History of slavery in New Mexico facts for kids

Slavery and involuntary servitude in New Mexico shifted between being legal and illegal over time, with varying levels of enforcement. Spain introduced slavery when it colonized the area, Mexico tried to restrict it, as a U.S. territory it was made fully legal again until the American Civil War. During these years, however, black slavery was rare in New Mexico with most slaves being Native Americans.

Spanish rule

The New Laws of 1542 ended slavery in Spanish colonies, but many New World settlers either refused to comply, or worked around the prohibition by adopting legal practice which allowed de facto slavery, such as peonage, a type of debt slavery. When Spanish colonists arrived in New Mexico, they began exploiting the people, resulting in their conducting nearly continuous raids, reprisals and capturing of slaves on the nomadic Indian tribes on the borders. The slaves were referred to as genízaros. Most Genízaros were Navajo, Pawnee, Apache, Kiowa Apache, Ute, Comanche, and Paiute who had been purchased at a young age and worked as domestic servants and sheepherders. In some cases, Pueblo peoples were enslaved by court order. The 1659 court case of Juan Suñi, a young Hopi man accused of stealing food and trinkets in the governor's mansion, resulted in a sentence of ten years of enslavement.

The 1680 Pueblo Revolt temporarily ended Spanish enslavement of Native Americans in New Mexico by driving all the Spanish settlers and military out, but the Spanish reasserted control in 1692.

By the mid-1700s, stronger tribes raided weaker tribes for slaves and commodities. By the mid-18th century, the Comanche dominated the weaker tribes in the eastern plains.

Contemporary scholars believe that the objective of Spanish rule of New Mexico (and all other northern lands) was the full exploitation of the native population and resources. As Frank McNitt writes,

Governors were a greedy and rapacious lot whose single-minded interest was to wring as much personal wealth from the province as their terms allowed. They exploited Indian labor for transport, sold Indian slaves in New Spain, and sold Indian products ... and other goods manufactured by Indian slave labor.

Although the slaves were protected by the Laws of the Indies, many of them complained of mistreatment. Although they were baptized, they sometimes left the church if they could escape from the Spanish. After the missionaries complained about mistreatment of the Indians to the governor, officials established a policy to settle the baptized Indians on land grants on the periphery of Spanish settlements. They generally supported slavery, believing the "redeemed" captives were better off after being educated and converted to Christianity. These settlements became buffer communities for larger Spanish towns in the event of attack by the enemy tribes surrounding the province.

The settlements of Tomé and Belén just south of Albuquerque, were described by Juan Agustin Morfi as follows in 1778:

In all the Spanish towns of New Mexico there exists a class of Indians called genizaros. These are made up of captive Comanches, Apaches, etc. who were taken as youngsters and raised among us, and who have married in the province ... They are forced to live among the Spaniards, without lands or other means to subsist except the bow and arrow which serves them when they go into the back country to hunt deer for food ... They are fine soldiers, very warlike ... Expecting the genizaros to work for daily wages is a folly because of the abuses they have experienced, especially from the alcaldes mayores in the past ... In two places, Belen and Tome, some sixty families of genizaros have congregated.

By the Mexican and early American period (1821–1880), almost all of the Genízaros were of Navajo ancestry. During negotiations with the United States military, Navajo spokesmen raised the issue of Navajos being held as servants in Spanish/Mexican households. When asked how many Navajos were among the Mexicans, they responded: "over half the tribe". Most of the captives never returned to the Navajo nation but remained as the lower classes in the Hispanic villages. Members of different tribes intermarried in these communities.

Mexican rule

After Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico enacted the Treaty of Córdoba, which decreed that indigenous tribes within its borders were citizens of Mexico. Officially, the newly independent Mexican government proclaimed a policy of social equality for all ethnic groups, and the genízaros were officially considered equals to their vecino (villagers of mainly mixed racial background) and Pueblo neighbors. This never was completely put into practice. The Mexican slave trade continued to flourish.

New Mexico territory

After New Mexico territory passed to American rule following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which ended the Mexican–American War in 1848, the issue of slavery in the new territory became a major issue, with the Whigs wanting to keep Mexico's ban on slavery and the Democrats wanting to introduce it. In the Compromise of 1850, it was decided that New Mexico Territory would be able to choose its own stance on slavery by popular sovereignty. In 1859, New Mexico passed the Act for the Protection of Slave Property. This was partially because Territorial Governor William Carr Lane and Chief Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court Grafton Baker owned black slaves. Many local citizens had seen the issue in different terms; soon after the Treaty had been signed, a group of prominent New Mexicans went on record in opposition to slavery, in their petition to congress to change the military government to a temporary territorial form. They were likely motivated by their desire for self-government, and the fact that the slave state of Texas claimed much of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande, and that many believed that it was planning to invade again as it had in 1841 and 1843. However, black slaves never numbered more than a dozen during these years.

On June 19, 1862, Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories. New Mexico citizens petitioned the US Senate for compensation for 600 Indian slaves that were going to be set free. The Senate denied their request and sent federal agents to enforce the abolition of slavery. The Spanish practice of peonage, a type of involuntary servitude, became a legal workaround to the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution legally abolished both slavery and involuntary servitude in December, 1865. When Special Indian Agent J.K. Graves visited in June 1866, he found that slavery was still widespread, often in the form of peonage. Many of the federal agents had captive servants; in his report, Graves estimated that there were 400 slaves in Santa Fe alone. On March 2, 1867, Congress passed the Peonage Act of 1867, which specifically targeted enforcement against the practice in New Mexico.

In popular culture

• "Along Came Mariana" an episode of Death Valley Days, set in 1857.