The institutional religion espoused by Juan de Ulibarrí coexisted with the older traditions of La Cañada and Madrid.
He saw his expedition to El Cuartelejo in 1706 as a march "across unknown land barbarously inhabited by innumerable heathens." One of his missions was to pacify the Apache band under the sign of the cross. As he went, he brought the land under Christian control with the names he bestowed.
Many were the familiar ones of disciples and others associated with Christ. There was a pond for San Pedro, rivers for Santiago and San Juan Baptista, and water for San Bartolomé. The women he memorialized included Santa María Magdalena and Santa Ana.
He invoked martyrs and holy helpers. San Cristóbal, San Lorenzo, San Sebastían, and San Valentine died at the hands of the Romans. San Blas, San Gil, and San Pantaleón were three of the fourteen saints who became associated with miracle cures during the Bubonic Plague of the 1300s. They were aided by three virgins, including Santa Catalina.
As would be expected, he called the Arkansas river "Río Grande de San Francisco because of the memorable glory of his Christian zeal." He named arroyos for San Diego and San Antonio, and a stopping place for San Buenaventura, all Franciscan saints. The ranchería Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles Porsíuncula recalled Assisi where he began.
Ulibarrí knew his report would be read by the governor, Francisco Cuervo, and possibly by the viceroy, the Duque de Alburquerque. Both supported the Jesuits. Thus, he said he placed his expedition under the protection of "San Francisco Xavier," the "Glorious Patriarch, San Ignacio de Loyola," and "Our Lady the Virgin Mary, conqueress of this kingdom."
Unlike Jacques Marquette, he rarely reduced Mary to a sacred incubator. The French Jesuit priest wrote, "I placed our voyage under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Immaculate, promising her that, if she granted us the favor of discovering the great River, I would give it The Name of the Conception." He said mass in 1675 at Starved Rock in his Mission of the Immaculate Conception.
Ulibarrí probably didn’t have a serious interest in the internecine battles between Franciscans and Jesuits. His ancestors may have been Basques from Navarre, but he was born in San Luis Potosí. The mining town where he was raised had seen Franciscans arrive in 1539, Augustinians in 1599, and Jesuits in 1624.
He renamed one of the Apache rancherías for San Augustín, and remembered his saints with La Laguna de Santa Tomas de Villa Nueva, Río de San Nicolas de Tolentino, and Ojo de Santa Rita.
Roman Catholicism controlled how he described the landscape, but not how he responded to it. When they crossed the Arkansas he noted the time it took "was about the equivalent of thirty-three Credos recited very slowly."
He called places Puerto Florida and Bueno Vista because they struck him as beautiful. Some he named for the memories: Canyon La Palotada "because there was much fallen timber" and El Arroyo de las Ansias "because of the many troubles I had in cutting through it." Still others were jokes: Ojo de Jediondo, "because we do not know the road," and Las Tetas de Domínguez.
His response to finding water was to cite "good fortune." It was others in the camp who gave thanks to "our God and his most Holy Mother." Only then did he order "that spring be named El Ojo de Nuestra Señora del Buen Suesco."
The role of the Franciscans in Santa Cruz appears to have been weak in these years. Their friars still accompanied military expeditions, but they didn’t supply enough padres for the existing parishes. In 1706, their custodia, Juan Álvarez, reported Pedro Mata was resident priest at San Juan, but he also was responsible for Picurís, Santa Cruz, and Cañada de Chimayó. Another man was there two years later.
Santa Clara didn’t have a priest in 1706. Members were expected to walk to San Ildefonso where Juan de Tagle read mass even though, when the "river freezes over with ice, which is very thick, or when there are floods, which last several months, it cannot be crossed."
Notes:
Álvarez, Juan [Fray]. Report on missions of New Mexico, 7 January 1706, collected by Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier and 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; quotation on river conditions.
Marquette, Jacques. Journal included in Claude Dablon’s "Le Premier Voÿage Qu’a Fait Le P. Marquette vers le Nouveau Mexique," translated by Reuben Gold Thwaites in The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, volume 59, 1899.
Trujillo, Ellia. "Juan and Antonio Ulibarrí," Ancestry.com, 25 Oct 1999; cited work done by Abel Ruybalid.
Ulibarrí, Juan de. Diary of expedition to El Cuartelejo, 1706, in Alfred B. Thomas, After Coronado, 1935. Hediondo means stinking, tetas means tits.
The other religious names he used were:
Our Lady of Mount Carmel - on her feast day
Río de Jesús María
Ranchería of St Joseph - Christ’s father
San Miguel - the archangel, for an outlet
Santa Rosa - Dominican, associated with Peru, for a stream
El Valle de San Cayetano - Italian saint, associated with Argentina, canonized the same day as Santa Rosa
Santa Cruz - holy cross, for a pool
Nombre de Dios - name of God, for a hill
La Valle del Espirtu Santo - holy spirit
His other secular names were:
Naranjo - for a spring
La Jicarilla - for river banks
Ulibarrí - for a canyon
Las Piletas - the pools, for a stream
Río de Peñas - rocky outcrop
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