Lost Capitol Hill: The Tesuque Pueblos Visit the Navy Yard

Last week, I wrote about the visit of President Fillmore to the Navy Yard, and how he had the opportunity to watch the hull of the ill-fated Water Witch be battered by cannon fire. Continuing my research on this poor vessel, I discovered that such a spectacle was hardly reserved just for Presidential visits, but was also performed for a remarkable group from the far-off New Mexico territory.

After the Mexican-American War, large swathes of what is today California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico were added to the United States. Included were countless Native American tribes, of greater and lesser allegiance to their new rulers.

In order to strengthen the United States’s bond with these new citizens, trips were planned to the capital for important people of various tribes. One of these groups were the Tesuque Pueblo Indians, who inhabit a small area just outside Santa Fe. In May 1852, five of them –José María Vigil, Carlos Vigil, Juan Antonio Vigil, José Domingo Herrera, and José Abeyta– set out. Accompanying them was James Calhoun, the outgoing governor of the New Mexico Territory, as well as his secretary, David Whiting and his son-in-law William E. Love. It was a long, grueling journey – grueling enough that Calhoun, who was already not doing well, died along the way of scurvy.

Love, Whiting and their five companions continued on, and on July 31, they arrived in Washington D.C., taking lodgings on at Maher’s Globe Hotel near the White House. On August 8, they went to visit President Fillmore, with the request that he do something about the general state of anarchy that existed in the territory, as well as protecting their rights vis-a-vis the white settlers, and in general abiding by the treaties that existed. Fillmore announced that his newly appointed governor, William C. Lane, would ensure the peace, and otherwise he would ‘look into’ the issues they had raised. With these anodyne comments, the party left the White House, and took up their sightseeing agenda.

Two days later, thus, they ended up at the Washington Navy Yard, where they were greeted by William A. T. Maddox and Levin M. Powell, and introduced to Henry E. Ballard, commandant of the Yard.

They then observed, according to the Daily Telegraph of the following Monday, “steam-sawing, blacksmithing in all its varieties, punching boiler iron, the manufacture of cannons, bullets, percussion-caps and ball cartridges, pile-driving for the foundation of new buildings, &c.”

A 10-inch Paixhan gun, image from an 1838 Madras Military Records. Paixhan guns were the first that could fire explosive shells with any accuracy. The famous Dahlgren guns were improvements on this French invention. (Google Books)

The reactions of the visitors were generally of an awed nature, though when shown the enormous, 12-inch Paixhan gun, one of the group “observed that, if he were put inside of it, and fired off, it would take him to Santa Fe in a minute!”

It was, however, not all just an opportunity to see the Yard, but also to see what the guns being built there could do. Thus, “[s]everal rounds of cannon, of large and small calibre, were then fired, for their entertainment, at the condemned storeship Water Witch, lying in the river. [The visitors] evinced great admiration at the rapidity with which the guns were fired, and the swift course of the balls as they bounded over the water.” A visit with Captain Maddox and his wife in their quarters rounded out the trip to the Navy Yard.

Over the next few days, they also stopped by the Arsenal, Georgetown, and the Indian Bureau. They were not, however, always as well-received as at the Navy Yard. A week later, when leaving their hotel, they were accosted by several young boys, who threw rocks at them. Richard H. Weightman, New Mexico’s representative in D.C., had them write a letter, which he had translated and sent to the local papers, along with his own disapproving remarks.

Fortunately, this seems to have been the only blot on the landscape. On September 9, the party left D.C. to return to their home, arriving safely back there several months later.