Conditions in New Mexico in 1812
[described by Pedro Bautista Pino, the province of New Mexico's representative in the Spanish parliament, in 1812.]
Ecclesiastical government.--The twenty-six Indian pueblos and the 102 settlements of Spaniards, which constitute the population of the province of New Mexico, are...served by twenty-two missionaries of the order of Saint Francis from the province of Mexico....
For more than fifty years no one has known that there was a bishop.... The misfortunes suffered by those settlers are infinite because of the lack of a primate. The people who wish, by means of a dispensation, to get married to relatives cannot do so because of the great cost of traveling a_distance of more than 400 leagues to Durango. Consequently, many people, compelled by love, live and rear families in adultery...
General means of making the provinces prosper.--Agriculture, industry, and commerce are the three bases of all prosperity. The province of New Mexico has none of these because of its location, because of the neglect with which the government has looked upon it up to the present time, and because of the annual withdrawal of the small income that it is able to derive from its products and manufactures. It has already been stated that the annual importation into the province of products for its consumption amounts to 112,000 pesos, and that its annual income is only 60,000 pesos. Therefore, there is an annual deficit of 52,000 pesos. The salaries paid by the treasury to the governor of the province, to his assistants, and to the 121 soldiers may be said to be the only income that keeps money in circulation. This income is so small, as we have previously stated, that until recently the majority of its inhabitants had never seen money.
One can resort to those resources that nature has placed at the province's disposal: the great abundance of furs and their low cost is undeniable. There are, however, no present means of exporting them without great freighting costs.
The scarcity of professional men.--The province of New Mexico does not have among its public institutions any of those found in other provinces of Spain.... The benefit of primary letters [a basic education] is given only to the children of those who are able to contribute to the salary of the school teacher. Even in the capital it has been impossible to engage a teacher and to furnish education for everyone. Of course there are no colleges of any kind.... For a period of more than two hundred years since the conquest, the province has made no provision for any of the literary careers, or as a priest, something which is ordinarily done in other provinces of America.
There are no physicians, no surgeons, and no pharmacies....
[Source: H. Bailey Carrol and J. Villansana Haggard, Three New Mexico Chronicles (Albuquerque, 1942).]
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