Miguel de Quintana gets caught in the escalating conflict between the Franciscan friars and the bishop of Durango, who is represented by José de Bustamante.
1736
January: Quintana notarizes a diligencia matrimoniale in Santa Fé. Ines Griego is suing Marcial Martín for breach of promise. Bustamante hears the case. She settles for 60 pesos. [Roots]
This particular record probably survived because the dispute involved the son of Francisco Martín Serrano and was heard outside the jurisdiction of the Franciscans. Sixty pesos is thirty sheep, or 20% of a soldiers’ annual 400 peso stipend. [Comment]
March: The head of the Inquisition in Santa Fé, José Antonio Guerrero, sends more papers to Ciudad de México, and reports Quintana is "near death." Francisco Lomelí and Clark Colahan don’t reproduce the documents he enclosed. [Guerrero]
Guerrero says, in the same letter, he didn’t publish the Inquisition edicts during Lent "because of the heavy snowfalls and harsh cold in this region." [Guerrero]
Scientists have found rheumatoid arthritis pain increases with the low atmospheric pressure that accompanies cloudy weather. They hypothesize joint tissues expand when the air is less dense, and so make movement difficult. It’s also possible light air exerts less external pressure on joints, so they slide a fraction out of alignment. Santa Cruz’s elevation would contribute to Quintana’s problems because air density decreases with altitude. [Comment]
Many rheumatoid arthritis patients say their symptoms are worse during periods of high humidity and low temperatures, but researchers haven’t yet found the link between the two. The chill described by Guerrero may have made Quintana susceptible to infections and viruses. We know he survives this crises, because he can still notarize transactions for the local alcalde when the weather is warmer and drier. [Comment]
May: Quintana witnesses a land transfer from Juan Angel González and Antonia de Chávez to Diego González. [Twitchell]
July: the Holy Office in Mexico City writes its response to Guerrero’s March dispatch. It instructs him to require Quintana "to go to confessions," and warn him, "if he should slip back" into his old ways, "he will be treated with all the severity of the law and subject to the punishments applied to the obstinate, a fraud, and a rebel." [Navarro]
1737
January: Quintana is "sick in bed from a pain that has been afflicting him for two months." [Guerrero]
January: Guerrero receives the Inquisition’s decision on Quintana. He goes to his house in Santa Cruz to warn him. Quintana agrees to desist sending coloquios to friars. Guerrero assigns José Irigoyen as his confessor. [Guerrero]
January: Guerrero says he visits "la casa y morada" of Quintana. While this word would become associated with the Penitentes, the translators note it is used in its original meaning as a dwelling or abode. [Lomelí]
This description of his house reinforces the suggestion that Quintana’s physical condition was aggravated by living in an adobe house with a dirt floor, single wood fire, and poorly sealed entrance during cold periods. [Comment]
Guerrero and Irigoyen whip Quintana. He writes, "The reverend father who is the commissary of the Holy Office and his notary have come, Miguel, with frivolous pretexts dressed in the passions to hit you with a cat-o’-nine tails, accusing you and reprimanding you for offenses when you have committed none, not even venial ones." [Quintana Coloquio]
If may be that Guerrero and Irigoyen were disappointed with the leniency of the Inquisition’s decision, and appointed Irigoyen as Quintana’s confessor to force him to act or to abstain from some action that they then could use as an excuse to employ the punishments mentioned in the supplemental instructions. This may have been done in public, and led to the activities by Juan Sánchez de la Cruz and Bustamante described below. The latter, in particular, may have seen the whipping as an attack upon himself. [Comment]
Cruz, now assigned to the mission at San Juan de Caballeros, contacts Quintana through Gertrudis Jirón de Tejeda. [Quintana to Cruz]
Quintana describes Jirón as his comadre. She was a child when they both came north in 1693, so she’s not his goddaughter. The incomplete set of sacramental records doesn’t recorded her as the godmother to any of his children or grandchildren. Her connection to Quintana came through his son José’s 1732 marriage to the widow of Juan Sayago. Angélico Chávez believed Sayago and her husband, Manuel de la Rosa, both were related somehow to Francisco González de la Rosa. [Families]
April 17: Quintana writes to Cruz, and encloses the coloquio quoted above. [Quintana to Cruz]
April 24: Juan José Pérez Mirabal visits Cruz, while he is considering his answer to Quintana. Mirabal makes a copy of Quintana’s papers, and tells Cruz that "it had to be reported to the Holy Tribunal." Mirabal is serving in the mission at Jémez at the time. [Mirabal]
Mirabal gives copies of Quintana’s papers to Irigoyen, and tells him the originals will be in the home of Rosa. Late in the day, Irigoyen goes unannounced to Rosa’s house in Santa Cruz, and confiscates Quintana’s papers along with Cruz’s letter. [Irigoyen]
April 25: Cruz writes his letter to Quintana. He says, "I did not understand it, nor could I fathom its phrases, nor did I grasp its purpose." [Cruz]
Cruz may have changed the intent of his letter once he realized Mirabal was likely to report his activities to the Holy Office in Santa Fé. If Irigoyen is to be believed, and he is fastidious about dates and times, Cruz may have misdated his letter. [Comment]
Irigoyen goes unannounced to Cruz’s dwelling to get "a paper of Miguel de Quintana’s that he had in his possession." [Irigoyen]
April 30: Irigoyen makes a statement in the Holy Office in Santa Fé., witnessed by José de Eguía y Lumbre. [Irigoyen]
May: Cruz is assigned to the mission at Santa Cruz. [Archives]
Sometime, Quintana writes letters to Bustamante. [Quintana to Elizacoechea]
Bustamante’s activities seem important, but are not reported. He may have been using Quintana for some purpose of his own, or may have had little to do with him. [Comment]
August: Marcial Martín marries Gabriela de Atienza. She is the niece of Quintana’s wife’s sister. He’s the one who was sued by Ines Griego. [Families]
August-September: the new bishop of Durango, Martín de Elizacoechea, visits Nuevo México. He accedes to Franciscan complaints and replaces Bustamante as his vicar with Santiago Roybal. [Roybal]
Perhaps as a consequence of the bishop’s inspection, the Franciscans assign Manuel de Sopeña as a resident friar at Santa Clara in August. [Comment]
September: Quintana’s son Francisco marries Juana Martín, the daughter of Miguel Martín Serrano and María Archuleta. This is the first time Jirón and Rosa are listed as witnesses. [NM Marriage]
November: the Franciscan’s vice-custos, Juan Antonio de Ezeiza, pressures Quintana to write Elizacoechea and retract what he had written to Bustamante. He tells the governor, Enrique de Olivade, that Quintana has ruined their reputation. [Ezeiza]
November: Quintana writes the required letter to the bishop of Durango. [Letter to Elizacoechea]
November: Olivade endorses Quintana’s letter. [Olivade]
Irigoyen’s statement must have been sent to Mexico City, because it’s in the files of the Inquisition there. However, they don’t seem to have taken any action. [Lomelí]
The Holy Office may have recognized the political consequences of excessive punishment meted to Quintana, and decided reprimanding him wasn’t worth provoking the new bishop. [Comment]
1738
October: Irigoyen is assigned as the resident friar to the mission at Santa Cruz. [Archives]
Notes: Comments are those of the author.
Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957.
_____. "El Vicario Don Santiago Roybal," El Palacio 65:231-252:1948.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Ezeiza, Juan Antonio de. Letter to Enrique de Olivade y Micheleña, 23 November 1737; in Lomelí.
Guerrero, José Antonio. Letter to Inquisition office in Mexico City, 11 March 1736, Santa Fé; in Lomelí.
Irigoyen, José. Statement in the Inquisition office, 30 April 1737, Santa Fé; in Lomelí.
Kessell, John L. Kiva, Cross and Crown, 1995; on timing of Elizacoechea’s visit.
Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006.
Navarro de Ysla, Pedro and Pedro Anselmo Sánchez de Tagle. Letter from the Holy Office in response to José Antonio Guerrero’s March report, 12 July 1736, Mexico City; in Lomelí.
New Mexico Genealogical Society. 100 Years of Marriages, 1726-1826, Santa Cruz de la Cañada, New Mexico, extracted and compiled by Henrietta Martinez Christmas and Patricia Sánchez Rau.
Olivade y Micheleña, Enrique de. Letter to Martín de Elizacoechea, 23 November 1737; in Lomelí.
Pérez Mirabal, Juan José. Statement in the Inquisition office, 24 April 1737, Santa Fé; in Lomelí.
Quintana, Miguel de. Coloquio and letter to Juan Sánchez de la Cruz, 17 April 1737, Santa Cruz; included in Lomelí.
_____. Letter to Martín de Elizacoechea, 2 November 1737, Santa Cruz; in Lomelí.
Sánchez de la Cruz, Juan. Letter to Miguel Quintana, 25 April 1737, San Juan de Caballeros; in Lomelí.
Terao, Chikashi, et alia. "Inverse Association between Air Pressure and Rheumatoid Arthritis Synovitis," Plos One, 15 January 2014.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 1, 1914.
Wingstrand, H. A. Wingstrand and P. Krantz. "Intracapsular and Atmospheric Pressure in the Dynamics and Stability of the Hip. A Biomechanical Study," Acta Orthopaedica Scandinavica 61:231-235:1990.
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