Mixed Marriages

Henry Connelly and his wife Dolores. As territorial governor during the Civil War, Connelly fled the capital of Santa Fe and took refuge at Fort Union when the Confederates seized Santa Fe. Connelly migrated to New Mexico from Kentucky. His wife was a member of the prominent Hispano Perea family.

Left: University of New Mexico Archives
Right: Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA) 007847

As Anglo traders and settlers began moving into territorial New Mexico, some of them married into well-established Hispano families. Typically, the Anglos married into middle-class families, because the wealthy Hispano families tended to inter-marry among one another to maintain their social prominence.

For the men (in the pre-Mexican War era), there were financial advantages. An 1823 Mexican law granted citizenship to foreigners who married Mexican women, and citizenship legitimized fur-trapping and trading businesses. In the 1840s, foreigners who married Mexican women were allowed more liberal business activities. Some couples may have even married for love.

Historian Rebecca Craver, in her study of mixed marriages in pre-American New Mexico, discovered about 120 unions of Anglos and Hispanos. Some of the prominent personalities connected with Fort Union who had mixed marriages included Kit Carson, Samuel Watrous, Alexander Barclay, Ceran St. Vrain, Lucien Maxwell, Albert Pfeiffer and Henry Connelly.

Carson and St. Vrain were leading military figures in the territory, while Maxwell, Barclay and Watrous were prominent traders, businessmen and ranchers. Pfeiffer was a well regarded Indian agent and recruited a company of New Mexico Volunteers during the Civil War. Connelly was a territorial governor.

Many of these Anglo men were leading businessmen and active in territorial politics. By forming unions with Hispano families of long standing (since before the arrival of the Americans), the new couples ensured themselves a prominent place in the young territory.

For more information, see The Impact of Intimacy: Mexican-Anglo Intermarriage in New Mexico, 1821-1846, by Rebecca McDowell Craver.