Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 2,103
By This is the grave of Mariano Otero.
Born in 1844 in Peralta, New Mexico, Otero was a man of who grew up in a rapidly changing New Mexico. When he was 2, U.S. president James Polk decided to steal half of Mexico in order to expand slavery. There was no way weak Mexican forces could stop it, despite very brave fighting when the Americans decided to take Mexico City after the Mexicans refused to just give up the land. But New Mexico didn’t fit into any ideas the U.S. had about people or land. It was too dry for serious plantation farming that would lead to large numbers of slaves. New Mexicans didn’t fit the American black-white racial dualism. They spoke Spanish and were Catholics, both things that led to nothing but disrespect from whites. So for the next 64 years, despite easily reaching population requirements as a state, Congress refused to allow it to become one, even as it totally blew up those requirements for the Dakotas and Montana and Idaho in 1889.
So for a relatively well-off and ambitious young New Mexican, this is the landscape he would have to negotiate to succeed. Otero was among the elites of the colony and it was common for them to go to Catholic schools and then head east to a Catholic college. For Otero, it was St. Louis University, as it was for a lot of New Mexicans. It was about the closest high-end Catholic college. He returned from Missouri and went into the types of business that New Mexicans went into. This was a combination of what you might think of–in his case, banking–and raising sheep, which was a major part of the New Mexican economy going back generations.
Otero had higher ambitions. He wanted to go into politics. This was not easy to do as whites overtook New Mexico. But some leading New Mexicans were able to make that transition. Otero became a Democrat. Generally, this was not the way to political success in the territory. See, with everything in the territories controlled by the federal government, especially in the age of patronage before the civil service reforms began in the 1880s, if you wanted power, you almost had to be a Republican due to that party’s domination of the government. But Republicans were also very much invested in corporate control over these new territories and people such as Thomas Catron were doing everything they could to steal the land grants from New Mexicans guaranteed in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. While Democrats in New Mexico were often ex-Confederates and didn’t think so highly of Spanish speaking Catholics either, they could ally over being shut out of resource allocation and political power.
In fact, being a Democrat had gone back some generations in New Mexico. Otero’s uncle Miguel Otero had been an open advocate of the conquest of New Mexico, was interested in expanding slavery to the territory, and supported southern extremism up to the point of secession, when he demurred. Lincoln actually then nominated him to be ambassador to Spain, but Congress refused to act on it. So the Democratic Party was in the Otero’s family blood and not always for the best reasons.
What’s more is that what success Otero did have politically came because he decided to switch parties. He had become a probate judge in Bernalillo County in 1871. He was pretty successful in that. Democrats nominated him to the New Mexico delegate to Congress in 1875, but he decided against that. In 1879 though, he switched parties, became a Republican, and did get that nonvoting territorial delegate seat in a tight race over, unsurprisingly for this territory, a relative of his. He didn’t care for it much though. He probably could have been sent back, but he decided to go back to New Mexico and his business interests. There wasn’t a heck of a lot a territorial delegate could do. Congress had recently changed its rules and so he got a small committee assignment. Mostly he tried to get federal resources for New Mexico, limited as any of that was going to be in this time.
Later, Otero did have additional runs to be territorial delegate, losing races in 1888 and 1890. He had become a highly connected Republican, working with Catron to steal the land grants and was a central member of the Santa Fe Ring, the territorial elite seeking to make money by land theft. He had gone all in with the pro-corporate mentality of that party. But the Democrat he ran against was popular and while the people had little power, they could elect that delegate. Having failed at that, he continued with his banking activities and then went into sulphur production, making at least some money at that. He died in 1904 in Albuquerque. He was 59 years old.
Mariano Otero is buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
If you would like this series to visit other figures from territorial New Mexico, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Pat Garrett is in Las Cruces, New Mexico and Stephen Benton Elkins is in Elkins, West Virginia, which is in fact name for him. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.