The Taos Revolt was a popular insurrection against the United States' occupation of New Mexico during the Mexican-American War. Official language(s) None, English and Spanish de facto Capital Santa Fe Largest city Albuquerque Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 5th 315,194 km² 550 km 595 km 0. ... Combatants United States Mexico Commanders Zachary Taylor Winfield Scott Stephen W. Kearney Antonio López de Santa Anna Strength 60,000 40,000 Casualties KIA: 1,733 Total dead: 13,283 Wounded: 4,152 25,000 (Mexican government estimate) {{{notes}}} The Mexican-American War was fought between the United States...

Background

In August, 1846 New Mexico fell to U.S. forces under Stephen Watts Kearny. 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. Stephen Watts Kearny (August 30, 1794–October 31, 1848) was a United States Army officer, noted for action during the Mexican American War. ... General Price Sterling Old Pap Price (September 20, 1809 – September 29, 1867) was an antebellum politician from the U.S. state of Missouri and a Confederate major general during the American Civil War. ... Charles Bent was appointed as the first Governor of the newly acquired New Mexico Territory by Governor Stephen Watts Kearny in September, 1846. ...

Following Kearny's departure, dissenters plotted a Christmas uprising. Ultimately discovered by the American authorities, the planned uprising was postponed.

The January 19 Massacres

On the morning of On January 19, 1847, the insurrectionists, led by Pablo Montoya and a Taos Indian, Tomás Romero -- known as Tomasito -- began the revolt in Don Fernando de Taos (present-day Taos, New Mexico). Taos is a city located in Taos County, New Mexico. ...

The 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. Charles Bent was appointed as the first Governor of the newly acquired New Mexico Territory by Governor Stephen Watts Kearny in September, 1846. ...

That afternoon a large mob attacked and laid siege to Simeon Turley's Mill, located in Arroyo Hondo, several miles outside of Taos. Charley Autobees, an employee at the mill saw the crowd coming and left the mill 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." General Price Sterling Old Pap Price (September 20, 1809 – September 29, 1867) was an antebellum politician from the U.S. state of Missouri and a Confederate major general during the American Civil War. ...

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, joined by a force of approximately 65 volunteers organized by Ceran St. Vrain left Santa Fe and set off for Taos. Along the way, they met and 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. On January 20, 1847 Manuel Cortez, a native of the village of Mora, New Mexico organized an armed front against the invading American army. ... Buried in Mora, New Mexico. ... Insurgents in New Mexico under the leadership of Pablo Chavez, Pablo Montoya and Jesus Tafoya began marching south towards the American-held city of Santa Fe. ... Taos Pueblo, circa 1920 Taos Pueblo (or Pueblo de Taos), continuously inhabited for over 1000 years, is the ancient town of the Northern Tiwa speaking tribe of Pueblo people, Native Americans. ...

During the Siege of Pueblo de Taos, St. Vrain's "Emergency Brigade" set up a position between the church and the mountains to cut off any of the enemy who tried to escape the frontal assault by the American troops. St. Vrain’s volunteers reportedly ran down and killed 51 Mexicans and Indians in the fierce, close-quarter fighting that followed. The Siege of Pueblo de Taos was an engagement between U.S. forces and Insurgent forces in New Mexico during the Mexican-American War. ...

Aftermath

In Taos, Price 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; Elliot Lee, whose brother Stephen Lee had also been murdered was a venireman, and Robert Fisher, a long-time Bent trader was foreman of a petit 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. The court was in session for fifteen days, and fifteen men were found guilty of treason, sentenced to death, and executed. Upon witnessing the trials Lewis H. Garrard wrote: Buried in Mora, New Mexico. ...

It certainly did appear to be a great assumption on the part of the Americans to conquer a country and then arraign the revolting inhabitants for treason. American judges sat on the bench, New Mexicans and Americans filled the jury box, and American soldiery guarded the halls. Verily, a strange mixture of violence and justice.

One defendant, Antonio María Trujillo argued at trial that Price had no juridical right to prosecute the insurgents for treason since they did not consider themselves citizens of the United States, insisting instead that he and the insurgents were Mexican patriots acting in justifiable defense of their homeland.

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 admitted that one of them, Pablo Salazar, who had been hanged for treason, had been wrongfully convicted and the U.S. Supreme Court was to uphold this opinion. In all at least 28 men were hanged in Taos.

The revolt suppressed, Price returned to Santa Fe, where he discharged the civil and military functions of the territory.

Sources

• Broadhead, Edward, Ceran St. Vrain, Pueblo,Colorado, Pueblo County Historical Society, 2004

• Durand, John, The Taos Massacres, Puzzelbox 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 [1]

• 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