COMMENTARY:
I welcome any excuse to go back to my native lands in northern New Mexico. I grew up in Española, but a couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to join friends and family in celebrating the 250th anniversary of the San Jose de Gracia Church in the village of Las Trampas, New Mexico. This old northern New Mexico Spanish village sits on the High Road to Taos between the villages of Truchas and Chamisal in Taos County. While the church is as old as the United States, which also is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, the village of Las Trampas is even older, having been settled in 1751 by twelve Spanish families.
Growing up, I logged in the mountains around Las Trampas with my father, and hunted throughout the area with my family. We used to hike up Truchas and Wheeler Peaks on backpacking trips. Las Trampas lies at the base of these Rocky Mountains. We would also hike up to the gorgeous Las Trampas Lakes, which are fed by cold, clear, mountain streams and snow runoff. Going back, I marveled at the lush green mountain valleys around Las Trampas. I breathed in the cool mountain air, made even cooler by a light breeze.
Inside the church, various speakers talked about the settling of Las Trampas, the construction of the church, and how the original villagers’ Spanish land grant was stolen by dishonest men eager to harvest the timber around Las Trampas. Eventually, this land became federal land, part of the Carson National Forest. One speaker told of an incredible fact that stuck in my mind. He estimated by the size of the adobes used in constructing the church and the size of the walls, that approximately 300,000 adobes were used for construction. Imagine twelve families toiling at back-breaking work constructing the church over a period of sixteen years, finishing in 1776 – talk about faith and dedication.
Seeing the church and the village conjured up visions of ancient trade and war that northern New Mexico has seen during the past 428 years of Spanish presence in the region. Rethinking this history, I couldn’t help but compare the trade issues we are having today, and the war we are currently fighting in the Middle East with Iran. Spanish settlers were in constant battles with the Ute, Apache, and Comanche tribes that raided their villages. At times, peace would break out, and then wars and raiding would resume. It’s odd to imagine the bloody fighting that occurred in such a serene place. Fort Burgwin was eventually built in 1852 to protect the Taos region, including Las Trampas, from nomadic Indian tribes, who viewed the settlers as encroaching on their traditional lands. Due to trade with the French and English to the East, very often the raiding Native Americans were better armed with more modern firearms than the Spanish settlers.
Feathers and shells originating from Mexico have been found in northern New Mexico Indian Pueblos. This indicates a trading route among Native Americans long preceding Spanish arrival. After founding San Juan de los Caballeros in 1598, which is in the Española Valley and the oldest U.S. capital in the U.S., the Spanish founded the Camino Real, which stretched from Mexico City to this new settlement. In 1610, the capital was moved farther south to present-day Santa Fe.
Spanish villages such as Las Trampas lived a very sparse existence, having to be self-sufficient in order to survive. Any steel, iron, tin components, or tools that they used to construct their buildings and church had to be brought with the settlers or acquired from caravans coming up the Camino Real from Mexico. Lacking an abundance of these items, the settlers used what was around them – mud for adobe bricks, wood for church floors, and wooden beams for the ceilings.
Later from 1821 to 1880, the 900-mile Santa Fe Trail was established between modern-day Independence, Missouri, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. This opened up northern New Mexico to products from the midwestern and eastern parts of the U.S. This trade corridor was then replaced by the railroad, which reached Santa Fe in 1880, thus exposing villages such as Las Trampas to even more products and materials, which could now arrive more quickly.
Sitting, eating the potluck foods the villagers had generously provided to the visitors, I stared at the gravestones around the church that still had visible text, some that dated back to the early 1800s. I imagined the battles these people had been in, and the new products that came to them via old trading routes and the railroad. Were they even aware of the new nation that was rapidly seeping towards them, eventually to forcibly claim their traditional lands by a government driven by manifest destiny?
Today, I imagine that like us, the people from Las Trampas take for granted that they can jump in their cars made in Japan to buy avocados from Mexico in a local Española supermarket to make their game-time guacamole, while wearing polo shirts made in Bangladesh. Afterwards, they head home to turn on their televisions to watch drones drop bombs on targets on the other side of the world. Oh, what the descendants of the original settlers of Las Trampas are seeing today.
Jerry Pacheco is the president of the Border Industrial Association.
Jerry Pacheco's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of KRWG Public Media or NMSU.