Bourbon Reviews

Perhaps the most obvious change in Bourbon management of Nuevo México flowed from its objective view of reality. Decisions no longer depended on faith in individuals. Reports were examined for factual integrity. The viceroy took advantage of safer travel to send investigators to verify what he was sent.

The first was the juez de residencia sent to sift through the opposing charges made by Juan Flores Mogollón and Félix Martínez in 1721. Little is known about Juan Estrada de Austria, who also served as interim governor. I suspect an early historian confused Austria with Asturias and the mistake has hindered research ever since.

An invisitador general followed Estrada in 1722. Antonio Cobián Busto found the presidio poorly defended and evidence of illegal trade with Louisiana.

The military was next to initiate a fact finding tour. Pedro de Rivera Villalón visited 23 garrisoned towns between 1724 and 1728. He was particularly critical of graft that inflated the cost of defense. In 1726 he noted Juan Bustamante had increased the number of positions in the garrison that drew from the treasury. He believed twenty could be cut.

Rivera also found governors and capitanes overcharged soldiers for their equipment. If fixed

prices were established, he believed salaries could be cut by 10% and soldiers would still have more money.

The fourth investigation was conducted by the bishop of Durango in 1730. Benito Crespo y Monroy criticized local Franciscans. There were 30 positions, but only 24 were filled. He found the priests didn’t bother to learn native languages, didn’t administer sacraments, and didn’t collect or expend tithes properly.

Among those he accused of neglect were Juan de la Cruz of San Juan and Manuel Sopeña of Santa Clara. The governors of those two pueblos weren’t among the ones listed as speaking Castilian in 1706 by Francisco Cuervo. Of those from San Juan called in the Leonor Domínguez trial in 1708, Catarina Rosa, Catarina Luján and Juan understood Castilian, Angelina Pumazjo did not.

Language had become a political issue. Philip V realized a government wasn’t effective if it couldn’t communicate with its people. In 1713, he commissioned the Real Academia Española to standardize the Castilian language much like the Académie Française had done in France in 1635.

Successful alliances with Native Americans had become a matter of realpolitiks. The French Jesuits were considered more successful than the Franciscans because their priests became fluent in native languages. Franciscans had responded to criticisms in 1683 with the Santa Cruz missionary college at Querétaro to train friars. However, John Kessell says, it began as a haven for Spanish retirees, especially from Majorca.

Settlers had learned to exploit the status quo. When Cobián asked why the area was so unsettled, they said the bárbaros were dangerous, there weren’t enough settlers, and poverty was great. They meant, send us more soldiers, settlers, and free supplies.

They protested the cuts Rivera proposed because that extra money ended in the pockets of merchants and creditors. No doubt some were the ones buying those purloined horses.

The response to Crespo was conditioned by individual contacts with pueblos. Sebastían Martín, Alonso Rael de Aguilar, and Antonio de Ulibarrí needed them to supply auxiliaries. Since that was a role pueblos accepted, they were friendly and may have conducted negotiations in Castilian.

The men who criticized the friars were ones who had administrative responsibilities. Pueblo members were probably suspicious of them, and unwilling to engage in Castilian. Critic Diego de Torres was the teniente de alcalde mayor of Santa Clara. Juan Páez Hurtado was the one who took over the governorship in 1716 when Valverde was recalled to Mexico City.

The only man from Santa Cruz who supported the friars because he was close to them was Tomás Núñez de Haro.

Notes:
Athearn, Frederic J. A Forgotten Kingdom, 1978.

Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, 1889.

Kessell, John L. Spain in the Southwest, 2002.

Rael de Aguilar, Alonso. Certification, 10 January 1706, collected by Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, included in Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914.