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 until his assassination.

[2] After leaving the army, in 1828, Charles and his younger brother, William, took a wagon train of goods from St. Louis to Santa Fe.

Governor Bent and Colonel Sterling Price found out about the conspiracy and some of the leaders of the movement were arrested, but two important ones were able to escape.

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.

[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.

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.

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