ESTANCIA: EVOLUTION OF AN HISPANIC SETTLEMENT Speaker is Javier Sanchez Taos County Historical Society


LECTURE FOR JUNE 7th 2025
2:00 PM - Kit Carson Coop Board Room

ISAAC SLOVER
& THE ESTRANJEROS IN TAOS
1820 & 1830

by Tim Green

Timothy (Tim) Green, born and raised in small-town Texas, has a personal connection to his subject matter—Isaac Slover, the "mountain man" featured in his book The Edge Rover, was his paternal grandmother's ancestor. Fascinated by the tidbits he found about Isaac, who was based in northern New Mexico during the fur trapping era of the 1820s and 1830s, Green meticulously researched historical resources to piece together Isaac's life in Taos and beyond. This biography, published by Texas Tech University Press in May 2024, represents the culmination of Green's longtime interest in his family's connection to this fascinating chapter of Southwestern history.

Green's academic background includes a Ph.D. in English from Texas Tech University (1974), followed by a distinguished forty-one-year teaching career culminating as a full professor at St. Edward's University, where he received the Teaching Excellence Award and was named Emeritus Professor upon his retirement in 2015. His previous publications include literary criticism in journals such as Southwest Review and New Mexico Humanities Review, as well as the book Seeking Justice: The Minority Experience in U.S. History (2004) and a memoir, As Near As I Can Tell (2017). An avid reader with a special appreciation for Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison, Green currently resides in Austin, Texas, where he enjoys golf, table tennis, and games with his extended family.

Isaac Slover and the Extranjeros in Taos (1820s and 1830s)

Unleashed as soon as Spanish control evaporated around 1821, extranjero immigration shook the Taos and Santa Fe region to its roots.  Outsiders originating mainly from the United States, England, and France barged into New Mexico carrying a baggage of values and aspirations, often threatening to dilute or replace Hispanic and Indigenous traditions. Timothy Green, author of
The Edge Rover: The Life and Times of Mountain Man Isaac Slover, will explore how the tensions first manifested, using Slover’s
Taos experiences as a basic example, and how they have been intensified or mitigated over time.

After a summary of Slover’s fascinating life spanning the continent from Pennsylvania to California (1777-1854), Green will trace the mountain man’s attempt to harmonize his aspirations with the cultural traditions and complexities of New Mexico. Questions will arise: In what ways do the interactions of two centuries ago reflect (or not) ongoing cultural dynamics? To what extent do cultures merge? To what extent do contradictions and collisions remain unresolved? Are there ways to transcend fundamental differences?

Isaac Slover’s marriage to a Genízaro Taoseña, the Church’s resulting internal squabble about the legitimacy of this and other church marriages, Slover’s (and other extranjero’s) ways of dealing with government restrictions of their economic activities, the locals’ fears about U.S. imperialism, and the continuing conflicts with and between Indigenous people—these and other factors kept everyone in a precarious state of unease after Mexico’s Independence from Spain, through the U.S.-Mexico War, and, in many ways, up until today.

Green’s presentation will introduce various extranjeros (e.g., Slover, William Wolfskill, Ewing Young, George Yount, Kit Carson), their commercial endeavors, the cultural disturbances they brought to Taos and the region, and ask us all to consider and reconsider how cultural clashes happen and how we can best resolve or alleviate them, if possible.


The Taos County Historical Society is a 501(C)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1952 and dedicated to the recording and preserving of the irreplaceable in Taos County.
Membership is open to anyone upon payment of dues.
For additional information on the programs, activities and history of Taos visit the Society's website at www.taoscountyhistoricalsociety.org

The Society encourages support through membership.
   

AYER Y HOY
2025 Summer
Issue #58

Browse the Ayer Y Hoy's Summer 2025 issue:

•The History of the Taos County Fair
by Monica Wilder

• Josefa Carson & Ignacia Bent
by Elizabeth Cunningham

• Exploring Vaquero Culture
& La Idomia de Los Norteños de Rio Arriba
by Michael Miller

• When It All Began for TCHS
by Paul C. Figueroa

• Very Intersting History
by Dave Cordova

AYER Y HOY
2024 Winter
Issue #57

Browse the Ayer Y Hoy's Winter 2024 issue:

•"The Duran Chapel"
by Fr. Juan Romero

• Ceran St. Vrain
"A Gentleman of the Frontier"
by WB Francis T. Cheetham
(edited by Dave Cordova)

•Tradiciones y Historias
"Las Cabanuelas"
by Michael Miller

AYER Y HOY
2024 Summer
Issue #56

Browse the Ayer Y Hoy's Summer 2024 issue:

•"Carson Colcha"
A Graves Family Legacy
by Lisa Graves-Cordova

• Taos-The Sacred Valley" and
"Ranchos de Taos Mystery"
from the Book:
Living Legends of the Santa Fe Country
by Alice Bullock

•History of the Archives & Library-TCHS
by Paul C. Figueroa

•2024 TCHS HONOREES
"The Taos News"

AYER Y HOY
2023 Winter
Issue #55

Browse the Ayer Y Hoy's Winter 2023 issue:

•Don Diego de VargasExpeditions to Taos
by Helen G. Blumenschein

• Marc Simmons - 1937-2023
by Dave Cordova

• Twin Taoseños In The Civil War
by D.F. Arguello

• From "The Taos Massacres"
by John Durand

• Why History Is Important
by Dave Cordova
The Taos County Historical Society was formed in 1952 for the purpose of "... preserving the history of the Taos area...". It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization managed by a volunteer Board of Directors. Monthly meetings, the first Saturday of the month are held at Kit Carson Electric Boardroom with a featured speaker are open to the public and supported through memberships. These are also open to anyone upon payment of annual dues. For more information visit the Society's website, ww.taoscountyhistoricalsociety.org

Taos County Historical Society
has successully launched
"TAOS: A Topical History"

320 pages, 26 chapters and contributors.

Mil Gracias, A THOUSAND THANKS, does not begin to cover the many, many individuals to whom we owe a debt of gratitude. This debt is not only the living but also to those men and women who long ago began to preserve the journals and documents we now depend upon for knowledge of the past: the chroniclers who accompanied the explorers and settlers and who, dusty, tired and hungry, sat in the light of a candle to record in their journals the events of the day and the Franciscan clerics who made detailed reports of their canonical visits to the mission churches of Nuevo México.

Corina A. Santistevan
Acknowledgements in "Taos: A Topical History"

If you would like to order a copy from the
Taos County Historical Society
please send a check for $40 (book+shipping) payable to
Taos County Historical Society and mail to:

Taos County Historical Society
PO Box 2447
Taos, NM 87571



Email us

Phone: (575) 770-0681

PO Box 2447 • Taos, NM 87571