This article appeared in “The Santa Fe New Mexican” on Tuesday, July 20, 1909. The opinions and descriptions expressed are those of the author and a product of the time they were written. They do not express the views of the Bent County Historical Society.
The Assassination of Governor Bent
A Vivid Account of One of the Most Atrocious Deeds Ever Perpetrated in New Mexico
The following is an unpublished correspondence from the pen of A. W. Thompson, the same having been written over ten years ago.
Not long ago there appeared in the columns of the New Mexican a short account by a soldier who had suffered the hardships of a winter march to avenge the death of New Mexico’s first governor, Mr. Bent, at Taos, murdered in his own home on the night of February 19, 1847, shortly after the reconstruction period in the earliest history of the newly acquired territory. The story interested me – not only because of its truthful account of the severity of that march, through mountain passes then deeply hidden beneath a covering of snow, but because I had seen the very house in which the first occupant of our gubernatorial chair had been so barbarously sacrificed, had viewed the ruins of the old church at the pueblo, where the fleeing Indians and Mexicans who participated in the outrage sought protection on the arrival of the troops from Santa Fe, fifteen days later, under the leadership of Captain St. Vrain, and particularly because I had met, by mere accident was the relationship brought to light, a step-daughter of Governor Bent’s, now living in my own town and in whose arms he was first shot, then scalped on that “noche triste,” 51 years ago. Her story of the affair I thought would be of interest to New Mexicans, should be, in proper dress, an important bit of our early history (the preparation of that attire, however, the writer makes no pretense of fashioning) so I sought Mrs. Thomas Boggs, widow of one of the pioneers of the Territory, and whose name is connected with Carson, and Bent, Price and St. Vrain, a niece of the famous old scout “Father Kit” and a step-daughter of Governor Bent’s, formerly Miss Rumalda Luna, now living at an advanced age with her daughter here in Clayton would she object to reciting the details of that night’s doing in which she played so heroic a part in endeavoring to save the life of our first Governor? Yes, she was willing to tell the story. She had never been asked to do so, at least for publication. And through an interpreter, this is her tale – pathetic and teeming with evidence of self-sacrifice which she possibly does not fully appreciate.
“I was fourteen years old and had been married about a year,” began Mrs. Boggs, “when my step-father, Governor Bent, was assassinated by Mexicans and Pueblo Indians at his home at Taos Fernandez (American village of Taos). My husband, Mr. Boggs was away from home at the time, carrying overland mail from Fort Leavenworth to Santa Fe, and Kit Carson was also absent. Had the latter been home the affair would probably have been averted, as Kit had great control over both Mexicans and Indians, ruling them always as he would children.
As it was for some time prior to the execution of the deed, there had been rumors that my stepfather, the new governor, and the first to be appointed by an American President shorty after victories of General Scott in Old Mexico, intended to take from the Pueblo Indians and Mexicans in the Taos valley the lands which had been theirs by occupancy for hundreds of years. Those whispering, which were of course, without the slightest foundation or truth were brought to my stepfather and with them too, reports of an uprising against him – the one he denied- and the other he discredited. He had for years lived in Taos – and certainly his neighbors could take no such action against him. And although advised to depart, at least temporarily for Santa Fe, he decided to remain in Taos.
It was on the afternoon of February 19, 1847, that apprehension of serious trouble was first felt. Little groups of Mexicans and Indians came about our house, some demanding entrance which was refused.
That night a clear still evening, rather sharp and cold, and with a scattering of snow on the hillsides near the town, en masse, and as if at a given signal with shouts and brandishing torches, a strong junta of Indians came down from the pueblo three miles from where we were living and surrounded our house. An attempt at conciliation by Governor Bent was made, and this being unsuccessful the doors of our house were closed and the diabolical work began. With yells the men outside, frenzied by imaginary wrongs bombarded the house, throwing stones and shooting arrows, which the thick adobe walls resisted. Finding their attempts to force an entrance from below unsuccessful the maddened mob climbed to the roof and quickly removed the sod covering and the supporting timbers. Directly below on a bed rested the governor, watched by my mother, two children, two servants and myself. Soon into our room arrows began to fall through the opening in the roof aimed at our defenseless family, six striking my stepfather seriously, though not mortally wounding him; and the situation became at once desperate.
In the meantime, one of the members of our little community had with an iron spoon, succeeded in removing a number of the adobes from the wall of our room, making an opening into an adjoining house. Drawing the arrows from Governor Bent’s body (my mother had been struck by an arrow which rendered her almost helpless) I now dragged him to this opening and assisted in getting him into the next room and in helping the other members of the family in with us. There I sat on the floor with the head of the wounded man in my lap.
Hardly had we made our escape to this new quarter, where we hoped for safety, when several of the Indians were in the room we had just vacated, they quickly followed us firing several arrows as they came on. In the confusion an Indian named Tomas, and whom I afterwards identified as the slayer of Mr. Bent dragged him from my arms, now half dead from the wounds inflicted by the arrows, lifted him by his suspenders, and threw him upon the hard cement floor. Others had descended from the roof assisting this same Tomas as I looked on with his bowstring (a practice of the Pueblos in those days) proceeded to scalp him while he was yet alive, cutting as cleverly with the tight cord as it could have been done with a knife, and heaping other insults on the prostrate form before us. Then somebody hurried us into another room, covering us with blankets, and I saw no more.
All the next day and for several days afterwards, bands of Indians continued to surround our house. We buried Governor Bent the next night, about midnight, a common box answering for his coffin, in the cemetery near our house, carefully covering the grave to keep it unknown to the Indians. And here reposed the remains of New Mexico’s first ruler until sometime later, when with all honors he was removed to Santa Fe.
But the end was not yet. Couriers were secretly dispatched to Santa Fe, secretly for the valley was in a state of tremendous excitement and no one could tell who was friend and who foe, and in two weeks came the soldiers – a part of General Price’s command under the leadership of Captain St. Vrain, I well remember how, after a week’s march through snow waist deep, which filled the mountain passes below Taos, these nearly famished, half frozen regulars fell in on us one afternoon, asking for fire and shelter and food.
Then began the revenge and just revenge it was. The Indians hearing of the coming of the troops had betaken themselves, part to the hills where they were subsequently captured, and part to the old church in Taos pueblos where after a siege they surrendered and were hanged, or tortured by the American infantry. Heart rending it was to see the little Indian children, with a flag of truce and bearing crosses in their hands emerging from the adobe church at the pueblo, the walls of which were too thick to be penetrated by the balls that Captain St. Vrain’s men shot into them, and kneeling, begged that the commander would not blow up the building and asking him to desist from dropping boulders through the roof which was causing great loss of life within. Then came the surrender and the hanging of twenty leaders in the move, the capture of Tomas, Whom I, before a court composed of the soldiers themselves, identified as the murderer of Governor Bent. He was tortured and hanged for the cruel part he had committed against the helpless family of our chief executive.
I well remember, concluded Mrs. Boggs, how severely the soldiers punished the offenders. One favorite pastime was to harness six Indians to an army ambulance and then at a signal put them on a run from the pueblo to Taos. They would reach us exhausted. the cracks of the driver’s whips heralding their approach, with blood streaming from their backs and legs – one ambulance being followed by another and another, racing as they came on. And then, when the soldiers tired of this sport their unfortunate captives ended their miserable existence at the end of a rope.
There are many interesting spots and places and people too, in that pretty mountain valley where this story is centered as the writer personally knows. Among them, Kit Carson’s house, his grave with its briefly marked tombstone – ill kept it is – for the grave of such a hero, and the pueblo through which the Indians in a most accommodating manner led you up the rough ladders and down into their ancient citadel. Near this last stand the walls supporting now only the huge timbers overhead of the old Indian church, and the church door posts- massive timbers brought form the hillsides near their town. In those door posts are still marks of the bullets, fired fifty-one years ago: and in the pueblo, the writer met several years since, a blind Indian who lost his sight in that church by the explosion of bombs which St. Vrain’s men let fall through the roof. And last of all, in Taos still stands the house, a really unpretentious affair it is, with thick adobes, small windows and sod roof, in which, on the night of February 19,1847, was so cruelly murdered the first Governor of the Territory of New Mexico.
A. W. THOMPSON.