During the 19th century New Mexico’s most common form of capital punishment was death by hanging. These early executions were made public in the belief that it would deter crime. But rather than sending a message about the consequences of crime, the proliferation of these public hangings began to resemble a community event. Businesses would close for the day and families dressed in their finest clothes, would bring picnic lunches. There were vendors selling photos of the condemned with promises of pieces of the rope after the hanging. The crowds grew so large that people took to the rooftops of surrounding buildings for a better view of the staged show at the scaffold. By 1835 a new law was enacted putting an end to the spectacle of public hangings, allowing only for law enforcement and dignitaries to witness the hanging in private.
Salem Witch Trials
The punishment of death by hanging is rooted in 12th century Europe and became prevalent in Colonial America during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. In New Mexico the Spanish colonists routinely hung Pueblo Indians who retaliated against their forced servitude. The largest mass execution by hanging in the United States occurred in 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln sanctioned the hanging of 39 Sioux Indians convicted of murdering white settlers in Mankato, M.N.
California Gold Rush
A surge of hangings followed the Gold Rush of 1840 as thousands of people ventured through the region with little, if any, law enforcement available to provide support for an unruly society. Violence became the order of the day. In 1837 Governor Albino Perez was decapitated by an angry mob who removed him from office for raising taxes and the fact that he was not a native-born New Mexican. That murder went unpunished as did many crimes during the era known as the Wild West.