During our stay in Las Vegas, New Mexico, we took a short trip to visit Fort Union National Monument. The end of the Mexican American war in 1848 expanded the interests and obligations of the United States. As American Indians and Mexicans defended themselves against the invasion of their homeland, concerns for safety increased among settlers, traders, merchants, travelers, townspeople, and farmers. To protect its new U.S. territory and extend its influence and security to travelers on the trail and to newly arriving American settlers, the United States established Fort Union in 1851.
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| Fort Union |
For 40 years between 1851 and 1891, Fort Union served as a military hub overseeing the transformation of the American Southwest. Fort Union provided a frontier force. Soldiers patrol the Santa Fe Trail to protect travelers from Indian attack, escort wagon trains, and accompany stagecoaches carrying U.S. mail. Daily duties include drills, guard mounts, target practice, inspections, and other tasks to operate the post.
The Quartermaster Depot was the American Southwest's central supply hub, Fort Union's depot sees 30-100 wagon trains of up to 200 wagons each pass through daily. Soldiers and civilian workers, including Hispanic laborers, receive and ship thousands of tons of supplies to 46 regional posts.
Life at Fort Union ~~ Officers' wives organize social events like dances, teas, and balls. Residents play cards, horseshoes, field sports, billiards, and bowling to break up the monotony of frontier life. Kids play with dolls and marbles, ride horses, and go to school when teachers are available. Before the Civil War, enslaved people travel here with officers' families or work as servants; after the war, some work as soldiers or civilian employees.
The safest place in the world to bring up children. ~~ Genevieve Collins, daughter and wife of post officer
The lands that the Santa Fe Trail passed through were not empty. They were occupied by American Indian tribes -- each with their own cultures, conflicts and alliances. The Mora Valley, where Fort Union was built, included ancestral hunting grounds of Comanche and Apache tribes. Southern Ute, Kiowa, and Jicarilla Apache also lived on this land. The Navajo raised crops and livestock here. Pecos and Jemez Pueblo peoples lived nearby in permanent settlements. Over the centuries, there were times of conflict between these groups, but there was also trade and cooperation.
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| Mescalaro Apache Indians, 1883 |
Over the span of 50 years, tribal worlds were turned upside down. Yet still today, indigenous peoples continue to endure and thrive. For centuries, American Indians had contended with Spanish invaders from the south. However, with Anglo-Americans, it was different. Anglo-Americans kept pouring into the region, and they were equipped with more powerful weapons. Not only did they push the tribes aside, they systematically killed the buffalo the tribes relied on.
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| Farming family in the Mora Valley, 1895 |
Hispanos Build Flour Mills ~~ Fort Union required a steady supply of food, and local Hispanos from the nearby Mora Valley were happy to provide. Farmers grew corn and sold fresh vegetables. Eventually they built their own mills to supply the fort with flour. The army paid in cash, giving the local economy a boost. Local Hispanos used some of the cash they made from supplying Fort Union to purchase goods from the East. Households ordered fabrics, religious prints, utensils, and manufactured items such as iron door hinges.
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| Lehman, Levi, Jacob, Emanuel, and Willi Spiegelberg |
Jewish Entrepreneurs ~~ Unlike many Anglos who arrived in New Mexico during the mid-1800s, German Jewish merchants typically became fluent in Spanish and mingled well with local Hispanos. Jacob Spiegelberg traveled with US troops fighting the Mexican-American War, selling food and equipment along the way. He later opened a supply store in Santa Fe. His four brothers joined him from Germany.
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| La Doña Tules Gertrudis Barceló, ca 1854 |
Doña Tules Gertrudis Barcelo, known as Doña Tules was described as charming, shrewd and brilliant. She became an expert card dealer and gained wealth and influence as a businesswoman. In 1839, Tules opened a saloon and gambling establishment in Santa Fe, which soon became a favorite of Santa Fe traders. A block long, it had crystal chandeliers, luxurious carpets, and imported furniture. Doña Tules became quite wealthy and mingled with prominent people at the time. This included Mexican government officials before the US War with Mexico, and American officers afterwards.
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| Civil War Fighters |
When the Civil War began, many units of the US Army were called back to the East. Volunteer militias filled the gap. These militias played a critical role in blocking Confederate advances. Hispanos quickly joined up and received the same pay as Anglo volunteers: $13 per month. By July of 1861, these volunteers were training at Fort Union, rising for 5am drills. Most units were commanded by Hispano officers. Lt. Col. Manuel Chavez played an essential role at Glorieta Pass, where the Confederates were turned back to Texas.
When America declared war against Mexico, it was easy for General Stephen Watts Kearny to quickly invade Mexican territory and take possession of Santa Fe. However, not all New Mexicans welcomed the change. Military officer Diego Archuleta organized with others to take the territory back. Although their plot was discovered, Taos Pueblo member Tomás Romero managed to kill the newly appointed US governor. The rebellion was put down within a year.
Fort Union was established in part to protect Hispano residents and Pueblo communities from Plains Indians raids. But officers also kept a look out for any new signs of Hispano and Pueblo unrest.
Because of their frequent trading with nomadic tribes, the comancheros were skilled navigators and traders. Hispanos known as comancheros made a living trading with nomadic tribes such as the Comanches and their allies with Kiowa. Trading stretched back to the 1700s, but it had to be conducted carefully. The Comanches prided themselves as warriors and raided Hispano and Pueblo communities.
At first, Fort Union military officials worked with the comancheros to help set up peace negotiations with the Comanches. They later outlawed comanchero trade with the tribes, hoping to force the Comanche people onto reservations.
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| La Cueva Mill |
As time progressed, the Mora Valley became the breadbasket for Fort Union and the American Southwest. Decades before Fort Union was built, Hispanos started settling along the Mora River despite Comanche and Apache raids. They terraced and farmed the land, and in 1835 secured grants from the Mexican government for nearly 1,250 square miles of land.
Twenty years later, as Fort Union's demand for supplies grew, so did food production in the Mora Valley. In time, flour mills dotted the valley floor. Fort Union no longer had to order their flour and other food supplies from the East.
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| Romulo Martinez, Sheriff of Santa Fe |
During the Civil War, Hispanos stepped up. When the Civil War began, enlisted Army troops were sent to battlefields back East. When it became clear the Confederate Texans were preparing to make a move on New Mexico, the call went out for New Mexicans to join up. Although a few Hispanos felt tied to the Confederate cause, many enlisted on the Union side and served in volunteer units at Fort Union. They escorted wagon trains, campaigned against invading Texans and Indian raiders, and helped construct the fort.
The third Fort Union hospital, completed in 1865, was a vast improvement over the leaky, inadequate buildings built before. The third Fort Union hospital was the largest and best-equipped facility in the region. The building could accommodate 100 patients. Disease and accidental injury were the most common complaints. Antibiotics hadn't been discovered and X-rays hadn't been invented. Still, the surgeon and his attendants could remove bullets, set bones, help birth babies, and prescribe medications that could ease symptoms.
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| Bridget Mallory, laundress at Fort Union, 1873-1876 |
It was hard to keep clothes clean in the windy, dusty Mora Valley. Army laundresses could earn up to $15 per month scrubbing clothes and bedding. Often these women were the wives of enlisted men. Marriage for an enlisted man was typically forbidden unless his wife agreed to become a laundress. On rare occasions, the commanding officer would accept a male recruit who was already married.
"We have a new laundress in the Company. Her husband enlisted a few weeks ago. He was raising stock in the country, and was doing very well til last fall when Indians ran away six hundred head of cattle for him . . ." ~~ Private Eddie Matthews, 1870
The life of an enlisted man ~~ Discipline was strict and hours were long. Life at the fort could be alternately harsh and frightening, or routine and boring. Soldiers signed up for five years. Some were killed on duty, and some deserted. Some returned to civilian life, while other reenlisted. You did what you were ordered to do. At Fort Union, this included a great deal of menial labor along with posting guard, standing for inspection, going out on patrol -- suppressing Indian rebellions.
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| Buffalo Soldiers |
Close to 3,500 African American soldiers served in New Mexico after the Civil War. In 1876, four companies of the all-Black 9th US Cavalry were assigned to Fort Union. Their job was to keep tribes on reservations and protect the settlers who were flooding into the region. They became known to American Indian groups as Buffalo Soldiers.
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| Cathay Williams |
African American Cathay Williams served at Fort Union, first as a soldier and then as a cook. Williams was born to an enslaved mother and free father in 1844. After Union forces captured the plantation where she worked as a house slave, Williams was pressed into service as a Union army cook and washerwoman. At 17, Williams switched her name to William Cathay and enlisted in an all-Black regiment. Her secret was discovered by a doctor at Fort Bayard, New Mexico. She was honorably discharged in 1868 and went on to served as a cook at Fort Union.
The First Fort Union (1851-1861) was built in a hurry -- too much of a hurry. Colonel Edwin Sumner decided to place the fort where the two branches of the Santa Fe Trail merged -- away from the distractions and temptations of Santa Fe and close to Indian territorial conflicts. Soldiers started cutting trees and shoveling dirt. The fort included over two dozen rough log buildings, with a barracks, officers' quarters, and hospital. Insects quickly infested the poorly prepared logs. During the summer, soldiers moved back into their tents to escape them. The buildings rotted out within the decade.
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| The buildings for the new fort had stone foundations and were erected with adobe bricks |
The new Star Fort included earthen walls troops could fire from or hide behind. The whole garrison was completed in six months with the help of hundreds of New Mexico Volunteers, many of whom were Hispano.
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| Soldiers & civilians pose in front of a Fort Union building |
Once the Civil War broke out, Fort Union gained a new mission: Don't let New Mexico and surrounding Territories fall to Confederate forces. However, the war revealed divided loyalties. Some Fort Union officers immediately resigned and joined the Confederacy. Others put their attention to building a new Fort Union -- one that could withstand Confederate cannon fire.
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| Building believed to be post commander's quarters |
The third fort was constructed with care. Expanded needs called for an expanded fort -- from barracks to bakery and everything else in between. Fort Union now served as the supply depot for the entire region's network of forts and the communities that were springing up around them. The fort's commanding officers hired local skilled craftsmen and used better materials.
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| Children of Fort Union officers, mid-1880s |
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| Walter Keeshan spent his youth at Fort Union |
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| Lucy Margaret Keeshan was born at Fort Union |
A number of children grew up at Fort Union. Officers brought their families to the fort as did married enlisted men. Some widowed laundresses also brought children. Katie Bowen, wife of Captain Isaac Bowen, wrote often about family life at the fort.
Commissary Sergeant Thomas Keeshan and his family resided at the fort during the 19th century. He was appointed commissary sergeant in 1884. Other members of the family mentioned in historical records include Walter and Lucy Margaret Keeshan. There are pictures of his children, but no mention of his wife or anything else about him.
Fort Union's military mission of protecting the Santa Fe Trail and the Hispano settlements in New Mexico Territory put it on a collision course with the American Indian tribes. Coursing through the three chapters of Fort Union is the Santa Fe Trail -- a 900-mile wagon route carved across American Indian ancestral lands. In New Mexico Territory, this trail pierced the homelands of nomadic Ute, Jicarilla Apache, Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Pawnee, and the non-nomadic Pueblo nations.
For centuries during Spanish and Mexican, Hispanos -- people of colonial Spanish descent -- had settled in the Southwest. A precarious balance of conflict and co-existence endured between the American Indian tribes and Hispano settlers. As traffic increased on the Santa Fe Trail, this balance pitched into an unending cycle of resentment, raids, and retaliation as each culture tried to maintain their tenuous position on the land.
Two young women and a child in front of their tipi ready for the races at Go-jii-ya; a tribal harvest festival that represents the Great Race between animals and birds.
Family visits "Puerta" at Ramona School. Contact between schools and their families was restricted; relatives could visit only briefly at prescribed times. Photos taken during this period were often posed in order to create a sense of cultural assimilation.
Children on reservations were required to attend Indian boarding schools that promised to "kill the Indian in him, and save the man." They were given new names, new clothes, and were forbidden to speak their own languages. Since the boarding school years, many tribal nations have insisted on community-based schools that teach indigenous languages and promote pride in tribal heritage.
Less than 50 years after Fort Union was built, the lives of American Indians had changed radically due to the ravages of disease and systematic US government efforts to push them off their lands. Freighters distributed treaty-mandated government rations to indigenous people confined to reservations.
Mescalaro Apache families bring their children to the Santa Fe Ramona Indian School around 1885.
As the US government increased its focus on westward expansion, American Indian tribes suffered. Fort Union troops were instrumental in forcing indigenous peoples into treaties that restricted their movements. By the 1870s, many tribes in the New Mexico region had been pushed onto reservations. US policies forced children to leave their families to be assimilated into Anglo ways.
"Kill the Indian in him and save the man" ~~ This historic quote from the founder of the American boarding schools for Indian children delivered a message to indigenous children, that who they were was not good enough. These children were taken away from their homes and forced to learn the ways and language of those who had taken power from their people.
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| An unknown Kiowa artist depicts Kiowa and Comanche fighting against US Cavalry with cannons in 1868 |
Some tribes in the Fort Union area fought the US Army. Others found it advantageous to cooperate. Some used their deep knowledge of the land to assist the military against rival indigenous groups. Each tribe and each individual within a tribe faced decisions about how to respond.
Unlike the neighboring Plains Indians, the Pueblo people had long built permanent homes. They lived in adobe villages and diverted river water to irrigate fields of corn and melons. The Pueblo people had endured Spanish and Mexican rule and incorporated aspects of Hispano culture into their own.
In 1846, General Stephen Watts Kearny claimed the New Mexican territory for the United States. Some Pueblo and Hispano communities rebelled. The revolt was put down swiftly. Colonel Sterling Price laid siege to the Taos Pueblo, killing over 150 Indians and Hispanos.
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| Navajo prisoners taking the "Long Walk" |
The Long Walk and Return ~~ Between 1863 and 1867, the US military forced 11,500 Navajo prisoners to march to the newly established Bosque Rondo Reservation at Fort Sumner 400 miles away. Only around 8,500 completed the harrowing journey. Most walked, some in chains. Stragglers were shot. Life at the internment camp was no better, and many died of starvation and disease. Navajo leaders negotiated a new treaty that allowed them to return to a portion of their homeland in 1868. The treaty signing is celebrated every year on June first.
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| Jicarilla Apache man and woman |
Jicarilla Apache and Utes fight back. In the early 1700s, the Jicarilla Apache were driven from their lands by the Comanche. They resettled in northeastern New Mexico and began to farm river lands and hunt buffalo. But by the 1830s, Hispanos began settling the area. In their efforts to survive, the Jicarilla and their Ute allies began raiding Hispano settlements and Santa Fe travelers. Conflicts flared.
Fort Union launched a military campaign against the Jicarillas in 1854 and the Utes a year later. In 1873, the Jicarillas appealed for a reservation, which was established 14 years later.
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| Chief Quanah Parker |
Facing an overpowering attack, the tribes finally surrendered, and Chief Quanah Parker brought the last band of Comanches to surrender at Fort Sill in present-day Oklahoma. By the late 1860s, tribes were miserable on the reservations. Treaty-guaranteed food rations were poor quality and inadequate, leading to widespread malnutrition. The buffalo herds on which tribes depended were being wiped out by government-condoned commercial hunters.
In 1874, desperate Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Comanche warriors attacked a camp of white buffalo hunters in the Texas panhandle. In response, the US Army launched a five-pronged attack. Fort Union supplied men, ammunition, and arms -- including artillery.
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| Jicarilla cradleboard |
Jicarilla infants slept in cradleboards like this one. Created of willow and soft leather and decorated with beads, it provided a safe place to nestle the baby.
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| Wagon train on the Santa Fe Trail |
The twin promises of trade and travel encouraged Anglo-Americans to push into the Southwest. The region would never be the same. Portions of this ancient path emerged more than 2,000 years ago as part of a network of trails used by multiple American Indian groups. In the 1820s, US surveyors mapped the region and expanded the Santa Fe Trail to connect American products from the east to markets in the Mexican town of Santa Fe and points beyond. Trade soon accelerated in all directions.
In the 1846-48 war with Mexico, the United States gained all this surveyed territory and more. The US government built Fort Union in 1851 to better protect its interests.
In 1821, Missouri trader William Becknell was the first to load up a caravan of mules and transport goods to Santa Fe. If you were resourceful and willing to take risks, you could make good money as a freighter. French Canadian Francis Xavier Aubry understood these possibilities. He made his first Santa Fe Trail trip in 1846, after saving enough money to purchase some wagons and draft animals. Within a few years, he was one of the most respected freighters on the trail.
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| Captain Isaac and Kathie Bowen |
During Fort Union's 40-year history, hundreds of soldiers traveled from Fort Leavenworth in Kansas to serve at the fort or be dispatched to other forts nearby. Officers were permitted to bring their spouses and children. Captain Isaac Bowen traveled west with his wife Katie before Fort Union was even built. They spent their first months living in tents, while timber for the fort was being cut. Katie later delivered the first baby born at the fort.
Traffic along the Santa Fe Trail increased dramatically after gold was discovered in California. It's estimated that approximately 20,000 gold seekers chose this route between 1849 and 1855.
"Several parties of traders as well as Californians passed our encampment today on their way from Independence to Santa Fe. Their animals were oxen and mules in splendid order, showing a very marked contract to ours ..." ~~ George Stiffen, 1848
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| Marian Sloan Russell, years after she completed the trail journey |
"Each night we pitched the tent close to the wagon and it spread its dark wings over the three of us." ~~ Marian Sloan Russell
Many children traveled the Trail to Fort Union and points beyond. Seven-year-old Marian Sloan made the trip in 1852 with her widowed mother and older brother. Her mother hoped to start a new life in California. They traveled for two months with a large group of wagons loaded with supplies for the fort and Santa Fe. Each night, the wagons circled up. Marian and her mother would pitch their tent while Will made a small cook fire. She remembers feeling tired but safe within the sheltering light of the camp circle.
Local supplies ~~ Under Fort Union's protection, Hispano residents in the Mora Valley began producing more goods for the fort, including locally milled flour. Fort Union served as a distribution center to other Western forts. Fort Union's quartermaster contracted with freighting companies to deliver guns and ammunition from Fort Leavenworth in the east. In turn, they were distributed to outposts throughout the Southwest.
As Fort Union expanded, so did its shopping list. In 1862, over 3,000 wagons made the trip with 15,000 tons of merchandise. Freighters delivered uniforms, weapons and ammunition, tinned foods, utensils, and countless other items.
"This thing of standing Guard every other night is not very pleasant." ~~ William Matthews, private, 8th Cavalry Regiment. 1870
Most enlisted men did not like to hear their names called for guard duty. During their entire 24-hour shift, they had to stay fully clothed. These men paraded before the post, escorted prisoners to empty trash barrels, guarded the stables and wagon corrals, and "took charge of all Government property in sight." There was little time to get any rest at the guard house.
Each U-shaped barracks you see here sheltered a company. Inside there were two squared rooms with 21 bunks each, a kitchen and ration room, a company mess hall, a storeroom, an ordnance room for guns and ammunition, and an orderly room. Each company even had a small reading room.
Here you get one night in bed ... tonight you are on Guard, tomorrow morning at 8am you get relieved ... one hour after coming off Guard you have to saddle up and go on Herd. Come in with the Herd at 4pm, spend one hour grooming your horse, then get your supper. At sundown the Bugle calls you to Retreat to answer your name, and hear who are detailed for Guard on the morrow ... from Retreat till Tattoo (2 hours) you have to shine your belts, clean your gun and brasses so they shine like a gold piece in the dark.
Next morning at break of day you fall in ranks for Reveille, answer your name, and then march to the stables, spend half an hour on the horses, come back, swallow your breakfast, and then put on all your good clothes, comb your hair ... put on all your belts, shoulder your Carbine, and then you are ready for Guard Mount. At the first sound of the Bugle, you rush in ranks to be inspected first by your First Sergeant ... [then by] the Sergeant Major... [who] opens your shirt collar to see if that bit of apparel has been to the Laundresses in the course of a couple of months.
The Band strikes up those patriotic tunes ... You are then marched to the Guardhouse. During the day you escort prisoners around camp, emptying swill barrels, etc. At night you guard over a stable, lots of wagons and with those orders 'take charge of the Post, and all Government property in view' ... That is soldiering in a nutshell." ~~ Eddie Matthews, private, 8th US Cavalry, 1870
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| Fort Union Hospital Wards |
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It had a working staff of two Army doctors, two nurses and three hospital matrons treated and nursed both soldiers and civilians. Untrained enlisted men also helped tend the sick. Their caseload was daunting: blisters, boils, burns, cuts, colds, coughs, childbirth, fevers, flu, pneumonia, ulcers, gonorrhea, syphilis, scurvy, scarlet fever, typhoid, smallpox, diarrhea, delirium, opium overdose, alcoholism, rheumatism, broken bones, and gunshot and arrow wounds.
In December 1876 -- a typical month -- Fort Union's medical staff treated 425 patients, of whom 166 were hospitalized. About 40% of the people who lay in these hospital beds were civilians -- who had to pay 50ȼ a day for treatment.
In 1886, Commanding General of the US Army Philip Sheridan recommended that Fort Union and Fort Lyon be closed, declaring "... these posts have outlived the wants of the country surrounding them, and there is no necessity of keeping them except to furnish shelter for the troops."
Fort Union closed in 1891, not because it was falling apart, but because, for better or worse, the US Army had achieved its aim of "pacifying" the American Indians and clearing the way for expanded Anglo settlement. Additionally, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad had finally opened, making the Santa Fe Trail obsolete.
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