Charles Bent (November 11, 1799 – January 19, 1847) was an American businessman and politician who served as the first civilian United States governor of the New Mexico Territory, newly invaded and occupied by the United States during the Mexican-American War by the Military Governor, Stephen Watts Kearny, in September 1846.

Bent had been working as a fur trader in the region since 1828, with his younger brother, William, and later partner Ceran St. Vrain. Though his office was in Santa Fe, Bent maintained his residence and a trading post in Taos, New Mexico Territory, in present-day New Mexico. On January 19, 1847, Bent was scalped and killed by Pueblo warriors, during the Taos Revolt.

Charles Louis Bent was born in Charleston, Virginia, the oldest of the ten children of Judge Silas Bent, and his wife Martha Kerr.^[1]

The other children were: Juliannah, Joh, Lucy, Dorcas, William, Mary, George, Robert, Edward, and Silas.^[2]

In January 1847, while serving as territorial governor, Bent traveled to his hometown of Taos without military protection. After arriving, he was scalped alive and murdered in his home by a group of pueblo Native American attackers, under the orders of Mexican conspirators who started the Taos Revolt. Bent is buried in the National Cemetery in Santa Fe.^[4]

The women and children in the Bent home were not harmed by the insurgents, and the remaining members of the family fled to safety next door through a hole in the parlor wall.

In the following months, Colonel Price was able to quell the uprising, which ended in July 1847. Most of the rebels were caught and some of them were executed.^[5][6][7]

In 1835, Charles "Carlos" Bent married Maria Ignacia Jaramillo, who was born in Taos, New Mexico. Maria's younger sister, Josefa Jaramillo, would later marry Kit Carson.^[8]

Charles and Maria had five children: Alfred, Estifina, Teresina, George (died as infant), and Virginia (died as infant). Alfred was murdered at Taos on December 9, 1865.^[9] Yiorgos Caralambo (a.k.a. Greek George) was allegedly hired as the assassin by people with interests in the Maxwell Land Grant, 1/4 of which Alfred and his two sisters inherited from their father Charles. Lucien B. Maxwell, Charles Beaubien, and Guadalupe Miranda held large other portions of the grant.^[9]

Charles's brothers Robert and George died at Bent's Fort (1846 and 1841, respectively).^[10]

Charles Bent owned Charlotte and Dick Green, who worked at Bent's Fort. William Bent freed the couple after Dick fought with the posse that avenged Charles's assassination.^[11]

Bent Street, which runs in front of what had been his home in Taos, and Martyr's Lane, which runs behind it, are named for him.

The Governor Charles Bent House is now a museum. An elementary school in northeast Albuquerque is named in Bent's honor.

Bent documented the indigenous peoples of New Mexico in an essay which was published posthumously in Henry Schoolcraft's study of American Indians:

• Bent, Charles (1846). "Indian Tribes of New Mexico". In Schoolcraft, Henry R (ed.). Information respecting the history, condition and prospects of the Indian tribes of the United States. Vol. I. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Company, 1851. pp. 242–246. ISBN 9780598563460.

• List of assassinated American politicians