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Monday, June 02, 2008
Spanish Trail Helped Forge N.M.'s Cultural Mix
By Douglas M. Knudson, President
Old Spanish Trail Association
Next weekend the Old Spanish Trail Association will gather at the Ohkay Resort Conference Center to honor Native American tribes whose footpaths, once linked, allowed New Mexico to emerge as a trading powerhouse in the early 19th century.
The heritage of the Old Spanish National Historic Trail predates Anglos, reminding us that the Southwest was, for many centuries, part of other homelands and nations. At first sparsely inhabited by the Ute, Pueblo, Navajo, Paiute, and Apache, then occupied by the Spanish, with colonial outposts such as Santa Fe, Abiquiu and Taos struggling for existence, the land was ceded to the nascent Republic of Mexico after the Mexican War of Independence. Only after 1848 did it become the frontier of U.S. territory.
The Old Spanish Trail linked two Mexican provinces long separated by treacherous terrain and climate. All Spanish-Mexican trade goods once went through Mexico City, with separate routes north to Santa Fe and northwest to Los Angeles.
Fifty years of attempts to forge a route were unsuccessful until Antonio Armijo's 1829 caravan made the first round trip to the West Coast. No longer isolated, Santa Fe exported woolen blankets, mantillas, shawls, and coverlets to Mission San Gabriel and today's nearby Plaza of Los Angeles, receiving in trade some of the horses and mules overgrazing California ranches.
New Mexican farmers and traders from Missouri were anxious to pay prime prices for the animals, making the caravans profitable for almost 20 years.
The traders faced the rigors of extended journeys — sometimes seven months — through rough, often arid country. Still, the more direct route of the Old Spanish Trail proved more profitable than the 230-year-old, long trek south on the old Camino Real to Mexico City.
The trail story is partly about the blending and clashing of cultures that helped create the special nature of today's American Southwest. The trail exposed New Mexicans and Califórnios to their different ways of life. Many of the trading caravans had Ute, Apache, Pueblo, and Navajos working alongside descendants of Spanish colonists and mingling with French Canadians, Yankees, Jews and British along the trail.
Native American tribes benefited and suffered from the Old Spanish Trail trade. Though Mexico still claimed the land, its government had little authority and few resources invested in the territory. Not much stood in the way of the Ute and Paiute from seizing horses as tribute for passage.
Outlaws used the trail to raid California ranchos, and kidnapping and enslavement of Native peoples became common, with victims sold at either end of the trail despite official condemnation of the practice.
The constancy of trade that began with the Old Spanish Trail continues to this day. Today's trail route takes us past the homes of modern descendants of several Native American cultures that cooperated and clashed with each other along the trail axis. These tribes also coped with the new influences of the intrusive Hispanic and Anglo cultures. The interethnic collaboration and strife comprise little-known tales of the frontier.
The convoys of trucks on I-40 and the paralleling trains are today's legacy of the trade that started with the plodding of 100 mules for 1,200 miles.
This year's gathering will bring to light the significance of Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo), site of this year's annual meeting. Every caravan and traveler headed west, once stopped for a night near this venerable pueblo. Some went north from San Juan into the San Luis Valley of Colorado, then westward. Most went on up the Chama River to Abiquiu and beyond. Here, also, the first Spanish settlers of 1598 found a home for ten years before moving to Santa Fe.
Opening speaker, Ohkay Owingeh leader, Joe A. Garcia, who also presides over the National Congress of American Indians, will acknowledge the importance of Native American footpaths and guidance in the U.S. expansion west of Santa Fe.
Old Spanish Trail Association director-at-large Dr. James M. Jefferson (Southern Ute) will speak to participants on the Ute traditional uses of this and other trails over many centuries. This year's meeting of the Old Spanish Trail Association marks important milestones — the 40th anniversary of the National Historic Trail System (encompassing 17 trails), and the on-going 400th anniversary of Santa Fe, the city that, in many ways, gave birth to the trail.
It is both appropriate and critical that the Native American origins of The Old Spanish National Historic Trail be honored and acknowledged by those who appreciate the complexities of our Western heritage with all its truths and riches, pain and glories. The legacy of expansionism fed, in part, by the fever of manifest destiny, imprints our history permanently.
Douglas M. Knudson is the current president of the Old Spanish Trail Association. Visit www.oldspanishtrail.org for more information about the June 6-8 annual conference at the Ohkay Owingeh resort north of Española.
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