¡Colores!; 801; Santa Fe Trail: With Each Turn of the Wheel; Interview with David J. Weber, #3

Thanks in no small part to the Santa Fe trade. When Pope sent forces to New Mexico, they had a clear path to follow. The forces under General Stephen Watson marched west over the Santa Fe trail, stopped at Ence Fort, located on the American side of the Arkansas River, and then crossed the river basically into the Mexican territory and marched on New Mexico itself, expecting there would be great resistance and finding none. General Armijo, maybe just for the last sentence. Manuel Armijo, who was governor of New Mexico, chose very pragmatically not to try to make a last stand against the Americans and left, leaving his soldiers in some confusion and they themselves and vanished into the face of Carnage's approach so that as New Mexicans liked to say, New Mexico fell without a shot being fired.

But this was by no means the end of the war for New Mexico. American troops seemed to have been very hotty or arrogant in their attitude toward New Mexicans, New Mexicans resented the kind of hostility that they felt from the Americans and there came to be a quiet groundswell of resistance that finally erupted in what is known as the Tows rebellion. And it was actually a bit more widespread than Tows that went down to President De Espanyola and up to Budo and all the way up to Turley's mill at a Royal Hondo above Tows. Americans were killed including Governor Bent and there had to be forces then American forces sent to crush this rebellion. I think we're getting a lot of static here.

Can you put here in that? Somebody's doing this from here? Yeah, they're doing some hammering. That's a betrayal. They don't trade. You can do it and come out from that way. And this is as inclusive as bringing it into how those attitudes that were shaped then affect us now. If you take it anywhere you want, this is really sort of looking at how in that era, if we look at that time frame, and all of these events, how is that shaped, how we perceive ourselves today, how we receive other cultures, the issues of mutual cultural respect. And I don't see much of that. Well, that's one of the things we want to look at is why we're just paying the culture. No, I mean I don't see it having much enduring effect into the 20th century. So I'll disappoint you.

For Americans today, the Santa Fe Trail has a terrific nostalgic pull. There are an incredible number of people who belong to something all the Santa Fe Trail Association and who have reenactments of events and mark the trail. And it's no small wonder that this is the case because this was in a time when it took a good deal of personal courage to travel over that trail through what was really essentially Indian territory into a foreign country into Mexico. And so there's that lure of the exotic and the dangerous that always pulls us toward these moments in time. But on a much more practical level, this trail did help soften New Mexico up for the eventual conquest by the Americans. It brought New Mexico into the economic sphere of the United States. What had been a North South orientation for New Mexico now was an East West orientation. It also brought knowledge of New Mexico to the United States to help further the conquest and in no words that more clear than when General Carney sends an agent into Santa Fe to talk to the governor and the agent is of all things a Santa Fe trader who happens to know the governor personally and who very likely bribe governor or me home to making the decision to leave.

So the Santa Fe trail and has had an immediate impact on American history, I think, of facilitating the conquest of the Southwest. I don't know if I want to push it any further. We could do railroads and stuff. I wouldn't mind talking about that a minute more, spinning that out if you'd like. It's a very contentious issue. Governor Amijo was portrayed by angle Americans early on as being a coward and his own government thought he was rather cowardly and abandoning his defenses in Apache Canyon to leave and allow Cardi through without bloodshed.

In looking at this in a more favorable light, it seems to me that Amijo was trying very hard to defend New Mexico up to the last minute. There are documents that suggest that almost a year before the American conquest, Amijo was making preparations to defend New Mexico. And up to the last minute he was too. He did send forces out there. I think that he was ambivalent. He himself was waiting sizing up the situation and when Cardi finally was on the horizon and we came clear to Amijo how many men that Cardi had. How well are they were and that New Mexico at the same time was surrounded by Indians who were hostile to it and Amijo was fighting with Navajo was fighting with you at the same time. It was important for him to squander his meager resources and lose anyway. He saved a lot of bloodshed I think by making that practical decision.

You can see I'm not ambivalent about this. I think that's my reading. So you don't think he was bright? I think he was just sensible. No, I think he was bright as well. And I think by waiting to the last minute it paid off big time. I probably should have thrown that in. Is there anything that you'd like to add that we haven't talked to? No, as you can see I've been intervening all the way along pushing you in certain directions. So I think you've covered the water from pretty well. Doug, is there anything? No, we haven't touched on that. Only with the black legend. That is the most reproduced article I've ever written. It's even been translated into a town.

Anglo-Americans brought Westward with them as strong bias against Spaniards. They also brought with them a profound racism that was reflected in their attitude toward Indians as well as blacks. And because Mexicans were both Indians and we're also descendants of Spain, children of Hispanic culture, Anglo-Americans tended to look down upon these people as inferior. I think there's a third element in play here too and that is the ethnocenters of many people, not simply Anglo-Americans, but there's a tendency to look at other people and find weaknesses in them in order to exalt yourself. And quite often this takes the form of projecting what is some psychological hang up that you have onto someone else. My favorite one in this respect is the question of Mexicans being lazy. I quote lazy in the eyes of Anglo-Americans. Why? Anglo-Americans, it seems to me, suffered from a hyper-work ethic, one that drove them to an ordinent lack of pleasure in life.

And so when they come across a people who seem to know how to balance work and play, rather than say there's something wrong with me, I need to adjust my work ethic, rather you say there's something wrong with them, they don't know how to work. That's kind of the part of that article. It gets us out of that racism. Room time.