Jean l’Archevêque’s effects were inventoried in 1721. The list came to 98 pages. Henrietta Martinez Christmas has published a portion on her website, 1598 New Mexico. While he was living among the well-to-do in Santa Fé, some items reveal daily life anywhere in the province within the agricultural economy.
He had three cornfields to support a household of at least six: himself, his wife, his personal servant, his younger illegitimate son and his mother, and the woman who raised his children. There may have been more dependents, but these are all I’ve seen mentioned. Perhaps the mother of his son still did the cooking and cleaning, perhaps there was another woman.
As mentioned in the post for 11 March 2015, if a field was a fanega that barely fed three people, three fields were enough to support his household and leave a reserve for seed and insurance against a bad year.
To raise that corn, he had a ploughshare and three wooden points. Christmas didn’t mentioned livestock, but presumably there were some kind of work animals. The inventory also listed three iron shovels.
Archevêque probably didn’t plant or harvest his own land. The only time he might have had to work in the fields was when he was a captive living with the Hasinai. In jail and as a soldier, he probably bought his meals. He had the income to hire help, and they may have supplied their own draft animals.
His account books indicated he hired Hambrosio de Balbause in July of 1719 for some service. Given how a Frenchman would transcribe Spanish names, this might have been Ambrosio Villapando. His father, Juan de Villa el Pando, had come north as a soldier. He was dead by 1718, when Ambrosio married María Romero. He was probably a soldier, and Archevêque may have hired him over another as a posthumous favor.
Archevêque owned an ax, a necessity when wood needed to be chopped to heat the residential area and cook the meals. Everyone in the household might have used it, but more than likely this was another chore he hired done or delegated to a servant. He probably bought fire wood cut to length.
The kitchen had a copper kettle and an iron griddle. The first would have been used to boil beans or corn, the second to make tortillas. In his record of his campaign to the east, Antonio Valverde mentioned eating boiled mutton and corn gruel. He also mentioned dispensing pinole and tea. All would have required a large, metal pot.
Archevêque would have been able to purchase other foods like wheat and beef, when they were available. Indeed, in the absence of a functioning cabildo, he may have acted as a middle man letting contracts for the city’s food. One account book "listed the major and minor cattle, which Antonio Montoya shall deliver in the year 1720 by halves." Montoya was the son of Diego Montoya and María Josefa de Hinojos, who returned with the Reconquest and settled in Bernalillo.
The primary utensils in Archevêque’s household were six spoons and six forks made from silver, and two lead candlesticks. Kitchen tools included a "chocolate pitcher of copper," a silver salt cellar, "a brass mortar with its pestle," and "a large knife to pound meat."
The inventory was consistent with the trade goods Bourgmont sent to the Apache: a kettle, an axe, some awls, and some knives. It also was similar to the utensils taken by Pedro de Villasur on his military campaign: silver platters, cups, spoons, and a candlestick.
Silver probably was less dear than metals like tin used to produce pewter and military alloys. The modern inexpensive metals - stainless steel and aluminum - didn’t exist. Servants and common folk may have used wooden spoons or eaten foods wrapped in corn husks or tortillas that didn’t require tools to eat. Valverde mentioned his men ate tamales and fruit, while the Apache offered ears of corn.
Martinez didn’t mention crockery or baskets, which may have been obtained from one of the pueblos or at one of the trade fairs. China was being imported through the Philippines at Acapulco, and being manufactured in Pueblo. It may not have survived the trip north, or it may not have been in the reprinted list.
Archevêque was a merchant trader, working with his two older sons. One was in Sonora, probably buying goods, when his father was killed. The men probating the estate inventoried boxes of goods that may just have been received. They suggest some necessities still had to be imported.
These included blankets from Campeche. While some of the early settlers from Mexico City had been weavers, they may not have brought their tools with them. Bourgmont believed red Limbourge blankets were appreciated by natives on the plains.
Archevêque also supplied silk, English linen and silver buttons for clothing, and women’s shoes. Among the gifts Francisco Cuervo gave pueblo representatives were "ribbons, hats, needles, beads." While tailors came north from Mexico City, women, servants or hired help probably did much of the sewing. Archevêque’s account books indicated he’d sold finished socks to Pancho.
Among the luxury goods in the storage boxes were tobacco, two loaves of sugar, and loose chocolate. The executors paid the men opening the boxes with a plug of tobacco. The children’s caretaker, Francisca de Velasco, oversaw their work. She was given six pounds of chocolate "as a gift, with its sugar for her consumption, because she asked for it, she is old and infirm."
The executors found ingots of gold in an elk skin bag in one box. It would have been more useful buying goods in Sonora than in Santa Fé. However, Archevêque or his son, probably also took local goods down to sell, like the inventoried elk skins. I don’t know if the half pack of saddle girths was for the local market, the south, or the journey between.
Notes: Jean l’Archevêque was perhaps the most atypical man living in Nueva España, but he is the one who has been the most researched. By default, he had become the template used to understand the lives of the less conspicuous. His family unit was described in the post for 14 October 2915. Hambrosio de Balbause was hired 9 July 1719; Hambrosio de Palbanoy was hired 18 July 1719. I assume they were the same man.
Salt was collected at the salt lakes near Salinas. Juan Bustamante organized a military escort for collectors that left from Galisteo in June of 1730, and Gervasio Cruzat y Góngora announced one in August of 1732. In earlier years, when the trip was less safe, salt may have been a trade good.
According to Wikipedia, a cost-efficient manufacturing processes for aluminum didn’t exist until 1888; one for stainless steal was introduced in 1915. The diet of Valverde and his men was discussed in the post for 19 August 2015. Bourgmont’s gifts were mentioned on 20 September 2015, Villasur’s on 26 September 2015.
Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Christmas, Henrietta Martinez. "Jean L'Archibeque - 1720 Estate," 1598 New Mexico website, 4 April 2013.
Rael de Aguilar, Alonso. Certification, 10 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; Cuervo’s list.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914; Twitchell, Archives volume 1 has notice of l’Archevêque estate; volume 2 has the announcements for salt trips.
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