Wed Oct 4, 2023
12:00 - 1:00 pm
Friends of History Wednesday ONLINE Lecture Series
Blood in the Borderlands: The Rise and Fall of Charles Bent, 1829-1847

Please join David C. Beyreis, Author, Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences, Saint Mary’s School, Raleigh, North Carolina, for an ONLINE talk as he shares the history of Charles Bent, New Mexico Governor, 1846, as part of our Friends of History ONLINE lecture series.
At the time of his violent death in 1847, Charles Bent was one of the most powerful men in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He first came to New Mexico in 1829 and rapidly became an economic powerbroker in the region. Bent and his close associates used intermarriage with prominent local women to expand their business and political connections in New Mexico and the southern plains. As Bent’s influence grew, however, other powerful factions arose to oppose him. When the United States government made Bent governor of New Mexico in September 1846 his possibilities seemed limitless. His death four months later in the bloody Taos Revolt of 1847 exposed the deep rifts in the region’s communities and led to the rapid collapse of Bent, St. Vrain, and Company in 1849.
David C. Beyreis is the author of Blood in the Borderlands: Conflict, Kinship, and the Bent Family, 1821-1920 and articles on Southwest borderlands and Great Plains history. His work has won awards from the Historical Society of New Mexico, the Santa Fe Trail Association, Westerners International, and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma and currently teaches history at Saint Mary’s School in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Register for the ONLINE event here: Blood in the Borderlands: The Rise and Fall of Charles Bent, 1829-1847 - Friends of History (friendsofhistorynm.org)
Dr. Beyreis’ book, Blood in the Borderlands: Conflict, Kinship, and the Bent Family, 1821-1920, is available for purchase through the University of Nebraska Press at https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/bison-books/9781496202420/
Copies are also available at the New Mexico History Museum’s Spiegelberg Museum Shop or through your local bookstore at bookshop.org
Photo credit: Portrait of Charles BentNew Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe, NM
Friends of History Donations Welcome!