“What's Past is Prologue” Shakespeare tells us in The Tempest – events gone by set the stage for what is to come. Even more so here in the Land of Enchantment.
“In New Mexico, history and culture are in your face. They’re not just things that happened 500 years ago or 100 years ago. People are still talking about it now, and they’re arguing about it now—as if it happened yesterday … We still feel the reverberations from those events. We feel them now.” (New Mexico State Historian Rob Martinez, New Mexico Magazine)
For example, tradition mandates that New Mexicans must hold residents of the neighboring “Lone Star State” in disfavor. Why? In part because we still can’t get over the 1841 and 1843 invasions of our territory by what was then the independent Republic of Texas. While wikipedia.com and other sources refer to these events “invasions,” they were actually takeover attempts. In 1862 Confederate forces from Texas once again encroached on New Mexico as part of the Confederate attempt to gain control of the American West. Many view this as the fourth takeover try. We have a tour of that conflict’s Battle of Glorietta Pass scheduled for late May. After which we will report more on New Mexico’s role in the War Between the States.
But now we will limit ourselves to the 1840s incursions, starting with a quick recap of Texas history.
Unlike New Mexico (1598) Texas did not have a European settlement until 1681 when Spaniards and Native Americans from Isleta Pueblo hunkered down near present day El Paso after being driven out of Nuevo México by the Pueblo Revolt. Eleven years later they reorganized, left their short-term resting place and reconquered their colony. Meanwhile, thanks to the efforts of mission-minded Franciscan priests by 1862 Spanish settlements were established in El Paso del Norte, San Lorenzo, Senecú, Ysleta, and Socorro Texas.
In 1685 Robert de La Salle established a French colony near Matagorda, killed off by Native Americans after three years. The mere presence of another European power however prompted Spain to establish settlements to keep their claim to the land – and several Roman Catholic missions were established in East Texas, all abandoned in 1691. So, concerned with the burgeoning French presence in neighboring Louisiana, Spanish authorities again tried to colonize Texas.
Over the next 100+ years, Spain established numerous villages, presidios, and missions occupied by a small number of Spanish settlers, missionaries and soldiers. (Among them was the historic mission and fortress compound in San Antonio known as the Alamo.) After the Louisiana Purchase Spain signed agreements with colonists from the United States, which now controlled the land to Texas’s northeast. When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, Texas with a population of roughly 2,000 Hispanic citizens became part of the new nation. To encourage settlement, Mexico allowed organized immigration from the United States, and the Texas population grew to around 38,000, of whom 30,000+ were Anglos.
In 1824 Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna dissolved the new country’s constitution, which along with other issues, turned the Anglos and Mexicans living in Texas towards revolution. Santa Anna invaded the territory (“Remember the Alamo!”) and between 1835 and 1836, the “Texians” won their independence from Mexico and became the Republic of Texas.
The anglicization continued. “Beginning in the 1840s, a wave of social unrest in Germany began a flood of immigration to Texas. The Texas and German Emigration Company [aka] the Adelsverein, purchased more than 4,400 acres of land in Fayette County and then advertised the settlement opportunity to Germans. It worked. Some 5,257 Germans arrived in Texas between October 1845 and April 1846.” (thestoryoftexas.com) Many of these merchants, tradesmen and industrialists established brand-name businesses – Shiner beer, Pioneer flour, Gebhardt canned food, et al. – that lasted for generations. As well as bringing biergartens, classical and opera music and creating a new dialect known as Texas German. By 1860 the German population of Texas numbered nearly 20,000 people.
The boundaries of independent Texas were never formally documented. (Mexico refused to recognize the Republic, considering it instead a “breakaway state.”) So Texas declared a southern and western border of the Rio Grande river – an area that included Santa Fe and most of the populated parts of the Mexican province of New Mexico.
Why? As Deep Throat purportedly advised during Watergate, “follow the money” – in this case straight to the Santa Fe Trail.
From 1598 to 1821 Spain controlled Mexico and New Mexico and did not allow trade with the United States or any entity other than itself. On gaining self-rule in 1821 Mexico, which also “won” New Mexico, immediately opened what would become the Santa Fe Trail. It was an immediate success generating trade not only from the eastern side of the U.S. but also to that part of the country from enterprising Hispano entrepreneurs already in New Mexico and Anglo merchants who relocated to that territory. Mexico, fearing a significant change in the composition of its residents, periodically closed its borders to immigrants from the U.S.
In 1841 powers-that-be in the Republic of Texas wanted in on that action. Which to some of them meant establishing ownership of the eastern part of New Mexico. So that summer Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar sent a party of 270 men on an expedition to conquer and claim it as part of Texas.
The undertaking was ill-conceived, poorly prepared, badly organized and plagued by Indian attacks and a lack of supplies and fresh water. Captured without incident by a 1,500 man detachment of the Mexican Army sent out by NM governor Manuel Armijo they were marched 2,000 miles to Mexico City, released and returned to Texas in 1842. The embarrassing fiasco cost the republic a lot of money and riled up a bunch of resentment on both sides. Two years later Texas tried again – twice.
As in 1841 the main mission of each expedition was to establish control of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande. This time they also were allowed to raid and rob any Mexican commerce on the Santa Fe Trail.
The initial party was organized by Charles A. Warfield, fur trapper and officer in the Republic of Texas army. He planned on a force of 800-1,000 men recruited from Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. By March 1843 he had assembled a band of 24, mostly mountain men. Warfield’s “army” killed several Mexican traders on the SF Trail plus several civilians near the town of Mora, NM creating apprehension by both the United States and Mexico about “men of desperate character.” And resulting in U.S. military escorts for some wagon trains headed toward New Mexico. They also killed five Mexican soldiers and took then subsequently released 18 captives. The next day they were ambushed by Mexican troops. Warfield escaped, but five of his men were apprehended and most of the remainder decided to return to Texas.
While Warfield was organizing his invasion, Jacob (“old Jake”) Snively, another Texas Army officer, was attempting to raise his own force to attack New Mexican traders. He received permission for “an expedition [of not more than 300] for the purpose of intercepting and capturing the property of Mexican traders who might pass through territory claimed by Texas on the Santa Fe Trail” – proceeds to be divided between Snively, his men and the government.
In June the 150 man “Battalion of Invincibles” marched to Kansas where they were joined by Warfield and his remaining men. Snively’s group attacked a Mexican military unit, killing 17 and taking 82 prisoners with no losses. Soon after, however, dissension broke up the group with half of them leaving. The remainder were apprehended by U.S. Army Captain Capt. Philip St. George Cooke, their weapons confiscated and escorted to Missouri. Snively and Warfield considered attacking a Mexican trade caravan, but decided to go back home instead disbanding on August 6.
The sport of baseball has a term for this – “Oh-fer, [rhymes with “gopher”] descriptive of a batter who fails to get a hit in any number of at-bats in a game or series of games. The term is created from ‘0 [zero] for,’ as one would say when speaking of an ‘0 for 3’ game.” (Dickson Baseball Dictionary)
Texans still today “remember the Alamo” with a heartfelt and powerful intensity. And probably will til the end of time. Likewise New Mexicans recall the “Oh-fers” of the 1840s with the same degree of fervency. And will continue to do so forever and ever, amen.
“It takes a little while for these numbers to shake out, but in 2021 an estimated 17,000 Texans moved to New Mexico – the largest source of new residents (besides births).” (kfmx.com) Why? Less expensive homes, lower property taxes (enough to offset the NM state income tax,) climate, culture and politics (“New Mexico feels like a more even-handed State.”)
They probably all are very nice people who should be warmly welcomed. Our next door Texas neighbors and our longtime Santa Fe resident/UT Longhorn friend certainly are. Lone Star tourists – not so much. Nonetheless an “Oh-fers” real estate surtax might not be a bad idea for the NM state legislature to consider.
Tradition!
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