or head tax. A revenue act of 1882 restated both and added a territorial poll tax, and the towns could levy a road poll tax on top. For genealogy the poll taxes matter most, because they list men who owned nothing.

The early territorial period

The revenue chapter the territory carried forward came from the Kearny Code of 22 September 1846, and it taxed occupations rather than people. No one could deal as a merchant or a pedlar, keep a grocery or dramshop selling spirits, keep a billiard table, or distill liquor from grain without first taking out a license¹²³. The Code had also laid an ad valorem tax of one-quarter of one per cent on merchandise, which means a tax charged as a percentage of value, and that was repealed in 1852¹²⁴. That chapter taxed no one by the head. For the first quarter-century of the territory the tax record is a record of licenses, naming men in trade rather than every adult male.

Property tax and school poll tax from the early 1870s

The territory turned to property and to persons in the early 1870s. An act approved on 31 January 1872, amending a revenue law of 17 January 1870, repealed the licenses on professions and trades such as physicians, lawyers, barbers, and carpenters. In their place it laid an ad valorem tax of one per cent on all real and personal estate above the first five hundred dollars, half for territorial purposes and half for the county and the schools¹²⁵. The same act assessed an annual poll tax of one dollar on every male citizen above 21 resident in the territory, excepting only idiots and persons of unsound mind, and applied it to schools¹²⁶. Every person subject to tax had to give the assessor a full descriptive list of his or her real and personal effects¹²⁷. From 1872, then, the assessment rolls should name every adult male, not only men in trade.

The poll tax from 1882

The revenue act of 1882 restated the property tax, providing that all property in the territory not exempt by law was subject to taxation¹²⁸. It set a territorial poll tax of $1 on every able-bodied male inhabitant over 21, whether a citizen of the United States or an alien, collected like any other tax¹²⁹. It ran for life from that age, subject to exemption for bodily infirmity. Its reach to aliens means these lists catch immigrants who appear in no naturalization record.

A separate school poll tax of $1 fell on all able-bodied male persons over 21¹³⁰. Incorporated towns could levy a further poll tax of up to $1 on able-bodied male citizens between 21 and 60, or require a stated amount of labor on the roads instead¹³¹. One man might therefore appear on three poll lists in a single year.

Payment of the school poll tax was a condition of voting in the territorial period¹³². An amendment to the state constitution ratified on 20 September 1921 addressed the point for women. It provided that payment of the road or school poll tax, and service on juries, could not be made a prerequisite to a woman's right to vote or hold office¹³³.

The statute sent the lists to the county. The assessor made separate lists of every person liable to the poll tax in each school district and delivered them to the probate clerk each year¹³⁴. The district clerks posted copies and reported which men had paid and which were delinquent¹³⁵. Survival varies widely by county.

Statehood and after

New Mexico became a state in 1912, and the property tax stayed what it had been through the territorial period, the mainstay of state and local revenue. The constitution gave the legislature power to levy license, franchise, excise, income, inheritance, legacy, and succession taxes, and taxes on the production and output of mines, oil lands, and forests¹³⁶. The state used that power for a severance tax on mineral production in 1933 and, in 1935, for the emergency school tax, a levy of about two per cent on retail sales and on services¹³⁷. A state income tax followed in 1933¹³⁸. The poll taxes ran on beside all of them through 1950.

Taxable ages at a glance

Courts

Jury service

Jurors had to be 21. Beyond that the qualifications turned first on race and land, then on land alone, then on taxes, and from 1905 on neither.

The rule printed in the territorial statutes made a juror a white male person over 21 and under 60. He had to be resident six months in the county, a citizen of the United States, an owner of real estate in the territory, and the head of a family. Men answering that description were liable to be chosen and to serve on both the grand and the petit jury¹³⁹. The petit jury is the ordinary trial jury, as distinct from the grand jury that decides whether to charge. The same chapter excused public officers and men in a range of callings, along with everyone over 60 and anyone of unsound mind or disabling infirmity. A conviction for larceny or any other infamous crime barred a man outright, an infamous crime being a serious offense that cost him his standing in court¹⁴⁰.

An act of 1880 opened the panel to all male citizens of the United States aged 21 who had lived a year in the territory and six months in the county, and who were heads of families and owners of real estate¹⁴¹. From 1880 the qualification reached male citizens of any race, on the same terms. The freehold requirement still applied to the whole panel.

An act of 1891 replaced ownership with payment. A juror had to be a male citizen over 21 and of sound mind, resident a year in the territory and six months in the county. He had to own property subject to territorial taxation and to have paid the tax on it. He had to be free of any conviction for an infamous crime, sober, and living in neither bigamy nor polygamy¹⁴². Any male citizen with all the qualifications of a voter was also qualified. Living in a bigamous or polygamous state had been made a separate disqualification in 1882¹⁴³. That tax-payment requirement was the mechanism by which poor men were kept off New Mexico juries for the next fourteen years.

An act of 1905 dropped property and taxes together. A juror was then any male citizen of the United States over 21 and of sound mind, resident a year in the state and six months in the county, who had not been convicted of an infamous crime¹⁴⁴. The exemptions again ran to public officers, men in the professions, and everyone over 60¹⁴⁵. An act of 1917 re-enacted that qualification for petit jurors in the district court, adding a disqualification for anyone convicted of bribery¹⁴⁶.

The grand jury was a body of not fewer than 16 nor more than 21 men¹⁴⁷. The petit jury was 12¹⁴⁸. Where too few jurors appeared, the court ordered the sheriff to summon bystanders, called talesmen, who had to hold the same qualifications as jurors drawn in the ordinary way¹⁴⁹. That an individual grand juror was a minor was a listed ground of challenge, which is how the age requirement was enforced¹⁵⁰.

From statehood the constitution itself protected the panel. It provides that the right of any citizen to vote, hold office, or sit upon a jury shall never be restricted on account of religion, race, language, or color, or on account of inability to speak, read, or write English or Spanish¹⁵¹. Speakers of either language could therefore serve, and so could citizens of any race.

Citizenship was required, and the territory addressed it early. Residents who had kept Mexican citizenship under the treaty, and had then declared their intention to become United States citizens, were made qualified to serve as jurors in all the courts of the territory¹⁵². A juror's alienage was otherwise a ground of challenge¹⁵³. That requirement reached Native residents as well. Native people born in the tribes became citizens of the United States by federal act in 1924¹⁵⁴.

Between 1891 and 1905 a man could also qualify for the jury by holding all the qualifications of a voter, and the state constitution as first adopted withheld the vote from Indians not taxed¹⁵⁵. A three-judge federal court held that exclusion void in 1948¹⁵⁶.

Jury service was open to men only through 1950¹⁵⁷. Women were serving on the same terms as men by October 1962, under an act passed after 1950¹⁵⁸.

Criminal responsibility

Before 1876 the Spanish and Mexican criminal law governed, and it set its line at ten and a half. A child under ten and a half could not be accused of any offense at all. From ten and a half to 14 a child could be accused of striking, killing, stealing, and the like. On conviction the punishment had to be far lighter than an adult's. No one under 14 could be accused of a sexual offense, the law reasoning that a child of that age could not understand what he was doing. The same protection covered anyone out of his mind¹⁵⁹.

Once the common law was received in 1876 the common-law ages governed. A child under 7 was incapable of committing a crime. Between 7 and 14 the child was presumed incapable, and the prosecution had to overcome the presumption. From 14 the child bore full responsibility¹⁶⁰.

New Mexico created a juvenile court in 1917 with jurisdiction over children under 16. A child found delinquent was placed under the protection of that court, in an adjudication the statute called wardship rather than a conviction of crime¹⁶¹. An act of 1929 raised that age to 18. A juvenile delinquent was then anyone under 18 who broke a state law or a local ordinance, or who was incorrigible, kept bad company, or was growing up in idleness or crime¹⁶². The scheme stood substantially unchanged through 1950¹⁶³. Felony charges stayed with the district courts, which hold sole jurisdiction over them¹⁶⁴. A juvenile file sits with the district court and is likely to be closed.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify, if he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could give an account of what was seen. The wills act assumed as much when it required will witnesses to hold the qualifications of witnesses giving evidence in court, without setting any age¹⁶⁵. The trial judge decided competency case by case.

One race bar interrupted that rule for three years. The slave code of February 1859 barred any slave, and any free Black or mixed-race person, from giving evidence in any court against a free white person. They remained competent witnesses against each other¹⁶⁶. The territorial legislature repealed the whole act in the 1861–62 session, and no comparable bar was enacted again.

An act of 1880, cited as the Evidence Act, settled the rest and governed for the remainder of this period¹⁶⁷. Interest in the outcome ceased to exclude anyone, so a person could testify however much he stood to gain by it¹⁶⁸. The parties themselves became competent and compellable, and so did their husbands and wives¹⁶⁹. Two limits held. Each spouse could decline to disclose what the other had said during the marriage¹⁷⁰. And in a suit by or against the representatives of a dead person, an interested party needed corroboration for testimony about events before the death¹⁷¹.

The Evidence Act drew its lines by interest and by marriage. It set no bar by race or color, so from 1880 a witness of any race could testify in any case.

Sources and Where to Verify

Constitutions

• New Mexico. Constitution of the State of New Mexico. Art. VI (courts); art. VII, § 2 (poll tax not a prerequisite to voting or holding office); art. VII, § 3 (religion, race, language, and color on juries); art. VIII (taxation). This is the constitution as it stands now. Several provisions used here have since been amended or repealed, including art. II, § 22 (land ownership by immigrants, repealed 2006), the "Indians not taxed" clause of art. VII, § 1, and the taxing-power enumeration of art. VIII, § 1. For the text in force during this period, read the constitution as printed in the 1929 Compilation. New Mexico Secretary of State. https://www.sos.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/NM_Constitution_-2025-for-SOS.pdf.
• New Mexico. Constitution of the State of New Mexico, section-by-section amendment history. Gives the text of each section as adopted and as amended, with ratification dates, which is the quickest way to see what a section said in a given year. 50 Constitutions. https://50constitutions.org/nm/constitution/section-amendment-id-56025.

Codes and Compilations

• New Mexico. Compiled Laws of New Mexico. Compiled by Edward L. Bartlett. Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1885. The compilation of 1884; section 1378, "Who may make wills," keeps the ages of 14 and 12, and sections 1410 to 1422 carry the descent rules the act of 1889 replaced. Page images. HathiTrust. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010488514.
• New Mexico. Compiled Laws of New Mexico. Compiled by John P. Victory. Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1897. Section 1947 carries the age of 21 introduced in 1889, section 1426 the marriage ages of 1876, and sections 2030 and 2031 the descent rules the act of 1901 replaced. Page images. HathiTrust. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001625667.
• New Mexico. Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Santa Fe, October 7, 1846. The Kearny Code, in Spanish and English. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp769261893. Also transcribed at the Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/kearney.asp.
• New Mexico. New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation, Containing All Laws of a General Nature, Including Those Passed at the Special Session of 1929. Compiled, annotated, and indexed by William H. Courtright. Denver: W. H. Courtright Publishing Co., 1929. Each section is printed under its source act, which makes this the fastest route to the acts of 1917 to 1929: § 35-4101 (juvenile delinquents), § 68-403 (community real property and joinder), § 78-101 (jurors), and §§ 87-107 and 87-110 (marriage of minors, and annulment). It also prints the constitution as it stood in 1929.
• New Mexico. New Mexico Statutes, Annotated, Containing the Codification Passed at the Second Session of the Legislature of the State of New Mexico, in Effect June 11, 1915. Compiled and annotated by Stephen B. Davis, Jr., and Merritt C. Mechem. 2 vols. Denver: W. H. Courtright Publishing Co., 1915. Volume 1 carries sections 1 to 3522, with each section printed under its source act: § 2766 (the husband's power over community property), §§ 3087–3088 (jurors), and §§ 3430–3432 (marriage). Page images. HathiTrust. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008595993.
• New Mexico. New Mexico Statutes Annotated. Each section is printed with its history line back through the 1953, 1941, and 1929 compilations and the 1915 Code, which is the fastest way to trace a rule backward. Justia. https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/.
• New Mexico. Revised Statutes and Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, in Force at the Close of the Session of the Legislative Assembly Ending February 2, 1865. St. Louis: R. P. Studley & Co., 1865. The essential territorial volume, printed in English and Spanish on facing pages, with the source act noted at the head of each chapter: ch. I (administrations), ch. II (wills, the act of 12 January 1852), ch. IV (heirs), ch. V (distribution of the inheritance), ch. XXII (justices of the peace), ch. XLIV (conveyances), ch. LXIV (the 1857 act restricting free Black residents), ch. LXV (guardians), chs. LXVIII–LXXI (jurors), ch. LXXII (laws), ch. LXXIII (limitations), ch. LXXV (marriages), ch. LXXVI (master and servant), and ch. XCVII (revenue). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp680529903.
• New Mexico. Revised Statutes of the Territory of New Mexico. Revised and arranged by order of the Legislative Assembly, under the direction of Governor Meriwether, by James J. Deavenport, Chief Justice of the Territory. Santa Fé: Printed in the Santa Fé Weekly Gazette Office, 1856. The earlier territorial compilation, in English and Spanish. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp774952982.
• New Mexico. Session laws after 1891, which the Library of Congress collection does not reach. Page images. HathiTrust. 1893, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010502585; 1895, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010502587; 1897, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010502588; 1899, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010476917; 1901, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010502589; 1907, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010502593; 1917, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010433632. For 1917 the volume wanted is the third regular session, which sat from January to March; the separate volume of the extraordinary session convened on 1 May 1917 carries only the wartime measures.
• New Mexico Compilation Commission. Publisher of the official compilations. https://www.nmcompcomm.us/.

Session Laws

• New Mexico. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico. Session volumes, 1847–1891, in English and Spanish, digitized as a single collection by the Library of Congress Early State Records Project. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp407156220. The volumes cited above, with their imprints and direct links (each file is named for the year the session convened, so the laws of 1876 sit in the file for 1875 and the laws of 1889 in the file for 1888):
  • Session of 1858–59 (Santa Fé: A. de Marle, Public Printer, 1859), ch. XXVI, the slave code of 3 February 1859. https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1858.120.pdf.
  • Session of 1861–62 (Santa Fe, 1862), the act repealing the slave code. https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1861.120.pdf.
  • Session of 1865–66 (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1866), the repeal of the act concerning free Black residents. https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1865.120.pdf.
  • Session of 1866–67 (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1867), involuntary servitude. https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1866.120.pdf.
  • Session of 1871–72 (Santa Fe, 1872), ch. XXII, the revenue amendment of 31 January 1872 laying the property tax and the school poll tax. https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1871.120.pdf.
  • Twenty-second session (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1876), ch. 2 (common law) and ch. 31 (marriage). https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1875.120.pdf.
  • Twenty-fourth session (Santa Fe: R. W. Webb, 1880), ch. 11 (jurors), ch. 12 (the Evidence Act), and ch. 37 (cousins). https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1880.010.pdf.
  • Twenty-fifth session (Santa Fe: Chas. W. Greene, 1882), ch. 15 (bigamy) and the revenue chapter. https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1882.010.pdf.
  • Twenty-sixth session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Co., 1884), ch. 14 (married women) and ch. 39 (town poll tax). https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1884.020.pdf.
  • Twenty-seventh session (Las Vegas, N.M.: J. A. Carruth, 1887), ch. 32 (descents). https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1886.120.pdf.
  • Twenty-eighth session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1889), ch. 90 (wills, descent, and the repeal of the widow's third) and ch. 112 (poll tax lists). https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1888.120.pdf.
  • Twenty-ninth session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1891), ch. 25 (school poll tax) and ch. 95 (jurors). https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1890.120.pdf.
• New Mexico. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Thirty-fourth Session. Albuquerque, N.M.: Democrat Publishing Company, 1901. Ch. 62, the act defining the property rights and powers of married persons: separate estate and onerous title (§§ 1–2), the powers of married persons and the joinder requirement (§§ 5–6), wills (§§ 6–8), and the survivor's share (§ 9). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawspassedbygen00mexigoog.
• New Mexico. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Thirty-seventh Session. Santa Fe, N.M.: New Mexican Printing Company, 1907. Ch. 37, the act on the property rights of husband and wife: separate and community property (§§ 7–10), the husband's management and the wife's written consent (§ 16), curtesy and dower (§ 17), and the governing provision (§ 21). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsterritoryne06mexigoog.
• New Mexico. Acts read here only as printed under the sections of a compilation, with their source notes, rather than in the session volume: Laws of 1905, ch. 116, and Laws of 1917, ch. 93 (juror qualification); Laws of 1917, ch. 4, Laws of 1921, ch. 87, and Laws of 1929, ch. 74 (juvenile court); Laws of 1923, ch. 100, and Laws of 1927, ch. 110 (marriage of minors); and Laws of 1927, ch. 84 (community real property). Laws of 1969, ch. 222 (jurors) and Laws of 1975, ch. 257 (Uniform Probate Code) fall outside this period and are traced through the history lines printed with the current sections. Justia. https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/chapter-40/article-3/section-40-3-1/.

Court Cases

• Arnett v. Reade. 220 U.S. 311 (1911). Holds a husband's sole deed of community land ineffective under the act of 1901, even as to land acquired before it. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USREPORTS-220/pdf/USREPORTS-220-311.pdf.
• Batts v. Greer. 1963-NMSC-037, 71 N.M. 454. Applies the joinder rule to a 1918 instrument.
• Beals v. Ares. 1919-NMSC-067, 25 N.M. 459. Reads the community property statutes against their Spanish and Mexican background.
• Gallegos v. Wilkerson. 1968-NMSC-156, 79 N.M. 549. A common-law marriage valid where made is recognized in New Mexico. Annotations collected at N.M. Stat. Ann. § 40-1-4. https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/chapter-40/article-1/section-40-1-4.
• Hernandez v. Becker. 54 F.2d 542 (10th Cir. 1931). Holds that common-law dower and curtesy never obtained in New Mexico, and dates the statutory substitute to 24 February 1887 – 26 February 1889. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/54/542/1497851/.
• In re Estate of McMillen. 1903-NMSC-012, 12 N.M. 31. Applies the twenty-one-year will age.
• In re Gabaldon's Estate. 1934-NMSC-053, 38 N.M. 392. Common-law marriage was never valid in New Mexico. Annotations collected at N.M. Stat. Ann. § 40-1-2. https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/chapter-40/article-1/section-40-1-2/.
• In re Santillanes. 1943-NMSC-011, 47 N.M. 140. The juvenile court scheme.
• In re Toepfer's Estate. 12 N.M. 372 (1904). Marriage revokes an earlier will.
• Pickett v. Miller. 1966-NMSC-050, 76 N.M. 105. Enforces the 1927 joinder rule.
• Reade v. de Lea. 14 N.M. 442 (1908). The New Mexico decision affirmed as Arnett v. Reade.
• State v. Jones. 2010-NMSC-012. Traces the juvenile code from its enactment in 1917. https://law.justia.com/cases/new-mexico/supreme-court/2010/17b2.html.
• State v. McKinley. 1949-NMSC-010, 53 N.M. 106. Felonies stay with the district court.
• Trujillo v. Garley. D.N.M., 3 August 1948. Voids the "Indians not taxed" exclusion from the vote. Not in the official reports.
• United States v. Joseph. 94 U.S. 614 (1876). Pueblo land held in fee and saleable.
• United States v. Sandoval. 231 U.S. 28 (1913). Overturns that view and places Pueblo land under federal guardianship. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/231/28/.

Secondary and Reference Works

• Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Significant Features of Fiscal Federalism. 1994 ed. The year each state adopted an individual income tax; New Mexico, 1933. Adoption years reproduced in Scott Drenkard, "When Did Your State Adopt Its Income Tax?" Tax Foundation. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/when-did-your-state-adopt-its-income-tax/.
• Alfonso X. Las Siete Partidas del Rey Don Alfonso el Sabio. 3 vols. Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1807. The Castilian code that governed New Mexico before 1846, in the edition of the Real Academia de la Historia. Volume 3 carries Partidas 4 through 7: Partida 6, tit. 16, for tutors, curators, and the age of twenty-five, and Partida 7, tit. 1, for the ages at which a child could be accused of a crime. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lassietepartidas03castuoft.
• Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England. Book 4, chapter 2, "Of the Persons Capable of Committing Crimes," for the common-law ages of criminal responsibility received in New Mexico in 1876. Transcription. The Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk4ch2.asp.
• Doña Ana County, New Mexico. Probate Court Records. An example of the territorial probate series in which guardianships, wills, and marriage returns sit. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp1262336214.
• FamilySearch. "New Mexico, United States Genealogy." County-by-county guidance on which marriage, probate, land, and tax series survive and where, which is the place to confirm a record statement before relying on it. FamilySearch Research Wiki. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/New_Mexico,_United_States_Genealogy.
• Flickinger, W. Garrett. "Intestate Succession and Wills Law: The New Probate Code." New Mexico Law Review 6 (1975): 25. Traces the pre-1975 New Mexico rules back through the compilations. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1380&context=nmlr.
• New Mexico Educational Retirement Board. "NMERB History." Dates the Emergency School Tax Act to 1935. https://www.erb.nm.gov/nmerb-history/.
• New Mexico Humanities Council. "Miguel Trujillo." Account of Trujillo v. Garley and the "Indians not taxed" clause. https://newmexicohumanities.org/miguel-trujillo/.
• New Mexico Legislature. Constitutional Amendments Proposed by the Legislature in 2001 and 2002. Explains the origin and the repeal of the clause barring land ownership by aliens ineligible to citizenship. https://www.nmlegis.gov/Publications/New_Mexico_State_Government/Constitutional_Amendment/Constitutional_Amendments_2002.pdf.
• New Mexico State Records Center and Archives. Holds the Spanish Archives of New Mexico (SANM I and II) and the Mexican Archives of New Mexico for the pre-1846 period, and county records for the territorial and state periods. Its county inventories confirm what survives. https://www.srca.nm.gov.
• O'Cheskey, Fred. "Historical Overview of New Mexico's Tax System." Presentation to the Blue Ribbon Tax Reform Commission, 1 May 2003. Outline of the territorial and state taxes and the years they began. PDF. New Mexico Legislature. https://www.nmlegis.gov/Publications/Blue_Tax_Documents/ops4273-HISTORICALOVERVIEWOFNEWMEXICOTAXES.pdf.
• United States. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 2 February 1848. Articles VIII and IX protect the property of residents and set out the citizenship election. Transcription. The Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/guadhida.asp.
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: January 1, 1938, Final Report, Giving Summary for All States Combined. Bulletin no. 157. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1941. Topic-by-topic survey of all the states; its jury-service tables show which states admitted women and which did not as of 1 January 1938. Digital images. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157_dolwb_1941.pdf.
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for New Mexico as of October 1, 1962. Bulletin no. 157-30 (Revised). Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963. A digest of New Mexico law on majority, minors' contracts, married women's property, community property, wills, intestacy, guardianship, marriage, and jury service, each keyed to the 1953 Compilation. Earlier editions of the New Mexico report, stating the law as of 1 January 1938 and 1 January 1948 with a 1953 addendum, are held by federal depository libraries. Digital images. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-30-rev_dolwb_1963.pdf.
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: United States Summary, Cumulative Supplement, 1938–1945. Bulletin no. 157-A. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1946. Its index of legislation by state and subject shows what each state altered in those years, and so what it left alone. Digital images. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157_a_dolwb_1946.pdf.

Citations

1. Las Siete Partidas del Rey Don Alfonso el Sabio, 3 vols. (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1807); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lassietepartidas03castuoft : accessed 5 August 2026). Partida 4, tit. 11, treats the property husband and wife held together, and Partida 6, tit. 1, the share a parent had to leave each child ↩
2. Kearny Code, 22 September 1846, "Laws," § 1, in Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Santa Fe, October 7, 1846; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp769261893 : accessed 5 August 2026); re-enacted as Revised Statutes and Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, in Force at the Close of the Session of the Legislative Assembly Ending February 2, 1865 (St. Louis: R. P. Studley & Co., 1865), ch. LXXII, § 1, and continued by the Act of 14 July 1851, § 6, printed as ch. LXXII, § 6; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529903 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
3. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 2 February 1848, arts. VIII–IX, 9 Stat. 922, 929–30; transcription, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/guadhida.asp : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
4. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-second Session (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1876), ch. 2, § 2, an act to provide where civil actions may be brought, approved 7 January 1876; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1875.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026). Carried forward to the present as N.M. Stat. Ann. § 38-1-3, whose printed history line gives the intervening compilations; Justia (https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/chapter-38/article-1/section-38-1-3/ : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
5. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Thirty-fourth Session (Albuquerque, N.M.: Democrat Publishing Company, 1901), ch. 62, §§ 1–2, "An Act defining the property rights and powers of married persons, prescribing grounds for divorce, and other matters," H. B. No. 159, approved 20 March 1901, pp. 112–13; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawspassedbygen00mexigoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
6. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Thirty-seventh Session (Santa Fe, N.M.: New Mexican Printing Company, 1907), ch. 37, §§ 8–10, "An Act in relation to property rights of husband and wife," C. B. No. 63, approved 18 March 1907, pp. 46–48; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsterritoryne06mexigoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
7. Beals v. Ares, 1919-NMSC-067, 25 N.M. 459 ↩
8. Las Siete Partidas (1807), 3: Partida 6, tit. 16, ley 1 (tutela for a boy under fourteen and a girl under twelve), ley 12 (the tutor's charge ends at those ages, and a curator then holds it until the minor is twenty-five), and ley 13 (curators are given to those over fourteen and under twenty-five, and one of sound mind cannot be compelled to accept a curator unless suing or sued); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lassietepartidas03castuoft : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
9. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 8; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529903 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
10. Act of 1 February 1858, § 1; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXIII, § 1 ↩
11. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 2, cl. 1 ↩
12. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 2, cl. 2 ↩
13. U.S. Women's Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for New Mexico as of October 1, 1962, Bulletin no. 157-30 (rev.) (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963), 3; digital images, FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-30-rev_dolwb_1963.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
14. Act of 20 July 1851, § 17; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXVI, § 17 ↩
15. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XXII, §§ 26–27 ↩
16. Act of 29 January 1863, § 4; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 4 ↩
17. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-second Session (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1876), ch. 31, § 2, an act amendatory of the law regulating marriages; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1875.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
18. Compiled Laws of New Mexico, comp. John P. Victory (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1897), § 1426; page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001625667 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
19. New Mexico Statutes, Annotated, Containing the Codification Passed at the Second Session of the Legislature of the State of New Mexico, in Effect June 11, 1915, comp. Stephen B. Davis, Jr., and Merritt C. Mechem, 2 vols. (Denver: W. H. Courtright Publishing Co., 1915), 1: § 3431, "Marriage of persons under age," carrying the source note "Act of Jan. 7, '76; L. '76, C. 31, § 2; C. L. '97, § 1426"; page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008595993 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
20. Laws of 1923, ch. 100, § 2, amending the marriage-age section. The chain runs from Laws of 1876, ch. 31, § 2, through the Compiled Laws of New Mexico, comp. Edward L. Bartlett (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1885) — the compilation of 1884 — § 993 (page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010488514 : accessed 5 August 2026)), Compiled Laws of 1897, § 1426, and Code 1915, § 3431, to C.S. 1929, § 87-107, the 1941 Compilation, § 65-106, and, after a further amendment by Laws of 1953, ch. 112, § 1, the 1953 Compilation, § 57-1-6. Printed with its result at New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation (Denver: W. H. Courtright Publishing Co., 1929), § 87-107, under the source note "L. '23, Ch. 100, § 2, amending Code '15, § 3431" ↩
21. U.S. Women's Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: January 1, 1938, Final Report, Giving Summary for All States Combined, Bulletin no. 157 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1941), 57–58, topic 18, where New Mexico appears among the states setting 18 for a male and 16 for a female as the ages below which no marriage could be made, and 21 and 18 as the ages below which a parent's consent was required; digital images, FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157_dolwb_1941.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
22. New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation (Denver: W. H. Courtright Publishing Co., 1929), § 87-110, "Prohibited marriages—Annulment," carrying the source note "L. '27, Ch. 110, § 1, amending Code '15, § 3434" ↩
23. Act of 29 January 1863, § 3; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 3 ↩
24. Laws of 1876, ch. 31, § 2; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1875.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
25. In re Gabaldon's Estate, 1934-NMSC-053, 38 N.M. 392, 34 P.2d 672, holding that a mere consent marriage is invalid, that common-law marriages were never legalized in New Mexico, and that the first regulating statute preceded the adoption of the common law as the rule of practice and decision. Annotations collected at N.M. Stat. Ann. § 40-1-2; Justia (https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/chapter-40/article-1/section-40-1-2/ : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
26. Act of 2 February 1860, § 1; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 1 ↩
27. Act of 29 January 1863, § 8; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 8 ↩
28. Act of 29 January 1863, § 2; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 2 ↩
29. Act of 29 January 1863, § 10; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 10; carried as C.L. 1884, § 986, C.L. 1897, § 1423, Code 1915, § 3429, and now N.M. Stat. Ann. § 40-1-4 ↩
30. Gallegos v. Wilkerson, 1968-NMSC-156, 79 N.M. 549, 445 P.2d 970, holding that although a common-law marriage cannot be made in New Mexico, one valid where it was made will be recognized here; annotations collected at N.M. Stat. Ann. § 40-1-4, Justia (https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/chapter-40/article-1/section-40-1-4 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
31. Act of 29 January 1863, §§ 5, 7, 8; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, §§ 5, 7, 8 ↩
32. Laws of 1876, ch. 31, § 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1875.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026). Carried as C.L. 1884, § 992, and C.L. 1897, § 1425; now N.M. Stat. Ann. § 40-1-7 ↩
33. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-fourth Session (Santa Fe: R. W. Webb, 1880), ch. 37, § 1, repealing such parts of all laws as prohibited the marriage of cousins of any degree; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1880.010.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026). The compilers accordingly struck the words "and first cousins" from the incest section, as the compiler's note to N.M. Stat. Ann. § 40-1-7 records ↩
34. Act of 29 January 1863, § 4; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 4, requiring the officiant to establish by credible evidence that the parties were free persons and were not bound in marriage to anyone else ↩
35. Act of 29 January 1857, §§ 1, 3, 4, 6, "An Act concerning Free Negroes"; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXIV; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529903 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
36. Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Passed by the Legislative Assembly, Session of 1858-9 (Santa Fé: A. de Marle, Public Printer, 1859), ch. XXVI, "An Act to provide for the protection of property in Slaves in this Territory," approved 3 February 1859: § 22 (testimony), § 23 (marriage), § 25 (emancipation prohibited), and § 30 (the act does not reach the relations of master and servant); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1858.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
37. Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Passed by the Legislative Assembly, Session of 1861-2 (Santa Fe, 1862), an act repealing "An Act providing for the protection of Slave property in this Territory," approved 3 February 1859, repealing it in all its parts; the volume's acts are dated to 18 January 1862; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1861.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026). Congress separately barred slavery in all the territories by the Act of 19 June 1862, ch. 111, § 1, 12 Stat. 432 ↩
38. Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Passed by the Legislative Assembly, Session of 1865-66 (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1866), an act to repeal an act entitled "An Act concerning Free Negroes," approved 18 January 1866; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1865.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
39. Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Passed by the Legislative Assembly, Session of 1866-67 (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1867), an act relative to involuntary servitude, § 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1866.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026). Congress followed with the Peonage Act of 2 March 1867, ch. 187, 14 Stat. 546, abolishing peonage in New Mexico by name ↩
40. Act of 12 January 1852, § 1; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XLIV, § 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529903 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
41. Act of 22 July 1854, ch. 103, §§ 1–8, 10 Stat. 308, creating the office of Surveyor General for New Mexico and directing the reporting of Spanish and Mexican claims to Congress; and the Court of Private Land Claims Act of 3 March 1891, ch. 539, 26 Stat. 854. For what survives and where, see New Mexico State Records Center and Archives (https://www.srca.nm.gov : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
42. Act of 12 January 1852, §§ 5–6; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XLIV, §§ 5–6 ↩
43. Act of 12 January 1852, §§ 7–8; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XLIV, §§ 7–8, requiring the identity of a grantor unknown to the officer to be proved by two reliable witnesses and recorded in the certificate. The sections set no age ↩
44. Act of 12 January 1852, § 9; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XLIV, § 9 ↩
45. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-sixth Session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Co., 1884), ch. 14, § 1, an act to protect the property rights of married women, approved 2 April 1884; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1884.020.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
46. Laws of 1884, ch. 14, § 2; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1884.020.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
47. Laws of 1901, ch. 62, § 5, giving married persons the same property rights and the same power to convey or contract as single persons of legal age; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawspassedbygen00mexigoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
48. Laws of 1907, ch. 37, § 8, providing that the wife may convey her separate property without the consent of her husband; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsterritoryne06mexigoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
49. Act of 12 January 1852, § 10; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XLIV, § 10 ↩
50. Laws of 1884, ch. 14, §§ 2–3; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1884.020.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
51. Laws of 1884, ch. 14, § 4; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1884.020.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
52. Common-law dower and curtesy never obtained in New Mexico. A statutory community property system had run continuously since the Act of 12 January 1852, and the reception of the common law by Laws of 1876, ch. 2, § 2, did not displace it. Hernandez v. Becker, 54 F.2d 542, 544–45 (10th Cir. 1931), following Beals v. Ares, 1919-NMSC-067, 25 N.M. 459, 483; Justia (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/54/542/1497851/ : accessed 5 August 2026). For the statutory substitute that ran from 1887 to 1889, see Inheritance below ↩
53. Laws of 1901, ch. 62, § 6, cl. (a); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawspassedbygen00mexigoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
54. Arnett v. Reade, 220 U.S. 311, 319–20 (1911); United States Reports, GovInfo (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USREPORTS-220/pdf/USREPORTS-220-311.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
55. Laws of 1907, ch. 37, § 16, "Power of the Husband Over Community Property"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsterritoryne06mexigoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
56. Code of 1915, § 2766, "Power of the husband over community property," carrying the source note "Act of Mar. 18, '07; L. '07, C. 37, § 16"; page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008595993 : accessed 5 August 2026). And see Reade v. de Lea, 14 N.M. 442 (1908), the New Mexico decision affirmed as Arnett v. Reade ↩
57. New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation (Denver: W. H. Courtright Publishing Co., 1929), § 68-403, "Power of the husband over community property," carrying the source note "L. '27, Ch. 84, § 1, amending L. '15, Ch. 84, § 1; Code '15, § 2766" ↩
58. Pickett v. Miller, 1966-NMSC-050, 76 N.M. 105; and see Batts v. Greer, 1963-NMSC-037, 71 N.M. 454, applying the rule to a 1918 instrument ↩
59. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, §§ 4, 7 ↩
60. Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias, lib. 6, tit. 1, on the protection of Indian pueblos and their lands, and lib. 4, tit. 12, on grants; the protective rule is described and applied in United States v. Sandoval, 231 U.S. 28, 39–42 (1913); Justia (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/231/28/ : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
61. United States v. Joseph, 94 U.S. 614 (1876) ↩
62. United States v. Sandoval, 231 U.S. 28 (1913); Justia (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/231/28/ : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
63. Pueblo Lands Act of 7 June 1924, ch. 331, 43 Stat. 636, creating the Pueblo Lands Board to settle claims to land within the Pueblo grants ↩
64. N.M. Const. art. II, § 22, added by amendment ratified 20 September 1921 and repealed by amendment ratified 7 November 2006: "Until otherwise provided by law no alien, ineligible to citizenship under the laws of the United States, or corporation, co-partnership or association, a majority of the stock or interest in which is owned or held by such aliens, shall acquire title, leasehold or other interest in or to real estate in New Mexico." Text and amendment history at 50 Constitutions (https://50constitutions.org/nm/constitution/section-amendment-id-56025 : accessed 5 August 2026); the repeal is described in the legislature's own analysis, Constitutional Amendments Proposed by the Legislature in 2001 and 2002, New Mexico Legislature (https://www.nmlegis.gov/Publications/New_Mexico_State_Government/Constitutional_Amendment/Constitutional_Amendments_2002.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
65. N.M. Const. art. II, § 22, second sentence, providing that no distinction shall ever be made by law between resident aliens and citizens in regard to the ownership or descent of property ↩
66. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, §§ 4–8; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529903 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
67. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-seventh Session (Las Vegas, N.M.: J. A. Carruth, 1887), ch. 32, §§ 1, 17, 19; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1886.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
68. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-eighth Session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1889), ch. 90, § 21, substituting new §§ 1410–1411 for those of the Compiled Laws of 1884; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1888.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
69. Laws of 1901, ch. 62, § 9; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawspassedbygen00mexigoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
70. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. IV, § 5; Act of 12 January 1852 ↩
71. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. IV, § 3 ↩
72. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. IV, §§ 6–7 ↩
73. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, §§ 4–5 ↩
74. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 6 ↩
75. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 7 ↩
76. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 8 ↩
77. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 2, cl. 3 ↩
78. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, an act regulating descents and the apportionment of estates; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1886.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
79. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, §§ 1–2; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1886.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
80. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, §§ 3–4 ↩
81. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 6 ↩
82. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, §§ 13–14 ↩
83. Hernandez v. Becker, 54 F.2d 542, 544–45 (10th Cir. 1931), following Beals v. Ares, 1919-NMSC-067, 25 N.M. 459, 483: the common-law rights of dower and curtesy have never obtained in New Mexico, and the statutory substitute ran from 24 February 1887 to 26 February 1889; Justia (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/54/542/1497851/ : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
84. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, §§ 16–17, abolishing tenancies by the curtesy and in dower and giving the widow one-third of the husband's real estate in fee simple, reduced to one-fourth as against creditors where the real estate exceeded ten thousand dollars in value, and to one-fifth above that; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1886.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
85. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, §§ 19–20, giving a widower one-third of his late wife's real estate, subject to its share of her premarital debts, and dividing a husband's real estate one-half to the widow and one-half to the child where he died intestate leaving a widow and one child only ↩
86. Laws of 1889, ch. 90, § 21, repealing §§ 1410–1422 of the Compiled Laws of 1884 and substituting new sections bearing the same numbers. New § 1410 sets apart each survivor's separate estate and one-half of the acquest property; new § 1411 gives one-fourth of the remainder to the surviving husband or wife and the rest in equal shares to the children; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1888.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
87. Laws of 1889, ch. 90, § 21, new §§ 1412–1417: the heirs of a dead child take that child's share; where the intestate leaves no issue the whole estate goes to the wife, and if he leaves no wife her portion goes to his parents; unclaimed property escheats to the territory; and posthumous children unprovided for by a father's will inherit as though no will had been made ↩
88. Laws of 1901, ch. 62, § 9, repealing §§ 2030 and 2031 of the Compiled Laws of 1897 and substituting the rule given; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawspassedbygen00mexigoog : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
89. Laws of 1901, ch. 62, § 6, cl. (b), and § 7 ↩
90. Laws of 1907, ch. 37, § 17, "Courtesy and Dower Not Allowed"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsterritoryne06mexigoog : accessed 5 August 2026). Still the rule in the 1950s at 1953 Comp., § 29-1-23, as digested in Women's Bureau, Report for New Mexico (1963), 13 ↩
91. Women's Bureau, Report for New Mexico (1963), 13, giving 1953 Comp., § 29-1-8 ↩
92. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 18; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1886.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
93. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 8; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1886.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
94. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 9 ↩
95. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 10 ↩
96. Laws of 1889, ch. 90, § 21, new §§ 1418–1420, replacing §§ 8–11 of Laws of 1887, ch. 32; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1888.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
97. For example, Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Passed by the Legislative Assembly, Session of 1865-66 (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1866), "An Act declaring the adoption of David Apodaca," declaring a named six-year-old the legitimate son and heir of José Apodaca and Miquela Montoya, and a companion act in the same volume for Maria Rosario Trujillo; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1865.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026). Acts of this kind are listed in each volume's table of contents and index under the child's name ↩
98. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, §§ 1, 11 ↩
99. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 8 ↩
100. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 2 ↩
101. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 13 ↩
102. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 12 ↩
103. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 9 ↩
104. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 8 ↩
105. Women's Bureau, Report for New Mexico (1963), 3, giving 1953 Comp., §§ 32-1-7, 32-1-42 ↩
106. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, §§ 4, 7 ↩
107. Act of 12 January 1852, § 2; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 2 ↩
108. Compiled Laws of New Mexico, comp. Edward L. Bartlett (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1885), § 1378, printed in English and Spanish, with the source note "C.L. 1865, ch. 3, § 2; Jan. 12, 1852"; page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010488514 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
109. Laws of 1889, ch. 90, § 1, an act to amend the laws relative to the estates of deceased persons, amending § 1378 of the Compiled Laws of 1884, dated 26 February 1889; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1888.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
110. Compiled Laws of 1897, § 1947, carrying the marginal source note "C. 90, L. 89, § 1: Feb. 26"; page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001625667 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
111. In re Estate of McMillen, 1903-NMSC-012, 12 N.M. 31, applying the twenty-one rule then printed at Compiled Laws of 1897, § 1947 ↩
112. The twenty-one rule stood as 1953 Comp., § 30-1-1, repealed on adoption of the Uniform Probate Code by Laws of 1975, ch. 257; W. Garrett Flickinger, "Intestate Succession and Wills Law: The New Probate Code," New Mexico Law Review 6 (1975): 25 (https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1380&context=nmlr : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
113. In re Toepfer's Estate, 12 N.M. 372 (1904), holding that marriage revokes a will made before it ↩
114. Act of 12 January 1852, § 4; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 4, requiring three or more able and qualified witnesses having the qualifications required of witnesses giving evidence in court. The section sets no age ↩
115. Laws of 1889, ch. 90, §§ 2–3; carried as Compiled Laws of 1897, §§ 1974–1975; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1888.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
116. Act of 12 January 1852, § 6; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 6 ↩
117. Act of 12 January 1852, §§ 3, 5; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, §§ 3, 5 ↩
118. Act of 12 January 1852, § 17; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 17 ↩
119. An act amendatory of the law on testaments, § 9, printed in the Revised Statutes of 1865 following ch. VI ↩
120. Act of 12 January 1852, § 14; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 14, providing that persons capable of making a will may be appointed executors or administrators. The section draws no distinction between men and women, and the will ages of 14 and 12 therefore set the ages for the office as well ↩
121. Act of 12 January 1852, § 13; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 13 ↩
122. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. I, § 8 ↩
123. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XCVII (revenue), §§ 1–5, from the Kearny Code of 22 September 1846; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529903 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
124. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XCVII, § 38, being the Act of 9 January 1852, which repealed the ad valorem tax of one-fourth of one per cent on merchandise laid by § 20 of the Kearny Code revenue law ↩
125. Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Legislative Assembly of 1871–1872 (Santa Fe, N.M., 1872), ch. XXII, § 6, an act amending the revenue laws, approved 31 January 1872, laying an ad valorem tax of one per cent on all real and personal estate above five hundred dollars and referring to the revenue law of 17 January 1870; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1871.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
126. Laws of 1871–72, ch. XXII, § 7, assessing an annual poll tax of one dollar on every male citizen above twenty-one resident in the territory, excepting idiots and persons of unsound mind, and applying the proceeds to schools; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1871.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
127. Laws of 1871–72, ch. XXII, § 8, requiring every person subject to tax to give the assessor a full descriptive list of his or her real and personal effects ↩
128. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-fifth Session (Santa Fe: Chas. W. Greene, 1882), revenue chapter, § 1, providing that all property in the territory not exempt by law shall be subject to taxation; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1882.010.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
129. Laws of 1882, revenue chapter, § 113, assessing a poll tax of one dollar against every able-bodied male inhabitant over twenty-one, whether a citizen of the United States or an alien, collected in the same manner as other taxes; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1882.010.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
130. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-ninth Session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1891), ch. 25, § 36; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1890.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
131. Laws of 1884, ch. 39, general powers of cities and towns, cl. 78; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1884.020.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
132. Laws of 1891, ch. 25, § 36, proviso; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1890.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
133. N.M. Const. art. VII, § 2, as amended at the special election of 20 September 1921; before that amendment the section opened "Every male citizen of the United States." The section now provides that the payment of public road poll tax or school poll tax, and service on juries, shall not be made a prerequisite to the right of a person to vote or hold office. New Mexico Secretary of State (https://www.sos.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/NM_Constitution_-2025-for-SOS.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
134. Laws of 1889, ch. 112, § 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1888.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
135. Laws of 1891, ch. 25, § 37; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1890.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
136. N.M. Const. art. VIII, § 1, as originally adopted and as printed in the 1929 Compilation, which authorized the legislature to provide for license, franchise, excise, income, inheritance, legacy, and succession taxes, and taxes on the production and output of mines, oil lands, and forests. The section was amended on 3 November 1914 and again in 1971 and 1998, and the current text at art. VIII, §§ 1–2 no longer carries that enumeration; consult the 1929 Compilation for the text in force during this period ↩
137. Fred O'Cheskey, "Historical Overview of New Mexico's Tax System," presentation to the Blue Ribbon Tax Reform Commission, 1 May 2003, pp. 1–3; PDF, New Mexico Legislature (https://www.nmlegis.gov/Publications/Blue_Tax_Documents/ops4273-HISTORICALOVERVIEWOFNEWMEXICOTAXES.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026). The Emergency School Tax Act of 1935 is separately confirmed by New Mexico Educational Retirement Board, "NMERB History" (https://www.erb.nm.gov/nmerb-history/ : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
138. New Mexico adopted an individual income tax in 1933; Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Significant Features of Fiscal Federalism, 1994 ed., adoption years by state, reproduced in Scott Drenkard, "When Did Your State Adopt Its Income Tax?" Tax Foundation (https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/when-did-your-state-adopt-its-income-tax/ : accessed 5 August 2026). The 1929 Compilation prints no income tax act, which fits that date. Two later state summaries give earlier years and disagree with each other, 1919 in O'Cheskey and 1913 in Mark Chaiken, "New Mexico Personal Income Tax," slide 6, and neither names an act ↩
139. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXVIII, § 15, headed "Qualifications of jurors"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529903 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
140. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXVIII, § 16 ↩
141. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-fourth Session (Santa Fe: R. W. Webb, 1880), ch. 11, § 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1880.010.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
142. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-ninth Session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1891), ch. 95, § 1, approved 26 February 1891; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1890.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
143. Laws of 1882, ch. 15, § 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1882.010.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
144. Code of 1915, § 3087, "Jurors—Qualification," carrying the source note "Act of Mar. 16, '05; L. '05, C. 116, § 1"; page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008595993 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
145. Code of 1915, § 3088; page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008595993 : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
146. New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation, § 78-101, "Qualifications of jurors," carrying the source note "L. '17, Ch. 93, § 1" ↩
147. Act of 7 February 1854, §§ 1–2; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXIX, §§ 1–2 ↩
148. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXI, § 10 ↩
149. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXI, §§ 7–9 ↩
150. Act of 7 February 1854, § 5, cl. 1; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXIX, § 5 ↩
151. N.M. Const. art. VII, § 3: "The right of any citizen of the state to vote, hold office or sit upon juries, shall never be restricted, abridged or impaired on account of religion, race, language or color, or inability to speak, read or write the English or Spanish languages except as may be otherwise provided in this constitution." New Mexico Secretary of State (https://www.sos.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/NM_Constitution_-2025-for-SOS.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
152. Act of 25 January 1860, § 21; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXVIII, making residents who had kept Mexican citizenship under the treaty and then declared their intention to become United States citizens qualified to serve as jurors in all the courts of the territory ↩
153. Act of 7 February 1854, § 5, cl. 2; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXIX, § 5 ↩
154. Indian Citizenship Act, Act of 2 June 1924, ch. 233, 43 Stat. 253, declaring all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States to be citizens ↩
155. N.M. Const. art. VII, § 1, as originally adopted and as printed in the 1929 Compilation, following the 1921 amendment admitting women as electors. The "Indians not taxed" exclusion was removed by later amendment and does not appear in the current text ↩
156. Trujillo v. Garley (D.N.M., 3 August 1948), a three-judge district court; the decision is not in the official reports, and is described in New Mexico Humanities Council, "Miguel Trujillo" (https://newmexicohumanities.org/miguel-trujillo/ : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
157. U.S. Women's Bureau, Final Report (1941), 75–76, topic 32, listing New Mexico among the states in which women were not eligible for jury service. The same Bureau's The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: United States Summary, Cumulative Supplement, 1938–1945, Bulletin no. 157-A (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1946), 10–11, indexes the legislation each state passed in those years and records no New Mexico change touching juries; digital images, FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157_a_dolwb_1946.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026). The qualification statutes cited above each read "male" ↩
158. Women's Bureau, Report for New Mexico (1963), 23, recording that women served on the same terms as men as of 1 October 1962 ↩
159. Las Siete Partidas (1807), 3: Partida 7, tit. 1, ley 9, "De quáles yerros pueden seer acusados los menores et de quáles non"; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lassietepartidas03castuoft : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
160. The ages received with the common law are set out in William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, bk. 4, ch. 2, "Of the Persons Capable of Committing Crimes": an infant under seven cannot be guilty; between seven and fourteen the presumption of incapacity may be rebutted by proof of a mischievous discretion; and above fourteen an infant is as liable as a person of full age. Transcription, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk4ch2.asp : accessed 5 August 2026). Received in New Mexico by Laws of 1876, ch. 2, § 2 ↩
161. Laws of 1917, ch. 4, §§ 1, 5, creating a juvenile court with jurisdiction over children under sixteen and providing that a child found delinquent was adjudged a ward of that court rather than convicted of a crime; page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010433632 : accessed 5 August 2026). For 1917 the volume wanted is the third regular session, which sat from January to March. Sections of the act as amended are printed at New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation, §§ 35-4102, 35-4104, and 35-4107, and the act is traced in State v. Jones, 2010-NMSC-012; Justia (https://law.justia.com/cases/new-mexico/supreme-court/2010/17b2.html : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
162. New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation, § 35-4101, "Definitions," carrying the source note "L. '29, Ch. 74, § 1, amending L. '17, Ch. 4, § 1" ↩
163. In re Santillanes, 1943-NMSC-011, 47 N.M. 140; and see State v. Jones, 2010-NMSC-012, tracing the juvenile code from 1917 ↩
164. State v. McKinley, 1949-NMSC-010, 53 N.M. 106; N.M. Const. art. VI, § 13 ↩
165. Act of 12 January 1852, § 4; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 4, requiring will witnesses to hold the qualifications of witnesses giving evidence in court and setting no age ↩
166. Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Passed by the Legislative Assembly, Session of 1858-9 (Santa Fé: A. de Marle, Public Printer, 1859), ch. XXVI, § 22, approved 3 February 1859, barring any slave and any free Black or mixed-race person from giving evidence against a free white person while allowing them to testify against each other; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1858.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026). Repealed with the rest of the act in the 1861–62 session; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1861.120.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
167. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-fourth Session (Santa Fe: R. W. Webb, 1880), ch. 12, § 1, an act respecting witnesses and evidence; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1880.010.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
168. Laws of 1880, ch. 12, §§ 2–3; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/download/esrp407156220/1880.010.pdf : accessed 5 August 2026) ↩
169. Laws of 1880, ch. 12, § 4 ↩
170. Laws of 1880, ch. 12, § 7, which passed into the Compiled Laws of 1884 as § 2081, the Compiled Laws of 1897 as § 3020, the Code of 1915 as § 2174, the Compiled Statutes of 1929 as § 45-512, the 1941 Compilation as § 20-112, and the 1953 Compilation as § 20-1-12 ↩
171. Laws of 1880, ch. 12, § 8 ↩

Note: This law guide was created with assistance from multiple AI tools. Though a diligent effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, there may be unintentional errors. It's important to check the primary sources as needed to ensure accuracy.