Charles Bent (November 11, 1799 – January 19, 1847) was an American businessman and politician who served as the first civilian United States

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

of the New Mexico Territory, newly acquired by the Military Governor,

Stephen Watts Kearny Stephen Watts Kearny (sometimes spelled Kearney) ( ) (August 30, 1794October 31, 1848) was one of the foremost antebellum frontier officers of the United States Army. He is remembered for his significant contributions in the Mexican–American Wa ...

, in September 1846. Bent had been working as a fur trader in the region since 1828, with his younger brother,

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

, and later partner

Ceran St. Vrain Ceran St. Vrain, born Ceran de Hault de Lassus de Saint-Vrain (May 5, 1802 – October 28, 1870), was the son of a French aristocrat who immigrated to the Spanish Louisiana in the late 18th century; his mother was from St. Louis, where he was b ...

. Though his office was in Santa Fe, Bent maintained his residence and a

trading post A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically the location of the trading post would allow people from one geographic area to tr ...

Taos Taos or TAOS may refer to: Places * Taos, Missouri, a city in Cole County, Missouri, United States * Taos County, New Mexico, United States ** Taos, New Mexico, a city, the county seat of Taos County, New Mexico *** Taos art colony, an art colo ...

, New Mexico Territory, in present-day

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...

. On January 19, 1847, Bent was scalped and killed by

Pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

warriors, during the

Taos Revolt The Taos Revolt was a populist insurrection in January 1847 by Hispano and Pueblo allies against the United States' occupation of present-day northern New Mexico during the Mexican–American War. Provisional governor Charles Bent and severa ...

Early life

Charles Louis Bent was born in Charleston, Virginia, the oldest child of Judge

Silas Bent Silas Bent IV (born May 9, 1882, in Millersburg, Kentucky – d. July 30, 1945 in Greenwich, Connecticut), son of Silas Bent III and Ann Elizabeth (Tyler) Bent was an American journalist, author, and lecturer. He spent nearly three decades as ...

, and his wife Martha Kerr.

Career

U.S. Army and ''Bent & St. Vrain Company''

After leaving the army, in 1828, Charles and his younger brother,

, took a wagon train of goods from

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

to Santa Fe. There they established mercantile contacts and began a series of trading trips back and forth over the Santa Fe Trail. In 1832, he formed a partnership with

, another trader from St. Louis, called Bent & St. Vrain Company. In addition to its store in

Taos, New Mexico Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Ch ...

, the trading company established a series of "forts", fortified trading posts, to facilitate trade with the Plains Indians, including

Fort Saint Vrain Fort Saint Vrain was an 1837 fur trading post built by the Bent, St. Vrain Company, and located at the confluence of Saint Vrain Creek and the South Platte River, about 20 miles (32 km) east of the Rocky Mountains in the unorganized terri ...

on the

South Platte River The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwest and the American Southwest/ Mountain West. It ...

and

Bent's Fort Bent's Old Fort is an 1833 fort located in Otero County in southeastern Colorado, United States. A company owned by Charles Bent and William Bent and Ceran St. Vrain built the fort to trade with Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Plains Indians and ...

on the

Arkansas River The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United Stat ...

, both in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

, and

Fort Adobe Adobe Walls is a ghost town in Hutchinson County, northeast of Stinnett, in the U.S. state of Texas. It was established in 1843 as a trading post for buffalo hunters and local Native American trade in the vicinity of the Canadian River. It late ...

on the

Canadian River The Canadian River is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River in the United States. It is about long, starting in Colorado and traveling through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, and Oklahoma. The drainage area is about .La Junta, Colorado, has been restored and is now a National Historic Site.

Territorial Governor

Following the bloodless occupation of New Mexico, many of the inhabitants of New Mexico were not happy about the new American rule. Some mourned the loss of the old connection with Mexico, others feared the loss of their private goods, and others hated Bent, the New Mexican Territorial Governor who served under the U.S. war-time occupation, because of his negative attitude towards Mexicans. In December 1846, the influential families in the state started to plan a revolt against their new rulers. The governor and Colonel Price found out about the conspiracy and some of the leaders of the movement were arrested, but two important ones were able to escape.

Death

In January 1847, while serving as territorial governor, Bent traveled to his hometown of Taos without military protection. After arriving, he was scalped alive and murdered in his home by a group of pueblo Native American attackers, under the orders of Mexican conspirators who started the

. Bent is buried in the National Cemetery in Santa Fe. The women and children in the Bent home were not harmed by the insurgents, and the remaining members of the family fled to safety next door through a hole in the parlor wall. In the following months, Colonel Price was able to quell the uprising, which ended in July 1847. Most of the rebels were caught and some of them were executed.

Personal life

In 1835, Charles "Carlos" Bent married Maria Ignacia Jaramillo, who was born in

. Maria's younger sister, Josefa Jaramillo, would later marry

Kit Carson Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer. He became a frontier legend in his own lifetime by biographies and ...

Legacy

Bent and the renowned frontier scout Christopher "Kit" Carson married sisters. Maria Ignacia Bent outlived her husband by 36 years and died on April 13, 1883. The Bents had two daughters, Teresina and Estefana (Estefania) and a son, Alfred. Maria Bent and the Carsons are interred at Kit Carson Cemetery in Taos.Exhibits, Governor Bent Home and Museum, Taos, New Mexico Bent Street, which runs in front of what had been his home in Taos, and Martyr's Lane, which runs behind it, are named for him. The Governor Charles Bent House is now a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

. An elementary school in northeast

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...

is named in Bent's honor.

Works

Bent documented the

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

of New Mexico in an essay which was published posthumously in Henry Schoolcraft's study of American Indians: *

Notes

References

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bent, Charles 1799 births 1847 deaths 19th-century American politicians American expatriates in Mexico American people of the Mexican–American War Assassinated American politicians Burials at Santa Fe National Cemetery Businesspeople from West Virginia Governors of New Mexico Territory People from Taos, New Mexico People of pre-statehood West Virginia People of the Taos Revolt Politicians from Charleston, West Virginia United States Military Academy alumni

Early life

Career

U.S. Army and ''Bent & St. Vrain Company''

Territorial Governor

Death

Personal life

Legacy

Works

See also

Notes

References