Living in Turbulent Times: Life on the Plaza in Nineteenth-Century Mesilla, New Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The village of Mesilla in southern New Mexico endured a tumultuous nineteenth century. Between 1845 and 1855, Mesilla shifted back and forth between Mexican to United States territorial control. During the U.S. Civil War, the Union-controlled town was conquered by Confederates and briefly became the capital of the Confederate state of Arizona until it was re-conquered by Union forces and placed under martial law. Conflicts between opposing political ideologies continued in subsequent years, resulting in a notorious shoot-out on the plaza in 1871. Less than a decade later, Mesilla was bypassed by the new Santa Fe Railway and fell into decline. Nineteenth-century Mesilla serves as both a locus of significant historical events and as a microcosm of the struggles of the American Territorial Period in the Southwest. This paper draws on archaeological and archival data to see if and how this turbulent history shaped the material lives of Mesilleros living on the west side of the village plaza.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39335.0