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Charles Bent was an American businessman and politician who served as the first civilian governor of the New Mexico Territory, newly acquired by the Military Governor, Stephen Watts Kearny, in September 1846.
Bent's Old Fort is an 1833 fort located in Otero County in southeastern Colorado, United States. A company owned by Charles Bent and William Bent and Ceran St. Vrain built the fort to trade with Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Plains Indians and trappers for buffalo robes. For much of its 16-year history, the fort was the only major white American permanent settlement on the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the Mexican settlements. It was destroyed in 1849.
Ceran St. Vrain, born Ceran de Hault de Lassus de Saint-Vrain, was the son of a French aristocrat who immigrated to the French Louisiana in the late 18th century; his mother was from St. Louis, where he was born. To gain the ability to trade, in 1831 he became a naturalized Mexican citizen in what is now the state of New Mexico. He formed a partnership with American traders William, George and Charles Bent; together they established the trading post of Bent's Fort. It was the only privately held fort in the West.
William Wells Bent was a frontier trader and rancher in the American West, with forts in Colorado. He also acted as a mediator among the Cheyenne Nation, other Native American tribes and the expanding United States. With his brothers, Bent established a trade business along the Santa Fe Trail. In the early 1830s Bent built an adobe fort, called Bent's Fort, along the Arkansas River in present-day Colorado. Furs, horses and other goods were traded for food and other household goods by travelers along the Santa Fe trail, fur-trappers, and local Mexican and Native American people. Bent negotiated a peace among the many Plains tribes north and south of the Arkansas River, as well as between the Native American and the United States government.
Mora or Santa Gertrudis de lo de Mora is a census-designated place in, and the county seat of, Mora County, New Mexico. It is located about halfway between Las Vegas and Taos on Highway 518, at an altitude of 7,180 feet. The Republic of Texas performed a semi-official raid on Mora in 1843. Two short battles of Mexican–American War were fought in Mora in 1847, where U.S. troops eventually defeated the Hispano and Puebloan militia, effectively ending the Taos Revolt in the Mora Valley. The latter battle destroyed most of the community, necessitating its re-establishment.
The Battle of Cañada was a popular insurrection against the American occupation of New Mexico by Mexicans and Pueblo Indians. It took place on January 24, 1847, during the Taos Revolt, a conflict of the Mexican–American War.
The Taos Revolt was a populist insurrection in January 1847 by Hispano and Pueblo allies against the United States' occupation of present-day northern New Mexico during the Mexican–American War. In two short campaigns, United States troops and militia crushed the rebellion of the Hispano and Pueblo people. The rebels, seeking better representation, regrouped and fought three more engagements, but after being defeated, they abandoned open warfare. While US troops were overwhelmingly victorious, it did result in the New Mexico Territory forming with proper representation and recognition for Santa Fe de Nuevo México's citizenry in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
Manuel Antonio Chaves or Chávez, known as El Leoncito, was a soldier in the Mexican Army and then became a rancher who lived in New Mexico. His life was full of incident, and his courage and marksmanship became literally legendary in his own time. In documented history, as an American soldier he helped win the American Civil War Battle of Glorieta Pass and was in command during an important fight in the Navajo Wars. As a Mexican soldier he probably negotiated the surrender of a large part of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition.
Tom Tobin (1823–1904) was an Irish American adventurer, tracker, trapper, mountain man, guide, US Army scout, and occasional bounty hunter. Tobin explored much of southern Colorado, including the Pueblo area. He associated with men such as Kit Carson, "Uncle Dick" Wootton, Ceran St. Vrain, Charley Bent, John C. Fremont, "Wild Bill" Hickok, William F. Cody, and the Shoup brothers. Tobin was one of only two men to escape alive from the siege of Turley's Mill and Distillery during the Taos Revolt. In later years he was sent by the Army to track down and kill the notorious Felipe Espinosa and his nephew; Tobin returned to Ft. Garland with their heads in a sack.
Fort Saint Vrain was an 1837 fur trading post built by the Bent, St. Vrain Company, and located at the confluence of Saint Vrain Creek and the South Platte River, about 20 miles (32 km) east of the Rocky Mountains in the unorganized territory of the United States, in present-day Weld County, Colorado. A historical marker notes the place where Old Fort St. Vrain once stood, today at the end of Weld County Road 40, located about seven miles north of Fort Vasquez, Colorado. Among those who helped to establish the fort was Ceran St. Vrain, after whom it was named.
Guadalupe Miranda was a Mexican public official who was mayor of Ciudad Juárez and recipient of the 1,700,000-acre (6,900 km2) Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant.
The Trapper's Trail or Trappers' Trail is a north-south path along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains that links the Great Platte River Road at Fort Laramie and the Santa Fe Trail at Bent's Old Fort. Along this path there were a number of trading posts, also called trading forts.
The Taos Mountain Trail was the historic pathway for trade and business exchanges between agrarian Taos and the Great Plains (Colorado) from pre-history through the Spanish Colonial period and into the time of the European and American presence. The Taos Mountain Trail, between northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, connected the high mountain traders and their trading partners north and south of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Also called the Trapper's Trail, the pathway was only wide enough for people on foot or horses in single file, but it shortened a trip from Taos to the plains farther north from nearly two weeks to three days in good weather. The Taos Mountain Trail was also known as the Sangre de Cristo Trail and the Aztec Trail.
The Governor Bent House is the historic home of Governor Charles Bent who served as the first United States territorial governor of New Mexico.
The early history of the Arkansas Valley in Colorado prior to the Colorado Gold Rush of 1859 saw a number of trading posts and small settlements established in the Arkansas and South Platte valleys including Bent's Fort and Fort Pueblo
Lewis Hector Garrard wrote an enduring book, Wah-to-yah and the Taos Trail, about his visit to the southwestern United States in 1846-1847.
Taos Downtown Historic District is a historic district in Taos, New Mexico. Taos "played a major role in the development of New Mexico, under Spanish, Mexican, and American governments." It a key historical feature of the Enchanted Circle Scenic Byway of northern New Mexico.
Bent's New Fort was a historic fort and trading post along the banks of the Arkansas River in what is now Bent County, Colorado, about nine miles west of Lamar, on the Mountain Route branch of the Santa Fe Trail. William Bent operated a trading post with limited success at the site and in 1860 leased the fort to the United States government, which operated it as a military outpost until 1867. In 1862, it was named Fort Lyon. The fort was abandoned after a flood of the Arkansas River in 1867.
Alexander Barclay was a British-born frontiersman of the American West. After working in St. Louis as a bookkeeper and clerk, he worked at Bent's Old Fort. He then ventured westward where he was a trapper, hunter, and trader. Barclay entered into a common-law relationship with Teresita Sandoval, one of the founders of the settlement and trading post El Pueblo. He helped settle Hardscrabble, Colorado and built Fort Barclay in New Mexico.
Charlotte and Dick Green were enslaved African Americans who worked at Bent's Fort along the Santa Fe Trail in the southwestern frontier, in what is now Colorado. The couple and Dick's brother Andrew came to the fort with Charles and William Bent in the early 1800s and became key figures in the history of the trading post. Charlotte, also called "Black Charlotte", was known for her tasty food and fandango dancing. Dick Green was particularly well-known for his role as a soldier, avenging the assassination of then Governor Charles Bent during the Taos Revolt. For his bravery, the Greens were freed and returned to Missouri.
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Cited literature
- Comer, Douglas C. (1996). Ritual Ground: Bent's Old Fort, World Formation, and the Annexation of the Southwest. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Crutchfield, James A., Moulton, Candy & Del Bene, Terry A. (2011). The Settlement of America. New York: Routledge.
- Roberts, Calvin A. & Roberts, Susan A. (2004). A History of New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
- Robertson, Roland G. (1999). Competitive Struggle: America's Western Fur Trading Posts, 1764–1865. Caldwell, Idaho:Caxton Press.
- Thrapp, Dan L. (1988). Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.