For the "Missions, Texans in NM" thread:

This topic clearly deserves substantial treatment, and perhaps a new look from
a
new generation of scholars.  The idea that there was nothing but harmony and
peace in northern NM, only to be ruined by Texans ("Tejanos," as the vecinos
called them), is both real and constructed.  If one studies the origins of the
word "Tejano," one learns that it meant "arrogant white male from Texas" after
the 1841 "invasion," and was a term used extensively by NM leaders such as
Manuel Armijo (who himself was accused of cutting deals with the US Army of the
West as it came down the Santa Fe Trail).  Texas's claim of the eastern half of
NM in the Compromise of 1850 added to the bad imagery, and the behavior in 1862
of General Sibley's troops marching both north as victors, and south as
vanquished, only made matters worse (the theft of horses, food, and stock that
is studied in NM scholarship also needs to include analysis of the kidnapping
of
women from Hispano villages).

I was struck in my own brief analysis of the federal records in DC that include
the muster rolls of the NM Volunteers that the latter were exclusively Hispano.
The Orders of the Rebellion (OR), which constitute the correspondence of
military commanders in the Civil War, include General Canby's complaints in
early 1862 that Hispanos wanted nothing to do with the advancing rebel force.
Canby wrote that the Hispanos considered this an "Anglo" problem, and to
paraphrase from the title of a famous western history textbook, it was
"America's misfortune and none of their own."  Then Canby conferred with Kit
Carson, whose Hispano connections still have yet to be examined carefully in NM
scholarship, and who told Canby to recast the rebel army as "Tejanos" rather
than Confederates.  The rest, as we say in our business, is "history," and
Canby's final report on Glorieta Pass lauds the Hispano volunteers for their
"extraordinary bravery."  How "Tejano" came in the 20th century to mean
something other than the 19th century NM pejorative term is yet another issue
awaiting study.

There are more details about the NM-Tejano dispute that can be raised, not the
least of them the dislike of northern NM Indian tribes (Pueblos and Bravos
alike) for the raiding techniques of what one might call the "first Tejanos:"
the "Numunu" (the tribe whom the Utes called "Komaantsi," or "the people who
fight us all the time").  North of Espanola and east of El Rito, along the Rio
Grande, is a place called by the Spanish "Canon del Comanche."  When the
nomadic
raiders from the Southern Plains sought relief from the summer heat, as well as
relaxation in the hot tubs around what the Spanish called "Ojo Caliente," they
also were known for raiding Jicarilla camps in search of women (whom, by the
way, they are supposed to have described as a body part, using a term that they
learned from the Jicarilla, or "Nde," language).


Michael Welsh
History Department
University of Northern Colorado

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