New Mexicans were "illiterate".
Unlettered and illiterate are one and the same. But unlettered seems kinder.
Americans dressed in "buckskins".
New Mexicans dressed in "animal skins".
Again, no difference in meaning, but one sounds better than the other.
These are some examples of the word smithing folks use. Sometimes it is done intentionally and sometimes not. They are particularly plentiful when people are in conflict. Like now with the Iraq war and like then, when the Americans first got to New Mexico. Usually it is done to vilify one group and raise the status of another.
On another post on this blog I posted of one man, hung as a traitor, hung for treason for daring to plot against the United States in early 1847, less than a year after the Americans invaded and occupied New Mexico and most of Northern Mexico. He was don Antonio Maria Trujillo. What would we call an American today who plotted against an invader that had been here less than a year and planned to stay forever as ruler? We would call him/her a hero/heroine. But don Antonio Maria Trujillo went down in history as a traitor.
Watch out for those types of word smithing in the history of New Mexico.
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