23 Susan Shelby Magoffin’s Account of New Mexico
Susan Shelby Magoffin accompanied her husband, a merchant who followed Alexander Doniphan’s forces from New Mexico to the lower Rio Grande. Her diary, from 1847, reveals the images U.S. travelers had of frontier Mexicans during the U.S.-Mexico War.
“Wednesday 26th. We got in there about 2 o’clock. P.M., and dinner was called for…And then the dinner half a dozen tortillas [pancakes] made of blue corn, and not a plate, but wrapped in a napkin – twin brother to the last table cloth. Oh how my heart sickened, to say nothing of my stomach, a cheese of, the kind we saw yesterday from the Mora, entirely speckled over, and two earthen ollas [ollas-jugs] of a mixture of meat, chilly verde [green pepper] & onions boiled together completed course No. 1. We had neither knives, forks or spoons, but made as good substitutes as we could by doubling a piece of tortilla, at every mouthful-but by the by there were few mouthfuls taken, for I could not eat a dish so strong, and unaccustomed to my palate.”
“Thursday 27. Near San Miguel. The woman slap about with their arms and necks bare, perhaps their bosoms exposed (and they are none of the prettiest or whitest) if they are about to cross the little creek that is near all the villages, regardless of those about them, they pull their dresses, which in the first place but little more than cover their calves-up above their knees and paddle through the water like ducks, sloshing and spattering everything about them. Some of them wear leather shoes, from the States, but most have buckskin mockersins, Indian style.”
“Friday 28th. This has been rather a more agreeable day than yesterday, though we met with a little accident this morning. At the little creek the other side of San Miguel the carriage tongue broke entirely out, and we were in rather a critical situation as to traveling, till Lieutenant Warner came up with his wagons, and we got two carpenters he had with him to make a new tongue. This required two hours time. As usual the villagers collected to see the curiosity. many of the mujeres came to the carriage shook hands and talked with me. One of them brought some tortillas, new goats milk and stewed kid’s meat with onions, and I found it much more palatable than ”the dinner at the Vegas”. They are decidedly polite, easy in their manners, perfectly free &c.”
“Saturday 29th. I have visited this morning the ruins of an ancient pueblo, or village, now desolate and a home for the wild beast and bird of the forest. It created sad thoughts when I found myself riding almost heedlessly over the work of those once mighty people. There perhaps was pride, power and wealth, carried to its utter limit, for here ‘tis said the great Montezuma once lived, though ‘tis probably a “false tradition.” But now something of what my own eyes witnessed. The only part standing is the church. We got off our horses at the door and went in, and I was truly awed. I should think it was sixty feet by thirty. As is the custom among the present inhabitants of Mexico, this pueblo is built of unburnt bricks and stones. The ceiling is very high and doleful in appearance; the sleepers are carved in hieroglyphical figures, as is also the great door, alter and indeed all the little wood-work about it, showing that if they were uncivilized or half-civilized as we generally believe them, they had at least an idea of grandeur.”
Sunday 30th. “They say this is our last evening out, that tomorrow we will see Santa Fe. And to this I shall not object, if were to stay there a whole winter, or even till winter, I must be in preparing my house.” “I do think I have walked three or four miles today; before noon I rode horseback over all the bad paces in the road, but this P.M. I have walked. It will not hurt me though, and especially as much as jolting in the carriage over hills and rough road we have passed, and being frightened half to death all the while.”
Santa Fe. August 31st 1846. “It is really hard to realize it, that I am here in my own house, in a place too where I once would have thought it folly to think of visiting. I have entered the city in a year that will always be remembered by my countrymen; and under the “Star-Spangled banner” too, the first American lady, who has come under the auspices, and some of our company seem disposed to make me the first under any circumstances that ever crossed the Plains. We arrived last night, and at such a late hour it was rather difficult for me to form any idea of the city. I knew it is situated in a valley; and is to be seen from the top of a long hill, down which I walked; this leads into “the street,” which as in any other city has squares; but I must say they are singularly occupied. On one square may be a dwelling-house, a church or something of the kind, and immediately opposite to it occupying the whole square is a cornfield, fine ornament to a city, that.” – Susan Shelby Magoffin.
Susan Shelby Magoffin, Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.
