Miguel de Quintana’s religious views evolved during his conflicts with local friars. In the beginning he utilized the metaphors then being propagated by the Franciscans to formulate his thoughts. His first poetic colloquia were addressed to Mary. In the second he said, she "frees you from the arrogant lion" and will intercede for him. In the third she said, "I am the refuge where the afflicted find solace."
When his problems with the friars persisted, Quintana turned directly to Jesus as represented in the Gospel of John. In that book, Jesus said "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Earlier he had said, "he that doth truth, cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God."
In the fourth coloquio, the one in which he was transferring his allegiance from Mary to her son, Quintana referred to his writing as "the supreme and divine light granted to you by the immense power of God." In the next poem set he wrote, "God is who grants you that light" and added "Trust in Jesus, Miguel, for that light you carry is bright."
When that rendering of his relationship with Christ failed to persuade the Franciscans, Quintana appealed to the love Jesus had promised when he said, "as the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you." In the same fourth coloquio quoted above, Quintana added "your poems and canticles raise you to Jesus, your God and sweet husband" and told the character Miguel "expect to be rewarded through His love."
When his problems with the friars continued, he turned to things he probably as taught was a student in Mexico City. At that time, Francisco Lomelí and Clark Colahan wrote the meditations of Miguel de Molinos were popular. They said the Spanish mystic had said "God is who He is." In the fifth coloquio, Quintana referred to "God is God," and repeated that phrase in his subsequent poems.
Finally, when he has been accused of listening to the devil, Quintana went beyond what he had been taught to describe a God very much like that of the Enlightenment, a God who "is very wise," is "Greek in His judgement," and "does not ask the impossible." He ultimately appealed to the implied reciprocity of John "I am come a light into the world; that whomsoever believeth in me, may not remain in darkness."
His trajectory from received to independent thought was the one thing most feared by the Church. Molinos’ Spiritual Guide had been accepted by the Church when it was published in 1675, but when it stimulated others to seek mystical communions with God that bypassed the clergy, he was condemned by the Inquisition.
Quintana was never willing to make the confession of error that Molinos did in 1687 before he was sentenced to life in prison, while Quintana was still a youth. In his last coloquio, the God of John told the character Miguel, "do not fear those varied and different thoughts, for all are rightly guided by My love," and reminded him again, "the inner light that you enjoy is Miguel, from Jesus Christ and not an illusion of the devil."
Notes: Quotations in order are from Gospel of John 8:12, 3:21, 15:9, and 12:46. English translations from Douay version as the closest Roman Catholic one in time to Quintana.
Douay College. The Holy Bible, New Testament,1582 at Rheims.
Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006.
Quintana, Miguel de. Coloquios, 1732 and 1737; originals and translations in Lomelí.
Wikipedia. Entry on "Miguel de Molinas."
Showing posts with label 07 Santa Cruz 26-30. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 07 Santa Cruz 26-30. Show all posts
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Christmas or Easter
The rosary is a selective narrative of Christ’s life. The gospels described his birth, his deeds, and his death. The Joyful Mysteries focus on the first, the Sorrowful and the Glorious on the last. The Luminous Mysteries, which touch only a few events in the adult savior’s life, weren’t introduced until 2002 by John Paul II.
The popular imagination only seems able to embrace one ceremonial event a year. It’s either the birth, which dominates in this country today with Christmas, or it’s the death, which was reenacted in recent memory by the Penitentes.
When Franciscans first followed Hernan Cortés, the Aztecs were using music and dance in rituals that celebrated the December birth of Huitzilopochtli. Some agreed to be baptized after Pedro de Gante wrote religious songs in Nahuatl for a nativity in 1525. He said, they heard "the angels sing: Today the Redeemer of the Earth is born!"
Nativity customs spread so quickly among local communities, Dominicans and Jesuits adopted the Franciscans’ use of drama. The street theater that produced the first Christmas plays in Mexico City flourished. While it became less popular in the seventeenth century, fragments continued to be performed.
No doubt Miguel de Quintana learned to compose in the coloquio form when he was in school in Mexico City. The identity of the person who asked him to use his skill in Santa Cruz to create Christmas dramas is impossible to answer. If it were a friar, the most likely man, based on chronology, was Juan Mínguez, whose death in 1720 opened the Santa Cruz sanctuary to itinerants.
Mínguez was from the same social milieu in the capital as Quintana, and just a few years younger. Jim Norris didn’t know his age when he professed, but he was at least 15 when Quintana came north at age 22. The friar’s father was an artisan from Spain who lived in Mexico City. His mother’s father was a merchant from Parral. Quintana’s godfather, Agustín Flores Urrutia de Vergara, was a constable to the Inquisition. His wife’s grandfather had prospected for minerals around Parral.
The man who denounced Quintana, Manuel de Sopeña, was 21 years old in 1707 when Mínguez, was at least 29. All that’s known of his family was his father migrated from Vizcaya and married Francisca de Velarde in Mexico City. Like Mínguez, Sopeña entered the Franciscan order in Mexico City. The decade between their noviates coincided with the first years of the transition from the Hapsburgs whom the Franciscans supported and the Bourbons whom they were opposing in the War for Spanish Succession.
The identity of the person who asked Quintana to write a new coloquio in 1726 was hidden at the time to prevent criticisms directed at the author ricocheting onto the patron. However, everything suggests the person who asked was from an old family, probably one of his local in-laws. Four of his children married individuals whose parents lived in La Cañada before the revolt: the Martín Serranos, the Archuletas, and, through a feral line, the Gómez de Robledos. Two wed descendants of a man killed at San Domingo.
It’s not known if Sopeña was critical of Christmas plays in general or just of ones written by laymen. What is clear was that his censure of Quintana coincided with a transition in religious practices in Santa Cruz from those centered on Christmas to those centered on Easter week. As a penance, he demanded Quintana attend meetings of the Third Order meetings where, presumably, he was encouraging forms of self-inflicted pain like those mentioned in the post for 10 April 2016.
Sopeña wasn’t alone. Pedro Montaño arrived in Bernalillo in 1710. In 1729, before Quintana was denounced, he had the Inquisition prosecute Pedro Durán y Chaves for refusing confession, refusing to take ashes on Ash Wednesday, and making fun of processions. Chaves told natives listening to Montaño read to them that he had books "that weren’t so boring."
If one were to guess what book Chaves owned, one would suggest some version of The Golden Legend mentioned in the post for 1 May 2016. Its legends about Mary’s parents and Joseph were more interesting than the gospels, which took them as background dramatis personae necessary to the more important story of Christ’s ministry.
He was the son of Fernando de Chaves, whose senility was mentioned in the post for 7 April 2014. By this time, Angélico Chávez said, Pedro "was extremely ill and out of his senses." When he died, his family rejected the rights of this second wife and her children.
The shift from the joys of birth to the horrors of death was reinforced by the replacement of baptisms as the sacrament that determined one’s grace, with confession and atonement.
At the same time, friars were reinforcing their directions with sermons like the one recalled by Quintana that emphasized the hell that awaited the baptized if they didn’t conform.
In 1733, while Quintana’s case was waiting review by the Holy Office tribunal in Mexico City, Martín Hurtado and Pedro Alcántara García Jurado entered the Albuquerque church where Montaño was preaching and called him the "governor of Hell."
The first was the son of Andrés Hurtado, who had held the encomienda of Santa Ana. García Jurado’s father came from Mexico City as a child in 1693, and later married Hurtado’s daughter. At the time, Franciscans were criticizing the two for demanding people at Santa Ana work without pay.
The substitution of Easter rituals for Christmas ones may have occurred without controversy in Mexico City where few Roman Catholics may have had strong ties to older traditions and congregations were so large priests couldn’t monitor everyone. The individuals Sopeña and Montaño attacked in Nuevo México were ones whose families were here before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Their religious views probably were more archaic than their peers in Mexico City because they had been isolated from changes that affected the capital for so long. The new generation of priests probably saw them being as recalcitrant as the pueblos that continued older practices, and thus deserving the same punishment.
Notes: Quintana said he was asked to write the last coloquio in 1726. The two men mentioned in the post for 10 July 2016 who were close to him were Mínguez, who was dead in 1726, and Juan de Tagle who probably died in early 1727. Norris didn’t know Mínguez’s age when he professed in 1694. The earliest age for acceptance by the order was 16.
The marriage alliances of Quintana’s children were described in the post for 19 June 2016. His description of a sermon appeared in the entry for 3 July 2016. Esquibel only hypothesized Quintana attended the cathedral school, partly based on the identity of his godfather. Street theater was discussed in the post for 26 June 2016.
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Esquibel, José Antonio. "The People of the Camino Real: A Genealogical Appendix," in Christine Preston, Douglas Preston and José Antonio Esquibel, The Royal Road, 1998.
Greenleaf, Richard E. "The Inquisition in Eighteenth-Century New Mexico," New Mexico Historical Review 60:29-60:1985.
Norris, Jim. After "The Year Eighty," 2000; on Hurtado and García.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914; on complaints between 6 April 1732 and 23 July 1733 by Ramón García Jurado against Diego Aries de Espinosa at Santa Ana.
Weckmann, Luis. The Medieval Heritage of Mexico, 1992; quotation from Gante’s 27 June 1529 letter to Franciscans in Flanders.
The popular imagination only seems able to embrace one ceremonial event a year. It’s either the birth, which dominates in this country today with Christmas, or it’s the death, which was reenacted in recent memory by the Penitentes.
When Franciscans first followed Hernan Cortés, the Aztecs were using music and dance in rituals that celebrated the December birth of Huitzilopochtli. Some agreed to be baptized after Pedro de Gante wrote religious songs in Nahuatl for a nativity in 1525. He said, they heard "the angels sing: Today the Redeemer of the Earth is born!"
Nativity customs spread so quickly among local communities, Dominicans and Jesuits adopted the Franciscans’ use of drama. The street theater that produced the first Christmas plays in Mexico City flourished. While it became less popular in the seventeenth century, fragments continued to be performed.
No doubt Miguel de Quintana learned to compose in the coloquio form when he was in school in Mexico City. The identity of the person who asked him to use his skill in Santa Cruz to create Christmas dramas is impossible to answer. If it were a friar, the most likely man, based on chronology, was Juan Mínguez, whose death in 1720 opened the Santa Cruz sanctuary to itinerants.
Mínguez was from the same social milieu in the capital as Quintana, and just a few years younger. Jim Norris didn’t know his age when he professed, but he was at least 15 when Quintana came north at age 22. The friar’s father was an artisan from Spain who lived in Mexico City. His mother’s father was a merchant from Parral. Quintana’s godfather, Agustín Flores Urrutia de Vergara, was a constable to the Inquisition. His wife’s grandfather had prospected for minerals around Parral.
The man who denounced Quintana, Manuel de Sopeña, was 21 years old in 1707 when Mínguez, was at least 29. All that’s known of his family was his father migrated from Vizcaya and married Francisca de Velarde in Mexico City. Like Mínguez, Sopeña entered the Franciscan order in Mexico City. The decade between their noviates coincided with the first years of the transition from the Hapsburgs whom the Franciscans supported and the Bourbons whom they were opposing in the War for Spanish Succession.
The identity of the person who asked Quintana to write a new coloquio in 1726 was hidden at the time to prevent criticisms directed at the author ricocheting onto the patron. However, everything suggests the person who asked was from an old family, probably one of his local in-laws. Four of his children married individuals whose parents lived in La Cañada before the revolt: the Martín Serranos, the Archuletas, and, through a feral line, the Gómez de Robledos. Two wed descendants of a man killed at San Domingo.
It’s not known if Sopeña was critical of Christmas plays in general or just of ones written by laymen. What is clear was that his censure of Quintana coincided with a transition in religious practices in Santa Cruz from those centered on Christmas to those centered on Easter week. As a penance, he demanded Quintana attend meetings of the Third Order meetings where, presumably, he was encouraging forms of self-inflicted pain like those mentioned in the post for 10 April 2016.
Sopeña wasn’t alone. Pedro Montaño arrived in Bernalillo in 1710. In 1729, before Quintana was denounced, he had the Inquisition prosecute Pedro Durán y Chaves for refusing confession, refusing to take ashes on Ash Wednesday, and making fun of processions. Chaves told natives listening to Montaño read to them that he had books "that weren’t so boring."
If one were to guess what book Chaves owned, one would suggest some version of The Golden Legend mentioned in the post for 1 May 2016. Its legends about Mary’s parents and Joseph were more interesting than the gospels, which took them as background dramatis personae necessary to the more important story of Christ’s ministry.
He was the son of Fernando de Chaves, whose senility was mentioned in the post for 7 April 2014. By this time, Angélico Chávez said, Pedro "was extremely ill and out of his senses." When he died, his family rejected the rights of this second wife and her children.
The shift from the joys of birth to the horrors of death was reinforced by the replacement of baptisms as the sacrament that determined one’s grace, with confession and atonement.
At the same time, friars were reinforcing their directions with sermons like the one recalled by Quintana that emphasized the hell that awaited the baptized if they didn’t conform.
In 1733, while Quintana’s case was waiting review by the Holy Office tribunal in Mexico City, Martín Hurtado and Pedro Alcántara García Jurado entered the Albuquerque church where Montaño was preaching and called him the "governor of Hell."
The first was the son of Andrés Hurtado, who had held the encomienda of Santa Ana. García Jurado’s father came from Mexico City as a child in 1693, and later married Hurtado’s daughter. At the time, Franciscans were criticizing the two for demanding people at Santa Ana work without pay.
The substitution of Easter rituals for Christmas ones may have occurred without controversy in Mexico City where few Roman Catholics may have had strong ties to older traditions and congregations were so large priests couldn’t monitor everyone. The individuals Sopeña and Montaño attacked in Nuevo México were ones whose families were here before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Their religious views probably were more archaic than their peers in Mexico City because they had been isolated from changes that affected the capital for so long. The new generation of priests probably saw them being as recalcitrant as the pueblos that continued older practices, and thus deserving the same punishment.
Notes: Quintana said he was asked to write the last coloquio in 1726. The two men mentioned in the post for 10 July 2016 who were close to him were Mínguez, who was dead in 1726, and Juan de Tagle who probably died in early 1727. Norris didn’t know Mínguez’s age when he professed in 1694. The earliest age for acceptance by the order was 16.
The marriage alliances of Quintana’s children were described in the post for 19 June 2016. His description of a sermon appeared in the entry for 3 July 2016. Esquibel only hypothesized Quintana attended the cathedral school, partly based on the identity of his godfather. Street theater was discussed in the post for 26 June 2016.
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Esquibel, José Antonio. "The People of the Camino Real: A Genealogical Appendix," in Christine Preston, Douglas Preston and José Antonio Esquibel, The Royal Road, 1998.
Greenleaf, Richard E. "The Inquisition in Eighteenth-Century New Mexico," New Mexico Historical Review 60:29-60:1985.
Norris, Jim. After "The Year Eighty," 2000; on Hurtado and García.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914; on complaints between 6 April 1732 and 23 July 1733 by Ramón García Jurado against Diego Aries de Espinosa at Santa Ana.
Weckmann, Luis. The Medieval Heritage of Mexico, 1992; quotation from Gante’s 27 June 1529 letter to Franciscans in Flanders.
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Miguel de Quintana, 1720-1729
Miguel de Quintana begins retiring from public life and has his first conflicts with the man who replaces the chaplain killed on the Pedro Villasur expedition.
1720
Juan Mínguez doesn’t return from the Villasur campaign. His last signature in a San Ildefonso sacramental book was made in December 1719. [Archives]
1721
Carlos Delgado is in Santa Cruz for one month. Manuel de Sopeña is there for one month. José Antonio Guerrero is there for three. Angélico Chávez found no names after that until 1726. [Archives]
Josefa Sedano, sister of Antonia Sedano, sues Juan Lorenzo de Medina over a house in Santa Fé. [Twitchell]
1722
José de Quintana conveys land to Juan Lorenzo de Medina with the permission of Josefa Sedano. [Twitchell]
The issues in the case that involved Quintana’s brother aren’t obvious. None seem to have any ties with Miguel. [Comment]
Quintana witnesses a compromise over land boundaries between Miguel Martín and José de Atienza y Alcalá. [Twitchell]
May: Atienza begins notarizing diligencias matrimoniales for Santa Cruz. [Roots]
Atienza is Quintana’s brother-in-law. Assuming Quintana is developing symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, or something similar, he may have trained Atienza. Since his handwriting, which was reproduced in the post for 26 June 2016, was still graceful and readable in 1732, one could assume it was his feet that first were affected, rather than his hands. Based on the age he gave in 1734, he would have been 44 years old. The disease later may have reached his ankles or knees, making it difficult to walk. [Comment]
1723
September: Quintana notarizes his last DM in Santa Cruz. Atienza continues as the notary. [Roots]
It isn’t clear if Quintana’s health makes if difficult for him to travel to notarize DMs, or if, after Sopeña becomes the local friar in 1724, he no longer is called by the church. [Comment]
1724
Sopeña is assigned to the mission at Santa Clara. He also serves the mission at Santa Cruz. Juan de Tagle still is available in the mission at San Ildefonso. [Archives]
1725
September: Quintana notarizes a DM for the marriage of Juan Antonio Martín and Feliciana Monroy. Antonio Martín, the boy’s father, had died in Chimayó. [Roots]
The wedding isn’t recorded in Santa Cruz, so it isn’t known if his sponsors were avoiding oversight by the friars in Santa Cruz, or if the family had some other reason for asking Quintana to be its notary. [Comment]
1726
January: Juan Sánchez de la Cruz is in the mission at Nambé until May 1727. He had been there in February of 1720 and from February 1722 until December 1728. [Archives]
At some time, Quintana hears Cruz preach at Nambé "about the punishments suffered by the damned in hell, and he felt his heart and spirit so distressed that it seemed to him - such was the terror that came over him - that he was going to be damned. But the thought came to him: ‘Miguel, neither you nor the holy father will be cast into hell,’ and the pleasure that this brought was so great that the tribulation left him." [Quintana 1734]
José Irigoyen later marks the passage above in single quotation marks, as heresy. [Lomelí]
February-August: Juan George del Pino appears in the mission at Santa Clara. [Archives]
At some time, Quintana gives Pino some verses on a sheet of paper. He uses the word versitos. [Quintana 1734]
Quintana has stopped writing coloquio celebrating Christ’s birth. A man asks him to write another. Quintana refuses at first, then agrees to do so. When he begins to write, he is seized with anguish. "I kept thinking it was all vanity and hypocrisy, and that I shouldn’t be getting mixed up in writing plays since I had had the experience of Your Paternal Grace telling me I was a hypocrite and that this was going to lead to my being publicly shamed by Your Paternal Grace himself." [Quintana 1732]
This is the first evidence that Sopeña has gone beyond advice in the confession to making public statements condemning Quintana. [Comment]
While Quintana is thinking of burning his work, he feels "a great help and a prodigious favor encouraging and strengthening me. It seems to take my hand and help me with these thought: ‘Don’t burn it, don’t burn it. Continue and offer your play to His Divine Majesty’." He uses the word coloquio throughout. [Quintana 1732]
Quintana indicates this is the event that converts his public writing into private dialogues between the character Miguel and God over contradictory demands made on Miguel by the Roman Catholic church. [Comment]
Psychologists might see this as a double bind of the kind that can lead to schizophrenic behavior. Quintana has avoided that outcome by utilizing the artistic form described in the post for 26 June 2016 that allows two sides to speak without an expectation of a dénouement. [Comment]
1727
Juan de Tagle makes his last entry in a San Ildefonso sacramental book in March. [Archives]
1728
José Bernardo Gómez begins notarizing DMs in Santa Cruz; Atienza continues signing them. [Roots]
Gómez is the son of Antonio Gómez Robledo, who was an illegitimate son of Francisco and a nephew of Andrés, the father-in-law of Ignacio Roybal. That makes him a cousin of Juan Gómez del Castillo, who will marry Quintana’s daughter Antonia. [Families, 19 June 2016]
Notes: Dates in brackets refer to earlier postings. Comments are those of the author.
Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006.
Quintana, Miguel de. Coloquio, 1732, Santa Cruz; in Lomelí.
_____. Interrogation by José Antonio Guerrero in the Inquisition office, Santa Fé, 8 November 1734; in Lomelí.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 1, 1914.
1720
Juan Mínguez doesn’t return from the Villasur campaign. His last signature in a San Ildefonso sacramental book was made in December 1719. [Archives]
1721
Carlos Delgado is in Santa Cruz for one month. Manuel de Sopeña is there for one month. José Antonio Guerrero is there for three. Angélico Chávez found no names after that until 1726. [Archives]
Josefa Sedano, sister of Antonia Sedano, sues Juan Lorenzo de Medina over a house in Santa Fé. [Twitchell]
1722
José de Quintana conveys land to Juan Lorenzo de Medina with the permission of Josefa Sedano. [Twitchell]
The issues in the case that involved Quintana’s brother aren’t obvious. None seem to have any ties with Miguel. [Comment]
Quintana witnesses a compromise over land boundaries between Miguel Martín and José de Atienza y Alcalá. [Twitchell]
May: Atienza begins notarizing diligencias matrimoniales for Santa Cruz. [Roots]
Atienza is Quintana’s brother-in-law. Assuming Quintana is developing symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, or something similar, he may have trained Atienza. Since his handwriting, which was reproduced in the post for 26 June 2016, was still graceful and readable in 1732, one could assume it was his feet that first were affected, rather than his hands. Based on the age he gave in 1734, he would have been 44 years old. The disease later may have reached his ankles or knees, making it difficult to walk. [Comment]
1723
September: Quintana notarizes his last DM in Santa Cruz. Atienza continues as the notary. [Roots]
It isn’t clear if Quintana’s health makes if difficult for him to travel to notarize DMs, or if, after Sopeña becomes the local friar in 1724, he no longer is called by the church. [Comment]
1724
Sopeña is assigned to the mission at Santa Clara. He also serves the mission at Santa Cruz. Juan de Tagle still is available in the mission at San Ildefonso. [Archives]
1725
September: Quintana notarizes a DM for the marriage of Juan Antonio Martín and Feliciana Monroy. Antonio Martín, the boy’s father, had died in Chimayó. [Roots]
The wedding isn’t recorded in Santa Cruz, so it isn’t known if his sponsors were avoiding oversight by the friars in Santa Cruz, or if the family had some other reason for asking Quintana to be its notary. [Comment]
1726
January: Juan Sánchez de la Cruz is in the mission at Nambé until May 1727. He had been there in February of 1720 and from February 1722 until December 1728. [Archives]
At some time, Quintana hears Cruz preach at Nambé "about the punishments suffered by the damned in hell, and he felt his heart and spirit so distressed that it seemed to him - such was the terror that came over him - that he was going to be damned. But the thought came to him: ‘Miguel, neither you nor the holy father will be cast into hell,’ and the pleasure that this brought was so great that the tribulation left him." [Quintana 1734]
José Irigoyen later marks the passage above in single quotation marks, as heresy. [Lomelí]
February-August: Juan George del Pino appears in the mission at Santa Clara. [Archives]
At some time, Quintana gives Pino some verses on a sheet of paper. He uses the word versitos. [Quintana 1734]
Quintana has stopped writing coloquio celebrating Christ’s birth. A man asks him to write another. Quintana refuses at first, then agrees to do so. When he begins to write, he is seized with anguish. "I kept thinking it was all vanity and hypocrisy, and that I shouldn’t be getting mixed up in writing plays since I had had the experience of Your Paternal Grace telling me I was a hypocrite and that this was going to lead to my being publicly shamed by Your Paternal Grace himself." [Quintana 1732]
This is the first evidence that Sopeña has gone beyond advice in the confession to making public statements condemning Quintana. [Comment]
While Quintana is thinking of burning his work, he feels "a great help and a prodigious favor encouraging and strengthening me. It seems to take my hand and help me with these thought: ‘Don’t burn it, don’t burn it. Continue and offer your play to His Divine Majesty’." He uses the word coloquio throughout. [Quintana 1732]
Quintana indicates this is the event that converts his public writing into private dialogues between the character Miguel and God over contradictory demands made on Miguel by the Roman Catholic church. [Comment]
Psychologists might see this as a double bind of the kind that can lead to schizophrenic behavior. Quintana has avoided that outcome by utilizing the artistic form described in the post for 26 June 2016 that allows two sides to speak without an expectation of a dénouement. [Comment]
1727
Juan de Tagle makes his last entry in a San Ildefonso sacramental book in March. [Archives]
1728
José Bernardo Gómez begins notarizing DMs in Santa Cruz; Atienza continues signing them. [Roots]
Gómez is the son of Antonio Gómez Robledo, who was an illegitimate son of Francisco and a nephew of Andrés, the father-in-law of Ignacio Roybal. That makes him a cousin of Juan Gómez del Castillo, who will marry Quintana’s daughter Antonia. [Families, 19 June 2016]
Notes: Dates in brackets refer to earlier postings. Comments are those of the author.
Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006.
Quintana, Miguel de. Coloquio, 1732, Santa Cruz; in Lomelí.
_____. Interrogation by José Antonio Guerrero in the Inquisition office, Santa Fé, 8 November 1734; in Lomelí.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 1, 1914.
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Miguel de Quintana, 1693-1719
Miguel de Quintana’s coloquios in which God gave personal counsel to a character named Miguel fall under the Roman Catholic church’s rubric of private revelation. There was nothing inherently heretical about such revelations, but they were extremely difficult to establish as valid.
Augustin Poulain said in 1912 that, before one could judge the legitimacy of such claims, one needed to know something about the person in order to establish "that neither the demon nor the ecstatic’s own ideas have interfered (at least on important points) with God's action."
More specifically, one needed to establish the individual’s mental capabilities, needed to know if the person had "made progress in holiness and especially in humility," and needed to know if he had been "subjected to heavy trials," since it was "almost impossible for extraordinary favours to be conferred without heavy crosses."
The Holy Office in Ciudad de México had a similar understanding of such revelations in 1734. When the tribunal sent the denunciations back to Santa Fé, Diego Mangado y Clavijo specifically asked about "Quintana’s life and habits, his abilities and talents."
That was the point when the Santa Fé Inquisition office deviated from standard legal procedures, as described by Charles Cutter. If you remember the case of Leonor Domínguez, described in March and April 2015 posts, the governor couldn’t accept her claims that she’d been bewitched by women at San Juan. His representative had to find evidence by interviewing other witnesses.
In the case of Quintana, the local commissary of the Holy Office, José Antonio Guerrero, only took evidence from the two men who already had denounced him. Neither gave any indication that Quintana was telling anyone, other than the friars, he was receiving heavenly inspirations. In the case of Francisco Gómez Robledo, discussed in entries posted between March 21 and March 28 of 2014, the necessity for secrecy did not stop the Inquisition from taking testimony from a number of individuals.
The carefully constructed historical record from the Inquisition archives in Ciudad de México thus provides little information on what was happening in Santa Cruz. What follows is an attempt to provide the missing details that lead to a climax in 1737.
1694 José Manuel Giltoméy, notarizes a diligencia matrimoniale in Santa Fé. [Roots]
1695
April: first surviving DM is done in Santa Cruz. Angélico Chávez didn’t identify the notary. [Roots]
1696
José Trujillo becomes alcalde in Santa Cruz. [1 February 2015]
November: Giltoméy notarizes a DM in Santa Cruz. He continues to sign ecclesiastical documents both there and in Santa Fé. He marries in Santa Cruz in 1697, and probably moves to Santa Fé sometime after. [Roots]
1701
Juan de Tagle is assigned to the mission at San Ildefonso. [Archives]
1704
October: Juan de Paz Bustillos notarizes one DM in Santa Cruz. Giltoméy continues as the church notary in Santa Fé. [Roots]
October: Quintana begins notarizing DMs in Santa Cruz. [Roots]
1710
June: Quintana is licenced as a scribe with the kingdom. The first document that survives with his notarization is from 1712. [Lomelí]
Juan Mínguez begins filling in at the mission at San Ildefonso. His name also begins appearing in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz sacramental books. [Archives]
At some time, Quintana gives Mínguez some verses on a sheet of paper. He uses the word versitos. [Quintana]
1712
July: an Apache ransomed by Tagle escapes on a horse owned by Quintana. He goes to the ranch of José Trujillo where he’s joined by two other Apaches. Andrés is a captive owned by Trujillo. Cristóbal had been a servant to Diego Martín and is now freed. One takes a horse belonging to Quintana that is kept there. [Lomelí]
August-October: after Andrés and Cristóbal return to Trujillo, Quintana sues Trujillo for the value of the two animals they didn’t bring back. He says "those two horses provided me some relief by carrying a few supplies and firewood and allowing me to run errands." Trujillo tells him to go recover them himself. [Lomelí]
I’ve found no hidden ties or animosities between the people whose names appear in this case. It’s a small community and people meet often. It may be like the dispute between José Antonio Naranjo and Diego de Torres described in the post for 28 February 2016, when the two men exaggerated their claims and left it to the judge to determine a just solution. [Comment]
The record found by Ralph Twitchell gives no outcome. [Twitchell v2]
1713
Juana de Carras, wife of José Velásquez, sues Antonia Sedano, wife of Juan Lorenzo de Medina, over land Micaela de Velasco, widow of Miguel García de la Riva, sold to Velásquez. Proceedings in Santa Fé. [Twitchell v1]
Jacinto Sánchez de Iñigo replaces José Trujillo as alcalde in Santa Cruz. [1 February 2015]
1719
In 1734, Manul de Sopeña says Quintana is remembered to have been throwing stones 15 years before. [Sopeña 1734]
Notes: Dates in brackets refer to earlier postings. Comments are those of the author.
Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006.
Mangado y Clavijo, Diego. Instructions from the Inquisition to José Antonio Guerrero, 22 May 1734, Mexico City; in Lomelí.
Poulain, Augustin. "Private Revelations," The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13, 1912.
Quintana, Miguel de. Interrogation by José Antonio Guerrero in the Inquisition office, Santa Fé, 8 November 1734; in Lomelí.
Sopeña, Manuel de. Statement to José Antonio Guerrero in the Inquisition office, Santa Fé, 4 November 1734; in Lomelí.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914.
Augustin Poulain said in 1912 that, before one could judge the legitimacy of such claims, one needed to know something about the person in order to establish "that neither the demon nor the ecstatic’s own ideas have interfered (at least on important points) with God's action."
More specifically, one needed to establish the individual’s mental capabilities, needed to know if the person had "made progress in holiness and especially in humility," and needed to know if he had been "subjected to heavy trials," since it was "almost impossible for extraordinary favours to be conferred without heavy crosses."
The Holy Office in Ciudad de México had a similar understanding of such revelations in 1734. When the tribunal sent the denunciations back to Santa Fé, Diego Mangado y Clavijo specifically asked about "Quintana’s life and habits, his abilities and talents."
That was the point when the Santa Fé Inquisition office deviated from standard legal procedures, as described by Charles Cutter. If you remember the case of Leonor Domínguez, described in March and April 2015 posts, the governor couldn’t accept her claims that she’d been bewitched by women at San Juan. His representative had to find evidence by interviewing other witnesses.
In the case of Quintana, the local commissary of the Holy Office, José Antonio Guerrero, only took evidence from the two men who already had denounced him. Neither gave any indication that Quintana was telling anyone, other than the friars, he was receiving heavenly inspirations. In the case of Francisco Gómez Robledo, discussed in entries posted between March 21 and March 28 of 2014, the necessity for secrecy did not stop the Inquisition from taking testimony from a number of individuals.
The carefully constructed historical record from the Inquisition archives in Ciudad de México thus provides little information on what was happening in Santa Cruz. What follows is an attempt to provide the missing details that lead to a climax in 1737.
1694 José Manuel Giltoméy, notarizes a diligencia matrimoniale in Santa Fé. [Roots]
1695
April: first surviving DM is done in Santa Cruz. Angélico Chávez didn’t identify the notary. [Roots]
1696
José Trujillo becomes alcalde in Santa Cruz. [1 February 2015]
November: Giltoméy notarizes a DM in Santa Cruz. He continues to sign ecclesiastical documents both there and in Santa Fé. He marries in Santa Cruz in 1697, and probably moves to Santa Fé sometime after. [Roots]
1701
Juan de Tagle is assigned to the mission at San Ildefonso. [Archives]
1704
October: Juan de Paz Bustillos notarizes one DM in Santa Cruz. Giltoméy continues as the church notary in Santa Fé. [Roots]
October: Quintana begins notarizing DMs in Santa Cruz. [Roots]
1710
June: Quintana is licenced as a scribe with the kingdom. The first document that survives with his notarization is from 1712. [Lomelí]
Juan Mínguez begins filling in at the mission at San Ildefonso. His name also begins appearing in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz sacramental books. [Archives]
At some time, Quintana gives Mínguez some verses on a sheet of paper. He uses the word versitos. [Quintana]
1712
July: an Apache ransomed by Tagle escapes on a horse owned by Quintana. He goes to the ranch of José Trujillo where he’s joined by two other Apaches. Andrés is a captive owned by Trujillo. Cristóbal had been a servant to Diego Martín and is now freed. One takes a horse belonging to Quintana that is kept there. [Lomelí]
August-October: after Andrés and Cristóbal return to Trujillo, Quintana sues Trujillo for the value of the two animals they didn’t bring back. He says "those two horses provided me some relief by carrying a few supplies and firewood and allowing me to run errands." Trujillo tells him to go recover them himself. [Lomelí]
I’ve found no hidden ties or animosities between the people whose names appear in this case. It’s a small community and people meet often. It may be like the dispute between José Antonio Naranjo and Diego de Torres described in the post for 28 February 2016, when the two men exaggerated their claims and left it to the judge to determine a just solution. [Comment]
The record found by Ralph Twitchell gives no outcome. [Twitchell v2]
1713
Juana de Carras, wife of José Velásquez, sues Antonia Sedano, wife of Juan Lorenzo de Medina, over land Micaela de Velasco, widow of Miguel García de la Riva, sold to Velásquez. Proceedings in Santa Fé. [Twitchell v1]
Jacinto Sánchez de Iñigo replaces José Trujillo as alcalde in Santa Cruz. [1 February 2015]
1719
In 1734, Manul de Sopeña says Quintana is remembered to have been throwing stones 15 years before. [Sopeña 1734]
Notes: Dates in brackets refer to earlier postings. Comments are those of the author.
Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006.
Mangado y Clavijo, Diego. Instructions from the Inquisition to José Antonio Guerrero, 22 May 1734, Mexico City; in Lomelí.
Poulain, Augustin. "Private Revelations," The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13, 1912.
Quintana, Miguel de. Interrogation by José Antonio Guerrero in the Inquisition office, Santa Fé, 8 November 1734; in Lomelí.
Sopeña, Manuel de. Statement to José Antonio Guerrero in the Inquisition office, Santa Fé, 4 November 1734; in Lomelí.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Miguel de Quintana’s Art
Miguel de Quintana had a trained aesthetic sensibility. If indeed he did attend the Cathedral School in Mexico City, he learned the common verse forms. His teachers may have been secular clergymen, perhaps ones trained by Jesuits.
He recalled he used to write "coloquio para festejar al Niño Dios en su nacimiento," which Francisco Lomelí and Clark Colahan translated as "plays in celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus."
In the early years, a coloquio was a part of larger play that could be performed separately. It was much like a rondo within a sonata. It was always part of the larger composition, but followed rules unique to itself, and could be extracted and played separately.
Franciscans adapted Spanish dramatic forms to the Aztec language to induce natives to be baptized. Dominicans and Jesuits expanded the genres.
The most popular were the auto sacramentales, which were mounted on carriages that drove through the streets. Each auto depicted a different scene, and included a coloquio. The ones that survived in New Mexico focused on Joseph, the inns, the shepherds, the magi, Jesus in the temple, and holy week. Arthur Campa noted they survived in fragments and by 1934 had been fused into a single drama.
The coloquio was a dialogue between two characters that had no narrative impulse. James Crawford believed they originated in Italy and were brought to Spain as amusements of the aristocracy. He described them as casuistical, meaning they dramatized two sides of moral questions by applying them to mundane events.
Carlos Eduardo Castañeda noted the coloquio evolved into a simpler dramatic genre "in the form of a dialogue, written either in verse or prose." He said, it "gained special popularity in Mexico."
Eight coloquio written by Miguel de Quintana were preserved in the files of the Holy Office in Ciudad de México. Six were given to Manuel Sopeña in 1732, but only two may been written for him. One was written for José Irigoyen in 1732, and one for Juan Sánchez de la Cruz in 1737.
There were committed in an acuarterón, a kind of personal notebook made from folio pages cut into fourths measuring 4.5" by 6.5." As shown in the photograph of a page made by the translators, he transcribed them as if they were appearing on a printed page with the verses in two columns separated by a commentary written at a right angle. The prose was below.
One coloquio has two sets of verses and prose, but six only have one. One had no prose, while the one he gave to Irigoyen had no marginal commentary.
They all began with the line, "Jesús, María, y José," followed by a four line verses that took the form ABCB. The rhymed lines ended with vowel or assonant sounds.
Cree, Mi-guel, con vi-va fe
que Di-os no te ha con-fun-di-do
ni su di-vi-na gran-de-za
es-tá en-jo-ja-do con-ti-go.
Spanish theorists emphasize the total number of syllables to the line, unlike the English who count the number of stressed syllables (the ones in bold above). Quintana varied his number of syllables, but did tend to make the rhyming second and fourth lines shorter in the style of the seguidilla real that alternated between lines containing 10 and 6 syllables.
Angélico Chávez noted Quintana had a "marked facility in rhyming within the limits of the quatrain in trimeter," meaning three stressed syllables. The translators used the quoted verse to illustrate his "poetic virtuosity" because the verb "enjojado" does not refer to the preceding noun, "grandeza," but to the one before, "Dios."
The verses were dialogues between Miguel and God. Following Franciscan conventions, Miguel was personified as a poor sinner seeking guidance.
Following the coloquios proper, the prose described events which precipitated the conversations. They may have been modeled on instructions for actors or producers. The ones that probably were written before Sopeña threatened to denounce him described the character Miguel
- Seeing a vision of Juan de Tagle
- Being unable to complete a Christmas coloquio and changing to the Miguel series
- Being unable to complete saying the rosary when contemplating the Sorrowful Mysteries
These contained his most vivid writing. Tagle’s ghost was described with his "hands stuck in his sleeves like a dead man’s" with "his eyes being two fountains of tears" and his face, "capilla calada," the color of "a chapel recently whitewashed with lime." Behind him the altar cloths were red, "encarnado."
One of the prose sections specific to Sopeña dealt with the horrors with which Quintana was threatened. The other mentioned Miguel no longer was participating in the Third Order. The one Quintana gave to Irigoyen specifically mentioned threats of the Inquisition.
He wrote another coloquio in 1737 for Cruz. In the prose section, he claimed "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." The translators noted the original wording, "a dar gatazo," might have been a subtle pun if the word gatazo was derived from catear. The latter implied a conspiracy.
The form he used was neither linear nor was it based on oral tradition, though the translators noted several times when he chose colloquial rather than formal words. If one reads his coloquios as published from top to bottom, one becomes lost in the repetitions. Instead, one should read the prose first, then read the dialogues as illustrations of the moral quandaries raised by events.
Notes: The quoted verse was written in 1737 for Cruz. The translation loses the verbal dexterity:
Believe, Miguel, with living faith
that God has not confused you,
nor is His divine might
angry with you.
Campa, Arthur L. Spanish Religious Folktheatre in the Spanish Southwest (First Cycle), 1934.
Castañeda, Carlos Eduardo. "The First American Play," The Catholic World, January 1932; quoted by Campa.
Chávez, Angélico. "The Mad Poet of Santa Cruz," New Mexico Folklore Record 3:10-17:1949.
Crawford, James Pyle Wickersham. Spanish Drama Before Lope de Vega, 1922; on coloquio.
Hart, Stephen M. A Companion to Latin American Literature, 2007; on development of drama in México.
Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006; contains Spanish and English versions of all documents described here.
Quintana, Miguel de. Coloquio, 1732 and 1737, reprinted in Spanish and English by Lomelí.
Montaño, Mary Caroline. Tradiciones Nuevomexicanas, 2001; on developments in New Mexico.
He recalled he used to write "coloquio para festejar al Niño Dios en su nacimiento," which Francisco Lomelí and Clark Colahan translated as "plays in celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus."
In the early years, a coloquio was a part of larger play that could be performed separately. It was much like a rondo within a sonata. It was always part of the larger composition, but followed rules unique to itself, and could be extracted and played separately.
Franciscans adapted Spanish dramatic forms to the Aztec language to induce natives to be baptized. Dominicans and Jesuits expanded the genres.
The most popular were the auto sacramentales, which were mounted on carriages that drove through the streets. Each auto depicted a different scene, and included a coloquio. The ones that survived in New Mexico focused on Joseph, the inns, the shepherds, the magi, Jesus in the temple, and holy week. Arthur Campa noted they survived in fragments and by 1934 had been fused into a single drama.
The coloquio was a dialogue between two characters that had no narrative impulse. James Crawford believed they originated in Italy and were brought to Spain as amusements of the aristocracy. He described them as casuistical, meaning they dramatized two sides of moral questions by applying them to mundane events.
Carlos Eduardo Castañeda noted the coloquio evolved into a simpler dramatic genre "in the form of a dialogue, written either in verse or prose." He said, it "gained special popularity in Mexico."
Eight coloquio written by Miguel de Quintana were preserved in the files of the Holy Office in Ciudad de México. Six were given to Manuel Sopeña in 1732, but only two may been written for him. One was written for José Irigoyen in 1732, and one for Juan Sánchez de la Cruz in 1737.
There were committed in an acuarterón, a kind of personal notebook made from folio pages cut into fourths measuring 4.5" by 6.5." As shown in the photograph of a page made by the translators, he transcribed them as if they were appearing on a printed page with the verses in two columns separated by a commentary written at a right angle. The prose was below.
One coloquio has two sets of verses and prose, but six only have one. One had no prose, while the one he gave to Irigoyen had no marginal commentary.
They all began with the line, "Jesús, María, y José," followed by a four line verses that took the form ABCB. The rhymed lines ended with vowel or assonant sounds.
Cree, Mi-guel, con vi-va fe
que Di-os no te ha con-fun-di-do
ni su di-vi-na gran-de-za
es-tá en-jo-ja-do con-ti-go.
Spanish theorists emphasize the total number of syllables to the line, unlike the English who count the number of stressed syllables (the ones in bold above). Quintana varied his number of syllables, but did tend to make the rhyming second and fourth lines shorter in the style of the seguidilla real that alternated between lines containing 10 and 6 syllables.
Angélico Chávez noted Quintana had a "marked facility in rhyming within the limits of the quatrain in trimeter," meaning three stressed syllables. The translators used the quoted verse to illustrate his "poetic virtuosity" because the verb "enjojado" does not refer to the preceding noun, "grandeza," but to the one before, "Dios."
The verses were dialogues between Miguel and God. Following Franciscan conventions, Miguel was personified as a poor sinner seeking guidance.
Following the coloquios proper, the prose described events which precipitated the conversations. They may have been modeled on instructions for actors or producers. The ones that probably were written before Sopeña threatened to denounce him described the character Miguel
- Seeing a vision of Juan de Tagle
- Being unable to complete a Christmas coloquio and changing to the Miguel series
- Being unable to complete saying the rosary when contemplating the Sorrowful Mysteries
These contained his most vivid writing. Tagle’s ghost was described with his "hands stuck in his sleeves like a dead man’s" with "his eyes being two fountains of tears" and his face, "capilla calada," the color of "a chapel recently whitewashed with lime." Behind him the altar cloths were red, "encarnado."
One of the prose sections specific to Sopeña dealt with the horrors with which Quintana was threatened. The other mentioned Miguel no longer was participating in the Third Order. The one Quintana gave to Irigoyen specifically mentioned threats of the Inquisition.
He wrote another coloquio in 1737 for Cruz. In the prose section, he claimed "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." The translators noted the original wording, "a dar gatazo," might have been a subtle pun if the word gatazo was derived from catear. The latter implied a conspiracy.
The form he used was neither linear nor was it based on oral tradition, though the translators noted several times when he chose colloquial rather than formal words. If one reads his coloquios as published from top to bottom, one becomes lost in the repetitions. Instead, one should read the prose first, then read the dialogues as illustrations of the moral quandaries raised by events.
Notes: The quoted verse was written in 1737 for Cruz. The translation loses the verbal dexterity:
Believe, Miguel, with living faith
that God has not confused you,
nor is His divine might
angry with you.
Campa, Arthur L. Spanish Religious Folktheatre in the Spanish Southwest (First Cycle), 1934.
Castañeda, Carlos Eduardo. "The First American Play," The Catholic World, January 1932; quoted by Campa.
Chávez, Angélico. "The Mad Poet of Santa Cruz," New Mexico Folklore Record 3:10-17:1949.
Crawford, James Pyle Wickersham. Spanish Drama Before Lope de Vega, 1922; on coloquio.
Hart, Stephen M. A Companion to Latin American Literature, 2007; on development of drama in México.
Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006; contains Spanish and English versions of all documents described here.
Quintana, Miguel de. Coloquio, 1732 and 1737, reprinted in Spanish and English by Lomelí.
Montaño, Mary Caroline. Tradiciones Nuevomexicanas, 2001; on developments in New Mexico.
Sunday, June 19, 2016
Miguel de Quintana’s Family
Miguel de Quintana came to Nuevo México with the colonists recruited from Mexico City by Cristóbal de Velasco in 1693. He traveled with his wife, Gertrudis de Trujillo, her parents, and her sister’s family.
Gertrudis’ mother, María Ruiz de Aguilar, was the daughter of the Nicolás Ruiz de Aguilar who had angered Franciscans in 1659 when the governor asked him to monitor their pueblo labor practices. The Inquisition in Mexico City found him guilty of "obstructing the missionary program" in 1664. He was caught in the same controversy that ensnared Francisco Gómez Robledo.
Aguilar had married Mariana de los Ángeles Guerrero in 1652 in Ciudad de Mexico. María was born in 1654 in Mexico City. While he was in Santa Fé, he fathered three children with Catalina Marquez. It’s not clear if Mariana had died and Nicolas remarried, or if she stayed south. Catalina’s three boys used her name. One step-brother, Nicolás, and some of their cousins returned with Diego de Vargas.
María was around 11-years-old when her father died in 1666. If Mariana were still alive, the girl might have had dim memories of her father’s situation and more vivid ones from tales told by her mother or stepmother. Quintana may have heard them sometime before María and her husband returned to México in 1705.
Gertrudis’ sister, Estefánia, was married to José de Atienza Sevillano. His father, José de Atienza de Alcalá y Escobar, had migrated to Nueva España from the area of Toledo in Spain. Several hundred years before, people with the same last name in the same area were convicted of being secret Jews, according to Stanley Hordes.
Quintana’s own family was more obscure. All his grandparents were born in Nueva España, with his maternal grandfather, Francisco de Valdés Altamirano, from the Toluca valley. While his wife’s ancestors were classed as meztisos, nothing was said about Miguel in 1673 other than he was of "sound body."
José Esquibel and John Colligan traced the family back to the powerful Álvarez de Toledos. Although long rumored to be conversos, Antonio Domínguez Ortiz said their genealogy suggested they were Christians who had adopted some customs from their Arab conquerors in Al-Ándalus.
Miguel and Gertrudis had at least ten children. A baptismal certificate survives for only one, Nicolás, who was born in 1712. His godparents were Juana Martín Serrano and Diego Marques.
Marriage records for their children and baptismal records for their grandchildren are equally sparse. Two Quintanas married children of María Luján and Pedro Sánchez de Iñigo, whose brother had been alcalde in Santa Cruz in 1713. Michaela married his son Pedro, while her brother Juan Tadeo married Francisca Xaviera.
The 1731 baptismal record for a child of María and Pedro was the first entry in Santa Cruz’s bound register. The names of the godparents were damaged so only Antonio survived for the man, and Magdalen (torn) Vaca for the woman. Juan and Xaviera’s marriage entry survived in better condition. María and Pedro were their witnesses. Their first baptismal entry was made in 1735 with Antonio Tafoya and Prudensia Gonzales as sponsors.
No sacramental records survived for their oldest daughter, Gertrudis Lugarda, who married Ascencio Archuleta. He was the grandson of Juan de Archuleta, but apparently had disappeared long before Lugardia wrote her will in 1749. She had borne three children, but reserved a few things for a niece, one guesses she might have been raising.
The Quintanas’ daughter Antonia does not appear in the Santa Cruz records. Angélico Chávez said her husband was Juan Gómez del Castillo. His mother was Juana Luján, the daughter of Matías. Chávez thought his father was Bartolomé Gómez Robledo, the illegitimate son of Bartolomé. The latter was the brother of the Francisco mentioned above and of Andrés, the father-in-law of Ignacio de Roybal. They probably were living in the San Ildefonso area when their first child was born in 1732.
The first child’s name to appear in the sacramental record after Quintana was denounced by Manuel de Sopeña in March of 1732 was their oldest boy. José had been born in 1698 and married to Lugarda Tafoya when they had a son in April. She had previously been married to Juan Sayago, who was killed during the Villasur expedition in 1720. Chávez thought he might have been related to Francisco de la Rosa, since both also were called González. It’s possible José was also a widow, but all that’s known about him was he was killed by Indians in 1748. The godparents in 1732 were Antonio Tafoya and Prudencia González.
Another son, Francisco Xavier, remarried after Quintana agreed to his fate in January of 1737. He married Juana Martín in September of 1737, with Manuel de la Rosa and Gertrudis Jirón de Tejeda as witnesses. Their first surviving baptismal record was from 1747. Francisco’s first wife, María Rosa Trujillo, died in 1728. It’s not known if she was local or a cousin through one of his mother’s brothers.
Three adolescent boys, beside Juan, were living at home when Quintana was denounced. Their marriages weren’t recorded and their first baptismal records in the Santa Cruz register appeared after 1737. Nicolás, who was 20 in 1732, married Mariana de Herrera; Manuel, who was 16, married María Feliciana Medina, and Juan José, who was 13, married Petronila Romero. Mariana’s family had roots in the Río Abajo before the Revolt. Pedro Asensio Tafoya and Ana sponsored the baptism of her son in 1745.
Feliciana’s maternal grandfather in Chimayó was Cristóbal Martín Serrano. Her paternal grandfather, Diego Medina’s daughter married Diego Romero, the son of Salvador, in 1714. The first recorded sponsors for her children were her parents, José Isidro de Medina and María Catarina Martín in 1743.
Little is known about Juan José and Petronila, except she died in Belen. He may have moved south where he had cousins. His father’s younger brother, José, had come after the Reconquest. He joined the presidio and married Antonia Luján. They moved to Bernalillo, perhaps after her mother, Juana Domínguez, died. Antonia’s father, Domingo Luján, died in 1693. Juana later was accused of living with Lorenzo de Madrid, whom she subsequently married.
Family genealogists have found references to two other children for Miguel and Gertrudis. Juan Baptista was born in 1708 and alive in 1712 when Quintana testified he had seven children. He may have died after that, or moved away.
The other, María, survives, so far, as only a name, with no birth date. She may have died young.
Notes: Gertrudis’ full name was Gertrudis de la Santa Trinidad Moreno de Trujillo. Miguel was born Miguel Matías de Quintana. Juan Sayago also was called Juan Gallegos. Mariana de Herrera also was listed as María Antonia de Herrera. The connections between the Medinas and Martín Serranos in Chimayó were mentioned in the post for 4 November 2015.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Domínguez Ortiz, Antonio. Los Judeoconversos en España y América, 1971; quoted in Wikipedia entry on Pedro Álvarez de Toledo.
Esquibel, José A. and John B. Colligan. The Spanish Recolonization of New Mexico, 1999; cited by Hordes on Quintana’s family; cited by López for Aguilar’s marriage in Mexico City.
Geni genealogical website. Entries on Quintana’s family including María Ruiz de Aguilar and her Márquez kin; some are anonymous; other contributions were made by Ben M. Angel, Laura Elaine Chamas-Ortega, Ric Dickinson, Orlando Ricardo Mestas, and Henry Joseph Romero.
Hordes, Stanley M. To the End of the Earth, 2005.
Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006; contains Spanish and English versions of all documents described.
López, Nancy Lucía. Entry for Mariana de los Ángeles Guerrero on My New México Roots website, updated 25 January 2015.
New Mexico Genealogical Society. New Mexico Baptisms, Santa Cruz de la Cañada Church, Volume I, 1710 to 1794, transcribed by Virginia Langham Olmstead and compiled by Margaret Leonard Windham and Evelyn Luján Baca, 1994.
_____. 100 Years of Marriages, 1726-1826, Santa Cruz de la Cañada, New Mexico, extracted and compiled by Henrietta Martinez Christmas and Patricia Sánchez Rau.
Quintana, Lugarda de. Will, Santa Cruz, 1749; in Lomelí. She wrote "my husband is absent, and I do not know where."
Quintana, Miguel de. Lawsuit against Joseph Trujillo for a theft of two horses, 8 August to 24 October, 1712; in Lomelí.
Sánchez, Joseph E. "Nicolás de Aguilar and the Jurisdiction of Salinas in the Province of New Mexico, 1659-1662," Revista Complutense de Historia de América 22:139-160:1996; quotation on Aguilar.
Velázquez de la Cadena, Pedro. List of families going to New Mexico, 4 September 1693, in John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith Dodge, To the Royal Crown Restored, 1995.
Gertrudis’ mother, María Ruiz de Aguilar, was the daughter of the Nicolás Ruiz de Aguilar who had angered Franciscans in 1659 when the governor asked him to monitor their pueblo labor practices. The Inquisition in Mexico City found him guilty of "obstructing the missionary program" in 1664. He was caught in the same controversy that ensnared Francisco Gómez Robledo.
Aguilar had married Mariana de los Ángeles Guerrero in 1652 in Ciudad de Mexico. María was born in 1654 in Mexico City. While he was in Santa Fé, he fathered three children with Catalina Marquez. It’s not clear if Mariana had died and Nicolas remarried, or if she stayed south. Catalina’s three boys used her name. One step-brother, Nicolás, and some of their cousins returned with Diego de Vargas.
María was around 11-years-old when her father died in 1666. If Mariana were still alive, the girl might have had dim memories of her father’s situation and more vivid ones from tales told by her mother or stepmother. Quintana may have heard them sometime before María and her husband returned to México in 1705.
Gertrudis’ sister, Estefánia, was married to José de Atienza Sevillano. His father, José de Atienza de Alcalá y Escobar, had migrated to Nueva España from the area of Toledo in Spain. Several hundred years before, people with the same last name in the same area were convicted of being secret Jews, according to Stanley Hordes.
Quintana’s own family was more obscure. All his grandparents were born in Nueva España, with his maternal grandfather, Francisco de Valdés Altamirano, from the Toluca valley. While his wife’s ancestors were classed as meztisos, nothing was said about Miguel in 1673 other than he was of "sound body."
José Esquibel and John Colligan traced the family back to the powerful Álvarez de Toledos. Although long rumored to be conversos, Antonio Domínguez Ortiz said their genealogy suggested they were Christians who had adopted some customs from their Arab conquerors in Al-Ándalus.
Miguel and Gertrudis had at least ten children. A baptismal certificate survives for only one, Nicolás, who was born in 1712. His godparents were Juana Martín Serrano and Diego Marques.
Marriage records for their children and baptismal records for their grandchildren are equally sparse. Two Quintanas married children of María Luján and Pedro Sánchez de Iñigo, whose brother had been alcalde in Santa Cruz in 1713. Michaela married his son Pedro, while her brother Juan Tadeo married Francisca Xaviera.
The 1731 baptismal record for a child of María and Pedro was the first entry in Santa Cruz’s bound register. The names of the godparents were damaged so only Antonio survived for the man, and Magdalen (torn) Vaca for the woman. Juan and Xaviera’s marriage entry survived in better condition. María and Pedro were their witnesses. Their first baptismal entry was made in 1735 with Antonio Tafoya and Prudensia Gonzales as sponsors.
No sacramental records survived for their oldest daughter, Gertrudis Lugarda, who married Ascencio Archuleta. He was the grandson of Juan de Archuleta, but apparently had disappeared long before Lugardia wrote her will in 1749. She had borne three children, but reserved a few things for a niece, one guesses she might have been raising.
The Quintanas’ daughter Antonia does not appear in the Santa Cruz records. Angélico Chávez said her husband was Juan Gómez del Castillo. His mother was Juana Luján, the daughter of Matías. Chávez thought his father was Bartolomé Gómez Robledo, the illegitimate son of Bartolomé. The latter was the brother of the Francisco mentioned above and of Andrés, the father-in-law of Ignacio de Roybal. They probably were living in the San Ildefonso area when their first child was born in 1732.
The first child’s name to appear in the sacramental record after Quintana was denounced by Manuel de Sopeña in March of 1732 was their oldest boy. José had been born in 1698 and married to Lugarda Tafoya when they had a son in April. She had previously been married to Juan Sayago, who was killed during the Villasur expedition in 1720. Chávez thought he might have been related to Francisco de la Rosa, since both also were called González. It’s possible José was also a widow, but all that’s known about him was he was killed by Indians in 1748. The godparents in 1732 were Antonio Tafoya and Prudencia González.
Another son, Francisco Xavier, remarried after Quintana agreed to his fate in January of 1737. He married Juana Martín in September of 1737, with Manuel de la Rosa and Gertrudis Jirón de Tejeda as witnesses. Their first surviving baptismal record was from 1747. Francisco’s first wife, María Rosa Trujillo, died in 1728. It’s not known if she was local or a cousin through one of his mother’s brothers.
Three adolescent boys, beside Juan, were living at home when Quintana was denounced. Their marriages weren’t recorded and their first baptismal records in the Santa Cruz register appeared after 1737. Nicolás, who was 20 in 1732, married Mariana de Herrera; Manuel, who was 16, married María Feliciana Medina, and Juan José, who was 13, married Petronila Romero. Mariana’s family had roots in the Río Abajo before the Revolt. Pedro Asensio Tafoya and Ana sponsored the baptism of her son in 1745.
Feliciana’s maternal grandfather in Chimayó was Cristóbal Martín Serrano. Her paternal grandfather, Diego Medina’s daughter married Diego Romero, the son of Salvador, in 1714. The first recorded sponsors for her children were her parents, José Isidro de Medina and María Catarina Martín in 1743.
Little is known about Juan José and Petronila, except she died in Belen. He may have moved south where he had cousins. His father’s younger brother, José, had come after the Reconquest. He joined the presidio and married Antonia Luján. They moved to Bernalillo, perhaps after her mother, Juana Domínguez, died. Antonia’s father, Domingo Luján, died in 1693. Juana later was accused of living with Lorenzo de Madrid, whom she subsequently married.
Family genealogists have found references to two other children for Miguel and Gertrudis. Juan Baptista was born in 1708 and alive in 1712 when Quintana testified he had seven children. He may have died after that, or moved away.
The other, María, survives, so far, as only a name, with no birth date. She may have died young.
Notes: Gertrudis’ full name was Gertrudis de la Santa Trinidad Moreno de Trujillo. Miguel was born Miguel Matías de Quintana. Juan Sayago also was called Juan Gallegos. Mariana de Herrera also was listed as María Antonia de Herrera. The connections between the Medinas and Martín Serranos in Chimayó were mentioned in the post for 4 November 2015.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Domínguez Ortiz, Antonio. Los Judeoconversos en España y América, 1971; quoted in Wikipedia entry on Pedro Álvarez de Toledo.
Esquibel, José A. and John B. Colligan. The Spanish Recolonization of New Mexico, 1999; cited by Hordes on Quintana’s family; cited by López for Aguilar’s marriage in Mexico City.
Geni genealogical website. Entries on Quintana’s family including María Ruiz de Aguilar and her Márquez kin; some are anonymous; other contributions were made by Ben M. Angel, Laura Elaine Chamas-Ortega, Ric Dickinson, Orlando Ricardo Mestas, and Henry Joseph Romero.
Hordes, Stanley M. To the End of the Earth, 2005.
Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006; contains Spanish and English versions of all documents described.
López, Nancy Lucía. Entry for Mariana de los Ángeles Guerrero on My New México Roots website, updated 25 January 2015.
New Mexico Genealogical Society. New Mexico Baptisms, Santa Cruz de la Cañada Church, Volume I, 1710 to 1794, transcribed by Virginia Langham Olmstead and compiled by Margaret Leonard Windham and Evelyn Luján Baca, 1994.
_____. 100 Years of Marriages, 1726-1826, Santa Cruz de la Cañada, New Mexico, extracted and compiled by Henrietta Martinez Christmas and Patricia Sánchez Rau.
Quintana, Lugarda de. Will, Santa Cruz, 1749; in Lomelí. She wrote "my husband is absent, and I do not know where."
Quintana, Miguel de. Lawsuit against Joseph Trujillo for a theft of two horses, 8 August to 24 October, 1712; in Lomelí.
Sánchez, Joseph E. "Nicolás de Aguilar and the Jurisdiction of Salinas in the Province of New Mexico, 1659-1662," Revista Complutense de Historia de América 22:139-160:1996; quotation on Aguilar.
Velázquez de la Cadena, Pedro. List of families going to New Mexico, 4 September 1693, in John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith Dodge, To the Royal Crown Restored, 1995.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)