All the people living in Chimayó before 1712 had family connections from La Cañada before the Revolt. Luis Martín Serrano II was married to Melchora de los Reyes. His children by another wife, Antonia de Miranda, included Antonio and Francisco. The second was married to Juana García de los Reyes. Luis’s brother Pedro’s daughter Juana was married to Felipe de Arratia. Luis’ first cousin, Cristóbal, was the father of Felipe Moraga.
Of the other settlers, Diego González was the son of Melchora González Bernal. Luis López was married to Ana María de la Concepción Bernal. His mother was Ana Luján. Matías Luján was married to Francisca Romero. Angélico Chávez thought Matías the likely son of Juan Luján. He didn’t mention Ana.
Those who weren’t members of the original La Cañada community were soon absorbed by marriage. Antonio’s first wife was Ynez de Ledesma. His second was María Cortés of Mexico City. In 1725, he married Gertrudis Fresqui, the granddaughter of Ambrosia Fresqui.
Ana María Herrera, the niece of Tomas de Herrera y Sandoval, married Luis’ grandson, Antonio. He was the child of Diego and Josefa de Torres.
After 1712, most of the new names that appear in Chimayó were through marriages. That year Mateo de Ortega, the husband of Antonia Martín conveyed, land to Manuel Martín. In 1718, Antonia’s second husband Bernardo Fernández was living there. Diego Durán, the husband of Pascuala Martín, witnessed a wedding in 1720.
Marriages of the younger generation of Martíns generally were with children of new immigrants. Cristóbal’s son Diego married Manuela de Vargas in 1714, his daughter Catarina married Isidro Medina in 1717, and his son Juan Luis married Isidro’s sister Antonia in 1719. Manuela’s father, Manuel Fernandéz de Vargas, was a tailor from Guadalajara. Isidro’s father was a capitán in the militia from Durango.
Antonio Martín’s stepdaughter, Ines Cortes, married Francisco Jurado in 1718. His family came from Sombrerete. The exception to this preference for exogamy was Antonio’s son by María Cortes. Juan Antonio, married Feliciana Monroy in 1725. Her parents were Juan Alonso de Mondragón and Sebastiana Trujillo. Her grandmother was María Bernal.
Within the extended families, authority apparently flowed from father to son. When disputes arose between brothers whose fathers were long dead, harmony was maintained by asking a neutral third party to arbitrate.
For instance, when Diego González filed a complaint against Pedro’s daughter’s husband, Felipe de Arratia, in 1703, the family of Pedro’s brother testified against him. Witnesses included Luis and his sons Domingo and Antonio.
Similarly, Luis López requested arbitration against Melchora de los Reyes in 1712. She was married to Luis Martín. His wife was the close friend of Pedro’s daughter-in-law, Leonor Domínguez.
In 1717, Cristóbal, the son of Hernán, and Francisco, the son of Luis’ son Pedro also used a third party.
In addition, the family employed diligencias matrimoniales to voice concerns when lines of authority weren’t clear. When Diego’s son Antonio proposed marrying Gertrudis Sánchez in 1717, Francisco, his son Juan, and another cousin Diego, all said they had had relations with her. When Isidro Medina’s sister was going to marry Diego Romero, Miguel Martín was one of the witnesses who said Romero had already proposed to another woman. The marriage proceeded when Romero claimed the woman involved was already pregnant by another man.
As mentioned in the post for 29 March 2015 on the dispute between Leonor Domínguez and her husband, the purpose of judicial investigations wasn’t to place blame. Instead, it was to determine the community’s will and enforce it. The first two complaints were like class action suits brought by groups who were harmed by someone closing a road. To maintain family and community harmony, the person filing the complaint was not a member of the accused’s family, but the witnesses and beneficiaries were.
Notes: Chávez didn’t mention Melchora in Families, but she was named as the mother of Diego Martín, son of Luis, in 1717 in Roots. Chávez believed Bernardo or Bernardino Fernández was the same man as Martín Fernández mentioned in the post for 2 April 2015.
Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995. He has more on the functions of the judicial system as an enforced of community mores.
Showing posts with label 01 Bernal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 01 Bernal. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 04, 2015
Sunday, March 30, 2014
La Cañada - Juan Griego
The fourth of the larger hacienda owners, Juan Griego, is the most enigmatic. We know nothing about him, except that he once said he was from Candia on the island of Crete, that he came with Juan de Oñate in 1595 as a married man, and that he said he was the son of Lazarus.
Stanley Hordes has speculated he may have been a covert Jew, based on an accusation made by Teresa de Aguilera y Roche, wife of Bernardo López de Mendizábal, when she was being tried by the Inquisition in Mexico City for Judaizing. She claimed he "died with a çapote in his mouth, and with his face against the wall, without desiring to reconcile himself, or to be a Christian, even in this hour and as a consequence, they say that he was buried in the hills of Santa Ana."
David Gitlitz suggests that when Jews in Spain and Portugal were forced to convert, many were able to live with the subsequence compromises until they faced death. Then, many believed "the deathbed reaffirmation of Judaism assured their place in the continuum of the ancestral tradition." For this reason, the Inquisition was especially mindful of the behavior of the dead, and in the Edicto de Fe issued by the Inquisition in Mexico City in 1639 proscribed these customs.
Gitlitz says "one of the most common and most persistent" rites was turning the heads of the dying towards the wall. Schulamith Halevy found the tradition has persisted among those living in México today. The underlying reference is to Hezekiah, king of Judah, who, when the prophet Isaiah came to warn him to prepare to die, turned his face to the wall to speak directly to God.
As with many things about Griego, so little is known you can draw any conclusion.
When Ferdinand expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, some went to Candia, a city the Venetians had heavily fortified. In 1574, when Griego was about nine years old, they sent Giacomo Foscarini to reorganize the city. As head of the Inquisition, he was particularly hard on Jews and Greeks who did not accept the Roman Catholic church.
A blogger calling himself Iaonas proposes a different historic background. He notes that when the Turks took Constantinople in 1453, many Greeks joined the Spanish army where they were skilled artillerymen. Among the ones he names were Theodoro Griego who served in Pánfilo de Narváez’s attempt to sabotage Cortés in México, Pedro de Candia and Jorge Griego who joined Pizarro in Peru, and a different Juan Griego who was awarded a small encomienda in México for supporting Cortés.
They could both be right, one right, or both wrong. You’re still left with only two facts. Griego was apparently a commonly accepted nom de combat and, unlike many of the men who came with Oñate, he had "complete armor for himself."
The most extraordinary thing about him is that, when he was in México, he married an Indian rather than treated her as a mistress to be brought north as a servant. No more is known about Pascula Bernal than she spoke Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and the tribes of the central valley.
Her name may have come from living in an area assigned to Francisco Bernal or Juan Bernal. Both had come to México with Narváez in 1520 and both were officially citizens (vecino) of Puebla. Francisco had encomiendas for Tanchinamol, Mecatlán and Heusco. Juan had the encomienda of Acatlán south of Puebla, according to Robert Himmerich y Valencia.
The natives in Puebla weren’t Aztec, but groups that had been conquered by them who spoke their language and supported Cortés. According to Wikipedia, Mixtecs were found in Acatlán, Popolocas in Tepexi, the Olmec-Xicalancas and Nahuas in the central part of the modern state, and the Totonacas, Mazatecos and Otomi in the north.
The Huastec of the Indian town of Tanchinamol split from the Maya and migrated to northern Veracruz around 1200bc. The Acatlán shared pottery techniques with the Olmec. Mecatlán is a Xicotepec ranchería in modern Puebla.
Pascula’s cultural heritage could have been that of any of the conquered people, or a mix. However, the fact that it probably was derived from the Puebla-Veracruz border area may explain the presence of çapote. Casimiroa edulis is a subtropical tree with a perishable, sweet fruit that wouldn’t grow here or survive transport by wagon train. More likely it was the large pit Teresa heard about.
About thirty years before the Oñate expedition, Spanish botanist Francisco Hernández found cochiztzaputl fruit produced drowsiness and the seeds were poisonous. In the same years, Florentine Codex compiler Bernardino de Sahagún was told by the Aztec they used it as a sedative and that "it brings, it lowers the star of the night."
White sapote commonly has been used to treat rheumatism and arthritis in Mesoamerica. The Mayo used the leaves to lower blood pressure, while Costa Ricans used them to treat diabetes.
Griego may have been suffering from any of these ailments and been treated by Pascula, or he may have been in such pain she gave him something to sleep, or, acceding to his request, may have prepared him to die and given him a toxic dose.
Gitlitz says it was common for Spanish conversos "to ease the journey of the deceased with offerings of food and money." The Mayan placed corn and stone beads in the mouths of the dead for the same reason.
You may take Griego at face value, as have descendants who have identified ancestors for both him and his wife, or you may take his reference to his father as a sign he spoke in riddles. He could have been a Spanish Jew in exile or a Greek. She may have had Mayan ancestors or not.
All we know is that they both died far from their native homes, strangers in a strange, strange land.
Notes: Hezekiah is found in Isaiah 38:2-3 and Kings 20:2.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Gitlitz, David M. Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews, 1996; he mentions a twentieth century Portuguese legend that Jews, to avoid contamination by the last rites, asphyxiated a dying relative so he would be dead before the priest arrived.
Halevy, Schulamith Chava. Descendants of the Anusim (Crypto-Jews) in Contemporary Mexico, 2009.
Hernández, Francisco. Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae, published in 1651 and cited by Morton.
Himmerich y Valencia, Robert. The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521-1555, 1991. Juan Bernal had three sons, one who became a priest, a second Juan who lived on a government pension, and a third who died young. Nothing more is known about Francisco.
Hordes, Stanley M. To the End of the Earth, 2005.
Iaonas. "Greek Conquistadors and Explorers in the Spanish Army," Blogspot website, 11 December 2011.
Morton, Julia F. Fruits of Warm Climates, 1987.
Sahagún, Bernardino de. Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva España, c.1577, translated as Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Book XI - Earthly Things by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson, 1963.
Wikipedia. "Puebla" downloaded 5 March 2012.
Yetman, David and Thomas R. Van Devender. Mayo Ethnobotany, 2002.
Stanley Hordes has speculated he may have been a covert Jew, based on an accusation made by Teresa de Aguilera y Roche, wife of Bernardo López de Mendizábal, when she was being tried by the Inquisition in Mexico City for Judaizing. She claimed he "died with a çapote in his mouth, and with his face against the wall, without desiring to reconcile himself, or to be a Christian, even in this hour and as a consequence, they say that he was buried in the hills of Santa Ana."
David Gitlitz suggests that when Jews in Spain and Portugal were forced to convert, many were able to live with the subsequence compromises until they faced death. Then, many believed "the deathbed reaffirmation of Judaism assured their place in the continuum of the ancestral tradition." For this reason, the Inquisition was especially mindful of the behavior of the dead, and in the Edicto de Fe issued by the Inquisition in Mexico City in 1639 proscribed these customs.
Gitlitz says "one of the most common and most persistent" rites was turning the heads of the dying towards the wall. Schulamith Halevy found the tradition has persisted among those living in México today. The underlying reference is to Hezekiah, king of Judah, who, when the prophet Isaiah came to warn him to prepare to die, turned his face to the wall to speak directly to God.
As with many things about Griego, so little is known you can draw any conclusion.
When Ferdinand expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, some went to Candia, a city the Venetians had heavily fortified. In 1574, when Griego was about nine years old, they sent Giacomo Foscarini to reorganize the city. As head of the Inquisition, he was particularly hard on Jews and Greeks who did not accept the Roman Catholic church.
A blogger calling himself Iaonas proposes a different historic background. He notes that when the Turks took Constantinople in 1453, many Greeks joined the Spanish army where they were skilled artillerymen. Among the ones he names were Theodoro Griego who served in Pánfilo de Narváez’s attempt to sabotage Cortés in México, Pedro de Candia and Jorge Griego who joined Pizarro in Peru, and a different Juan Griego who was awarded a small encomienda in México for supporting Cortés.
They could both be right, one right, or both wrong. You’re still left with only two facts. Griego was apparently a commonly accepted nom de combat and, unlike many of the men who came with Oñate, he had "complete armor for himself."
The most extraordinary thing about him is that, when he was in México, he married an Indian rather than treated her as a mistress to be brought north as a servant. No more is known about Pascula Bernal than she spoke Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and the tribes of the central valley.
Her name may have come from living in an area assigned to Francisco Bernal or Juan Bernal. Both had come to México with Narváez in 1520 and both were officially citizens (vecino) of Puebla. Francisco had encomiendas for Tanchinamol, Mecatlán and Heusco. Juan had the encomienda of Acatlán south of Puebla, according to Robert Himmerich y Valencia.
The natives in Puebla weren’t Aztec, but groups that had been conquered by them who spoke their language and supported Cortés. According to Wikipedia, Mixtecs were found in Acatlán, Popolocas in Tepexi, the Olmec-Xicalancas and Nahuas in the central part of the modern state, and the Totonacas, Mazatecos and Otomi in the north.
The Huastec of the Indian town of Tanchinamol split from the Maya and migrated to northern Veracruz around 1200bc. The Acatlán shared pottery techniques with the Olmec. Mecatlán is a Xicotepec ranchería in modern Puebla.
Pascula’s cultural heritage could have been that of any of the conquered people, or a mix. However, the fact that it probably was derived from the Puebla-Veracruz border area may explain the presence of çapote. Casimiroa edulis is a subtropical tree with a perishable, sweet fruit that wouldn’t grow here or survive transport by wagon train. More likely it was the large pit Teresa heard about.
About thirty years before the Oñate expedition, Spanish botanist Francisco Hernández found cochiztzaputl fruit produced drowsiness and the seeds were poisonous. In the same years, Florentine Codex compiler Bernardino de Sahagún was told by the Aztec they used it as a sedative and that "it brings, it lowers the star of the night."
White sapote commonly has been used to treat rheumatism and arthritis in Mesoamerica. The Mayo used the leaves to lower blood pressure, while Costa Ricans used them to treat diabetes.
Griego may have been suffering from any of these ailments and been treated by Pascula, or he may have been in such pain she gave him something to sleep, or, acceding to his request, may have prepared him to die and given him a toxic dose.
Gitlitz says it was common for Spanish conversos "to ease the journey of the deceased with offerings of food and money." The Mayan placed corn and stone beads in the mouths of the dead for the same reason.
You may take Griego at face value, as have descendants who have identified ancestors for both him and his wife, or you may take his reference to his father as a sign he spoke in riddles. He could have been a Spanish Jew in exile or a Greek. She may have had Mayan ancestors or not.
All we know is that they both died far from their native homes, strangers in a strange, strange land.
Notes: Hezekiah is found in Isaiah 38:2-3 and Kings 20:2.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Gitlitz, David M. Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews, 1996; he mentions a twentieth century Portuguese legend that Jews, to avoid contamination by the last rites, asphyxiated a dying relative so he would be dead before the priest arrived.
Halevy, Schulamith Chava. Descendants of the Anusim (Crypto-Jews) in Contemporary Mexico, 2009.
Hernández, Francisco. Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae, published in 1651 and cited by Morton.
Himmerich y Valencia, Robert. The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521-1555, 1991. Juan Bernal had three sons, one who became a priest, a second Juan who lived on a government pension, and a third who died young. Nothing more is known about Francisco.
Hordes, Stanley M. To the End of the Earth, 2005.
Iaonas. "Greek Conquistadors and Explorers in the Spanish Army," Blogspot website, 11 December 2011.
Morton, Julia F. Fruits of Warm Climates, 1987.
Sahagún, Bernardino de. Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva España, c.1577, translated as Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Book XI - Earthly Things by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson, 1963.
Wikipedia. "Puebla" downloaded 5 March 2012.
Yetman, David and Thomas R. Van Devender. Mayo Ethnobotany, 2002.
Monday, March 17, 2014
La Cañada - Large Land Owners
The larger land owners, that is those who owned enough land in La Cañada before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 to support more than one family, resembled the upwardly mobile in any small community after the Renaissance.
They often are in, but not part of their communities, because they arrive with ambitions, accumulate wealth, often through political connections, and leave when conditions warrant.
The largest land holding after that of the Martín Serrano family belonged to Sebastián González. He apparently was an absentee land owner because Luis Granillo reported "Alonso del Río had possession. Another two families had parts of this hacienda, so three families can fit and settle on this site. Its lands are of better quality."
According to Angélico Chávez, González didn’t appear in the public record until 1626, when he was described as an alférez (low level military officer) from Portugal. Chávez thinks he could have been the son of Diego Blandín, who was sentenced to join Juan de Oñate in 1598 by the Royal Audencía. Blandín was the son of Diego González from Coimbra, where covert Jewish practices were suspected, according to Stanley Hordes.
González married Isabel Bernal, the daughter of his neighbor next in La Cañada, Juan Griego, but apparently remained in Santa Fé where he and his children rose through the ranks of middling officials.
In 1642 he had was a regent of the colony. One son, Diego González Bernal was alcalde mayor of San Macros Pueblo in 1661. Two years later he as alcalde mayor of Galisteo pueblo, when he supported Bernardo López de Mendizábal against the Franciscans, then fled to Mexico for safety
In the same year, his brother Antonio González Bernal was acting secretary to the cabildo (governing council appointed by the governor). Others were less conspicuous. Many didn’t return in the reconquest, but some women were trying to regain the property of their mother. One, Melchora Bas González lived in Santa Cruz.
The next largest land owner in La Cañada, Ambrosio Sáez, came from Nueva Vizcaya with his wife, Ana Rodríguez de Anaya. He first appeared in the public record in 1665 in the military in the Sandía area, and later moved north. He was still in the military in 1680.
He, his wife, and ten children made it to Guadalupe del Paso where his son, Agustín Sáez’s wife died. Leonor de Herrera was the daughter of Marcos de Herrera. The family fled the refuge camp for México, although Agustín subsequently enlisted in the reconquest and came north with his new wife, Antonio Márquez.
Santa Fé banished him for adultery in 1701. His daughter, Juliana, married Juan Griego’s grandson. His son, Francisco Sáez, married Juana Herrera of Santa Cruz. Her parents were among the recruits who settled in the villa in 1696.
In describing Ambrosio’s land, Luis Granillo noted that "part of the rebel Tewa Indians from Tesuque Pueblo were camped out here last year, 1694, in order to take advantage of planting the land. For that reason, there are good dwellings. In my opinion, two or three citizens can settle with their families on this hacienda."
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, included Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.
Hordes, Stanley M. To The End of the Earth, 2005.
They often are in, but not part of their communities, because they arrive with ambitions, accumulate wealth, often through political connections, and leave when conditions warrant.
The largest land holding after that of the Martín Serrano family belonged to Sebastián González. He apparently was an absentee land owner because Luis Granillo reported "Alonso del Río had possession. Another two families had parts of this hacienda, so three families can fit and settle on this site. Its lands are of better quality."
According to Angélico Chávez, González didn’t appear in the public record until 1626, when he was described as an alférez (low level military officer) from Portugal. Chávez thinks he could have been the son of Diego Blandín, who was sentenced to join Juan de Oñate in 1598 by the Royal Audencía. Blandín was the son of Diego González from Coimbra, where covert Jewish practices were suspected, according to Stanley Hordes.
González married Isabel Bernal, the daughter of his neighbor next in La Cañada, Juan Griego, but apparently remained in Santa Fé where he and his children rose through the ranks of middling officials.
In 1642 he had was a regent of the colony. One son, Diego González Bernal was alcalde mayor of San Macros Pueblo in 1661. Two years later he as alcalde mayor of Galisteo pueblo, when he supported Bernardo López de Mendizábal against the Franciscans, then fled to Mexico for safety
In the same year, his brother Antonio González Bernal was acting secretary to the cabildo (governing council appointed by the governor). Others were less conspicuous. Many didn’t return in the reconquest, but some women were trying to regain the property of their mother. One, Melchora Bas González lived in Santa Cruz.
The next largest land owner in La Cañada, Ambrosio Sáez, came from Nueva Vizcaya with his wife, Ana Rodríguez de Anaya. He first appeared in the public record in 1665 in the military in the Sandía area, and later moved north. He was still in the military in 1680.
He, his wife, and ten children made it to Guadalupe del Paso where his son, Agustín Sáez’s wife died. Leonor de Herrera was the daughter of Marcos de Herrera. The family fled the refuge camp for México, although Agustín subsequently enlisted in the reconquest and came north with his new wife, Antonio Márquez.
Santa Fé banished him for adultery in 1701. His daughter, Juliana, married Juan Griego’s grandson. His son, Francisco Sáez, married Juana Herrera of Santa Cruz. Her parents were among the recruits who settled in the villa in 1696.
In describing Ambrosio’s land, Luis Granillo noted that "part of the rebel Tewa Indians from Tesuque Pueblo were camped out here last year, 1694, in order to take advantage of planting the land. For that reason, there are good dwellings. In my opinion, two or three citizens can settle with their families on this hacienda."
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, included Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.
Hordes, Stanley M. To The End of the Earth, 2005.
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