Dios y la Nación: The 1837 Revolt and the Maladministration of Mexican New Mexico

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the revolt of 1837 in New Mexico within the context of Mexico City’s inattention to the North after Mexican independence and the destabilizing effects of U.S. commercial expansion. An analysis tracing the origins of the uprising to its suppression in January 1838 suggests that New Mexico’s unrest had less to do with a federalist movement for autonomy or separatism than it did a rejection of ineffective governance and mismanagement common to both federalist and centralist regimes. More specifically, rebelling nuevomexicanos challenged the prevailing political economy of New Mexico sustained by what can be called the commercial order. This haphazard coalition of wealthy nuevomexicanos, American traders, and officials provided just enough revenue to maintain the basic functions of government; but, in their devotion to the overland trade between the United States and Mexico, New Mexican administrators enacted policies that promoted wars with Navajos and jeopardized the livelihoods of nuevomexicanos who relied on subsistence agriculture and the borderlands trade with independent Indians. Nuevomexicanos in 1837 ultimately rose up against not only the commercial order, but also the national government whose neglect after 1821 helped to engender and then perpetuate the maladministration of New Mexico.