Who remembers over half a century back, when members of Reies Lopez Tijerina’s Alianza Federal de Mercedes conducted their infamous armed raid on the Tierra Amarillo County Courthouse to arrest District Attorney Alfonso Sanchez and put him on trial? Shots were fired. Jailer Eulogio Salazar was wounded. Sanchez reportedly days earlier had ordered the State Police to conduct night-time investigations or arrests of Alianza members at their homes in anticipation of a next-day Alianza meeting. The raid occurred several days following the Alianza’s earlier takeover of the Echo Amphitheater.
Sanchez was not at the courthouse at the time of the raid. The invaders held the courthouse for two hours. Governor David Cargo called out the National Guard. The National Guard, equipped with armed tanks, rounded up invaders and detained them in a “pen” in Canjilon. The Alianza’s armed pursuits were purportedly also to “take over” the local Tierra Amarillo government and to regain from the federal government former ownership of lands.
In addition to Governor Cargo, several recognizable names were engaged in the events, including District Judge James Scarborough; State Police Chief Joe Black and Captain Martin Vigil; Rio Arriba County Sheriff Benny Naranjo; Rio Arriba County Commissioner Nick Salazar; U.S. Marshal Emilio Naranjo; U.S. Attorney John Quinn; and National Guard Major General John Pershing.
At a later date, the New Mexico Secretary of State denied certification of the candidacies for federal and state positions of members of the Alianza’s associated political party, the People’s Constitutional Party. The electoral positions sought were for President (Ventura Chavez) and Vice President (Adelicio Moya) of the United States; United States Congress (Wilfredo Ernest Sedillo and William Higgs); and the State Board of Education (Roger Anderson).
Notable were two lawsuits filed shortly after the raid on the courthouse and the rejections of declarations of candidacy. Appeals in those cases can be found in written case law. See Valdez v. Black, 446 F.2d 1071 (10th Cir. 1971) and State ex rel. Chavez v. Evans, 1968-NMSC-167, 79 N.M. 578, 446 P.2d 445) These two reported appellate cases, one federal, the other state, provide a fairly good recitation of events.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Valdez v. Black stated that in the raid “numerous shots were fired [and] public officials were wounded and kidnapped” by “insurrectionists” in an “armed rebellion.” The New Mexico Supreme Court in Chavez v. Evans directed Secretary of State Ernestine Evans “to forthwith certify for the People’s Constitutional Party each of the candidates for office.”
Also notable and worth reading is Author Peter Nabokov’s book about the raid and aftermath, Tijerina and the Courthouse Raid (1969), written soon after the raid and published in 1969.
An internet search shows that one young activist at the time of the courthouse raid was Moises Morales, twenty years of age. The search indicates that Moises was then and afterward active in empowering the people of Northern New Mexico in the arenas of land and water rights. In later years, Moises, a native of Canlijon, served as a Rio Arriba County Commissioner where he still serves today and as County Clerk.
Whether one embraced the leadership of Reies Lopez Tijernia and the goals of the Alianza in the 1960’s, or not, Tijerina, his and the Alianza’s activities, and particularly the armed rebellion and insurrection and the People’s Constitutional Party’s political activity, constitute an interesting chapter of New Mexico history.
(Judge Jonathan B. Sutin, retired, New Mexico Court of Appeals.)
Note: Judge Sutin represented the plaintiff Juan Valdez in his action against the State Police, and represented the plaintiffs in their action against the Secretary of State, Ernestine Evans. He received his law degree from the UNM Law School in 1963, and was employed during 1963-1965 in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, afterward returning to New Mexico and soon representing the plaintiffs in the two cases described above.