Behind the events that drove Leonor Domínguez to seek redress from the governor for the criminal intimacy between her husband, Miguel Martín, and a native woman lay a web of entrapping conditions and beliefs.
At the heart was the experience of the refugee camp at Guadalupe del Paso where they both were born. When other children hear scary tales collected by the brothers Grimm, they probably heard true tales of horror and betrayal from relatives still traumatized by the Revolt.
Even today, Donald Rivara knows the legends of the Domínguez family. He says the "Indians were led by their chief, Alonso Catití (our half-breed uncle, son of our ancestor Diego Márquez and a San Domingo Pueblo woman)."
Three of Leonor’s great-aunts on her father’s side "and their families were slaughtered in the revolt." Her uncle Lázaro on her mother’s side was killed at Galisteo. After the Reconquest, another maternal uncle, "Alonso, was later killed by Apaches in 1696."
Her father, Antonio Domínguez de Mendoza, died in 1689. Her mother, Juana de García y Noriega, refused to return with Diego de Vargas. Leonor must have come back with her sisters and her aunt Josefa de García y Noriega.
After the Entrada, the first generation of children tended to marry people they had learned to trust at Guadalupe. Outside their barricaded world were things they couldn’t control - illnesses, injuries, probably hunger and malnutrition in the early years. The harsh winter of 1706 had been followed by drought in 1707. Most of the crops had been lost. By the time Lent arrived on March 9 of 1708, the food supplies probably were low.
Since the counter Reformation, the church had emphasized fasting for forty days as a way to distinguish the faithful. Individuals were limited to one complete meal a day, with two smaller, meatless meals to maintain strength. Normal eating patterns were allowed on Sundays and for pregnant women. This exemption brought the number of fast days to the forty associated with Christ’s time in the wilderness.
While the deposition provides no dates for the events leading up to her attack on Holy Thursday, one comment by Catarina Rosa hints most things occurred during the Lenten period. When Leonor refused to eat anything provide by Catarina at San Juan, Leonor said it was because she was fasting. Catarina responded "What, today, Sunday you are fasting?"
Fear is a powerful agent. Leonor lived in fear of the dreaded enemy at San Juan, fear the church wouldn’t deem her a good Catholic if she didn’t fast, fear of infidelity when her husband away. Her in-laws didn’t help when they sided with her husband in disputes and spent their time gossiping about spells.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Rivara, Donald. Contributions related to Leonor Domínguez, Genealogy Trails website, 2009.
Scurlock, Dan. "Modern and Historical Climate," in From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998.
Showing posts with label 09 Santa Cruz 6-10. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 09 Santa Cruz 6-10. Show all posts
Sunday, April 05, 2015
Thursday, April 02, 2015
Chronicles of Leonor: The Chronology
Behind the legal progression of the investigation into witchcraft instigated by Leonor Domínguez, there were the events that led to her formal accusation. The chronology is confused because many witnesses denied their roles during the official investigation. As near as I can tell, this is what happened.
She and Miguel Martín were married in October 1707. She was 21, he 20. Nothing in the record indicates where they were living in 1708, but it may have been the rancho north of San Juan that Sebastían Martín had received the year before from the widow of his cousin, Matías Martín.
Leonor’s disquiet began when two members of her family told her Miguel was having intimate relations with native women.
One report came from her cousin, Alonso Rael de Aguilar, the son of her mother’s sister Josefa García de Noriega. He told her Miguel had bragged he had two women in Taos and one in San Juan. He claimed the last was Angelina Pumazjo, daughter of Catarina Rosa.
The other report was less reliable. The Domínguez family, like the Martín Serranos, had two layers, legitimate offspring and the half-recognized. María Domínguez, aged 23, had married Pedro de Ávila. He had come from Zacatecas in 1693, and was commonly referred to as El Piojo, the louse.
María told her about the woman at San Juan when the two were grinding corn. When questioned, she denied the conversion, but agreed they had ground corn together. She added what may have been half-remembered gossip. She said, Miguel Martín had brought her some beans, which she refused to eat because they came from "the house of his mistress."
Leonor then asked Miguel if the reports of adultery were true. He claimed he had said it as a joke.
Later, Leonor asked Miguel to take her to the San Juan home of Catarina Luján to get some lime. Instead, he took her to the home of Catarina Rosa. Leonor believed she was being tricked. He said she had changed her mind in route.
When they got there, Catarina Rosa offered her some meat and bean cakes. She refused because she was fasting. While they were there, Martín Fernández, age 25, entered and told her to eat. He says Leonor nearly fell trying to climb out, but refused to lie down. He made her eat some of the food.
Miguel’s behavior aggravated her fears. Sometime he returned from San Juan with his hands and arms so swollen he couldn’t eat. He told investigators he had fallen while "trying to mount to the house."
When he was asked if it were true his sister-in-law had been bewitched, he answered he’d been away at the time, and hadn’t heard anything after he returned. Nothing was said about his activities. Circumstantial evidence suggest it was more he likely he was working for one of his relatives who had land near Taos than it was he was away on militia duty.
The critical incident occurred on Holy Thursday, April 5. She attended mass with Casilda Contreras, wife of Francisco, another of Miguel’s brothers. She was wearing a mantle owned by Ana María de la Concepción Bernal.
In church, Leonor noticed some native women she thought were talking about her. She moved closer to hear, and said one touched her on the back. At the time, she thought the woman was trying to steal buttons from the mantle. Then she thought the woman was Catarina Rosa.
Catarina claimed she had gone to mass on Resurrection Sunday and seen Leonor then. She said she was home on Holy Thursday, because her grandchild was dying. Miguel’s brother Sebastían was at San Juan at the time.
When Leonor left church she saw her husband and slapped his face, accusing him of adultery. He told her not to be a fool. He later agreed the incident occurred on Holy Thursday.
Leonor turned to Casilda, who told her, "You are foolish to stay where you are; you will see they will do you harm." She later agreed she was there on Thursday, but denied saying anything.
Leonor returned to the church that night when "the agonies seized upon her." She had to be restrained by Juana Martín and Petrona Domínguez. Juana was Miguel’s sister and married to Felipe Arratia. Petrona was a sister of Leonor’s father. She had married Simón Martín, who was a son of Miguel’s uncle Cristóbal Martín.
After that Leonor was confined in the home of her sister, Antonia Domínguez de Mendoza, with the "violent pain of the disease newly acquired" and a "horror" of the church. Her sister had married Tomás Jirón de Tejeda, a painter from Mexico City.
Leonor filed her complaint on May 13. The depositions were taken in the homes of Tomás Jirón and Sebastían Martín. The investigators agreed she was ill, but only specified "in bed, ill and suffering" or "in bed, ill with many ailments."
What happened next is conjecture. Official sentencias were flexible according to Charles Cutter, and sometimes relied of subtle devices like humiliation. Leonor’s goal had been to stop any adultery on her husband’s part. Before she filed her denuncio, the women in the family had tried to dissuade her.
After the juicio plenario process began, and members of Miguel’s families were questioned, one suspects the men began to exert some pressure on him to at least be discrete. The brother and two cousins related to Leonor may have been prodded to act, or one of his many uncles may have talked to him, or some of his many brothers or cousins may have teased him into conformity.
All we know is she and Miguel appeared together in the church record in 1718 as witnesses for a marriage between María Martín and Luis Archuleta. No mention is made of children, but church records don’t exist for Santa Cruz between 1728 and 1751.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Esquibel, José Antonio. "Descendants of Hernán (I) Martín Serrano in New Mexico: An Authoritative Account of the Five Generations," 2013, available on-line.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914.
She and Miguel Martín were married in October 1707. She was 21, he 20. Nothing in the record indicates where they were living in 1708, but it may have been the rancho north of San Juan that Sebastían Martín had received the year before from the widow of his cousin, Matías Martín.
Leonor’s disquiet began when two members of her family told her Miguel was having intimate relations with native women.
One report came from her cousin, Alonso Rael de Aguilar, the son of her mother’s sister Josefa García de Noriega. He told her Miguel had bragged he had two women in Taos and one in San Juan. He claimed the last was Angelina Pumazjo, daughter of Catarina Rosa.
The other report was less reliable. The Domínguez family, like the Martín Serranos, had two layers, legitimate offspring and the half-recognized. María Domínguez, aged 23, had married Pedro de Ávila. He had come from Zacatecas in 1693, and was commonly referred to as El Piojo, the louse.
María told her about the woman at San Juan when the two were grinding corn. When questioned, she denied the conversion, but agreed they had ground corn together. She added what may have been half-remembered gossip. She said, Miguel Martín had brought her some beans, which she refused to eat because they came from "the house of his mistress."
Leonor then asked Miguel if the reports of adultery were true. He claimed he had said it as a joke.
Later, Leonor asked Miguel to take her to the San Juan home of Catarina Luján to get some lime. Instead, he took her to the home of Catarina Rosa. Leonor believed she was being tricked. He said she had changed her mind in route.
When they got there, Catarina Rosa offered her some meat and bean cakes. She refused because she was fasting. While they were there, Martín Fernández, age 25, entered and told her to eat. He says Leonor nearly fell trying to climb out, but refused to lie down. He made her eat some of the food.
Miguel’s behavior aggravated her fears. Sometime he returned from San Juan with his hands and arms so swollen he couldn’t eat. He told investigators he had fallen while "trying to mount to the house."
When he was asked if it were true his sister-in-law had been bewitched, he answered he’d been away at the time, and hadn’t heard anything after he returned. Nothing was said about his activities. Circumstantial evidence suggest it was more he likely he was working for one of his relatives who had land near Taos than it was he was away on militia duty.
The critical incident occurred on Holy Thursday, April 5. She attended mass with Casilda Contreras, wife of Francisco, another of Miguel’s brothers. She was wearing a mantle owned by Ana María de la Concepción Bernal.
In church, Leonor noticed some native women she thought were talking about her. She moved closer to hear, and said one touched her on the back. At the time, she thought the woman was trying to steal buttons from the mantle. Then she thought the woman was Catarina Rosa.
Catarina claimed she had gone to mass on Resurrection Sunday and seen Leonor then. She said she was home on Holy Thursday, because her grandchild was dying. Miguel’s brother Sebastían was at San Juan at the time.
When Leonor left church she saw her husband and slapped his face, accusing him of adultery. He told her not to be a fool. He later agreed the incident occurred on Holy Thursday.
Leonor turned to Casilda, who told her, "You are foolish to stay where you are; you will see they will do you harm." She later agreed she was there on Thursday, but denied saying anything.
Leonor returned to the church that night when "the agonies seized upon her." She had to be restrained by Juana Martín and Petrona Domínguez. Juana was Miguel’s sister and married to Felipe Arratia. Petrona was a sister of Leonor’s father. She had married Simón Martín, who was a son of Miguel’s uncle Cristóbal Martín.
After that Leonor was confined in the home of her sister, Antonia Domínguez de Mendoza, with the "violent pain of the disease newly acquired" and a "horror" of the church. Her sister had married Tomás Jirón de Tejeda, a painter from Mexico City.
Leonor filed her complaint on May 13. The depositions were taken in the homes of Tomás Jirón and Sebastían Martín. The investigators agreed she was ill, but only specified "in bed, ill and suffering" or "in bed, ill with many ailments."
What happened next is conjecture. Official sentencias were flexible according to Charles Cutter, and sometimes relied of subtle devices like humiliation. Leonor’s goal had been to stop any adultery on her husband’s part. Before she filed her denuncio, the women in the family had tried to dissuade her.
After the juicio plenario process began, and members of Miguel’s families were questioned, one suspects the men began to exert some pressure on him to at least be discrete. The brother and two cousins related to Leonor may have been prodded to act, or one of his many uncles may have talked to him, or some of his many brothers or cousins may have teased him into conformity.
All we know is she and Miguel appeared together in the church record in 1718 as witnesses for a marriage between María Martín and Luis Archuleta. No mention is made of children, but church records don’t exist for Santa Cruz between 1728 and 1751.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Esquibel, José Antonio. "Descendants of Hernán (I) Martín Serrano in New Mexico: An Authoritative Account of the Five Generations," 2013, available on-line.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Chronicles of Leonor: The Investigators
Ralph Twitchell, a lawyer for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, was trained in history and law at the University of Michigan. In the early twentieth century, he indexed the surviving Spanish archives in Santa Fé and in the Library of Congress.
He included the Royal Judiciary investigations of Leonor Domínguez’s witchcraft accusations "in full," because he thought the "record of the this trial, of consuming interest, and showing the manner in which proceedings of this sort were conducted."
They also are the most complete window we have into the social relations in Santa Cruz during the period when Spain was being transferred from the Hapsburgs.
In the years before he died, Charles II had questioned the value of the Inquisition. The man who replaced him in 1700, Philip V, was from the French House of Bourbon. Its progenitor was Henry III of Navarre who became Henry IV of France in 1589. He had been raised a Protestant Huguenot, converted when he was crowned, and assassinated as unreliable in 1610.
The fate of the women in the pueblo lay in the hands of three men who no longer saw prosecuting witchcraft as likely to further their careers. One was an admiral from Spain, the others soldiers from New Spain.
The governor treated it as a routine matter. His procedures were rooted in medieval Castilian law understood in Spain, México, and the colony. In 1550, the methods had been modernized to emphasize investigation over presumption of guilt, and to consider the well-being of the community, the equidad, over individual interests.
The governor, José Chacón de Medina Salazar y Villaseñor, was the first appointed by the new king of Spain, Philip V. He could trace his family back to medieval Navarre. At least one ancestor had died at Acre during the Fourth Crusade.
By the time his grandfather came of age, his branch of the family had moved to Andalusia and were supporters of the Spanish monarchy. Before Charles V ascended the Spanish throne, he had inherited Flanders from his father. When he was elevated to king in 1515, the King of France, who claimed the lowlands, expected him to pay homage. War ensued.
Gonzalo Chacón de Narváez y Alarcón served in Flanders where he fought a duel with his superior. He left for the Indies. Eventually he became capitán alcalde of one of the fortresses protecting Havana harbor, Castillo San Salvador de la Punta, in 1516.
His son, Gonzalo Chacón de Narváez y Treviño Guillamás, was born in Cuba where he became Almirante y General de Galeones, the great sailing ships of trade and war. He retired to Seville and Andalusia in 1655. He was named Marquis of Peñuela in 1692 by Charles II. The title went to his older son, who died in 1705 with no heirs.
José Chacón was also an admiral. He had married Antonia Torres de Navarra and Monsalve in Seville. Since nothing more is heard of him, he must have returned to Spain in 1712 where their son, Luis, eventually succeeded to the title.
At the time he dismissed the case Chacón may have been aware that one, if not both, of the men he had appointed as investigators had developed ties with Domínguez’s family. It certainly is the sort of thing members of her husband’s family, the Martín Serranos would have let be known.
Juan García de la Riva’s wife, Feliciana Rael de Aguilar, was the daughter of Leonor Domínguez’s aunt. Josefa García de Noriega had married Alonso Rael de Aguilar in Guadalupe del Paso. He had come from Lorca in Múrcia, Spain, probably as a solider.
His father, Miguel García de la Riva, had come in 1693 from Mexico City with his family. Juan apparently enlisted as a soldier. The family aligned itself with the governors. One sister, Teodora, married Vargas’s aide. Juan Páez Hurtado rose to governor in 1704. Another sister, María Francisca, entered the household service of the next governor, Francisco Cuervo y Valdés.
Miguel and many other family members returned to New Spain. In 1716 his widow, Micaela Velasco, returned to Santa Fé to collect affidavits to support the paternity claim for María’s children by Cuervo. Juan returned with her and died in México in 1717.
Juan de Ulibarrí’s connections are harder to decipher. He had come from San Luis Potosí as a solider. By 1704, he was second in command of the Santa Fé garrison.
He married Juana Hurtado, who may have been the daughter of Andrés Hurtado and Bernardina de Salas y Orozco. Angélico Chávez says that Juana had been captured by the Indians in 1680 and freed in 1682. However, he gives no more information on her fate. Her brother, Andrés Hurtado, was the first husband of Leonor’s sister Antonia Domínguez de Mendoza.
It’s no wonder Chacón decided to dismiss a case that might have the undesirable consequence of attracting the attention of Franciscans still loyal to his predecessor. Chacón knew from Spain, the necessity of building useful alliances. Although he seemed to side with one side over the other in the matter, both had signaled in their depositions they would prefer to keep the family matter private.
Notes:
Chacón, José Luis Diaz. Geneología del Apellido Chancón, available on-line. The chronology is confusing because there are no death dates, and the first marquis isn’t always listed.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914; names standardized to those used by Chavez.
He included the Royal Judiciary investigations of Leonor Domínguez’s witchcraft accusations "in full," because he thought the "record of the this trial, of consuming interest, and showing the manner in which proceedings of this sort were conducted."
They also are the most complete window we have into the social relations in Santa Cruz during the period when Spain was being transferred from the Hapsburgs.
In the years before he died, Charles II had questioned the value of the Inquisition. The man who replaced him in 1700, Philip V, was from the French House of Bourbon. Its progenitor was Henry III of Navarre who became Henry IV of France in 1589. He had been raised a Protestant Huguenot, converted when he was crowned, and assassinated as unreliable in 1610.
The fate of the women in the pueblo lay in the hands of three men who no longer saw prosecuting witchcraft as likely to further their careers. One was an admiral from Spain, the others soldiers from New Spain.
The governor treated it as a routine matter. His procedures were rooted in medieval Castilian law understood in Spain, México, and the colony. In 1550, the methods had been modernized to emphasize investigation over presumption of guilt, and to consider the well-being of the community, the equidad, over individual interests.
The governor, José Chacón de Medina Salazar y Villaseñor, was the first appointed by the new king of Spain, Philip V. He could trace his family back to medieval Navarre. At least one ancestor had died at Acre during the Fourth Crusade.
By the time his grandfather came of age, his branch of the family had moved to Andalusia and were supporters of the Spanish monarchy. Before Charles V ascended the Spanish throne, he had inherited Flanders from his father. When he was elevated to king in 1515, the King of France, who claimed the lowlands, expected him to pay homage. War ensued.
Gonzalo Chacón de Narváez y Alarcón served in Flanders where he fought a duel with his superior. He left for the Indies. Eventually he became capitán alcalde of one of the fortresses protecting Havana harbor, Castillo San Salvador de la Punta, in 1516.
His son, Gonzalo Chacón de Narváez y Treviño Guillamás, was born in Cuba where he became Almirante y General de Galeones, the great sailing ships of trade and war. He retired to Seville and Andalusia in 1655. He was named Marquis of Peñuela in 1692 by Charles II. The title went to his older son, who died in 1705 with no heirs.
José Chacón was also an admiral. He had married Antonia Torres de Navarra and Monsalve in Seville. Since nothing more is heard of him, he must have returned to Spain in 1712 where their son, Luis, eventually succeeded to the title.
At the time he dismissed the case Chacón may have been aware that one, if not both, of the men he had appointed as investigators had developed ties with Domínguez’s family. It certainly is the sort of thing members of her husband’s family, the Martín Serranos would have let be known.
Juan García de la Riva’s wife, Feliciana Rael de Aguilar, was the daughter of Leonor Domínguez’s aunt. Josefa García de Noriega had married Alonso Rael de Aguilar in Guadalupe del Paso. He had come from Lorca in Múrcia, Spain, probably as a solider.
His father, Miguel García de la Riva, had come in 1693 from Mexico City with his family. Juan apparently enlisted as a soldier. The family aligned itself with the governors. One sister, Teodora, married Vargas’s aide. Juan Páez Hurtado rose to governor in 1704. Another sister, María Francisca, entered the household service of the next governor, Francisco Cuervo y Valdés.
Miguel and many other family members returned to New Spain. In 1716 his widow, Micaela Velasco, returned to Santa Fé to collect affidavits to support the paternity claim for María’s children by Cuervo. Juan returned with her and died in México in 1717.
Juan de Ulibarrí’s connections are harder to decipher. He had come from San Luis Potosí as a solider. By 1704, he was second in command of the Santa Fé garrison.
He married Juana Hurtado, who may have been the daughter of Andrés Hurtado and Bernardina de Salas y Orozco. Angélico Chávez says that Juana had been captured by the Indians in 1680 and freed in 1682. However, he gives no more information on her fate. Her brother, Andrés Hurtado, was the first husband of Leonor’s sister Antonia Domínguez de Mendoza.
It’s no wonder Chacón decided to dismiss a case that might have the undesirable consequence of attracting the attention of Franciscans still loyal to his predecessor. Chacón knew from Spain, the necessity of building useful alliances. Although he seemed to side with one side over the other in the matter, both had signaled in their depositions they would prefer to keep the family matter private.
Notes:
Chacón, José Luis Diaz. Geneología del Apellido Chancón, available on-line. The chronology is confusing because there are no death dates, and the first marquis isn’t always listed.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914; names standardized to those used by Chavez.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Chronicles of Leonor: The Investigation
On Sunday, the thirteenth of May in 1708, Leonor Domínguez precipitated a crisis in Santa Cruz. She filed a legal complaint or denuncia in Santa Fé stating she was ill because she had been bewitched by three women living in San Juan.
The governor could not ignore such a petition. He began the sumaria asking his alcalde ordinario de segundo voto, Juan García de las Riva, to validate her claims of illness.
After he read García’s reconocimiento de heridas, the governor proceeded to the next step in the standard investigation. He had the accused women arrested on May 15.
The next day, García questioned Leonor, and then gave the three accused an opportunity to make a confesión. The women denied the charges. He questioned two again, and found slight changes in their stories. They, of course, had had time to consider their best responses.
On May 18, the governor advanced from the sumario phase to the juicio plenario, when both the accuser and the accused were asked for witnesses. He turned this part over to the sargento mayor, Juan de Ulibarrí.
Lenore was interviewed again on May 22. When asked why she suspected the women, she said she had been told one of them was the mistress of her husband, Miguel Martín. She added she also had heard of other women being bewitched and cured by people at San Juan.
Ulibarrí then questioned her witness to the initial episode, the woman who told her about the adultery, and a man who witnessed an earlier incident. Next Ulibarrí examined Leonor’s husband, Miguel.
On May 25, Ulibarrí turned to the couple at San Juan who were said to have cured women bewitched earlier. Two days later he interviewed the accused women who were being held in chains. He ordered the one who was crippled released from the irons, but kept under arrest.
By then, everyone involved was more concerned with the consequences of the investigation to themselves than they were with the truth. They probably remembered the case of Cristóbal Góngora and Ines de Aspeitia. They had come with different spouses from Mexico City. They were married and living in Santa Cruz in 1701 when he found human bones wrapped in a mantle.
After Góngora called some men to witness, the priest, Padre Alvarez, granted him a legal separation. Two years later, in 1704, another priest, Padre Arranegui, made them live together despite Góngora’s objections. The next year, José Antonio Romero came into the house with a sword, threatening the man who was there, Góngora’s step-father. Still another priest, Juan Minguez, was called to investigate.
No one wanted the church involved in their personal affairs.
The only support one any gave to Leonor’s story was an admission of events that occurred in public and could be verified by others. They denied everything else. Several of the woman said they had told Leonor not to be foolish. Two men said she was jealous.
The governor read Ulibarrí’s report and ordered the women released on May 31.
Notes: In all the items in this series, I am using translations or third party summaries of cases. Even if I had access to the original Spanish documents, I wouldn’t be able to detect the nuances of language necessary to understand everything that is meant.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914.
The governor could not ignore such a petition. He began the sumaria asking his alcalde ordinario de segundo voto, Juan García de las Riva, to validate her claims of illness.
After he read García’s reconocimiento de heridas, the governor proceeded to the next step in the standard investigation. He had the accused women arrested on May 15.
The next day, García questioned Leonor, and then gave the three accused an opportunity to make a confesión. The women denied the charges. He questioned two again, and found slight changes in their stories. They, of course, had had time to consider their best responses.
On May 18, the governor advanced from the sumario phase to the juicio plenario, when both the accuser and the accused were asked for witnesses. He turned this part over to the sargento mayor, Juan de Ulibarrí.
Lenore was interviewed again on May 22. When asked why she suspected the women, she said she had been told one of them was the mistress of her husband, Miguel Martín. She added she also had heard of other women being bewitched and cured by people at San Juan.
Ulibarrí then questioned her witness to the initial episode, the woman who told her about the adultery, and a man who witnessed an earlier incident. Next Ulibarrí examined Leonor’s husband, Miguel.
On May 25, Ulibarrí turned to the couple at San Juan who were said to have cured women bewitched earlier. Two days later he interviewed the accused women who were being held in chains. He ordered the one who was crippled released from the irons, but kept under arrest.
By then, everyone involved was more concerned with the consequences of the investigation to themselves than they were with the truth. They probably remembered the case of Cristóbal Góngora and Ines de Aspeitia. They had come with different spouses from Mexico City. They were married and living in Santa Cruz in 1701 when he found human bones wrapped in a mantle.
After Góngora called some men to witness, the priest, Padre Alvarez, granted him a legal separation. Two years later, in 1704, another priest, Padre Arranegui, made them live together despite Góngora’s objections. The next year, José Antonio Romero came into the house with a sword, threatening the man who was there, Góngora’s step-father. Still another priest, Juan Minguez, was called to investigate.
No one wanted the church involved in their personal affairs.
The only support one any gave to Leonor’s story was an admission of events that occurred in public and could be verified by others. They denied everything else. Several of the woman said they had told Leonor not to be foolish. Two men said she was jealous.
The governor read Ulibarrí’s report and ordered the women released on May 31.
Notes: In all the items in this series, I am using translations or third party summaries of cases. Even if I had access to the original Spanish documents, I wouldn’t be able to detect the nuances of language necessary to understand everything that is meant.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
La Cañada Marriages
The community of Santa Cruz in 1700 was too small to be self-sustaining.
It had no educated men willing to work as notaries. All the notaries who signed diligencias matrimoniales came from elsewhere. José Manuel Giltomey, who served from 1696 to 1703, was from the Philippines. A man from Mexico City, Miguel de Quintana, signed papers from 1704 to 1712. Juan de Paz Bustillos, Cristóbal Góngora, and Juan de Atienza Sevillano served shorter terms. The first two were from Mexico City, the last from Puebla.
Too few families returned to support marriages without the priests raising questions of consanguinity. The proposed marriage between Isabel Madrid and Agustín Sáez was stopped when Antonio Bernal and Bartolomé Lobato said the two were related in the third degree through his first wife. Matías Madrid agreed his wife and Sáez’s first wife were first cousins.
In the first three years, a third (3) of the Santa Cruz marriages were between returning families. Two were with families who had some old kinship ties, and one was from the Santa Fé. The remaining third with people from the Río Abajo.
Around 1700, all the marriages were contracted with people who had some tie to La Cañada, often through a mother or grandmother.
After 1705, two-thirds of the marriages were still with people with an ancestral tie to La Cañada, but the rest were with families from the Río Abajo.
The Martíns were the most likely to marry from outside the Santa Cruz valley. Many were with a family with an even more distinguished past, and possibly even more misalliances: the Domínguez y Mendozas.
The other Río Abajo men introduced into the north were Trujillos.
Although circumstances were prodding La Cañada families to expand their social networks, most were on the male side through militia duty. More intimate relations were still limited to a few family traditions.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982; contains the diligencias matrimoniales.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
It had no educated men willing to work as notaries. All the notaries who signed diligencias matrimoniales came from elsewhere. José Manuel Giltomey, who served from 1696 to 1703, was from the Philippines. A man from Mexico City, Miguel de Quintana, signed papers from 1704 to 1712. Juan de Paz Bustillos, Cristóbal Góngora, and Juan de Atienza Sevillano served shorter terms. The first two were from Mexico City, the last from Puebla.
Too few families returned to support marriages without the priests raising questions of consanguinity. The proposed marriage between Isabel Madrid and Agustín Sáez was stopped when Antonio Bernal and Bartolomé Lobato said the two were related in the third degree through his first wife. Matías Madrid agreed his wife and Sáez’s first wife were first cousins.
In the first three years, a third (3) of the Santa Cruz marriages were between returning families. Two were with families who had some old kinship ties, and one was from the Santa Fé. The remaining third with people from the Río Abajo.
Around 1700, all the marriages were contracted with people who had some tie to La Cañada, often through a mother or grandmother.
After 1705, two-thirds of the marriages were still with people with an ancestral tie to La Cañada, but the rest were with families from the Río Abajo.
The Martíns were the most likely to marry from outside the Santa Cruz valley. Many were with a family with an even more distinguished past, and possibly even more misalliances: the Domínguez y Mendozas.
The other Río Abajo men introduced into the north were Trujillos.
Although circumstances were prodding La Cañada families to expand their social networks, most were on the male side through militia duty. More intimate relations were still limited to a few family traditions.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982; contains the diligencias matrimoniales.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
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