PROXIMATE PRESENT POPULATION. 361 are engaged entirely in agricultural pursuits, and, as tax-paying Indians, would be entitled to the privileges of citizens, and of the elective franchise in Texas. "The census taken in New Mexico the year before the entrance of General Kearney into that Territory, showed the population to be one hundred thousand and two or three hundred over. This may not have been taken with great accuracy, but the best informed persons, and those who have lived there longest agree with me that we have not less than ninety thousand. Dr. Wislizenius, who is generally correct in his accounts of travel, and who is relied upon as good authority, in his statistics of that country, is certainly mistaken in saying that ten-twentieths, or one-half of the population, are Pueblo Indians. I have travelled through the settled parts of that country two or three times a year for the last three years, and I know that not a fifth, or even one-sixth are Indians. "There are in New Mexico from twelve to fifteen hundred resident American voters, emigrants from the different States, principally from the State of Missouri; the rest of the population is Mexican and Spanish." Upon these estimates and calculations it would perhaps be fair, in arriving at a proximate enumeration of inhabitants, to give the following ratios: WILD INDIANS, according to Governor Charles Bent, WHITE CREOLES, according to Dr. Gregg, AMERICANS, according to Hon. Hugh N. Smith, Deduct from this for Wild Indians, Deduct from this for Pueblo Indians, 36,950 6,524 1,000 1 PROXIMATE TOTAL OF PURE WHITES AND MIXED RACES, 61,500 The more civilized inhabitants of New Mexico resemble their parent stock in character and manners, save that they are somewhat tinctured with the habits of the Indian race, whose blood is mingled There are no negroes in New Mexico, and consequently neither mulattos nor zambos. The fatal epidemic fever of a typhoid character that ravaged the whole province from 1837 to 1839, and the small pox in 1840, carried off nearly ten per cent. of the population. 362 CHARACTER OF PEOPLE AND GOVERNMENT -SANTA FÉ. more or less in the veins of all classes. The men are homely, the women pretty, and while the former are generally condemned for their indolence, insincerity and treacherousness, the latter are praised by all travellers for their frank, affectionate and gentle demeanor. Very little was ever done for education in this remote Territory, which was almost cut-off from the civilizing influences of the rest of the world. Its governors, either sent by the central authorities of the Mexican Republic, or chosen by the people themselves,—were often overthrown by bloody revolutions; but, while in power, they used their offices as a prolific means of enriching themselves. Their intercourse with strangers from the north, and their facilities in fraudulently collecting or compromising duties upon the trade of the caravans, were constantly taken advantage of by the rapacious chiefs; nor could the national authorities attempt to control them, for the distance of Santa Fé from the capital always made the loyalty of New Mexico loose and insecure. The governors, judiciary, and clergy of the Territory, naturally fostered this feeling among the people, and in many instances it was beneficial to the north of the Republic, especially in opposing the establishment of the tobacco monopoly and in resisting the introduction of the copper currency which elsewhere caused so much distress and ruin. The principal town in New Mexico is Santa Fé, or, as it is often written by Spaniards and Mexicans, Santa Fé de San Francisco. It is one of the oldest Spanish settlements in the north, and lies at an elevation of 7047 feet above the sea, in 35° 41' 6", north latitude, and 106° 2′ 30′′, longitude west from Greenwich, according to the observations of Lieutenant Colonel Emory of the United States Topographical Engineers, and of Doctors Gregg and Wislizenius. The town is situated in a wide plain surrounded by mountains, about fifteen miles east of the Rio Grande del Norte. Immediately west of the town a snow-capped mountain rises up to a lofty height, and a beautiful stream of small mill power size, ripples down its sides and joins the river about twenty miles to the south-westward. Santa Fé is an irregular, scattered town, built of adobes or sun dried bricks, while most of its streets are common highways traversing settlements interspersed with extensive cornfields. The only attempt at any thing like architectural compactness and precision, says Dr. Gregg, consists in four tiers of buildings, whose fronts are shaded with a fringe of rude portales or corridors. They stand around the public square, and comprise the Palacio or Governor's 1 See Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies, vol. i., p. 113. ALBURQUERQUE-VALLEY OF TAOS. 363 house, the custom house, barracks, calabozo, casa consistorial, the military chapel, besides several private residences, as well as most of the shops of the American traders. ALBURQUERQUE is a town as large as Santa Fé, stretched for several miles along the left bank of the Rio Grande, and if not a handsomer, is at least not a worse looking place than the capital. The population of New Mexico, owing to the insecure tenure of life on a frontier which is constantly liable to the ravages of wild Indians, has always clustered together in towns and villages. These are scattered along the valley of the rivers, and are commonly known as the "rio arriva" and "rio abajo" or "up stream" and "down stream" settlements. Even individual ranchos and haciendas serve as the nucleii of large neighborhoods, and finally become important villages. All the principal locations of this character lie in the valley between one hundred miles north and one hundred and forty south of the capital. The most important of these next to the capital, is EL VALLE DE TAOS, whose name is derived from the Taosa tribe, a remnant of which still forms a Pueblo in the north of the district. No part of New Mexico equals this spot in productiveness; and although the bottom lands of the valleys where irrigation may be easily obtained have often produced over a hundred fold, yet the 364 STATISTICS OF SANTA FÉ TRADE, ETC. uplands throughout all these elevated plains about the Rocky Mountains, must, in all probability, remain sterile in consequence of the extraordinary dryness of the atmosphere. Indeed, New Mexico possesses but few of those natural advantages which are necessary to a rapid progress of civilization. It is a region without a single communication by water with any other part of the world, and is imprisoned by chains of mountains extending for more than five hundred miles, except in the direction of Chihuahua from which, however, its settlements are separated by a dreary desert of nearly two hundred miles.1 "Some general statistics of the Santa Fé trade," says Dr. Gregg, 66 may prove not wholly without interest to the mercantile reader. With this view I have prepared the following table of the probable amount of merchandise invested in the Santa Fé trade, from 1822 to 1843 inclusive, and about the portion of the same transferred to the Southern markets (chiefly Chihuahua) during the same period; together with the approximate number of wagons, men and proprietors engaged each year: The following valuable geographical information is derived fro.. a statement published by Major James Henry Carleton, United States Army, in the National Intelligencer, and is founded on the measurements made by Captain Alexander B. Dyer, with a viameter, during the march of General Kearney against New Mexico. 1 See Gregg, vol. i., chapter vii. * Gregg, vol. i., p. 160. |