“There is no country protected by our flag and subject to our laws so little known to the people of the United States as the territory of New Mexico. Its very position precludes an intimate intercourse with other sections of the Union, and serves to lock up a knowledge of the country within its own limits. The natural features differ widely from the rest of the Union; and the inhabitants, with the manners and customs of their Moorish and Castilian ancestors are both new and strange to our people. For these reasons, reliable information on this hitherto almost unknown region can not fail to be interesting to the public.”

Davis was a veteran of the Mexican War of 1846-48, and returned to New Mexico in 1853 to become United States Attorney for the territory. He traveled with only a few changes of clothes, a two-book law library and a ravenous curiosity, and he thoroughly journaled his entire travels to and throughout New Mexico.

His thousand-mile journey from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe would take 25 days by mule train, traveling   in torrential rains and drifting blizzards. Many nights were spend sleeping on the ground under the wagons for shelter, and many meals were skipped due to inclement weather.

El Gringo was written by W. W. H. Davis (1820 – 1910) and first published in 1857. You can order from the Books page; enjoyi!

It follows the 600-year period from 1400 to 2009 covered by the Albuquerque, New Mexico Historical Timeline, and correlates historical events in Mexico, New Mexico and the Southwest. It begins with the thousand years of native populations trading from New Mexico into Mexico and over to the coastal areas that would become California. It covers the northward pull of silver mining from Mexico City to Zacatecas and Chihuaha in the 1500s, and Oñate’s extension of El Camino Real an additional 700 miles northward, establishing the first permanent settlement in Nuevo Mexìco in 1598. Other events affecting Mexican immigration in this period include:
•    The 1803 Louisiana Purchase
•    1821 Independence from Spain and the Mexican Republic period
•    Creation of the Lone Star Republic of Texas in 1835
•    The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo’s massive land transfer
•    Railroads arriving in the 1880s
•    The Mexican Revolutionary period from 1910 to 1930
•    The Great Depression and the Mexican Repatriation Program
•    The Bracero “guest worker” program from 1942 to 1964
•    Operation Wetback in 1954
•    The Maquiladora Program from 1964 to now
•    1994 NAFTA
•    Corporate globalization
•    The 2005 California Apology Act for the 1930s Mexican Repatriation Program
•    The effects of the current economic downturn

In these events, you can see a “we want you – we don’t want you” pendulum swinging for over 150 years, and some acknowledged racial profiling of U.S. citizens of Mexican descent in the Mexican Repatriation Program of the ‘30s and Operation Wetback in 1954.

The intent of the video is to bring some hopefully neutral historical information and perspective to the current discussion of immigration. If you have comments or observations, I would appreciate your sharing them with me on this blog post so  interested individuals may see and appreciate them.

If you’d like to know more about the Timeline itself, click on 5 Perspectives On Albuquerque or Creating The Timeline.