Taos Revolt
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| Taos Revolt |
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| Cañada – Mora - Embudo Pass - Pueblo de Taos |
The Taos Revolt was a popular insurrection against the American occupation of New Mexico during the Mexican-American War.
Background
In August, 1846, New Mexico fell to U.S. forces under Stephen Watts Kearny, as Governor Manuel Armijo surrendered at the Battle of Santa Fe without firing a shot. When Kearny departed for California, he left Colonel Sterling Price in command of U.S. forces in New Mexico, and appointed Charles Bent as New Mexico's first territorial governor.Many New Mexicans were unreconciled to Armijo's surrender and U.S. rule. Following Kearny's departure, dissenters in Santa Fe plotted a Christmas uprising. Ultimately discovered by the American authorities, the planned uprising was postponed.
The January 19 Massacres
On the morning of January 19, 1847, the insurrectionists began the revolt in Don Fernando de Taos (present-day Taos, New Mexico). They were led by a Hispanic man, Pablo Montoya and a Taos Indian, Tomás Romero, known as TomasitoThe Indians, led by Tomasito, went to the home of Governor Charles Bent, broke down the door, shot Bent several times with arrows, and scalped him in front of his wife and children. Several other government officials were likewise murdered and scalped. Among them were Stephen Lee, acting county sheriff; Cornelio Vigil, prefect and probate judge; and J.W. Leal, circuit attorney.
That afternoon a large mob attacked and laid siege to Simeon Turley's Mill in Arroyo Hondo, several miles outside of Taos. Charley Autobees, an employee at the mill, saw the crowd coming and rode to Santa Fe to inform the occupying American forces about the revolt and to try and get help. On that same day Mexican insurgents killed seven American traders passing through the village of Mora.
"It appeared," wrote Colonel Sterling Price, "to be the object of the insurrectionists to put to death every...[m]an who had accepted office under the American government."
American Response
The Americans moved quickly to quash the revolt. The insurgents were defeated at the Battle of Mora by Captain Jesse I. Morin. Meanwhile, over 300 U.S. troops led by Colonel Price left Santa Fe for Taos, together with approximately 65 volunteers (including a few New Mexicans) organized by Ceran St. Vrain, Bent's business partner. Along the way, they beat back a force of some 1,500 Mexicans and Indians at Santa Cruz de la Cañada and Embudo Pass. The insurgents retreated to Taos Pueblo and took refuge in the thick-walled adobe church there. Concentrated cannon fire upon the church killed about 150 rebels and led to the capture of 400 more.Aftermath
In Taos, Price under martial law, set up a court to try the captured insurgents. The judges appointed were Joab Houghton, a close friend of Charles Bent, and Charles Beaubien, the father of Narcisse Beaubien, who had been killed on January 19th. George Bent, Charles Bent’s brother, was foreman of the jury. Among the members of the jury were Narcisse Beaubien’s brother-in-law Lucien Maxwell and several friends of the Bents. Ceran St. Vrain served as court interpreter. Since the Anglo community in Taos was small and several had already been killed by the rebels the jury pool was also small. The jury also had several people on it who, if they had been caught by the rebels, would have probably been murdered. Not a jury prone to much leniency. The court was in session for fifteen days, and fifteen men were found guilty of murder and treason and sentenced to death.On April 9 six of the accused insurgents were hanged in Taos plaza and two weeks later another five were executed. A year later the U.S. Secretary of War, on reviewing the case, said that one of them, Pablo Salazar, who had been hanged for treason, may have been wrongfully convicted; the U.S. Supreme Court agreed. All other convictions were affirmed. In all at least 28 men were hanged in Taos. Murder and rebellion were harshly punished; but these types of events never recurred.
The revolt firmly suppressed and law and order firmly established, Price returned to Santa Fe, where he continued to discharge the civil and military functions of the territory as military governor.
References
- Broadhead, Edward, Ceran St. Vrain, Pueblo,Colorado, Pueblo County Historical Society, 2004
- Durand, John, The Taos Massacres, Puzzlebox Press, Elkhorn, Wisconsin, 2004
- Garrard, Lewis H., Wah-to-yah and the Taos Trail, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Oklahoma, 1955, originally published in 1850
- Herrera, Carlos R., New Mexico Resistance to U.S. Occupation, published in The Contested Homeland, A Chicano History of New Mexico, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000
- Niles' National Register, NNR 72.038, March 20 1847, available at [link]
- Twitchell, Ralph Emerson, The History of the Military Occupation of the Territory of New Mexico from 1846 to 1851, Denver, Colorado: The Smith-Brooks Company Publishers, 1909
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