Collecting New Mexico Territorial Period & Statehood Literature

On January 6, 1912, President William Howard Taft signed the proclamation admitting New Mexico as the forty-seventh state of the Union, ending sixty-two years of territorial status — the longest territorial apprenticeship of any contiguous American state. From the military conquest of 1846 and the Compromise of 1850 through the Civil War, the Lincoln County War, the Santa Fe Ring, the Rough Riders, and a dozen failed statehood bills, New Mexico's territorial period produced one of the richest regional historical literatures in the American West. The canon stretches from L. Bradford Prince's booster history of 1883 through Ralph Emerson Twitchell's five-volume encyclopedic reference of 1911-1917, from the Rydal Press editions of William Keleher's practitioner trilogy through Howard Roberts Lamar's landmark Yale University Press territorial history of 1966, from Lew Wallace drafting Ben-Hur by lamplight in the Palace of the Governors to Robert Larson's definitive account of the statehood fight published by UNM Press in 1968. This is the collector's guide to that literature.

The NM territorial and statehood collecting field organizes into four overlapping periods and constituencies. PERIOD ONE — territorial-era primary sources 1850-1912: Prince Historical Sketches 1883, the Twitchell corpus (Leading Facts 1911-1917, Old Santa Fe 1925), the Otero memoirs (My Life on the Frontier 1935-1939), the territorial press archive, territorial government publications. PERIOD TWO — mid-century practitioner histories 1940-1970: Keleher's Rydal Press trilogy (The Fabulous Frontier 1945, Turmoil in New Mexico 1952, Violence in Lincoln County 1957), Horn's Troubled Years 1963, Larson's Quest for Statehood 1968. PERIOD THREE — academic institutional history 1966-2000: Lamar The Far Southwest 1966, Westphall Thomas Benton Catron 1973, Stratton The Territorial Press 1969, the UNM Press and University of Arizona Press scholarly corpus. PERIOD FOUR — contemporary and revisionist scholarship 2000-present: the Lamar revised Far Southwest 2000, Melendez Spanish-Language Newspapers 2005, contemporary UNM Press and Museum of New Mexico Press publications. A comprehensive territorial-period library carries representative works from each period and reflects both Anglo-American and Hispanic perspectives on the territorial experience.

Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred

The Territorial Framework: From Conquest to Compromise

Collecting New Mexico Territorial Period & Statehood Literature books, including The Far Southwest, 1846-1912: A Territorial History (1966), are sought-after collectibles commanding premium prices among Southwest and Western Americana collectors. New Mexico's American territorial period begins not with the Compromise of 1850 but with the military conquest of August 1846, when Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny marched the Army of the West into Santa Fe and claimed the province for the United States without firing a shot. Kearny established a provisional military government, appointed Charles Bent as the first American territorial governor (Bent was assassinated in the Taos Revolt of January 19, 1847, barely four months into his tenure), and promulgated the Kearny Code — a provisional legal framework that blended American common law with existing Mexican civil law and represented the first attempt to govern New Mexico under American authority.

The Compromise of 1850 formally organized New Mexico Territory, creating the governmental structure — appointed governor, territorial legislature, territorial delegate to Congress, territorial judiciary — that would persist for sixty-two years. The compromise stripped New Mexico of its claim to a Texas boundary at the Rio Grande (Congress compensated Texas with ten million dollars in exchange for accepting a boundary at the 103rd meridian), defined the territory's initial boundaries (which included present-day Arizona until the separate Arizona Territory was created in 1863), and left the slavery question to popular sovereignty — a provision that proved moot because New Mexico's existing peonage system and sparse plantation-agriculture potential made chattel slavery economically irrelevant in the territory.

The early territorial governors — James S. Calhoun (1851-1852, the first civilian governor, who died in office during a return trip east), William Carr Lane (1852-1853), David Meriwether (1853-1856), Abraham Rencher (1857-1861) — faced the fundamental challenge of the territorial system: governing a predominantly Hispanic and Pueblo Indian population with no organic political base, limited federal resources, and the constant friction between imported Anglo-American legal and political norms and the existing Hispano social structure that had operated continuously since the Spanish colonial resettlement of 1693. Keleher's Turmoil in New Mexico 1846-1868 provides the strongest narrative treatment of this early period, drawing on court records, territorial legislative proceedings, and personal papers that Keleher accessed through his Albuquerque legal practice.

Lamar's The Far Southwest: The Cornerstone Territorial History

Howard Roberts Lamar's The Far Southwest, 1846-1912: A Territorial History (Yale University Press 1966, first hardcover; revised edition Yale 2000) is the single most important scholarly account of New Mexico's territorial period — and indeed of the entire American territorial system in the Southwest. Lamar (1923-2020) was Sterling Professor of History at Yale, a specialist in the American frontier and the territorial system, and later president of Yale University. His 1966 work was groundbreaking in its comparative approach: by treating New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah as a coherent institutional system rather than as isolated regional narratives, Lamar demonstrated how the territorial system functioned as a political mechanism, how territories used and were used by national partisan politics, and how the specific cultural and demographic circumstances of each territory shaped its path to statehood.

For New Mexico, Lamar's analysis is indispensable. His treatment of the Santa Fe Ring places the machine in the institutional context of the territorial system's incentive structure — the Ring's power derived from the territorial system itself, from the patronage appointments, the land-grant adjudication mechanisms, the territorial delegate's limited congressional influence, and the federal government's inattention to territorial governance. Lamar documents how the Ring simultaneously promoted and retarded statehood depending on whether admission would strengthen or weaken Ring control of territorial resources. His analysis of the racial and cultural arguments against New Mexico statehood — the persistent congressional objection that a predominantly Spanish-speaking, Catholic population was unfit for self-government — is analytically precise and historically devastating.

The 2000 Yale revised edition incorporates thirty-four years of additional scholarship, including the substantial Chicano and Native American historiographic revisions of the 1970s-1990s that reframed the territorial experience from the perspectives of the populations most affected by the territorial system. Lamar's new introduction contextualizes the work's historiographical influence and acknowledges the interpretive limitations of the original Anglo-American institutional framework. The 2000 revised edition is the standard scholarly reference; the 1966 first is the collector's target.

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Twitchell: The Encyclopedic Territorial Reference

Ralph Emerson Twitchell (1859-1925) was the most prolific documentarian of the territorial period — a Santa Fe attorney and civic figure who devoted the second half of his career to compiling the documentary record of New Mexico history. Twitchell arrived in New Mexico Territory in the early 1880s, established a law practice, and embedded himself deeply in the territorial establishment. His legal work gave him access to court records, territorial legislative proceedings, land-grant documentation, and personal papers that no academic historian could easily reach, and his civic connections — he served as president of the New Mexico Historical Society and was active in the territorial bar association — extended his documentary reach across the full institutional landscape of the territory.

Leading Facts of New Mexico History (five volumes, Torch Press, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1911-1917) is Twitchell's masterwork and the foundational encyclopedic reference for New Mexico territorial history. The five volumes constitute a massive compendium of narrative history, documentary excerpts, biographical sketches, and primary-source material covering New Mexico from the pre-contact period through the territorial era. Volumes IV and V, treating the American territorial period, are the most directly relevant to the statehood narrative and contain extensive documentation of territorial governance, the governor system, legislative proceedings, the territorial judiciary, and the political conflicts that characterized the period. The Torch Press of Cedar Rapids — a well-regarded midwestern printing firm that published substantial historical works for the regional and institutional market — produced the set in large octavo format with the period-style typography, illustration, and documentary appendices characteristic of early-twentieth-century historical publishing.

Twitchell's Old Santa Fe: The Story of New Mexico's Ancient Capital (1925, published posthumously) is a more accessible narrative history focused on the capital city from its founding through the territorial period. Old Santa Fe provides strong treatment of the Palace of the Governors as the physical center of the territorial government, the civic and social life of territorial-era Santa Fe, and the architectural and cultural landscape of the capital during the transition from territory to state. The 1925 first edition was published in a limited run and is a scarce acquisition.

Twitchell also produced The Military Occupation of the Territory of New Mexico from 1846 to 1851 (1909), treating the conquest period and early military government, and Spanish Archives of New Mexico (two volumes, 1914), a documentary reference essential for land-grant and colonial-period research. The full Twitchell corpus — Leading Facts, Old Santa Fe, Military Occupation, and Spanish Archives — constitutes the most comprehensive single-author documentary record of New Mexico history published during the territorial period itself.

Larson's Quest for Statehood: The Definitive Statehood Study

Robert W. Larson's New Mexico's Quest for Statehood, 1846-1912 (University of New Mexico Press 1968, first hardcover) is the definitive scholarly account of New Mexico's sixty-two-year struggle from territorial status to statehood — the single indispensable monograph on the statehood question. Larson was a historian at the University of Northern Colorado who devoted years of archival research in the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, the National Archives, and congressional records to documenting the full sequence of statehood attempts, congressional politics, territorial factional maneuvering, and the racial and cultural arguments that prolonged New Mexico's territorial apprenticeship far beyond any other contiguous-state territory.

Larson documents twelve distinct statehood attempts between the 1850s and 1912, each defeated by a different combination of congressional politics, partisan calculation, racial prejudice, and territorial factional competition. The pattern was consistent: New Mexico's territorial delegate or supporters would introduce a statehood bill; opponents would raise objections about the territory's Hispanic majority, Catholic culture, limited English-language population, or political corruption (the Santa Fe Ring's activities provided ammunition for both pro- and anti-statehood arguments); the bill would be defeated, tabled, or folded into omnibus legislation that collapsed under competing demands from Arizona, Oklahoma, and Indian Territory. The statehood question was entangled with national partisan politics throughout — Republicans and Democrats alternately favored and opposed New Mexico statehood depending on whether admission would add Republican or Democratic votes to Congress and the Electoral College.

The final statehood sequence occupies the climactic chapters of Larson's narrative. The Enabling Act of June 20, 1910, authorized New Mexico and Arizona to hold constitutional conventions and draft state constitutions for congressional approval. New Mexico's Constitutional Convention met in Santa Fe from October 3 to November 21, 1910 — a seventy-one-delegate body dominated by Republicans, including several Santa Fe Ring-connected figures, that produced a conservative constitution emphasizing property rights, limited government, and protections for the Hispanic population's language and cultural rights (the constitution's bilingual provisions were among the most progressive of any state constitution adopted in the period). The constitution was ratified by New Mexico voters on January 21, 1911, approved by Congress, and signed into law by President Taft on January 6, 1912. William C. McDonald, a Democrat, was elected the first state governor.

The Larson 1968 UNM Press first hardcover with original dust jacket is a Tier 2 acquisition. UNM Press produced a paperback edition subsequently; the first hardcover is the collector's target. The book has not been superseded — no subsequent monograph has attempted a comprehensive treatment of the statehood question, and Larson's archival research remains the standard documentary foundation for the subject.

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The Keleher Trilogy: A Practitioner's Territorial History

William A. Keleher (1886-1972) was an Albuquerque attorney who practiced law for more than fifty years and used his legal training, professional connections, and access to court records and personal papers to produce the essential practitioner trilogy of New Mexico territorial history. Keleher was not an academic historian — he was a working lawyer who understood the territorial legal and political system from the inside, and his three books reflect that understanding in their emphasis on legal proceedings, court records, political negotiations, and the institutional mechanics of territorial governance that academic historians writing from university archives could not fully access.

The Fabulous Frontier: Twelve New Mexico Items (Rydal Press, Santa Fe, 1945, first hardcover) is the earliest and in some ways the most distinctive Keleher book — a collection of twelve extended essays on figures and episodes of the late territorial period that capture the social texture of territorial New Mexico with a vividness that more formal academic histories rarely achieve. Keleher treats ranchers, lawyers, politicians, outlaws, and land-grant operators in a narrative style that combines legal precision with a storyteller's ear for character and incident. The Rydal Press first is a Santa Fe fine-press production — Rydal Press, active from 1933 to the 1960s under the direction of publisher Clinton P. Anderson (later U.S. Senator from New Mexico) and his associates, was a small press with high production standards, limited print runs, and a distinctive Santa Fe design sensibility. The Fabulous Frontier Rydal 1945 first is scarce in fine condition and trades Tier 1.

Turmoil in New Mexico, 1846-1868 (Rydal Press, Santa Fe, 1952, first hardcover) covers the critical early territorial period — the American conquest, the establishment of territorial government, the Taos Revolt of 1847, the early territorial governors, the Civil War in New Mexico, and the immediate post-war years. Keleher draws extensively on court records and personal correspondence to reconstruct the political and legal conflicts of the early territory, including the friction between military and civilian authority, the establishment of the territorial judiciary, and the early land-grant disputes that would fuel the Santa Fe Ring's rise. The Rydal 1952 first is the companion collecting target to the 1945 Fabulous Frontier and trades comparably.

Violence in Lincoln County, 1869-1881 (University of New Mexico Press, 1957, first hardcover) is Keleher's treatment of the Lincoln County War — the factional conflict between the Murphy-Dolan-Riley mercantile and cattle interests and the Tunstall-McSween-Chisum counter-faction that convulsed Lincoln County from the late 1870s through Governor Lew Wallace's administration. Violence in Lincoln County is the most legally sophisticated treatment of the Lincoln County War in the literature, presenting the war not as a frontier gunfight but as a product of the territorial system's institutional failures — the compromised judiciary, the politically appointed sheriffs, the territorial governor's limited enforcement capacity, and the Santa Fe Ring's interference in Lincoln County factional politics. The UNM Press 1957 first is more accessible than the two Rydal Press firsts because UNM Press had somewhat larger print runs, but it remains a Tier 2 acquisition in fine condition with original dust jacket.

A complete Keleher trilogy in first editions — two Rydal Press and one UNM Press — is the standard territorial-history collecting achievement and a Tier 1 set acquisition. The trilogy represents the most sustained single-author treatment of the territorial period from the practitioner perspective and remains essential reading alongside the academic treatments of Lamar, Larson, and Horn.

The Santa Fe Ring: Power Politics in the Territory

The Santa Fe Ring — the informal political machine that dominated New Mexico territorial politics from the late 1860s through the early 1900s — is the central political narrative of the territorial period and the subject that runs through virtually every major work in the territorial canon. The Ring was not a formal organization but a shifting coalition of Anglo-American lawyers, land speculators, politicians, and businessmen who exploited the structural opportunities of the territorial system: the patronage appointments controlled by national party leaders, the land-grant adjudication process that created enormous opportunities for legal manipulation, the territorial delegate's limited but strategically valuable influence in Congress, and the federal government's general inattention to territorial governance that left the Ring to operate with minimal oversight.

Thomas Benton Catron (1840-1921) was the Ring's dominant figure for over three decades — a Missouri-born attorney who arrived in New Mexico after Civil War service, built the largest law practice in the territory, and accumulated an estimated three million acres of land through land-grant acquisition, purchase, and legal manipulation. Catron's land-grant operations were the Ring's economic engine: as attorney for claimants in the territorial courts and later the Court of Private Land Claims (established by Congress in 1891), Catron positioned himself to acquire interests in land grants through legal fees, outright purchase, and the manipulation of title proceedings that the territorial legal system's limited oversight made possible. Catron served as territorial delegate to Congress, dominated the territorial Republican Party, and upon statehood became one of New Mexico's first two U.S. Senators — the culmination of a forty-year territorial career.

Stephen Benton Elkins (1841-1911) was Catron's early law partner and the Ring's Washington connection. Elkins served as New Mexico's territorial delegate to Congress from 1873 to 1877, accumulating land-grant interests and political connections before relocating to West Virginia where he became a U.S. Senator and served as Secretary of War under President Benjamin Harrison. Elkins's departure from New Mexico did not end his Ring connections — he continued to hold New Mexico land-grant interests and to exercise political influence in territorial affairs from his West Virginia base through the 1890s and 1900s.

The Ring literature is dispersed rather than concentrated in a single monograph. David Westphall's Thomas Benton Catron and His Era (University of Arizona Press 1973) is the only full-length Catron biography and the closest approximation to a Ring monograph in the literature. Westphall provides a detailed account of Catron's legal career, land-grant operations, and political activities, though the biography has been criticized for insufficient attention to the Ring's impact on the Hispanic and Pueblo communities whose land-grant claims were most directly affected. Victor Westphall's earlier The Public Domain in New Mexico 1854-1891 (UNM Press 1965) provides essential context for the land-grant system that the Ring exploited. Robert Rosenbaum's Mexicano Resistance in the Southwest (Southern Methodist University Press 1981) treats the Hispanic community's organized resistance to Ring land-grant manipulation, including the Gorras Blancas (White Caps) fence-cutting movement in San Miguel County in the 1880s-1890s.

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Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur, and the Palace of the Governors

The literary oddity of New Mexico's territorial period is the composition of one of the best-selling American novels of the nineteenth century in the seat of territorial government during an active political and military crisis. Lew Wallace (1827-1905) — Union Major General, diplomat, and author — served as Governor of New Mexico Territory from 1878 to 1881, appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes partly to address the Lincoln County War. Wallace arrived in Santa Fe in September 1878 to find the territory in turmoil: the Lincoln County War was producing casualties and political embarrassment, the Santa Fe Ring was operating with impunity, and the territorial government's authority outside Santa Fe was limited.

Wallace's governorship was marked by his attempt to negotiate an end to the Lincoln County War — including his famous meeting with Billy the Kid in March 1879, in which the Kid offered testimony against Lincoln County War participants in exchange for a pardon that Wallace ultimately did not deliver — and by his growing absorption in his literary work. Wallace composed Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in his quarters in the Palace of the Governors, the ancient adobe government building on the north side of the Santa Fe Plaza. The image of Wallace writing his chariot-race scenes by lamplight in an adobe room that had housed Spanish colonial governors, Mexican governors, and American military commanders is one of the defining literary-historical images of territorial New Mexico.

Ben-Hur was published by Harper and Brothers in 1880 and became a publishing phenomenon — one of the best-selling American novels of the nineteenth century, the foundation of a theatrical franchise that ran for over twenty years, and the source material for two major film adaptations (1925 silent, 1959 MGM). The novel's success made Wallace far more famous as a novelist than as a governor or general. For the territorial-history collector, the Wallace governorship illustrates the territorial governor system at its most characteristic: an appointed governor with no organic political base, competing personal interests, limited federal support, and the impossible task of governing a territory controlled by entrenched local factions. The NMLP pillar page on Lew Wallace and Ben-Hur treats the collecting details of the Harper and Brothers 1880 first edition at length.

Governor Otero's Memoirs and the Hispanic Territorial Experience

Miguel Antonio Otero (1859-1944) served as Governor of New Mexico Territory from 1897 to 1906 — the longest-serving territorial governor and the only Hispanic governor during the American territorial period. Otero was born in St. Louis to a prominent New Mexico Hispanic family (his father, Miguel Antonio Otero Sr., served as territorial delegate to Congress from 1856 to 1861), educated at eastern schools, and returned to New Mexico to build a career in business and Republican Party politics. His appointment as governor by President William McKinley in 1897 represented a rare acknowledgment of the Hispanic community's political claims in a territorial system dominated by Anglo-American appointees.

Otero's governorship coincided with the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the Rough Riders — the volunteer cavalry regiment raised partly in New Mexico that served in Cuba under Colonel Leonard Wood and Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. New Mexico's contribution to the Rough Riders was a significant factor in the territory's statehood campaign: territorial boosters argued that New Mexico's military service in the war demonstrated the patriotism and national loyalty that statehood opponents had questioned. Otero actively promoted this argument, and Roosevelt's subsequent presidency (1901-1909) created a favorable political environment for New Mexico statehood efforts, though admission was still a decade away.

My Life on the Frontier (two volumes, Press of the Pioneers, New York, 1935-1939) is Otero's memoir of his early life and territorial career — the principal autobiographical account of the Hispanic territorial experience from the perspective of a participant in territorial governance. Volume one covers Otero's childhood, education, and early career through the 1880s; volume two extends through his gubernatorial service and the statehood period. Otero also published My Nine Years as Governor of the Territory of New Mexico 1897-1906 (UNM Press 1940), a more focused account of his governorship, and The Real Billy the Kid (Rufus Rockwell Wilson 1936), a personal account of Otero's acquaintance with the Kid during the Lincoln County War period.

The Otero memoirs are essential for territorial collecting because they represent the Hispanic perspective on the territorial system from inside the governing structure — a perspective that Lamar, Larson, and Keleher document from the outside but cannot fully embody. The Press of the Pioneers 1935-1939 two-volume My Life on the Frontier first edition is a Tier 2 acquisition; the UNM Press 1940 My Nine Years as Governor first is a Tier 3 working-library target.

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Horn, Prince, and the Secondary Canon

Calvin Horn's New Mexico's Troubled Years (Horn and Wallace, Albuquerque, 1963) treats territorial-period political conflict with an emphasis on the factional disputes, gubernatorial controversies, and legislative battles that characterized the middle territorial period. Horn was an Albuquerque businessman and publisher — co-founder of Horn and Wallace Publishers, one of the mid-century Albuquerque publishing firms that supplemented UNM Press in the New Mexico history market. Horn and Wallace published a range of New Mexico historical titles in the 1960s-1970s, and Horn's own historical writing reflects a businessperson's practical interest in political mechanics rather than an academic's theoretical framework. The 1963 Horn and Wallace first is a Tier 3 working-library acquisition.

L. Bradford Prince (1840-1922) served as Chief Justice of the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court (1879-1882) and as Governor of New Mexico Territory (1889-1893). Prince's Historical Sketches of New Mexico (Ramsey, Millett and Hudson, Kansas City, 1883) is the earliest significant territorial-era history — a promotional account written to boost the territory's image among potential Anglo-American settlers and investors during the railroad era. Prince was an unabashed territorial booster, and Historical Sketches reflects his promotional agenda openly, but the book is valuable precisely because it captures the territorial establishment's self-image at the moment of the railroad's arrival and the beginning of the territory's economic transformation. The 1883 Kansas City first is a genuinely scarce early territorial imprint and a Tier 1 acquisition.

The secondary canon of territorial-period books extends substantially beyond these core works. Porter A. Stratton's The Territorial Press of New Mexico 1834-1912 (UNM Press 1969) is the standard reference for the English-language territorial press. A. Gabriel Melendez's Spanish-Language Newspapers in New Mexico 1834-1958 (UNM Press 2005) treats the Hispanic press tradition. David Westphall's Thomas Benton Catron and His Era (University of Arizona Press 1973) is the Catron-Ring biography. Victor Westphall's The Public Domain in New Mexico 1854-1891 (UNM Press 1965) treats the land-grant system. Robert Rosenbaum's Mexicano Resistance in the Southwest (Southern Methodist University Press 1981) documents Hispanic resistance to Ring land-grant manipulation. Robert Larson's New Mexico Populism (Colorado Associated University Press 1974) treats the territorial-era populist movement. Each of these is a Tier 2 or Tier 3 acquisition depending on condition and edition.

The Lincoln County War as Territorial Politics

The Lincoln County War (1878-1881) is treated at length in the NMLP Billy the Kid pillar page, but it figures prominently in the territorial-history canon because the war was fundamentally a product of the territorial system's institutional failures. The conflict between the Murphy-Dolan-Riley mercantile and cattle faction (connected to the Santa Fe Ring through political and legal alliances) and the Tunstall-McSween-Chisum counter-faction was enabled by the territorial system's compromised judiciary, politically appointed sheriffs, limited federal oversight, and the Ring's willingness to use its political connections to protect allies and punish competitors.

Keleher's Violence in Lincoln County (UNM Press 1957) treats the war from this institutional perspective — as a failure of territorial governance rather than as a frontier gunfight. Keleher's legal training and access to court records produced an account that is far more sophisticated in its treatment of the legal and political dimensions of the conflict than the popular Billy the Kid literature that dominates the Lincoln County War publishing field. Frederick Nolan's The Lincoln County War: A Documentary History (University of Oklahoma Press 1992) is the most comprehensive modern documentary account and the essential complement to Keleher for territorial-history collectors. The NMLP Billy the Kid pillar page provides full collecting details for the broader Lincoln County War bibliography.

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The Territorial Press and the Fight for Statehood

The territorial press was the primary vehicle for the statehood debate — the platform where territorial boosters made the case for admission and opponents (both inside and outside the territory) argued against it. The principal territorial newspapers — the Santa Fe New Mexican (founded 1849, the oldest continuously published newspaper in the American West), the Las Vegas Daily Optic (founded 1879), the Albuquerque Morning Journal (founded 1880) — served as factional organs throughout the territorial period, and their editorial positions on statehood shifted with the political allegiances of their editors and proprietors.

The Santa Fe New Mexican, as the de facto establishment newspaper, generally supported statehood throughout the period — statehood was good for the Anglo business interests that the paper represented, and the New Mexican's editorial pages regularly promoted the territory's economic development, population growth, and political maturity as arguments for admission. The Spanish-language press — El Nuevo Mexicano, La Voz del Pueblo (Las Vegas), El Independiente (Las Vegas) — addressed the statehood question from the Hispanic community's perspective, articulating concerns about how statehood would affect Hispanic political power, language rights, land-grant protections, and cultural autonomy in a polity increasingly dominated by Anglo-American immigrants.

The press also documented the territory's broader efforts to demonstrate statehood readiness: the construction of public buildings, the establishment of territorial institutions (the University of New Mexico, founded 1889; the New Mexico School of Mines, founded 1889; the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, founded 1888), and the territory's contributions to national causes — most notably the Rough Riders' service in the Spanish-American War of 1898, which territorial boosters used extensively as evidence of New Mexico's patriotism and national loyalty.

The Military Infrastructure: Fort Union, Fort Marcy, and the Territorial Garrison

The U.S. Army was the dominant institutional presence in New Mexico Territory for the first four decades of the territorial period — the military infrastructure of forts, garrisons, and supply depots that stretched from Fort Bliss at El Paso through Fort Craig, Fort Stanton, Fort Sumner, Fort Wingate, Fort Union, and Fort Marcy in Santa Fe constituted the territorial government's principal enforcement capacity and the territory's largest employer. Fort Union — the massive supply depot and military post on the Santa Fe Trail near Mora, operational from 1851 to 1891 — was the logistical anchor of the entire territorial military system, the central supply depot for the southwestern military district, and the largest military installation in the territory. Fort Union National Monument, administered by the National Park Service, preserves the adobe and stone ruins of the three successive Fort Union installations and is the principal physical resource for understanding the territorial military infrastructure.

Fort Marcy in Santa Fe — established in August 1846 by Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny immediately after the American conquest — served as the military anchor of the early territorial period in the capital. Fort Marcy was the physical manifestation of American military authority in Santa Fe and the guarantee behind the appointed governor's limited civil authority. The fort was decommissioned in 1894 as the Indian Wars wound down and the military's territorial role diminished; the site is now a public park above the Santa Fe Plaza.

The territorial military literature includes Robert Frazer's Forts of the West (University of Oklahoma Press 1965), the standard reference for western military posts; Leo Oliva's Fort Union and the Frontier Army in the Southwest (National Park Service 1993), the comprehensive Fort Union institutional history; and the substantial National Park Service interpretive publications for Fort Union National Monument. The military dimension of the territorial period overlaps with the Civil War collecting field (treated in the NMLP NM Civil War pillar page) and the Indian Wars collecting field, creating cross-collecting opportunities for libraries that span these related subjects.

The 1910 Constitutional Convention and the Road to Statehood

The Enabling Act of June 20, 1910, authorized New Mexico and Arizona to hold constitutional conventions, draft state constitutions, and submit them for congressional approval and presidential signature. New Mexico's Constitutional Convention met in Santa Fe from October 3 to November 21, 1910 — a seventy-one-delegate body elected by the territory's voters that produced the foundational legal document for the new state. The convention was dominated by Republicans (the territorial Republican Party controlled most of the territory's political infrastructure after decades of Ring-connected patronage), and the resulting constitution was notably conservative in its structural provisions — strong executive powers, a large legislature, limited initiative and referendum provisions, and a demanding amendment process that required supermajority legislative votes and popular ratification.

The convention's most significant and progressive provision was its treatment of the Hispanic population's language and cultural rights. Article XII, Section 10 of the 1912 constitution prohibited the disfranchisement of citizens on account of religion, race, language, or color, and required bilingual publication of laws, government documents, and election materials. Article VII, Section 3 protected the right of citizens to vote regardless of inability to speak English. These provisions — negotiated by the convention's Hispanic delegates and supported by Anglo Republicans who needed Hispanic political support — were among the most progressive language-rights provisions in any American state constitution adopted in the period and reflected the convention's acknowledgment that statehood could not succeed without the Hispanic majority's consent and participation.

The constitution was ratified by New Mexico voters on January 21, 1911, by a substantial margin. Congress approved the constitution after requiring minor amendments through the Flood Resolution (August 21, 1911), which addressed Progressive-era concerns about the constitution's conservative amendment process. President Taft signed the statehood proclamation on January 6, 1912, and New Mexico became the forty-seventh state — sixty-two years after the Compromise of 1850 had organized the territory.

Larson's Quest for Statehood provides the fullest treatment of the 1910 convention and the final statehood sequence. The convention proceedings were published as the Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the Proposed State of New Mexico (1910, territorial government publication) — a primary-source document that circulates in the institutional and specialist market. The New Mexico Blue Book (published by the Secretary of State beginning in 1913) provides the official state record from statehood forward. Robert Larson's analysis of the convention's political dynamics — the factional negotiations, the Hispanic-Anglo compromises, the Progressive-conservative tensions — remains the standard scholarly treatment and the essential starting point for understanding how New Mexico's constitution reflected the territorial period's unresolved political and cultural conflicts.

The Rough Riders and the Spanish-American War

New Mexico's contribution to the Rough Riders — the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry regiment that served in Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898 — was a significant episode in the territory's statehood campaign. The regiment was recruited from across the western states and territories, with substantial contingents from New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Indian Territory, and commanded by Colonel Leonard Wood (a career Army physician and Medal of Honor recipient) and Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. The New Mexico contingent included Hispanic and Anglo volunteers who served together in Cuba, and their participation in the famous charge up San Juan Heights on July 1, 1898, provided territorial boosters with powerful evidence that New Mexico's citizens were loyal, patriotic Americans ready for the responsibilities of statehood.

Governor Otero was particularly active in promoting the statehood argument through the Rough Riders' service. Roosevelt's subsequent election as Vice President (1900) and assumption of the presidency upon McKinley's assassination (September 1901) created a sympathetic figure in the White House — Roosevelt knew the New Mexico volunteers personally, respected their service, and was generally favorable to territorial statehood (though his support did not immediately produce results, as congressional opposition continued through Roosevelt's two terms). The Rough Riders connection also strengthened New Mexico's national visibility and helped counter the persistent eastern perception of the territory as a remote, uncivilized, un-American backwater unfit for self-government.

The Rough Riders literature — Roosevelt's own The Rough Riders (Scribner's 1899), Virgil Carrington Jones's Roosevelt's Rough Riders (Doubleday 1971), and the substantial contemporary journalism and memoir literature — is a large collecting field that overlaps with but extends well beyond the New Mexico territorial canon. For territorial-history collectors, the Rough Riders are significant primarily as a statehood-argument episode rather than as a military-history subject in its own right.

Publishers: Rydal Press, Horn and Wallace, UNM Press, and the Territorial Canon

The territorial-history publishing world is dominated by three New Mexico publishers and one national academic press that together account for the majority of the essential canon. Rydal Press of Santa Fe (active from 1933 to the 1960s) was a small fine-press publisher that produced Keleher's Fabulous Frontier (1945) and Turmoil in New Mexico (1952) in limited editions with high production standards — good paper, careful typography, and the Santa Fe design sensibility that characterized the city's cultural institutions in the mid-twentieth century. Rydal Press editions are intrinsically collectible because of their limited print runs and physical quality, independent of the content they contain.

Horn and Wallace Publishers of Albuquerque (active in the 1960s-1970s) was co-founded by Calvin Horn and published a range of New Mexico historical titles including Horn's own Troubled Years (1963). Horn and Wallace occupied a mid-market position between the academic rigor of UNM Press and the fine-press tradition of Rydal Press, producing well-researched historical works for the New Mexico general-interest market. UNM Press — the University of New Mexico Press, founded in 1929 and the dominant academic publisher of New Mexico history — published Keleher's Violence in Lincoln County (1957), Larson's Quest for Statehood (1968), Stratton's Territorial Press (1969), Westphall's Public Domain (1965), and the vast majority of the post-1960 territorial-history scholarly canon. UNM Press first editions from the 1950s-1970s are the standard collecting targets for the academic territorial canon. Yale University Press published Lamar's Far Southwest (1966, revised 2000) — the single most important territorial-history monograph — from its national academic platform. Sunstone Press of Santa Fe has produced reprints and new editions of several territorial-history titles and is the primary Tier 3 working-library source for the field.

Points-of-Issue and Authentication Problems

Problem one: Twitchell Leading Facts five-volume completeness. The five-volume set published by Torch Press, Cedar Rapids, 1911-1917 is the primary Twitchell collecting target. Complete sets with all five volumes in original binding, plates, and maps present are uncommon. Individual volumes — particularly volumes IV and V (the American territorial period) — circulate more frequently. Verify all five volumes for matching binding condition, presence of plates and folding maps, and absence of institutional markings that would indicate broken-set provenance. Rebacked or rebound volumes reduce set value substantially.

Problem two: Keleher Rydal Press firsts vs UNM Press reprints. The Fabulous Frontier (1945) and Turmoil in New Mexico (1952) were first published by Rydal Press Santa Fe in limited editions. UNM Press subsequently reprinted both titles, and later Sunstone Press produced additional editions. The Rydal Press firsts are identified by the Rydal Press imprint, Santa Fe address, and the distinctive Rydal production quality (paper, typography, binding). UNM Press and Sunstone reprints are clearly marked with their respective imprints and are Tier 3 acquisitions. The Rydal Press firsts in fine condition with any original dust jacket material are the collector's target.

Problem three: Lamar Far Southwest 1966 Yale first vs 2000 Yale revised. The 1966 Yale University Press first hardcover and the 2000 Yale revised edition are both Yale University Press publications with similar binding and design characteristics. The 1966 first is identified by the first-edition statement on the copyright page and the original Yale Western Americana series jacket design. The 2000 revised edition carries a 2000 copyright date and Lamar's new introduction. The 1966 first is the collector's target; the 2000 revised is the scholar's reference and a Tier 3 acquisition.

Problem four: Prince Historical Sketches 1883 Kansas City first. The Prince 1883 Ramsey Millett and Hudson Kansas City first is a genuinely scarce early territorial imprint — fewer than 150 years old but produced in a limited run for a promotional purpose rather than a commercial market. Reprints exist in various forms. The 1883 Kansas City first is identified by the Ramsey Millett and Hudson imprint, the Kansas City address, and the physical characteristics of an 1880s commercial printing — binding style, paper quality, and typography. This is a Tier 1 early-territorial-imprint trophy.

Problem five: Otero My Life on the Frontier Press of the Pioneers first vs subsequent. The Press of the Pioneers (New York) published the two-volume My Life on the Frontier in 1935 and 1939. UNM Press later reprinted both volumes. The Press of the Pioneers firsts carry the New York imprint and mid-1930s physical production characteristics. The UNM Press reprints are clearly marked. The Press of the Pioneers two-volume first set is the collector's target; the UNM Press reprints are Tier 3 working-library acquisitions.

Three-Tier Collector Market

Tier 1 trophy (mid-three-figure to low-four-figure or higher): Howard Roberts Lamar The Far Southwest Yale University Press 1966 first hardcover with original dust jacket (the cornerstone territorial history, scarce in fine condition); Ralph Emerson Twitchell Leading Facts of New Mexico History five-volume set Torch Press 1911-1917 complete in original binding (the encyclopedic territorial reference); William A. Keleher The Fabulous Frontier Rydal Press 1945 first hardcover (scarce Santa Fe fine-press first); William A. Keleher Turmoil in New Mexico Rydal Press 1952 first hardcover (companion Rydal Press first); complete Keleher trilogy first-edition set (two Rydal Press + one UNM Press); L. Bradford Prince Historical Sketches of New Mexico 1883 Kansas City first (scarce early territorial imprint); Ralph Emerson Twitchell Old Santa Fe 1925 first edition (scarce posthumous publication); signed Larson Quest for Statehood UNM Press 1968 first hardcover.

Tier 2 collector targets (low-to-mid three-figure): Robert W. Larson New Mexico's Quest for Statehood UNM Press 1968 first hardcover with original dust jacket (unsigned); William A. Keleher Violence in Lincoln County UNM Press 1957 first hardcover; Miguel Antonio Otero My Life on the Frontier Press of the Pioneers 1935-1939 two-volume first set; David Westphall Thomas Benton Catron and His Era University of Arizona Press 1973 first hardcover; Porter A. Stratton The Territorial Press of New Mexico UNM Press 1969 first hardcover; Victor Westphall The Public Domain in New Mexico UNM Press 1965 first hardcover; Robert Rosenbaum Mexicano Resistance in the Southwest SMU Press 1981 first hardcover; Miguel Antonio Otero My Nine Years as Governor UNM Press 1940 first hardcover; individual Twitchell Leading Facts volumes (especially volumes IV-V) in original binding; Frederick Nolan The Lincoln County War University of Oklahoma Press 1992 first hardcover; Leo Oliva Fort Union and the Frontier Army NPS 1993 first; Howard Roberts Lamar The Far Southwest Yale 2000 revised edition (unsigned).

Tier 3 working library (upper-two-figure to low-three-figure): UNM Press and Sunstone Press reprints of Keleher trilogy titles; Lamar Far Southwest 2000 revised paperback; Calvin Horn New Mexico's Troubled Years Horn and Wallace 1963 first; A. Gabriel Melendez Spanish-Language Newspapers UNM Press 2005; Robert Larson New Mexico Populism Colorado Associated University Press 1974; Robert Frazer Forts of the West University of Oklahoma Press 1965 paperback; Otero My Life on the Frontier UNM Press reprint editions; National Park Service Fort Union National Monument interpretive publications; Museum of New Mexico Press Palace of the Governors exhibition catalogs; New Mexico Historical Review bound annual volumes with territorial-era articles; Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention 1910 (institutional reprints); New Mexico Blue Book Secretary of State early editions; Chris Wilson The Myth of Santa Fe UNM Press 1997; Bainbridge Bunting Early Architecture in New Mexico UNM Press 1976; Sunstone Press territorial-history reissues.

NMLP Intake Position

New Mexico territorial and statehood books arrive in NMLP donation pickups with meaningful frequency given the depth of the New Mexico historical library tradition and the territory's central position in New Mexico identity. Donor demographic concentration: Albuquerque-Santa Fe-Las Vegas Anglo and Hispanic professional retirees with substantial NM history libraries accumulated over 20-40 year careers in academia, law, medicine, and government; estates of New Mexico History Museum, Palace of the Governors, and Museum of New Mexico Foundation members; UNM faculty and staff estates with Southwest history research library accumulations; New Mexico Bar Association member estates (attorneys are disproportionately represented in the Keleher-collecting community given Keleher's prominence in the Albuquerque legal profession); territorial-era family descendants with inherited copies of Twitchell, Prince, and the territorial press literature; New Mexico Historical Society member households; DAR and genealogical society member households with territorial-era family connections; retired state government officials with New Mexico Blue Book and constitutional history collections.

NMLP routes Tier 1 trophy items (Lamar Far Southwest 1966 Yale first, Twitchell Leading Facts complete sets, Keleher Rydal Press firsts, Prince Historical Sketches 1883 first, Twitchell Old Santa Fe 1925 first) to specialist Western Americana dealers (Heritage Auctions Western Americana, William Reese Company New Haven CT, Gregory Scott Books, Calhoun's Books, specialist New Mexico history dealers). Tier 2 trade firsts (Larson Quest for Statehood, Keleher Violence in Lincoln County UNM first, Otero Press of the Pioneers firsts, Westphall Catron biography) route through SellBooksABQ standard hand-sort with territorial-history collector outreach. Tier 3 paperback reprints and institutional publications route to APS Title I schools (NM history curriculum includes extensive territorial-period and statehood content), the New Mexico History Museum research library, the UNM Center for Southwest Research, the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives public reference collection, the Palace of the Governors interpretive library, Little Free Library stocking across the state, and Bernalillo County Adult and Family Literacy Programs.

External References

• New Mexico History Museum / Palace of the Governors — seat of territorial government 1851-1912
• Fort Union National Monument (NPS) — principal military installation of the territorial period
• New Mexico State Records Center and Archives — territorial-era documentary archive
• University of New Mexico Press — publisher of Larson, Keleher, Stratton, Westphall
• Wikipedia: New Mexico Territory
• Wikipedia: Howard Roberts Lamar
• Wikipedia: Ralph Emerson Twitchell
• Wikipedia: William A. Keleher
• Wikipedia: Lew Wallace
• Wikipedia: Miguel Antonio Otero
• Wikipedia: Thomas Benton Catron
• Wikipedia: Stephen Benton Elkins
• Wikipedia: L. Bradford Prince
• Wikipedia: Palace of the Governors
• Wikipedia: Fort Marcy
• Wikipedia: Rough Riders

Related on This Site

• Billy the Kid Bibliography — the Lincoln County War as territorial crisis
• Lew Wallace and Ben-Hur — the territorial governor who wrote a bestseller in the Palace
• NM Civil War Books — the military dimension of the early territorial period
• Santa Fe Trail Books — the commercial highway that connected the territory to the United States
• NM Land Grants Literature — the Santa Fe Ring's arena of operation
• NM Hispano Literature — the Hispanic territorial experience in literary form
• NM Spanish Colonial Historians — the pre-territorial historiographic tradition
• NM Fine Press & Small Press — Rydal Press, Horn and Wallace, and the territorial-era publishing tradition
• Pueblo Revival Architecture Books — the architectural reaction to the Territorial Style
• Book Collecting Glossary — points-of-issue, edition terminology, condition grading