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Show 954 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN THE HISTORY The president declined but requested Governor Vigil to do so, which was accordingly done. After the adjournment of the session of court at Santa Fé, under military escort, Chief Justice Houghton and Associate Justice Beaubien proceeded to Taos, where a term of court was held and at which a number of persons were tried for murder and treason. Several were convicted and hung during the month of April. Present at the trial, which was conducted in a court room surrounded and guarded by armed soldiers, were the daughters of the murdered governor, his brothers William '*? and George Bent, Lucien B. Maxwell, and a large number of prominent citizens of the territory. Judges counsel for the defense, most accused was execution tried and of the many of the members of the sentence of the most court of the jury, before respectable citizens be suspended be laid before the President of the United States oner on the ground of his age and infirmity. for until whom praying a petition the pardon the that the could of the pris- ‘‘Though feeling assured that the accused had had a fair trial and had been justly sentenced and legally convicted I still feel justified in granting the prayer of the petition, signed as it is by the court and the jury before whom he was tried and convicted. ‘“T am informed that a petition will be immediately forwarded to the Presi- dent praying for the pardon of Trujillo on the grounds the President will give the matter careful consideration. above stated. The prisoner I trust is about seventy-five years of age, necessarily infirm and evidently near the end of his days; and although as the head of an influential family much was done in his name to excite and forward the late rebellion, still on account of his years and the near termination of his career I cannot but consider him a proper subject for the mercy of the government. ‘‘The United States district court is still in session at this capital having under trial three indictments for treason against three prominent persons 12 the late rebellion. Twenty-four prisoners have been discharged for want of testimony to indict them for treason, and also on the ground that they have been under the influence and deceived by the representations of men who had always exercised ‘‘T am tyrannical informed control over them. that there are upward of forty prisoners confined in the northern district awaiting their trial at the coming term of the United States district court for that district. I can not do less than commend the diligence and at the same time the justice with which the tribunals of the Territory discharge their duties. With the highest sentiments of esteem, truly your most obedient servant, ‘“(DONACIANO VIGIL.”’ 182 William Bent appears to have been the first of the Bent brothers to 8° to the Rocky Mountain country, but his brother Charles, the governor, must have soon Joined him there, and these two, with Céran St. Vrain, established the early trading post on the Arkansas about where the city of Pueblo now stands. frontiersmen, Here Some other brothers, with Mexican or Indian had wives, attempted to do some farming; the settlement is mentioned by Colonel Fremont, who visite it several years later. After occupying this post for a few years they move down to the post afterwards known as Bent’s Fort. George and Robert Bent, did not come out to the fort until after it was completed — WAR WITH MEXICO 255 Houghton and Beaubien also presided at this trial. has preserved to us an account of the proceedings. An eye-witness He says: ‘Court assembled at nine o’clock. On entering the room, Judges Beaubien and Houghton were occupying their official stations. After many dry preliminaries, six prisoners were brought in — ill-favored, half-scared, sullen fellows; and the jury of Mexicans and Americans — Chadwick, foreman — being empaneled, the trial commenced, F. P. Blair, jr., prosecuting attorney, assisted by Wharton, a perhaps not until it had been in operation for some was at one time a partner in the company. In his testimony before the joint commission time. which Benito inquired Vasquez into Indian affairs on the plains, in 1865, William Bent stated that he had first come to the Arkansas and settled near the present site of the city of Pueblo in 1824. When it was determined to construct the adobe fort on the Arkansas, the Bents employed a number of Mexican laborers who made the adobes. Only a short time after work was commenced the smallpox broke out in a very severe form. William Bent, Céran St. Vrain, and Kit Carson, and some other frontiersmen who were there, all caught the disease and, though none died, they were so badly marked by it that some of the Indians who had known them well did not recognize them when they again met. During the prevalence of the epidemic Bent Sent one of his Mexican herders north to warn the Cheyennes not to come to the post. This Mexican’s name was Francisco and on his way to the Black Hills he met a large war-party of Cheyennes then on their way to the fort. He told them what had happened and not to come near until they were sent for. The Indians obeyed and it was not until some time later, when all of the infected material at the post had been burned, that Bent and St. Vrain set out for the Black Hills to find the Indians and invite them to return to the post and trade. This was about 1830. Some time before his death Kit Carson Said that at one time more than 150 laborers (Mexicans) were employed in building the post. Besides this fort, Bent and St. Vrain owned St. Vrain ’s Fort on the South Platte and Adobe Fort on the Canadian. These posts were built for trade with the northern Indians, the Sioux and the Cheyennes, who Seldom came as far south as the Arkansas. The Adobe Fort on the Canadian was built by request of the Kiowa chiefs, Little Mountain (To-hau-sen ) and Eagle Tail Feathers, and Shaved Head, a Comanche, and Poor Bear, a big Shaved Head was a great chief and very chief of the Jicarilla Apaches. friendly to the white people; he wore the left side of his head shaved, while the hair on the right side was very long, hanging Perforated with many holes, made these suspended little brass many below his waist; his left ear was with a blunt awl, heated red hot; through rings. Before peace was made between the allied Cheyenne, Arapaho, the Kiowa, and the Apache, in the year 1840, the last three named tribes were afraid to visit Fort Bent, and for this reason they asked Colonel Bent to build Fort Adobe. Cheyenne wife he managed to keep on good Although William Bent had a terms with the enemies of the Cheyenne tribe. : : In the business at the fort William Bent took care of matters while his brother Charles took care of affairs with the Mexican settlers and the trade to It is uncertain when St. Vrain, Lee, and Vasquez beTaos and to Santa Fé. came partners, or how long they remained as such. George and Robert Bent, Who came out from St. Louis, may have been partners, but there is nothing es documentary proof to show it. Robert died in 1847. George Bent was marTied to a Mexican lady by whom he had two children who went to St. Louis, Missouri, to school. George died in 1848, at the fort, and F, P. Blair, € Jr., was |