"Retribution Will Be Their Reward": New Mexico's Las Gorras Blancas and the Fight for the Las Vegas Land Grant Commons (original) (raw)
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Hahr-hispanic American Historical Review, 1995
Calderon, Coatsworth, and Schmidt, which emphasize and explain the breadth of the railroads' impact, her conclusion emphasizing the same theme is not original. Her final observation-that these works represent the railroads as leading only to small, foreign enclaves of economic dynamism and that new, revisionist studies of the railroads are therefore necessary-is puzzling. Even so, the author cer tainly shows considerable historical learning and ability in research, analysis, and synthesis. She should produce an impressive dissertation.
The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 1992
The B ourland and Mil ler Commission, I have traced the [land] title back to the King of Spain, who got it by right of discovery and conquest, ancl since he ruled by Divine Right, hat takes it back to Gocl Almighty himself, ancl that is as far as I can go.-Attributed to the old abstractors of'the Rio Grande Valley T IIE HISTORY OF ALL NATIONS BEGINS WITH T H E STORY OF MOW THE land was explored, occupied, ancl tamed. In the Texas case, the process lasted two hundred years, from the late seventeenth-century Spanish exploratiolls of central and eastern Texas, to the late nineteenth-century opening of the high plains to irrigated agi-icnlture. As the most valuable and exploitable natural resource during that span, land became integral to Texas's development and, as with all valuable natural resources, a principal object of cultul.al, economic, and political 'For n general lristory of Sparlislr ant1 kIrsic;~n s c u l r~~l c n t ;111tl I;lr~tl tlislrili~~rioll i l l SOIIIII ;ultl
Latin American Research Review
In the opening section of his historical overview of New Mexico, Nash states, "But the Spaniards were not primarily a colonizing people, and found New Mexico disappointing because it did not yield large hoards of precious metals, unlike Mexico and Peru" (p. 2). New Mexico unarguably disappointed those who hoped to find treasures and a docile labor force. Pre-industrial Spanish settlers, like their Anglo-Saxon counterparts, chose first the most attractive locales to settle in terms of mineral and agricultural resources as well as the possibilities for trade. On these counts, New Mexico certainly was not a prime location. Nash lost sight of the fact that until the coming of the industrial revolution and the railroad in the late nineteenth century, relatively few Anglo settlers found much in New Mexico to convince them to settle there either.
2018
Gregory F. Michno's book fills an important historiographical gap in New Mexico's history regarding Native American tribes and related Indian policies during New Mexico's early Anglo-American territorial period (1848-1912). Long before that time, Spanish colonial (1598-1821) and Mexican territorial (1821-1848) officials had enforced a dual Indian policy, one for mountain and plains tribes, another for Indian pueblos. Fearing a deal gone wrong in which New Mexico could be overrun by numerous plains or mountain tribes, Spanish officials and, later, Mexican officials in New Mexico, banned trade with such tribes as the Utes, Apache and Comanche, with the exception of the Pueblo Indians, within the region. Since the late 16 th century, unauthorized New Mexican frontiersmen had been trading with the Utes as far northwest as the Great Salt Lakes and with the Apache and other Great Plains tribes along the eastern edge of New Mexico. Thus, for nearly 250 years, trade between New Mexicans and the referenced tribes had been a part of the long history of the region. Unlike the Anglo-American period in which property owners could be compensated by making depredation claims dealing with Indian raids, the earlier periods did not have such advantages. Between war and peace, Spanish colonial and Mexican territorial frontiersmen relied on punitive expeditions against raiding warriors to retrieve stolen property or captive kinsmen.