1. For the sake of consistency, I use the English-language name for New Mexico throughout this article, even though it was known as Nuevo México to the Spanish. I also omit the accent in words that are used in English, such as the place names Mexico (instead of México) and Santa Fe (rather than Santa Fé).

2. On the history and population of New Mexico, see Simmons, Marc, New Mexico: A Bicentennial History (New York: Norton, 1977)Google Scholar; Gutiérrez, Ramón A., When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500–1846 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Weber, David J., The Spanish Frontier in North America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; and Lamar, Howard R., The Far Southwest, 1846–1912 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).Google Scholar

3. On the political structure of the pueblos, see Sando, Joe S., Pueblo Nations: Eight Centuries of Pueblo Indian History (Santa Fe: Clear Light Publishers, 1992)Google Scholar, chap. 1; Gutierrez, When Jesus Came; and Robison, John K., “Phoenix on the Mesa: Acoma Pueblo During the Spanish Colonial Period, 1500–1821” (Ph.D. diss., Oklahoma State University, 1997)Google Scholar, chap. 1. On the role of religious leaders, see White, Leslie A., The Acoma Indians: People of the Sky City (Glorieta, N.M.: The Rio Grande Press, 1973)Google Scholar [first issued in 1932 as part of the Forty-Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1929–1930)], 41–42, 52–54, 63–67.

4. Hammond, George P. and Rey, Agapito, eds. and comps., “Trial of the Indians of Acoma, 1598,” in Don Juan de Oñate: Colonizer of New Mexico, 1595–1628 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1953), 428–79Google Scholar; Robison, “Phoenix on the Mesa,” chap. 6; Minge, Ward Alan, Acoma: Pueblo in the Sky, 2d ed., rev. ed. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991), 10–16.Google Scholar

5. Cutter, Charles R., The Protector de Indios in Colonial New Mexico, 1659–1821 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986).Google Scholar

6. Simmons, Marc, Spanish Government in New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Cutter, Charles R., The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700–1810 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995)Google Scholar, chaps. 3 and 4; and Tyler, Daniel, Sources for New Mexican History, 1821–1848 (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1984), 4–11.Google Scholar

7. Cutter, Protector de Indios, 79 and 92–93.

8. Complaint of the Indians of Taos against Sebastian Martin, Baltasar Romero, and others, August 13, 1731, Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 1621–1821, at the New Mexico State Archives and Records Center, Santa Fe [hereafter cited as SANM], series II, archive number 361; Judgment in suit by Indians of Pueblo of San Ildefonso against heirs of Juana Lujan, April 12-May 5, 1766, SANM II:595; Laguna Pueblo protest against Joaquín Pino's occupation of Laguna Pueblo land, September 26, 1816, SANM I:668; and Proceedings in a dispute between the Indians of Taos and some Spanish citizens, April 11-May 15, 1815, SANM 1:1357.

9. For examples, see the documents in SANM II:447; SANM I:1343; SANM II:1004; SANM II:1172; SANM II:287; SANM II:367, 370, 378, 380, and 388; SANM II:394; and SANM II:2140.

10. For examples, see the documents in SANM I:1373; SANM I:380; SANM I:1381, 1382, and 1383; SANM I:1374; and Mexican Archives of New Mexico, at the New Mexico State Archives and Records Center, Santa Fe, reel 1, frame 1184.

11. Jenkins, Myra Ellen, “The Baltasar Baca ‘Grant’: History of an Encroachment,” El Palacio 68 (1961): 47–64 and 87–105 (at 60–61)Google Scholar; and Simmons, Marc, “History of the Pueblos since 1821,” in Southwest, ed. Alfonso Ortiz, vol. 9 of Handbook of North American Indians, ed. Sturtevant, William C. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1979), 206–23, at 207.Google Scholar

12. Governor William Carr Lane to William Glasgow, September 26, 1852, in “Letters of William Carr Lane,” ed. Bieber, Ralph P., New Mexico Historical Review 3 (1928): 179–203, at 186Google Scholar; and Lane to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea, October 30, 1852, Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, 1824–1881: New Mexico Superintendence, 1849–1861, original manuscripts in National Archives, Washington, D.C., microfilm rolls 546–50 [hereafter cited as Letters Received by OIA]; Governor David Meriwether to Commissioner of Indian Affairs George W. Manypenny, August 31, 1853, Letters Received by OIA.

13. James S. Calhoun to William Medili, October 1, 1849; Calhoun to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Orlando Brown, November 20, 1849, November 30, 1849, January 28, 1850, February 2, 1850, and September 30, 1850; and Calhoun to Lea, March 31, 1851, in the Official Correspondence of James S. Calhoun while Indian Agent at Santa Fé and Superintendent of Indian Affairs in New Mexico, ed. Abel, Annie Heloise (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1915)Google Scholar [hereafter Correspondence of Calhoun], 33, 86–87, 88, 119, 133, 260, 307. The quotations are at 33, 88, and 307.

14. In this article, I use the adjective “Spanish-Mexican” to refer to the legal system that had its roots in colonial New Spain and the Republic of Mexico and the adjective “Anglo-American” to refer to the legal system that had its roots in the English colonies and in the early United States. I refer to the Spanish-speaking, non-Indian residents of New Mexico after 1821 as “Spanish-Mexicans.” The English-speaking, non-Indian residents of New Mexico are referred to as “Americans,” because that is how they were called in New Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century. Finally, the term “New Mexicans” refers to residents of New Mexico who were of European or Pueblo Indian ancestry.

15. Journal of John Ward, May 15, 1853, and June 2, 1853, in Abel, Annie Heloise, ed., “Indian Affairs in New Mexico under the Administration of William Carr Lane, from the Journal of John Ward,” New Mexico Historical Review 16 (1941): 206–32 and 328–58, at 340 and 345Google Scholar; and Abel, Annie Heloise, ed., “The Journal of John Greiner,” Old Santa Fe: A Magazine of History, Archaeology, Genealogy and Biography 3 (1916): 189–243, at 206 and 217.Google Scholar

16. The role of the alcaldes as local magistrates was formally supplanted by justices of the peace after the U.S. occupation in 1846. In practice, however, many of the new JPs were the same men who had previously served as alcaldes, and in fact they were often referred to as alcaldes well into the territorial period.

17. “Journal of John Ward,” July 7, 1853, and July 21, 1853, at 350 and 353.

18. For a description of the legal system of New Mexico and an analysis of the role law, courts, and lawyers played in incorporating the territory in the social, economic, and political orbit of the United States, see Reichard, David A., “‘Justice Is God's Law’: The Struggle to Control Social Conflict and U.S. Colonization of New Mexico, 1846–1912” (Ph.D. diss., Temple University, 1996).Google Scholar

19. Regarding negative impressions of Spanish-Mexicans that pervaded American travel literature in the nineteenth century, see Paredes, Raymond A., “The Mexican Image in American Travel Literature, 1831–1869,” New Mexico Historical Review 52 (1977): 5–29.Google Scholar For a description of Americans' similar negative attitudes toward the Spanish legal system of the Louisiana Territory in the early nineteenth century, see Banner, Stuart, Legal Systems in Conflict: Property and Sovereignty in Missouri, 1750–1860 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000).Google Scholar

20. Davis, William Watts Hart, El Gringo; or, New Mexico and Her People (1857; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1973), 105–6, 253–54, 267Google Scholar; and Gregg, Josiah, Commerce of the Prairies, ed. Moorhead, Max L. (1844; reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954), 159.Google Scholar

21. Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, September 23, 1854; Calhoun to Medili, October 13, 1849, and Calhoun to Brown, November 30, 1849, January 25, 1850, February 18, 1850, and April 15, 1850, in Correspondence of Calhoun, 46, 88, 103, 152–54, and 188.

22. Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, May 6, 1854, and May 13, 1854.

23. On the use of “rule of law” to justify and bolster U.S. colonization of New Mexico, see Reichard, “‘Justice Is God's Law.’” For discussions of rule of law in other colonial settings, see Richard Roberts and Kristin Mann, “Law in Colonial Africa,” and Groff, David, “The Dynamics of Collaboration and the Rule of Law in French West Africa: The Case of Kwame Kangah of Assikasso (Côte d'Ivoire), 1898–1922,” in Law in Colonial Africa, ed. Mann, and Roberts, (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann Educational Books, 1991), 3–58 (especially 35–36) and 146–66Google Scholar, respectively. On the role of European law in the colonizing process. see the review article by Merry, Sally Engle, “Law and Colonialism,” Law and Society Review 25 (1991); 889–922.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Groff, “Dynamics of Collaboration,” 147. On the relationship between a “rational” legal system and commercial growth and capitalism, see also Weber, Max, Max Weber on Law in Economy and Society, ed. Rheinstein, Max, trans. Edward Shils and Max Rheinstein (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954)Google Scholar [originally published as Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 2d ed., 1925], especially 266–68 and 349–56; Galanter, Marc, “The Modernization of Law,” in Modernization, ed. Weiner, Myron (New York, 1966), 153–66Google Scholar; and Burns, J. Joseph, “Civil Courts and the Development of Commercial Relations: The Case of North Sumatra,” Law and Society Review 15 (1980–1981): 347–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25. Davis, El Gringo, 231.

26. On the different legal values among Spanish-Mexicans and Americans, see especially Langům, David J., Law and Community on the Mexican California Frontier: Anglo-American Expatriates and the Clash of Legal Traditions, 1821–1846 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), chap. 5Google Scholar; and Ebright, Malcolm, Land Grants and Lawsuits in Northern New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), chaps. 1 and 2.Google Scholar

27. See, for example, the description of a lynching in Doña Ana County in the Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, April 28, 1855, and August 25, 1855.

28. Calhoun to Brown, January 28, 1850, in Correspondence of Calhoun, 119–20.

29. Bill of Rights declared by Stephen W. Kearney in Santa Fe, September 22, 1846, printed with Laws of the Territory of New Mexico Passed by the First Legislative Assembly (Santa Fe: James L. Collins, 1852), 32–33; and “An Act declaring and establishing the Rights of the People…,” July 12, 1851, ibid., 152–54.

30. Davis, El Gringo, 267; and Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, October 20, 1855.

31. Reichard, “‘Justice Is God's Law,’” 66–67.

32. Bloom, Lansing Bartlett, “New Mexico under Mexican Administration, 1821–1846,” Old Santa Fe: A Magazine of History, Archaeology, Genealogy and Biography 1 (1913–1914): 3–49Google Scholar, 131–75, 235–87, 347–68, and 2 (1914–1915): 3–56, 119–69, 223–77, 351–80 (at 2:12); and Twitchell, Ralph Emerson, Old Santa Fe: The Story of New Mexico's Ancient Capital (Chicago: The Rio Grande Press, 1963), 341.Google Scholar

33. Anecdote taken from Sánchez, Pedro, Memorias Sobre la Vida del Presbítero don Antonio José Martínez (Santa Fe: Compania Impresora del Nuevo Mexicano, 1903), 32–33.Google Scholar quoted in Bloom, “New Mexico under Mexican Administration,” 2:379. The anecdote concludes by noting that Martínez's students changed their focus, deciding to study civil law and the English language instead of Catholicism.

34. On special protections for Indians in New Spain, see Borah, Woodrow, Justice by Insurance: The General Indian Court of Colonial Mexico and the Legal Aides of the Half-Real (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Cutter, Protector de Indios: Hanke, Lewis, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949)Google Scholar; and Haring, C. H., The Spanish Empire in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947)Google Scholar, chap. 3. On the loosening of the protective laws in the Mexican Republic, see Hall, G. Emlen and Weber, David J., “Mexican Liberals and the Pueblo Indians, 1821–1829,” New Mexican Historical Review 59 (1984): 5–32.Google Scholar

35. “An Act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers,” June 30, 1834, 4 Stat. 729.

36. On the political status of the Pueblo Indians, see the Supreme Court decisions in United States v. Joseph, 94 U.S. 614 (1876), and United States v. Sandoval, 231 U.S. 28 (1913). For an in-depth description of the battles over the lands of one Indian pueblo from the end of the Spanish colonial period until the early years of New Mexican statehood, see Hall, G. Emlen, Four Leagues of Pecos: A Legal History of the Pecos Grant, 1800–1933 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984).Google Scholar

37. “An Act to enable Pueblo Indians to bring and defend actions,” December 1847, in Laws Passed by the General Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico in the Session of December, 1847 (Santa Fe: Hovey and Davies, 1848), 35–37; and Hugh N. Smith to Brown, March 9, 1850, in Correspondence of Calhoun, 224–26. The quotation is at 225.

38. Laguna's Petition to the Provincial Deputation, dated June 15, 1827, is in SANM I:1291 and 1372. Governor Antonio Marin del Valle's decision in the dispute, dated April 25, 1832, is in the Arthur Bibo Collection of Acoma and Laguna Pueblo Documents, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, document number 2. Acoma's Petitions, dated June 12, 1829 and May 6, 1841, are in the Bibo Collection, document number 4 and document number 6.

39. Calhoun to Lea, March 31, 1851, John R. Tullís to Calhoun, enclosed with Calhoun's letter to Lea, May 1, 1851, Calhoun to Lea, July 28, 1851, in Correspondence of Calhoun, 307, 339–41, and 390; Instructions and Order from Acting Governor William S. Messervy to Governors of Acoma and Laguna, April 22, 1854, in Bibo Collection, document number 10; Meriwether to Ward, July 27, 1854, in Bibo Collection, document number 11; Davis to Abraham G. Mayers, Pueblo Indian Agent, March 31, 1856, and Davis to Manypenny, March 29, 1856, Letters Received by OIA; Report of Abraham G. Mayers, April 7, 1856, and letter from Mayers to Davis, April 12, 1856, Letters Received by OIA. See also Military Governor John M. Washington's instructions to the “alcalde” (i.e., the justice of the peace) of Cebolleta requesting information on the dispute, February 27, 1849, in Bibo Collection. document number 9.

40. The water rights case is Pueblo of Acoma v. Pueblo of Laguna, U.S. District Court for the Territory of New Mexico, Third Judicial District, Valencia County, case file at New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, Santa Fe. The text of the Boundary Agreement of July 6, 1857, is in the Bibo Collection, document number 15.

41. Davis to Manypenny, March 29, 1956, Letters Received by OIA; “Message of W. W. H. Davis, Acting Governor of the Territory of New Mexico, Delivered to the Legislative Assembly,” December 3, 1855, reprinted in the Santa Fe Weekly Gazette, December 15, 1855; Meriwether to Manypenny, September 1855, Letters Received by OIA; and Mayers to Manypenny, January 3, 1857, Letters Received by OIA.

42. Writ of Judge Kirby Benedict, Pueblo of Acoma v. Pueblo of Laguna, U.S. District Court for the Territory of New Mexico, Third Judicial Circuit, Valencia County, February 22, 1855. The manuscript case file, which is in the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, Santa Fe, also contains the following documents that are referred to in this article: Petition of Pueblo of Acoma, February 1855; Benedict's Writ ordering issuance of the Injunction, February 21, 1855; Injunction issued by Court Clerk Vincent St. Vrain, February 22, 1855; Answer of Pueblo of Laguna, April 10, 1855; Evidence in the trial recorded by Frederick Layton, April 13, 1855; Decree, April 14, 1855; and Bill of Costs, April 14, 1855. All quotations of testimony in this article are from Layton's record of the court proceedings.

43. Davis, El Gringo, 356–58 and 387.

44. Hunt, Aurora, Kirby Benedict: Frontier Federal Judge (Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark, 1961), 161 and 190Google Scholar; Poldervaart, Arie W., Black-Robed Justice (1948; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1976), 72–83Google Scholar; Lamar, The Far Southwest, 88; Calhoun to Lea, March 31, 1851, February 29, 1852, and Lea to Calhoun, January 31, 1852, in Correspondence of Calhoun, 312, 473, 488; and “List of the Civil Officers of the Territory of New Mexico,” included with Laws of the Territory of New Mexico.

45. “To the People of New Mexico,” in Correspondence of Calhoun, 370–75.

46. Bibo Collection, document number 12, dated December 5, 1854.

47. In late 1849, James Calhoun reported that, in addition to daily rations, blacksmiths earned $40 a month, while common servants earned $10 to $15 a month. Calhoun to Brown, November 17, 1849, in Correspondence of Calhoun, 82–83.

48. See Reverend Samuel Gorman to Meriwether, May 18, 1856; Mayers to Manypenny, January 3, 1857; and Meriwether to Manypenny, September, 1855. All three letters are in Letters Received by OIA.

49. Vicente's last name was mentioned in the court documents, but it is undecipherable.

50. Reverend Gorman was the only European-American mentioned as playing an unofficial role in the case. In their testimony some Laguna members referred to Gorman as “a son of Laguna” (Luis Saracino) or as “adopted by Laguna” (Juan Pedro Garbiso), which suggests that some of them felt close to him. However, it is not clear from the court papers to what extent he may have advised the Laguna in connection with the lawsuit. Nor are other potential advisers (such as Indian agents) mentioned in the file, though it is possible that they existed. In “‘Justice Is God's Law,’” David Reichard specifically notes that Pueblo litigants in the late nineteenth century were aided by Indian agents, teachers, and other advisers (see chap. 5).

51. González, Deena J., Refusing the Favor: The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820–1880 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 21–24.Google Scholar

52. Young, Eric Van, Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth-Century Mexico: The Rural Economy of the Guadalajara Region, 1675–1820 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), 322.Google Scholar

53. Van Young also mentions Mexican Indian use of the concept of “time immemorial” or, more specifically, “immemorial possession” of land, though he points out that they were “not always justified” in making such claims. Ibid., chap. 14. The quoted phrase is on 342.

54. Davis, El Gringo, 395–96.

55. There has been considerable scholarly debate about the issue of “conversion” of Indians in the Americas. For different perspectives on Indians' responses to Christianity, see the essays in Spiritual Encounters: Interactions between Christianity and Native Religions in Colonial America ed. Griffiths, Nicholas and Cervantes, Fernando (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999).Google Scholar

56. Pueblo of Laguna v. Pueblo of Acomoa, 1 N.M. 220 (1857).

57. Benedict made these comments about the San José case at the conclusion of another case involving Acoma Pueblo, Victor de la O v. The Pueblo of Acoma, 1 N.M. 226 (1857). The case report in Acoma v. Laguna does not explicitly state which of the three judges participated in the decision; as was typical at the time, only the name of the justice who wrote the opinion is mentioned. So it is possible that Benedict, who had been the judge in the case in the lower court, might have recused himself from the supreme court when it heard the appeal. This was not always the practice, however. In fact, during the same term as Acoma v. Laguna, Benedict wrote the supreme court opinions in two other cases coming from his own district, Victor de la O v. Acoma and Sanchez v. Luna, 1 N.M. 238 (1857). It was also in the January 1857 term that Justice Davenport explicitly acknowledged serving as both district court judge and supreme court justice in Bustamento v. Analla, 1 N.M. 255 (1857). The proposed state constitution of 1849 tried to end the practice by providing that the judge who tried a case in the district court would not be allowed to hear the same case on appeal but since New Mexico was not admitted as a state at that time the provision did not go into effect in the nineteenth century. The problem was not resolved until New Mexico actually became a state half a century later.

58. For descriptions of ways in which colonial powers have displaced traditional extraju-dicial means of dispute resolution in Africa, see Bohannan, Paul, Justice and Judgment among the Tiv (London: International African Institute, 1957)Google Scholar; and Chanock, Martin, Law, Custom, and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), chap. 5.Google Scholar

59. Reichard, “‘Justice Is God's Law.’” The quotation is at 61.

60. For a general discussion of these principles, see Starr, June and Collier, Jane F., “Introduction: Dialogues in Legal Anthropology,” in History and Power in the Study of Law: New Directions in Legal Anthropology, ed. Starr, and Collier, (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989).Google Scholar For the application of the principles to the Aztec relationship with the Spanish in an earlier period, see Kellogg, Susan, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture, 1500–1700 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995).Google Scholar For a broader discussion of mutual accommodation between Native Americans and Europeans outside the legal sphere, see White, Richard, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61. Gonzalez, Refusing the Favor, 110.