Caveat: 1847

Close to two hundred Taosenos attended the UNM-SMU lecture about “1847” and the so-called beginning of “Modern Taos” at the Harwood. Neither the organizers nor the four Hispano academicos represented the aggrieved natives of Taos Pueblo, who lost an estimated 150 to 250 men, women, and children in the massacre and lynching that followed the Bent event. The murderous American troops and a corrupt judicial system in the wake of the Bent conflict resulted in genocide and injustice though none dare call it by that name. Indeed, the conclusion of the academics seem to be that current historians know little about the particulars of the events, due to a lack of records.

My students, especially three from Taos Pueblo (and others Natives in the audience) remarked, aloud, on the lack of Native American representation on the dais. Having read a few books about Taos Pueblo, including the current “An Archeology of Doings” by Severin Fowles (Santa Fe, SAR, 2012) I dare say there is more material available than either the academics or organizers found time to include. The archeologists have been digging in and around Taos for years and writing up their notes.

The omission of Taos Pueblo accounts, except in a passing reference to “Wah-To-Yah and The Taos Trail” by Lewis H. Garrard, a youthful account that bears both the unseemly language of the times as well as the youthful idealism and outrage at the injustice of the judicial system, seemed increasingly curious.

And given the impetus to organize this event was in response to the “Kit Carson,” naming controversy, I found it even more curious that the events described by the academics rarely went as far as the history I learned about Taos in Hamilton Sides’ much abused “Blood and Thunder,” which “popular account” also included 48 pages of scholarly notes and bibliography. Contrary to those who have “attacked Sides” without having read the book, the descriptions of Kit Carson’s blood lust in battles with American Indians are as “blood curdling” as the adventures are high points, given both are the product of a dime-novel literary form. Sides wanted folks to read their history and you need a dollop of entertainment to get by Americans’ distaste for academic prose. As a college instructor I am grateful that he remembered to instruct, entertain, and move his readers.

On the one hand Carson was a helluva tracker and iron man in the wilderness. But by the time you get to Canyon de Chelly with Carson and his troops, the tale of his “scorched earth” policy and the depiction of his troops“ cutting down the peach trees” makes you almost physically ill. You might also remember that, ultimately, President Abraham Lincoln was Kit Carson’s boss. Carson was the perfect protagonist for “Manifest Destiny,” a vast real estate and development project, a project still favored  by Manbys descendants and certain politicos today. Carson like many troops and government employees, was merely following orders. (He was also allied with the Utes and Pueblos against the Dine “raiders.”)

The high point of the “1847” lecture came when Dr. Albert Gonzales, an archeologist, who has been digging round Turley Mill, where Simeon Turley met his death that same day or week of the Bent events, made some remarkable observations in terms of evidence and potential “theories” about the Americano exploitation and the revolt by Hispanic and Taos Pueblo Natives against, allegedly, the despoiling of the local land and water. The combination of evidence and history in the archeologist’s hands was truly a revelation to most Taosenos with a passing interest in the outlaw smuggler’s focus on the distiller’s trade in “Taos Lightning.” Given the Taosenos’ affinity for land, culture, water, it’s no wonder Turley the despoiler of the wilderness met his demise. There’s some irony in the fact that former Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld owns the land where Turley’s ruined mill reposes.

Indeed Fowles (above) in the “Doings” mentions the “anti-Chaco” and contrary character of the pit-house forebears of today’s Taos Pueblo residents. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Taos history understands that there has been more than one revolt against variations of the Euro-Americano conquest. The indigenous Taos Pueblo residents, who were over-run by the Chaco diaspora prior to the Hispanic Conquest of El Norte, were the first citizens of this great country, then Spain, and later Mexico. But neither Taos Pueblo nor Taosenos were citizens of the USofA when the events at the Bent House in 1847 occurred. The murderous American soldiers had more in common with the imperial troops sent to Iraq and Vietnam than the troops who wintered with George Washington in Valley Forge.

I know that the American public, unlike many Taosenos and Taos Pueblo Natives, ignores history. Today’s politicos can hardly remember who still owns Taos Plaza or who is buried in Kit Carson Cemetery. But in Taos, I have seen, during the last 50 years of my own residency, a sudden return to the match and the torch when things got out of whack. One can only wonder when the “History of Violence” will return.

Now that the politicos have turned against the people, i.e. the Coop, one expects the fuses to blow and the winds of El Mitote to fan the flames.