Rabbitbrush Rambler: West side story, Part II

Conejos was a busy place in 1863 with its Indian agency, the church’s dedication, stores, wagons passing through from fields to the grist mill and others passing through on their way to new settlements. And the every-busy Lafayette Head was involved in most happenings.

At the agency, Head had a long, one-story, log building in the plaza with living quarters for his family, an attic for storing goods or workers, and a large main room for conducting business with traders and Ute Indians who needed to air all sorts of grievances or just wanted to hang around outside and ogle. Anyone else who happened to come by also was part of the daily, dusty scene.

But one occasion in 1863 the plaza witnessed a spectacle that was attended by everyone of any importance in the region’s Indian affairs, plus more than the usual crowd of spectators. There were Abraham Lincoln’s private secretary, the governors of both Colorado and New Mexico Territories, assorted elected politicians and civil employees, buggies and wagons, a large detachment from Fort Garland, interpreters, and tribal members, most of those in attendance being Capote, Muache, and Tabeguache, plus a few Weminuche (Weeminuche, Weenuche).

Many attendees spoke only English or Spanish, and many Indians spoke neither. With the exception of white persons of exalted rank who ate and slept at the agency, everyone else slept in tents in large encampments. During the meeting those running the show decided that Utes should confine their wanderings outside San Luis and agreed to a treaty to that effect, with Ouray becoming the Utes’ chief spokesman, but not to the pleasure of all. Before long, regardless, Head’s agency and the Utes would be ousted by the Treaty of 1868 and a different agency began to operate northwest of Saguache, to the discontent of Agent Head and some others but to the delight of Saguache’s farmers, ranchers, storekeepers, and others who profited.      

Things change, usually by growing. By 1862 Conejos had a post office, and storekeepers usually were postmasters too, so stores were hubs of local activity and scuttlebutt. Conejos’s adobe emporium was a steppingstone for hired hands like Otto Mears and Christian Stollsteimer, both of whom had moved up to Saguache County when it was organized in 1864. Otto Mears then opened his own store there.

For a few weeks in 1863, Conejos entertained an unusual visitor, Lafayette’s grieving sister and her young son all the way from Illinois. Her husband in the Union Army had recently been killed in battle.

She was a supporter of emancipation, and the clashing personalities and philosophies of the guest and Lafayette’s strong-willed wife Maria soon led to disharmony. This discord led to a crisis when the guest aided the escape from Head’s property of two Navajo slave girls who were being abused by male slaves.

Needless to say, the guest’s visit abruptly ended, but the issue of slavery of captive Native Americans remained in this nation, territory, and the Valley itself. Despite the emancipation of Black slaves in 1863, Native American were not included in the Act. When Agent Head was required by the government in 1865 to prepare a list of owners, slaves, and their origins, his report was quite selective, omitting the names of several owners and their slaves in the Valley’s counties. The Head household was among those omitted in the report.

Two years later in 1867, Native American slaves were emancipated belatedly by the United States. Some of the Valley’s left the area, while others remained and blended in, although social and economic class distinctions still were pervasive.   

Our Lady of Guadalupe Church was a focal point in community life. When it was pictured in 1875 by surveyors, the structure clearly was the flat-roofed, earthen-floored, adobe church that had been dedicated in 1863 by Bishop Lamy. During the 1860s, faithful people in villages and homes on both sides of the Rio Grande had small, private oratorios and capillas, and many men were Penitentes, as they had been in New Mexico, but only Conejos had a resident parish priest, beginning with Father Montaño in the late 1850s, followed in the 1860s by Father Vigil and next Father Rolly.

Changes were about to begin, though, when Jesuits arrived and soon were serving the entire Valley, the Western Slope, and nearby parts of northern New Mexico.