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You are kind of missing the point, or proving our point depending how you want to take it. New Spain was not independent of course, it was part of the Spanish Empire, Mexico City was the regional viceroyalty. But it was managed, in the end, by Madrid.
Mexico might have been the capital for only 9 years, but New Mexico was administred from Mexico city much longer than that. Mexico didn't entirely develop it identity after its independence.
The U.S. was short sighted in also not including the land south of Arizona to the Gulf of California and especially not very smart for not including Baja California. Perhaps at that time it wasn't practical, but it's sure practical now.
As part of new Spain, it was administered from Mexico much longer than that.
Madrid was further away, and the area spanning the Louisiana border the the waves of the Pacific were doubtless of little interest to them. Remember, the telegraph had not even been invented. The Pony Express was how messages were communicated. Even now, Mexico City's writ does not run in many distant, rural areas.
You two are out to lunch, man. You guys are smoking some strong stuff, you otta consider cutting back on it.
And that's your response? Have you given up? You conveniently deleted the rest of my explanation I see. Let me add to it again:
Culture by definition is a collective term, it represents the collected experience of a social group. Now I believe your "300 years of culture" represent pre-US ownership. That would be historically impossible - Coronado explored into New Mexico but it was not sparsely settled until about 1600 to exploit the indians and the land. We are talking less than 1,000 inhabitents. In 1680 the Pueblo Indians finally had enough and kicked the Spanish out by force and they didn't return until the end of that century. So you see, historicallym regarding the timeline, you are simply incorrect. This is a fact.
Now let's address population and logistics - in 1700 the non-indian population was about 3,000, in 1800 the non-indian population was about 20,000. 20,000 spread over 120,000 square miles. It was frontier - small villages, trading posts, mining camps, missions, isolated ranches and cabins. Santa Fe developed as the main trading center and later the provincial capital. Getting back to my statement about culture - only the Pueblo Indians have a history in this state, and actually exceeded the non-Indian population until the late 18th century. The Pueblo Indians were somewhat unique to the typical other nomadic Indian tribes of the southwest, having permanent settlements in New Mexico. Thus the culture is Indian, with a mix, if you will, of hispanic and anglo. The settlers, because of the distance from New Mexico, soon developed there own culture that fit into the frontier lifestyle and the trading and mixing with Indians and anglo traders and settlers. It had very little to do with central mexican culture. Most of that developed after the 18th century as the population increased.
Last edited by Dd714; 04-01-2019 at 11:28 AM..
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