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NEW MEXICO Historical/Cultural Geography #4

AMERICAN ERA Geography 325V

Dr. Wright

THE AMERICAN ERA 1848/1854 - to the present

 United States control over New Mexico came

after the Mexican Cession (1848) and the

Gadsden Purchase (1854)

 The current U.S.-Mexico border was established

 But New Mexico would go through more geo-

political unrest, war, and land tenure conflicts

before statehood was granted in 1912

 Territorial Period (1854-1912)

 State of New Mexico (1912-present)

New Mexico’s Legacy of “Lost Land”

 Cultures claimed and lost much of the land

 An Indian world

 Anazazi, Pueblo, Athabaskan – Indian identity

 A Spanish colony

 Hispano identity

 A Mexican Territory

 Nuevo-Mexicano identity

 These cultures continued but, now the

landscape was claimed by the United States

La Llorona The “Weeping Woman” story in Hispanic culture

Why does

she cry?

La Llorona Many versions of the story exist

 Maria fell in love with a wealthy man in

El Paso or Juarez or some other place

 She already has three children

 He doesn’t want the kids and rejects her

 She drowns her children in a river to win his love

 She runs to the man and tells him the children are gone

 He is horrified and rejects her once again

 She commits suicide from guilt and her ghost haunts the river wailing and weeping

 God condemns her spirit to wander the river for eternity searching for the bodies of her dead children

Other versions All about grief for great losses

 Aztec Goddess Cihuacoatl appeared just before

Cortés invaded Mexico in 1519

 She wanders and weeps for the Conquest and all the

losses of Indian people

 La Llorona is sometimes identified with La

Malinche, the Indian woman who was an

interpreter for Cortés and bore him a son

 In this version Cortés abandons her and she weeps for this

loss and her guilt for betraying her own people

La Llorona Park

on the Rio Grande in Mesilla

La Llorona It is more than a story about dead kids

 For Indians: about a lost world

 For Hispanics: about lost homelands

 Hispanos formed a culture in Northern New Mexico

 Spanish ancestry in a New World colony

 Chicanos formed a culture in Southern New Mexico

 Neuvo Mexicano ancestry in a Mexican Territory

 Both would lose most of the land they took from Indians

 But both groups are also Mestizo to some degree

 Mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry

 Their blood contains both the Conqueror and the Conquered

La Llorona and the Border

 The story is now being told about weeping

mothers whose children have crossed the Rio

Grande and come to the United States

 Some versions focus on the U.S. Border Patrol

and the deaths of Mexican migrants along the

U.S.-Mexico border

Death of 15-year old Sergio

Hernandez

 In 2010, Hernandez was shot and killed in Juarez by

Border Patrol agent Jesus Mesa

 Hernandez was playing a game with friends, riding their

bikes across the bed of the Rio Grande, touching the

border fence and riding back

 Some other boys were throwing rocks toward Mesa

 Mesa drew his weapon, took aim, shot Hernandez and

killed him

 Videos show Mesa was in no danger

 Agent Mesa received no punishment

 No charges were filed

The American Era in New Mexico

 Territorial Period: 1848-1912

 New Mexico’s borders changed several times

 Land grants were mostly lost by Hispanos

 Anger and poverty remain major issues

 NM was invaded by Texas during the Civil War

 Ranching spread and Billy the Kid ran from the law

 Albuquerque became New Mexico’s major city

 Las Cruces grew when the railroad came in 1881

 Mesilla rejected the railroad and stopped growing

 Tortugas Pueblo created in 1900

 Next to NMSU campus

The American Era in New Mexico  Statehood Period: 1912-present

 Statehood finally achieved despite racism in Washington, DC

 Santa Fe became an artist colony and mythical place

 Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, NM in 1916

 And unwittingly helped the U.S. win World War I

 World War II reshaped New Mexico’s economy

 Los Alamos National Lab and the Manhattan Project

 Sandia Lab and White Sands Missile Range

 Rapid population growth after World War II

 High fertility, Sunbelt growth, immigration from Mexico

 Intel Computer plant near Albuquerque stimulates growth

 Las Cruces became second largest city in New Mexico

 Water shortages begin statewide

 U.S.-Mexico Border issues intensify

 NAFTA and border policies

The American Era  American control would be tenuous at first

 For many people in New Mexico, life would not change

much in those first few years

 New Mexico was still isolated from power

 2,500 miles from Washington D.C.

 Mexico City had only been 1,500 miles away

BUT, conflicts between local people

and Washington over land tenure

would become intense and long-lasting

WASHINGTON, DC

NM

MEXICO CITY

SPAIN

Back to the

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

 One article of that treaty still has a

profound impact on modern New Mexico

 It remains a bitter source of conflict, anger,

and even violence, especially in Northern

New Mexico

Article 8 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

“In said territories, property of every kind,

now belonging to Mexicans shall be

inviolably respected. The present owners,

the heirs of these, and all Mexicans who

may hereafter acquire said property by

contract, shall enjoy with respect to it,

guarantees equally ample as if the same

belonged to citizens of the United States.”

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

 Article 8 said that existing land ownership would

be honored but most land grants were not

honored by American courts

 Only 4 million acres of 33 million acres of land

grants were retained by Indians and Hispanos

 This is a major driver of land tenure conflict to

this day

 Tierra o muerte – “Land or death” is the motto of many

Hispanos in Northern New Mexico

What did the U.S. do

about land grant claims?

 Indian Pueblo grants were generally kept

 U.S. government was used to dealing with Indian

Reservations

 Suertes were held on to by Hispanos

 Small farm plots in villages were retained for

subsistence food production

 This was only enough land to keep rural people

fed but in poverty

Much of the remaining land grant

acreage was lost over the next 50 years

 Why?

 Money

 U.S. wanted richest lands and natural resources

for Anglo people

 Racism

 Anglos felt Hispanos were backward and not

making commercial use of the land

 Arrogance

 “Manifest Destiny” - Americans believed their

actions were supported by God

How was the land taken?

 Lawyers, guns, and money

 Inexact and incomplete land grant records

 No land grant boundary surveys

 Verbal descriptions used

 Long-lots were split by families in informal ways

 The ejidos – U.S. did not legally recognize land

held as a “commons”

 Despite existence of “Boston Common”

 Illegal acts, bribes, threats, and violence

 By both Anglos and Hispano wealthy people (ricos)

U.S. Surveyor General’s Office

1854-1891

 Created to review land grant claims of Hispanos

and Indians

 Director William Pelham

 His job was to approve Indian claims and delay as

much of the rest as he could

 Result

 Only 46 of 180 land grant claims were approved and

“patented” (land title given)

 Most of these were Indian Pueblo grants or small

private claims

 Millions of acres (the best lands) were left in limbo

Court of Private Land Claims

1891-1900

 Created to “solve the land grant question”

 Vast corruption occurred

 Theft of land grants grew gigantic

 Court of Private Land Claims confirmed only 82 of 282 land grant requests

 It reduced the size of most grants it did confirm

 Thomas Catron’s “Santa Fe Ring”

 Catron appointed a United States Attorney

 He and his conspirators acquired 34 land grants totaling more than 3 million acres

 Catron was largest private landowner in New Mexico

Thomas Catron “The Santa Fe Ring”

Catron Block On the Santa Fe Plaza

Was there any legal basis for this?

 Sandoval Decision (1897) played a big role

 U.S. Supreme Court ruled that ejidos were not held in

common by land grant communities in New Mexico

 Ruled instead that they were tierras realengas y baldías

(“Royal Vacant Lands”)

 With this decision, ownership of ejido lands

transferred to the United States government and

became U.S. Forest Service or BLM land

 This is the basis for intense anger among Hispanos of

Northern New Mexico that continues to this day

Many Town, Individual, and Pueblo

grants did not severely suffer

 BUT - impact on Community Land Grants

was immense and most lost their ejido  San Miguel del Vado Grant (Pecos River)

 Shrunk from 315,200 acres to 5,024 acres

 Petaca Grant

 187,000 acres to 1,392

 San Antonio Grant

 130,000 acres to 4,793 acres

 Cienguilla Grant

 44,000 acres to 0 acres

 Corpus Cristo Grant

 697,000 acres to 0 acres

Land was lost in many other ways

 Direct theft “Quiet Title Actions”  Filed in English in newspapers

 Hispanos had to sell the land to pay lawyers for “settling the matter” - even when they lost

 Property taxes  Can’t pay taxes, must sell the land

 Threats of violence were common

 Fracturing of ejidos  One villager bribed by speculator to sue for “his share” -

communal ownership was destroyed and grants fell apart

 U.S. claimed that some grants were Individual and not Community grants, therefore no ejido

Result of land grant chaos

1854-1900

 Only about 4 million of 33 million acres

was retained by Indians and Hispanos

 The remaining land went to:

 Anglo speculators and real estate companies

 Ranchers and homesteaders

 Federal government

 U.S. Forest Service

 Bureau of Land Management

 State of New Mexico

Federal

and

State

Land

Tierra Amarilla Land Grant Story

• 594,515 acre Community grant – 1832 – Fully confirmed by Surveyor General – 1860

• Manuel Martínez collaborated with Thomas Catron’s Santa Fe Ring to break up the grant

• Pushed by Catron, courts ruled that this was not a Community Land Grant but an Individual Land Grant – Martinez and others sold land to Catron because of fear and

inability to pay property taxes

• By 1883 all but a small area was owned by Catron – Most eventually became part of U.S. Forest Service or

owned by Anglo ranchers

– Rio Arriba County remains one of the poorest counties in New Mexico and the United States

Rio Arriba

County

Doña Ana

County

Land Grants A Major Land Tenure Conflict

Is the matter settled?

 Perhaps, but it does not appear so

 Land tenure (ownership) patterns always

change over the centuries

 And in New Mexico, people have very long

memories about losing land

Reies Lopez Tijerina (1967) Led an uprising over lost Tierra Amarilla Land Grant

Tijerina:

Land grant radical

Tijerina

getting gas

to

burn down

U.S. Forest

Service

sign

Tierra Amarilla

Courthouse Raid 1967

 Alianza Federal de Mercedes

 “Federal Alliance of Land Grants”

 Tijerina was leading a meeting in Coyote, NM

 Raided by police: 11 Alianza members arrested

 Tijerina was not captured and he led an armed

raid to free them from the Rio Arriba County

courthouse

 Two policemen shot and Tijerina took two hostages

 Alianza prisoners freed

Rio Arriba County Courthouse

Tierra Amarilla, NM

Largest manhunt in NM history

 National Guard: tanks, helicopters, heavy arms

 Marshall Law declared

 Sheriffs and FBI fan out to find Tijerina

 Tijerina surrenders and is convicted of assault

 Served two years in prison, part of it in La Tuna

Prison south of Las Cruces

 YouTube – Tierra Amarilla Courthouse Raid

Tijerina today

Tijerina in 2012 with Brown Berets Chicano radicals

Robert Redford’s

movie based on these events

Tierra Amarilla – 2013

“Land or Death”

But how do Indian people feel about

Hispano anger over “lost land?”

Rio Arriba County Stats

• 39% Federal Land – 5% State land

– 24% Indian land

– 32% Private - little is owned by Hispanos

• 73% Hispanic – 56% speak Spanish at home

• Third poorest county in New Mexico – 21% live below the poverty line

• Highest heroin overdose death rate of any U.S. county – NM has highest U.S. rate, Rio Arriba highest in NM

Rio Arriba County

Comprehensive Plan - 2008

County Vision: “Restoration of our land grants will sustain us

and our families and agriculture will protect

our precious water by adopting and invoking

the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. We will

move forward to a future where ourselves

and our children and our grandchildren can

find their own path, perhaps along an

acequia and feel the sense of place we have

today.”

Ganados del Valle “Livestock raisers of the valley” (formed in 1985)

 Sheep raising and weaving organization in Los

Ojos, Rio Arriba County

 At first sought restoration of the Tierra Amarilla

land grant

 Had no access to Federal grazing leases for flocks

 Now, focusing on business: sell weavings, lamb,

wool, crafts

 Bought 196-acre Ancones Ranch to raise hay for sheep

 New Mexico Land Conservancy project

Tierra Wools Store

Los Ojos, NM

Ancones Ranch

Rio Chama

New Mexico’s political geography

during the Territorial Period

 New Mexico Territory boundaries were

often moved based on changes in political

influence

 The idea of “New Mexico” was flexible and

its final shape was far from settled

New Mexico Territory: 1852 NM Counties extended from Texas to California

Butterfield Overland Mail

1857-1861

NM’s major connection to the outside world until the telegraph

New Mexico was remote

and vulnerable to attack

 Not from Indians

 Not from Mexico (mostly)

 But from an emerging separatist country

WHAT IS THE NAME OF THAT COUNTRY?

Civil War Era Political Loyalties

• USA

– No slavery

– Slavery

• Confederate

States of

America

– Slavery

Civil War Era New Mexico allowed slavery

 1856

 New Mexico curtailed the rights of free Blacks

 1859

 New Mexico made it illegal to help slaves escape

 But New Mexico was passively loyal to the

Union because it feared Texas (and

Mexico)

Civil War Era Conflicts

 Texas captured caravans on Santa Fe Trail

 New Mexico responded by capturing Texas

soldiers and executing most of them

 Civil War begins and New Mexico is

seen as a prize to the Confederacy  Mesilla Valley farmlands

 Potential Transcontinental Railroad route

 Route to Pacific Coast harbors and global trade

Texas Confederate Army Invades

New Mexico in 1861

 Lieutenant John Baylor led 254 soldiers in the

capture of Fort Fillmore (near Las Cruces)

 Mesilla became the capital of the Arizona Territory,

Confederate States of America

 General Sibley then led a force of 3,700

Confederate soldiers north along the Rio Grande

to Fort Craig (Valverde)

Baylor Pass Trail

Organ Mountains

Southern NM became the Arizona

Territory of the Confederacy

New Mexico

Civil War Battlefields

Battle of Valverde New Mexico, 1862

 Confederates won  36 dead, 150 wounded

 Union Army lost  68 killed, 160 wounded

Confederate States “The South” during the Civil War

Confederate Army Moves North

 Captured Albuquerque and Santa Fe

 NM Territorial gov’t fled to Las Vegas, NM

 Sibley is close to capturing all of NM

 From there he planned to capture Colorado

and then move on to California to establish a

Pacific sea coast for the Confederacy

 But, Lt. Manuel Chavez, a New Mexican loyal the

U.S. had other ideas

Battle of Glorieta Pass March, 1862

 Union – 850 soldiers

 Confederacy – 1,200 soldiers

 A fierce fight  Artillery, cavalry, infantry, sharpshooters (snipers),

bayonet charges, hand to hand with pistols and knives

 Both sides lost about the same number of men

 Union thought they had lost or a best had a draw

 But Lt. Manuel Chavez had destroyed the Confederate supply wagon train and the “Rebs” found themselves isolated on bad ground

Santa Fe Glorieta Pass

Battle of Glorieta Pass

Sharpshooter’s Ridge

Battle of Glorieta Pass

“Terrain Bottleneck”

Battle of Glorieta Pass

 “Gettysburg of the West”  First defeat for Confederacy in the West

 Confederate Army retreated from NM

 General Sibley’s Army was down to 1,500 men from

3,700 (death, disease, desertion)

 Mesilla and NM was abandoned by Confederacy

 July, 1862

 The South’s dream of a transcontinental

railroad and a Pacific Coast for their

country was dead

1867

Ranching expanded after the Civil War

Goodnight-Loving Trail

 Texans Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving

 Huge cattle drives from Texas and New Mexico

north to Wyoming and Montana

 Meat for railroad crews, mining camps, feedlots

at railroad lines, and to sell to people coming

West to ranch

 Ranching spread across New Mexico

How “Western” is Ranching?

 Horses and cattle are from Eurasia

 Hay and alfalfa are European species

 Saddles and tack are Mexican

 Food is global: beans, bacon, coffee,

biscuits, whiskey

 Music is a mix of Mexican and Scots-Irish

 Ranching is influenced by Anglo-Saxon,

Spanish, Mexican, African, and Mongolian

herding techniques

Classic “Western” Landscape traits

 Wheat and other grains: Eurasian species

 Trout: European species

 Barbed wire: Ohio

 Religion: Middle East

 Guns – Eastern U.S.

 Colt: Connecticut

 Winchester: New York

 Smith and Wesson: Massachusetts

Where are some famous

“Westerners” from?

 Kit Carson

 Kentucky

 Jesse James

 Missouri

 Billy the Kid

 New York City

 Calamity Jane

 Indiana

 Frederick Remington

 New York

 Wild Bill Hickok

 Illinois

 Bat Masterson

 Illinois

 Jim Bridger

 Virginia

 Zane Grey

 Ohio

 Wyatt Earp

 California

Who were the cowboys?

 25% Hispanic

 Some had strong Indian ancestry

 25% African American

 50% Anglo

Vaqueros Hispanic cowboys

Ranching became Western

 A strong culture

 A major but tenuous economic sector

 A massive use of the landscape

 Honored but hated

 Stressed-out but resilient

 Ranching has always faced many challenges  Drought

 Bad cattle prices

 Hard work

 Government laws and policies

 Cattle rustling (stealing)

Two great books

on ranching in the West

• “Let the Cowboy Ride”

– By Paul Starrs

• “North American Cattle-Ranching Frontiers”

– By Terry Jordan

Billy the Kid (1859-1881) Legends are hard to nail down

 Born Henry McCarty, 1859 in New York City

 William H. Bonney was an alias

 “Billy the Kid” was a mythical name

 Lincoln County War, New Mexico – 1878

 Two groups vied for land, power, and money

 Kid worked for John Tunstall (who was killed) by rivals

 The Kid joins “the Regulators” to get justice

 Sheriff Brady killed and the Kid is blamed

 The Kid runs off, turns to cattle rustling and gambling

 Murdered two men in saloons, one in Fort Sumner, NM

Pat Garrett Elected Sheriff of Lincoln County

 1880 – Garrett formed a posse, tracked down,

and arrested the Kid ($500 bounty on his head)

 Billy the Kid taken to Mesilla for trial

 Sentenced to hang

 Moved to Lincoln, NM jail

 Escaped after killing two guards and a deputy

 “Hello Bob” – then blasted him with a shotgun

 The Kid made a run for it

Former Mesilla Courthouse

Sheriff Pat Garrett tracked down The Kid

 On the Maxwell Land Grant in Northern NM

 Pedro Maxwell and The Kid were friends

 Garrett is questioning Maxwell - The Kid hears talking

and walks in from another room asking “Quien es?” –

“Who is it?”

 Garrett shoots The Kid in the chest and kills him

 The Kid is buried in a grave in Fort Sumner, NM

 He was 22 years old when he died

Two opposite myths

about The Kid

 Murdering, cattle rustling, no good, psycho

 He killed between 4 and 5 men (not 20)

 Misunderstood defender of Hispanic rights

 He spoke Spanish and was accepted by Hispanics because he fought powerful Anglos and urged them to

take back their land and water

 But was that the end of the legend?

John Miller 1938 Claimed to be The Kid

Brushy Bill

Roberts:

1950

Claimed to

be The Kid

Hollywood

loves

myths

Pat Garrett became prominent

• Sheriff of Doña Ana

County

– Married Apolinaria

Gutierrez, 9 kids

Murder of Albert Fountain - 1896

 Prominent Mesilla attorney travelling back from

Alamogordo with his 8 year old son, Henry

 Disappeared and presumed murdered

 Fountain had indictments against cattle rustlers

 Oliver Lee (a prominent Otero County businessman

and rancher) was believed involved in rustling and in

the murders

 Lee and associate James Gilliland were tried in

Hillsboro for the murder of the boy and acquitted

 Sheriff Pat Garrett kept investigating the case

The old wagon road (In the White Sands Missile Range)

Fountain Theatre, Mesilla

Pat Garrett is murdered in 1908  Shot dead near Las Cruces on the East Mesa

 On a wagon road near Garrett’s ranch

 A man named Brazel was charged: he worked for W.W. Cox, a

wealthy rancher

 Cox Ranch is what many local people still call the Dripping Springs hiking

area

 Garrett was deeply in debt to Cox and agreed to lease his ranch to

him for cattle grazing

 BUT - Cox turned 1,000 goats loose onto the ranch instead of cows

 Garrett and Brazel were riding together in a wagon, arguing about

the goats and money

 It is said that when Garrett stopped to pee, Brazel shot him in the

head from behind

 Many believe Garrett was really killed because of Cox’s involvement

in the Albert Fountain murder

Old stage

road where

Garrett was

murdered

Las Cruces surpasses Mesilla

 Mesilla had been the regional focal point since its

founding in the 1850s

 But the valley was an irrigated farming district with little

connection to the outside world

 Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad tried to strike a

deal with Mesilla to bring the railroad there since it was

the county seat

 The company wanted free land for a depot and the rail

line - Mesilla refused

 Las Cruces gave the railroad everything they asked for

 1881 – the railroad steamed into Las Cruces in the

Pioneer Park neighborhood west of downtown

Las Cruces

Pioneer Park

Mesquite

District

Downtown

Pioneer Park

Railroad

Depot

“Growth follows infrastructure”

 Mesilla

 1880 population: 2,500

 2013 population: 2,500

 Las Cruces

 1880 population: 2,300

 2013 population: 101,000

 Dona Ana County: 200,000

Tortugas Pueblo

 1852 - Settled by Indian people from El Paso who had gathered around the missions there

 Not “officially” recognized by U.S. government

 Since 1910 in present site

 Tortugas people have diverse ancestry

 Isleta, Manso, Janos, Tompiro, Spain, Mexico

 Tortugas is an “Intentional Community”

 Self-identify in many ways, no rigid requirements

 Indian, Chicano, Mexican, American

 Tortugas culture is “syncretic” – mixed influences

 Spanish, Indian, Aztec, Moor

 Catholicism and indigenous practices merged

Tortugas Pueblo

Tortugas Pueblo Core

Tortugas Pueblo,

Las Cruces (next to NMSU campus)

Tortugas Pueblo, 1910

Danzante Prayer to

La Virgen de Guadalupe

La Virgen

de

Guadalupe

Patron

saint

of Mexico (Origin

in

Spain)

Chichimeca Dancers Indian nation from Mexico

Matachines “Soldiers of the Virgin”

Tortugas

Pueblo

• Symposium

and dances

March 6th, 2010

“Los Comanches

de los Ranchos

de Taos

“An Hispanicized Native

American Cultural

Tradition”

Genizaros

LaDonna

Harris

Comanche

Nation

• Founder

“Americans

for

Indian

Opportunity”

With

Presidential

Candidate,

Senator

Hubert

Humphrey

With Shirley Chisholm

First Black person to run for President

With Sargent Shriver Founder of the Peace Corps

Procession to the church in Tortugas

Tortugas Pueblo Dances

Tortugas Indians and Comanchitos

Comanchitos “Dance of the Captives”

Indian

Hispano

Mexican

Spanish

traditions

merge

“Friendship Circle Dance”

New Mexico Statehood 1912

 NM was ready to be a state in the 1860s

 Population 70,000: wanted statehood, willing to write a Constitution

 NM statehood was delayed until 1912 because:

 Anti-Hispanic, anti-Indian, anti-Catholic bigotry

 NM viewed as “Southern” – especially with its Civil War history

 NM viewed as corrupt because of Thomas Catron’s “Santa Fe Ring”

grab of land grant property

 Land grant anger made NM look unstable and dangerous

 “Wild West” reputation: Billy the Kid, range wars, murders

 Remoteness from Washington, DC

 Location on the Mexican Border

 NM Territory served as a buffer between Anglo America and Latin America

 Many back East believed it was best to leave it as a Territory

Progression of U. S. Territories

becoming States

Rep. Mason Tappan, R-NH

Congressional Globe, Feb 6, 1861

“There are other and all sufficient reasons, outside of the slavery question, why New Mexico ought not to be admitted as a State. Her system of peonage, or ‘white slavery,’ the paucity of her white inhabitants; the mongrel character of the mass of her people; and their entire unfitness to be incorporated into the Union… are enough to deter me from voting for this measure.”

Harper’s Weekly, 1876

“The proposition of the admission of New Mexico as a State … [to have] a community almost without the characteristic and indispensable qualities of an American State— [and which] shall have a representation in the national Senate as large as New York, and in the House shall be equal to Delaware. It is virtually an ignorant foreign community under the influence of the Roman Church, and neither for the advantage of the Union nor for its own benefit can such an addition to the family of American States be urged.”

New Mexico’s first Territorial Capitol building

Palace of the Governor’s in Santa Fe

Seen by Easterner’s as “Too Mexican”

1900 N.M. State Capitol Trying to look more Anglo

Several attempts at Statehood

 1906: a proposal was made to form a state

combining Arizona and New Mexico

Territories

 But, then and now, these two places are

very different ethnically and politically

 Can you name some differences between

these two states today?

Anglo Flier Against Union of Arizona

and New Mexico

Feb. 12, 1906

“The decided racial difference between the people of New Mexico, who are not only different in race and largely in language, but have entirely different customs, laws and ideals and would have but little prospect of successful amalgamation ... [and] the objection of the people of Arizona, 95 percent of whom are Americans, to the probability of the control of public affairs by people of a different race, many of whom do not speak the English language, and who outnumber the people of Arizona two to one.”

Arizona

shown as

Anglo and

refined

NM shown as

racist

caricature

of “lazy

Mexican”

Joint Statehood vote, 1906 Arizona rejected it, NM was too “Mexican”

New Yorkers saw little difference

Finally, a deal was struck

 New Mexico overcame political resistance

 Excellent service during the Civil War and in the military

since overcame opposition to some degree

 NM’s “Wild West” past was now considered quaint and

colorful: silent movies and dime novels

 The Mexican Revolution was underway and the country

needed New Mexico as more than a buffer – as a place for

military bases for greater control of the Border

 New Mexico wrote a Constitution acceptable to DC

 And one last thing was used to overcome racism

and bigotry back East – what was it?

“Tri-Cultural New Mexico”

 This narrative was created to successfully

overcome the view that New Mexicans were

mixed-race which was viewed as “miscegenation”

 “Tri-Cultural” was designed to say “yes, we have

Indians and Mexicans here, but they live separately

from Anglos.”

 America in early 1900s was a racist country

 In the South, “Jim Crow” laws prevented race mixing

 But the truth was (and is) that most New Mexican’s

have diverse ancestries and we are special for it

 Spanish, Indian, Hispano, Mexicano, Anglo and more

“Race” is an elusive concept It is never this simple

President Taft signing the NM

Statehood Bill (1/6/1912) “I am glad to give you life, I hope you will be healthy.”

New Mexico was a state

and 39 days later so was Arizona

With

Statehood,

NM was

suddenly

portrayed

as Anglo

The Ironies of Time

• In the past, New Mexico was seen as

“too ethnic”

• Today, New Mexico already is what

America is becoming

– NM is a “majority minority state”

– 2010 Census: majority of babies are born

in U.S. are in minority households.

– U.S. projected to be a “Majority Minority”

country by the year 2050

New Mexico’s Flag Zia Pueblo Sun Symbol

But, the design came from an Anglo

• Archeologist, Dr. Harry Mera won a contest, 1925

– Red and yellow: colors of the Spanish Empire

– Zia Circle of Life: “friendship among cultures”

The American Era in New

Mexico  Statehood Period: 1912-present

 Statehood finally achieved despite racism in Washington, DC

 Santa Fe became an artist colony and mythical place

 Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, NM in 1916

 And unwittingly helped the U.S. win World War I

 World War II reshaped New Mexico’s economy

 Los Alamos National Lab and the Manhattan Project

 Sandia Lab and White Sands Missile Range

 Rapid population growth after World War II

 High fertility, Sunbelt growth, immigration from Mexico

 Intel Computer plant near Albuquerque stimulates growth

 Las Cruces became second largest city in New Mexico

 Water shortages begin statewide

 U.S.-Mexico Border issues intensify

 NAFTA and border policies

New Mexico statehood

 Happened during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and

just before World War I (1914-1918)

 Mexico was in chaos

 Pancho Villa led forces against the Mexican government in

northern Mexico

 Emiliano Zapata lead rebels in southern Mexico

 Europe was at war – World War I

 The United States would not enter until near the end – 1917

 Strange events in New Mexico would be vital for the U.S.

and its allies in defeating Germany during WWI

Pancho Villa’s Columbus NM Raid March 9th, 1916

 485 Villistas attacked

 18 Americans killed, many wounded

 Columbus partly burned and looted

 Why did Pancho Villa attack New Mexico/USA?

Villa and his Villistas

PANCHO VILLA’S RAID

Events leading up to the raid

 U.S. colonialism in Cuba, Panama, Nicaragua

 U.S. sailors jailed in Mexico

 German ships were bringing arms to Mexico and U.S. feared they would be used to attack America

 U.S. recognized Carranza as President of Mexico

not Pancho Villa

 Villa was very angry at the U.S.

Mexican Revolution Border Tension

 “Plan de San Diego” Mexican radicals  Aztlán rallying cry - take back all lands lost to U.S. and

kill all Anglo men  Aztlán – what some call the Mexican “lost homeland” in U.S.

 Mexican radicals under direction of Mexican President Carranza tried to cause a race war by pitting U.S. citizens (Mexicans, Indians, Blacks, Japanese) against U.S. government  “We’ll give land to you when our revolution succeeds”

 Germany funded these raids into America  27 raids, 60 Americans killed or wounded

 Texas Rangers and U.S. Army fought these raiders

 Germany wanted to keep U.S. distracted and out of World War I

How did the U.S. respond to this

Mexican plan to take back land?

In response,

Pancho Villa attacks New Mexico

Columbus, NM after the raid

General John “Blackjack” Pershing

Pershing gathers 6,000 U.S. soldiers for the

“Punitive Expedition” to invade Mexico and kill Villa

Mechanized Warfare for the 1st Time

Punitive Expedition in Mexico

Pershing Tank

Villa never seen, never captured

 “Zimmerman Note”

 Secret German offer to return all “Mexican Land lost to the

United States” if Mexico would be Germany’s ally in World

War I

 Mexico refused: U.S.-Mexico relations improved

 U.S. forces withdrew from Mexico in Jan, 1917

 Villa never captured

 Mexican Revolution ends in 1920

 Villa became a successful rancher on a large hacienda

“The Punitive Expedition” A Reunion after WWI

Punitive Expedition provided

military training for World War I

 Blackjack Pershing and George Patton

applied lessons of mechanized warfare to

defeat Germany

World War I The first major mechanized war

General George Patton:

learned tactics in Mexico

WWII – Patton leads Battle of the

Bulge against Germany

Did Pancho Villa unknowingly

help the U.S. win WWI and WWII?

Villa murdered in 1923

for opposing Mexican government?

Villa died from dozens of bullets

World War II would begin to transform

New Mexico’s economy

 Los Alamos National Laboratory

 Almost 12,000 jobs today, Department of Energy

 Nuclear weapons development and more

 Sandia National Laboratory

 8,000 jobs today, Lockheed Martin

 Nuclear and other research

 White Sands Missile Range

 4,000 jobs today

 Missile testing – Department of Defense

Manhattan Project: 1942-1945

 GOAL: develop the first atomic bomb

 130,000 scientists and workers

 U.S., England, Canada project

 $2 billion (equal to $26 billion today)

 90% of cost was building factories and

producing fissionable materials

 Uranium-235

 10% spent on development and production of

atomic bombs

Los Alamos, New Mexico

 Top-secret research facility during the

Manhattan Project and to this day

 The remote Pajarito Plateau northeast of

Santa Fe was chosen as the site

 It was isolated and the topography made it

easy to defend and keep the project secret

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Manhattan Project

 Robert Oppenheimer in charge of weapon

development

 UC Berkeley physicist

 Had gone to summer camp on the Pajarito Plateau

as a boy, remembered its isolation, it would be

easy to keep secrets there.

 Colonel Leslie Groves in charge of general

operations and security

Oppenheimer and Einstein

The first

atomic

bombs

developed

at

Los

Alamos, NM

New Mexico has lots of space

and lots of Federal Land:

perfect for an atomic test

“Trinity Site” chosen

for the test

“The Gadget” being deployed

Trinity Site, 1945

Oppenheimer

and Groves

after the

Trinity test

Operation Downfall Plan for invasion of Japan in 1946

Estimated U.S. losses

for the invasion of Japan

250,000 – 500,000 killed

2 million wounded

• U.S. losses for WWII worldwide – 416,800 killed (0.3% of total U.S. population)

• Japan’s losses for WWII worldwide – 3 million killed (4% of total Japanese population)

– 2.1 million of them were soldiers

U.S. used

atomic bombs

developed in

NM instead of

invading: 1945

Atomic bombs dropped

• August 6th, 1945: bomb dropped on

Hiroshima

– The Japanese did not surrender – Bushido Code

• August 9th, 1945: a second bomb dropped

on Nagasaki

• August 15th, 1945; Japans surrenders

unconditionally

Hiroshima, Japan

Atomic bomb testing continued

after WWII

 Nevada

 Micronesia

 Islands in the South Pacific

 New Mexico would never be nuked again

 But, the United States nuclear weapons

program was in New Mexico to stay

Trinity Site Monument today

Atomic tourists

White Sands

Missile Range

Nuclear America

Following Statehood

 July 16th, 1945 – Atomic bomb test at

Trinity Site near Las Cruces

 Does New Mexico enter the “Modern

World” or resist growth and change?

Religion in the Landscape

“The Shrine” video

 El Santuario de Chimayo

 Folk church built in 1800s

 Largest religious pilgrimage in North America

 A place of miracles (milagros)

 Los Hermanos Penitentes

 A lay Catholic religious “penitent brotherhood”

 Local men perform Mass and rites

 Moradas – meeting houses

 Mock crucifixions, self flagellation

Southern New Mexico

 El Camino Real passed through Southern New Mexico  Spain saw no souls to save, no timber, minerals, little

water, hot and Chihuahuan Desert

 La Jornada del Muerto portion of the Royal Road  “The Journey of Death”

 Chicano Homeland and Aztlán  Southern NM is more connected to Mexican history than

Spanish

 Anglo presence came relatively recently outside of the Pecos Valley

 Very little land grant turmoil compared to the north

 But Border issues are much more relevant

Southern New Mexico

Human Geography

 Indian

 Mescalero Apache Reservation, Tortugas Pueblo, Mexican Indian nations have connections

 Chicano

 A Homeland

 Aztlán narrative important to some

 Anglo

 A Homeland

 Traders, ranchers, farmers, business people

Land Grants

Notice the pattern

of NM cities and

towns

Mesilla Valley Farms or houses?

Land

Tenure

Very

little

private

land

Bureau of Land Management

How will BLM be managed in the future?

La Frontera U.S./Mexico Border

 A wall or a zone of interchange?

Chicanos and Identity A Chicano Homeland

 How do people self-identify and what does it mean?

 Chicano

 Mexican

 Mexicano

 Nuevo Mexicano

 Latino

 Hispanic

 A hyphen-American (Mexican-American, etc.)

 American

The Southern New Mexico divide

 Southwest New Mexico is strongly Chicano

 Catholic and mostly Democrat

 Southeast New Mexico is strongly Anglo

 Baptist, Methodist, and mostly Republican

 Culturally similar to West Texas

 Oil and gas, ranches, farms

 Pecos River Valley and Great Plains area of NM

Aztlán Narrative

 Is Aztlán a real or imagined utopia?

 Aztec stories of perfect place north of Mexico

City

 Source of seven tribes that formed Mexico

 1581 – Father Diego Duran

 Aztlán is a place without disease or hunger

 El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán – 1969

 Liberation – central theme of Chicano Aztlán narrative

 Get the land back after Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

 “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.”

The Border Fence

USA Mexico

Various views

Minutemen Group building fence

Chinese attempt

Soviet Union Attempt The Berlin Wall

Israeli attempt

Roman attempt Hadrian’s Wall in Scotland

Scots chase out the Romans

North American Free Trade

Agreement (NAFTA) Zone

GDP PER CAPITA ALONG THE US-MEXICAN BORDER

NAFTA Job Impacts??

• Mexico gains manufacturing jobs

750,000 – 1.6 million

75% of Mexican imports are bought from U.S.

• U.S. loses manufacturing jobs

275,000 – 1.1 million

U.S. shifts to lower paying service jobs

85% of Mexican exports are bought in U.S.

Border Crossers Caught 1 month

12-20 million “Illegal Mexicans” Most are recent arrivals

Remittance Checks to Mexico

A climate of fear

Mexican Drug Cartels

Narco

Murders

Juarez

• 1960 – 100,000 people

• 2013 – 1.5 million (estimate)

• Colonias: Shantytowns

– Migrants from central Mexico seeking work

– When there is none, some enter the U.S. illegally

• Violence

– 6,000 murders in Mexico in 2008, 1,600 in Juarez

– Drug cartels competing for turf

– Femicides – at least 370 women raped & murdered

Narcotraficantes The Drug Lords

• Drug trade – Juarez a major smuggling center

– War on Drugs

– War for Drug turf

• 2008 – extreme violence

– Entire Tijuana police fired for corruption

– 25 murders in Juarez over Memorial Day weekend

– 14 murders in Palomas in spring 2008

The Pink Store: Palomas, Mexico Murders in broad daylight, 2008

Near this statue of Pancho Villa

Femicides Hundreds of unsolved murders

Border Wall

Crossing the Wall

Colombian Drug Submarines

Smuggling Subs

La Frontera Is it a wall or a zone of exchange?

• NAFTA – we want an open border

• The Wall – we want a closed border

• Tough to do both

Some geographies

of what might have happened

Some that never will

WHOSE

NEW

MEXICO

IS IT?

New Mexico is a Post-Colonial Landscape A place of grief and anger about “lost land”

 Cycles of Conflict help explain this place

 New Mexico has been claimed and “lost” by many groups

 “Doctrine of First Effective Settlement”

does not yet apply

 Indians, Spanish, Mexicans, Chicanos, Hispanos, and

Anglos have all claimed this landscape

 But no single story about the land (“Narrative” or

“Geographic Thought”) has prevailed

 New Mexico’s history creates both cultural diversity and

vitality as well as a lack of shared vision of the future

Cycles of Conflict

• Each “group” in New Mexico feels strong emotions about whose place this is

– Frustration, sadness, grief, rage

• Each has a sense that they are not really known

– That their values, culture, customs, and history are not respected

• Each has claims on the land and legitimate grievances about past losses and current threats

– These claims get layered one on top of the next and are difficult to sort out

Land Tenure Really Matters

• New Mexican’s live in very different realities about: whose land it is, whose land it was, what we should use the land for, and who decides?

• These realities were created by a series of historic events that we’re still responding to

• New Mexico is a Post-Colonial landscape

• Historical geography helps but does not fully explain the state’s poverty, crime, lack of educational achievement, and difficulty in charting a common course forward

New Mexico’s Challenge

• Take reasonable and practical steps to resolve our land tenure history not ignore it

• Commit to a plain idea: Indians, Hispanics, Anglos and others deserve a fair shot at working hard and taking personal responsibility for making a good life

• Find the “sensible center” of issues instead of staking out extremist positions on race, grazing, timber, water, minerals, education, taxes, border policies, and land ownership

• Remain proud of our ancestry, culture, faith, and beliefs while working with others to create a prosperous, decent, and shared state

Wangari Maathai

Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner for

the “Greenbelt Movement”

Planted trees on millions of acres

Wangari Maathai The Challenge for Africa -page 5

“While colonialism was devastating in Africa, it has become a convenient scapegoat for

conflicts, warlordism, corruption, poverty

dependence, and mismanagement of the

region. Africa cannot continue to blame her

failed institutions, collapsed infrastructure,

unemployment, drug use, and refugee crises

on colonialism; but neither can these issues

be understood fully without acknowledging

the fact of Africa’s past.”