Revolt at Taos: The New Mexican and Indian Insurrection of 1847

by James A. Crutchfield

Overview

An Uprising by New Mexicans and Native Americans Against American Rule that Continues to Resonate Today
On the morning of January 19, 1847, Charles Bent, the newly appointed governor of the American-claimed territory of New Mexico, was savagely killed at his home in Don Fernando de Taos, a small, remote town located north of Santa Fe. Those responsible for Bent’s murder were New Mexican settlers and Indians from nearby Taos Pueblo who refused to recognize the United States occupation. With emotions rubbed raw, the natives continued their bloodbath until five more leading citizens were massacred in Taos. During the ensuing months, American civilians and soldiers, along with scores of New Mexicans and Taos Indians, were killed and wounded throughout the region. Less than a month following Bent’s murder, in a two-day battle, volunteer and regular elements of an American army under the command of Colonel Sterling Price emerged victorious after bombarding the insurrectionists at their refuge in the church at Taos Pueblo. Surviving participants in the earlier Taos murders were arrested, tried in American-dominated courts, and, within weeks, hanged for their actions. The murder of Bent and the others at Taos and the subsequent trials and executions brought with them misunderstanding, controversy, mistrust, and recrimination on both sides of the issue. The events also subjected President James K. Polk’s administration to censure over what some critics believed was an overextension of presidential authority in claiming New Mexico as a territory.
In Revolt at Taos: The New Mexican and Indian Insurrection of 1847, writer and historian James A. Crutchfield explores the fast-moving events surrounding the bloody revolt which left native inhabitants of New Mexico wondering how their neighbors and kinsmen could be legally tried, found guilty, and executed for acts they considered to have been honorable ones committed in defense of their country. These concerns have never been adequately addressed and their struggle has been all but scrubbed from the history of American expansion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594164507
Publisher:	Westholme Publishing
Publication date:	05/08/2025
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

JAMES A. CRUTCHFIELD, recipient of the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement in Western History and Literature, is the author of more than fifty books of United States history and biography, and his articles have appeared in magazines, newspapers, and journals across the country. 

Table of Contents

List of Maps xi

Preface xiii

Prologue xvii

1 Gone to Texas 1

2 Looking West 14

3 Without Firing a Gun or Spilling a Drop of Blood 26

4 "Every Thing Here Is Quiet and Peaceable" 47

5 Questions in the Nation's Capital 56

6 "We Were Without Food and Had No Covering" 61

7 "Dead! Dead! Dead!" 98

8 "The New Mexicans Entertain Deadly Hatred against Americans" 114

9 Causes and Consequences 121

Epilogue 150

Appendix A Chronology of Events Surrounding the American Occupation of New Mexico in 1846 and the Taos Revolt of 1847 159

Appendix B General Stephen Watts Kearny's August 19, 1846, Address to the People of Santa Fe 166

Appendix C Governor Juan Bautista Vigil y Aland's August 19, 1846, Response to General Kearny's Address 167

Appendix D General Stephen Watts Kearny's August 22, 1846, Proclamation to the People of Santa Fe 169

Appendix E A Description of New Mexico in 1846 171

Appendix F A Description of Taos and Vicinity in 1847 172

Appendix G List of American, New Mexican, and Indian Casualties of the Taos Revolt and Its Aftermath 174

Appendix H The Taos Revolt in the Performing Arts and Literature 180

Notes 183

Bibliography 209

Acknowledgments 221

Index 223

Editorial Reviews

Even though the revolt failed to wrest control from America, it focused attention, to President James K. Polk’s embarrassment, on the debate about whether the administration had exceeded its authority in claiming New Mexico. . . . Crutchfield states in his introduction that it is not his intent to be scathingly critical of America for the duplicity of its politicians and the alcohol-sodden behavior of the army. Still, he makes it clear that the revolt was in reaction to an overwrought pursuit of Manifest Destiny and a general contempt for the Indians and Mexicans who stood in the way.”—Foreword Reviews

From the Publisher

03/30/2015
Historian Crutchfield (The Way West) relates how Spanish-descended New Mexicans and their Taos Indian allies in the former Mexican Republic, reeling from an abrupt takeover by the United States, took their fury out on the territorial governor, Charles Bent, killing him and five others. Over the next several weeks, dozens of American civilians, soldiers, New Mexicans, and Indians died in this pivotal—though little-known—uprising during the Mexican American War. To Anglo-American minds, seizing the northern reaches of the Mexican Republic was the next logical step of manifest destiny, the controversial doctrine that undergirded the U.S. push westward toward the Pacific Ocean. White American homesteaders and soldiers ran roughshod over Indians and New Mexicans alike. In Crutchfield’s view, they suffered decimation akin to the infamous Trail of Tears, the brutal removal of native peoples from the Eastern states. The Taos revolt inflamed the interactions between the invaders and the local people, producing tensions that simmered well into statehood. Crutchfield’s judiciously told and masterfully researched history reveals the rough conditions endured by the soldiers and settlers en route to the Southwest, as well as the growing dismay of the local peoples who finally erupted under continuing threats to their ancestral lands and way of life. (May)

Publishers Weekly

04/15/2015
Western historian Crutchfield (The Way West) returns to a subject he previously explored in A Tragedy at Taos. This time, Crutchfield extends his investigation further than the reports of the prevailing Americans and Texans, delving deeper into the January 1847 Taos Revolt by pueblo Native Americans and New Mexicans, whose allegiances still lay primarily with Mexico despite the surrender of the armed forces of the former Mexican governor in August 1846 as part of the larger Mexican-American War. The assassination of Charles Bent, the newly appointed territorial governor of New Mexico, resulted in a large armed conflict of Taos Pueblo and Mexican-identifying peoples against the U.S. Army. Yet U.S. civil law was used to charge (and ultimately hang) leaders of the insurrection for treason against America after a jury trial by relatives of the American victims in May 1847. Crutchfield employs original documentation and period news reports to trace modern perceptions of the Taos Revolt as influenced by later writers, including novelist Willa Cather, whose Death Comes for the Archbishop vilified Taos priest Padre Antonio José Martinez. VERDICT This broad treatment of the Taos Revolt is a sincere attempt to view events and consequences from the perspectives of all peoples involved. Recommended for the examination of civil rights during the forced Americanization of established residents of New Mexico territory.—Nathan Bender, Albany Cty. P.L., Laramie, WY

Library Journal