I’ve been involved in politics for nearly 20 years
now. I covered many political races as a reporter and attempted to explore
ethnicity in politics in a comprehensive way. In 2000, when Republican
presidential candidate George W. Bush working hard to attract Hispanic voters,
I remember being a little amused when he sent his Spanish-speaking, Hispanic
nephew from Florida to New Mexico to make his pitch to Hispanics in Valencia
County. During that same election, I drove to Mora County to write a story from
the perspective of a Hispanic Republican sheriff who was successful in heavily
Democratic Northern New Mexico. A few years later, I went to work for one of
the most prominent Hispanic politicians in the country, Bill Richardson, who
was twice elected governor of New Mexico and was the first Hispanic Democrat to
run for President. I wrote dozens of speeches for Richardson about the role of
Hispanics in national politics, during the 2004 election when John Kerry ran on
the Democratic ticket; and in 2008 when Richardson came in fourth place in the
Democratic primary that Barack Obama eventually won. More recently, I worked
for Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is a 12
th-generation New Mexican, as
she beat out two other Hispanic candidates in the Democratic primary for the 1
st
Congressional District.
Needless to say, I thought I had a pretty good
appreciation for Hispanic politics in New Mexico, even if I arrived on the
scene long after many trailblazing, Hispanic politicians like U.S. Senators
Dennis Chavez and Joseph Montoya. But what I didn’t realize was the role that
ethnic, or “Mexican” politics played more than a century ago, and involving one
of my ancestors.
The only Great-Grandfather I knew as a child was
my Grandpa Tony, Antonio DeTevis, who was born in Las Gallinas and lived most
of his life in Las Vegas. He was named after his own grandfather, Antonio
DeTevis, who came to New Mexico from the Azore Islands, part of Portugal, in
the early 1800s. The elder Antonio DeTevis apparently came here with his
brother, Pedro Jose DeTevis, who became a well-known merchant in Taos. One of
his claims to fame is the fact that he was good friends with Kit Carson and is
buried next to Carson in Taos. But if you go to the cemetery there, you won’t
find Pedro Jose. You’ll find a prominent grave marker for Peter Joseph DeTevis.
For most of his life, Pedro went simply by Peter Joseph. He and his younger
brother Antonio reportedly arrived from the Azores in New Orleans, moved up the
Mississippi to St. Louis, and ended up in Taos. At some point in the 1830s or
40s, Pedro started going by the name Peter Joseph, an Anglicized version of
Pedro Jose.
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| Peter Joseph (1814-1862) as shown in "Portuguese in the Old West" |
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It’s not clear why Peter Joseph Anglicized his
name, but apparently it was not uncommon for Portuguese immigrants to do so. What
has always been puzzling to me is the fact that Peter Joseph became such a
successful merchant and land owner in Taos and associated with other non-natives
like Carson, Charles Bent and Ceran St. Vrain; while his younger brother,
Antonio, kept the DeTevis name and was otherwise anonymous in the history of
Taos County and New Mexico.
Peter Joseph’s son, Antonio Joseph, was even more
prominent in Northern New Mexico – in real estate and in politics. And the
Anglicized Joseph name sometimes played a role in Antonio’s political career.
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| Antonio Joseph |
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Antonio Joseph served as a judge in Taos County
and eventually moved to Ojo Caliente sometime after his father died in 1863. He
inherited much of his father’s vast fortune and land holdings in Taos (including
buildings on the Taos Plaza) and Rio Arriba counties, and eventually purchased
most of the land that was part of the original Ojo Caliente land grant. He was
elected to the territorial Legislature in the early 1880s. Then, he served 10
years as New Mexico’s delegate to Congress, from 1884-1894, apparently the
first person of Portuguese descent to serve in Congress. After losing a
re-election bid in 1894, Joseph served in the territorial Council, the
predecessor of the state Senate, and served as President of the Council in
1898.
Antonio Joseph had many friends, but also made
political enemies. One such adversary was L. Bradford Prince, who in 1884 was a
former state Supreme Court justice and would later serve as Governor of the
territory. But in that year, he was the Republican opponent to Antonio Joseph a
Democrat, in a three-way race for delegate to Congress.
Apparently, Prince tried to use Antonio Joseph’s
ethnicity against him in that congressional race, according to former Governor
and former Congressional Delegate Miguel Antonio Otero, who wrote about the encounter
in his book “My Life on the Frontier.” Otero said in his book that he obtained
an original letter that Prince sent to a political ally, Judge Shaw, in Socorro
County. In that letter, marked confidential, Prince writes about the importance
of the “Mexican” vote in the upcoming election.
“The Mexican vote, under the circumstances, is
very important,” Prince writes to Shaw. “I think much can be done by printing
tickets with my name at the head.” Prince goes on to suggest that if he is
elected, “…our fellows will be on top for a good while, and you can be sure
that anything in the way of patronage will go where there are obligations. I
believe in standing by one’s friends. You can do an enormous amount by the
display of the tact you have in such things.”
What exactly was Prince suggesting? He spells it
out in an enclosed note, marked “strictly confidential.”
“There has been so much said as to Joseph’s name
that every one understands that his real name is DeTevis and many newspapers
have suggested that probably a ticket to be legal should be printed Antonio
Joseph DeTevis. The Democratic tickets are printed simply Antonio Joseph. Now,
if Democratic tickets are printed, say in Socorro, quietly, with the name
Antonio Joseph DeTevis at the head, and sent out in proper packages addressed
to the Democratic committeeman in precincts (not in Socorro or where any leader
lives) so as to arrive shortly before the election, it would appear to be the
revised and corrected ticket, and certainly would be used in some places. This
would divide the vote. Of course places having telegraphs should be avoided.”
Former Governor Otero minced no words in his book
about Prince’s tactics.
“I have this original letter and suggestion in my
possession, written in the handwriting of L. Bradford Prince, and it was my
opinion that any man who resorted to such methods was absolutely unfit to hold
any position within the gift of the people. Prince’s tactics were well known to
everybody in New Mexico. He would run down anyone whom he thought was in his
way and had no hesitancy in telling a deliberate lie, if by so doing he might
benefit.”
It’s not clear what, if anything, happened as a
result of Prince’s suggestion. There were tickets printed with the DeTevis
surname in San Miguel County, although they were Spanish-language tickets. I
supposed it’s possible that Antonio Joseph benefited from those tickets because
of his Iberian ancestry. Ironically, the so-called “Mexican vote” in 1884
probably similar to the “Hispanic” or “Latino” vote in 2012 – is not so easily
defined. In fact, there was nothing “Mexican” about Antonio Joseph, who was
born in St. Louis to a Portuguese father and a mother who was at least part
Black and was Peter Joseph’s servant, and possibly slave, before the family
moved to New Mexico where they were married and Antonio was baptized.
