1847 Emory Map of Siege of Pueblo de Taos, New Mexico from the Taos Revolt

This is an 1847 William Hemsley Emory map of the Siege of the Pueblo de Taos, a modern-day National Historic Landmark and UNESCO World Heritage site located one mile north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico. Centered on the pueblo with the Red Willow Creek running through it, the map illustrates the deployment of Colonel Sterling Price's men as he laid siege to the Pueblo de Taos, the final stronghold of the insurrectionists that started the Taos Revolt only a few weeks prior to the siege with the murder of Territorial Governor Charles Bent.

The Siege of the Pueblo de Taos

Begun on the afternoon of February 2, 1847, Colonel Price first ordered Lt. Dyer and his artillery battery to barrage the pueblo from 2500 yards to its west. The firing lasted for two and one-half hours before Price and his men retired to Don Fernando de Taos (modern-day Taos) for the night. Early the following morning, Colonel Price organized his force in the manner in which they are deployed here, with Captains McMillan and Burgwin to the west of the pueblo, Captains Slack and St. Vrain to the east, in order to deter a retreat into the mountains, and the remainder of his force and Lt. Dyer's artillery battery 300 yards to the pueblo's north. At this point, all the insurrectionists were firmly barricaded in the pueblo's church, which had thick stone walls. The artillery batteries opened up at 9 a.m. but were unable to breach the church's walls. It would take some ingenuity on the part of Price and his officers to finally gain entry into the church that afternoon around 3 p.m. and quash the revolt for good.

The Taos Revolt

The Taos Revolt was a January 1847 popular insurrection by Puebloan and Hispano allies against the U.S. occupation of New Mexico during the Mexican-American War. In every battle between the United States Army and militia and the Hispano and Puebloan rebels, the U.S. forces crushed the rebellion and the rebels soon abandoned open warfare. The rebellion began fermenting in August 1846, when U.S. forces under the command of Stephen Watts Kearny invaded New Mexico and captured Santa Fe without firing a shot. Kearny left for California, and left Colonel Sterling Price in command, who, in turn, appointed Charles Bent as New Mexico's first territorial governor. Many New Mexicans did not believe Governor Manuel Armijo made the right decision in surrendering to U.S. forces without a fight. They also resented how U.S. soldiers treated them, as they chose to act like conquerors. New Mexicans also feared that their land titles would not be recognized by the United States.

Thus, when violence ignited on the morning of January 19, 1847, plenty of animosity was felt by the insurrectionists and their supporters. The revolt began in Don Fernando de Taos (present-day Taos, New Mexico) and was led by Pablo Montoya, a Hispano, and Tomás Romero, a Taos Puebloan. A Native American force, led by Romero, broke into Governor Bent's house and shot him with arrows and scalped him in front of his family. Bent survived the attack, and he and his family dug through the walls of their house into the house next door. When the insurrectionists discovered this, they killed Bent, but spared his wife and children. The following day, a force of approximately 500 Hispanos and Puebloans attacked Simeon Turley's mill in Arroyo Hondo, which was located a few miles outside Taos. An employee at the mill saw them coming and immediately left for Santa Fe to seek help from the occupying U.S. forces. Of the ten men left to defend the mill, only two survived by escaping under the cover of darkness on foot. That same day, seven or eight American traders were killed on their way to Missouri.

Colonel Price and the U.S. forces moved quickly to crush the revolt. He led a force of 300 U.S. troops, which was accompanied by sixty-five volunteers, some of which were New Mexican. Along the way to Taos, Price and his forces hammered a force of 1,500 Hispanos and Puebloans, before successfully recapturing Taos and the Taos Pueblo. A 'drumhead court-martial' was convened by Price once he had secured Taos, and, ultimately, fifteen men were found guilty of murder and treason and sentenced to death. By the end of the process, the U.S. hanged twenty-eight men in Taos in response to the revolt. A year later, the United States Secretary of War reviewed the process and stated that the man convicted of treason may have been wrongly convicted, an opinion upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. All the other convictions, however, were affirmed.

Publication History and Census

This map was created by William Hemsley Emory and published in a U.S. government report in 1847. While fairly well represented in institutional collections, this map is scarcely on the market.