Incidents of Travel in New Mexico (Pamphlet)

Description

Author: Brewerton, G. Douglass (1827-1901)

Publisher: Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (No. XLVII.–April, 1854.–Vol. VIII)

Pub Date: 1854

Binding: Paperback (stiff boards)

Condition: Fair.  Binding tight.  No tears, bends or folds.   Previous owner’s name on upper corner first page.  This is the original magazine article, excised from the 1854 magazine and rebound in stiff, library quality boards (a Photomount Binder).  The article is attached inside the boards by a cloth tape.  There’s some foxing to the pages, but with the exception of the previous owner’s name, it’s in great shape.

Notes:  Pamphlet.   Brewerton was part of the American army of occupation of California, who was ordered by his commanding officer to accompany Kit Carson from California to Independence, Missouri.  Why stop in Taos?  It was Carson’s home, and a chance to spend some time with his wife.  Brewerton, on the other hand, was not impressed.  “During our sojourn there I visited most portions of the town (Taos), which beyond the fact of its having suffered in former days from the chances of intestine (sic) warfare or foreign invasion, has little to commend it to the notice of the traveler.  Its inhabitants exhibit all the indolent, lounging characteristics of the lower order of Mexicans, the utter want both of moral and mental culture making itself everywhere apparent.  These people, who know no higher duty, and acknowledge no purer rule of conduct than a blind compliance with the exactions of a corrupt priesthood, regard honest labor as a burden, and resort to it only when driven by their necessities…..It is but just, however, to state, that the women of New Mexico toil harder, and in this respect are more perfect slaves to the tyranny of their husbands, than any other females, if we except the Indians upon this continent.”  Brewerton was a West Point graduate (his father was the superintendent from 1845-52), and after his military career became a lawyer, author, pastor, and successful landscape painter.