A line editor who recently read through my upcoming novel, Where Duty Calls, had a lot of questions about the mindset of some of my characters. New Mexico had been a territory of the United States for almost two decades when the Civil War broke out. Why, then, did the characters think of Americans as foreigners? Did people with Hispanic ancestry think of themselves as Americans? Or did they yearn for the old days when Mexico, or even Spain ruled their land? Even if I knew the answer, I was hard-pressed to explain it. A book that I’m reading right now would have helped.
That book is American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, by Colin Woodard. This award-winning journalist and historian argues that North America is culturally divided into eleven nations, whose boundaries are very different from the boundaries that divide Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Each of Woodard’s nations has unique historical roots which influence their people’s understanding of basic concepts of government. New Mexico is part of the nation that Woodard calls El Norte.
According to Woodard, El Norte forms a band of land that
According to Woodard, El Norte forms a band of land that
stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. The southern boundary of El Norte encompasses the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora, and Baja California. South and West Texas, Southern California, and Southern Arizona are also a part of El Norte. In New Mexico, El Norte stretches up the Rio Grande, all the way into Southern Colorado. The economy of this area is orientated towards the United States, but much of the culture and social norms have Hispanic roots. It is, as Woodard notes, a place apart.
El Norte in general, and New Mexico in particular were places apart from mainstream society from their very inception. It was no surprise to me that Spain provided little support for its colony in New Mexico, which remained poor and isolated. What was news to me was the reason that Woodard gives for this neglect. When Pope Alexander VI granted Spain ownership of almost the entire Western Hemisphere, he believed that he was setting in motion the creation of a ‘universal monarchy’ that would bring about Judgement Day. Spanish King Philip II and his son, Philip III thought it was their duty not only to convert the Western Hemisphere’s Indians to Christianity before it was too late, but to subdue Protestant Europe before pressing on to conquer the Turks, then “Africa, Asia, Calcutta, China, Japan, and all the islands adjacent.” (pg. 27) When Spain had achieved world domination, Christ would come in glory and, no doubt, his servants the Spanish would receive a reward even greater than all the gold they had discovered in the New World.
So, while the gold and silver mines of Central and South America financed Spain’s religious wars in Europe, the most important commodity in El Norte was souls. The Spanish financed Franciscan missions that gathered in Native Americans in an attempt to turn them into Catholic, Spanish speaking farmers and tradesmen. The ideal, which was often corrupted, called for integrating Native Americans into their society, then granting them land on which to live. Many of the small villages in New Mexico were founded by Genizaros, people who were ethnically Native but socially Hispanic. Many Genizaro further integrated by marrying Hispanics. By the early 1700s, the majority of the population was Mestizo, or mixed parentage. In the lower portion of Mexico, society remained stratified, with those of pure Spanish blood ruling over the Mestizo and Genizaro peasantry. In El Norte, however, where almost everyone had at least one nonwhite ancestor, this was less pronounced. It was not parentage that separated the Spanish from the Indian: it was action. Act like someone whose ancestors came from Spain, and you could claim that ancestry yourself. El Norte ended up being populated by people that were neither Spanish nor Indian, but something unique to the area.
Although Spain was too embroiled in war against the English and other Europeans to have much time, energy, or resources to put into their colonies, they didn’t want to relinquish their power. Most of the Hispanics who had entered El Norte had been ordered to do so by the church or state, and could not travel from town to town or settle on new land without permission from the King or his Viceroy. Citizens were not allowed to trade with anyone but the Spanish government, which meant that any goods New Mexican’s offered for sale had to go through Mexico, via the Camino Real. Any items that New Mexicans wanted to purchase had to come over the same road. Resupply caravans of ox-drawn wooden carts arrived in New Mexico only once every three or four years.
Woodard says that El Norte had no self-government, no elections, and no possibility for local people to play any significant role in politics. The governors were often also military commanders. Under them, the local patron took care of his peons in a system not unlike medieval serfdom. However, the wide swaths of unsettled land allowed people who wished to escape the watchful eyes of the priests and military could move into the wilds or in with the Native Americans.
Because of their isolation and the neglect of their government, the people of New Mexico developed self-sufficiency and adaptability. They were a people with ties to both their Hispanic and Indian roots, and were intolerant of tyranny and distrustful of outsiders. When the United States claimed New Mexico during the Mexican-American war, most New Mexicans considered the Americans just another government far away from them that might try to assert itself over them. They didn’t want America telling them what to do any more than they’d wanted Mexico to do so, or Spain before that. When the Civil War began, and New Mexico was asked to take sides between the Union or Confederacy, many chose not to choose. The May 11, 1861 of the Santa Fe Gazette put it this way:
Because of their isolation and the neglect of their government, the people of New Mexico developed self-sufficiency and adaptability. They were a people with ties to both their Hispanic and Indian roots, and were intolerant of tyranny and distrustful of outsiders. When the United States claimed New Mexico during the Mexican-American war, most New Mexicans considered the Americans just another government far away from them that might try to assert itself over them. They didn’t want America telling them what to do any more than they’d wanted Mexico to do so, or Spain before that. When the Civil War began, and New Mexico was asked to take sides between the Union or Confederacy, many chose not to choose. The May 11, 1861 of the Santa Fe Gazette put it this way:
“What is the position of New Mexico?
The answer is a short one.
She desires to be let alone.
In her own good time she will say her say,
and choose for herself
the position she wishes to occupy
in the new disposition
of the new disrupted power
of the United States.”
The answer is a short one.
She desires to be let alone.
In her own good time she will say her say,
and choose for herself
the position she wishes to occupy
in the new disposition
of the new disrupted power
of the United States.”
Woodard states that the border that divides Mexico from the United States also divides El Norte. While many people are clamoring for a wall to be build on the border, Woodard says that the situation resembles Germany during the Cold War. He says that the wall separates two peoples with a common culture. One thing I did not realize was that many of those peoples would prefer to unite and form their own country. He says that Charles Truxillo, a professor of Chicano studies at the University of New Mexico predicts that this nation, which he calls La Republica del Norte, will come into existence by the end of the twenty-first century.
A native New Mexican, Jennifer Bohnhoff has spent a lifetime explaining to people from elsewhere that no, New Mexico does not use the peso, and yes, we are pretty good at speaking English.
Where Duty Calls, a novel for middle grade readers about the Civil War in New Mexico, will be available in June 2022 from Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing. You can preorder it by clicking here.
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A note about Bookshop.org.
Bookshop.org is an international online retailer that offers small independent booksellers the ability to host their own online retail space. Every sale on their website benefits independent booksellers. They also allow readers and reviewers to become affiliates, who earn a commission for every sale they direct to their website.
I sell my own books through Bookshop.org. I am also a Bookshop.org affiliate. If you purchase a book by clicking through a Bookshop.org link that I have provided, whether it is my book or authored by someone else, I will receive a commission, and Bookshop.org will donate a matching commission to independent booksellers.
I provide these links as a convenience to you. However, I applaud you if you choose to check out these books at your local library or buy them through your local, independent bookseller. It is far more important to me that you read than that I get a small commission.
