"Travelling this morning quietly over the plain, we heard in the distance of several miles a singular, awful noise, like a combination of falling rocks, breaking of bones, screams of anguish and cries of children, but the deep impression which the mysterious concert had made upon my ears was but surpassed by the surprising effect, when with my own eyes I descried the wonderful machine whose action produced that unearthly music - a Mexican carréta.  Imagine to yourself a cart, made without any nails or iron of any kind, and with two solid wheels formed out of the trunk of a big tree, and in the circumference rounded, or rather squared, and with a frame of ox-skin or sticks fastened together by rawhide, and this machine then put in motion by three yoke of oxen, and carrying a load, which on a better vehicle one animal could transport much faster and easier, and you will have an idea of this primitive and only known vehicle used in Northern Mexico."

Memoir Of A Tour to Northern Mexico
A. Wislizenus, M. D.
January, 1848

Two of the most pejorative terms in New Mexico - Greaser and Gringo Salado - came from the 1830s when the Americano wagon trains began to arrive in New Mexico. The term Greaser referred to the individuals that accompanied carretas, carrying buckets of tallow, whose job it was to "grease" the wood on wood hubs and axles of the carreta . Gringo salado (salty gringo) was directed at the American wagon train crews who, after 3 months on the trail with little or no bathing, were very dirty and odoriferous when they arrived in Santa Fe. Transportation industry insults. Using either term could spark a fight.

--Mike Lord