1. The Old Order
Bishop Latour, with Jacinto, was riding through the mountains on his first official visit to Taos — after Albuquerque, the largest and richest parish in his diocese. Both the priest and people there were hostile to Americans and jealous of interference. Any European, except a Spaniard, was regarded as a gringo. The Bishop had let the parish alone, giving their animosity plenty of time to cool. With Carson’s help he had informed himself fully about conditions there, and about the powerful old priest, Antonio José Martínez, who was ruler in temporal as well as in spiritual affairs. Indeed, before Father Latour’s entrance upon the scene, Martínez had been dictator to all the parishes in northern New Mexico, and the native priests at Santa Fé were all of them under his thumb.
