OCR Text |
Show 28 States in 1850, without response, and by other agents regularly at later dates but not granted for several decades. In January of 1853, legislation passed prohibiting the sale of liquor to Indians, with the understanding "that the pueblo Indians that live among us are not included in the word Indian." Political candidates sought the votes of the Pueblo Indians in campaigns of the early 1850's, but in 1853, the Congress disallowed ballots they had cast in the election of a territorial delegate to Congress (see Larson, New Mexico's Quest for Statehood, 1846-1912, pp. 37- 38, 76-78, and 82). On February 16, 1854, New Mexico's legislative assembly passed an act that carried the following wording: ...the pueblo Indians of this territory for the present, and until they shall be declared by the congress of the United States to have the right, are excluded from the privilege of voting at the popular elections of the territory, except in the elections for overseers of ditches to which they belong, and in the elections proper to their own pueblos to elect their officers according to their ancient customs (Compiled Laws of New Mexico, Act of February 16, 1854, as cited in Federal Indian Law, 894). The Congress of the United States did not disapprove the action of the territorial legislature, and thus it would prove to be almost another century before Pueblo Indians would not only be legally allowed but would actually take advantage of the opportunity to participate in general elections. In looking back at the Pueblo Indian experience under the United States from the 1850's until the reversals of territorial action by the Congress at the turn of the century begins, one cannot resist drawing comparisons between what occurred to the Pueblo communities |