University of Arizona Library -- Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives -- SJH -- Volume 1, Number 4, The Impact of the Frontier on a Jewish Family

Southwest Jewish History

Volume 1, Number 4, Summer 1993

The Impact of the Frontier on a Jewish Family: The Bibos

by Floyd S. Fierman

A lone rider was on his way to Cebolleta. His mission was an urgent one so he decided to take a short cut over the rolling country. As he took the fork to the right, he suddenly saw fifteen or twenty horses standing unmounted in the road. They had been ridden hard and were in poor condition. The rider, a short stocky man, was on guard. His name was Nathan Bibo. This was badman country and he had been assaulted just a few days before. He felt for his revolver. To feel it gave him added courage. Suddenly, he saw a man sitting in a saddle move slowly from the rear of the horses. The man's face was covered with a scrape. Nathan could faintly see that the man was wearing a blue calvary coat. The man was unaware that anyone was near him. Nathan drew his revolver and called out "Uncover your face." The command was obeyed. As the man removed the scrape, a shudder ran through Nathan Bibo. This was the same person who a few days earlier had "held him up." He thought, "I must kill him or he will kill me." Quickly, Nathan came to a decision. "Dismount!" he ordered. The man dismounted expecting every moment that the gun Nathan was pointing at him would discharge. In fear he kneeled down in the frozen snow and begged Nathan to spare his life. Crying like a baby he pleaded "Por la vida de su mama, y de los que quiere mas prestame la vida."
Nathan Bibo, in his "Reminiscences of New Mexico," vividly describes this episode:
"At this moment Casimiro Garcia [my companero] ... came up to us in an excited manner and insisted that I should finish him. I told him I could not kill a man in cold blood and we listened to the pleading fellow who promised he would leave the country and never come back to the Rio Grande. I am sorry to say we let him go, because we could have saved the lives of nearly a dozen people who were killed by this one desperado.
Who was this man Nathan Bibo? What was his place in New Mexico? There is a town called Bibo, New Mexico. Was Nathan Bibo a member of the same family from which the town derived its name?
Nathan Bibo was not born in the United States. He had migrated from Germany. His grandfather, Lucas Rosenstein, had lived in America for eight years, leaving Lucas Rosenstein with many impressions. From their early childhood the Bibos were exposed to the challenge and opportunities of America.
Lucas Rosenstein's son, Joseph, departed for the States in 1850 or 1860. Instead of lingering on the eastern seaboard, he traveled overland to New Mexico. But, sadly, five years after arriving in Santa Fe he died and was buried in the Odd Fellows' cemetery.
Conceivably the promise of a repetition of the success of the trailblazers before them, like the Spiegelberg brothers, beckoned Nathan Bibo and his brother Simon to these shores. Nathan arrived in 1866 and in 1867 he departed for the west, staying in the east only long enough to master the new language.
Soon after arriving in Santa Fe, Nathan Bibo found work with the Spiegelberg Brothers. In business in Santa Fe along with the Spiegelbergs were the Staab Brothers, Elsberg and Amberg; the Ilfeld Brothers; Johnson and Koch; and Simon Seligman. These firms controlled the market and their sales amounted daily to thousands of dollars. Lack of capital, plus a preponderance of wholesale dry goods firms, discouraged Nathan from competing with established businesses. He was convinced that his opportunities must be found elsewhere in the territory. An opportunity to leave Santa Fe in the form of an offer from the Zeckendorf firm, which had been doing business on the west side of the Plaza in old Albuquerque. Nathan's employment with the Zeckendorf firm, however, was of short duration. When Willi Spiegelberg was appointed Post Trader at new Fort Wingate, Nathan eagerly accepted Willi's invitation to be the Fort manager.
It was through Nathan's Fort Wingate position that he made valuable connections with military administration in the area. Three years after he had rejoined the Spiegelbergs, Major DeWitt Clinton, who was then acting as Superintendent of Indian affairs, requested him to act as his sub-agent with the Navajo Indians. Nathan's responsibility was to take a census of these Navajos who lived outside the reservation and to distribute them, under Major Clinton's direction, agricultural implements and articles such as knives, hatchets, axes and spades. Nathan was impressed with this offer. Also, by 1870, his brother Simon was already established in the region, at Cebolleta, and he was a witness to an impoverished Indian population. Simon Bibo had been perceptive enough to recognize a chance to help the Indians as well as to benefit himself. Because the Indians were distant from a market where they could exchange or sell their products Simon acted as their intermediary. Capitalizing on his Navajo associations, Nathan joined Simon in the enterprise. Nathan Bibo was ambitious and the military installations in the area which required supplies were one of his targets. Furthermore, he still retained his interest in the Bibo Brothers' store in Cebolleta. There were many problems incidental to supplying the forts with provisions, some of which were the result of human dishonesty. In 1871, Nathan Bibo sublet a contract from the government to two men, Howard and Leonard, who were to supply a hundred tons of hay to Fort Apache. His partners, were privately collecting for every pound of hay they had delivered, without divulging in their transactions that Nathan Bibo was also a partner. By the time Nathan had arrived at Fort Apache, Howard and Leonard had already taken flight. Yet Nathan was responsible for fulfilling the contract.
Captain K. Upsham, the quartermaster, was concerned about the hay that his fort would need for the winter months. He also desired to help Nathan Bibo. Consequently, he made a sage suggestion which Nathan accepted. He advised Nathan to purchase 12 to 15 dozen knives in Albuquerque. Within 10 days the knives were delivered. Nathan then engaged squaws to work for him to cut and deliver the hay. They took the knives and began a constant procession, cutting the hay and returning it to the fort.
While the hay was being gathered, Thomas Ewing, the post trader, informed Nathan that he had sold his store to a man that was unacceptable to the commanding officer and suggested to Nathan that he attempt to buy the store. The transfer of the stock of merchandise was made at once. Sometime in the fall of 1871, Nathan sold out to a Mr. Cronley and decided to settle in Bernalillo at which point Francisco Perea prevailed upon him to build a store adjoining Perea's vineyard. Perea also gave him as an inducement the privilege of buying 120 yards of land. Nathan seized the opportunity. He built a home, a store, and a government station with large stables. These stables were leased to the mail contractor and the owner of the stage coach line. He also became the Bernalillo postmaster.
Nathan continued to have varied interests. He owned a flock of sheep with his brother Solomon Bibo and he still had old accounts to collect back in the Fort Apache country.
On April 29,1876, Solomon notified Nathan that during a snowstorm their sheep herd had been scattered and that the Navajo Indians had driven them down the mountain of San Mateo to where they had been tracked. On May 1, Nathan started out after his sheep. He recovered 350 of his stolen sheep from the Navajo, but only after he threatened to report them to the commanding officer at Fort Wingate. When he returned to Bernalillo he made claim to the Indian Agent at Fort Wingate for the rest of his flock. Nine years later, after forwarding his claim to Washington, he received $1,029 for loss of his stolen property.
In 1884 Nathan Bibo had concluded that Bernalillo, being bypassed by the railroad, no longer had a potential for growth and he decided to leave the territory. He had spent 12 years in Bernalillo and he was now going to seek his fortune along the west coast. He went to California with considerable capital. His brother Joseph Bibo and two sisters remained in Bernalillo. As in past ventures, Nathan still retained interests in Bernalillo. He never burned his bridges behind him, except in San Francisco where they were burned for him.
The available records are silent in connection with Nathan's marital status. We do know that in San Francisco he married Flora Abrams and had two children, Ruth Bibo, now Mrs. Jesse Amshel of Pittsburgh, and Irving Bibo, now residing in Southern California.
Even though Nathan Bibo had left the frontier for he more sophisticated San Francisco, he could not forget his old ways. Irving Bibo reports:
"My father was an inveterate gambler and I have been told lost or won as high as $5,000 a night in poker. He came to San Francisco in 1889. The first potent memories I have of my Dad's persistent connection with his Indians was going to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco to visit Indians who were incarcerated... My father acted as interpreter and as I recall he spoke Apache, Navajo, Zuni .... I do know that he was responsible for the release of many Indians who by talking with him were able to prove their innocence or perhaps convince the authorities that they would be good boys from then on.
"...I assume that you know my father went back to New Mexico after the quake in San Francisco [1906] and stayed there, always prospecting for gold until the day he died. There are other certain very interesting developments that happened in his later years."
What Irving Bibo is alluding to is part of the southwest folklore. In 1906, according to this tale, Nathan Bibo was wiped out by the earthquake-fire in San Francisco. His penchant for gambling, the lure of his old haunts in New Mexico, and his financial losses all combined to destroy his marriage to Flora Abrams Bibo. Folklore suggests that Nathan married a native woman. They had a son, who is reputed to have been one of the highest officials in the federal administration in Old Mexico. He is today a millionaire living in Old Mexico. Attempts have been made to verify or repudiate this information. Only blind alleys and smiles have been the result, yet the legend still persists.
Isaac Bibo and Blumenschen Rosenstein were the parents of ten children. Besides Nathan, there were Simon, Solomon, Joseph, Samuel, Benjamin, and Emil. There were also three daughters, Lina, Clara and Rica.
The careers of Emil, Simon and Solomon were equally as colorful as that of Nathan. They, too, particularly Emil and Solomon, were involved with and devoted to the Indians. Nathan Bibo describes the character of his brother:" [Emil's] life and soul were to a great extent devoted to the emancipation of the Acoma Indians, who regarded him as their honest advisor and friend." Yet, it is the life of Solomon that further portrays the hazards ad problems which confronted a pioneer living in the midst of an American Indian civilization in the southwest during the last half of the nineteenth century. There were many more risks of life, and danger to one's character, living among the Indian natives than there were as a resident in the relative civilization of the community of old Sante Fe.
Solomon Bibo married a woman who was a member of the Acoma Tribe. Like his brother Simon, who also married out of his faith, he was faced with the obstacles that any person of the Jewish faith would meet were he to make the southwest his permanent home during this period. To find a girl of his religion it was necessary to go wife-hunting on the east or west coast, or go back to Germany and bring back a childhood love, if this is possible. His maternal uncle, Joseph Rosenstein, attempted the latter approach, but his new wife refused to return to America with him. Even of a Jewish wife was attainable, as in the case of Michel Goldwater, the likelihood of the couple's children marrying within the faith of the parents was remote. Although the Goldwaters are proud of their Jewish heritage, such families are, for the most part, lost to Judaism. Henry Ballon of Clayton, New Mexico, regretfully relates:
"But due to the fact that there was no Jewish community there, they married native women with few exceptions, and their children grew up in the Catholic faith and today their descendants carry their German-Jewish names, but that is about all..."
The family destiny of Solomon and Simon Bibo was no exception. The fact that Solomon was married into the Acoma tribe, however, was an unusual situation. This marriage also has relevance to Solomon Bibo's controversies with the United States Indian Service. Solomon's principal activity was as a post trader at the Indian reservation. He ran into problems with the Indian agent, Pedro Sanchez. Sanchez was of the opinion that Solomon Bibo was violating his Trader's license by engaging in a separate business arrangement with the tribe. The case was adjudicated in 1888. The United States attorney was of the opinion that since the suit was not initiated by the Indians themselves, the suit had no validity.
At this particular time there was also a land controversy between the Laguna and the Acomas as the Interior Department had allowed the Lagunas to use land the Acomas had claimed as theirs aboriginally.
Living in the midst of Indians that were hostile to one another like the Acoma and the Lagunas, and harassed by an Indian Agent who was prejudicial, made life precarious for a pioneer. There was also a Mexican population that had to be considered as well. Land distribution and ownership were fundamental factors in the unfenced southwest. It was not only a dispute between Indian and Indian, but a controversy between aboriginal claims of the Indians on the one hand and the holders of Spanish grants on the other. This was enmeshed more deeply by subleasing.
By 1869, Solomon and Simon Bibo were caught between the rock of the Indian and the hard place of the Mexican. At Cebolleta, the Mexican population was to be dispossessed of land that they felt was rightfully their land. They appealed to a priest, who took it upon himself to defend the Mexican population from losing what they already held. He attempted to halt the projected redistribution. Unfortunately, the priest Juillard made uncomplimentary references about the religion of some of the people involved. Solomon Bibo was not only an Indian Governor of Acoma, but he was also classified as a Jew, making him doubly vulnerable. A circular printed in Spanish was distributed by the Body of Commissioners of the District of Cebolleta. It is entitled "Protest" and, in part, reads:
"We the undersigned and commissioned by the (district) in the name of the heirs of said district hereby protest against the division of the district....
"Suppose they divide the district. Let us see what will happen. The district consists of 220,000 acres. The illegal injunction claims 170,00. In addition a rich Jew wants to defraud us of 25,000 of what will be left...."
Simon Bibo, who was in business with his brother Solomon at Laguna, New Mexico, was alarmed by both the circular and the accusation of the priest. Once again the Bibos appealed to the Spiegelbergs. It is probable that Solomon Bibo and Willi Spiegelberg owned land jointly in this area; it is also probable that Solomon was a "sheepdog" for Willi Spiegelberg, and it is conceivable that Solomon sensed trouble so that he desired to stop it before it became rampant. It was Simon's opinion that the best method of neutralizing the antagonism was for Willi Spiegelberg to write the Archbishop in Sante Fe.
The Spiegelbergs, as did other Jewish Merchants of Sante Fe, had an open-door relationship with the Archbishop of Sante Fe. During the tenure of Archbishop John B. Lamy, there were also a number of priests that acted unilaterally and arbitrarily, They were disciplined by Lamy's successor. At any rate, an outbreak such as this alerted the Bibos. They knew how and where to seek help.
Apparently nothing that was consequential became of this episode. The sources are mute. There is no further correspondence on this subject available. The problem, nevertheless, persists. The contention over land-ownership in the southwest is under scrutiny to this day.
Twitchell's history of New Mexico in five volumes refers generously to people of Jewish faith who were closely identified with the development of New Mexico. But Twitchell makes no reference to the Bibo family.There is only obscure mention made of the Bibos in other published southwest studies. Perhaps the reason sources are scanty is that the Bibos were not located in the central centers of activity, but in the remote areas. It is difficult to evaluate the Bibos' contribution to the southwest. Their contributions escape any of the customary classifications. There are no banking or giant mercantile institutions which they created or inspired. But this we can conclude: they came to the southwest and grappled with conditions which at times were overwhelming and would have discouraged people with lesser grit. They married within the faith of their fathers where conditions were friendly to such a marriage. When conditions were not conducive to such a union, they married out of their faith. The chromosomes of the Bibos can be found among groups designated as Indian, Roman Catholic, those of Mexican descent, and in their descendants who still adhere to Judaism. Seven brothers and three sisters have left their lasting impression on the southwest, not in enduring institutions, but in people and legend.