EXCERPT FROM GLIMPSE OF NEW MEXICO (c. 1820, by Antonio Barreiro)

Antonio Barriero's Commentaries observed the commercial and other economic activities of New Spain in the early 1800s. Trade was good and profitable between the region and the "United States of North America," where U.S. merchants brought finished goods to Santa Fe and other trading centers to sell for cash or pelts. But within New Mexico and among the other states of New Spain trade was more tenuous: the economy there depended on barter and continual extensions of credit. Barriero noted that the disparity here was not only one between material success and poverty, but also between civilization and barbarism.

With stable commercial ventures largely unavailable to them, the people of New Spain were isolated from the comforts of civilized life. They were made prey to lawlessness by a legal system too weak to enforce its rules. Further, religion in the region engendered either tragic privation or corrupt greed among its clergy. Because the governors of the region cared only about increasing their own individual power and wealth, inhabitants could find neither legal nor spiritual relief from their travails. No efforts were made to realize the potential of the region's natural and human resources.

Barriero appealed to the Spanish government to initiate a series of reforms aimed at protecting the people of New Spain and guaranteeing to the mother country a lasting source of income and prosperity. Barriero's pleas were ignored. In the Mexican-American War of 1846, the United States took the lands he described here with little resistance.

Mark D.Baumann,
New York University

See also New Mexico ; Santa Fe .

The commerce of New Mexico must be considered under three aspects, namely: the foreign trade carried on with North America, that carried on with the neighboring states, and the trade which it has internally.

The commerce with the United States of North America is carried on by means of regular caravans which arrive in Santa Fe usually in July. These caravans are composed of ninety or a hundred wagons well loaded with goods and escorted by their respective owners. They elect officers from among themselves to whom they yield obedience on the road. At all times they try to proceed with the greatest care so as not to be surprised by the countless barbarous and warlike Indians who inhabit the dreadful deserts which intervene between New Mexico and Missouri for a distance of more than two hundred and fifty leagues. When a caravan has stopped in the afternoon, they make a circle with the wagons, within which the people and the stock sleep, while a sufficient number of sentinels are on watch all night, in order, when occasion arises, to fire upon the enemy and by all means to save their property.

Generally by July, as I have said, these caravans arrive at Santa Fe, and that is the time when this capital presents a very festive appearance. Then on all sides clothing stores are opened and a considerable number are seen who come to this kind of fair from the pass of the north, from Sonora, and from all parts of the Territory. That is the time when all the Anglo-American merchants are returning who, during the year, have gone to the neighboring states to transact business, and then in short is when one beholds a traffic which is truly pleasing. Goods become extremely cheap, for many merchants "burn their profits" so as to return to the United States in August, and purchases are made with the greatest ease. Upon the invoices from Philadelphia or Saint Louis goods are sold wholesale at an advance of scarcely 80, or 90, or 100%, and indeed they are often sold at an advance of only 50%. These crazy bargains have ruined many merchants, for the losses of the company which came the past year are estimated to have been at least 30 to 40,000 pesos.

In August the caravans start back, only those merchants remaining who are interested in the trapping of beaver, of which a considerable exportation is made.

As the exportation of beaver has no duty imposed, the American merchants try upon their return journey to carry beaver instead of money, because thus they secure two advantages: first, that of paying no duties upon the exportation of coin, and second, that of carrying to their own country an effect which is there of great value to them and which here is duty-free.

These caravans originated in 1821 when some adventurers began to enter; but subsequently more formal companies of men were organized, until of late years merchants of means have been coming with ventures on a large scale and under conditions very different from those existing at first.…

The Commerce which New Mexico has with the neighboring states.— This also is worthy of attention, as Sonora and Chihuahua are supplied to a large extent by the foreign goods which are imported from here, with the resulting benefit that the Americans who carry on this commerce bring in a considerable amount of money which circulates in this country, both through the payment of duties made upon their return, as well as through the sums which they spend necessarily upon their living.

The New Mexicans also carry on a fairly active commerce with the neighboring States, for yearly they export flocks of sheep, skins, pine-lumber, coarse woolen goods, tobacco and other goods which they sell at good prices. There are persons who have contracts in Durango by which they are to deliver annually 15,000 or more head of sheep which, marketed there, bring nine reales or more. A few persons have the trade in sheep monopolized, so that it cannot be considered as beneficial as the trade in skins, coarse woolens, etc., since the latter trade is well distributed among all classes in New Mexico, especially among the lower and middle classes. The general eagerness found among New Mexicans for commerce with the neighboring States is certainly astonishing. In October especially a multitude of people are seen to set out with this in view and to scatter in all directions. Some head for Chihuahua, others for Pitic or Guaymas; some go even to the fairs of Aguascalientea or San Juan; others to Durango, and others finally as far as the Californias.

The internal commerce of the country.— This is ordinary, and the usual manner of conducting it is by barter. Sheep are held in high esteem, almost more even than money, for the purchase of whatever may be desired. Let me add that such traffic as a regular thing is effected by credit from one year to another, and even for a longer time. I have already spoken to the cheapness of foreign goods; those of the country on the other hand, such as chocolate, rice, sugar, olive oil, almonds, and others of this character, are exceedingly dear and at times very scarce, and furthermore those which are brought here are always of inferior quality.

The commerce which is carried on with the Gentiles.— This also demands our attention. With vermillion, knives, biscuits, ovened bread, powder, awls and other trifles are bought exquisite skins which are resold at a profit and from which [trade] great advantage might be drawn, were the enlightenment of the country different from what it is. Were there revenue and export duties on such rich and abundant peltries, enough could be produced at very little cost to load whole pack-trains. What an immense field in Mexico lies open to industry! What seeds of prosperity are under our hands on every side! Even those most remote places which are now occupied by the barbarians allure us with things of value but with which we are not yet acquainted; those rivers which in their lands teem with valuable beaver; those virgin, untouched fields where fair Nature displays herself in all her beauty; those affable climes which offer to agriculture and to stock-raising their powerful influence; those timber-clad mountains and beautiful marbles which seem to be sketching the plans of magnificient cities, [all these] surely are powerful incentives to make us think seriously upon developing the elements of true happiness which we possess. Revolutionary aspirants! Internal spirits of discord! Cast one single GLANCE OVER YOUR COUNTRY, and hasten to bury yourselves forever in the abysses by reason of the furious remorse which will torment ye when ye shall perceive how this soil, blessed by the adorable hand of Providence, invites the Mexican people with riches and products of every sort, and which they do not enjoy nor even know as yet because of your criminality and perverse designs! …

Whoever figures to himself the enormous distance of more than eight hundred leagues at which this Territory lies from its audiencia; he who knows the lack of resources with which these unhappy people generally find themselves, for undertaking a ruinous journey even to the capital of Mexico in order there to defend their rights; whoever has a slight conception of the ignorance which reigns in this country, will not require other colors in order to paint vividly the deplorable and doleful state in which the administration of justice finds itself. Should I attempt to unfold any one of the very grave faults from which this most interesting branch suffers, I believe that I should fill many sheets without having done, and so I shall simply indicate some points in passing.

Impunity of crimes.— Never are crimes punished because there is absolutely no one who knows how to draw up a verbal process, to conclude a defense, nor to fill the office of attorney general. It is going on two years that I have been here and in this time I have advised the continuance of numberless cases with the greatest clearness and minuteness, but to date I do not know the result of my advice. I have tried to put to rights the course of other civil proceedings, but I have obtained the same out-come. The vicar general, Don Juan Rafael Rascon, has assured me that in the nearly four years that he has held the vicarate he has been unable to arrange the matters and proceedings of his [ecclesiastical] court. In effect, the appointment of an attorney general is advised, and the judge raises the objection that there is no one who would be able to discharge such an office, so after this fashion one indicates the course of the law, but all are blind for following it. In fine, one cannot recount the obstacles which ignorance presents in New Mexico to the correct administration of justice.

Jails.— There are no other than certain filthy rooms with this appellation in the capital. The prisoners are rewarded instead of punished when they are incarcerated in them, because they pass the time much diverted in merry frolics and chatter; and they take their imprisonment with the greatest ease, for at night they escape to the bailes and by day to other diversions. How reprehensible is such laxness on the part of the judges! The only measures which right now I view as timely are the reestablishment of a learned tribunal for New Mexico, and the enactment of the other measures which the most excellent minister of justice, Don. José Ignacio Espinosa, has introduced in the August chambers.

The spiritual administration finds itself in a truly dismal condition. Nothing is more common than to see numberless sick folk die without confession and extreme unction, and nothing is rarer than to see the eucharist administered to them. Corpses remain unburied many days, and infants are baptized at the cost of a thousand sacrifices. There are unfortunate ones in considerable number who pass most Sundays of the year without hearing mass. The churches are almost destroyed, and most of them are surely unworthy of being called temples of God.

The missions and curacies which do not have pastors are in charge of missionaries and temporary curates and most of these parishioners are visited only a few days in the year. How shall not the poor people who suffer this neglect feel great resentment at seeing that from their crops and herds they have to pay for the maintenance of a priest who does not live with them and who perhaps does not aid them with the consolations of religion in that last hour when they most need them?

There is an absolute deficiency of ministers, for almost all the curacies and missions of the Territory are vacant. The causes which have brought it about that said missions and curacies should have been, and should be, for so extended a time in such great abandonment are very clear; for many ecclesiastics aspire only to hold fat curacies from which to make a fortune, or to maintain a luxury which is surely opposed to the spirit of the Gospel. On the other hand, the curates and missionaries of this Territory have to subsist on a scanty competence; they find themselves separated from cultured intercourse with other people, isolated in these corners of the Republic where only disagreeable objects and oftentimes dangers are near them; they are deprived of the pleasures with which civilized places allure them; they come to live on some miserable ranch and to endure privations which weigh not a little on the spirits of men who are used to a different order of things. And if to those considerations are added the gloomy idea that they have to pass the best of their life in solitude and privation, seeing themselves in the last days of their career without any succor from their poor parishes which from the weariness of years they will now be unable to serve, and therefore reduced to subsist at the expense of charity or off the miserable revenue of some chaplaincy—on these terms, I say, what ecclesiastics will be willing to seek such unhappy lots, unless they be animated by a spirit truly apostolic? It is true that in them they could acquire merits which are very laudable and befitting the obligations of their ministry and of Christian charity, but certain it is that all flee from them.

In order partly to remedy this evil, it would be very fitting that ecclesiastics, when they have served ten years in the cure of souls in these towns with the approbation of the supreme government, should be given preferment for obtaining prebends in the cathedrals of the Republic, for only in this manner would it be possible to induce ecclesiastics of virtue and dignity to come and give their labors on behalf of these unhappy people.

With a saving of revenue and advantages worth considering the missions of this Territory might be secularized, being made into competent curacies which would be sufficient to maintain their rectors in decorum and decency.

It is more than seventy years since a bishop has stepped in New Mexico, and it might be figured that scarcely any age could have an episcopal visit in a country so remote as this, distant more than four hundred leagues from its Metropolis.

The radical way in which to make the spiritual administration is to erect a sacred mitre and a collegiate seminary, as was decreed by the Cortes of Spain on January 26, 1818. With the tithes of New Mexico, now bid off annually at ten or twelve thousand pesos which is scarcely a third of what they produce, there will be sufficent to meet the expenses of the bishop and college. Now the tithes serve only as enrich three or four private parties without profit either to the spiritual welfare of New Mexico or to the temporal good of the Republic.

I will conclude [my notes] upon the ecclesiastical branch, and in summary will say that Christian piety is indignant at seeing the abuses which are committed in New Mexico in the nurture and cure of souls, charity requires a veil to be thrown over many things the relation of which would occasion scandal … As sole remedy for so many ills, the Territory clamors for the shepherd of her church. The harvest is plentiful but laborers are lacking. Let us pray the Lord that reapers may enter upon it.

SOURCE: Excerpt from Glimpse of New Mexico. Bloom, Lansing B., "Barreiro's Ojeada Sobre Nuevo-Mexico," New Mexico Historical Review. (April 1928): 145–178.