Chronicles of Leonor: Her Family

Behind the events that drove Leonor Domínguez to seek redress from the governor for the criminal intimacy between her husband, Miguel Martín, and a native woman lay a web of entrapping conditions and beliefs.

At the heart was the experience of the refugee camp at Guadalupe del Paso where they both were born. When other children hear scary tales collected by the brothers Grimm, they probably heard true tales of horror and betrayal from relatives still traumatized by the Revolt.

Even today, Donald Rivara knows the legends of the Domínguez family. He says the "Indians were led by their chief, Alonso Catití (our half-breed uncle, son of our ancestor Diego Márquez and a San Domingo Pueblo woman)."

Three of Leonor’s great-aunts on her father’s side "and their families were slaughtered in the revolt." Her uncle Lázaro on her mother’s side was killed at Galisteo. After the Reconquest, another maternal uncle, "Alonso, was later killed by Apaches in 1696."

Her father, Antonio Domínguez de Mendoza, died in 1689. Her mother, Juana de García y Noriega, refused to return with Diego de Vargas. Leonor must have come back with her sisters and her aunt Josefa de García y Noriega.

After the Entrada, the first generation of children tended to marry people they had learned to trust at Guadalupe. Outside their barricaded world were things they couldn’t control - illnesses, injuries, probably hunger and malnutrition in the early years. The harsh winter of 1706 had been followed by drought in 1707. Most of the crops had been lost. By the time Lent arrived on March 9 of 1708, the food supplies probably were low.

Since the counter Reformation, the church had emphasized fasting for forty days as a way to distinguish the faithful. Individuals were limited to one complete meal a day, with two smaller, meatless meals to maintain strength. Normal eating patterns were allowed on Sundays and for pregnant women. This exemption brought the number of fast days to the forty associated with Christ’s time in the wilderness.

While the deposition provides no dates for the events leading up to her attack on Holy Thursday, one comment by Catarina Rosa hints most things occurred during the Lenten period. When Leonor refused to eat anything provide by Catarina at San Juan, Leonor said it was because she was fasting. Catarina responded "What, today, Sunday you are fasting?"

Fear is a powerful agent. Leonor lived in fear of the dreaded enemy at San Juan, fear the church wouldn’t deem her a good Catholic if she didn’t fast, fear of infidelity when her husband away. Her in-laws didn’t help when they sided with her husband in disputes and spent their time gossiping about spells.

Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.

Rivara, Donald. Contributions related to Leonor Domínguez, Genealogy Trails website, 2009.

Scurlock, Dan. "Modern and Historical Climate," in From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998.