Antonio Valverde y Cosío was raised in Villapresente, a remote village in the Cantabrian mountains of Spain not far from the Altamira cave. The population in 1594 was 60 vecinos, or about 300 people. Beneath the Marqués de Villapresente, the principal families included the Bustamantes y Tagles and the Ruizes de Peredo.
Juan de Valverde was a master stonemason in the Burgos area village in 1608. However, Antonio’s parents were Antonio Velarde and Juana de Velarde y Cosío.
He was in Sombrerete by 1693 when he was 21. There Valverde enrolled with Diego de Vargas. He spent the rest of his life in the civil service, but amassed his fortune around El Paso.
No one from Villapresente appears to have been part of the conquistador generation. Hugh Thomas has found a Luis de Bustamante from Palencia, to the west of Villapresente, who was actually the son of Martín García and Mari García.
A Francisco Valverde was with Pánfilo de Narváez in 1520. Another Francisco from Trujillo was related to Francisco Pizarro. His family settled in Cuba and Perú. A third Francisco de Valverde joined the Franciscans in Zacatecas in 1617.
Thomas mentions no Velardes. If Antonio came from an unknown family of Velardes, Valverde was a prestigious near-assonant to appropriate.
More than likely, one man or maybe several emigrated from Villapresente to New Spain, but maintained contacts with their families. From there, others must have followed in a chain. While we don’t know who helped Valverde settle in México, we can surmise that after he moved, his sister’s son, Juan Domingo de Bustamante came over from Villapresente. After him, Bernardo de Bustamante y Tagle arrived from Madrid. Angélico Chávez said, he might have been the brother, nephew, or even son of Juan.
As fitted his assumed position, Valverde lived within a social hierarchy in which the governor outranked representatives of the church, and each outranked his senior officers. Soldiers of the presidio were more important than settlers, and both were more important than auxiliaries.
He informed the viceroy, he always maintained the proper degrees of formality with each caste, and defined the times he had met with the lower orders, like when they were seriously ill, as acts of great generosity on his part.
Valverde was more religious than either Roque de Madrid or Juan de Ulibarrí. He not only took a priest with him on his campaign against the Comanche, but Juan George del Pino celebrated mass every morning. On the day before the feast day "of the glorious patriarch San Francisco," he, the priest and the "military chiefs" shared "a small keg of rich spiritous brandy made at the Pass of the Río del Norte of the governor’s own vintage" to toast the saint.
The next morning, after mass, he ate with "the father chaplain and officers of war." Again Valverde "ordered a cask of wine which had been made at the pass to be brought out. With it they all drank the health of the governor and of the chaplain and celebrated the saint’s day of San Francisco." He noted he had "regaled" them with "the best rich bread and melon preserves he carried for such an occasion to entertain the reverend father chaplain and himself."
Like Madrid and Ulibarrí, Valverde named landmarks he passed, though he primarily limited himself to rivers and camp sites. Many were named for Franciscan notables or people associated directly with Christ.
His references to Mary were not to her Virgin status, but to her interventions in the affairs of mortals. He renamed the Apache’s Río de Colorado as Nuestra Señora de la Soledad. Springs and camp sites were dedicated to Nuestra Señora de Dolores, Nuestra Señora del Carmel, and Nuestra Señora de Pilar de Zaragosa.
Cimarron creek was called La Flecha by the Apache. Valverde renamed it "Nuestra Señora de Rosario." That manifestation was especially dear to him. On October 1, he, "with all the camp [...] prayed with zeal to the Holy Mary of the Rosary. This was the day on which by her intercession her most Holy Son granted that celebrated victory which to all Christendom has been, is, will be one of great rejoicing."
After breakfast "with some persons and settlers whom he wished to entertain," he served "very good glasses of wine" in her honor. Later that same day Cristóbal Rodarte died and Valverde distributed rations to hungry settlers.
Villapresente still celebrates four festivals: El Carmen, Christ, La Esperanza, and La Flor or Our Lady of the Rosary. They observe the last on October 15. According to Wikipedia, the date was changed to October 7 in 1571. Valverde’s October 1 is the day used for this rite in eastern orthodox churches.
This was not the only hint of cultural ties between his family’s tradition and the levant. He named places for Santa Efijenia, an Ethiopian converted by Matthew; for San Onofre, an Egyptian hermit; and for San Nicolás Obispo, a Greek bishop. He also recalled La Exaltazión de la Santa Cruz, which was an allusion to Helen, mother of Constantine.
When he died, he left money to Villapresente to build a chapel dedicated to Nuestra Señora de la Ermita de La Guarda and a school to teach residents "to read, write and counting, and also be instructed in the Christian doctrine and the principal mysteries of the Catholic faith."
Notes:
Alvarez, Mariña. "En Busca del Pasado de Villapresente," El Diario Montanes, 08 April 2009.
Cantabria government website. "López Marcano Presentará Mañana En Villapresente El Libro ‘Fundación de la Capellanía de Nuestra Señora de la Ermita de La Guarda y Obra Pía de Escuela de Primeras Letras’," 11 December 2009.
González Echegaray, María del Carmen. Artistas Cántabros de la Edad Moderna, 1991; on Juan de Valverde.
González Montes, Francisco and JI Alútiz Santiago Rubio. "Villapresente in Memory;" population number for 1594.
Hendricks, Rick. "Settling the Estate of Bernardo Antonio Bustamante y Tagle," New Mexico History website.
Hoyo, Eugenio del. Historia del Nuevo Reino de León (1577-1723), 2005; on the Francisco de Valverde in Zacatecas.
Reocín city government website. "Villapresente."
Thomas, Alfred B. After Coronado, 1935.
Thomas, Hugh. Who’s Who of the Conquistadors, 2000.
Valverde y Cosío, Antonio. Diary of the campaign against the Ute and Comanche, 1719, reproduced in Alfred Thomas. The other place names he bestowed were:
Associated with Christ
Stream - San José, father
River - San Miguel, archangel
Camp site - Santa María Magdalena
Spot - San Pablo, apostle
Associated with Franciscans
River - San Francisco
River - San Antonio
Canyon - Santa Rosa
Spot - Santa Theresa
Associated with Dominicans
River - Santo Domingo
Associated with Jesuits
Spring - San Ignacio, named by Piño, not Valverde
Wikipedia. Entries on Marian Feast Days, Antonio Valverde y Cosío, and Villapresente.
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