History of New Mexico

Histories and Source Documents

I have no general history of the territory or state onsite yet, and for now only this one book, although another item is on its way; a fair amount though of New Mexico material — scattered thru a number of more general books on the history of the American West, usually in connection with the Mexican War, the building of the railroads, and of course camels — can be found onsite: see the orientation page to American history; for example, a good treatment of the region's history under Spain is given in Bolton's The Spanish Borderlands, chapter 6, "New Mexico".

Adventures in the Santa Fé Trade, 1844‑1847, by James Josiah Webb, is his first-hand account (1888) of his first travels as a dry-goods merchant along the Santa Fé Trail and into Mexico. A good deal of information about the Trail and the trading, and about Santa Fé, Taos and New Mexico in the 19c; but definitely also the adventures: not only the difficulties of wagon trains in the West — terrain, hostile Indians — but the added peculiarities of American citizens conducting business in a country with which their government was at war. [ primary source: 301 printed pages presented in 11 webpages; 8 illustrations ]

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The icon I use to indicate this subsite is the flag of the State of New Mexico.

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