New Mexico Historical Review Volume 55 Number 1 Article 4 1-1-1980 Militia Posses: The Territorial Militia in Civil Law Enforcement in New Mexico Territory, 1877-1883 Larry Ball Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmhr Recommended Citation Ball, Larry. "Militia Posses: The Territorial Militia in Civil Law Enforcement in New Mexico Territory, 1877-1883." New Mexico Historical Review 55, 1 (2021). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmhr/vol55/ 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]. MILITIA POSSES: THE TERRITORIAL MILITIA IN CIVIL LAW ENFORCEMENT IN NEW MEXICO TERRITORY, 1877-1883 LARRY D. BALL As THE FRONTIER ADYANCED WESTWARD in the nineteenth cen tury, the unsteady world in which these pioneers settled attracted many lawless persons. The civil lawmen of the territories pos sessed only limited resources with which to suppress civil disturb ances or pursue bandits. The posse comitatus, the body of private citizens obligated to assist local officers, often failed to overawe badmen and sometimes sympathized with the troublemakers. When outbreaks of lawlessness occurred, lawmen sought sub stitutes. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, Governors Lew Wal lace and Lionel Sheldon confronted serious outbreaks of crime in several counties of New Mexico Territory. The extraordinary degree of this violence and wrongdoing constrained these ex ecutives to substitute militiamen for the usual citizens in posses.