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.

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