Antonio Gabaldón and Juan Estevan García de Noriega began building the current Santa Cruz church before they formally acquired land. Miguel de Menchero told his Franciscan superiors in 1744, the local friar "is now building a sumptuous church by order of my prelates, without its costing his Majesty half a real for its material or building."
However, the building and the more constant attentions of a friar didn’t alter religious attitudes in the valley. In 1754, Manuel Trigo told his Franciscan superiors that, unlike the pueblos where Natives provided food and labor to the missions, Santa Cruz
"has only a church and a convent, whose minister is obliged to pay wages in order to obtain the necessary servants. The people are all whites, but they live in such an unregulated manner that they do everything possible to avoid paying dues, for everything is dispensed with the book of rates at hand."
The church may have been an exotic flower imported by people who were familiar with the ways of El Paso. The religious Antonio Valverde had headed the presidio there since 1699, and had been made a general in 1710. When he returned from his term as governor in 1721, he expanded his estates. In 1728, he left a ranch near the presidio and a hacienda at San Antonio de Padua near the abandoned pueblo of Senecú devoted to growing wheat. He owned nine African slaves and used more than thirty farm laborers. John Kessell’s team of translators credited these enterprises with making the settlement an economic hub.
The community included people whose parents had refused to return with the Reconquest, and new settlers attracted to the economic opportunities. Francisco Xavier came with the refugees in 1680, with his daughter, Josefa Xavier y Baca. His father was the Francisco who had settled in La Cañada, and later was proscribed by the pueblos. His wife, Juana Francisca Baca, was dead. Angélico Chávez didn’t indicate if she had been killed. He only said the girl was raised by relatives, when her father left the colony.
In 1703, García de Noriega’s first cousin, Luis García de Noriega married Xavier’s daughter. By then, she was living in Valverde’s household and was sometimes called Josefa Valverde. When Juan Estevan married in 1721, Valverde was the sponsor. Since the former governor had migrated from Spain, the connection may have been through his common law wife, María Esparza, or one of the families working for him.
Juan Estevan’s wife was Luisa Gómez del Castillo. Her grandparents were Matías Luján and Francisca Romero who had lived in La Cañada. Her mother, Juana, had children with one of the Gómez Robledos who didn’t return.
His grandfather, Alonso García, had come from Zacatecas and settled south of Santa Fé. Two of his sons, including Luis’s father, returned with the conquest. His own father, Juan García Noriega, remained behind with his wife, Francisca Sánchez de Iñigo. Two of her brothers, Pedro and Jacinto went north.
Juan Estevan’s early influences then included memories of those who didn’t return, reports of successes in Nuevo México by those who stayed in contact with their relatives, and the general prosperity of El Paso. They may have fostered the same views of self-importance that motivated which Cristóbal Tafoya Altamirano to regain his in-laws’ ancestral position.
His name first appeared in the Santa Fé court records in 1731 when he sued his wife’s uncle Juan over land he’d sold to the son-in-law of another brother, Miguel Luján. The parents of Miguel’s wife, Catalina Valdés, had migrated from Oviedo, Spain, and had come north with the settlers of 1693.
He may have been following the example of Valverde, when he came north came as a solider: he was listed as a capitán in 1733. His name appeared on land transfer records in 1736 as the local alcalde.
By then he was trying to create a ranch like Valverde. In 1737, he had two shepherds tending animals on royal lands near those of Antonio Trujillo. The recorded didn’t indicate if the men were hired help or captives.
In 1751, he filed a petition for rancho called Santa Bárbara that had been abandoned by Juan Antonio Luján. His widow was Manuel Rosalía de Beytia. Both her father and brother had been alféreces in the presidio.
Gabaldón’s ties to El Paso were more indirect. He entered the Pueblo Franciscan seminary when he was 16. His father had just died, and left his mother with an infant boy. Jim Norris noted, he came to Nuevo México in 1723 before he was old enough to have been ordained. From 1728 to 1731 he served as secretary to Menchero. Those may have been the three years Norris said he was in El Paso.
His brother Juan arrived in Santa Fé in 1731, and in 1735 married Antonia Juliana l’Archevêque She was Jean’s granddaughter through Miguel and María de Roybal. That made her the niece of Santiago de Roybal, who was the priest serving in El Paso for the Bishop of Durango. That also would have connected him with Luisa Gómez del Castillo, who was probably Santiago’s first cousin.
After that, Norris said, Galbadón’s name didn’t appear in the record until he died in 1759. He wasn’t elected to any office, he wasn’t reprimanded for leaving the mission without permission like so many, and he wasn’t moved around as much between pueblos or settlements.
Notes: For more on people on La Cañada before the revolt, see the entry for 23 March 2014 on Francisco Xavier, for 25 May 2014 on the Lujáns and for 8 June 2014 on the Romeros. María Esparza was mentioned in the post for 13 September 2015. The relationships Roybal and Gómez de Robledo were discussed in the post for 21 March 2016.
Bandelier, Adolph F. A. and Fanny R. Bandelier. Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Domínguez, Francisco Atanasio. A Description of New Mexico, 1776, translated by Eleanor B. Adams and Angélico Chávez as The Missions of New Mexico, 1776, 1956; on church acquisition of Serna land.
Kessell, John L., Rick Hendricks, Meredith Dodge, and Larry R. Miller. A Settling of Accounts, 2002.
Menchero, Miguel de. Declaration, Santa Bárbara, 10 May 1744; translation in Bandelier, 1937.
Naylor, Thomas H., Diana Hadley, and Mardith K. Schuetz-Miller. The Presidio and Militia on the Northern Frontier of New Spain, volume 2, part 2, 1997.
Norris, Jim. After "The Year Eighty," 2000.
Trigo, Miguel de San Juan Nepomuceno y. Letter to procurador general, José Miguel de los Ríos, Istacalco, 23 July 1754; translation in Bandelier, 1937.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. . Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 1, 1914; details on García de Noriega 1751 land petition.
United States. Court of Private Land Claims. Santa Fe district. "Juan Esteban Garcia de Noriega Grant (N.M.)."
Wikipedia. Entry on "Antonio Valverde y Cosío" described his estate when he died; its source no longer has the information on-line.
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