Journal of a Cowboy
There had been several rumors that the Union was coming apart. The northern states seemed to be in favor of abolishing slavery and promoting “liberty and justice for all.” The southern states, though, wanted to continue to control their ownership of free slave labor. They needed their cotton and soy bean crops picked and prepared for market.
There were 10 territories in the southern states, known as “Ole Dixie,” Jean-Luc mused as he was looking around early that morning. He mulled over the fact that “Dix” was the French number referring to the 10 southern states that were headed toward becoming “Confederate States.”
He was afraid that Civil War was coming and the progress made by the Louisiana Purchase might be in danger. The Union Army had largely consumed the supply of beef in the north, increasing its demand. The expansion of the meatpacking industry also encouraged consumption of beef. By 1866, millions of heads of longhorn cattle were rounded up and driven toward railroad depots. Ranching had continued to be widespread through the late 1800s. Recognized American settlers were permitted to claim public lands on the Great Plains as “open range” to raise purchased cattle.
What was even more disturbing was that Jean-Luc was aware of a movement of secret opponents to the slavery of the South. They wore long white robes with pointed, hooded tops. They that opposed any influence from the northern states. In polite society, they were called “the Klan.” But this union of white-hooded night riders wasn’t merely confined to the American southeast and the Louisiana Purchase areas. Prior to the Purchase, invoking the idea of “Manifest Destiny,” the United States had waged war against Mexico in 1846.
Jean-Luc had learned from an itinerant cowboy that U.S. President James K. Polk loved the idea of Manifest Destiny. It was a conviction that God Himself had intended that North America be controlled by Americans of the United States. In April 1847, Polk sent Nicholas Trist as an ambassador to Mexico in an attempt at successful negotiations. In May, Trist disembarked in Veracruz. Ambassador Trist could offer peace only if Mexico gave up its northern territories.
On Feb. 2, 1848, Trist met with Mexican representatives and signed the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. On Feb. 19, 1848, President Polk received the treaty in Washington. On May 30, 1848, Mexico City’s Congress approved the treaty.
As if the mid-1800s weren’t turbulent enough, Jean-Luc found out that in former Mexican territories, there was a similar parallel to the “Klan” of the southeastern United States. They would ride out in the night and cut the fences of unwelcome intruders in the New Mexico Territory.
The citizens of the Southwest had to find various means of coping with being a part of a foreign nation and of speaking English. In New Mexico, a man named Juan José Herrera of San Miguel near Las Vegas, was the founder and organizer of The White-Capped Ones. They called him “Las Gorras Blancas.”