Native Americans Played a Role Too

damYankee

1st Lieutenant
Joined
Aug 12, 2011
I saw this in Time Magazine and thought it a good primer for conversation,

Native Americans Played a Role Too
In the Union War Department a few steps from the White House, clerks wrote out dispatches to commanders in California, Oregon and the western territories. The federal government needed army regulars currently garrisoned at frontier forts to fight in the eastern theater. These soldiers should be sent immediately to the camps around Washington, D.C.

In New Mexico Territory, however, some regulars would have to remain at their posts. The political loyalties of the local population—large numbers of Hispano laborers, farmers, ranchers and merchants; a small number of Anglo businessmen and territorial officials; and thousands of Apaches and Navajos—were far from certain. New Mexico Territory, which in 1861 extended from the Rio Grande to the California border, had come into the Union in 1850 as part of a congressional compromise regarding the extension of slavery into the West. California was admitted to the Union as a free state while New Mexico, which was south of the Mason-Dixon Line, remained a territory. Under a policy of popular sovereignty, its residents would decide for themselves if slavery would be legal. Mexico had abolished black slavery in 1829, but Hispanos in New Mexico had long embraced a forced labor system that enslaved Apaches and Navajos. In 1859 the territorial legislature, made up of predominantly wealthy Hispano merchants and ranchers with Native slaves in their households, passed a Slave Code to protect all slave property in the Territory.
 
Interesting! Yes, the first thing we seem to have done after bumping into this continent is go find someone to do the all the work. Native Americans died in horrendous numbers since we also gifted them with European disease hence sending ships to swipe free labor from elsewhere.

Did not know sections of the country depended on Native Americans for free help that late. ( first person to point out enslaving entire populations was ancient practice eats something awful- doesn't justify a thing ).
 
The writer refers to the Mason-Dixon Line, but the relevant line was that of the Missouri Compromise, 36-30 north. That was the intended boundary between free and slave in the western territories.

When the Mason-Dixon line was surveyed, both Pennsylvania and Maryland were slave states. The line also extended south down the Delmarva Peninsula and formed the border between Maryland and Delaware, which remained slave states until the Civil War.
 
The writer refers to the Mason-Dixon Line, but the relevant line was that of the Missouri Compromise, 36-30 north. That was the intended boundary between free and slave in the western territories.

When the Mason-Dixon line was surveyed, both Pennsylvania and Maryland were slave states. The line also extended south down the Delmarva Peninsula and formed the border between Maryland and Delaware, which remained slave states until the Civil War.
That was my question also, the 36-40 north would have been the line for western territories. The interesting aspect of the article that needs to be understood better was the entrenched Spanish influence in New Mexico, (not Mexican).
 
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