José Manuel Gallegos was born in Spanish colonial...
Mexico, in the town of Abiquiú, Nuevo México, on October 30, 1815. His people were Hispanos, descendants of early Spanish settlers, and Gallegos went on to become New Mexico's first delegate to the U.S. Congress. Raised during the Mexican revolution, Gallegos was surrounded by republican ideals during his formative years of education with the Franciscan missionaries in Taos and Durango. Ordained a Catholic priest at age 25, Gallegos readily added political tasks to his clerical responsibilities. He became pastor of San Felipe de Neri church in La Villa de Albuquerque, as well as one of the nineteen "electors," men who chose Nuevo México's deputy to the Mexican Congress.
In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded the Southwest, from Texas to California, to the United States. Nuevo México became the U.S. territory of New Mexico, and Gallegos was elected to its first Territorial Council. He won the election for delegate to the U.S. Congress in 1853, the second Hispanic Congressional Representative in U.S. history. Thirty-one years had elapsed since Joseph Marion Hernández, from the territory of Florida, had become the first Hispanic in Congress in 1822. Suspended from the priesthood for refusing to accept the authority of French religious superior, Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy (who became the subject of Willa Cather's novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop), Gallegos put increasing energy into his political life. Subsequently, he was elected to the New Mexico Territorial House of Representatives, served as treasurer of the territory, and was superintendent of New Mexico Indian affairs. Gallegos returned to the U.S. House of Representatives for a second term in 1871.
For a more detailed biography of José Manuel Gallegos see the special presentation Hispanic Americans in Congress. This and other presentations may be reached through the home page of the Hispanic Reading Room of the Library of Congress.
Listen to recordings of the songs and music of the Hispanos of the Southwest available online in Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande: The Juan B. Rael Collection. These recordings from the Library of Congress American Folklife Center are accompanied by transcripts of the lyrics as well as translations.
For a more lengthy discussion of the history and culture of the Hispanos of Nuevo México, read Nuevo Méxicanos of the Upper Rio Grande: Culture, History, and Society, an essay by Enrique R. Lamadrid of the University of New Mexico provided as part of this collection.
Search the Today in History Archive on New Mexico to find additional relevant material, including features on the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid and on the first governor of Spain's Nuevo México, Juan de Oñate.
Search across the American Memory collections on the term New Mexico to find a wide variety of both images and documents related to that state.
View images of Georgia O'Keeffe, another well-known resident of Abiquiú, New Mexico, the birth place of Jose Manuel Gallegos. Search on the term Abiquiu in Creative Americans: Portraits by Van Vechten, 1923-1964.
