the appointment of Anglo-Americans to fill many of New Mexico’s political offices would have a pronounced impact on indigenous slavery and the regional societies of dependency that it propagated. As territorial governor David Meriwether stated in his 1853 inaugural address, “The elevated and the lowly, the rich and the poor, the native-born and the immigrant, are all alike entitled to the protection of the laws.”25 Sectional developments, coupled with the increasing vigor with which the United States military implemented and enforced Indian policy in the West, altered the fundamental characteristics and severity of local slaving practices.
Whereas civilian militias typically avenged—or at least tried to avenge—Indians’ captive raids during the period of Mexican sovereignty, the task of punishment fell to federal troops after the midcentury American conquest. In 1853, territorial governor William Carr Lane revealed the lofty goals of civil and military officials when informing Steck that the southwestern tribes “shall eschew violence and bloodshed, and the law of retaliation shall be forever annulled.”26 With permanent army outposts at Abiquiú, Albuquerque, Cebolleta, Doña Ana, Las Vegas, Los Lunas, Rayado, Santa Fe, Socorro, and Taos, the Indians’ propensity to take captives decreased during the 1850s as the Apaches and Navajos concentrated instead on stealing livestock for subsistence purposes. In 1851, when Colonel Edwin V. Sumner oversaw a complete reorganization of the military department, troops were redistributed to newly established forts constructed in the heart of Indian homelands. Fort Defiance monitored the Navajos, Fort Union watched over the Southern Plains tribes, Fort Massachusetts policed Ute country, and Forts Fillmore and Webster supervised southern New Mexico’s Apachería.27 As the commanding officer at Fort Defiance pointed out in 1853, the placement of troops closer to Indian villages and encampments had a “controlling influence” and discouraged captive taking during depredations.28
Figure 6. New Mexico military posts and towns, c. 1850.
Contrarily, captive raiding did not immediately begin to wane among New Mexicans, as civilians continued to exact a heavy toll on Native groups and in so doing perpetuated the tradition of enslavement and blood feuding. In 1861, Miguel A. Otero, a New Mexico congressional representative, referred to Indians as nothing more than “sullen and reluctant” slaves, and the territorial secretary noted that “the people obtain possession of their children by purchase or otherwise, whom they rear in their families as servants, and who perform a lifetime servitude to hard task masters and mistresses.”29 The 1850s and 1860s would be a tumultuous time for relations between New Mexicans and Indians, with increasing violence and frequent military campaigns inflicting tremendous demographic hardships on both sides.
Because multilateral warfare carried on even after the American occupation, southwesterners continually memorialized Congress on the subject, claiming that “hostile Indians penetrate the country in every direction and rob, and kill, and carry into captivity” New Mexico’s women and children.30 Civilians’ independent pleas to federal politicians echoed the many resolutions that local legislators approved relative to the issue. During the 1849 constitutional convention at Santa Fe, representatives adopted numerous instructions for New Mexico’s delegate to present in Congress, one of which bewailed that “many of our citizens of all ages and sexes are at this moment suffering all the horrors of barbarian bondage, and it is utterly out of our power to obtain their release from a condition to which death would be preferable.”31 Another declaration in 1852 said, “This territory has been a continual scene of outrage, robbery, and violence carried on by the savage nations by which it is surrounded … our citizens … are daily massacred before our eyes … our wives and daughters violated, and our children carried into captivity.”32 Similar petitions would arrive in Washington, D.C. almost annually for the next fifteen years. Although Indian depredations happened less regularly than the exaggerated petitions indicated, raids nonetheless occurred with enough prevalence to substantiate the alacrity with which Nuevomexicanos approached the issue. Between 1846 and 1860, Navajos alone attacked territorial settlements no less than fifty-eight times, killing and capturing hundreds of people. New Mexican militias took the field on twenty-six different occasions during that same time period, killing ninety-eight Navajos and capturing 283 more.33
In response to civilian entreaties, Texas senator Thomas Rusk implored his fellow lawmakers to take immediate action to thwart raiding and captive taking. The statesman’s concern owed in part to the fact that his constituents had long suffered similar hardships at the hands of some of the same tribes. Speaking before Congress in June 1850—just three months before New Mexico and Utah officially became U.S. territories—he described the hazardous circumstances under which residents of that region lived. Captive raiding, he noted, “is not only continued from day to day, but is increasing from day to day, by the culpable neglect of this Government to protect its citizens there.” Rusk asked his colleagues to take whatever action necessary in order to protect women and children “from being carried off and made slaves to savage Indians.”34 The senator, however, overlooked the reality that New Mexicans, as newly christened American citizens, were equally guilty of his allegations and had abducted many Indian captives themselves. The federal government ultimately did take action to counteract the slaving practices that plagued the region, sending large numbers of troops to garrison several of the larger villages and implement new Indian policies. But these initiatives, while partially effective, proved insufficient in preventing slave raids altogether.
Whereas previous Spanish and Mexican governments maintained only a nominal military force in New Mexico (the presidial garrison at Santa Fe rarely had more than one hundred troops), the U.S. military dispatched thousands of soldiers to the West, hindering Indians’ ability to raid settlements for plunder and captives.35 A combination of political policy and military force acted to limit—and eventually eliminate—slave raiding in the Southwest, albeit very gradually, as attested to by the fact that New Mexicans continued to memorialize Congress well into the 1860s in hopes of securing additional military protection.
During the earliest years of American occupation, the predatory warfare between Hispano civilians and independent tribes hamstrung the U.S. Army’s ability to enforce Indian policy. After 1846, American troops permanently occupied New Mexico in order to guard the civilian inhabitants from Indian raiding and depredations, protection from which General Kearny had promised to them during his conquest. “From the Mexican government, you have never received protection,” he had declared from atop a roof in the village of Las Vegas. “The Apaches and Navajos come down from the mountains and carry off your sheep, and even your women, whenever they please. My government will correct all this.”36 Kearny’s specific mention of women being carried away as captives during the course of raids acknowledged the commonality of the practice. His pledge to counteract such behavior, however, indicated that he underestimated the severity of raiding at the midpoint of the nineteenth century. His colleagues, in fact, employed Indians for their own use while at Santa Fe, with one officer admitting that a Ute slave made his bed each night, while another lieutenant enjoyed the service of “a few female serfs” when dining.37 Even the man Kearny appointed to serve as New Mexico’s first civil governor, Charles Bent, had an Indian servant named María Guadalupe in his household, and he also owned a black slave known as Dick, who was severely wounded on January 29, 1847, at the Battle of Embudo, south of Taos.38 So common were Indian slaves in New Mexico in the mid-1800s that even the army officers charged with suppressing captive raiding benefited from the services of such abductees while at their posts.
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