New Mexican Traders on the Santa Fe Trail

The New Mexican Traders

Literature about the Santa Fe Trail tends to celebrate American traders as visionaries who opened commercial relations between the United States and Mexico, often overlooking the equally significant role played by New Mexican traders. Unlike the later Oregon Trail, filled with those looking to settle in new lands, the Santa Fe Trail was a commerce trail, reaching an area that had been settled by Europeans since 1598.

Spanish colonial rule of New Mexico (1598–1821) outlawed trade between the Spanish colony and United States. Under Spanish rule, European goods arrived at the port of Veracruz where they were shipped to Mexico City. From there, goods traveled via El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (the Royal Road) to Chihuahua and on to Santa Fe, a total length of 1,600 miles. Trade along the route was sporadic, occurring every three to seven years. Yearly caravans along the route were not established until the mid-1700s.

Upon declaring its independence from Spain in 1821, Mexico lifted the trade restrictions with the United States, enabling American traders to reach Santa Fe. Although independence also accelerated the pace of caravans along El Camino Real, bureaucracy and taxes led to outrageous prices. Merchandise from Missouri were one-third of the cost of goods shipped from Chihuahua.

It took an average of nearly two months to complete the nearly 800-mile journey one way.

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Santa Fe was not only a terminus, but also a hub of international traffic. Many New Mexican traders expanded the trading network from Missouri by moving goods from Santa Fe along El Camino Real to reach other Mexican markets. The first two decades of trail commerce was led by small outfits. Some proprietors acquired goods locally and accompanied their shipments along the trail. They sold their goods in Missouri and purchased more for the return trip. By the 1840s many New Mexican proprietors traveled to Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia where they invested in sizable assets. Their complex transactions not only arranged for substantial purchases from major commercial centers in the eastern United States, but also included European merchandise from France, Great Britain, Ireland, and Italy.

The vast trade network of the Santa Fe Trail

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The Wealthy Traders

Names such as Chávez, Otero, Yrizarri, and Perea, became well known for their business ventures. For generations, these families intermarried, joined in business ventures, and dominated Santa Fe Trail trade.

Don Felipe Chávez, known as el millonario (the millionaire), built on the fortune he inherited from his father by diversifying his business. Chávez raised grains and sheep, shipped wool and precious metals, bought large amounts of American and European merchandise, acted as a banker, and even purchased real estate in New York City. He maintained economic relations with merchants in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Santa Fe, parts of Mexico, and even England. Contracts with the Quartermaster of the US Army to supply grain and meat for troops helped boost his wealth. By 1860, Chávez’s assets reached $118,235 and grew to $140,000 by 1870.

The Otero family were successful politicians and businessmen. They were among the leaders in establishing direct commercial relations with the United States before the Mexican War. They were also close associates of José Chávez, father of Don Felipe Chávez. Census data from 1860 listed Manuel Antonio Otero’s assets as $164,550 while his brother Antonio José declared $65,074. Miguel Antonio served briefly as a Congressman for the New Mexico Territory and continued in his business ventures until his death in 1882 at age 52. His son, Miguel Antonio Otero II, later served as the Governor of New Mexico. He was the first native New Mexican to be appointed.

Another trader, Mariano Yrizarri, was heavily involved in bringing wagon trains of merchandise from Missouri. Like Chávez, Yrizarri focused on diversifying his business. An invoice from 1854 shows purchases from 19 different suppliers. Items on the invoice include hats, clothing, fabrics, dishes, and groceries. By 1860, Yrizarri was the second richest man in New Mexico with $213,000 in assets.

American business firms considered José Perea as one of most prominent men in the territory. Yearly caravans commissioned by Perea carried wool to Kansas City and returned filled with American goods. The Westport Border Star reported that on July 8, 1859 a Perea owned caravan of thirty-five tons of merchandise, fourteen wagons, sixteen men, and 162 head of cattle began its return to New Mexico. By the mid-1860s, Perea became the wealthiest man in the territory. Census data listed his assets as $225,000 in 1860 and $408,000 in 1870. His assessed wealth in 1875 climbed to $800,000, including ownership of 75,000 sheep.

War on the Trail

The Santa Fe Trail also served as a military route for American forces during the Mexican-American War. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war in 1848, placing Santa Fe and the New Mexican territory under American control. Commercial freighting along the trail boomed. Traffic now included mail wagons, gold seekers, and missionaries. Military freight wagons also trekked the trail to supply frontier forts, including Fort Larned.

Life on the Trail

While no personal accounts of New Mexicans’ journeys along the trail during the Mexican period are known to exist, accounts following the war shed light on their daily trail life. Reminiscing seventy years after his journey, José Liberado Gurulé shared his Santa Fe Trail experience to a Federal Writers’ Project employee in 1940. Merchants often hired teenage males, paying six to eight dollars per month. Gurulé was hired in 1867 at just 16 years old. The owner of the wagon caravan was none other than José Perea. Starting in February, fifty wagons, filled largely with wool, journeyed east. A workday averaged eighteen hours long. To keep pace, only one full meal was served each day. Meals consisted of tortilla, beans, black eyed peas, and dried mutton or goat meat. Two small snacks, often a tortilla and an onion slice, were eaten along the way. Clothing “could stay on their backs for three months.” Gurulé even witnessed a brief skirmish with a band of Plains Indians. Once the hostility vanished, Gurulé traded a sugar cube to a tribal woman for ground meat.

After a three-month journey, the Perea caravan reached Kansas City. The stop was brief. Goods were off-loaded, and new clothing was purchased for the return trip. The return trip departed in June. Copper kettles, cookware, china, steel, bolts, and clothing filled the westward wagons. A stop near Fort Hays delivered supplies to workers constructing the Union Pacific Eastern Division Railway. José Perea had a contract to furnish wagons, teams, and men to work on the growing railroad. The men and animals of the caravan went to work.

Supplies emptied by the work camp were reloaded with supplies from Kansas City shipped via the railroad. The loaded wagons continued their journey westward before tragedy stuck. A cholera outbreak struck the caravan, killing one-third of the outfit. After many stops to rest and bury the dead, the group reached their destination in December. For his entire eleven-month journey, Gurulé received just $8.

End of the Road

In late 1863, the Union Pacific Eastern Division Railway, later known as the Kansas Pacific, began construction of its mainline extending westward from Kansas City. As the railroad pushed west, so did the eastern terminus of the wagon road. Goods were shipped by railcar to the end of the line where they were offloaded onto wagons. By October 1867, most goods traveling westward on the Santa Fe Trail were shipped to Hays, Kansas. Items were offloaded into wagons and shipped along the Fort Hays to Fort Dodge Road to rejoin the Santa Fe Trail near present day Dodge City, Kansas.

Goods heading west arrived at Hays, KS by rail, shortening the wagon trail by nearly 250 miles.

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In 1868, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway began construction of a new railway, largely paralleling the path of the Santa Fe Trail. By the fall of 1872, the rail line’s western movement surpassed Fort Larned. Despite its name, the railroad originally chose to bypass Santa Fe. After local pressure, a branch line to Santa Fe was completed in February 1880, effectively ending the Santa Fe Trail.

By February 1880, the entire route of the Santa Fe Trail was traversed by rail.

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