Category: Santa Fe

The Takeover of New Mexico

The Takeover of New Mexico

Preparations for war were in full swing in Santa Fe that second week of August, 1846. Rumors of the approaching American army under Stephen Watts Kearny had been swirling all summer and became more concrete as time went on. New Mexico’s governor, Manuel Armijo, had fired letters off to the officials in Mexico City pleading for help and warning of the possibility that his paisanos would capitulate to the invaders without a fight.

Early in August, American trader Eugene Leitensdorfer arrived in Santa Fe with news. The U.S. Army was at Bent’s Fort. Armijo consulted with his council on Sunday, August 9, then sent out a call to New Mexico’s militia to assemble in Santa Fe. When they arrived, they headed for Apache Pass, east of the city, where they began digging trenches, throwing up barricades, and positioning cannon in. Things in Santa Fe were so tense that some of the American merchants there barricaded themselves in a store on the plaza, expecting to be arrested or even killed when the fighting began.

In the meantime, U.S. Army Capt. Philip St George Cooke and James Magoffin arrived in town on Wednesday, August 12. They carried a letter from Kearny and, rumor has it, a considerable amount of gold. They also brought news. Kearny’s army was not at Bent’s Fort any longer. It was already on New Mexican soil. In fact, Cooke was due to meet up with them at Las Vegas in the next couple days.

Philip St. George Cooke, circa 1860s. Courtesy of encyclopediavirginia.org

By the time that happened, on Saturday, August 15, it was clear to New Mexican officials that Governor Armijo was no longer anxious to defend the region from the invaders. He had gone from firing off letters, issuing bellicose proclamations, marshaling troops, and positioning cannon, to asking his officers whether he should really try to fight. When several of them said a vehement “yes!”, Armijo began complaining that the defenses he’d thrown up weren’t strong enough and that the men behind them were cowards who would run at the first shot.

Manuel Armijo, wearing the medal he’d received for his capture of the 1841 Texas Expedition to Santa Fe

Maybe word of Kearny’s takeover of Las Vegas and the number of U.S. troops had reached Armijo and he’d given up the idea of fighting. Or maybe he’d made his decision the night of August 12, during his conversation with Cooke and Magoffin. The only thing certain is that by the end of August 16th, the last Mexican governor of New Mexico had headed south toward Albuquerque and ultimately the interior of Mexico.

When Kearny and his men reached Apache Pass, they found it empty, although at least one of his officers thought the location could have been used effectively to at least slow them down.

But by then it was too late. The U.S. Army was in control of New Mexico and would quickly set up a new government to replace the old. All that excitement and fear had been for nothing. The New Mexicans had been completely cowed by America’s military might. Or so it seemed.

© Loretta Miles Tollefson

Sources: William A. Kelleher, Turmoil in New Mexico, 1846-1868; Marc Simmons, New Mexico; Howard R. Lamar, The Far Southwest; Ralph Emerson Twitchell, The Military Occupation of New Mexico.

A Pretty Little House

A Pretty Little House

When Stephen W. Kearny’s Army of the West marched from Missouri to New Mexico in Summer 1846, they were trailed by a number of non-military wagons, most of them driven by merchants. One of these men was Samuel Magoffin, who brought along his wife of seven months, Susan Shelby Magoffin.

Once they reached Santa Fe, the Magoffins rented an adobe house that Susan called “quite a nice little place” with four rooms that included the kitchen, “our own chamber, [a] storage room, and the reception room,” or sala,  which Susan described as a combination parlor, dining room, and “room of all work.”

She also said the house entrance opened into a courtyard with portals all around, so apparently this was the typical four-sided square with doors opening into a plazuela. The portals around this space provided shaded workspaces as well as areas for resting and relaxing.

The Magoffins’ reception room was long and narrow, typical of a sala, and had a dirt floor, plank ceiling, and white-washed walls. The lower part of the walls was covered with calico cloth, which protected the occupants from getting whitewash on their clothes. The parlor end of the room contained cushioned benches and woven black-and-white“Mexican carpeting,” probably jerga. The “naked floor” at the end of the room held a dining table and chairs.

Susan described the bedroom as “a nice cool little room, with two windows, which we can darken, or make light at pleasure.” I take this to mean the windows had shutters which could be opened and shut from inside. She doesn’t say whether the windows had glass in them. Glazed windows were pretty rare in New Mexico at the time, though it seems likely that a Kentucky-bred young woman would have been startled by the lack of them and mentioned her surprise. The fact that the house ceilings were plank, not perpendicular or herring-bone pattern latillas, indicates the building may have been constructed with American sensibilities in mind. If that’s the case, there very well might have been glass in the window openings.

A latilla ceiling, still seen in New Mexico homes. Photo courtesy of OlquinsSawmill.com

The flat roof did leak at one point. On Tuesday, September 22, Kearney and a couple officers had come for a visit and were about to leave when a thunderstorm hit. Rather than brave the storm, the visitors remained in their seats and “we continued in pleasant and merry chat,” Susan reports, “when suddenly the rain came pating onto the General, from the ceiling … Soon we were leaking all around, the mud roof coming with the water.” The damage must have not been too terrible. Young Mrs. Magoffin was out and about with the General the next day, taking a tour of Fort Marcy.

The little house would be Susan’s home for another couple weeks, until the Magoffins headed south on October 7, leaving the “nice little place” behind. Susan would not live anywhere for long, until 1852, when she and Samuel settled in Kirkwood, Missouri, where she died after giving birth to her third child.  

            © Loretta Miles Tollefson, June 2025

Sources: Audra Bellmore, Old Santa Fe Today; Bainbridge Bunting, Early Architecture in New Mexico; Sheila Drumm, editor, Down the Santa Fe Trail and Into Mexico, Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847; John E. Sunder, ed., Matt Field on the Santa Fe Trail; El Rancho de los Golondrinas Guidebook; Chimayo Museum, Chimayo, New Mexico.

The Evolution of the Santa Fe Plaza

The Evolution of the Santa Fe Plaza

When the Spanish settlers created the Santa Fe, New Mexico plaza in 1610, it was roughly twice the size it is today, even though they didn’t have sufficient buildings to surround it. That would come later. Certainly the newcomers had high ambitions for their new town “square.” We can see from the map created by José de Urrutia about 150 years later that it extended from the church (la parroquia) to about where the western boundary is today.

The plaza was laid out in an approximate ratio of 2 to 3, width to length, as prescribed in Spanish law. It had a number of uses—military drills, mustering livestock, small-scale trading, and general commerce, as well as social and public events. Although there’s no sign of it on the 1776 map, in the early 1600’s an acequia ran along the north side.

The acequia may have been used to water trees in the plaza. We have written documentation of at least two plantings, one prior to 1837, when Jose Francisco Perea tells us there were three cottonwoods “of the mountain variety” in what was then the northeast corner. In the mid-1840s, Governor Mariano Martinez had more cottonwoods put in, although we don’t know what type. By the time he was done, trees circled the square and additional ones had been placed along the Santa Fe river.

The square had shrunk considerably by then, to the size it is today. The 1846 map created by U.S. Corps of Engineers Lts. W.H. Emory and J.F. Gilmer reveals that the eastern half of the plaza had been filled in with buildings by that point. It had apparently been this shape for at least the last ten years. Jose Francisco Perea tells us it hadn’t changed much during that period, except for the new trees. And the fact that the square was now seldom used as a camping place and stock corral.

According to James Josiah Webb, in the 1840s the northeast corner of the plaza contained the old Mexican customs warehouse. The eastern side of the square was lined with government buildings and anchored at the southern end by a store run by Don Juan Sena.

The Pino family lived across the street, on the south side of the plaza, alongside a couple more stores, including the one rented by Leitensdorfer and Company. The crumbling adobe military chapel lay in the center of this row of buildings.

The west side of the plaza was nearly all residences, except for the old Mexican post office, and the north side was defined, as it is today, by the long low adobe structure that had been there since the beginning. The compound it fronted had served over the years as a fort, barracks for the Presidio troops, local jail, housing for the civil governor, treasury, and other functions.

Known as “el palacio” by the locals, the Americans retained the building’s basic functions after they invaded in 1846. By 1857, it included the chamber for the territorial legislature, offices for the Secretary of the Treasury and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the post office, and (still!) the calabozo, or jail.

The building, which is still called “el palacio,” has been renovated a number of times, most recently a few years ago, and now anchors the New Mexico History Museum. It’s well worth a visit if you happen to be in town. As is the plaza. It changed once again in the 1860s, when a bandstand was added, along with walkways that crisscrossed the space. This layout has been retained ever since then. You can see it in the birds-eye view map from 1882 as well as the current map.

As you can see from the map, the plaza in Santa Fe is still walkable. Trees still shade the paths, and there are still small-scale traders, most often now only under the palacio house portal. It’s the perfect place to spend a few hours on Sunday afternoon or any other time.

Sources: W.H.H. Allison, “Santa Fe During the Winter of 1837-38,” Old Santa Fe Magazine, Vol.3;Josh Gonza, The Streets of Santa Fe, A Walking Tour; Deena J. Gonzales, Refusing the Favor; David Grant Noble, ed., Santa Fe, history of an ancient city; Maurilio E. Vigil and Helen Boudreau, Donaciano Vigil; Paul W. Walter, “The First Civil Governor of New Mexico Under the Stars and Stripes,” New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 8:2; James Josiah Webb, Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade.

©Loretta Miles Tollefson

Aftermath of a Rebellion

Aftermath of a Rebellion

In mid April 1847, the Taos Valley was still experiencing the aftermath of the January 20 rebellion.

The U.S. Army had captured a total of 45 rebels. They released 24 for lack of evidence and tried 21. The trials were over, but the executions weren’t. Seventeen men would hang, one of them for high treason.

The high treason charge was questionable. An argument could be made that a person couldn’t rebel against a country to which they had not pledged allegiance. The war with Mexico wasn’t over. New Mexico was still officially part of occupied Mexico, and its people were still citizens of that country. There’d been a trial in early January which had found the high treason charge suspect. But that didn’t stop 26-year-old prosecuting attorney Francis P. Blaire, Jr. from continuing to use it.

In early March, Blaire filed the charge against three men: Antonio Maria Trujillo, Pantaleon Archuleta, Trinidad Barceló, and Pedro Vigil. Apparently the only rebel trials held in Santa Fe, the charges against Archuleta, Barceló, and Pedro Vigil were eventually dropped after the proceedings ended in a mistrial.

Trujillo was found guilty, but because he was elderly and unwell, the jury and judge requested that the sentence be commuted. Military Governor Sterling Price granted the pardon, and Santa Fe was spared a demonstration of the effectiveness of the gallows.

Taos wasn’t. Of the eighteen prisoners tried there, all were convicted and hung.

There had been a single execution on February 7 of Pablo Montoya, one of the rebellion leaders, but the remainder waited until April, when the formal trials began.

These hangings started on Friday, April 9, when Hipolito (Polo) Salazar, Jose Manuel Garcia, Pedro Lucero, Juan Ramon Trujillo, and the Romero brothers Ysidro and Manuel, age sixteen, were executed two days after their trials. Salazar had been convicted of high treason, but the rest of these men were found guilty of killing American-appointed Governor Charles Bent.

The eleven remaining convicted rebels had to wait to meet their end. Most of them would die three weeks later, on Friday, April 30. These executions seem to have occurred in two batches. The six men from Taos Pueblo—Francisco Naranjo, Jose Gabriel Romero (or Samora), Juan Domingo Martin, Juan Antonio Lucero, and a man called El Cuervo—were apparently hanged at the same time. They were buried at the Pueblo at the church which had been destroyed by the Americans in early February.

Ruins of the Taos Pueblo church. Source: Palace of the Governors Archives

Four other men—Manuel Miera, Juan Pacheco, Manuel Sandoval, and Rafael Tafoya—were also executed that day. Then, on the following Friday, Juan Antonio Avila was hanged for his role in the insurrection.

Why the week-long delay? There’s no information in the records. I’d love to know the answer to this question, just as I’d like to know why the trials of Trujillo, Barceló, Archuleta, and Vigil were held in Santa Fe and the reasons for the mistrials for latter three men. Was this a procedural issue? Was family pressure brought to bear?

I’m especially curious about the case of Trinidad Barceló. He was the older brother of businesswoman Gertrudes Barceló, who had assisted the U.S. occupiers in suppressing a revolt the previous December. Did her support of the regime play a part in her brother’s release?

What about the other two: Archuleta and Vigil? Were they related to Acting Governor Donaciano Vigil or some other prominent New Mexican who the Americans wanted on their side?

And then there are the stories of the men who died: their reasons for resistance, the impact on their families, the pain or joy they left behind.

So many stories, so little time.

© Loretta Miles Tollefson

Sources: David C. Beyreis, Blood in the Borderlands; Mary J. Straw Cook, Doña Tules; James A. Crutchfield, Revolt at Taos; Mark L. Gardner and Marc Simmons, eds., The Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott; Lewis H. Garrard, Wah-to-ya and the Taos Trail; Lucy Lippard, Pueblo Chico, Land and Lives in Galisteo since 1814; Michael McNierney, ed. Taos 1847, The Revolt in Contemporary Accounts; Alberto Vidaurre in Corina A. Santistevan and JuliaMoore, Taos, A Topical History.

Houses Made of Mud

Houses Made of Mud

In my March 5 post, I mentioned that one of the things that nineteenth century Americans disparaged when they first arrived in New Mexico was what they called “mud houses.” Newspaper correspondent Matt Field wasn’t the only person to describe Santa Fe as a “mud built city” of one-story buildings that reminded him “of an assemblage of mole hills.”

Technically, Field was right. The buildings, even the churches, were in fact built of a mixture of earth and water. These carefully formed bricks had evolved from the indigenous practice of puddled mud construction and by the 1800s were created by packing a stiff, dough-like mud into a rectangular wooden frame that was then lifted away from the resulting block. Two days later, the brick was dry enough to be turned on end and a week later, hard enough to be stacked and cured for another month. To speed up the drying process, adobe makers in the upper Rio Grande region often added straw.

Adobe bricks were used to construct one-story buildings but, with proper buttressing, the walls could be extended higher. Field noted that the Santa Fe parish church was built “as high and quite as large as any of our [U.S.] ordinary size meeting houses.”

He also noted that the adobe walls were strong and durable. In fact, they were so strong and durable that the Fort the invading Americans constructed on the hill overlooking the church in the Fall of 1846 was made of double walls of adobe bricks with a core of rubble between them.  

Diagram of Fort Marcy, constructed Fall 1846. Source: Fort Marcy Park interpretive signage.

Early the following year, the Americans got a taste of just how resilient adobe walls could be. After the January 1847 Taos uprising, the U.S. Army hauled four mounted howitzers and a six-pound cannon north to deal with the rebellion. The insurrectos had retreated to the mission church at Taos Pueblo, but the American artillery made little headway against its adobe walls.  Lt. Richard Smith Elliott reported later that the walls were so thick, the cannon balls would not go through them.

In fact, the artillery crews made little headway against the pueblo church until they positioned the smallest cannon closer to it and began using grapeshot in a spot already damaged by an axe-wielding soldier. Only then were the attackers able to enter the church.

Not even adobe could withstand the fury and tenacity of Americans with newly acquired land to protect.

© Loretta Miles Tollefson

Sources: Bainbridge Bunting, Early Architecture in New Mexico; Stella M. Drumm, Down The Santa Fe Trail and Into Mexico, Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin 1846-1847; Mark L. Gardner and Marc Simmons, eds., The Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott; Michael McNierny, ed., Taos 1847, The Revolt in Contemporary Accounts; Clyde and Mae Reed Porter, Matt Field on the Santa Fe Trail.

An Unhappy Country – The Countdown Begins!

An Unhappy Country – The Countdown Begins!

The thirty-day countdown to publication of my novel An Unhappy Country has begun!

It’s August 1846. The U.S. army has taken Santa Fe without firing a shot. The Mexican American War is over in New Mexico. Or is it?

Two days after the Army arrives, seventeen-year-old Jessie Milbank and her friends stumble on a man with a knife in his back in the Santa Fe plaza. Then someone close to Jessie’s friend Juanita is murdered. When an insurrection is suppressed in December, Jessie begins to wonder if the three events are linked. 

Were the murdered men part of a conspiracy to throw out the invaders? And were they the only ones hoping for a fight? After revolt does finally break out and the Americans suppress it at the battle of Taos Pueblo, yet another man is murdered. Will the reasons for his death provide clues to the earlier ones?

Early readers are raving about Jessie, the book’s insight into these little-known events, and the beautiful writing in this novel.

You can pre-order the e-book now for only $.99. It’s available at all e-reader outlets , including Amazon and BarnesandNoble. The paperback is available for pre-order at BarnesandNoble, as well.

Book Announcement: An Unhappy Country

Book Announcement: An Unhappy Country

I’m pleased to announce that my Old New Mexico novel An Unhappy Country will be published in April 2025. A murder mystery, this novel is set during the Mexican American war and focuses on events in New Mexico, which was invaded by the U.S. Army in August 1846. It features Jessie Milbank, an American merchant’s daughter who can’t leave well enough alone. Here’s the book description:

August 1846. The U.S. army has taken Santa Fe without firing a shot. The Mexican American War is over in New Mexico. Or is it?

Two days after the Army arrives, seventeen-year-old Jessie Milbank and her friends stumble on a man with a knife in his back in the Santa Fe plaza. Then someone close to Jessie’s friend Juanita is murdered. When an insurrection is suppressed in December, Jessie begins to wonder if the three events are linked. 

Were the murdered men part of a conspiracy to throw out the invaders? Were they the only ones hoping for a fight? After revolt does finally break out and the Americans suppress it at the battle of Taos Pueblo, yet another man is murdered. Will the reasons for his death provide clues to the earlier ones?

You can preorder the e-book from Amazon.com and other retailers at the special introductory price of $.99.

Sheriff’s Leniency Isn’t Enough – TAOS REVOLT, Part 1

Sheriff’s Leniency Isn’t Enough – TAOS REVOLT, Part 1

On Friday, January 22, 1847, the residents of Santa Fe, in the occupied territory of New Mexico, were on high alert. News had arrived two days before that the U.S.-appointed governor, Charles Bent, was dead at the hands of a mob loyal to Mexico. This came as a surprise because Bent and the U.S. military commander, Sterling Price, had assured everyone that all opposition to the U.S. invasion had been quelled the month before.

Apparently not. The outbreak had started in the early hours of Tuesday, January 19 during an altercation at the village jail about whether Sheriff Stephen Lee would release three men who’d been incarcerated for theft. Lee, intimidated, was about to let them go when Prefect Cornelio Vigil showed up and intervened. In the ensuing argument, friends of the jailed men killed Vigil and released the prisoners, while Lee escaped to his house.

But not for long. Despite the fact that he’d been willing to release the prisoners, Lee would die along with five other men, including Bent, his brother-in-law Pablo Jaramillo, and Judge Carlos Beaubien’s nineteen-year-old son Narciso.

Taos, January 1847. The crosses mark the location where people died. Source: The Taos Massacres, John Durend, 2004.

By the time news of the deaths reached Santa Fe late Wednesday, the fighting at Taos had spread north to Arroyo Hondo and the compound of whisky purveyor Simeon Turley. Of the nine men at Turley’s, seven had died and two escaped before Price could complete his arrangements to head north. He would march out on Saturday morning with 290 men, four howitzers, and a ragtag mob of about fifty men under mountain man Ceran St. Vrain.

It would not be an easy trek. January 1847 was an unusually cold month and there was snow in the north. There weren’t enough horses to carry Price’s men. Even the dragoons were on foot. And the rebels didn’t wait for the Americans to come after them. They mobilized and headed toward Santa Fe. Fortunately, they wouldn’t get that far. But it would still be a campaign to remember.

© Loretta Miles Tollefson

Sources: James A. Crutchfield, Revolt at Taos, The New Mexican and Indian Insurrection of 1847; John Durand, The Taos Massacres; Mark L. Gardner and Marc Simmons, eds., The Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott; Howard R. Lamar, The Far Southwest, 1846-1912, A Territorial History;  Ralph Emerson Twitchell, The History of the Military Occupation of the Territory of New Mexico; Alberto Vidaurre, “1847: Revolt or Resistance?” in Corina A. Santisteven and Julia Moore, Taos, A Topical History.

When is a Rebel Not a Traitor?

When is a Rebel Not a Traitor?

In 1846, early in the Mexican American War, General Stephen Watts Kearny led his Army of the West from Missouri to Santa Fe. He received no resistance in New Mexico and raised the American flag over the Santa Fe plaza in mid-August. By early November, he had moved on to assist in the subjugation of California, leaving troops behind to hold New Mexico. Local leaders laid plans to kick out the remaining troops, but the plot was discovered in mid-December and the most of them were apprehended.

One of the men jailed was Manuel Antonio Chaves, who seems to have been the only one who went to court for his activities. Maybe his was the first and last case at this time because his American lawyer, Captain William Z. Angney, got him off.

Manuel Antonio Chaves, courtesy of Gill Chaves, 2019

Angney’s arguments were powerful. Chaves had been charged with treason against the United States. Angney argued that, since the war was still in progress, New Mexico was technically still part of the country of Mexico, and therefore Chaves was not an American citizen. You can’t try someone for treason against a country they don’t belong to. In fact, it was not treason, but patriotism, that motivated his actions.

Chaves was acquitted and released. His experience with Angney and in the courtroom seems to have permanently changed his view of Americans. Six months earlier, he’d argued fiercely that New Mexico ought to fight the invaders. The month after his release, he was fighting alongside the Americans to suppress the New Mexican revolt that broke out in Taos. He went on to serve in the Civil War on the side of the Union, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and playing a key role in the pivotal battle of Glorieta Pass. All because his perceived enemy (Captain Angney) defended Chaves’s right to rebel.

Sources: Mark L. Gardner and Marc Simmons, eds., The Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott; Rubén Sálaz Márquez, New Mexico, A Brief Multi-History; Marc Simmons, The Little Lion of the Southwest, a life of Manuel Antonio Chaves; Ralph Emerson Twitchell, The History of the Military Occupation of the Territory of New Mexico.

© Loretta Miles Tollefson, 2025

October Sale!

October Sale!

Because October was the month that the prisoners from the 1841 Texan Santa Fe Expedition marched down New Mexico to El Paso, it seems appropriate to put the novel I wrote about that march on sale. So, this month only, the paperback of The Texian Prisoners is 50% off ($8.99) and the ebook is $.99. You can find the Kindle version here and other ebook formats here.

To refresh your memory of what this book is about, here’s the description.

They called themselves “Texians.”

In Fall 1841, a band of roughly 300 men straggled out of the Staked Plains into New Mexico. They had intended to claim everything east of the Rio Grande for Texas. Instead, they were captured and sent south to El Paso del Norte, then on to Mexico City. The largest group of prisoners, which included journalist George Wilkins Kendall, was escorted to El Paso by Captain Damasio Salazar. Five prisoners died on that trek. Kendall would later write a book describing the experience, a book which accused Salazar of food deprivation, mutilation, and murder, and fed the glowing coals that would become the Mexican American War.

But what really happened on the way to El Paso? The Texian Prisoners tells the story through the eyes of Kendall’s friend George Van Ness, a lawyer burdened with the ability to see his enemy’s point of view, and asks us to consider the possibility that Kendall’s report was not unbiased.

A historically accurate retelling of Larry McMurtry’s Dead Man’s Walk, this fictional memoir will make you question everything you thought you knew about Texas, New Mexico, and the boundary between them.