Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1899-11-02
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: New Mexican Sheep. :
: Romantic story OF Mammoth O
Industry. 9
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New Mexico was the first sssheep
country in the United States. Juan de
Onate, the founder of Santa Fe and the
first colcnizer Of the territory, brought
fine Spanish Merinos with his costly
expedition, and sheep have never failed
in New Mexico in spite of the wild
beasts and nomad Indians. Coronado,
by the way, had brought sheep to the
territory in 1910, but they were killed
by the savages as soon as he returned
to Mexico.
In time sheep became almost the only
wealth Of the lonely and harassed terri
tory. A few wealthy men had enormous
herds, and, though the Apaches and
Navajoes swept off sometimes as many
as 30, 600 sheep in a single raid, the
wool industry has remained through so
many adverse centuries the chief reli-
ance of New Mexico. In 1922 Francisco
Xavier Chavez, then governor, better
known as El Guero (The Blond), owned
over million sheep says Sunshine.
These were let out on shares to men all
over the territory. A later governor.
Bartolome Baca, had nearly as many.
An old Mexican is still living who used
to be one of Governor Baca's major do
mos and had charge of 800, 600 sheep,
with 700 shepherds under him. All the
shepherds were armed with fiintlock
muskets and frequently had to use them
against the savages as well as in keep
ing down the bears. cougars. wolves,
coyotes and other animals.
The old Spanish governor of New
Mexico before the United States had
fairly heard of the territory was not a
bad sort of millionaire, and neither
wealth nor power spoiled him. Besides
his enormous holding of sheep, he own
ed great proportion of the whole ter
ritory and had mortgages on a large
part of the remainder The little ham
let of Cebolleta was for ~ successive
seasons devoured by the grasshoppers,
which left no green thing. The people
would have persisted but for Don Bar
tolome. He gave them 10, 600 sheep,
and the whole town turned shepherd.
They drank the milk and ate the lambs
and wethers, and in fine lived off the
sheep. When the plague of grasshop-
pers ceased and good times came again
for Cebolleta, the whole 10, 900 sheep
and their natural increase had been de-
voured, and not one was left to repay
Don Bartolome Nor did lie ever ask a
reckoning.
When this gallant old car Of the
southwest was upon his deathbed, his
sons begged him to arrange his affairs,
which We're all at loose ends. He babe
them bring all the papers, and after q
grand ransacking of the house the ex-
pectant heirs brought him, in Navajo
blanket, several bushels of mortgages
and notes. The veteran said:
"They who have given me these pa
pers are poor people That they shall
not suffer and to avoid litigation there
is an easy settlement And, crawling
from his bed, he flung the great mass
of papers into the blazing fireplace. 1t
was the fitting last act Of a cavaliers
life.
Don Bartolome's daughter Lugarda,
by the way, married Don Jose Luna,
uncle Of the ex-delegate to congress
from New Mexico. Both were immense
" wealthy, but put all their money in
sheep and lost them all by Indian depre-
,lations. The last / knew of them this
aged couple, he over 100 and she in the
nineties, were living in abject poverty
in little adobe room and would long
before have starved but for their daugh-
ter-in-law-a strange irony of fate for
the heirs Of the big hearted don who
had been for a generation the practical
king of territory 500 miles square.