Four traditions influenced religious beliefs in Santa Cruz.
Leonor Domínguez married into a family whose faith was a compound of Puebla and Hapsburg beliefs. It was a dangerous world ruled by the devil who worked through witches. As mentioned in posts for 30 March and 6 April 2014, Juan Griego’s wife, Pascuala Bernal, was a Nahuatl speaker probably from the Puebla-Veracruz area who brought herbal traditions with her. Her son married the daughter of Beatriz de los Ángeles, a Mexican native accused of sorcery.
Roque de Madrid may have been the grandson of another Mexican native, Francisca Jiménez, but his beliefs came from his grandfather, Francisco de Madrid, who was a capitán and member of the Santa Fé cabildo before the Revolt. Roque’s older brother, Lorenzo, used to call himself "the oldest Conquistador" in the colony.
Madrid evoked the Asturian legend that the disciple James aided Ramiro I in the battle of Clavijo against the Emir of Córdoba in 834. He named one place "with excellent grazing and many cienegas and springs" the Valle de Santiago. When they entered battle with the Navajo, he invoked "the name of our lord Santiago."
Instead of witches, Madrid fought infidels. He used the word entrada to describe his 1705 campaign against the unchristianized Navajo and named his first camp site in the Sierra Florida for Nuestra Señora de Covadonga. She had blessed the first battle of Spain’s Reconquest in 722. When his horse stumbled and he fell down a slope, he said "only by a miracle from La Conquistadora did I escape with my life."
His Lord was the miracle worker of the gospels. Madrid gave thanks whenever he found good pasturage or decent passage. One time he said: "God saw fit that after a little more than one-fourth of a league, I came out to a country that was somewhat easier of passage." Another time, he told his troops he had located water. "They all rejoiced and gave thanks to God."
After they crossed the Continental Divide into the arid lands south of the Navajo River, their horses were "staggering and dizzy from thirst." Madrid recorded:
"Thus, it was that our horses went among the rocks sniffing and neighing in such a way that it seemed that they understood and were asking God for water with their cries. In the midst of this affliction, our chaplain began to clamor to heaven, asking for relief; all my companions and I joined him. Our exclamations reached Heaven, and suddenly a small cloud arose giving a little rain, but it was not enough to wet our cloaks."
Instead, the small cloud dropped its load upstream. A dry arroyo turned into "a great flood" where they watered the animals. Madrid said:
"We praised God, thanking him for this miracle. Then He sent rain in such abundance that all the fields turned into lagunas. In the hour and a half that the rain lasted, the water gave us no place to halt."
The priest, Augustín de Colina, preached a sermon on the Saturday before their first assault on the Navajo. Madrid said the Franciscan reminded the men they must treat the enemy justly, and to do so they needed "to be in God’s grace." He spent the day listening to confessions "from all those who wanted to prepare themselves and enter into battle in a state of grace." The following day he celebrated the "Holy Sacrifice of the Mass."
The concern with grace probably came from the same Biblical source as Jean Calvin’s. In both cases, individuals had to prove to their neighbors they were in such a state. In New England, if they succeeded, they were accepted as members of the church and given privileges accorded the elite. In Nuevo México, they became Españoles, even if their heritage was mixed or unknown. The difference is Calvin limited the elect to those predestined from birth to be saved by God, while the friars bestowed grace through the administration of the sacraments.
Madrid’s Lord was not the Jehovah of the Puritans. He said, when they again were lacking adequate water, "I left again, trusting in God and His Most Holy Mother that they would succor me in this time of need." He named one lake Laguna de San Joseph for Christ’s guardian.
Notes:
Castrillón, Antonio Álvarez. Campaign journal for Roque Madrid’s campaign against the Navajo, republished in Rick Hendricks and John P. Wilson, The Navajos in 1705, 1996.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Showing posts with label 01 Domínguez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 01 Domínguez. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 02, 2015
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Santa Cruz Militia
Two military ranks appeared in diligencias matrimoniales: capitánes of the militia and soldiers in the presidio. The latter included sargentos and sargento mayors. Other ranks existed in Santa Fé, but these were the ones known in Santa Cruz.
Thomas Naylor said New Spain paid its soldiers so poorly, few would enlist. Only the worst were turned away. In 1708, charges were brought against Martín García and six men under his command for mistreating men at Galisteo. Cristóbal Lucero stabbed one in the head. Miguel Durán threw others off scaffolds. García himself ordered Lorenzo Rodríguez to tie, hang, and whip a man.
There was no death penalty for Lucero killing a man. The Duque de Albuquerque wanted him sentenced to a distant presidio and the others warned. The viceroy was overruled by his auditor generals of war. In 1710, they suggested García also be sentenced to another presidio and Durán be warned. One of the pardoned, Alonso Garcia de Noriega, was the nephew of Leonor Domínguez and Alonso Rael de Aguilar. Their uncle Lázaro had been killed at Galisteo in 1680.
Low wages meant few soldiers could afford families. With no patrimony, their sons enlisted and their daughters had few prospects. The only man who married in Santa Cruz in these years was a second generation soldier. Miguel Tenorio de Alba had risen to capitán by the time he wed Agustína Romero in 1705. She was the daughter of Salvador Romero and María López de Ocanto.
The only military men called to witness Santa Cruz weddings were Sargento Ambrosio Fresqui in 1703 and Alonso Fernandéz in 1701. The one was likely the son or grandson of Capitán Juan Fresqui. The other had come from Sombrerete with his father. Capitán Juan Fernandéz de la Pedrera had migrated from Galicia.
A division without a name existed between militia capitáns and their men. Francisco Cuervo reviewed the troops in Santa Cruz in April of 1705. Eight-three men showed, but only twenty-three had horses or mules. Twenty-two had no weapons. It’s not known if two-thirds of the men had had animals they sold, if the animals they had been issued when the villa was settled had grown old, or if they never had had horses or mules.
When Roque de Madrid pursued the Navajo in August of that year, all the men were mounted and had spare animals. Cuervo had brought 600 horses from Nuevo Vizcaya. There were more than 700 horses in Madrid’s campaign herd, including those of the "Indian allies."
When Madrid started across the highlands west of the Tusas, he sent "war captains from the Tewa and Picurís nations" ahead to suggest a route. When they returned, "they laid before me as many difficulties and inconveniences as they possibly could." He ignored them to "follow the slope and the breaks of the mountains by a route no Spaniard or person from any other nation had taken until now," but did take the precaution of doubling the squadron for the horses.
A few days later, he sent his scouts ahead again, and "they returned to me and raised even greater objections to my entrada." Madrid "paid them no heed, because my mind was made up to continue until I saw everything to its conclusion."
Juan de Ulibarrí was sent across the prairies to El Cuartelejo in 1706. They met other Apache who warned them of dangerous bands ahead. He thanked them for their advice, "but I was trusting in our God who was the creator of everything and who was to keep us free from the present dangers."
Later, after they had crossed the Arkansas river, Ulibarrí’s pueblo guides warned him, "we would undergo much suffering because there was no water." The men got lost following hummocks of grass left as a trail by the Apache, but two scouts did find water. The next day, they got lost again. This time "I, with the experience of the preceding day, scattered the whole command" and so found a dry arroyo with a spring.
After they had fought several successful battles with the Navajo, Madrid called a council of "active officials, military leaders, and reserves." The horses were suffering, the men were sick from eating green corn. He asked what was "appropriate" for "a soldier’s honor."
They answered, the enemy would now hide from fear of their weapons, and so little would be gained from pursuing them. They felt it was time to "withdraw our forces to the royal presidio."
When Ulibarrí needed to violate colonial policy against arming natives by providing them with a gun in exchange for one they had taken from the Pawnee, he called a meeting of his advisors. "We had agreed by common consent that it was better to hand it over to them so that in no way should they lack confidence in our word."
There was one other division within the military, the one between men like Madrid and Ulibarrí and the men they commanded. When he was determining the best strategy for dealing with the Navajo, Madrid said he feared "the treachery of these barbarians because of my many years of experience fighting them."
But it was more than experience. It took judgement, intuition and an ability to learn from the unexpected to chart paths through unexplored wilderness, intelligence to devise ruses to trick the Navajo, and wisdom to listen to the tenor of what men said.
Such military virtues were universally recognized. Jacques Marquette said of his commander, Louis Joliet: "He possesses Tact and prudence, which are the chief qualities necessary for the success of a voyage as dangerous as it is difficult. Finally, he has the Courage to dread nothing where everything is to be Feared."
Notes: The roster doesn’t exist from Madrid’s campaign, so it’s impossible to know how many horses were available to each man.
Castrillón, Antonio Álvarez. Campaign journal for Roque Madrid’s campaign against the Navajo, republished in Hendricks; Madrid quotations.
Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Hendricks, Rick and John P. Wilson. The Navajos in 1705, 1996; on Cuervo.
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; on trial of Martín García. The records they transcribed didn’t name all six men.
Marquette, Jacques. Journal included in Claude Dablon’s "Le Premier Voÿage Qu’a Fait Le P. Marquette vers le Nouveau Mexique," translated by Reuben Gold Thwaites in The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, volume 59, 1899.
Ulibarrí, Juan de. Diary of expedition to El Cuartelejo, 1706, in Alfred B. Thomas, After Coronado, 1935.
Thomas Naylor said New Spain paid its soldiers so poorly, few would enlist. Only the worst were turned away. In 1708, charges were brought against Martín García and six men under his command for mistreating men at Galisteo. Cristóbal Lucero stabbed one in the head. Miguel Durán threw others off scaffolds. García himself ordered Lorenzo Rodríguez to tie, hang, and whip a man.
There was no death penalty for Lucero killing a man. The Duque de Albuquerque wanted him sentenced to a distant presidio and the others warned. The viceroy was overruled by his auditor generals of war. In 1710, they suggested García also be sentenced to another presidio and Durán be warned. One of the pardoned, Alonso Garcia de Noriega, was the nephew of Leonor Domínguez and Alonso Rael de Aguilar. Their uncle Lázaro had been killed at Galisteo in 1680.
Low wages meant few soldiers could afford families. With no patrimony, their sons enlisted and their daughters had few prospects. The only man who married in Santa Cruz in these years was a second generation soldier. Miguel Tenorio de Alba had risen to capitán by the time he wed Agustína Romero in 1705. She was the daughter of Salvador Romero and María López de Ocanto.
The only military men called to witness Santa Cruz weddings were Sargento Ambrosio Fresqui in 1703 and Alonso Fernandéz in 1701. The one was likely the son or grandson of Capitán Juan Fresqui. The other had come from Sombrerete with his father. Capitán Juan Fernandéz de la Pedrera had migrated from Galicia.
A division without a name existed between militia capitáns and their men. Francisco Cuervo reviewed the troops in Santa Cruz in April of 1705. Eight-three men showed, but only twenty-three had horses or mules. Twenty-two had no weapons. It’s not known if two-thirds of the men had had animals they sold, if the animals they had been issued when the villa was settled had grown old, or if they never had had horses or mules.
When Roque de Madrid pursued the Navajo in August of that year, all the men were mounted and had spare animals. Cuervo had brought 600 horses from Nuevo Vizcaya. There were more than 700 horses in Madrid’s campaign herd, including those of the "Indian allies."
When Madrid started across the highlands west of the Tusas, he sent "war captains from the Tewa and Picurís nations" ahead to suggest a route. When they returned, "they laid before me as many difficulties and inconveniences as they possibly could." He ignored them to "follow the slope and the breaks of the mountains by a route no Spaniard or person from any other nation had taken until now," but did take the precaution of doubling the squadron for the horses.
A few days later, he sent his scouts ahead again, and "they returned to me and raised even greater objections to my entrada." Madrid "paid them no heed, because my mind was made up to continue until I saw everything to its conclusion."
Juan de Ulibarrí was sent across the prairies to El Cuartelejo in 1706. They met other Apache who warned them of dangerous bands ahead. He thanked them for their advice, "but I was trusting in our God who was the creator of everything and who was to keep us free from the present dangers."
Later, after they had crossed the Arkansas river, Ulibarrí’s pueblo guides warned him, "we would undergo much suffering because there was no water." The men got lost following hummocks of grass left as a trail by the Apache, but two scouts did find water. The next day, they got lost again. This time "I, with the experience of the preceding day, scattered the whole command" and so found a dry arroyo with a spring.
After they had fought several successful battles with the Navajo, Madrid called a council of "active officials, military leaders, and reserves." The horses were suffering, the men were sick from eating green corn. He asked what was "appropriate" for "a soldier’s honor."
They answered, the enemy would now hide from fear of their weapons, and so little would be gained from pursuing them. They felt it was time to "withdraw our forces to the royal presidio."
When Ulibarrí needed to violate colonial policy against arming natives by providing them with a gun in exchange for one they had taken from the Pawnee, he called a meeting of his advisors. "We had agreed by common consent that it was better to hand it over to them so that in no way should they lack confidence in our word."
There was one other division within the military, the one between men like Madrid and Ulibarrí and the men they commanded. When he was determining the best strategy for dealing with the Navajo, Madrid said he feared "the treachery of these barbarians because of my many years of experience fighting them."
But it was more than experience. It took judgement, intuition and an ability to learn from the unexpected to chart paths through unexplored wilderness, intelligence to devise ruses to trick the Navajo, and wisdom to listen to the tenor of what men said.
Such military virtues were universally recognized. Jacques Marquette said of his commander, Louis Joliet: "He possesses Tact and prudence, which are the chief qualities necessary for the success of a voyage as dangerous as it is difficult. Finally, he has the Courage to dread nothing where everything is to be Feared."
Notes: The roster doesn’t exist from Madrid’s campaign, so it’s impossible to know how many horses were available to each man.
Castrillón, Antonio Álvarez. Campaign journal for Roque Madrid’s campaign against the Navajo, republished in Hendricks; Madrid quotations.
Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Hendricks, Rick and John P. Wilson. The Navajos in 1705, 1996; on Cuervo.
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; on trial of Martín García. The records they transcribed didn’t name all six men.
Marquette, Jacques. Journal included in Claude Dablon’s "Le Premier Voÿage Qu’a Fait Le P. Marquette vers le Nouveau Mexique," translated by Reuben Gold Thwaites in The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, volume 59, 1899.
Ulibarrí, Juan de. Diary of expedition to El Cuartelejo, 1706, in Alfred B. Thomas, After Coronado, 1935.
Sunday, April 05, 2015
Chronicles of Leonor: Her Family
Behind the events that drove Leonor Domínguez to seek redress from the governor for the criminal intimacy between her husband, Miguel Martín, and a native woman lay a web of entrapping conditions and beliefs.
At the heart was the experience of the refugee camp at Guadalupe del Paso where they both were born. When other children hear scary tales collected by the brothers Grimm, they probably heard true tales of horror and betrayal from relatives still traumatized by the Revolt.
Even today, Donald Rivara knows the legends of the Domínguez family. He says the "Indians were led by their chief, Alonso Catití (our half-breed uncle, son of our ancestor Diego Márquez and a San Domingo Pueblo woman)."
Three of Leonor’s great-aunts on her father’s side "and their families were slaughtered in the revolt." Her uncle Lázaro on her mother’s side was killed at Galisteo. After the Reconquest, another maternal uncle, "Alonso, was later killed by Apaches in 1696."
Her father, Antonio Domínguez de Mendoza, died in 1689. Her mother, Juana de García y Noriega, refused to return with Diego de Vargas. Leonor must have come back with her sisters and her aunt Josefa de García y Noriega.
After the Entrada, the first generation of children tended to marry people they had learned to trust at Guadalupe. Outside their barricaded world were things they couldn’t control - illnesses, injuries, probably hunger and malnutrition in the early years. The harsh winter of 1706 had been followed by drought in 1707. Most of the crops had been lost. By the time Lent arrived on March 9 of 1708, the food supplies probably were low.
Since the counter Reformation, the church had emphasized fasting for forty days as a way to distinguish the faithful. Individuals were limited to one complete meal a day, with two smaller, meatless meals to maintain strength. Normal eating patterns were allowed on Sundays and for pregnant women. This exemption brought the number of fast days to the forty associated with Christ’s time in the wilderness.
While the deposition provides no dates for the events leading up to her attack on Holy Thursday, one comment by Catarina Rosa hints most things occurred during the Lenten period. When Leonor refused to eat anything provide by Catarina at San Juan, Leonor said it was because she was fasting. Catarina responded "What, today, Sunday you are fasting?"
Fear is a powerful agent. Leonor lived in fear of the dreaded enemy at San Juan, fear the church wouldn’t deem her a good Catholic if she didn’t fast, fear of infidelity when her husband away. Her in-laws didn’t help when they sided with her husband in disputes and spent their time gossiping about spells.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Rivara, Donald. Contributions related to Leonor Domínguez, Genealogy Trails website, 2009.
Scurlock, Dan. "Modern and Historical Climate," in From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998.
At the heart was the experience of the refugee camp at Guadalupe del Paso where they both were born. When other children hear scary tales collected by the brothers Grimm, they probably heard true tales of horror and betrayal from relatives still traumatized by the Revolt.
Even today, Donald Rivara knows the legends of the Domínguez family. He says the "Indians were led by their chief, Alonso Catití (our half-breed uncle, son of our ancestor Diego Márquez and a San Domingo Pueblo woman)."
Three of Leonor’s great-aunts on her father’s side "and their families were slaughtered in the revolt." Her uncle Lázaro on her mother’s side was killed at Galisteo. After the Reconquest, another maternal uncle, "Alonso, was later killed by Apaches in 1696."
Her father, Antonio Domínguez de Mendoza, died in 1689. Her mother, Juana de García y Noriega, refused to return with Diego de Vargas. Leonor must have come back with her sisters and her aunt Josefa de García y Noriega.
After the Entrada, the first generation of children tended to marry people they had learned to trust at Guadalupe. Outside their barricaded world were things they couldn’t control - illnesses, injuries, probably hunger and malnutrition in the early years. The harsh winter of 1706 had been followed by drought in 1707. Most of the crops had been lost. By the time Lent arrived on March 9 of 1708, the food supplies probably were low.
Since the counter Reformation, the church had emphasized fasting for forty days as a way to distinguish the faithful. Individuals were limited to one complete meal a day, with two smaller, meatless meals to maintain strength. Normal eating patterns were allowed on Sundays and for pregnant women. This exemption brought the number of fast days to the forty associated with Christ’s time in the wilderness.
While the deposition provides no dates for the events leading up to her attack on Holy Thursday, one comment by Catarina Rosa hints most things occurred during the Lenten period. When Leonor refused to eat anything provide by Catarina at San Juan, Leonor said it was because she was fasting. Catarina responded "What, today, Sunday you are fasting?"
Fear is a powerful agent. Leonor lived in fear of the dreaded enemy at San Juan, fear the church wouldn’t deem her a good Catholic if she didn’t fast, fear of infidelity when her husband away. Her in-laws didn’t help when they sided with her husband in disputes and spent their time gossiping about spells.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Rivara, Donald. Contributions related to Leonor Domínguez, Genealogy Trails website, 2009.
Scurlock, Dan. "Modern and Historical Climate," in From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998.
Thursday, April 02, 2015
Chronicles of Leonor: The Chronology
Behind the legal progression of the investigation into witchcraft instigated by Leonor Domínguez, there were the events that led to her formal accusation. The chronology is confused because many witnesses denied their roles during the official investigation. As near as I can tell, this is what happened.
She and Miguel Martín were married in October 1707. She was 21, he 20. Nothing in the record indicates where they were living in 1708, but it may have been the rancho north of San Juan that Sebastían Martín had received the year before from the widow of his cousin, Matías Martín.
Leonor’s disquiet began when two members of her family told her Miguel was having intimate relations with native women.
One report came from her cousin, Alonso Rael de Aguilar, the son of her mother’s sister Josefa García de Noriega. He told her Miguel had bragged he had two women in Taos and one in San Juan. He claimed the last was Angelina Pumazjo, daughter of Catarina Rosa.
The other report was less reliable. The Domínguez family, like the Martín Serranos, had two layers, legitimate offspring and the half-recognized. María Domínguez, aged 23, had married Pedro de Ávila. He had come from Zacatecas in 1693, and was commonly referred to as El Piojo, the louse.
María told her about the woman at San Juan when the two were grinding corn. When questioned, she denied the conversion, but agreed they had ground corn together. She added what may have been half-remembered gossip. She said, Miguel Martín had brought her some beans, which she refused to eat because they came from "the house of his mistress."
Leonor then asked Miguel if the reports of adultery were true. He claimed he had said it as a joke.
Later, Leonor asked Miguel to take her to the San Juan home of Catarina Luján to get some lime. Instead, he took her to the home of Catarina Rosa. Leonor believed she was being tricked. He said she had changed her mind in route.
When they got there, Catarina Rosa offered her some meat and bean cakes. She refused because she was fasting. While they were there, Martín Fernández, age 25, entered and told her to eat. He says Leonor nearly fell trying to climb out, but refused to lie down. He made her eat some of the food.
Miguel’s behavior aggravated her fears. Sometime he returned from San Juan with his hands and arms so swollen he couldn’t eat. He told investigators he had fallen while "trying to mount to the house."
When he was asked if it were true his sister-in-law had been bewitched, he answered he’d been away at the time, and hadn’t heard anything after he returned. Nothing was said about his activities. Circumstantial evidence suggest it was more he likely he was working for one of his relatives who had land near Taos than it was he was away on militia duty.
The critical incident occurred on Holy Thursday, April 5. She attended mass with Casilda Contreras, wife of Francisco, another of Miguel’s brothers. She was wearing a mantle owned by Ana María de la Concepción Bernal.
In church, Leonor noticed some native women she thought were talking about her. She moved closer to hear, and said one touched her on the back. At the time, she thought the woman was trying to steal buttons from the mantle. Then she thought the woman was Catarina Rosa.
Catarina claimed she had gone to mass on Resurrection Sunday and seen Leonor then. She said she was home on Holy Thursday, because her grandchild was dying. Miguel’s brother Sebastían was at San Juan at the time.
When Leonor left church she saw her husband and slapped his face, accusing him of adultery. He told her not to be a fool. He later agreed the incident occurred on Holy Thursday.
Leonor turned to Casilda, who told her, "You are foolish to stay where you are; you will see they will do you harm." She later agreed she was there on Thursday, but denied saying anything.
Leonor returned to the church that night when "the agonies seized upon her." She had to be restrained by Juana Martín and Petrona Domínguez. Juana was Miguel’s sister and married to Felipe Arratia. Petrona was a sister of Leonor’s father. She had married Simón Martín, who was a son of Miguel’s uncle Cristóbal Martín.
After that Leonor was confined in the home of her sister, Antonia Domínguez de Mendoza, with the "violent pain of the disease newly acquired" and a "horror" of the church. Her sister had married Tomás Jirón de Tejeda, a painter from Mexico City.
Leonor filed her complaint on May 13. The depositions were taken in the homes of Tomás Jirón and Sebastían Martín. The investigators agreed she was ill, but only specified "in bed, ill and suffering" or "in bed, ill with many ailments."
What happened next is conjecture. Official sentencias were flexible according to Charles Cutter, and sometimes relied of subtle devices like humiliation. Leonor’s goal had been to stop any adultery on her husband’s part. Before she filed her denuncio, the women in the family had tried to dissuade her.
After the juicio plenario process began, and members of Miguel’s families were questioned, one suspects the men began to exert some pressure on him to at least be discrete. The brother and two cousins related to Leonor may have been prodded to act, or one of his many uncles may have talked to him, or some of his many brothers or cousins may have teased him into conformity.
All we know is she and Miguel appeared together in the church record in 1718 as witnesses for a marriage between María Martín and Luis Archuleta. No mention is made of children, but church records don’t exist for Santa Cruz between 1728 and 1751.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Esquibel, José Antonio. "Descendants of Hernán (I) Martín Serrano in New Mexico: An Authoritative Account of the Five Generations," 2013, available on-line.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914.
She and Miguel Martín were married in October 1707. She was 21, he 20. Nothing in the record indicates where they were living in 1708, but it may have been the rancho north of San Juan that Sebastían Martín had received the year before from the widow of his cousin, Matías Martín.
Leonor’s disquiet began when two members of her family told her Miguel was having intimate relations with native women.
One report came from her cousin, Alonso Rael de Aguilar, the son of her mother’s sister Josefa García de Noriega. He told her Miguel had bragged he had two women in Taos and one in San Juan. He claimed the last was Angelina Pumazjo, daughter of Catarina Rosa.
The other report was less reliable. The Domínguez family, like the Martín Serranos, had two layers, legitimate offspring and the half-recognized. María Domínguez, aged 23, had married Pedro de Ávila. He had come from Zacatecas in 1693, and was commonly referred to as El Piojo, the louse.
María told her about the woman at San Juan when the two were grinding corn. When questioned, she denied the conversion, but agreed they had ground corn together. She added what may have been half-remembered gossip. She said, Miguel Martín had brought her some beans, which she refused to eat because they came from "the house of his mistress."
Leonor then asked Miguel if the reports of adultery were true. He claimed he had said it as a joke.
Later, Leonor asked Miguel to take her to the San Juan home of Catarina Luján to get some lime. Instead, he took her to the home of Catarina Rosa. Leonor believed she was being tricked. He said she had changed her mind in route.
When they got there, Catarina Rosa offered her some meat and bean cakes. She refused because she was fasting. While they were there, Martín Fernández, age 25, entered and told her to eat. He says Leonor nearly fell trying to climb out, but refused to lie down. He made her eat some of the food.
Miguel’s behavior aggravated her fears. Sometime he returned from San Juan with his hands and arms so swollen he couldn’t eat. He told investigators he had fallen while "trying to mount to the house."
When he was asked if it were true his sister-in-law had been bewitched, he answered he’d been away at the time, and hadn’t heard anything after he returned. Nothing was said about his activities. Circumstantial evidence suggest it was more he likely he was working for one of his relatives who had land near Taos than it was he was away on militia duty.
The critical incident occurred on Holy Thursday, April 5. She attended mass with Casilda Contreras, wife of Francisco, another of Miguel’s brothers. She was wearing a mantle owned by Ana María de la Concepción Bernal.
In church, Leonor noticed some native women she thought were talking about her. She moved closer to hear, and said one touched her on the back. At the time, she thought the woman was trying to steal buttons from the mantle. Then she thought the woman was Catarina Rosa.
Catarina claimed she had gone to mass on Resurrection Sunday and seen Leonor then. She said she was home on Holy Thursday, because her grandchild was dying. Miguel’s brother Sebastían was at San Juan at the time.
When Leonor left church she saw her husband and slapped his face, accusing him of adultery. He told her not to be a fool. He later agreed the incident occurred on Holy Thursday.
Leonor turned to Casilda, who told her, "You are foolish to stay where you are; you will see they will do you harm." She later agreed she was there on Thursday, but denied saying anything.
Leonor returned to the church that night when "the agonies seized upon her." She had to be restrained by Juana Martín and Petrona Domínguez. Juana was Miguel’s sister and married to Felipe Arratia. Petrona was a sister of Leonor’s father. She had married Simón Martín, who was a son of Miguel’s uncle Cristóbal Martín.
After that Leonor was confined in the home of her sister, Antonia Domínguez de Mendoza, with the "violent pain of the disease newly acquired" and a "horror" of the church. Her sister had married Tomás Jirón de Tejeda, a painter from Mexico City.
Leonor filed her complaint on May 13. The depositions were taken in the homes of Tomás Jirón and Sebastían Martín. The investigators agreed she was ill, but only specified "in bed, ill and suffering" or "in bed, ill with many ailments."
What happened next is conjecture. Official sentencias were flexible according to Charles Cutter, and sometimes relied of subtle devices like humiliation. Leonor’s goal had been to stop any adultery on her husband’s part. Before she filed her denuncio, the women in the family had tried to dissuade her.
After the juicio plenario process began, and members of Miguel’s families were questioned, one suspects the men began to exert some pressure on him to at least be discrete. The brother and two cousins related to Leonor may have been prodded to act, or one of his many uncles may have talked to him, or some of his many brothers or cousins may have teased him into conformity.
All we know is she and Miguel appeared together in the church record in 1718 as witnesses for a marriage between María Martín and Luis Archuleta. No mention is made of children, but church records don’t exist for Santa Cruz between 1728 and 1751.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Esquibel, José Antonio. "Descendants of Hernán (I) Martín Serrano in New Mexico: An Authoritative Account of the Five Generations," 2013, available on-line.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Chronicles of Leonor: The Investigation
On Sunday, the thirteenth of May in 1708, Leonor Domínguez precipitated a crisis in Santa Cruz. She filed a legal complaint or denuncia in Santa Fé stating she was ill because she had been bewitched by three women living in San Juan.
The governor could not ignore such a petition. He began the sumaria asking his alcalde ordinario de segundo voto, Juan García de las Riva, to validate her claims of illness.
After he read García’s reconocimiento de heridas, the governor proceeded to the next step in the standard investigation. He had the accused women arrested on May 15.
The next day, García questioned Leonor, and then gave the three accused an opportunity to make a confesión. The women denied the charges. He questioned two again, and found slight changes in their stories. They, of course, had had time to consider their best responses.
On May 18, the governor advanced from the sumario phase to the juicio plenario, when both the accuser and the accused were asked for witnesses. He turned this part over to the sargento mayor, Juan de Ulibarrí.
Lenore was interviewed again on May 22. When asked why she suspected the women, she said she had been told one of them was the mistress of her husband, Miguel Martín. She added she also had heard of other women being bewitched and cured by people at San Juan.
Ulibarrí then questioned her witness to the initial episode, the woman who told her about the adultery, and a man who witnessed an earlier incident. Next Ulibarrí examined Leonor’s husband, Miguel.
On May 25, Ulibarrí turned to the couple at San Juan who were said to have cured women bewitched earlier. Two days later he interviewed the accused women who were being held in chains. He ordered the one who was crippled released from the irons, but kept under arrest.
By then, everyone involved was more concerned with the consequences of the investigation to themselves than they were with the truth. They probably remembered the case of Cristóbal Góngora and Ines de Aspeitia. They had come with different spouses from Mexico City. They were married and living in Santa Cruz in 1701 when he found human bones wrapped in a mantle.
After Góngora called some men to witness, the priest, Padre Alvarez, granted him a legal separation. Two years later, in 1704, another priest, Padre Arranegui, made them live together despite Góngora’s objections. The next year, José Antonio Romero came into the house with a sword, threatening the man who was there, Góngora’s step-father. Still another priest, Juan Minguez, was called to investigate.
No one wanted the church involved in their personal affairs.
The only support one any gave to Leonor’s story was an admission of events that occurred in public and could be verified by others. They denied everything else. Several of the woman said they had told Leonor not to be foolish. Two men said she was jealous.
The governor read Ulibarrí’s report and ordered the women released on May 31.
Notes: In all the items in this series, I am using translations or third party summaries of cases. Even if I had access to the original Spanish documents, I wouldn’t be able to detect the nuances of language necessary to understand everything that is meant.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914.
The governor could not ignore such a petition. He began the sumaria asking his alcalde ordinario de segundo voto, Juan García de las Riva, to validate her claims of illness.
After he read García’s reconocimiento de heridas, the governor proceeded to the next step in the standard investigation. He had the accused women arrested on May 15.
The next day, García questioned Leonor, and then gave the three accused an opportunity to make a confesión. The women denied the charges. He questioned two again, and found slight changes in their stories. They, of course, had had time to consider their best responses.
On May 18, the governor advanced from the sumario phase to the juicio plenario, when both the accuser and the accused were asked for witnesses. He turned this part over to the sargento mayor, Juan de Ulibarrí.
Lenore was interviewed again on May 22. When asked why she suspected the women, she said she had been told one of them was the mistress of her husband, Miguel Martín. She added she also had heard of other women being bewitched and cured by people at San Juan.
Ulibarrí then questioned her witness to the initial episode, the woman who told her about the adultery, and a man who witnessed an earlier incident. Next Ulibarrí examined Leonor’s husband, Miguel.
On May 25, Ulibarrí turned to the couple at San Juan who were said to have cured women bewitched earlier. Two days later he interviewed the accused women who were being held in chains. He ordered the one who was crippled released from the irons, but kept under arrest.
By then, everyone involved was more concerned with the consequences of the investigation to themselves than they were with the truth. They probably remembered the case of Cristóbal Góngora and Ines de Aspeitia. They had come with different spouses from Mexico City. They were married and living in Santa Cruz in 1701 when he found human bones wrapped in a mantle.
After Góngora called some men to witness, the priest, Padre Alvarez, granted him a legal separation. Two years later, in 1704, another priest, Padre Arranegui, made them live together despite Góngora’s objections. The next year, José Antonio Romero came into the house with a sword, threatening the man who was there, Góngora’s step-father. Still another priest, Juan Minguez, was called to investigate.
No one wanted the church involved in their personal affairs.
The only support one any gave to Leonor’s story was an admission of events that occurred in public and could be verified by others. They denied everything else. Several of the woman said they had told Leonor not to be foolish. Two men said she was jealous.
The governor read Ulibarrí’s report and ordered the women released on May 31.
Notes: In all the items in this series, I am using translations or third party summaries of cases. Even if I had access to the original Spanish documents, I wouldn’t be able to detect the nuances of language necessary to understand everything that is meant.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914.
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