Becoming "Spanish-American": Race and Rhetoric in New Mexico Politics, 1880–1928

CHARLES MONTGOMERY

ON CHRISTMAS EVE OF 1880 the racial violence that erupted periodically in the nineteenth-century American West visited the New Mexico town of Socorro. As he stepped out of a church service, newspaperman Anthony Conklin was gunned down by Antonio, Abršn, and Onofre Baca, three brothers whose extended Socorro family owned one of New Mexico's leading mercantile establishments. The murder was evidently an act of retaliation. Witnesses reported that Conklin had insulted the three allegedly drunk brothers by throwing them out of the church just moments before. What the witnesses did not say was that Conklin and the Baca family had a rocky history. As editor of the Socorro Sun, Conklin was an aggressive critic of the Bacas' political influence, and his writing had magnified the distrust between Socorro's Spanish-speaking majority and the area's English-speaking newcomers. His murder only made things worse. When the local "Mexican" sheriff refused to arrest the Baca brothers, he inadvertently left the field open to the "Socorro Committee of Safety," a body of prominent "American" vigilantes. Intent on a lynching, the vigilante bankers, merchants, ranchers and clergymen paused when the town's superior "Mexican" population threatened to "exterminate the Americans." The confrontation was resolved only in stages, and ultimately both sides walked away unhappy. In an attempt to escape, Antonio Baca was shot to death. His brothers got away but were later captured and returned to Socorro for trial. Acquitted by a Spanish-speaking jury, Onofre quickly left town. Abršn was not so lucky. Before his trial began, he was lynched by the Committee.