SAPELLO:
A Case Study of New Mexican Changes

by Salena B. Ashton

From the New Mexico Genealogist, June, 2002.

Introduction
They rode their horses at night, burning crops, tearing railroad ties, and harassing people. Behind masks, they threatened death to anyone who associated with their target, the railroad.(1)  They made their trademark fence cutting, and accumulated up to $27,000 worth of fence damage in 1880 alone.(2)   This was obviously not the Ku Klux Klan, but instead, Las Gorras Blancas, the White Caps. These vigilantes of San Miguel County, New Mexico fought fiercely against changes that came upon their land. Comprised mainly of native shepherds and farmers, the White Caps foresaw the railroad not as a symbol of prosperity, but instead as the enemy of their native lands.

When communities, regions, or nations change after the influx of a new people, scholars tend to focus on cultural or political entities.(3) Lynn Perrigo's Gateway to Glorieta, and Sarah Deutsch's No Separate Refuge, do a good job of painting the bigger picture of northern New Mexico. Alfonso Griego's Good- Bye My Land of Enchantment, and Voices of the Territory of New Mexico, are also good books about cultural and technological changes of San Miguel County, though they are directed toward the lay audience. No one has written specifically about smaller towns, such as Sapello, San Ignacio, or Villanueva, except for Francis Stanley, who wrote colloquial pamphlets.

Scholars rarely look at the most obvious of variables-land. Land and its use, abuse, abundance, and lack thereof have helped to shape history. Land is so basic; it affects how we live, have lived, and will live. It is like time and space-a constant without which, there is no civilization. By not understanding how land played a key role in territorial New Mexico, as well as other areas of the world, we miss the discovery of history from different paradigms.

The influx of Anglo culture, speeded by the arrival of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad in 1879, intensified the different methods of land usage within the community of Sapello, one of many small towns in San Miguel County. The railroad forced career and lifestyle changes upon the Sapello people due to the rapid loss of land, which in turn forced the people to resort to wage labor. Besides the obvious decrease in land, income, assets, etc., there was a decrease in population and households. Land ownership, and the kind of land ownership, determined how the people lived. Land was meant to be used, and it was used for grazing, colonization, and crops. The people of San Miguel believed in communal land ownership. Land was owned by the village itself, or by a person who allowed the village to utilize it. Not only was land owned communally, but was even labored communally.(4) Communal property ensured the best for all involved. Villages depended upon access to land for animals to graze, ease of irrigation, and the proximity to trade routes.(5) That is why Sapello and other small villages can be found along the Santa Fe Trail.

It was hard for a family to gain money and/or prominence because of land differentiation; unpredictable rains could ruin a crop. Because land was hard to monopolize before the coming of the railroad, it was difficult to become rich. Therefore, sons from both well-to-do and not so well-to-do families hired out as laborers, shepherds, goatherds, or farm laborers. With hard work, men could easily expect to own their own farm, sheep, or goats - and they usually did. Status differences were more between generations than by class.(6) People's standard of living was determined by the land more so than by power and wealth.

As far back as the 1600s, there have been sheep in New Mexico. (7) Wool was the principle object of sheep raising. A small secondary reason, mostly prevalent in northeast New Mexico, was for meat, called mutton, used to feed herdsmen and the small local demand. Sheep helped to produce much of what Hispanics depended on for survival. Because of the dependence on sheep, there was a great need for land-good land for grazing. Shepherding was important to pre-railroad Sapello because it was also the most common medium of trade for rural Spanish America. Barter was the currency of the day, not money. People traded beans for corn, wool for linen, labor for food, and dishes for wood. Money was sometimes used when people took their crops or wool on the Santa Fe Trail to be sold in bulk in Santa Fe, since other traders used money. But even then, most Anglos(8), Native Americans, and Hispanics traded goods for other goods. Out of necessity they bartered with each other; economic status came from age and experience, not from money, since money was not used in Sapello. Sapello customs were village-centered to ensure security for all.

Sapello and the Santa Fe Trail
In order to gain a fuller understanding of how the economy of Sapello, and other small towns of San Miguel County changed through land, it is vital to look at the key role the railroad played. Before the railroad, Sapello's lifeline was the Santa Fe Trail. It fed the town in terms of population and growth, convenience in travel, and in trade. People traveled through Sapello on their way to Mora County, Las Vegas, and Santa Fe, thus bringing in more business and residents for Sapello. It was an important trading spot because of its key location.

The Santa Fe Trail was an important trade route for Easterners and Hispanics alike. Hispanics who lived there for generations, and Anglos who came from the east, depended on the trail to take their goods to the main trading posts. Because tensions between whites and Hispanics did not erupt until the beginning of the Mexican-American War, they treated each other relatively well; Anglos assimilated into the Hispanic culture without any difficulties or agendas. Hispanics likewise helped Anglos to assimilate without any cause for fear of change. The popular times of the Santa Fe Trail enriched each local culture.

By 1878, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad (AT&SF) Railroad Company began to lay tracks in Northern New Mexico. Anglos who worked on the railroad still had to find means of survival, and they began to interact with the natives. Native shepherds now had a new customer to whom they could sell sheep and wool. Both they and their Anglo counterparts benefitted from this stimulation of trade.(9) Anglos were able to trade or buy Hispanic goods. When Anglos chose to assimilate they did not present themselves as a threat to the land or to the community because the land was colonized and grazed, and it was not fenced.(10) Hispanics allowed their fellow villagers to graze their animals upon their land. Soon, however, as more Anglos settled, they brought their own sheep to the area, which were of better breeds. These events combined to form an obstacle for Sapello natives to own and maintain land and sheep. As the railroad neared completion, the competition increased.

After the Railroad
The AT&SF began construction on the sixth of February 1878, and opened for operation on Independence Day, 1879. This new feat of technology was the catalyst for change. It brought more people, and took up the land. Anglos were no longer arriving by wagon in small numbers as they had done previously. By the 1880s, they came by the thousands and settled in the predominantly Hispanic areas. As more Anglos came upon the rails, they no longer desired to adapt, but rather chose to bring their own culture with them. More Anglos meant more Anglo culture-and Anglos did not use the barter system like they used money. They would bring goods that Hispanics found appealing, such as linen, flour, sugar, beds, sewing machines, and other goods. Anglos expected their customers to pay cash for these goods. Because Anglos would only accept cash instead of trade, they started a line of credit. Cash-poor Hispanics could not pay their debt in time, nor could they pay with wool. Eventually credit grew to such a size that debtors could only pay their bills in sheep or land. Creditors and debtors entered into a partidario system by the 1880s.(11) They also modified the traditional rules. Now, when there was a profit in the sheep business, both would partake of it. But when there was a loss, only the debtor took the losses.(12)

Without communal labor and with the new monetary system in place, Sapello natives could no longer depend on the help of their fellow villagers, who had to now worry about themselves. They had to hire out help, that is, if they were not already the hired help themselves. Some started to use money in the 1880s for their sheep. By 1900, one quarter to one half of all New Mexican sheep were under the new partido contracts.

Anglo society worked with private land ownership. Land was to be owned and fenced, whether or not someone used it for crops, grazing, or colonization. Anglos began to buy land and build fences around their property to establish the fact that the land was private property. Neighbors were no longer allowed to graze their animals in these communal pastures. Hispanics saw more land being purchased, sealed off, and wasted by lack of use, and began to wonder about the ethics of the Anglo. It was at this time when Las Gorras Blancas attempted to restore the old ways buy cutting down fences so their animals could graze.

Hispanics lost land through the Anglo culture and legal systems, but also because the railroad brought technology. The ecologically hazardous material used for smelting and mining was dumped into the waters or on pieces of land. This further limited grazing options. From 1880-1913, less than six percent of land remained in Hispanic hands. A comparative look at farm acreage in San Miguel County demonstrates how land accumulation resulted in monopoly. It is interesting to note that generally small farms, whose acreage ranged from three to one hundred acres (what the average Hispanic family had, but probably used more for grazing since there were no fences), decreased by 26 percent. There was a smaller percentage of people who owned the traditionally small farms. Farms over one hundred acres increased by 23 percent. This increase was partially due to the spreading colonization, not just the accumulation of already improved land.

The displacement of natives as a result of land ownership practices was not a matter of race or ethnicity, but of class. Natives and foreigners alike began to differentiate into classes according to their economic opportunity and assets. The Hispanic elite influenced the shift in land grants and distribution, education, and political situations, which disadvantaged a great many people.(15) Other Hispanics were “capitalists abroad, but villagers at home.”(16) They entered the Anglo economy by trading or selling, but not to the excess of becoming rich or monopolizing land. They were still Hispanic in custom, and were not of any harm to their communal village counterparts.

Hispanics were also displaced by their own people. Some, called los ricos, obtained their riches by adopting the Anglo legal and economic systems. As mentioned before, they obtained private property status for their communal lands, and others began to deal in cash or credit. By 1880, over 80 percent of New Mexican sheep belonged to the old, traditional Hispanic families who had the means to keep their land. The average farm had 50-200 sheep back then; by 1900 the average farm had almost 400 sheep.(17) Land and profit from production had fallen into the hands of the few. Hispanics had a more difficult time supporting themselves and their families.

Wage Labor
Wage Labor Without traditional means of support, Hispanics had to find new jobs, which were ironically provided by the very system that displaced them. Outwitted in land and through the law, Hispanics were, in essence, forced into wage labor to make ends meet.(18) Without land, the Hispanics had to find a new means of financial support. Wage labor became the easiest solution to landlessness and low values of harvest that could not pay for credit.

The railroad provided an early and convenient opportunity for Hispanic wage labor, both for the Hispanic and the Anglo. The Hispanic needed the job and the Anglo needed the labor. Most Hispanics were placed in non-skilled work because they could not speak English, or were illiterate. In most cases, they were both. The railroad not only provided jobs directly, but indirectly. With the railroad came the train, and trains needed coal to run. Therefore, as the railroad grew, so did the need for coal. The winters also demanded more coal to keep people warm. This seasonal job was good for the Hispanic's agricultural schedule.

Because of all the growing economies within the framework of wage labor, capitalism, and the railroad, trade began to move from small Hispanic towns to the larger railroad towns. This meant that money, jobs, and people moved from Sapello to Las Vegas and Santa Fe. In 1880 Sapello, there were 822 people; twenty years later there were only 375 people. The persistence rate for these twenty years was only 3 percent, meaning that only 3 percent of the people who lived in Sapello in 1880 could be found there in 1900.(19) The rest had to move elsewhere.

The number of men decreased drastically in Sapello, as can be seen by simply counting households in the population census records. This makes for greater dramatic contrast within the occupational structure. From 1880-1900, there was a dramatic increase of laborers both in quantity and percentage, though there were fewer people in Sapello. There were more men without jobs in 1900, but the percentage of men without did not change much. At the same time, both in numbers and percentage, there was a decrease in the number of farmers. Again, after the railroad, farms fell into fewer hands, and Sapello residents became low-class wage workers.

Economic structure often determined the quality of life for workers, families and communities. The land and economic changes brought on by the railroad helped to shape family structure, migration patterns and educational trends. The trend in households for Sapello in 1880 and 1900 show that the size of the average family increased with time. This could be easily attributed to families having more children, but people were having fewer children at the turn of the century. Not only were families having fewer children, but fewer people were starting families. Also, most of the people who stayed in Sapello had grown children who moved away. When the average ages of heads increase over time this usually means that younger men are not around - and they were not. The young men of Sapello were looking for jobs in Denver, Las Vegas, and Santa Fe. Why was the size in household increasing? The answer points to two directions: land and occupation. Because there was less land at a higher price, people had to find other means of supporting their families. Many chose to move in with relatives. Only one-eighth of these households had one extended member, the rest had multiple extended members. Instead, most of the Sapello population moved to larger cities, from Santa Fe to Denver, in hopes of finding decent wage labor. Within twenty years, Sapello had changed from a community-centered shepherd town into another frontier conquest of the United States.

Conclusion:
Conclusion Changes in land help to shape family structure, migration patterns, and educational trends, as well as occupation and industry. The influx of Anglo culture, speeded by the arrival of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, increased the different uses of land in Sapello and many other towns in Northern New Mexico. Once there were more Anglos involved in the sheep industry, prices of land rose. The new ownership customs of land and private ownership denied others land for grazing. After loss of land, changes in land grants, and a new monetary system, only the wealthiest of Hispanics could keep their land. The rest resorted to wage labor. By not understanding how land played a key role in communities, both present and previous, we cut ourselves short of understanding the concept of change.

New Mexican history often focuses on culture, politics, US-Mexican relations, and the wars of two centuries ago. Because the natives did not keep local histories like today's historians would have liked them to keep, we tend to focus and refocus on what has been kept. There is more to New Mexico and its history than culture, food, and politics. Local histories of San Miguel County are almost non-existent; as more historians discover small towns such as Sapello, San Ignacio, and Villa Nueva through the understanding of land, economics, and other avenues of study, the many truths of New Mexico will blossom. Today Sapello remains a small town occupied by approximately 100 people who work in the larger city of Las Vegas, New Mexico. We still wonder about its history.

End Notes
1) Doris Meyer, Speaking for Themselves: Neo Mexicano Cultural Identity and the Spanish Language Press, 1880-1920 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996), 47.

2) Census Office, Department of the Interior, Report on the Productions of Agriculture as Returned at the Tenth Census (June 1, 1880) (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1883), 127. Hereafter referred to as Report on Productions.

3) Salena B. Ashton, “More History Required: The Five Predictable Historiographies of New Mexico” (Brigham Young University, 1999), 3. Approximately 19 percent of New Mexico histories attempt to explain New Mexico through culture, 25 percent through territorial disputes, and 39 percent through Indian affairs and war. The remaining 17 percent simply talk about Old New Mexico through food, culture, folk tales, and memoirs.

4) Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880-1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 14. Hereinafter referred to as No Separate Refuge.

5) Ibid., 14.

6) Ibid., 15.

7) Census Office, Report on Productions, 32.

8) When I mention Anglo, this also includes Blacks. This is because both populations used the same system of trade and economics.

9) Deutsch, No Separate Refuge, 18.

10) Ibid.

11) Census Office, Report on Productions, 39. The partidario system was originally used by native New Mexicans to help sons establish their own herds. Under this system, an established shepherd lent sheep to someone and in return, received a certain number of lambs until the original number of sheep was returned. This system of establishment varied according to the parties involved.

12) Deutsch, No Separate Refuge, 22-23.

13) Ibid., 19.

14) Ibid., 20.

15) Political upheaval was also an important factor in the changing environment of Sapello and San Miguel County after the railroad was established. This aspect will not be discussed in this paper due to limitations of time and length.

16) Deutsch, No Separate Refuge, 17.

17) Census Office, Department of the Interior, Census Reports, Volume 5, Twelfth Census of the U.S., Taken in the Year 1900. Part 1: Agriculture: Farms, Live Stock, and Animal Products (Washington: U.S. Census Office, 1902), 463.

18) Deutsch, No Separate Refuge, 47.

19) 1880 U.S. census, San Miguel County, New Mexico, population schedule, town of Sapello, National Archives micropublication T9, roll 803; and 1900 U.S. census, San Miguel County, New Mexico, population schedule, town of Sapello, National Archives micropublication T623, roll 1002. Persistence rate does not take into account those who stayed and died in Sapello between 1880 and 1900.