TAS & Taos County Historical Society Special Presentation

Date:              Saturday, October 16, 2010, 2PM

Location:        Kit Carson Electric - 118 Cruz Alta Rd., Taos                               

Title:               "A Burning Discontent:  Charcoal Production and Indigenous Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century Taos."

Speaker:         Albert Gonzalez

Albert Gonzalez will speak to a joint meeting of the Taos County Historical Society and the Taos Archaeological Society on Saturday, October 16 at 2:00 p.m.  The presentation will be held at the Kit Carson Electric Coop meeting room. 

Abstract:
Though archaeologists have directed some attention at charcoal production sites in the nineteenth-century American West, those of contemporary New Mexico have received comparatively short shrift. Furthermore, prior studies have not attempted to connect charcoal production by the agents of American expansion with the development of indigenous discontent. This study aims to address both deficiencies by linking the ills of fuelwood processing to the Taos rebellion of 1847. More specifically, it will ask whether the environmental, economic, and social stresses associated with charcoal making played any role in attracting a mob to the industrial distilling operation of Simeon Turley during the course of the aforementioned rebellion.

Contact Corky Hawk, at 575-751-1427, for more information.