On Saturday, March 20, 1830, former New Mexico Governor Antonio Narbona died in Arizpe, Sonora, Mexico.

A well-traveled and educated man, Narbona was born in 1773 at Mobile, in what is now Alabama, when it was still under Spanish control. He left when he was sixteen, heading to Santa Cruz, where he was a cadet in the army and a protégé of the company Commandant, who also happened to be his brother-in-law.

Narbona rose steadily through the ranks and had made lieutenant by 1804, when he was sent north to the Canyon de Chelly area as part of an effort to squash Navajo raiding at its source. His name is still associated with the primary battle of that raid—an attack on a group of women, children, and elders in what is now called Canyon del Muerto. His men killed 115 people that day. Some say their cries can still be heard in the canyon.

The next January, as part of the continuing effort against the Navajo, Narbona led his men into New Mexico. He would return there in 1825, when he was appointed political governor. He served in that capacity from September 1825 to May 1827 and earned a reputation as a reasonable man. He met with George Sibley during Sibley’s Santa Fe Trail mapping expedition, raised money for public schools, and expressed concern to his superiors about the influx of Anglo-Americans into Taos and Santa Fe.

There is no evidence that he ever expressed concern about the elders, women, and children he and his men killed in 1804.

Sources: Dr. Rick Hendricks, Antonio Narbona Talk at NM Archives, Sept. 18, 2019; Joy L. Poole, editor, Over The Santa Fe Trail To Mexico: The Travel Diaries And Autobiography Of Doctor Rowland Willard, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2015; Jerry D. Thompson, A Civil War History of the New Mexico Volunteers and Militia, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 2015.