Native Americans shared in commerce
Iam often surprised to find young people who assume that the wondrous supermarket, or something equivalent, has been around since the beginning of time. In fact, the vending of groceries and other necessities in a megastore is a fairly recent development.
A splendid image of the way New Mexico Indians exchanged goods in precontact times can be seen at Pecos National Historical Park. A large painting in the visitors’ center shows Plains Apaches arriving at Pecos Pueblo to trade.
The nomads are bringing in products of the hunt, such as buckskins, buffalo robes, jerky, tallow and rawhide moccasins. The Pecos people, as seen in the painting, offer corn, beans, pumpkins, woven blankets and pottery.
The scene provides a vivid reminder of how commerce was once carried on between Pueblo and Plains Indians.
Upon settling New Mexico, the Spaniards became participants in the established trade network of the Native people. They introduced a dazzling array of goods, besides new crops and livestock of all kinds.
In the 19th century, a flourishing overland commerce developed on the Santa Fe and Chihuahua trails. Wealthy merchant capitalists emerged, and men like Felipe Chaves of Belen, Jose Perea of Bernalillo and Nestor Armijo of Las Cruces became millionaires.
At the same time, old patterns of simple barter persisted among the common folk, even into the 20th century.
Larger towns along the Rio Grande had daily open-air markets, while smaller places usually held a “market day” once a week or twice a month.
Recently arrived attorney William W.H. Davis described the Santa Fe market as he saw it in the 1850s. “At the west end of the Governors Palace,” he declared, “the country people sell their meats, fruits and vegetables they carry to town. In the winter, Indians bring in fine venison and wild turkeys.”
Davis noted that vendors strung ropes between the posts supporting the Palace porch. On these they hung meats of all kinds, including bear carcasses.
Vegetables for sale were placed upon little mats or boards on the ground.
An American soldier complained that these Plaza merchants spent their idle time picking lice from their hair and crushing them between their fingers. In between, he said, “they handle the fruit and cheese which they are offering to sell you.” After 1850, traveling peddlers appeared in small communities, farms and ranches far from the market towns. They came with a single burro that bore two large pack boxes on its back. The hinged doors on these dropped down to form a temporary counter.
Inside the boxes was a colorful assortment of small goods: straight razors and knives, mirrors, glass beads, thread, needles, awls, bells, ribbon, mouth harps and children’s tops and tiny dolls.
Rural people loved the peddlers, not only for their wares but also for the news they brought of the outside world. In those slowpaced days, the local folk seemed to pay no attention to the amount of time it sometimes took to sell their products.
Davis commented in astonishment that “the market vendors will sit and wait for customers with a patience that seems to rival Job. And if they do not sell out today,” he reported, “they are sure to return with the same stock tomorrow.” In a similar vein, people with some raw goods for sale thought nothing of going on the road for many days just to make a tiny profit.
A stagecoach passenger from the East wrote home, saying that outside Las Vegas, N.M., along the road to Santa Fe, she had passed two Pueblo Indians pushing handcarts.
The crude carts were piled high with grapes from the recent harvest on the Rio Grande. A fellow passenger told her the Indians needed four to five days to push their way over Glorieta Pass and into Las Vegas, where they might get $2 for each load.
Archaeologist-historian Adolph Bandelier once wrote: “Up to 1859 regular caravans of Pueblo Indians visited Sonora annually in October.” They carried, he says, their woven blankets and buffalo hides to trade for fancy shawls and oranges.
The Mexican state of Sonora lay just south of Arizona. The pueblos conducted their business in the capital of Hermosillo, which was more than 600 miles from Northern New Mexico. Unarguably, a 1,200-mile round trip was a long way to go for a batch of oranges.
Bandelier states that in 1859 the Sonora government imposed an import tax on this petty commerce. As a result, the Pueblos abandoned their trading caravans and never returned.