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The conquest of Don Pedro
1974 University of New Mexico Press trade paperback, Harvey Fergusson (The Blood of the Conquerors). A novelized account of the cultural changes in New Mexico with the influx of Anglos after the Mexican American War. - Amazon
- GenresFiction
250 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 2, 2019
Recommend two books by this author, including this one.
Historical fiction set along New Mexico's Rio Grande. The main character brings to mind those created by Nevil Shute
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_...
The New York Times wrote a review in 1954:
" LEO MENDES, a Portuguese Jew, grew up in New York City. When he was 28 years old, and the possessor of a weak lung, a bad cough and three hundred dollars, he traveled to the enchanting land of New Mexico to regain his health. ..."
https://www.nytimes.com/1954/06/27/ar...
Don't appreciate tone of linked 'commentary' - could be caveat for some readers, but I do recommend the author.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/ar...
quote from link:
"A Jewish Conquistador
The Conquest of Don Pedro.
by Harvey Fergusson.
Morrow. 250 pp. $3.50.
This is a novel laid in post-Civil War New Mexico. It is intended as one of those bits of Americana that fall under the heading “And Then Came the Railroads.” Don Pedro was, perhaps still is, a little Spanish village near the Texas arid Mexico borders. A few miles away in one direction was a famous salt lake and eleven miles in the other was a fort with a full company of United States cavalry. In the story, progress comes to Don Pedro only in the form of Leo Mendes, a peddler, “by remote origin . . . a Portuguese Jew and by birth a New Yorker,” who gives up his itinerant life and establishes there a successful trading post But every reader knows that where there is a clever Jew, mammoth industry and bustling commerce cannot be far behind.
Mr. Fergusson evidently knows a great deal about New Mexico. He was born there, and his publisher is willing to call him “one of our leading novelists of the Southwest.” Unfortunately, however, he is a bit chary about passing along the great wealth of information gleaned from living in, and writing about, the country for so long. We learn from The Conquest of Don Pedro that in little old Spanish villages life was rather simple and primitive, that the poor ate meagerly while squatting on the floor and that the rich ate more handsomely seated at tables, that proper young ladies were always properly chaperoned but by the time they were full-blown women they all became unusually industrious bed-mates, and that rich or poor, Spanish or American, everyone was a sucker for buying stuff he needed if only there was a man around with the breadth of vision and faith in the future to open up a general store. ..."
***
Here's another opinion copied and pasted
https://www.tias.com/13459/PictPage/3...
"Leo Mendes was a man of many lives. In a sense, he was a conquistador... if you can imagine a conquistador from Manhattan's lower East Side. But as a young man he moved to Santa Fe and to another life.
These were the days following the Civil War. New Mexico was on the verge of change, balanced between the new ways and the old. Powerful Spanish families still ruled the land, resisting all inroads of American civilization, backing and filling against the inexorable tide.
As a peddler, Leo Mendes had traveled throughout the Southwest, building a flourishing trade in the small towns and outposts. As the novels opens, he has decided to start a permanent store and trading post in the sleepy little village of Don Pedro... and by this step runs headlong into conflict with Don Agustin Vierra. Gringo storekeepers are not welcome.
In sense, The Conquest of Don Pedro is the story of Leo Mendes, his successes and his failures. But, in a larger sense, it is the story of a land and a people.
Harvey Fergusson has known the wild and beautiful country of New Mexico all his life. He knows it well and loves it deeply, and this gives a special warmth to his writing; a sharp and personal brilliance to his characterizations.
Long after you have read The Conquest of Don Pedro you will be haunted by the character of Dolores Pino, the strange, passionate witch woman of Santa Fe; you will remember Padre Orlando and wish that you, too, might have known his warm charm and benefited from his wise counsel you will think of Aurelio Beltran, and wish that you had really shared those lonesome hunts through breath-taking wildernessp and you will always wonder what part you yourself might have played in the unquiet life of Dona Lupe.
These are the characters who come alive as naturally as the scene itself. The Conquest of Don Pedro is a distinguished novel in every sense of the word - and that means that it is also an exciting and rewarding reading experience."
Historical fiction set along New Mexico's Rio Grande. The main character brings to mind those created by Nevil Shute
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_...
The New York Times wrote a review in 1954:
" LEO MENDES, a Portuguese Jew, grew up in New York City. When he was 28 years old, and the possessor of a weak lung, a bad cough and three hundred dollars, he traveled to the enchanting land of New Mexico to regain his health. ..."
https://www.nytimes.com/1954/06/27/ar...
Don't appreciate tone of linked 'commentary' - could be caveat for some readers, but I do recommend the author.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/ar...
quote from link:
"A Jewish Conquistador
The Conquest of Don Pedro.
by Harvey Fergusson.
Morrow. 250 pp. $3.50.
This is a novel laid in post-Civil War New Mexico. It is intended as one of those bits of Americana that fall under the heading “And Then Came the Railroads.” Don Pedro was, perhaps still is, a little Spanish village near the Texas arid Mexico borders. A few miles away in one direction was a famous salt lake and eleven miles in the other was a fort with a full company of United States cavalry. In the story, progress comes to Don Pedro only in the form of Leo Mendes, a peddler, “by remote origin . . . a Portuguese Jew and by birth a New Yorker,” who gives up his itinerant life and establishes there a successful trading post But every reader knows that where there is a clever Jew, mammoth industry and bustling commerce cannot be far behind.
Mr. Fergusson evidently knows a great deal about New Mexico. He was born there, and his publisher is willing to call him “one of our leading novelists of the Southwest.” Unfortunately, however, he is a bit chary about passing along the great wealth of information gleaned from living in, and writing about, the country for so long. We learn from The Conquest of Don Pedro that in little old Spanish villages life was rather simple and primitive, that the poor ate meagerly while squatting on the floor and that the rich ate more handsomely seated at tables, that proper young ladies were always properly chaperoned but by the time they were full-blown women they all became unusually industrious bed-mates, and that rich or poor, Spanish or American, everyone was a sucker for buying stuff he needed if only there was a man around with the breadth of vision and faith in the future to open up a general store. ..."
***
Here's another opinion copied and pasted
https://www.tias.com/13459/PictPage/3...
"Leo Mendes was a man of many lives. In a sense, he was a conquistador... if you can imagine a conquistador from Manhattan's lower East Side. But as a young man he moved to Santa Fe and to another life.
These were the days following the Civil War. New Mexico was on the verge of change, balanced between the new ways and the old. Powerful Spanish families still ruled the land, resisting all inroads of American civilization, backing and filling against the inexorable tide.
As a peddler, Leo Mendes had traveled throughout the Southwest, building a flourishing trade in the small towns and outposts. As the novels opens, he has decided to start a permanent store and trading post in the sleepy little village of Don Pedro... and by this step runs headlong into conflict with Don Agustin Vierra. Gringo storekeepers are not welcome.
In sense, The Conquest of Don Pedro is the story of Leo Mendes, his successes and his failures. But, in a larger sense, it is the story of a land and a people.
Harvey Fergusson has known the wild and beautiful country of New Mexico all his life. He knows it well and loves it deeply, and this gives a special warmth to his writing; a sharp and personal brilliance to his characterizations.
Long after you have read The Conquest of Don Pedro you will be haunted by the character of Dolores Pino, the strange, passionate witch woman of Santa Fe; you will remember Padre Orlando and wish that you, too, might have known his warm charm and benefited from his wise counsel you will think of Aurelio Beltran, and wish that you had really shared those lonesome hunts through breath-taking wildernessp and you will always wonder what part you yourself might have played in the unquiet life of Dona Lupe.
These are the characters who come alive as naturally as the scene itself. The Conquest of Don Pedro is a distinguished novel in every sense of the word - and that means that it is also an exciting and rewarding reading experience."
July 26, 2014
A New Mexico treasure. Someone recommended this; I'd never heard of it. Concerns a territorial era trader and his life and love, written in Fergusson's spare, strong language. Not an epic, short, to the point.
I came upon a stack of book club edition copies in Cinci 10 years ago, but have given them all away to friends by now.
I came upon a stack of book club edition copies in Cinci 10 years ago, but have given them all away to friends by now.
October 27, 2015
A friend loaned me this book, so I gave it a try and really liked it. The protagonist, a Brooklyn Jew who goes to New Mexico to recover from an infection with TB, becomes a peddler, a merchant, a wise man in a rough country. Character development and description of life on the New Mexico frontier are the strong points of this well told story.
November 29, 2025
I enjoyed this romantic southwestern tale written in the fifties and that gives nostalgic vibes of old western TV shows.
(p. 7) “He believed a man’s destiny is a thing he discovers, a mystery that unfolds, and he pursued his ends always in the spirit of inquiry rather than of heroic determination.”
(p. 212) “When a way and a phase of life is over, the man who lived it dies and must be reborn.”
(p. 228) “This man had been his friend, but friendship was now dead and another spirit had taken its place. Those who hate you most are the ones who believe they have wronged you.”
(p. 7) “He believed a man’s destiny is a thing he discovers, a mystery that unfolds, and he pursued his ends always in the spirit of inquiry rather than of heroic determination.”
(p. 212) “When a way and a phase of life is over, the man who lived it dies and must be reborn.”
(p. 228) “This man had been his friend, but friendship was now dead and another spirit had taken its place. Those who hate you most are the ones who believe they have wronged you.”
September 6, 2021
This was like an abbreviated McMurty novel about the West. Its pacing was great and I was interested throughout. But I have to say: I can’t tell if a main character’s relationship, at 40, with a 16 year old he’d known since she was a child (well, a younger child) was simply reflective of the time and place (1870s, I believe, with Mexican cultural influences of the time ), or objectively creepy. Regardless, The Reader was clearly supposed to be invested in it and… no.
March 26, 2014
very interesting story and characters. new mexico
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews