Cristóbal Tafoya

Cristóbal Tafoya Altamirano was raised in the Michoacán mining town of Tlalpujahua with his younger brothers Juan and Antonio.  Before the Reconquest, Antonio was serving in the presidio at Cuencamé, a mining area in Durango being attacked by the Tobosa.  Both he and Cristóbal were on the payroll of the Santa Fé presidio in 1697.

They became entangled in the political feud between Diego de Vargas and his successor, Pedro Cubero.  In 1696, Cristóbal was in jail for stealing cattle along with Bartolomé Sánchez of Querétaro and Miguel Gutíerrez of San Luis Potosí.  Antonio Gutíerrez de Figueroa of Zacatecas claimed de Vargas sent the three “gifts of chocolate, knives, and anything else they sent to ask of him” and that he asked Francisco de Anaya Almazán “to drop his complaint.”

The following year, Cubero was using Cristóbal’s brother as a courier to deliver documents to the viceroy.  Since Cubero believed de Vargas ally Juan Páez Hurtado wanted to kill Juan Tafoya, one can assume the packet was related to the case Cubero was building against Vargas.

Whether the brothers, in fact, were committed conspirators, or simply men looking for ways to profit from the venality of their superiors is open to interpretation.  Others made protestations against involvement.  Antonio Gutíerrez protested that de Vargas’ assistant, Alfonso Rael de Aguilar, “should not involve him in those matters.”  Similarly, the man who testified about Juan Tafoya, Juan Roque Gutíerrez, claimed he and Miguel de Herrera had told a representative from de Vargas “they did not want to get involved in such a big, complicated mess.”

A year later, in 1698, Cristóbal married Miguel de Herrera’s sister, Isabel.  That placed him amongst survivors from the Pueblo Revolt who were hoping to recoup their losses.  Miguel and Isabel were the children of Ana López del Castillo and Juan de Herrera who held the encomienda of Santa Clara.  Juan was dead before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, but family grievances no doubt were perpetuated.

The association with refugee families in El Paso had been formed earlier.  Cristóbal fathered a child by Lucía Varela Jaramillo, probably before the widow remarried in 1696.  Her father, Pedro, had escaped the Pueblo Revolt as a 60-year-old capitán.  Her first husband, Bartolomé Romero de Pedraza, had been an adjutant in Santa Fé with land in La Cañada.  Witnesses for her second wedding included Fernando Durán y Chaves and Baltasar Romero.

Cristóbal’s brother Antonio married María Louisa Godines in 1697.  She was the 17-year-old widow of Alonso García de Noriega, the uncle of both Leonor Domínguez Mendoza and Alonso Rael de Aguilar.  The likely atmosphere in their family circle was discussed in the post for 5 April 2015.

In 1707 Cristóbal and Juan were in trouble again for stealing oxen.  Juan had married Josefa Pacheco, the widow of José Baca.  After she died in 1707, her great-uncle Nicolás Ortiz brought suit over the mistreatment of one her daughters and the abuse of an Indian captive, perhaps one of the Apache he had sponsored in 1705.

When Juan tried to marry another member of the extended Baca clan in 1708, the illegitimate stepsister of María Durán y Chaves claimed she had had relations with Juan and that Cristóbal knew about it.  At the time Juan had one known illegitimate son, Cristóbal.  Angélico Chávez didn’t think the marriage of Fernando Durán y Chaves’s daughter occurred.

It’s not known when Cristóbal retired from the military.  His brother Antonio remained with the presidio, and was with Juan Páez Hurtado in his 1715 expedition against the Faraón Apache.

Cristóbal made his will in 1718.  At that time he had two sons, Juan and Antonio, and acknowledged two daughters by other women, Antonia Tafoya Jaramillo and Gertrudis de Tafoya Ruiz.  His brother Anthony’s oldest boy, Cristóbal, also lived in his household.

He declared he had “a ranch with its necessary lands for agriculture” along with “seventy-eight head of cattle and four yoke of oxen, together with equipment and a cart. Thirty head of sheep. Fifty-four head of horses and mares, and three mules.”

After this, the record becomes confusing.  Cristóbal’s older son, Juan, had married a cousin, Antonia González Bas, in 1716.  Her parents were María López del Castillo and Juan González Bas.  González was the great-grandson of Juan Griego and Pascula Bernal through their daughter Isabel Bernal.  María was the daughter of Pedro López del Castillo and María de Ortega.

Cristóbal’s wife’s grandfather was Diego López del Castillo.  He migrated from Sevilla and may have come north with the military or may have followed Matías López del Castillo, who had been in the solider escort for the Santa Fé supply train in 1628.   Diego married María de la Cruz Alemán in 1664.  She was the granddaughter of Juan Griego and Pascula Bernal through their son Juan Griego.

Chávez suspects the two men were brothers.  He doesn’t guess if Pedro was the son of one or related to a brother who remained in México or Spain.

Juan’s brother, Antonio, married his wife’s sister, Prudencia González Bas, in 1722.  These marriages reinforced the brothers’ ties to the Juan de Herrera inheritance of their mother.  Two years later they made their claim for Santa Clara land, perhaps land they thought was rightfully theirs.

The death date of their father Cristóbal became obscured when a man who said he was their father was present when the Santa Clara protested the grant in 1724.  Cristóbal Torres, the alcalde for Santa Clara, should have recognized Cristóbal and would have heard if here dead.

This was the same Cristóbal Torres mentioned in the post for 21 October 2015 who was distributing some of the land in his 1724 grant along the Chama river to the widowed María Margarita Trujillo.  In 1719, the daughter of Jose Trujillo and Antonia Luján had married the 20-year-old illegitimate son of the senior Tafoya’s brother Juan.  To keep the Cristóbals straight, they called this one El Moso.

Notes: Juan de Herrera was discussed in the post for 13 April 2014.  The Spanish origins of the Tafoyas aren’t known.  Altamirano usually refers to someone from the area of Altamira in Cantabria.

Arias de Quirós, Diego. “Report on the Costs for One Hundred Soldiers of Santa Fe,” August 1697?, in Kessell 2000.

Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.

_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.  Fernando Durán y Chaves was an ancestor of Chávez.

Gutíerrez, Juan Roque. Statement, 3 December 1697, in Kessell, 2000.

Gutíerrez de Figueroa, Antonio. Statement, 3 December 1697, in Kessell, 2000.

Kessell, John L., Rick Hendricks, Meredith D. Dodge, and Larry D. Miller. That Disturbances Cease, 2000.

_____, _____, _____. To the Royal Crown Restored, 1995.

Tafoya, Cristobal. Will, 1718, republished by Henrietta Martinez Christmas, “Cristobal Tafoya - 1718 Will,” 1598 New Mexico website, 7 July 2014.

Thomas, Alfred B. After Coronado, 1935; contains 1715 rosters for August 28 and August 30 for Juan Páez Hurtado expedition.

Río Chama Land Grants

Land grants were meant to reward men who had served the state. They weren’t intended to encourage land speculation, nor were they supposed to countenance bribery. The Spanish government monitored them to ensure they were used as intended. In 1724, Juan de Bustamante questioned all the concessions made by Juan Flores Mogollón in 1714 along the Río Chama.

Antonio Trujillo claimed he had received land "which is wild and unsettled, on the opposite side of the Del Norte river" from Flores. He then "made a ditch and plowed up a field" that was shown as proof of occupancy.

His father, Diego Trujillo, had been granted land west of the Chama in 1714. Antonio’s apparently was the same San Gabriel-Yunque land granted to Bartolomé Sánchez that year. Trujillo described it as having a hill on the east bank of the Río Grande, and a table land reaching the Chama on the west and north. The Chama river was the south boundary.

Diego had married Catalina Griego, granddaughter of Juan Griego II. Antonio’s wife was María Márquez de Ayala, whose parents migrated from Mexico City in 1693. Witnesses for their diligencia matrimonial included Cristóbal Crespín.

Crespín’s grant also was called for revalidation. He said he had come north from Zacatecas with his mother, Juana de Ancizo de la Cruz. Since she was not given "even a small lot of land to enable her to build a house," he had enlisted with the Santa Fé presidio. He retired in 1714 because he had become too ill to serve. He had asked for an extension to prove settlement in 1715, because he was still ill. At the time, he complained José Trujillo was infringing on his land by building corrals.

His partner in the grant, Nicolás Griego, was the son of Augustín Griego and Josefa Luján. Angélico Chávez didn’t know Augustín’s relation to the family. Ralph Twitchell didn’t include the outcome of his grant inquiry in his summary of the Spanish archives in Santa Fé.

Cristóbal de Torres gave Antonio Trujillo "royal possession" of his grant in 1720 as chief justice and war captain for Santa Cruz. In 1724 he received his own grant for land on the Chama from Bustamante. He then gave lands to Nicolás Jorge, Juana Luján, Josefa de Madrid, Antonio de Sandoval, Juan de Serna, José Trujillo, Mateo Trujillo, Francisco Trujillo, and María Margarita Trujillo.

In 1731, Torres’ son Diego was tentiente alcalde in Santa Cruz when he petitioned Gervasio Cruzat y Góngora to clarify the grant. His father had died, and none of the subgrantees had made settlements.

This one was judged speculation by Cruzat, who revoked it in 1733. Mateo Trujillo had been granted land south of Santa Clara in 1700, that was revoked in 1724 because all he had done was erect a cross on two Sundays. Antonio de Sandoval lived in Santa Fé. Nicolás Jorge’s father had been sargento mayor of the presidio in 1694 when Crespín enlisted.

However, Diego must have been allowed to keep his family’s portion. His mother, Angela de Layva, made her will in 1727 in Chama. Angélico Chávez lists him as one of the original settlers of the community in 1731.

The term Chama was used for any settlement along the river, not just the one at San Gabriel-Yunque. In 1727 Pablo Manuel Trujillo of Pojoaque married Francisca Márquez of Chama. Marriages were contracted between all the families. One of Diego Torres’ sisters, María, married Antonio de Salazar. Another, Margarita, wed Bartolomé Trujillo, likely brother of José.

So many people were living west of the Río Grande by 1732 that Crozat ordered a ferry be established.

Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.

_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.

Christmas, Henrietta Martinez. "Cristobal Crespín - Lands near the Chama River 1714," 17 April 2013 posting for her blog, 1598 New Mexico; quotation from Crespín grant.

Páez Hurtado, Juan. Petition in regard to the calling of their grants, in Twitchell; includes Bartolomé Lobato, Salvador de Santisteban, Antonio Trujillo, Antonio de Salazar, Cristóbal Crespín, Nicolás Griego, Nicolás Valverde, and Juan de Mestas.

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 1, 1914.

Land Grants

Settlement patterns in northern Nueva México were closely tied to the presence of governors willing to make land grants and to the perceived safety of lands on the perimeter of settlement. Men given grants were considered accessory conquistadores. They were expected to use their own funds to recruit settlers and provide for their defense. They weren’t promised titles like Oñate or de Vargas. Instead, they were rewarded with whatever wealth they produced.

In 1703, Pedro Cubero granted lands at Chimayó to Francisco Martín, grandson of the first Luis Martín Serrano. The area had been used before the Revolt, and was rarely attacked. It’s major impact on natives living in the valley was an encroachment on traditional lands of San Juan.

Sebastían Martín Serrano, another grandson of Luis and second cousin of Francisco, requested confirmation of his lands south of the Embudo in 1712 from José Chacón. While this reestablished the Español presence in an area settled before the Pueblo Revolt, it also propelled families into an area where tribal territories were being renegotiated by force. This was discussed in the post for 9 July 2015.

While the first round of grants were given to families who had large landholdings before the Pueblo Revolt, many concessions to the north and west of Santa Cruz were given to retired soldiers. The governors were following the tradition of the Romans who settled veterans in the Estremadura to exploit and protect mines.

Juan Flores Magollón granted a number of allotments in 1714 along the Río Chama. Some of the land had been used before the Revolt. The Navajo had exploited the rest when they raided Santa Clara and San Juan in 1705, 1708, and 1709. As mentioned in the post for 21 May 2015, the last battle with them had been in March of 1714.

Chacón had refused a request from men in Santa Cruz in 1712 to resettle the area west of San Juan between the Río Grande and the Chama that had been the site of the first settlement "known as San Gabriel and by other name the Town of Yunque." His aide, Juan Páez Hurtado, had warned it would leave Santa Cruz "practically abandoned."

The group who had requested the grant included children of Roque Madrid. José and Matías Madrid were his sons. Ysabel de la Serna had married his son Pedro. Tomás de Bejarano had married Teresa Madrid, whose parentage was unknown.

It also included Bartolomé Lobato, who had risen to the rank of capitán, and his son or nephew Blas. Lobato was from Sombrerete, as was Andres González. Simón de Córdoba and Cristóbal de Castran were from Zacatecas. Córdoba was in the presidio. Angélico Chávez believed the second surname was actually Castro.

The other two in the group who requested rights to Yunque were Sebastían Durán, who was married to Ana María Martín, and Diego Márquez, who was married to Juana Martín. The parentage of the two Martín girls was unknown to Chávez. Capitán Márquez was the son of Esther Luján.

Flores had no qualms about ceding the same land to Bartolomé Sánchez, who had come from Queretaro and was living in Santa Fé under the name Bartolomé Garduño. He apparently was given priority over the protests of local military families because he carried papers for the viceroy.

Flores also granted land on the west side of the Chama in 1714 to Cristóbal Crespín, Diego Trujillo, and Salvador de Santisteban. The last was described as "las sobras de tierras" of land granted Lobato for wheat and corn. The literal translation is "leftover lands." Santisteban said he would plant wheat and corn.

The land ceded to Crespín was next to that requested by Santisteban. He planned to divide it evenly with Nicolás Griego to grow corn and wheat. It was described as "whatever is left after granting four fanegas to Salvador de Santisteban and Nicolás de Valverde, and the two fanegas with a house, lot and garden which in their outskirts I granted to Capt. Bartolome Lobato."

Next south on the west side of the Río Grande, Flores validated the claims made by Antonio de Salazar that were mentioned in the post for 6 July 2014. He also may have given José López Naranjo the land mentioned in the post for 14 July 2014, or Naranjo may have acquired it directly from Salazar. There are no records in the archive and no one filed a claim in the nineteenth century for the Naranjo land. Angélico Chávez found the reference in William Ritch’s collection of manuscripts.

These grants were dependent on goodwill between neighbors. They didn’t use the English system of metes and bounds, which identified permanent topological features. William Penn’s use of a grid, mentioned in the post for 13 September 2015, foreshadowed the use of surveys with brass posts at specified coordinates that replaced the metes.

Notes: Salvador de Santisteban was an officer of the presidio who went on the Páez expedition of 1715. Diego Trujillo survived the Villasur expedition of 1720. Sebastían Martín’s grant is often located in Taos; the term apparently was used to refer to any land between the San Juan and Taos pueblos.

Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.

Christmas, Henrietta Martinez. "Cristobal Crespín - Lands near the Chama River 1714," 17 April 2013 posting for her blog, 1598 New Mexico; quotation on Crespín grant.

Ritch, W. G. According to Chávez, 1992, the territorial secretary salavage papers from the archives before they were destroyed; they’re now in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 1, 1914; quotations on Yunque and Santisteban grants.

Villasur Expedition’s Local Consequences

The viceroy lost interest in Nuevo México after the defeat of Pedro de Villasur because it no longer was as critical to the empire as the new colonies in Tejas. His advisor, Juan de Oliván y Rebolledo, recognized the strength of the Comanche and the weakness of the Apache, but didn’t believe their conflict was critical to the future of Mexico.

The viceroy abandoned plans for a presidio at Jicarilla, and told the governor to resettle the Apache and convert them to Spanish life. Those at Jicarilla had little choice but to acquiesce. The ones at El Cuartelejo had welcomed Bourgmont and the French in 1724. Their autonomy was respected, they were promised peace from the east, and, in fact, were given some support against the Comanche.

The 200 peso fine levied on Valverde was used to benefit the church, not the colony. Three-fourths was set aside "to help buy chalices and ornaments for the missions of La Junta de los Ríos." The mission, at the confluence of the Conchos with the Río Grande, was intended to pacify local bands hostile to slave raids. It was important to the safety of El Paso.

The rest was to be used to pay priests "for masses for the souls of the soldiers killed in this campaign." Nothing went to the families of the fallen. Most were married, and many of those, no doubt, had children. Those women who didn’t remarry quickly would have faced hard times.

In fact, only five widows did remarry before 1730. Only one of those had a husband wealthy enough to leave an estate, Jean l’Archevêque. He and Manuela Roybal had been married less than year and as yet had no children. With that inheritance and the support of her father, Ignacio de Roybal, she would have been comfortable. She married Bernardo de Sena in 1727. He had considerable real estate in Santa Fé.

Archevêque had two children by his first wife, Antonia Gutíerrez. Both had married before his death, the boy to Manuela’s sister, the girl to the son of Capitán Francisco Lorenzo de Casados. Both father and son were legal go-betweens in Santa Fé.

In addition, he had fathered another son while he was married to Antonia by an unnamed unmarried woman. Augustín also had married before his father’s death and was active in his father’s business in Santa Fé. His wife was the granddaughter of a soldier, Manuella Trujillo. Her father, Augustín, was the son of Mateo Trujillo and María de Tapia.

The vulnerable one was the infant born in 1719 just before Archevêque’s second marriage. The mother, María de Mascareñas, was an orphan who served as a servant in his household. Even though she was remembered in the will, Juan later used his mother’s name.

Destitution would have been the fate of others whose extended families could not support them. Ana Maria de la Vega, the widow of Domingo de Mendizábal, had no parents. She would have had difficult years before she married Manuel Flores in 1723. He was the son of a skilled tradesman.

In the absence of state support for veterans and their families, men in the military looked after one another. Juana de Abeytia, widow of José Antonio Fernández, married Antonio de Armenta, survivor of the expedition, in 1725. She would have suffered years of hardship because her father was dead.

Josefa Montoya, widow of Manuel de Silva, married José Santisteban, survivor of the expedition, in 1720. Her father, Andres Montoya, was an ayudante and owned considerable land in Santa Fé. His father, Salvador Santisteban, was an alférez.

Maria Vigil, wife of Domingo Romero de Pedraza, married José Tenorio, in 1722. He was the grandson of Miguel Tenorio Alba, who died in the expedition. She would not have been secure because her father, Francisco Montes Vigil, a survivor, had land.

The survivors may have fared better. The Reglamento de Habana stipulated totally disabled veterans in Cuba should be granted salaries if they had served 15 years. Those wounded in battle who’d served fewer years were given half salary.

Notes: Juan de Acuña was the viceroy in 1727. Francisco Lorenzo de Casados’ son was Francisco Casados.

Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982; there is a gap in the surviving record from 1730 to 1750.

____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.

Cloud, William A., Steve Black and Jennifer Piehl. "La Junta de los Rios: Spanish Frontier 1715-1821," Texas beyond History website.

Felipe V. Reglamento de Habana, 1719, in Thomas H. Naylor and Charles W. Polzer, Pedro de Rivera and the Military Regulations for Northern New Spain, 1724-1729, 1988.

Oliván y Rebolledo, Juan de. Report to the viceroy, 29 May 1727, in José Antonio Pichardo, manuscript, translated and annotated by Charles Wilson Hackett as Pichardo’s Treatise of the Limits of Louisiana and Texas, volume 1, 1931.

Villasur Expedition Consequences

People living in Santa Fé evaluated danger differently than did officials in Mexico City. Ever since they first heard rumors of La Salle’s plans to found a colony on the gulf coast, the viceroy and his advisors had been strengthening the Empire’s position in Tejas.

During the 1719 war between France and Spain, Diego Ramón, comandante of the San Juan Bautista presidio in Nuevo León, passed on exaggerated reports of French activity to the viceroy. He, in turn, ordered the governor of Nuevo México, Antonio Valverde, to investigate.

Valverde demurred because he was planning a campaign against the Faraón Apache. As it was, he had to postpone that to punish Shoshone speakers for attacking settlers like Cristóbal de la Serna and Diego Romero.

In December, the Junta de Guerra in Mexico City ordered Valverde to establish a presidio on the northeastern border with the French at El Cuartelejo. He and his advisors balked at the idea of sending 25 soldiers from the presidio with their families into danger. Missionaries were no happier at the idea of sending two or three men to convert Apache.

People living in Taos argued it was better to have an outpost at Jicarilla that would protect them from Shoshone-speaking Utes and Comanche. Valverde suggested it would take at least 50 additional men to be effective The Athabascan-speaking bands probably agreed. The Apache living at Jicarilla were begging for help. Those at El Cuartelejo most likely didn’t wish to invite reprisals by the Pawnee.

The delay was fatal to the presidio in Santa Fé. In the year between the viceroy’s order and Valverde’s compliance, the French cemented the alliance Claude Charles du Tisné had made in September with the Pawnee by promising guns and presents in return for trading rights.

The viceroy sent a visador north to evaluate Mexico’s frontier defenses. Pedro de Rivera’s report on the ambush of Pedro de Villasur was forwarded to the Oidor de Guerra. Juan de Oliván y Rebolledo was a strong proponent of Tejas.

He faulted Villasur for incompetence rising from inexperience. He noted the circumstances "refutes the pretentions of the paper which is evidence of the commissions which he had held, but not of his abilities; it refutes the evidence of his honors - which are accustomed to be given ad honorem - but not that of the military practice which gives experience."

It was the first time since the Bourbons had ascended the throne of Spain that a weakness in bureaucratic governmental processes was exposed in Mexico City. Résumés were as vulnerable to manipulation as had been the earlier reliance on patronage and spoils.

Oliván responded by asserting a new precept, that a man was responsible for the consequences ensuing from appointing an incompetent subordinate. He felt the need to cite religious precedents for what, in fact, was a revolutionary concept. He recalled the bishop of Valladolid was fined when a vicar in his jurisdiction had not "executed an obligatory decree. As the vicar had no property, the bishop was fined because of having chosen him." He also noted the Duc de Béxar had been fined because an underling "failed to execute another such decree."

He did not acknowledge the internal weaknesses caused by Spain’s wars with France, which left México with limited funds. The increased demand for slaves in the sugar colonies in the Caribbean and Veracruz had led to slave raids on bands living just beyond the mining towns. They were responding, much as were the Comanche, with attacks on Spanish outposts. The state didn’t see the profits from slavery but it bore the costs when it couldn’t meet the frontier demands for more presidios.

Oliván also did not criticize the cumbersome means of mobilizing an army that don’t seem to have changed much since Juan de Oñate marched north with a herd of livestock. Juan Páez Hurtado’s expedition against the Faraón in 1715 began too late in the season, never found its quarry, and disappointed potential Apache allies. Valverde cut short his mission to the Apache because he ran out of food for his army and couldn’t provide for incoming refugees.

Presidio troops simply had no agility to engage mobile bands, and lacked the empathy needed to convert them to allies.

Notes: The viceroy in 1720 was Baltasar de Zúñiga y Guzman; the one in 1726 and 1727 was Juan de Acuña. Zúñiga then was president of the Consejo de Indias or Council of the Indies. Juan de Oliván Revolledo was the Oidor de Guerra or auditor of war.

John, Elizabeth A. H. Storms Brewed in Other Men’s Worlds, 1996 edition.

Johnson, John G. "Oliván Rebolledo, Juan Manuel de," Handbook of Texas Online.

Lewis, Anna. "Du Tisné’s Expedition into Oklahoma, 1719," Chronicles of Oklahoma 3:319-323:1925.

Oliván y Rebolledo, Juan de. Report to the viceroy, 29 May 1727, in Pichardo.

Pichardo, José Antonio. Manuscript, 1808-1812, translated and annotated by Charles Wilson Hackett in Pichardo’s Treatise of the Limits of Louisiana and Texas, volume 1, 1931.

Rivera, Pedro de. Report to the Oidor de Guerra, 1726, in Pichardo.