Otero (1859-1944) not only distinguished himself as a political leader in New Mexico, but he also has been highly recognized for his career as an author. His work includes "The Real Billy the Kid: With New Light on the Lincoln County War; My Life on the Frontier, 1882-1897;" and "My Nine Years as Governor of the Territory of New Mexico, 1897-1906."
In this collection, Manuel M. Martín-Rodríguez gathers diverse and passionate accounts of reading drawn from several research projects aimed at documenting Chicana and Chicano reading practices and experiences.
Miguel Antonio Otero (1859-1944) not only distinguished himself as a political leader in New Mexico and lived out his life as a champion of the people, but he is also highly recognized for his career as an author. He published his legendary "My Life on the Frontier, 1864-1882," in 1935, followed by "The Real Billy the Kid: With New Light on the Lincoln County War" in 1936, "My Life on the Frontier, 1882-1897" in 1939, and "My Nine Years as Governor of the Territory of New Mexico, 1897-1906" in 1940. These books, of which this is one in Sunstone's Southwest Heritage Series, are filled with the raw power and intrigue of the Wild West written by one who lived it. One would expect no less from such a vibrant personality who filled the pages of his monumental history with the passionate memories of an exciting era. Otero was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His father, who bore the same name, and who was born in Valencia, New Mexico in 1829, had built up a stellar career in the East. Miguel Antonio Otero, Jr. was brought up in a family of wealth and influence, but he also experienced the hardships of growing up in a household that was always on the move. His family's sojourns took him from one town to another across Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. During Miguel A. Otero's travels and frequent stopovers in Wild Western towns he came into contact with notorious outlaws like Clay Allison and popular lawmen such as Wild Bill Hickok, Pat Garrett, Elfego Baca, and other well known figures including Doc Holliday, William F. Cody ("Buffalo Bill"), General George A. Custer, and frontiersman Christopher "Kit" Carson. In fact, Otero was such an adventurous soul that he always sought out, or was in close contact with, anyone making headlines during the turbulent era he lived in. He even published a short lived newspaper called the "Otero Optic," which eventually became the "Las Vegas Daily Optic." He began his illustrious career in politics as Las Vegas City Clerk, San Miguel County probate clerk, county clerk, and recorder, and district court clerk. Then in 1892 President William McKinley appointed Miguel Antonio Otero as governor of the New Mexico territory where he served until 1906. Includes foreword to original edition by George P. Hammond and a new foreword to this new Sunstone Press edition by Ray John de Aragón.
The timeline of American history has always swept through Santa Fe, New Mexico. Settled by ancient peoples, explored by conquistadors, conquered by the U.S. cavalry, Santa Fe owns a story that stretches from the talking drums of the Pueblos to the high math of complexity theory pioneered at the Santa Fe Institute. This fresh presentation, 400 years after the Spanish founded the town in 1610, presents the full arc of Santa Fe's story that sifts through its long, complex, thrilling history. From the moment of first contact between the explorers and the native peoples, Santa Fe became a crossroads, a place of accommodations and clashes. Faith defined, sustained, and liberated the people. All the while, scoundrels and abusers of power elbowed their way into civic life. And who should piece together that story of the country's oldest capital city? The Santa Fe New Mexican, the oldest newspaper in the American West, walking side by side with the people of Santa Fe for 160 years-a long life by the standards of publishing though merely a short span in Santa Fe's timeless drama. This book was compiled from a series that appeared monthly in "The Santa Fe New Mexican" in honor of the city's 400th anniversary commemoration in 2010. It illuminates Santa Fe's enduring promise to cling to roots that are bottomless and to leap into a future that is boundless. Over 400 pages, many illustrations, timelines, index, and detailed bibliographies. Included is a Study Guide for teachers, students, and anyone interested in Santa Fe and the American Southwest.
The Spanish word cimarron, meaning “wild” or “untamed,” refers to a region in the southern Rocky Mountains where control of timber, gold, coal, and grazing lands long bred violent struggle. After the U.S. occupation following the 1846–1848 war with Mexico, this tract of nearly two million acres came to be known as the Maxwell Land Grant. WhenCimarron Meant Wild presents a new history of the collision that occurred over the region’s resources between 1870 and 1900. Author David L. Caffey describes the epic late-nineteenth-century range war in an account deeply informed by his historical perspective on social, political, and cultural issues that beset the American West to this day. Cimarron country churned with the tensions of the Old West—land disputes, lawlessness, violence, and class war among miners, a foreign corporation, local elites, Texas cattlemen, and the haughty “Santa Fe Ring” of lawyerly speculators. And present, still, were the indigenous Jicarilla Apache and Mouache Ute people, dispossessed of their homeland by successive Spanish, Mexican, and American regimes. A Mexican grant of uncertain size and bounds, awarded to Carlos Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda in 1841 and later acquired by Lucien Maxwell, marked the beginning of a fight for control of the land and set off overlapping conflicts known as the Colfax County War, the Maxwell Land Grant War, and the Stonewall War. Caffey draws on new research to paint a complex picture of these events, and of those that followed the sale of the claim to investors in 1870. These clashes played out over the following thirty years, involving the new English owners, miners and prospectors, livestock grazers and farmers, and Native Americans. Just how wild was the Cimarron country in the late 1800s? And what were the consequences for the region and for those caught up in the conflict? The answers, pursued through this remarkable work, enhance our understanding of cultural and economic struggle in the American West.
Think gunfighter, and Wyatt Earp or Billy the Kid may come to mind, but what of Jim Moon? Joel Fowler? Zack Light? A host of other figures helped forge the gunfighter persona, but their stories have been lost to time. In a sequel to his Deadly Dozen, celebrated western historian Robert K. DeArment now offers more biographical portraits of lesser-known gunfighters—men who perhaps weren’t glorified in legend or song, but who were rightfully notorious in their day. DeArment has tracked down stories of gunmen from throughout the West—characters you won’t find in any of today’s western history encyclopedias but whose careers are colorfully described here. Photos of the men and telling quotations from primary sources make these characters come alive. In giving these men their due, DeArment takes readers back to the gunfighter culture spawned in part by the upheavals of the Civil War, to a time when deadly duels were part of the social fabric of frontier towns and the Code of the West was real. His vignettes offer telling insights into conditions on the frontier that created the gunfighters of legend. These overlooked shooters never won national headlines but made their own contributions to the blood and thunder of the Old West: people less than legends, but all the more fascinating because they were real. Readers who enjoyed DeArment’s Deadly Dozen will find this book equally captivating—as gripping as a showdown, twelve times over.
"The evidence pointed at three men, former deputies William McNew, James Gililland, and Oliver Lee. These three men, however, were very close with powerful ex-judge, lawyer, and politician Albert B. Fall. It was even said by some that Fall was the mastermind behind the plot to kill Fountain. Forced to wait two years for a change in the political landscape, Garrett finally presented his evidence to the court and secured indictments against the three suspects." "The trial took place in the secluded town of Hillsboro. The murders of the Fountains became an afterthought as the accused men, defended by their attorney Fall, pleaded innocence. Missing witnesses plagued the prosecution, and armed supporters of the defendants, who packed the courtroom, intimidated others. The verdict: not guilty.".
Why did New Mexico remain so long in political limbo before being admitted to the Union as a state? Combining extensive research and a clear and well-organized style, Robert W. Larson provides the answers to this question in a thorough and comprehensive account of the territory’s extraordinary six-decade struggle for statehood. This book is no mere chronology of political moves, however. It is the history of a turbulent frontier state, sweeping into the current almost every colorful character of the territory. Not only politicians but ranchers, outlaws, soldiers, newspapermen, Indians, merchants, lawyers, and people from every walk of life were involved. This is a book for the reader who is interested in any aspect of southwestern territorial history.
