[NEW MEXICO.]
By Rev. SHELDON JACKSON, D.D.
New Mexico is Spain in the United States—a region where the Spanish language, customs, and habits prevail, where the debates of the legislature and the pleadings of the courts are in a foreign tongue; a territory where an American feels as one in a foreign country, and is a stranger in his own land.
While the latest section to receive American civilization, it was the first to be occupied by Europeans. When our pilgrim fathers were shivering through their first New England winter, New Mexico had been settled half a century. When they were making
“The sounding aisles of the dim woods ring
To the anthem of the free,”
the Spanish cavalier was chanting the “Te Deum” in churches even then beginning to be venerable with age. And there to-day are the descendants of those brave old Castilians whose prowess made illustrious the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.
In 1677 a book was published in London giving an account “of America and all the principal kingdoms, provinces, seas, and islands of it.” Mr. Heylin, the author, thus speaks of New Mexico in volume IV: “Nova Mexicana is bounded on the south with New Biscay; on the west with Quivara; the countreyes, on the north and east, not discovered hitherto, though some extend eastward as far as Florida, extended two hundred and fifty leagues from the town and mines of Santa Barbara, and how much beyond that none can tell; the relations of this country being so uncertain and incredulous that I dare say nothing positively of the soil or people, but much less of the towns and cities which are said to be in it.”