The Traders
- Michael Jay Tucker's explosive-cargo
- Apr 10
- 5 min read
Okay, last time, I had finished talking about Gertrude Zachary and her Castle. Now I need to get to the Zachary family, into which Gertrude married...and which gave her her start in jewelry after she’d divorced the Zachary in question.
But...to do that...I have to talk a little bit about Southwest Native American jewelry. Hold on, because it could get a little confusing as we go.
First of all, and obviously, Native Americans...Indians...living in the Southwest have made jewelry and other artworks for a very long time. As in waaaay back. At least as early as 88000 BC, “paleo-Indians” in the American Southwest were making quite sophisticated jewelry out of shells, multicolored stones, and beads.(1)
About the photos: First, here’s a photo I found on the Library of Congress website. It is “The silversmith's daughter - Navajo Indian, near Gallup, N. Mex.” (And you can find it here: https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.41732/) It dates from 1920 and is by the American photographer Joseph Roy Willis. It dates from 1920 and is by the American photographer Joseph Roy Willis. I am not entirely comfortable posting this image as it seems a little exploitative and the young woman does not seem happy. Still, it does show something of Native American jewelry making traditions.
Second, here’s a shot of the sunset over the city from the Sandia Tramway base station. This isn’t a great picture, but I love the colors. (Oh, and this was from 2018, and we were celebrating our anniversary at the now ...alas!...closed Sandiago’s restaurant.)
And, third, Martha having lunch at the High Noon, one of our favorite Albuquerque restaurants, in 2023.
Then, racing ahead a few thousand years, the Spanish arrived, and silver and other metals got added to the mix. Next, Anglo-American traders and merchants got into the story a couple of centuries after that. Even before the Mexican-American War, English-speaking traders were establishing bases and homes in places like Santa Fe -- for the very good reason that it was on the Santa Fe Trail, a 19th century route that led from Franklin, Missouri to, obviously, Santa Fe.(2) This linked up, in turn, to the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, “The Royal Road of the Interior,” which went further South into Spanish...later, Mexican...territories.(3)
Thus, the Santa Fe trail was an extremely important commercial route.(4) From Missouri came American manufactured goods -- cloth, needles, axes, and on and on. From New Mexico, and Mexico, came silver (a lot of it), wool, and mules. Both sides got rich in the process, and Missouri and New Mexico established long lasting connections.
Oh, and here’s an interesting aside. If you’re of a certain age (that oh-so-delicate term), you may associate Missouri with the mule. Until recently, the state was famous for its mules. It’s even the state animal.(5 )
The kicker? Where did the mules come from originally? You got it. New Mexico.(6) The mules came up the Trail and Missourians found them useful animals and so got into the breeding them as well.(7) And that was how the Missouri mule got to Missouri.
Okay, getting back to my story, Anglo traders came south and set up shop in Santa Fe. There, some of them married into elite Santa Fe families, and some of their descendants remain there to this day. But all of this involves jewelry because, slowly but surely, some of these Anglo immigrants, and some of the Hispanic families already there, discovered that they could sell Native American jewelry “back east.”
It didn’t happen right away...but it did happen. And, by the early 20th century, Anglo traders...some of them based on the reservations...were encouraging local people to produce jewelry which they then sold to Easterners and travelers from the world over. America was learning to love tourism at that particular moment and...particularly after the railroad moved into the state...New Mexicans were learning to love tourists’ money.
I ought to stop here and mention that this process is now somewhat controversial. The Anglo traders who forged the connections between the Native American artisans and the Eastern buyers were, after all, interested in profits, not in preserving native cultures. So, they definitely encouraged the artisans to produce things that would sell, and salable items might have absolutely nothing to do with the local people.
Consider, for example, the story of Charles Garrett (“CG”) Wallace (1898-1993). Born in North Carolina, he came to New Mexico in 1918, and then became a trader on the Zuni Pueblo a year after that. There, he became an important link between the Pueblo producers and Eastern consumers. In fact, he is generally credited with establishing the modern jewelry industry at the Zuni Pueblo.
Now, whether that was a good thing or bad greatly depends on who you ask. Some sources present him as a respected...even revered!...figure who was a great friend of Zuni people, and who did his level best to bring them out of poverty while at the same time protecting them from the overt racism of white society.(8)
On the other hand, other sources present Mr. Wallace as a rather awful person, exploiting the Zuni and corrupting their native handicrafts by encouraging them make tourist souvenirs rather than actual art.(9)
Which one is right? I have no idea. You’ll just have to pick a side and takes your chances.
But, if C.G. Wallace was a puzzle, there were others among these traders, merchants, and entrepreneurs who were far less problematic.
Among them...the Zachary family.
But that’s for next time. More to come.
Footnotes:
1. For the history of Native American jewelry making in the Southwest, I rely on “Native American jewelry,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_jewelry#Southwest
2. Santa Fe Trail, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_Trail
3. Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_Real_de_Tierra_Adentro
4. For an excellent source on the Santa Fe trail, see “A History of the Santa Fe Trail” by Harry C. Myers, edited by Joanne VanCoevern, The website of the Santa Fe Trail Association, 2010, https://santafetrail.org/history/
5. “Missouri State Symbols,” Office of the Missouri Secretary of State, https://www.sos.mo.gov/symbol/animal
6. For on this, see: University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, “Missouri Mule History and Facts,” College of Veterinary Medicine Mule Team, accessed March 24, 2025, https://cvm.missouri.edu/college-of-veterinary-medicine-mule-team/missouri-mule-history-and-facts/.
7. The mule is, of course, an infertile hybrid of a horse and a donkey. So when I say that the New Mexicans and Missourians started breeding them, I mean that they saw that they, too, could mate the two different animals and sell the resulting offspring along the trade routes and connections that they had already established with their imported livestock.
8. For the positive take on the man, see “Charles Garrett Wallace (1898-1993) - Indian Trader at Zuni Pueblo, NM,” on the website of Matt Wood's American Indian Art LLC, https://www.antiqueamericanindianart.com/cg-wallace---indian-trader-at-zuni-pueblo-nm.html
9. For a negative take on him, see “Legend of C.G. Wallace,” on the webpage of Perry Null Trading, https://turquoisetraders.com/blogs/perry-null-trading/the-legend-of-cg-wallace
Best line in the piece: “It is a sad fact that Wallace was the most universally disliked individual in the history of White/Zuni relations.”
Copyright©2025 Michael Jay Tucker
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