23 Susan Shelby Magoffin’s Account of New Mexico
Susan Shelby Magoffin accompanied her husband, a merchant who followed Alexander Doniphan’s forces from New Mexico to the lower Rio Grande. Her diary, from 1847, reveals the images U.S. travelers had of frontier Mexicans during the U.S.-Mexico War.
“Wednesday 26th. We got in there about 2 o’clock. P.M., and dinner was called for…And then the dinner half a dozen tortillas [pancakes] made of blue corn, and not a plate, but wrapped in a napkin – twin brother to the last table cloth. Oh how my heart sickened, to say nothing of my stomach, a cheese of, the kind we saw yesterday from the Mora, entirely speckled over, and two earthen ollas [ollas-jugs] of a mixture of meat, chilly verde [green pepper] & onions boiled together completed course No. 1. We had neither knives, forks or spoons, but made as good substitutes as we could by doubling a piece of tortilla, at every mouthful-but by the by there were few mouthfuls taken, for I could not eat a dish so strong, and unaccustomed to my palate.”
“Thursday 27. Near San Miguel. The woman slap about with their arms and necks bare, perhaps their bosoms exposed (and they are none of the prettiest or whitest) if they are about to cross the little creek that is near all the villages, regardless of those about them, they pull their dresses, which in the first place but little more than cover their calves-up above their knees and paddle through the water like ducks, sloshing and spattering everything about them. Some of them wear leather shoes, from the States, but most have buckskin mockersins, Indian style.”
“Friday 28th. This has been rather a more agreeable day than yesterday, though we met with a little accident this morning. At the little creek the other side of San Miguel the carriage tongue broke entirely out, and we were in rather a critical situation as to traveling, till Lieutenant Warner came up with his wagons, and we got two carpenters he had with him to make a new tongue. This required two hours time. As usual the villagers collected to see the curiosity. many of the mujeres came to the carriage shook hands and talked with me. One of them brought some tortillas, new goats milk and stewed kid’s meat with onions, and I found it much more palatable than ”the dinner at the Vegas”. They are decidedly polite, easy in their manners, perfectly free &c.”
“Saturday 29th. I have visited this morning the ruins of an ancient pueblo, or village, now desolate and a home for the wild beast and bird of the forest. It created sad thoughts when I found myself riding almost heedlessly over the work of those once mighty people. There perhaps was pride, power and wealth, carried to its utter limit, for here ‘tis said the great Montezuma once lived, though ‘tis probably a “false tradition.” But now something of what my own eyes witnessed. The only part standing is the church. We got off our horses at the door and went in, and I was truly awed. I should think it was sixty fee