Fifteen years in refugee housing in Guadalupe del Norte must have had some effect on people who were wrenched from what at become a relatively cloistered world and thrown into the more cosmopolitan one nearer the silver mines of México.
After Diego de Vargas resettled New Mexico with recruits from Mexico City and Zacatecas, he and the subsequent Bourbon governors introduced more changes.
Fernando Durán y Chaves, the younger, and his wife, Lucía Hurtado de Salas y Trujillo, were the only members of Angélico Chávez’s family to return. The Franciscan historian says after the Reconquest, men in his family were no longer called into political or military matters as they had been. Such institutions had probably become more professionalized under the Bourbon bureaucrats or perhaps they just required men with different ambitions.
The family response seems to have been retreat. Fernando lapsed into senility. In 1712, he physically attacked the alcalde mayor of Albuquerque, Juan González Bas, as a "perro yndio Griego" and "un perro mulato." González Bas was the descendant of Juan Griego who owned the Alameda grant north of his Atrisco grant.
In a similar incident in 1759, the ancien regime protested when José López Naranjo’s grandson, José António Naranjo, was made capitán de gente de guerra, They claimed he was only the commander of Indian troops, not the descendant of a conquistador like themselves. At that time, Chávez says, many of his supporters lived in Chimayó.
Chaves and his wife discouraged their children from mingling with newcomers, especially those from Zacatecas. The one who did, their great-grandson Cristóbal Chaves, had to visit his sister at Laguna to secretly marry a woman from Mexico City. The other descendants were reduced to asking the friars for dispensations to marry cousins because of the "paucity in this Kingdom of blood quality."
One man they would have shunned was Francisco Montes Vigil, the original owner of the Alameda grant. It wasn’t that he was an español. Lucía’s family had had its share of misalliances, especially the marriage of her great-great-grandmother, María de Abendaño, to the bigamous Diego de Vera, a marriage that made her husband her cousin. There was also the more recent involvement of her sister Juana with some Naranjo.
The problem with Vigil was that he represented the new ways seeping north. Chaves was passing on the values of a disenfranchised nobility that had been resisting the power of a centralized government since Juan de Oñate was deposed, while the other was creating a culturally inherited ability to exploit institutional rules, adversity and even subjugation.
Vigil apparently connived with Juan Paéz Hurtado to pad the register of names recruited in Zacatecas and pocket commissions. Historians translating the papers of Vargas say his large family was broken into three units, each presumably paid the 320 peso recruiting fee, minus a kick back. When interrogated later, Vigil admitted he’d enlisted men from gambling halls under false names for Paéz and that Paéz kept 100 pesos for himself.
After he sold the Alameda grant to González Bas, Vigil and his family moved to the villa of Santa Cruz, perhaps because he saw more opportunities in the north, perhaps because it was a less hostile social environment for a restored mestizo raised by a well-connected father in an urban center.
His son, also Juan Montes Vigil, requested land north of the Truchas River in 1754. The land had become available when the alcalde, Juan José Lovato, changed the boundaries of the Truchas Land Grant made to eleven residents from Chimayó and Pueblo Quemado, five Romeros, four Espinosas, Francisco Bernal, and Cristóbal Martín. Vigil was an official witness to that transfer.
This wasn’t the only case of Lovato, the nephew or son of Bartolomé Labota who’d come with Paéz, changing grant boundaries. When Pedro Sánchez couldn’t produce the defining papers for his grant in 1742, Lovato altered the border with San Ildefonso. A Vigil descendant, José Ramón Vigil, bought eight of eleven shares in the grant in 1851 for $20, a yoke of oxen, 36 ewes and one ram.
Francisco, or one of his descendants ended up owning land between that of José López Naranjo and António de Salazar, perhaps after Naranjo died and Vigil survived the Pawnee attack in 1720 or maybe after Naranjo’s only son, José António Naranjo, fled the area in 1731 after killing someone.
No one has said exactly how it happened, only that the land was known as La Vega de los Vigiles when José Ramón’s daughter, Josefita Vigil, married José Benedicto Naranjo. Naranjo sold it to the Denver and Rio Grande, who, in turn, sold some to Frank Bond for his livestock shipping facility.
Benedicto was the great-grandson of José Geronimo Naranjo, the grandson of José López Naranjo. His son, José Alejandrino Naranjo, married Delfinia Vigil. Their son, Emilio Naranjo, was born in Guachupangue, the area abutting the Santa Clara reserve on the north.
Alejandrino had gone to the smelters and mines in Colorado to earn money rather than raise sheep for Bond. He sent his son to secondary school in Santa Fé and college in El Rito. Emilio built the Democratic Party in Rio Arriba county after World War II when Spanish speaking citizens in the area finally felt they were free to vote as they wished.
The railroad, of course, brought men like John Block who married Sofia Vigil Valdez. They adopted Fidel Salazar, the son of José Ramón Salazar and Francisquita de Sales Atencio, to raise as John Block, Junior. José Ramón was 20 years old when he became a father. Sofia was his aunt. Block senior was the prime mover behind building the Santa Cruz dam.
The only men of comparable ambition in the Chaves family were the children of Cristóbal Chaves and María Josefa Núñez. Some migrated to Ceboletta County when the Navajo were removed and others went to Mora County after Fort Union was established to control the Comanche.
Angélico was born to the latter branch. He remembered asking his mother, María Nicolasa Roybal, if any of her family were hermanos. She said "the family had always been such good Catholics that they had no cause for the joining the Penitentes."
When he asked about the family of his father, Fabián Chávez, they had slipped so far she said "Your father’s people were not even good enough Christians to be Penitentes."
Genealogies drawn from various sources:
Naranjo:
Alonso > ? > Domingo/? > José López > José Antonio > José Geronimo > António José > José Manuel > José Benedicto > José Alejandrino > Emilio
Vigil to Naranjo:
Francisco Montes > Francisco Montes > Manuel Gregorio > Nicolás António > José Ramón > Josefita who married José Benedicto Naranjo
Durán y Chaves/Chávez:
Pedro > Fernando > Fernando >António > Tomás > Cristóbal > José Mariano > José Encarnación > José Francisco > Eugenío > Fabián > Angélico
Salazar:
Hernán Martín Serrano > María Martín > María ? > Agustín Salazar > António Salazar > Francisco Miguel Salazar > María Salazar who married Julian Lorenzo Salazar > José Julian Salazar > Juan Francisco Estevan Salazar > Pedro Ignacio Salazar y Valdez > José Eutimio Salazar > José Ramón Salazar > Fidel Salazar/John Block Jr
Vigil to Salazar:
Francisco Montes > Juan Bautista Montes > António José Montes > Joe Dolores > María de la Luz who married Lorenzo Valdez > María del Carmel Valdez who married Juan Francisco Estevan Salazar
Notes:
Bowden J. J. "Ramon Vigil Grant," New Mexico Office of the State Historian website.
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. My Penitente Land, 1974.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Kessell, John L., Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge. A Settling of Accounts: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, 1700-1704, volume 6, 2002.
Shiller, Mark. "The Truchas Grant," available on-line.
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Monday, July 14, 2014
Shadow of the Reconquest - José López Naranjo
José López Naranjo had an even greater need than Agustín de Salazar to prove his loyalty to the authorities if he wanted to remain in the area where he was born. His father, Domingo Naranjo, had been one of the leaders of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and he’d personally refused to spend the exile in Guadalupe del Norte.
In June of 1696, he established his bona fides when his brother Lucas was leading the Santa Clara resistance to the Spanish. José killed him and brought his head back to Diego de Vargas.
His ancestry is an even greater puzzle than Salazar’s. According to Angélico Chávez, Lucas had the dark complexion of the mulatto Domingo. José did not.
I suspect his ultimate Spanish ancestor was Alonso Naranjo, a native of Valladolid with a "tawny beard," who came north with Bernabé de Las Casas in 1600, with 10 horses and 22 head of cattle. He left no further record, but the name Naranjo migrated into the pueblos, probably through children abandoned to their mothers.
According to Chávez, the mestizo heirs had contentious relations with their pure-blood cousins. Jémez killed Diego Martín Naranjo; San Felipe killed Bartolomé Naranjo in 1680 because they feared he’d betray their planned rebellion; a two-year old, María Naranjo, was kidnaped in 1680. Her mother, Juana Hurtado, also held captive, was the daughter of Andrés Hurtado, the father-in-law of Fernando Durán y Chaves.
Incidentally, that wasn’t the first connection between Chavez’s family and the Naranjos. Fernando’s father, Pedro Durán y Chaves paid Pascual Naranjo to take his place on a military campaign against other Indians. Pascual fled to Guadalupe del Paso with his family and didn’t return.
I suspect one of the women involved with Naranjo or one of their daughters was the one who became involved with a mulatto servant or teamster and gave birth to Domingo. Even today, a woman who has lost her status or sense of self worth may become vulnerable or open to other declassé men.
There’s no reason to think Domingo was involved with only one woman, especially after he acquired power in Santa Clara, nor, for that matter, is there any reason to believe a woman involved with him was monogamous. Lucas and José may have had different mothers or different fathers in one household.
Chávez thinks the name came directly through the father, some mulatto who came north with one of Oñate’s men and associated himself with Naranjo, taking his name. That man then worked as a herder in the area of Santa Clara, where he met the woman who would become Domingo’s mother. He believes the progenitor was part Tlascaltec and versed in Aztec lore.
Whatever the truth, José showed a willingness to destroy Indians on behalf of his Spanish masters. In 1702, he was alcalde mayor of Zuñi and active in subjugating the Hopi. In 1704, he was commanding native scouts in the campaign against the Apache, the one that caused Vargas’s death. In 1715, he was fighting the Navajo.
Unlike Salazar, he never asked for a land grant. Instead, he either settled on land between that claimed by Salazar and the Santa Clara on the west side of river, or received some from Salazar through a sale, trade, or gift.
Naranjo married María Catarina Luján, the illegitimate daughter of Matías Luján of Santa Cruz, who might have been the son of Juan Luján and brother of Juan Luis. The latter had the land north of that claimed by Salazar. Matías had married Francisca Romero, but had a daughter by a native servant. However, Chávez said, there was another Matías Luján in the area married to Catalina Verala, so nothing can be known absolutely.
Naranjo died in the Pawnee ambush of Pedro de Villasur in 1720, which Francisco Montes Vigil survived.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Simmons, Marc. "Trail Dust: Part-Indian Was Loyal to Spanish Cause," The New Mexican, 11 September 2009.
Wild Horses Southwest Art Gallery. History of the Horse in the United States of America's West," gallery website.
In June of 1696, he established his bona fides when his brother Lucas was leading the Santa Clara resistance to the Spanish. José killed him and brought his head back to Diego de Vargas.
His ancestry is an even greater puzzle than Salazar’s. According to Angélico Chávez, Lucas had the dark complexion of the mulatto Domingo. José did not.
I suspect his ultimate Spanish ancestor was Alonso Naranjo, a native of Valladolid with a "tawny beard," who came north with Bernabé de Las Casas in 1600, with 10 horses and 22 head of cattle. He left no further record, but the name Naranjo migrated into the pueblos, probably through children abandoned to their mothers.
According to Chávez, the mestizo heirs had contentious relations with their pure-blood cousins. Jémez killed Diego Martín Naranjo; San Felipe killed Bartolomé Naranjo in 1680 because they feared he’d betray their planned rebellion; a two-year old, María Naranjo, was kidnaped in 1680. Her mother, Juana Hurtado, also held captive, was the daughter of Andrés Hurtado, the father-in-law of Fernando Durán y Chaves.
Incidentally, that wasn’t the first connection between Chavez’s family and the Naranjos. Fernando’s father, Pedro Durán y Chaves paid Pascual Naranjo to take his place on a military campaign against other Indians. Pascual fled to Guadalupe del Paso with his family and didn’t return.
I suspect one of the women involved with Naranjo or one of their daughters was the one who became involved with a mulatto servant or teamster and gave birth to Domingo. Even today, a woman who has lost her status or sense of self worth may become vulnerable or open to other declassé men.
There’s no reason to think Domingo was involved with only one woman, especially after he acquired power in Santa Clara, nor, for that matter, is there any reason to believe a woman involved with him was monogamous. Lucas and José may have had different mothers or different fathers in one household.
Chávez thinks the name came directly through the father, some mulatto who came north with one of Oñate’s men and associated himself with Naranjo, taking his name. That man then worked as a herder in the area of Santa Clara, where he met the woman who would become Domingo’s mother. He believes the progenitor was part Tlascaltec and versed in Aztec lore.
Whatever the truth, José showed a willingness to destroy Indians on behalf of his Spanish masters. In 1702, he was alcalde mayor of Zuñi and active in subjugating the Hopi. In 1704, he was commanding native scouts in the campaign against the Apache, the one that caused Vargas’s death. In 1715, he was fighting the Navajo.
Unlike Salazar, he never asked for a land grant. Instead, he either settled on land between that claimed by Salazar and the Santa Clara on the west side of river, or received some from Salazar through a sale, trade, or gift.
Naranjo married María Catarina Luján, the illegitimate daughter of Matías Luján of Santa Cruz, who might have been the son of Juan Luján and brother of Juan Luis. The latter had the land north of that claimed by Salazar. Matías had married Francisca Romero, but had a daughter by a native servant. However, Chávez said, there was another Matías Luján in the area married to Catalina Verala, so nothing can be known absolutely.
Naranjo died in the Pawnee ambush of Pedro de Villasur in 1720, which Francisco Montes Vigil survived.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Simmons, Marc. "Trail Dust: Part-Indian Was Loyal to Spanish Cause," The New Mexican, 11 September 2009.
Wild Horses Southwest Art Gallery. History of the Horse in the United States of America's West," gallery website.
Sunday, July 06, 2014
Shadow of the Reconquest - Agustín de Salazar
Mestizos in Zacatecas like Francisco Montes Vigil had an easier time establishing their loyalty to Spain than those who’d lived in the colony before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
Agustín de Salazar was a blind interpreter for Diego de Vargas, who was described as "proficient in his mother tongue." He demonstrated his loyalty in 1693 in Santa Fé when he warned his superiors about hostile actions planned by the Tano speakers. He was helped out of the city by Miguel Luján, the one who had land in La Cañada that Angélico Chávez thought was kin to Juan Ruiz Cáceres and Juan Luján, also of La Cañada.
His son, António de Salazar requested land in 1714 owned by his grandfather, Alonso Martín Barba, on the west side of the Río Grande near the villa of Santa Cruz.
As near as I can tell, these were lands settled by Hernán Martín Serrano, which means António had to prove his lineage to a man who was born in Zacatecas and came north with Juan de Oñate. He and his wife, Juana Rodríguez, had two sons, Hernán and Luis, who used the land on the west side of the river mentioned by Luis Pérez Granillo in his 1695 report on La Cañada.
Juana wasn’t identified by Chávez, so it’s not clear how or if she were related to Pedro Rodríguez and Juan Luján who came from the Canary Islands to La Cañada two years later. Rodríguez was a common enough name, but the overlapping names that characterized their families also marked her own descendants. However, the confluence of names is more likely the result of general inbreeding that developed over three generations in an isolated community.
In addition to the two boys, Juana and Hernán had a daughter, María Martín, who must have inherited land north of her brothers.
María Martín was poisoned by María Bernal, probably in 1632. The daughter of Juan Griego and Pascula Bernal was then the widow of Juan Gómez Barragán and romantically involved with María Martín’s husband, Alonso Martín Barba. Before María Martín died, she had a daughter, María, who later married Bartolomé de Salazar, the grandfather of Antonio.
That much was accepted by the governor who granted him the lands.
The life of the younger María was much of a mystery to Chávez. At one point he said she "was accused of scandalous conduct" by the Inquisition.
In one place Chávez said Martín Barba’s daughter, María de los Ángeles Martín, married Gaspar de Arratia, who was dead by 1631, when she was 22. Agustín de Salazar was 33 in 1698, which means he would have been born around 1665, when this woman would have been about 56 years old.
María Martín might not have been Martín Barba’s first wife; her brother Hernán was 25 in 1632. Alonso’s daughter, María de los Ángeles Martín, was 23 that year. He was married to Francisca de Herrera Abregna by 1634, when his daughter Ana Martn’s daughter, Ynez de Zamoa, married Juan López.
Chávez also said María de los Ángeles Martín, or a sister also named María, married Francisco de Salazar, or something close: the writing wasn’t legible.
Francisco de Salazar was executed in 1643 for his involvement in the murder of Luis de Rosas in 1641. Bartolomé de Salazar, the husband of María Martín and grandfather of Antonio, was dead before 1662. Neither Salazar is identified further by Chávez, probably because neither was inventoried as part of the troops with Juan de Oñate and Bernabé de Las Casas.
Elsewhere, Chávez said the María Martín who married Bartolomé de Salazar, may also have been married to Bartolomé de Ledesma, if the two weren’t the same man. Ledesma was dead by 1667 when her brother, Hernán Martín Serrano, was the executor of the second’s estate.
Bartolomé de Salazar was alcade for Zuñi and Hopi. He and María had a daughter, Juana de Salazar, who was half Zuñi. She married Diego Luján.
Although we usually assume it’s the man who fathers an illegitimate child with a native, in this case it may have been the mother. If Agustín de Salazar was 33 in 1698 and part-Indian, he would have been born around 1665, after Bartolomé de Salazar was dead, if we can accept any dates and ages from a time without records.
Agustín married Felipa de Gamboa, the daughter of Cristóbal de Gamboa and Antonia López, a Tiwa speaker from Sandía pueblo.
Their son, António, married María de Torres, the daughter of Cristóbal de Torres and Angela de Leyva, who moved from Albuquerque to Santa Cruz to Chama after the reconquest. Her brother, Diego, was alcalde mayor for Santa Clara.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, included Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.
Agustín de Salazar was a blind interpreter for Diego de Vargas, who was described as "proficient in his mother tongue." He demonstrated his loyalty in 1693 in Santa Fé when he warned his superiors about hostile actions planned by the Tano speakers. He was helped out of the city by Miguel Luján, the one who had land in La Cañada that Angélico Chávez thought was kin to Juan Ruiz Cáceres and Juan Luján, also of La Cañada.
His son, António de Salazar requested land in 1714 owned by his grandfather, Alonso Martín Barba, on the west side of the Río Grande near the villa of Santa Cruz.
As near as I can tell, these were lands settled by Hernán Martín Serrano, which means António had to prove his lineage to a man who was born in Zacatecas and came north with Juan de Oñate. He and his wife, Juana Rodríguez, had two sons, Hernán and Luis, who used the land on the west side of the river mentioned by Luis Pérez Granillo in his 1695 report on La Cañada.
Juana wasn’t identified by Chávez, so it’s not clear how or if she were related to Pedro Rodríguez and Juan Luján who came from the Canary Islands to La Cañada two years later. Rodríguez was a common enough name, but the overlapping names that characterized their families also marked her own descendants. However, the confluence of names is more likely the result of general inbreeding that developed over three generations in an isolated community.
In addition to the two boys, Juana and Hernán had a daughter, María Martín, who must have inherited land north of her brothers.
María Martín was poisoned by María Bernal, probably in 1632. The daughter of Juan Griego and Pascula Bernal was then the widow of Juan Gómez Barragán and romantically involved with María Martín’s husband, Alonso Martín Barba. Before María Martín died, she had a daughter, María, who later married Bartolomé de Salazar, the grandfather of Antonio.
That much was accepted by the governor who granted him the lands.
The life of the younger María was much of a mystery to Chávez. At one point he said she "was accused of scandalous conduct" by the Inquisition.
In one place Chávez said Martín Barba’s daughter, María de los Ángeles Martín, married Gaspar de Arratia, who was dead by 1631, when she was 22. Agustín de Salazar was 33 in 1698, which means he would have been born around 1665, when this woman would have been about 56 years old.
María Martín might not have been Martín Barba’s first wife; her brother Hernán was 25 in 1632. Alonso’s daughter, María de los Ángeles Martín, was 23 that year. He was married to Francisca de Herrera Abregna by 1634, when his daughter Ana Martn’s daughter, Ynez de Zamoa, married Juan López.
Chávez also said María de los Ángeles Martín, or a sister also named María, married Francisco de Salazar, or something close: the writing wasn’t legible.
Francisco de Salazar was executed in 1643 for his involvement in the murder of Luis de Rosas in 1641. Bartolomé de Salazar, the husband of María Martín and grandfather of Antonio, was dead before 1662. Neither Salazar is identified further by Chávez, probably because neither was inventoried as part of the troops with Juan de Oñate and Bernabé de Las Casas.
Elsewhere, Chávez said the María Martín who married Bartolomé de Salazar, may also have been married to Bartolomé de Ledesma, if the two weren’t the same man. Ledesma was dead by 1667 when her brother, Hernán Martín Serrano, was the executor of the second’s estate.
Bartolomé de Salazar was alcade for Zuñi and Hopi. He and María had a daughter, Juana de Salazar, who was half Zuñi. She married Diego Luján.
Although we usually assume it’s the man who fathers an illegitimate child with a native, in this case it may have been the mother. If Agustín de Salazar was 33 in 1698 and part-Indian, he would have been born around 1665, after Bartolomé de Salazar was dead, if we can accept any dates and ages from a time without records.
Agustín married Felipa de Gamboa, the daughter of Cristóbal de Gamboa and Antonia López, a Tiwa speaker from Sandía pueblo.
Their son, António, married María de Torres, the daughter of Cristóbal de Torres and Angela de Leyva, who moved from Albuquerque to Santa Cruz to Chama after the reconquest. Her brother, Diego, was alcalde mayor for Santa Clara.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, included Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.
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