Strong Women: Cathay Williams

Sometimes the title "warrior woman" is more than just a metaphor.

I mentioned Cathay Williams in passing in my piece on New Mexico's Buffalo Soldiers a few weeks ago (and a couple of years ago). Her story is so unique that she deserves her own post.

Her father was a free man, but her mother was enslaved, and so she was born enslaved — in 1844, as nearly as anyone can tell — in Independence, Missouri. It appears she took the name of her birthplace seriously.

She spent her childhood as a "house slave" on a plantation owned by a man named Johnson, in the area of Jefferson City. In 1861, however, when she was seventeen, Union forces arrived in Missouri and took control of Jefferson City. Young Ms. Williams saw an opportunity, and she took it.

The U.S. military was busily pressing young Black men, slaves and former slaves, into service on behalf of the Union. In the U.S., some definitions of "freedom" never change. But freedwomen were regarded as suitable cannon fodder, as well, even though they were relegated to supporting, rather than combat, roles. And seventeen-year-old Cathay Williams was no exception: Because, as a slave, she was property rather than a person, she was now classified as "contraband," giving Union forces the right to seize and dispose of her as they saw fit. That "disposition" turned out the be service in the 8th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

That service was the catalyst by which Cathay Williams became William Cathay, Buffalo Soldier.

Strong Women: Angelina Sanchez and Rosaura Revueltas

Angelina Sanchez
Photo credit: Sanchez family; all rights reserved.

Since today is International Women's Day, it seemed appropriate to incorporate a bit of an international theme. Okay, so it's only two countries, both in North America: the United States and Mexico. But both play a role in this story of two strong women brought together by an important event in New Mexico's history, an event that would wind up testing both in vastly different yet undeniably related ways.

Even if you live in New Mexico, unless you live in a very specific area of the state and have knowledge of a specific incident from more than an half-century ago, you've probably never heard of Angelina G. Sanchez. She was not a native New Mexican, but she moved to the state as a young woman, intent on dedicating herself to protecting the rights of Mexican-American and women workers. She joined the Ladies' Auxiliary of the United Mineworkers of America, and she played a significant role in the UMA's strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in Bayard, New Mexico, in 1951.

Strong Women: Soledad Chávez Chacón

Today, I'd like you to meet one of the most significant people in New Mexico political history that almost no one's ever heard of:  Soledad Chávez Chacón.

Why one of the most important?

Because she was the first Hispanic woman in New Mexico to be elected to statewide office, the first woman in the state to serve as Acting Governor, and the first woman in the entire country to be elected as her state's Secretary of State. In 1922.

Black History Month in New Mexico III: Blackdom

Photo of David Profitt House, Blackdom; image credit Museum of New Mexico.

This is the last of three posts designed to bring you a taste of the contributions African Americans have made to New Mexico history and culture.  Nothing in any of these posts is intended to be all-inclusive; it's merely a sepia-toned snapshot of three distinct points in the state's historical timeline that go too often unremarked and unremembered.  

New Mexico makes much of its triracial inclusion and harmony (which, truth be told, is not so much as an inch deep, but that's another diary).  What isn't obvious to folks from elsewhere is that the three races to which it refers are, as they are known in the polite version of local parlance, "Anglos," "Hispanics," and "Indians."  In most of the state, African Americans aren't even on the public radar screen (nor are Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders, people of South Asian and Middle Eastern descent, or those of Caribbean ancestry - but, again, that's another diary).

According to the 2010 census, African Americans constitute 12.6% of the national population.  In New Mexico, that figure drops to a scant 2.1%.  [Despite the fact that the U.S. stole this land from Mexico, which in turn had stolen it from the indigenous populations, 68.4% of New Mexico's total population comprises "Anglos," whether "Hispanic" or "non-Hispanic."]

African American history and culture are a bit of a unicorn in this state:  occasionally reported, but mostly elusive, and largely invisible to all but those who actually go looking for it.  And yet, Black Americans have a long and storied history in New Mexico, with a vibrant presence predating statehood by half a century.  It's long past time for that presence to assume its rightful place in the state's past and present.

Come with me.  I'm going to take you on a little tour of three New Mexico towns that play a role in African American history.

Black History Month in New Mexico II: The "Battles for Socorro"

Photo credit Bureau of Land Management

This is the second of three posts designed to bring you a taste of the contributions African Americans have made to New Mexico history and culture.  As I said yesterday, nothing in any of these posts is intended to be all-inclusive; it's merely a sepia-toned snapshot of three distinct points in the state's historical timeline that go too often unremarked and unremembered.  

New Mexico makes much of its triracial inclusion and harmony (which, truth be told, is not so much as an inch deep, but that's another diary).  What isn't obvious to folks from elsewhere is that the three races to which it refers are, as they are known in the polite version of local parlance, "Anglos," "Hispanics," and "Indians."  In most of the state, African Americans aren't even on the public radar screen (nor are Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders, people of South Asian and Middle Eastern descent, or those of Caribbean ancestry - but, again, that's another diary).

According to the 2010 census, African Americans constitute 12.6% of the national population.  In New Mexico, that figure drops to a scant 2.1%.  [Despite the fact that the U.S. stole this land from Mexico, which in turn had stolen it from the indigenous populations, 68.4% of New Mexico's total population comprises "Anglos," whether "Hispanic" or "non-Hispanic."]

African American history and culture are a bit of a unicorn in this state:  occasionally reported, but mostly elusive, and largely invisible to all but those who actually go looking for it.  And yet, Black Americans have a long and storied history in New Mexico, with a vibrant presence predating statehood by half a century.  It's long past time for that presence to assume its rightful place in the state's past and present.

Come with me.  I'm going to take you on a little tour of three New Mexico towns that play a role in African American history.

ACTION: Help Save the Legacy of New Mexico's Buffalo Soldiers. Save Fort Bayard.

Photo copyright Fort Bayard Historic Preservation Society; all rights reserved.

America does not do history well. Even at its best, it's inevitably a whitewash in service to the dominant culture's mythological retelling of events that were, to put it mildly, colonialist brutality. The histories and perspectives (and even the bare facts) surrounding people of color involved in any given historical episode are always and by definition elided, distorted, or simply missing completely. Nowhere, of course, is this more true than when dealing with our peoples, the original inhabitants of this land.

Even so, the history must be preserved. Without it, there's no chance of ever getting it right. That denies our children (and their children, and on and on) the possibility of ever knowing the real facts, the real richness of this land, its peoples, its histories. It denies our ancestors their memory and legacy, threatening to erase them and their footprints completely. And it denies us our identities, our very existences as who we are.

So today, I'm going to ask you to take a moment to try to help preserve and important piece of history. It's something that, in its former and current incarnations, has always been very flawed (and that's the polite way of putting it). Currently, much historical inaccuracy is involved. A great deal of anti-Indian racism is present. And all of that needs to be fixed.

It will never be fixed if this public landmark, the historical piece of the commons for so many populations in New Mexico and across the country, is privatized or razed to the ground.

So I'm going to ask you to read the details over the jump, and then help save Fort Bayard.

Black History Month In New Mexico: Buffalo Soldiers

This is the first of three pieces designed to bring you a taste of the contributions African Americans have made to New Mexico history and culture.  Nothing in any of these pieces is intended to be all-inclusive; it's merely a sepia-toned snapshot of three distinct points in the state's historical timeline that go too often unremarked and unremembered. 

New Mexico makes much of its triracial inclusion and harmony (which, truth be told, is not so much as an inch deep, but that's another story).  What isn't obvious to folks from elsewhere is that the three races to which it refers are, as they are known in the polite version of local parlance, "Anglos," "Hispanics," and "Indians."  In most of the state, African Americans aren't even on the public radar screen (nor are Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders, people of South Asian and Middle Eastern descent, or those of Caribbean ancestry - but, again, that's another story). 

According to the 2010 census, African Americans constitute 12.6% of the national population.  In New Mexico, that figure drops to a scant 2.1%.  [Despite the fact that the U.S. stole this land from Mexico, which in turn had stolen it from the indigenous populations, 68.4% of New Mexico's total population comprises "Anglos," whether "Hispanic" or "non-Hispanic."] 

African American history and culture are a bit of a unicorn in this state:  occasionally reported, but mostly elusive, and largely invisible to all but those who actually go looking for it.  And yet, Black Americans have a long and storied history in New Mexico, with a vibrant presence predating statehood by half a century.  It's long past time for that presence to assume its rightful place in the state's past and present. 

Come with me.  I'm going to take you on a little tour of three New Mexico towns that play a role in African American history.