Ralph Twitchell, a lawyer for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, was trained in history and law at the University of Michigan. In the early twentieth century, he indexed the surviving Spanish archives in Santa Fé and in the Library of Congress.
He included the Royal Judiciary investigations of Leonor Domínguez’s witchcraft accusations "in full," because he thought the "record of the this trial, of consuming interest, and showing the manner in which proceedings of this sort were conducted."
They also are the most complete window we have into the social relations in Santa Cruz during the period when Spain was being transferred from the Hapsburgs.
In the years before he died, Charles II had questioned the value of the Inquisition. The man who replaced him in 1700, Philip V, was from the French House of Bourbon. Its progenitor was Henry III of Navarre who became Henry IV of France in 1589. He had been raised a Protestant Huguenot, converted when he was crowned, and assassinated as unreliable in 1610.
The fate of the women in the pueblo lay in the hands of three men who no longer saw prosecuting witchcraft as likely to further their careers. One was an admiral from Spain, the others soldiers from New Spain.
The governor treated it as a routine matter. His procedures were rooted in medieval Castilian law understood in Spain, México, and the colony. In 1550, the methods had been modernized to emphasize investigation over presumption of guilt, and to consider the well-being of the community, the equidad, over individual interests.
The governor, José Chacón de Medina Salazar y Villaseñor, was the first appointed by the new king of Spain, Philip V. He could trace his family back to medieval Navarre. At least one ancestor had died at Acre during the Fourth Crusade.
By the time his grandfather came of age, his branch of the family had moved to Andalusia and were supporters of the Spanish monarchy. Before Charles V ascended the Spanish throne, he had inherited Flanders from his father. When he was elevated to king in 1515, the King of France, who claimed the lowlands, expected him to pay homage. War ensued.
Gonzalo Chacón de Narváez y Alarcón served in Flanders where he fought a duel with his superior. He left for the Indies. Eventually he became capitán alcalde of one of the fortresses protecting Havana harbor, Castillo San Salvador de la Punta, in 1516.
His son, Gonzalo Chacón de Narváez y Treviño Guillamás, was born in Cuba where he became Almirante y General de Galeones, the great sailing ships of trade and war. He retired to Seville and Andalusia in 1655. He was named Marquis of Peñuela in 1692 by Charles II. The title went to his older son, who died in 1705 with no heirs.
José Chacón was also an admiral. He had married Antonia Torres de Navarra and Monsalve in Seville. Since nothing more is heard of him, he must have returned to Spain in 1712 where their son, Luis, eventually succeeded to the title.
At the time he dismissed the case Chacón may have been aware that one, if not both, of the men he had appointed as investigators had developed ties with Domínguez’s family. It certainly is the sort of thing members of her husband’s family, the Martín Serranos would have let be known.
Juan García de la Riva’s wife, Feliciana Rael de Aguilar, was the daughter of Leonor Domínguez’s aunt. Josefa García de Noriega had married Alonso Rael de Aguilar in Guadalupe del Paso. He had come from Lorca in Múrcia, Spain, probably as a solider.
His father, Miguel García de la Riva, had come in 1693 from Mexico City with his family. Juan apparently enlisted as a soldier. The family aligned itself with the governors. One sister, Teodora, married Vargas’s aide. Juan Páez Hurtado rose to governor in 1704. Another sister, María Francisca, entered the household service of the next governor, Francisco Cuervo y Valdés.
Miguel and many other family members returned to New Spain. In 1716 his widow, Micaela Velasco, returned to Santa Fé to collect affidavits to support the paternity claim for María’s children by Cuervo. Juan returned with her and died in México in 1717.
Juan de Ulibarrí’s connections are harder to decipher. He had come from San Luis Potosí as a solider. By 1704, he was second in command of the Santa Fé garrison.
He married Juana Hurtado, who may have been the daughter of Andrés Hurtado and Bernardina de Salas y Orozco. Angélico Chávez says that Juana had been captured by the Indians in 1680 and freed in 1682. However, he gives no more information on her fate. Her brother, Andrés Hurtado, was the first husband of Leonor’s sister Antonia Domínguez de Mendoza.
It’s no wonder Chacón decided to dismiss a case that might have the undesirable consequence of attracting the attention of Franciscans still loyal to his predecessor. Chacón knew from Spain, the necessity of building useful alliances. Although he seemed to side with one side over the other in the matter, both had signaled in their depositions they would prefer to keep the family matter private.
Notes:
Chacón, José Luis Diaz. Geneología del Apellido Chancón, available on-line. The chronology is confusing because there are no death dates, and the first marquis isn’t always listed.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914; names standardized to those used by Chavez.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Chronicles of Leonor: The Investigation
On Sunday, the thirteenth of May in 1708, Leonor Domínguez precipitated a crisis in Santa Cruz. She filed a legal complaint or denuncia in Santa Fé stating she was ill because she had been bewitched by three women living in San Juan.
The governor could not ignore such a petition. He began the sumaria asking his alcalde ordinario de segundo voto, Juan García de las Riva, to validate her claims of illness.
After he read García’s reconocimiento de heridas, the governor proceeded to the next step in the standard investigation. He had the accused women arrested on May 15.
The next day, García questioned Leonor, and then gave the three accused an opportunity to make a confesión. The women denied the charges. He questioned two again, and found slight changes in their stories. They, of course, had had time to consider their best responses.
On May 18, the governor advanced from the sumario phase to the juicio plenario, when both the accuser and the accused were asked for witnesses. He turned this part over to the sargento mayor, Juan de Ulibarrí.
Lenore was interviewed again on May 22. When asked why she suspected the women, she said she had been told one of them was the mistress of her husband, Miguel Martín. She added she also had heard of other women being bewitched and cured by people at San Juan.
Ulibarrí then questioned her witness to the initial episode, the woman who told her about the adultery, and a man who witnessed an earlier incident. Next Ulibarrí examined Leonor’s husband, Miguel.
On May 25, Ulibarrí turned to the couple at San Juan who were said to have cured women bewitched earlier. Two days later he interviewed the accused women who were being held in chains. He ordered the one who was crippled released from the irons, but kept under arrest.
By then, everyone involved was more concerned with the consequences of the investigation to themselves than they were with the truth. They probably remembered the case of Cristóbal Góngora and Ines de Aspeitia. They had come with different spouses from Mexico City. They were married and living in Santa Cruz in 1701 when he found human bones wrapped in a mantle.
After Góngora called some men to witness, the priest, Padre Alvarez, granted him a legal separation. Two years later, in 1704, another priest, Padre Arranegui, made them live together despite Góngora’s objections. The next year, José Antonio Romero came into the house with a sword, threatening the man who was there, Góngora’s step-father. Still another priest, Juan Minguez, was called to investigate.
No one wanted the church involved in their personal affairs.
The only support one any gave to Leonor’s story was an admission of events that occurred in public and could be verified by others. They denied everything else. Several of the woman said they had told Leonor not to be foolish. Two men said she was jealous.
The governor read Ulibarrí’s report and ordered the women released on May 31.
Notes: In all the items in this series, I am using translations or third party summaries of cases. Even if I had access to the original Spanish documents, I wouldn’t be able to detect the nuances of language necessary to understand everything that is meant.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914.
The governor could not ignore such a petition. He began the sumaria asking his alcalde ordinario de segundo voto, Juan García de las Riva, to validate her claims of illness.
After he read García’s reconocimiento de heridas, the governor proceeded to the next step in the standard investigation. He had the accused women arrested on May 15.
The next day, García questioned Leonor, and then gave the three accused an opportunity to make a confesión. The women denied the charges. He questioned two again, and found slight changes in their stories. They, of course, had had time to consider their best responses.
On May 18, the governor advanced from the sumario phase to the juicio plenario, when both the accuser and the accused were asked for witnesses. He turned this part over to the sargento mayor, Juan de Ulibarrí.
Lenore was interviewed again on May 22. When asked why she suspected the women, she said she had been told one of them was the mistress of her husband, Miguel Martín. She added she also had heard of other women being bewitched and cured by people at San Juan.
Ulibarrí then questioned her witness to the initial episode, the woman who told her about the adultery, and a man who witnessed an earlier incident. Next Ulibarrí examined Leonor’s husband, Miguel.
On May 25, Ulibarrí turned to the couple at San Juan who were said to have cured women bewitched earlier. Two days later he interviewed the accused women who were being held in chains. He ordered the one who was crippled released from the irons, but kept under arrest.
By then, everyone involved was more concerned with the consequences of the investigation to themselves than they were with the truth. They probably remembered the case of Cristóbal Góngora and Ines de Aspeitia. They had come with different spouses from Mexico City. They were married and living in Santa Cruz in 1701 when he found human bones wrapped in a mantle.
After Góngora called some men to witness, the priest, Padre Alvarez, granted him a legal separation. Two years later, in 1704, another priest, Padre Arranegui, made them live together despite Góngora’s objections. The next year, José Antonio Romero came into the house with a sword, threatening the man who was there, Góngora’s step-father. Still another priest, Juan Minguez, was called to investigate.
No one wanted the church involved in their personal affairs.
The only support one any gave to Leonor’s story was an admission of events that occurred in public and could be verified by others. They denied everything else. Several of the woman said they had told Leonor not to be foolish. Two men said she was jealous.
The governor read Ulibarrí’s report and ordered the women released on May 31.
Notes: In all the items in this series, I am using translations or third party summaries of cases. Even if I had access to the original Spanish documents, I wouldn’t be able to detect the nuances of language necessary to understand everything that is meant.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
La Cañada Marriages
The community of Santa Cruz in 1700 was too small to be self-sustaining.
It had no educated men willing to work as notaries. All the notaries who signed diligencias matrimoniales came from elsewhere. José Manuel Giltomey, who served from 1696 to 1703, was from the Philippines. A man from Mexico City, Miguel de Quintana, signed papers from 1704 to 1712. Juan de Paz Bustillos, Cristóbal Góngora, and Juan de Atienza Sevillano served shorter terms. The first two were from Mexico City, the last from Puebla.
Too few families returned to support marriages without the priests raising questions of consanguinity. The proposed marriage between Isabel Madrid and Agustín Sáez was stopped when Antonio Bernal and Bartolomé Lobato said the two were related in the third degree through his first wife. Matías Madrid agreed his wife and Sáez’s first wife were first cousins.
In the first three years, a third (3) of the Santa Cruz marriages were between returning families. Two were with families who had some old kinship ties, and one was from the Santa Fé. The remaining third with people from the Río Abajo.
Around 1700, all the marriages were contracted with people who had some tie to La Cañada, often through a mother or grandmother.
After 1705, two-thirds of the marriages were still with people with an ancestral tie to La Cañada, but the rest were with families from the Río Abajo.
The Martíns were the most likely to marry from outside the Santa Cruz valley. Many were with a family with an even more distinguished past, and possibly even more misalliances: the Domínguez y Mendozas.
The other Río Abajo men introduced into the north were Trujillos.
Although circumstances were prodding La Cañada families to expand their social networks, most were on the male side through militia duty. More intimate relations were still limited to a few family traditions.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982; contains the diligencias matrimoniales.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
It had no educated men willing to work as notaries. All the notaries who signed diligencias matrimoniales came from elsewhere. José Manuel Giltomey, who served from 1696 to 1703, was from the Philippines. A man from Mexico City, Miguel de Quintana, signed papers from 1704 to 1712. Juan de Paz Bustillos, Cristóbal Góngora, and Juan de Atienza Sevillano served shorter terms. The first two were from Mexico City, the last from Puebla.
Too few families returned to support marriages without the priests raising questions of consanguinity. The proposed marriage between Isabel Madrid and Agustín Sáez was stopped when Antonio Bernal and Bartolomé Lobato said the two were related in the third degree through his first wife. Matías Madrid agreed his wife and Sáez’s first wife were first cousins.
In the first three years, a third (3) of the Santa Cruz marriages were between returning families. Two were with families who had some old kinship ties, and one was from the Santa Fé. The remaining third with people from the Río Abajo.
Around 1700, all the marriages were contracted with people who had some tie to La Cañada, often through a mother or grandmother.
After 1705, two-thirds of the marriages were still with people with an ancestral tie to La Cañada, but the rest were with families from the Río Abajo.
The Martíns were the most likely to marry from outside the Santa Cruz valley. Many were with a family with an even more distinguished past, and possibly even more misalliances: the Domínguez y Mendozas.
The other Río Abajo men introduced into the north were Trujillos.
Although circumstances were prodding La Cañada families to expand their social networks, most were on the male side through militia duty. More intimate relations were still limited to a few family traditions.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982; contains the diligencias matrimoniales.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
La Cañada Families
Diego de Vargas reported he had created the villa of Santa Cruz on 12 April 1695 for colonists recruited in Mexico City by Cristóbal Velasco. As the last post indicates, early marriage records indicate it was much more complicated.
First there were several locations subsumed under the name Santa Cruz. Those who had lived in La Cañada before the Revolt still had claim to their lands. New settlers were placed in housing used by San Gabriel and San Cristóbal that did not conflict with prior claims.
The actual lands granted to the villa were much greater. They included everything in the area bounded by the lands already granted to Santa Clara on the west, San Juan on the north, San Ildefonso, Jacona and Pojoaque to the south, and Nambé to the southeast.
We know some men whose names appeared on the 1695 La Cañada survey did not return. The pueblos warned Vargas they would not allow the former war captain, Francisco Xavier, to reenter.
The man prosecuted by the Inquisition, Francisco Gómez Robledo, did not return, but his daughters Francisca and María resettled in Santa Fé. The first married Ignacio Roybal in 1696. Two years later, Pedro Rodríguez Cubero gave him title to lands owned earlier by her father. Roybal would serve as High Sheriff of the Inquisition when it was reestablished.
Another man from a family suspected of being Jewish, Augustín Romero, was dead in 1663. His brother Bartolomé had married María Granillo del Moral. Luis Granillo was representing the family’s interest after the Reconquest.
The most ambitious son of the third suspected Jewish family in La Cañada, Juan González Bas, moved to the Río Abajo when it opened. Although most of the descendants of Pascuala Bernal, who came with his great-grandfather Juan Griego moved elsewhere, the Bernal and Griego names flit through La Cañada’s history.
Juan’s uncle, Sebastián González, returned with the Reconquest, but his connections were in Santa Fé and the Río Abajo.
Some died before 1693. Diego López del Castillo was more than 80 years old in 1880. All his children were daughters. Chávez doesn’t give their names, so it’s impossible to know if they came back with their husbands.
Marcos de Herrera had died before the Revolt. However, his son Domingo de Herrera did come back.
Ambrosio Sáez and his son, Agustín, fled the refugee camp in 1682. The son enlisted in 1694 at the mining town of Parral and returned to Santa Fé with his second wife, Antonia Márquez. He was banished from that town in 1701 for adultery, and later tried to marry the daughter of Matías Madrid.
Angélico Chávez says Juan Archuleta, the son of Melchor de Archuleta, returned. He gives no information on Melchor. He may have died and no record has been found. Juan’s wife was Isabel González.
Chávez says Bartolomé Montoya was destitute in 1680, with a family of seven. The Felipe Montoya who return was likely his son.
Miguel Luján was with Vargas at Santa Fé when the Tano attacked in 1693. He died in 1694 at Cochití. His son Cristóbal was with him in Santa Fé, and moved to Santa Cruz.
Of the others mentioned in Granillo’s 1695 survey, the descendants of Hernán and Luis Martín Serrano were the most prolific. They came in all shades of legitimacy and resettled family lands. In this period, the sons of Luis in Santa Cruz continued to use the name Martín Serrano, while the sons of Hernán used Martín. The grandsons both used Martín, as did the daughters and granddaughters.
Many of the La Cañada families had intermarried before the Revolt. It’s likely many descendants not named by Chávez had returned. Familiar names reappear in the marriage transactions, but the connections were lost when the records of the colony were destroyed during the Interregnum. This is especially true for the names Bernal, González, López, and Luján.
It’s impossible to know if any of the children of the Nicolás or Pedro de la Cruz returned. The name was still an indicator of fathers who wouldn’t acknowledge their offspring. Probably the daughters used the names of their husbands to blend anonymously into society. Sons could have used the names of their mothers for the same reason.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, included in Blood on the Boulders, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge. Names in bold appeared in the survey; the complete list with details was posted on 22 June 2014.
Vargas, Diego de. Proclamation, 19 April 1695, in Twitchell, Archives 1, defines land grant.
To share information, send an email to nasonmcormic@cybermesa.com or leave a comment below. You may need to have your email application open for the direct link to work.
First there were several locations subsumed under the name Santa Cruz. Those who had lived in La Cañada before the Revolt still had claim to their lands. New settlers were placed in housing used by San Gabriel and San Cristóbal that did not conflict with prior claims.
The actual lands granted to the villa were much greater. They included everything in the area bounded by the lands already granted to Santa Clara on the west, San Juan on the north, San Ildefonso, Jacona and Pojoaque to the south, and Nambé to the southeast.
We know some men whose names appeared on the 1695 La Cañada survey did not return. The pueblos warned Vargas they would not allow the former war captain, Francisco Xavier, to reenter.
The man prosecuted by the Inquisition, Francisco Gómez Robledo, did not return, but his daughters Francisca and María resettled in Santa Fé. The first married Ignacio Roybal in 1696. Two years later, Pedro Rodríguez Cubero gave him title to lands owned earlier by her father. Roybal would serve as High Sheriff of the Inquisition when it was reestablished.
Another man from a family suspected of being Jewish, Augustín Romero, was dead in 1663. His brother Bartolomé had married María Granillo del Moral. Luis Granillo was representing the family’s interest after the Reconquest.
The most ambitious son of the third suspected Jewish family in La Cañada, Juan González Bas, moved to the Río Abajo when it opened. Although most of the descendants of Pascuala Bernal, who came with his great-grandfather Juan Griego moved elsewhere, the Bernal and Griego names flit through La Cañada’s history.
Juan’s uncle, Sebastián González, returned with the Reconquest, but his connections were in Santa Fé and the Río Abajo.
Some died before 1693. Diego López del Castillo was more than 80 years old in 1880. All his children were daughters. Chávez doesn’t give their names, so it’s impossible to know if they came back with their husbands.
Marcos de Herrera had died before the Revolt. However, his son Domingo de Herrera did come back.
Ambrosio Sáez and his son, Agustín, fled the refugee camp in 1682. The son enlisted in 1694 at the mining town of Parral and returned to Santa Fé with his second wife, Antonia Márquez. He was banished from that town in 1701 for adultery, and later tried to marry the daughter of Matías Madrid.
Angélico Chávez says Juan Archuleta, the son of Melchor de Archuleta, returned. He gives no information on Melchor. He may have died and no record has been found. Juan’s wife was Isabel González.
Chávez says Bartolomé Montoya was destitute in 1680, with a family of seven. The Felipe Montoya who return was likely his son.
Miguel Luján was with Vargas at Santa Fé when the Tano attacked in 1693. He died in 1694 at Cochití. His son Cristóbal was with him in Santa Fé, and moved to Santa Cruz.
Of the others mentioned in Granillo’s 1695 survey, the descendants of Hernán and Luis Martín Serrano were the most prolific. They came in all shades of legitimacy and resettled family lands. In this period, the sons of Luis in Santa Cruz continued to use the name Martín Serrano, while the sons of Hernán used Martín. The grandsons both used Martín, as did the daughters and granddaughters.
Many of the La Cañada families had intermarried before the Revolt. It’s likely many descendants not named by Chávez had returned. Familiar names reappear in the marriage transactions, but the connections were lost when the records of the colony were destroyed during the Interregnum. This is especially true for the names Bernal, González, López, and Luján.
It’s impossible to know if any of the children of the Nicolás or Pedro de la Cruz returned. The name was still an indicator of fathers who wouldn’t acknowledge their offspring. Probably the daughters used the names of their husbands to blend anonymously into society. Sons could have used the names of their mothers for the same reason.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, included in Blood on the Boulders, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge. Names in bold appeared in the survey; the complete list with details was posted on 22 June 2014.
Vargas, Diego de. Proclamation, 19 April 1695, in Twitchell, Archives 1, defines land grant.
To share information, send an email to nasonmcormic@cybermesa.com or leave a comment below. You may need to have your email application open for the direct link to work.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Santa Cruz Population
The cannibalized remains of the Santa Cruz settlement suggest people had abandoned it. Those who lived nearby then scavenged materials for buildings. The diligencias matrimoniales performed by the church before a marriage hint at the chronology.
Among the families who returned to their lands in or near La Cañada, there were ten marriages from 1696 to 1699. Among the newer migrants, there were nine in those years. There were four marriages between the groups, with three between widows and widowers.
The records are sparse between 1700 and 1706. Four couples from La Cañada married, but only one pair of colonists from México.
Beginning in 1707, the number of marriages is more normal, but the majority were older families: nine. Only one occurred among the newer colonists.
Not all the new migrants disappeared from the record. There were three first-time marriages between the two groups between 1700 and 1706. The three mixed weddings between 1707 and 1713 included two between widows and widowers.
During prenuptial investigations, church investigators asked for character references from several witnesses. The reports, published by Angélico Chávez, usually gave the person’s place of birth. These suggest more about the changes within the new migrant community.
In the first two years in Santa Cruz, the witnesses recruited by Cristóbal Velasco included nine from Mexico City, one from nearby Toluca, and two from Puebla. There were eight from Spain and one from Villa de Los Lagos. After those years, witnesses only came from Mexico City.
The colonists recruited in Zacatecas by Juan Páez Hurtado were settled in Santa Fé in 1695. By 1697, some may have moved to Santa Cruz to join those who came with Francisco Farfan. In 1696, the prenuptial witnesses came from the mining towns of Zacatecas (1), Salvatierra (1), Celaya (1), Patzcuaro (1) and Guanajuato (1). The next year, there were many more from Zacatecas (3) and Sombrerete (3). The other mining town witnesses were from Zamora (1) and Patzcuaro (1). After that, witnesses only come from Zacatecas and Sombrerete.
If there were no physical record for desertion of the villa, one would consider other explanations for the decline in marriages, and presumably population, around 1700. There may have been no priest in Santa Cruz or procedures for prenuptial investigations may have varied with some personnel change in Santa Fé.
The economy might have been bad and no one could afford the fees associated with marriage. The possibility of fees also suggests diligencias matrimoniales may only have been done by those with some resources, and that the number of those from México dwindled after 1699.
The records probably signify little about people who didn’t have the resources for church condoned marriages. Only two were recorded in Santa Cruz in these years among couples who might have had lower status.
In 1704 two people with unknown parents married: Diego de Gamboa and Ynez Herrera. In 1707, Pedro Atencio married an Indian, Isabel. He was the son of José de Atienza Sevilla, who came from Mexico City. She was the servant of Pedro’s older brother, Francisco.
Isabel was identified in her diligencia as an Aa. Chávez said that tribal name appears in the records, but is unknown by anthropologists. He concluded it might be related to the Wichita. Historians have associated the Wichita with the Jumano, a tribe that lived near Salinas. When it disintegrated, remnants merged into other bands.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989; on Aa.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982; contains the diligencias matrimoniales.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Kessell, John L., Rick Hendricks, and Meredith Dodge. To the Royal Crown Restored, 1995.
The records are sparse between 1700 and 1706. Four couples from La Cañada married, but only one pair of colonists from México.
Beginning in 1707, the number of marriages is more normal, but the majority were older families: nine. Only one occurred among the newer colonists.
Not all the new migrants disappeared from the record. There were three first-time marriages between the two groups between 1700 and 1706. The three mixed weddings between 1707 and 1713 included two between widows and widowers.
During prenuptial investigations, church investigators asked for character references from several witnesses. The reports, published by Angélico Chávez, usually gave the person’s place of birth. These suggest more about the changes within the new migrant community.
In the first two years in Santa Cruz, the witnesses recruited by Cristóbal Velasco included nine from Mexico City, one from nearby Toluca, and two from Puebla. There were eight from Spain and one from Villa de Los Lagos. After those years, witnesses only came from Mexico City.
If there were no physical record for desertion of the villa, one would consider other explanations for the decline in marriages, and presumably population, around 1700. There may have been no priest in Santa Cruz or procedures for prenuptial investigations may have varied with some personnel change in Santa Fé.
The economy might have been bad and no one could afford the fees associated with marriage. The possibility of fees also suggests diligencias matrimoniales may only have been done by those with some resources, and that the number of those from México dwindled after 1699.
The records probably signify little about people who didn’t have the resources for church condoned marriages. Only two were recorded in Santa Cruz in these years among couples who might have had lower status.
In 1704 two people with unknown parents married: Diego de Gamboa and Ynez Herrera. In 1707, Pedro Atencio married an Indian, Isabel. He was the son of José de Atienza Sevilla, who came from Mexico City. She was the servant of Pedro’s older brother, Francisco.
Isabel was identified in her diligencia as an Aa. Chávez said that tribal name appears in the records, but is unknown by anthropologists. He concluded it might be related to the Wichita. Historians have associated the Wichita with the Jumano, a tribe that lived near Salinas. When it disintegrated, remnants merged into other bands.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989; on Aa.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982; contains the diligencias matrimoniales.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Kessell, John L., Rick Hendricks, and Meredith Dodge. To the Royal Crown Restored, 1995.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
New Mexico Politics
Governors were a new world innovation within the Spanish governmental hierarchy created to handle frontier settlements too far from Mexico City for direct supervision by the viceroy. According to Charles Cutter, they had military, administrative, fiscal, and judicial responsibilities similar to those of alcaldes in Mexico City and Zacatecas.
Community expectations for governors may have fueled the conflict between Diego de Vargas and the man who followed him in power, Pedro Rodríguez Cubero. He had been appointed governor on 6 June 1692, but did not assume office until 2 July 1697. Legally, de Vargas was the military leader, and maintained his position through conventions of martial law.
The event that may have persuaded Cubero to accept the governorship was a change in leadership in Mexico City. The viceroy who had sponsored de Vargas, Gaspar de la Cerda, resigned on 26 February 1696. His successor, José Sarmeinto Valladares, didn’t take office until 18 December 1696. The Bishop of Michoacán, Juan Ortega y Montañés, served in the interim.
Cubero restored the civil authority of the cabildo in Santa Fé. It responded by charging de Vargas with failing to fulfill his public functions during the famine of 1696 by not supplying enough corn. In Mexico City and Zacatecas cabildos were responsible for procuring and distributing the food supply. In extraordinary circumstances, like the famine in Mexico City in 1697, Cubero’s viceroyal patron became active.
When de Vargas returned as governor in November of 1703, the cabildo charged Cubero with neglecting his duty to protect the people by abandoning the frontier post of Santa Cruz. It said, "there were very large houses and a plaza with a chapel and convento, all behind a door and parapets" when Vargas settled the villa. Now, it said, the settlement was "laid waste and ruined, with the wood and adobes removed and only the foundations remaining."
De Vargas believed the northern outpost must remain compact to be defendable, and populated to serve its defense function for the colony. He also believed peaceful relations with the pueblos depended on keeping them separated from the españoles.
Cubero acquiesced to the desires of the people de Vargas had settled in Santa Cruz. Some wanted more land to sustain themselves, others wanted to return to the more urbanized Santa Fé.
The only land grants in the Santa Cruz area that survive in the archives from the time of de Vargas, were small. The half fanega he gave Tomás de Herrera y Sandoval near Chimayó in 1695 was three-quarters of an acre, enough to plant half a fanega of corn seed. That would support one adult and maybe a small child for a year, with some left for seed.
Cubero approved larger grants, and allowed many to move near pueblos. In 1698, he granted eight fanegas of wheat land to Juan de Archuleta near San Juan. He also granted land to Juan de la Mora Pineda.
The next year he ceded a rancho and lands to Francisco Guerrero de la Mora. In 1700, he granted lands on the Chama river to Diego Trujillo and Catalina Griego, and lands between Santa Clara and San Ildefonso to Mateo Trujillo. He also let José Trujillo have the lands near the Black Mesa that had belonged to Francisco Jiménez and Ambrosia Saenz before the Revolt, and granted land to Luis Martín.
Few records of private land transfers exist for the time de Vargas was in control. Gertrudis de Barreras y Sandoval sold half a fanega of land in 1695 to Mateo Trujillo.
As soon as Cubero arrived, Juan de Archuleta began acquiring land from people in Santa Cruz. In 1697 he received a rancho from Manuel Vallejo González, and the next year a rancho from Tomás Jirón de Texeda that had belonged to Alonzo del Río. His widow, Isabel González, consolidated his holdings in 1698 with land that Pedro de la Cruz had conveyed to Manual Vallejo.
In March of 1703, Diego González and Ambrosio Fresqui filed a denuncia, or statement of criminal activity, notifying Cubero that Felipe de Arratia had fenced off a section of the road to Chimayó. His actions forced carters to use a narrow, muddy road near the Santa Cruz river. They appealed to Cubero’s fiscal responsibilities when they noted "the camino real should remain open because it is royal property."
Cubero asked his lieutenant alcalde mayor, Matías Madrid, to determine the facts. All the witnesses agreed the traditional road limited Arratia’s ability to grow crops. They also agreed the road by the river was hazardous for oxen bringing vigas down from Chimayó. One even suggested it would be a good place for an Apache ambush.
The governor’s responsibilities as judge required him to give precedence to community harmony, equidad, over those of individuals. Madrid persuaded Arratia to reopen the road. Despite bickering in Santa Fé, the rudiments of civil law were functioning in Santa Cruz.
Notes:
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Fat Knowledge. "How Many People Can the Earth Support?, 30 November 2008 blog posting. He calculates a "bushel of corn can support a person for 52 days at 2,400 kcal/day with 25.4kg/bushel)," or 7 bushels a year. I reduced that number, since nutritional values may be greater today.
Gibson, Charles. The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule, 1964. He calculates the corn yield in a good year would have been 75 to 125 fanegas for one sown, with 11 fanega or 17 bushels an acre. That would mean .75 acres would produce 12.75 bushels.
Rowlett, Ross. "How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measure," 2001, website. He says, "one fanega of land grows one fanega of corn seed." It was standardized to 1.59 acres in 1801, or .75 acres for a half fanega.
Santa Fé Cabildo. Certification, 2 December 1703," included in A Settling of Accounts, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, Meredith D. Dodge, and Larry R. Miller.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 1, 1914. When entries with the same names appear in different years, it’s hard to determine if they are separate transactions or continuations of the same.
Community expectations for governors may have fueled the conflict between Diego de Vargas and the man who followed him in power, Pedro Rodríguez Cubero. He had been appointed governor on 6 June 1692, but did not assume office until 2 July 1697. Legally, de Vargas was the military leader, and maintained his position through conventions of martial law.
The event that may have persuaded Cubero to accept the governorship was a change in leadership in Mexico City. The viceroy who had sponsored de Vargas, Gaspar de la Cerda, resigned on 26 February 1696. His successor, José Sarmeinto Valladares, didn’t take office until 18 December 1696. The Bishop of Michoacán, Juan Ortega y Montañés, served in the interim.
Cubero restored the civil authority of the cabildo in Santa Fé. It responded by charging de Vargas with failing to fulfill his public functions during the famine of 1696 by not supplying enough corn. In Mexico City and Zacatecas cabildos were responsible for procuring and distributing the food supply. In extraordinary circumstances, like the famine in Mexico City in 1697, Cubero’s viceroyal patron became active.
When de Vargas returned as governor in November of 1703, the cabildo charged Cubero with neglecting his duty to protect the people by abandoning the frontier post of Santa Cruz. It said, "there were very large houses and a plaza with a chapel and convento, all behind a door and parapets" when Vargas settled the villa. Now, it said, the settlement was "laid waste and ruined, with the wood and adobes removed and only the foundations remaining."
De Vargas believed the northern outpost must remain compact to be defendable, and populated to serve its defense function for the colony. He also believed peaceful relations with the pueblos depended on keeping them separated from the españoles.
Cubero acquiesced to the desires of the people de Vargas had settled in Santa Cruz. Some wanted more land to sustain themselves, others wanted to return to the more urbanized Santa Fé.
The only land grants in the Santa Cruz area that survive in the archives from the time of de Vargas, were small. The half fanega he gave Tomás de Herrera y Sandoval near Chimayó in 1695 was three-quarters of an acre, enough to plant half a fanega of corn seed. That would support one adult and maybe a small child for a year, with some left for seed.
Cubero approved larger grants, and allowed many to move near pueblos. In 1698, he granted eight fanegas of wheat land to Juan de Archuleta near San Juan. He also granted land to Juan de la Mora Pineda.
The next year he ceded a rancho and lands to Francisco Guerrero de la Mora. In 1700, he granted lands on the Chama river to Diego Trujillo and Catalina Griego, and lands between Santa Clara and San Ildefonso to Mateo Trujillo. He also let José Trujillo have the lands near the Black Mesa that had belonged to Francisco Jiménez and Ambrosia Saenz before the Revolt, and granted land to Luis Martín.
Few records of private land transfers exist for the time de Vargas was in control. Gertrudis de Barreras y Sandoval sold half a fanega of land in 1695 to Mateo Trujillo.
As soon as Cubero arrived, Juan de Archuleta began acquiring land from people in Santa Cruz. In 1697 he received a rancho from Manuel Vallejo González, and the next year a rancho from Tomás Jirón de Texeda that had belonged to Alonzo del Río. His widow, Isabel González, consolidated his holdings in 1698 with land that Pedro de la Cruz had conveyed to Manual Vallejo.
In March of 1703, Diego González and Ambrosio Fresqui filed a denuncia, or statement of criminal activity, notifying Cubero that Felipe de Arratia had fenced off a section of the road to Chimayó. His actions forced carters to use a narrow, muddy road near the Santa Cruz river. They appealed to Cubero’s fiscal responsibilities when they noted "the camino real should remain open because it is royal property."
Cubero asked his lieutenant alcalde mayor, Matías Madrid, to determine the facts. All the witnesses agreed the traditional road limited Arratia’s ability to grow crops. They also agreed the road by the river was hazardous for oxen bringing vigas down from Chimayó. One even suggested it would be a good place for an Apache ambush.
The governor’s responsibilities as judge required him to give precedence to community harmony, equidad, over those of individuals. Madrid persuaded Arratia to reopen the road. Despite bickering in Santa Fé, the rudiments of civil law were functioning in Santa Cruz.
Notes:
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Fat Knowledge. "How Many People Can the Earth Support?, 30 November 2008 blog posting. He calculates a "bushel of corn can support a person for 52 days at 2,400 kcal/day with 25.4kg/bushel)," or 7 bushels a year. I reduced that number, since nutritional values may be greater today.
Gibson, Charles. The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule, 1964. He calculates the corn yield in a good year would have been 75 to 125 fanegas for one sown, with 11 fanega or 17 bushels an acre. That would mean .75 acres would produce 12.75 bushels.
Rowlett, Ross. "How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measure," 2001, website. He says, "one fanega of land grows one fanega of corn seed." It was standardized to 1.59 acres in 1801, or .75 acres for a half fanega.
Santa Fé Cabildo. Certification, 2 December 1703," included in A Settling of Accounts, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, Meredith D. Dodge, and Larry R. Miller.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 1, 1914. When entries with the same names appear in different years, it’s hard to determine if they are separate transactions or continuations of the same.
Sunday, March 08, 2015
Spanish Politics
Europe's political culture returned to Santa Fé with Diego de Vargas and the Reconquest. Society was still divided into two groups fighting for supremacy, the church and the throne. Within the bureaucratic state of viceroys and governors, the natural competition between predecessors and successors was manipulated into parties who supported the friars and those who asserted civil authority.
If anything, it had gotten worse since Charles II was named king of Spain in 1665. He was the biological consequence of generations of in-breeding. All eight of his grandparents were descended from Juana, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and her Hapsburg husband, Philip.
According to the Ariel and Will Durant, Charles didn’t speak until he was four. He didn’t walk until he was ten. It’s not clear if he was ever fully competent. Most who commented had a vested interest in portraying him as non compos mentis.
His father, Philip IV, died when he was three. His mother, Philip’s sister’s daughter, was named regent. Mariana of Austria had been educated by a Jesuit priest, Juan Everardo Nithard, who took power a year later, in 1666.
Nithard was overthrow in 1669. Mariana replaced him with Fernando de Valenzuela. They both were driven from Madrid in 1674 as Charles was approaching fourteen, the age of legal maturity for males. He was immediately married to Marie Louise, granddaughter of Louis XIII of France.
The man who acceded and engineered the wedding was Juan José, the natural son of Philip IV. He had been raised anonymously in León, then recognized officially by his father in 1642 when he was thirteen. After that he was trained to military command and diplomacy.
He died in 1679 under mysterious circumstances. Control went to Marie Louise. Soon after, in 1680, Spain saw the greatest auto de fé in its history. She died in 1689, again under circumstances people at the time deemed suspicious. Most think now the cause was appendicitis.
Charles was immediately married to a Hapsburg, Mariana of Neuburg. It was imperative for the perpetuation of the monarchy that he produce an heir. The regent mother, Mariana of Austria, died in May of 1696, and his wife dominated the court.
The regent was still alive in 1693 when de Vargas wrote as if Charles II were a normal monarch. He used phrases like "at your majesty’s royal feet," "having carried out your royal will," and "to give your majesty an account."
The wife of Charles II was dominant when de Vargas notified the viceroy he was establishing the Villa Nueva de Santa Cruz del Rey Nuestro Señor Carlos II de Españoles Mexicanos in 1695. He said it was in "proper compliance to the royal will, which the most excellent lord viceroy has so often repeatedly charged me with."
The regent had recently died when de Vargas was applying for reappointment in 1696. The health of both Charles and his wife was precarious. The court in Madrid and those of France, Austria, England, and the Netherlands were preoccupied with who would succeed if died childless. Someone else got appointed governor of New Mexico.
Notes:
Durant, Ariel and Durant, Will. The Age of Louis XIV, 1963.
Vargas, Diego de. Letter to Charles II, 16 May 1693, published in To The Royal Crown Restored, 1995, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.
_____. Order, 15 March 1695, published in Blood on the Boulders, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.
If anything, it had gotten worse since Charles II was named king of Spain in 1665. He was the biological consequence of generations of in-breeding. All eight of his grandparents were descended from Juana, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, and her Hapsburg husband, Philip.
According to the Ariel and Will Durant, Charles didn’t speak until he was four. He didn’t walk until he was ten. It’s not clear if he was ever fully competent. Most who commented had a vested interest in portraying him as non compos mentis.
His father, Philip IV, died when he was three. His mother, Philip’s sister’s daughter, was named regent. Mariana of Austria had been educated by a Jesuit priest, Juan Everardo Nithard, who took power a year later, in 1666.
Nithard was overthrow in 1669. Mariana replaced him with Fernando de Valenzuela. They both were driven from Madrid in 1674 as Charles was approaching fourteen, the age of legal maturity for males. He was immediately married to Marie Louise, granddaughter of Louis XIII of France.
The man who acceded and engineered the wedding was Juan José, the natural son of Philip IV. He had been raised anonymously in León, then recognized officially by his father in 1642 when he was thirteen. After that he was trained to military command and diplomacy.
He died in 1679 under mysterious circumstances. Control went to Marie Louise. Soon after, in 1680, Spain saw the greatest auto de fé in its history. She died in 1689, again under circumstances people at the time deemed suspicious. Most think now the cause was appendicitis.
Charles was immediately married to a Hapsburg, Mariana of Neuburg. It was imperative for the perpetuation of the monarchy that he produce an heir. The regent mother, Mariana of Austria, died in May of 1696, and his wife dominated the court.
The regent was still alive in 1693 when de Vargas wrote as if Charles II were a normal monarch. He used phrases like "at your majesty’s royal feet," "having carried out your royal will," and "to give your majesty an account."
The wife of Charles II was dominant when de Vargas notified the viceroy he was establishing the Villa Nueva de Santa Cruz del Rey Nuestro Señor Carlos II de Españoles Mexicanos in 1695. He said it was in "proper compliance to the royal will, which the most excellent lord viceroy has so often repeatedly charged me with."
The regent had recently died when de Vargas was applying for reappointment in 1696. The health of both Charles and his wife was precarious. The court in Madrid and those of France, Austria, England, and the Netherlands were preoccupied with who would succeed if died childless. Someone else got appointed governor of New Mexico.
Notes:
Durant, Ariel and Durant, Will. The Age of Louis XIV, 1963.
Vargas, Diego de. Letter to Charles II, 16 May 1693, published in To The Royal Crown Restored, 1995, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.
_____. Order, 15 March 1695, published in Blood on the Boulders, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.
Sunday, March 01, 2015
Estremaduran Landscape
Physiographic maps like that posted 17 February use shades of green for low elevations and grays for higher. This gives the mistaken impression the Estremadura is a great, fertile basin. It’s not. All those mountain ranges prevent water from flowing into the area.
Badajoz gets 18.2 inches of rain a year, with most of it falling in winter. That’s more than the twelve we get here. All that granite and granite debris support thin acid soils, unlike the alkaline ones we have here.
Nature has responded to the Estremadura’s Mediterranean climate with trees that have wide branching habits, extensive root systems, and leaves that fall in summer. The one provides shade that slows evaporation. The second holds dry soil from blowing away and traps water wherever it lands. The third carpets the ground in summer, at the same time it reduces stress on defoliating plants.
At one time, the Estremadura was covered by woodland. The most common landscape today is the bosque Mediterráneo dominated by encina, live oaks (Quercus rotundifolia). Oliver Rackham says the species is so variable no two are alike genetically.
The oak survives fire and cutting. For centuries its branches were lopped in March and April and burned to make charcoal. The constant trimming increased the acorn crop that was eaten by livestock. The bark was used to tan leather.
The one thing encina doesn’t like is constant browsing. When oaks die back, the dehesa expands, with one kind of grass growing under the trees and another in the open. The primary wild plants are winter annuals that bloom in spring, purple viper’s bugloss, tolpis, andryala, corn marigold, and yellow chamomile. The first is a borage, the rest members of the composite family. The open pasture or savannah supports cattle and cereal production.
When trees are felled in large numbers, dense scrub intrudes. Brooms (Cistus), lavenders, mastics (Pistacia lentiscus), and strawberries trees (Arbutus unedo) thrive. The first are rock roses, the second mints. The third is a member of the cashew family, and the last a heather.
When that second generation protective scrub is removed, single species like brambles, heathers and gorse advance. These are more tolerant of drought, poor soils, and brush fires.
Along the mountainous perimeter, deciduous trees grow in the bosque de montaña. Melojos (Quercus pyrenaica) are most common, but there also are chestnut groves and clumps of Portuguese oak (Quercus faginea).
Near the Tagus and its more permanent tributaries riparian species grow. In the higher elevations, the bosque en galería sports willows, osiers, and alders. Aspen and ashes replace them at lower levels. In the lower bosque de ribera bushes, oleanders, tamujo brooms (Flueggea tinctoria), and vines grow under elms.
To the south, where the climate is warmer, cork oak (Quercus suber) grows in the protection of the mountain ranges. It requires more moisture than the live oak, but has a unique way of surviving fires. It grows a thicker bark than other plants.
Notes:
Grove, A. T. and Oliver Rackham. The Nature of Mediterranean Europe, 2001.
Instituto de Educación Secundaria les Dr. Fernández Santana. "Vegetation of Extremadura," school web site.S
To share information, send an email to nasonmcormic@cybermesa.com or leave a comment below. You may need to have your email application open for the direct link to work.
Badajoz gets 18.2 inches of rain a year, with most of it falling in winter. That’s more than the twelve we get here. All that granite and granite debris support thin acid soils, unlike the alkaline ones we have here.
Nature has responded to the Estremadura’s Mediterranean climate with trees that have wide branching habits, extensive root systems, and leaves that fall in summer. The one provides shade that slows evaporation. The second holds dry soil from blowing away and traps water wherever it lands. The third carpets the ground in summer, at the same time it reduces stress on defoliating plants.
At one time, the Estremadura was covered by woodland. The most common landscape today is the bosque Mediterráneo dominated by encina, live oaks (Quercus rotundifolia). Oliver Rackham says the species is so variable no two are alike genetically.
The oak survives fire and cutting. For centuries its branches were lopped in March and April and burned to make charcoal. The constant trimming increased the acorn crop that was eaten by livestock. The bark was used to tan leather.
The one thing encina doesn’t like is constant browsing. When oaks die back, the dehesa expands, with one kind of grass growing under the trees and another in the open. The primary wild plants are winter annuals that bloom in spring, purple viper’s bugloss, tolpis, andryala, corn marigold, and yellow chamomile. The first is a borage, the rest members of the composite family. The open pasture or savannah supports cattle and cereal production.
When trees are felled in large numbers, dense scrub intrudes. Brooms (Cistus), lavenders, mastics (Pistacia lentiscus), and strawberries trees (Arbutus unedo) thrive. The first are rock roses, the second mints. The third is a member of the cashew family, and the last a heather.
When that second generation protective scrub is removed, single species like brambles, heathers and gorse advance. These are more tolerant of drought, poor soils, and brush fires.
Along the mountainous perimeter, deciduous trees grow in the bosque de montaña. Melojos (Quercus pyrenaica) are most common, but there also are chestnut groves and clumps of Portuguese oak (Quercus faginea).
Near the Tagus and its more permanent tributaries riparian species grow. In the higher elevations, the bosque en galería sports willows, osiers, and alders. Aspen and ashes replace them at lower levels. In the lower bosque de ribera bushes, oleanders, tamujo brooms (Flueggea tinctoria), and vines grow under elms.
To the south, where the climate is warmer, cork oak (Quercus suber) grows in the protection of the mountain ranges. It requires more moisture than the live oak, but has a unique way of surviving fires. It grows a thicker bark than other plants.
Notes:
Grove, A. T. and Oliver Rackham. The Nature of Mediterranean Europe, 2001.
Instituto de Educación Secundaria les Dr. Fernández Santana. "Vegetation of Extremadura," school web site.S
To share information, send an email to nasonmcormic@cybermesa.com or leave a comment below. You may need to have your email application open for the direct link to work.
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