New Mexico Historical Review Volume 90 Number 1 Article 4 1-1-2015 New Mexico Statehood and Political Inequality: The Case of Nuevomexicanos Phillip B. Gonzales Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmhr Recommended Citation Gonzales, Phillip B.. "New Mexico Statehood and Political Inequality: The Case of Nuevomexicanos." New Mexico Historical Review 90, 1 (2015). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmhr/vol90/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in New Mexico Historical Review by an authorized editor of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact
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[email protected]. • New Mexico Statehood and Political Inequality • The Case of Nuevomexicanos PHILLIP B. GONZALES rior to the late 1880s, the civic and political leaders of Nuevomexica- nos generally disagreed on the question of statehood for territorial New Mexico. As one faction or another put the issue on the public agenda, Pthose who favored it joined Euroamerican (the vernacular “Anglo”) settlers who believed that statehood would accelerate the modern development of the territory to everyone’s benefit and enable the people to enjoy the political sovereignty that regular membership among the states in the Union held out. Opponents generally believed that the territory was not yet ready for statehood, and especially that it would burden the mass of poor Spanish-speaking citizens with unaffordable taxes until the territory’s economy could develop sufficiently.1 But as David Holtby’s recent book on New Mexico’s achievement of statehood indicates, Nuevomexicano spokesmen at the turn of the twentieth century clearly, if not unequivocally, supported the statehood movement.