La Cañada - Location

Ever since I read Luis Pérez Granillo’s survey of the settlement of La Cañada as it existed in 1680, I’ve wondered where it was, beyond south of the Santa Cruz river.

As near as I can tell, the distance between the Río Grande and the badlands that enclose the Española valley on the east is about 2.6 miles that can be broken into three sections.

One runs from the main river to the great mound. Daniel Koning’s geological map of the area shows that while the immediate river bank is recent quaternary (Qay2), most of the land is older quaternary (Qay1). The modern village of San Pedro lies ninety degrees south of this area along the Río Grande in the older quaternary zone.

A second section runs directly between the north end of the mound and the Santa Cruz, south of the modern church. Koning says this land is also modern quaternary. Most of this land is now vacant.

Third, there’s a wide expanse of land northeast of the mound that runs east along the river to the badlands. Koning identifies this as modern quaternary. Sombrillo exists in patches of older quaternary land on the southeast margins of the area.

If one assumes for the moment, that a suerte, the unit of irrigated land for growing produce, was roughly 420' wide, then there could have been twelve to the mile.

Granillo indicated there were eleven units on the north side of the arroyo and nine on the south with some unusable land near the east end of the south side.

This would mean the community stretched about a mile along the river, somewhere in the 2.6 miles available.

It’s easy to think it was immediately south of the current church, which would mean it ran from the badlands west.

However, it’s just as easy to think the new villa of Santa Cruz was sited to the west, expanded east in the 1700's until there was no more usable land, then moved north to its current location.

The real problem with considering the location of the original settlement is the meaning of the word cañada in 1695. Today, Rubén Cobos defines it as "a dry riverbed; a small canyon in the sierra." Others simply say it means an arroyo.

The Sangre de Cristo are too far for there to be a canyon on this side of the river, and they wouldn’t have settled along a dry riverbed unless they could have converted it into an irrigation ditch.

Some comments made by Francisco Domínguez after he reviewed the Franciscan missions in 1776 are more suggestive. After noting Santa Clara pueblo was "established on a fairly good plain almost like the one that extends from the Villa de la Cañada to San Juan," he added:

"Toward the west of the plain mentioned here, there is a cañada that comes from the said sierra, runs to the east, and ends near the north side of the church, with its mouth at a distance from the pueblo."

He then indicates the agricultural lands were "watered by a small river that runs through the middle of the cañada."

He’s using the word plain to describe the older quaternary flat lands between the badlands and the Río Grande, and so a cañada can’t be that land. Instead, it sounds like he’s referring to the dry banks of a perennial river. They are distinct from the land between the church and the Río Grande, which might have been bosque or recent quaternary, and from wet banks that would have been called ciénega.

This leads me to think the original settlement was a little east of the Río Grande in the area now buried by 84/285 and the road over the Griego Bridge. Granillo says that after "crossing the Río del Norte to the right, I saw and found the hacienda that belonged to Miguel Luján." In contrast he noted the Santa Cruz river was "about three-quarters of a league" from Santa Clara where he began, a distance of roughly 2.5 miles.

Today it’s difficult to distinguish any older settlement patterns from the overlay that accumlated along the Santa Fé-Taos highway that crosses the area at an angle. There probably are no houses earlier that the late nineteenth century; adobe was replaced when more durable materials became available.

Perhaps the best evidence of older land uses are the ditches that come directly from the Santa Cruz through commercial land, cross under the road and disappear in the hodgepodge of housing that’s developed in recent decades.

One goes along the parking lot of the Shell Station.

Another goes along the parking lot of the Zia Credit Union.

Although, they probably are also recent, they suggest a different orientation of settlement vis a vis the river than has existed since the highway was built.

The identity of the arroyo is a puzzle. I’ve seen no arroyos in the area north and east of Arroyo Seco. If could be something that ran off the mound that’s since been filled and blocked. Or, it could be something from the badlands.

It’s also possible it was the irrigation system that ran through the center of the settlement. Granillo doesn’t describe any ditches, and so he, or his translator, may have been using that term for the main canal. Like the modern ditches, it may have been too irregular to be called an acequia.

The houses that were destroyed then may have been too near the upstream end of the ditch and been destroyed when a surge of water came through. While the area was vacated after the Pueblo Revolt no preventive maintenance would have been done to any barrier or dam that would have protected the first buildings.

One can think of two reasons for settling somewhere south along the Santa Cruz rather than on the larger tract of early quaternary land north of the river that was developed in the 1700's. The mound would have provided some protection from both southern winds and unexpected visitors.

More important, a poorly constructed cart going north from Tesuque or San Ildefonso would have had to traverse a number of arroyos, including Arroyo Seco, to get to La Cañada but it wouldn’t have had to cross a running river. The route Domínguez described in 1776 was probably much older, and its fragments probably still exist.

"Going north from San Ildefonso, the road leads for a while among broken hills, with a little mesa halfway (it is called the mesilla de San Ildefonso) which stands on the left side of the road. It always runs upriver and in sight of the Río del Norte and finally comes out on the plain, where, 2 leagues from San Ildefonso, the Mission of the Villa Nueva de Santa Cruz de la Cañada lies."

Notes:
Cobos, Rubén. A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, 1983.

Domínguez, Francisco Atansio. Republished 1956 as The Missions of New Mexico, 1776, translated and edited by Eleanor B. Adams and Angélico Chávez.

Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695 describing the settlement of La Cañada, included in Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.

Photographs:
1. USGS map for Española quandrangle showing Santa Cruz river between the badlands to the right (east) and Río Grande to the left (west). The county line goes through the mound. The red line is 84/285.

2. Fallow field back from 84/285 with the mound in back, 17 January 2012; it’s about a half mile due south of the river, and a quarter mile south of the boundary between lower and upper quaternary zones.

3. Land between the mound and Iglesia de la Santa Cruz de la Cañada, 27 January 2012; the white buildings are on the other side of the river.

4. Land east of the mound, south of Santa Cruz, north and west of badlands, 29 March 2012.

5. Ditch along side of Shell station parking lot, 20 January 2012.

6. Ditch along side of Zia Credit Union parking lot before it goes under 84/285, 20 January 2012.

7. Road going back to the Black Mesa looking south toward San Ildefonso, 22 February 2012. It meets the road in the middle which skirts a well-maintained fence protecting the mesa from trespassers. Someday, I may follow that road, but I don’t expect to get any closer to what is considered sacred ground.

La Cañada - The Romeros

La Cañada may have been hours from Santa Fé, but it wasn’t allowed to remain isolated. The Inquisition reached wherever there was a friar. Its few persecutions coupled with memories from Spain and México City were enough. Fear of suspicion kept society fragmented, even in times of crises.

The life of Bartolomé Romero and his family illustrates the many ways a cultural heritage of intimidation and informing was perpetuated.

He was born in Corral de Almaguer near Toledo to Bartolomé Romero and María de [Ad]eva. Stanley Hordes thinks the half obliterated name on his baptismal certificate may originally have been Benavedas. In 1574, the Inquisition in México City argued Diego de Ocaña was Jewish because his mother was a Benadeves and "the Xuárez de Benadeva family, Jews of Sevilla, is widely recognized in being of the generation of Jews."

While still in México Bartolomé married Luisa López Robledo, daughter of Catalina López and Pedro Robledo. Robledo had been born in La Carmena, then moved to nearby Toledo where he sought confirmation of his pure Christian ancestry by becoming a lay collaborator, a familiar, of the Inquisition at a time when the Robledo name was still associated with conversos.

Whether or not they had any Jewish ancestry, Romero and Robledo were among the first to enlist with Juan de Oñate. Later, Romero and members of his family were called by the Inquisition to provide evidence against their neighbors and in-laws. Whether they cooperated because they were true supporters of the Franciscans, or because they adopted that role to deflect suspicion is a question best left to those who study human behavior under extreme situations.

In 1632 Bartolomé made his first recorded report. Alameda pueblo was performing "strange rites."

Bartolomé Romero and his wife had three sons and two daughters. Ana married Francisco Gómez and María married Gaspar Pérez, a Flemish armorer who had close relations with the Apache.

María’s son, Diego Romero, is the one who was indicted with Gómez’s son Francisco, and prosecuted separately by the Inquisition for meeting with the Apache while leading the supply train that brought López de Mendizábal north. He was banished to Parral. His wife, Catalina de Zamora refused to follow. She was the daughter of Pedro Lucero de Godoy which made her María’s niece. When Diego remarried in exile, the Inquisition arrested him for bigamy. He died in jail in Veracruz.

María Romero gave evidence against Beatriz de los Ángeles and Juana de la Cruz, wife of Juan Griego’s son.

Bartolomé’s son Bartolomé and grandson Diego had been with another of the indicted conspirators, Nicolas de Aguilar when he was arrested. The others in the group were Andrés López Sambrano and Juan Luján. Andrés brother, Hernán, had died when he betrayed Beatriz and was bewitched.

Antonio López Zambrano testified against Francisco Gómez Robledo. Chávez doesn’t mention Antonio, but says Andrés’s daughter, Josefa López de Grijalva, was married to Lucero’s son, which made Gómez’s sister, Francisca, his mother-in-law.

Bartolomé Romero, the oldest son of Bartolomé who was with Aguilar at Isleta, married María Granillo del Moral, daughter of Francisco Pérez Granillo. A son and a daughter moved to the mining area of Sonora. His other son, Bartolomé Romero, married Josefa de Archuleta, then disappeared from the public record. She was the daughter of Juan de Archuleta.

He gave evidence against his daughter-in-law’s neighbors, Beatriz de los Ángeles and Juana de la Cruz.

Her father, Francisco Pérez Granillo, appeared as a government clerk in 1617. The livelihood of her brothers came from the supply trains after they were run by civilian contractors. Alonso Pérez Granillo had an estancia near Alamillo, but moved to Nueva Vizcaya by 1680 where he was the alcalde mayor of the wagon trains and Janos.

Francisco Pérez Granillo the younger was in charge of the wagon trains in 1661 and 1664. He was married to Sebastiana Romero, whose parents weren’t identified by Chávez. Their son was Luis, who was alcalde mayor of Jémez and Queres pueblos in 1680 and escaped from Jémez. He returned as Diego de Varga’s lieutenant and made the survey of La Cañada. He was childless; his wife didn’t return.

Tomás Pérez Granillo had African and Indian parents in Santa Fé and worked as a driver on the wagon trains. He resettled in México after he and his wife smuggled out the child of Juan Manso de Contreras. His relation to Luis isn’t known.

What is known is that he was an Inquisition witness against Ana Romero’s son, Francisco Gómez Robledo.

Bartolomé senior’s second son, Matías Romero, married Isabel de Pedraza, a cousin of María de Archuleta, daughter of Asencio de Arechuleta. He refused to testify against Gaspar Pérez, claiming ignorance of the situation, but María de Archuleta did testify against Beatriz and Juana.

The third son, Agustín, married Luisa Díaz. He died young and was buried at the pueblo of San Diego. He can’t have been the owner of the land in La Cañada that Luis Pérez Granillo described after passing the meadow of Ambrosio Sáez in 1695: "in the middle of that vega is the hacienda where Agustín Romero was settled at planting time, because he had fields there. One citizen with his family can live very well there."

One can only assume Agustín was the illegitimate child of one of the Romero sons, perhaps even the dead Agustín.

He wouldn’t have been the only one. Louisa Romero married Juan Lucero y Godoy, while Pedro Romero married Juan’s sister, Petronila de Salas. Chávez didn’t place either in the extended Romero family, but also didn’t indicate others with the common name Romero had moved north.

The daughter of Francisca Romero and Matías Luján was involved with either Antonio or Bartolomé Gómez Robledo, the illegitimate sons of Francisco and Bartolomé. Chávez doesn’t identify Francisca’s parents.

Alonso Romero was a servant on the hacienda of Felipe Romero. Chávez says he was really Alonso Cadimo, and was probably a child of Francisco Cadimo, who came with Oñate. The boy was ransomed from the plains Indians and settled on Felipe’s estancia with his wife María de Tapia. Juan de Tapia had married Bartolomé senior’s daughter Francisca.

Domingo Romero was one of the mestizo leaders of the Pueblo Revolt at Tesuque pueblo.

The only man who was with Aguilar when he was arrested who did not witness against any of the accused was Juan Luján. His kin in the río abajo were already supporting the Franciscans.

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

Esquibel, José Antonio. "The Rodríguez Bellido Family," La Herencia, summer 2009.

Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695 describing the settlement of La Cañada, included in Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.

Hordes, Stanley M. To the End of the Earth, 2005.

Kessell, John L. Spain in the Southwest, a Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California, 2002; on Diego Romero.

Scholes, France V. "The First Decade of the Inquisition in New Mexico," New Mexico Historical Review 10:195-241:1935.

La Cañada - Society

The picture that emerges of the society that enmeshed La Cañada before the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 is of one with barely functioning institutions and a primitive economy, torn by feuds and jealousies, segregated into isolated pockets.

The church was absent. Mass probably wasn’t available in La Cañada. The nearest friars were across the Río Grande at Santa Clara, but assigned to meet the needs of baptized Tewa speakers. The La Cañada convento that Luis Pérez Granillo said was on land owned by that pueblo is a mystery.

Any records the church kept of baptisms, marriages and deaths were destroyed in the rebellion. What little Angélico Chávez has pieced together suggests without formal rites of marriage, sexual relations began early and weren’t supervised by parents. Indeed, fathers were often setting examples by associating with native and mestizo servants. Beatriz de los Ángeles was probably more important in enforcing mores than the friars.

The government only existed as a source of income for those who received patronage. The usual civic responsibilities devolved to others. Irrigation and roads would have been the primary infrastructure projects and were probably done with native labor. Lead for ammunition was mined at Cerrilos and Tecolate north of the Sandía mountains.

The primary function of governors and overseers of the friars was to make their charges, the colony and the missions, self sufficient, if not contributors to the overall Mexican economy. Each, desirous of promotion when he returned to México, fought for control of exports and the cheap Christianized Indian labor that subsidized them. In 1630, Franciscan Alonso de Benavides had reported a large quantity of piñon and noted:

"A fanega of these is worth twenty-three or twenty-four pesos in Mexico City. People who customarily sell them earn a lot."

In 1635, the new governor, Francisco Martínez de Baeza, ordered mission converts to collect nuts for him to ship in the returning supply wagons.

In 1658, the governor, Bernardo López de Mendizábal, criticized the friars for wanting to ship livestock to México during a famine. He gave permission to send 1,000 head; the Franciscans sent 3,000 because they needed the money to buy "to buy images, organs, richer vestments, and other church furnishings."

Most men came to the colony on military assignments, but only a few remained active. What they did the rest of their lives wasn’t recorded. Angélico Chávez says his ancestor, Pedro Durán y Chaves came with the contingent of 1600 and settled in Santa Fé. By 1622, when the río abajo had become safe for settlement, he had an estancia in an area now controlled by Sandía and Santa Ana with "vast grazing grounds" and mestizo and mulatto herders and laborers managed by his wife, Isabel de Bohórques Vaca, when he was called away.

The only trades mentioned in any of the biographies were blacksmiths and translators. The first were the armorers who kept weapons functional and, according to John Kessell, were the only paid military men. The appointment was eventually monopolized by the kin of Pedro Lucero de Godoy. The translators like Juan Griego and Juan Ruiz de Cárceres often had pueblo or Mexican Indian ancestors.

Servants and muleteers weren’t named in the families recorded by Chávez. He does suggest the first were Indians brought from Tlascala by Juan de Oñate in 1598 who settled in Analco, across the river from Santa Fé, and that local mestizos slowly replaced them. The men who drove the wagons and returning livestock were probably mulattos, who left their patrimony behind.

Medicine was left to women like Pascula Bernal and Beatriz de los Ángeles. With wills and marriage certificates destroyed, it’s impossible to know how many women died in childbirth, how many widows and widowers remarried, or how many children died young.

The well documented life of Lucero may or may not have been typical. He married at least twice, and each woman bore a child nearly every year. The first, Petronila de Zamora, died sometime after the birth of the third. She was about 30 at the last known birth. There are gaps to suggest others may not have lived long enough to leave a record. In contrast, the second wife, Francisca Gómez bore six children we know, again with gaps, and lived until the Pueblo Revolt with her mother, Ana Robledo.

Of the men mentioned in these postings who made it to Guadalupe del Paso, the largest number were in their 20's. The number drops for men in their 30's and 40's and again for those in their 50's. However, if a man could survive the rigors of middle age, he would likely have lived for years. Diego López del Castillo and Hernán Martín Serrano II were both in their 80's when they arrived. Juan Luis, who was in his mid-60's then, was still being called to testify in his 80's.

From many of the confused genealogies, it’s obvious many men like the Lujáns were willing to take responsibility for the widows and orphans left by friends and relatives, a social patterns Alice Games found in Barbados in the early years when men died young and few were able to marry.

The local community was part of Santa Fé’s hinterland, though it doesn’t seem to have provided any special commodities to it. The men who were part of the economic network had encomiendas and estancias elsewhere. Francisco Gómez Robledo gathered piñon from his encomienda at Pecos for López de Mendizábal in 1660 and was using Tabira to send salt to his San Nicolás de las Barrancas estancia near Belen. Juan Luján had his land in Taos where Francisco was an encomendero.

If La Cañada wasn’t important to Santa Fé, like any frontier, it attracted people who wished to live away from the scrutiny of governors and friars. The most prominent were ones like Juan Griego, Francisco Gómez Robledo, and possibly Sebastían González, with suspected Jewish ancestors.
Perhaps more important were the many wives and consorts who were Mexican Indians: Juan Griego’s wife, Pascula Bernal; his son’s wife Juana de la Cruz and her mother Beatriz de los Ángeles; Andrés Gómez Reblodo’s wife Juana Ortiz; and the women who came with the Lujáns, Francisca Jiménez, Magdalena and Maríana.

Under the veneer of large estates owned by men like the Martín Serranos and Juan Luis, this was an Indian village where women from different cultures sometimes feuded but probably all spoke some form of Nahuatl.

It was around this group that first-generation mestizos gathered on their small plots, confident they wouldn’t experience the humiliations they would face in Santa Fé. Chávez could only guess their identity, but like the crypto-Jews, anonymity may have been what they were seeking in La Cañada.

Notes:
Benavides, Alonso de. Memorial, 1630, edited and translated by Baker H. Morrow as A Harvest of Reluctant Souls, 1996.

Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.

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

Games, Alison. Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World, 1999.

Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695 describing the settlement of La Cañada, included in Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.

Kessell, John L. Spain in the Southwest, a Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California, 2002.

Scholes, France V. Troublous Times in New Mexico 1659-1670, 1942.

Scurlock, Dan. From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998; includes chronologies that summarize research of others.

La Cañada - The Lujáns

The Lujáns who settled in La Cañada created their own stratified social network of men with affluence, common folk, and those on the cultural margins.

Angélico Chávez believes the nucleus was Juan Luján, son of Francisco Rodríguez; Pedro Rodríguez, and Juan Ruiz Cárceres, son of Pedro Ruiz. He suspects, in this case, Ruiz was an abbreviation for Rodríguez and that they may have been cousins and brothers.

Juan Luján came with an Indian servant, Francisca Jiménez, and acknowledged three children. However, Chávez believes the girl, Maríana Luján, was really the illegitimate Maríana who arrived in the entourage of fellow Canary Islander Juan López de Medel. Her mother María was from Tecpeaca near Tenochtitlán. Maríana married Juan de Perramos, who escorted the 1616 supply train, and had a daughter María Ramos.

Juan’s son, Francisco, first married Lucía Rodríguez, perhaps some relation of Pedro Rodríguez and his Indian servant, Magdalena. Next he married María Ramos. Since he was associated with the murder of Luis de Rosas, critics of the Franciscans accused the friars of granting him an illegal dispensation to marry his "blood niece." Most of his activities were around Santo Domingo and Cochití.

Chávez believes Francisco’s probable son, Domingo Luján, was the one who smuggled gunpowder to his half-brother at Cochití during the retreat to Guadalupe del Paso. His wife and children spent the exile years as captives in the pueblos.

There was also a Francisco Jiménez who was associated with the Griegos in 1663. Chávez suggests he was either the son or nephew of Francisca Jiménez. He and his family were killed at Pojoaque in 1680.

Juan’s other son, Juan Luján was the one who created whatever fortune the family enjoyed. He became alcalde mayor of Taos-Picurís and owned an estancia in the Taos valley. His wife more than likely was one of the unnamed daughters of Pedro Lucero de Godoy and Francisca Gómez Robledo, since Francisca’s brother owned part of the Taos encomienda. Their daughter, María, married Juan de Archuleta.

One of his sons was probably Matías Luján, who escaped the revolt. He had been born in the La Cañada area and married Francisca Romero. His son Miguel was married to Catalina Valdés whom he later murdered.

There was also a girl described as the child of Matías Luján and an Indian servant who married José López Naranjo. Although, Chávez notes, there was more than one Matías Luján at the time, the implicit behavior was similar to that of his cousin Domingo. Naranjo was the brother of Domingo Naranjo, the mulatto leader of the rebellion at Santa Clara.

Juan’s more respectable son, Juan Luján, was the Juan Luis who owned the land the Tanos accepted in place of La Cañada in 1696. Its size was commiserate with that controlled by his father.

For a while, he was distinguished from his father by the phrase El Viejo. By the time the pueblos rebelled in 1680, he may also have needed to separate himself from his siblings and cousins. At Guadalupe del Paso, he used the names Juan Luis, Juan Luis Luján, and Juan Ruiz Luján. Chávez is sure they’re the same because he was 66 years old in 1689 when he reported a wife, grown son and three small children.

One time he was called to identify himself in the refuge camp was when Silvestre Pacheco murdered his sister’s husband, José Baca, son of Cristóbal Baca.

His grandfather’s kinsman, Juan Ruiz Cárceres had married Isabel Baca. She was probably the daughter of Alonso Baca and sister or stepsister of José Baca’s father. Alonso was the son of Cristóbal Baca and Ana Ortiz. She was the daughter of Francisco Pacheco, and they were married in México before than came north in the same group of 1600 recruits. Nothing more is known about his personal life.

Politically he defied the governor in 1643 when he allied himself with the Franciscans at San Domingo pueblo. Alonso de Pacheco de Herédia executed his brother, Antonio Baca, who was the ringleader. After that he remained less active in the río abajo.

Ruiz Cárceres also supported the friars, but less dramatically. After he died, Irene became the Franciscan’s cook at Tajique. Their daughter, Juana Ruiz Cárceres married Antonio de Avalos.

His son, Juan Ruiz de Cárceres, was in the military escort for the supply train in 1652. His likely grandson, also Juan Ruiz de Cárceres, was with Domingo and Miguel Luján during the exile and reconquest, when he acted as an interpreter with the Tewa and Tano speakers. After the grandson helped Luis Pérez Granillo survey La Cañada, he acquired the land of Alonso del Río.

Alonso del Río had come with Oñate in 1598. In the intervening years, Diego del Río de Losa had been a secretary for the cabildo and involved with the murder of Luis de Rosas. The Alonso who had land in La Cañada was already at Guadalupe el Paso when the rebellion broke out, and stayed there after the reconquest.

As for Miguel Luján, Chávez can’t decide who he was, except the possible brother or brother-in-law of Juan Ruiz de Cárceres. During the reconquest, he was on guard duty at the chapel in Santa Fé when the Tano speakers resumed fighting. He and his sons, Agustín and Cristóbal, survived, but he was killed in a campaign against Cochití in 1694.

When Granillo surveyed his hacienda, he noted: "Its houses still exist. Only he and his family had lived there, because the lands for agriculture and irrigation were sufficient for only one family, with pastures for a few livestock of any kind he might have had."

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

Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695 describing the settlement of La Cañada, included in Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.

La Cañada - Kinship

If you ever spent much time in a small town, you know the ways sociologists measure prestige are irrelevant. You soon learn kinship networks are far more important indicators for who will be elected mayor or student council president than wealth or profession, and that the important ties may be buried several generations back.

By this measure, the most important man in La Cañada before the Pueblo Revolt wasn’t Luis Martín Serrano, but Juan Griego. The one was connected by marriage to four of the other fifteen landholders mentioned by Luis Pérez Granillo in his survey of area in 1695, while the other was tied to seven.

The men who would be ranked highly by sociologists, Melchor de Archuleta, Sebastían González and Ambrosio Sáez, each had three, while Francisco Gómez Robledo had only one kinship tie mentioned in these postings.

The ones who fell low in the kinship rankings were often men who were the first generation to bear a name, the half-acknowledged sons of better known families like Bartolomé Montoya, Marcos de Herrera and Agustín Romero, or the completely unacknowledged like Pedro de la Cruz.

Employees were non-existent in the social fabric, whether they held high positions like Francisco Xavier with one connection, or lowly ones like Nicolás de la Cruz and Alonso del Río with none.

The other men like Griego of relatively obscure birth and wide connections were Diego López, with three ties to the local community, and Miguel Luján, whose ties were through undocumented mestizos and sub rosa relatives in the pueblos. It happens both names represent clusters of men related by blood rather than individuals.

Angélico Chávez believes Luján is descended from the one of the contingent of men born in the Canary Islands that was commanded by Bernabé de Las Casas López in 1600, but didn’t speculate on why so many were available.

The Canaries had been visited by Portuguese explorers in 1340, but assigned to Castile by Pope Clement VI in 1344. Jean de Béthencourt began taking possession of them under the authority of Henry III of Castile in 1403. Alberto de Las Casas became their bishop.

After Béthencourt and Las Casas died, Béthencourt’s nephew, Maciot, sold the islands. They changed hands, before passing to Guillen de Las Casas Hurtado in 1430, and from him to Fernán Peraza through his wife Inés de Las Casas. After Portugal again showed interest, Spain began asserting direct control in 1477.

Soon after, the Portuguese introduced sugar cane, and large land holdings followed. Smaller settlers may have been forced to emigrate, like they would be when sugar was introduced on Barbados in the mid-1600's. Meantime, Santa Cruz de Palma became a major port, both for exporting sugar and as a layover station for ships bound for the Americas. French pirates sacked the city in 1535. Francis Drake attacked on behalf of England in 1585.

The effect of the Inquisition is hard to determine. Gustav Henningsen has estimated that while about 1,500 were tried in the tribunal at La Palma between 1540 and 1700, none were found guilty.

However, Alonso de Benavides claims he had been a lay familiar there before he moved to México in 1598 and joined the Franciscans in 1603 when he was about 25 years old. After he arrived in Santa Fé in 1627, he claimed to remember Francisco de Soto had been penanced and was now calling himself Juan Donayre de las Misas. The man, who said he’d been born in Cordoba to Francisco Rodríguez de las Misas and Catalina Donayre, was forced to call himself Juan Pecador, the sinner.

Guillen Las Casas Hurtado was the great-great-grandfather of Bernabé, who was born on Tenerife. Guillen’s brother Francisco was the father of Bartolomé de Las Casas, the bishop who first complained about the abuses of encomiendas in Hispañola in 1515.

Bernabé was with Juan de Oñate in 1598, and earned his respect during the ill-fated expedition to Ácoma. Oñate sent him to México City to help prepare the reinforcements who were to be commanded by Gaspar de Villagrá. However, the viceroy, still angry over Oñate’s contract, replaced Villagrá with Las Casas.

I have no idea if Las Casas was responsible for recruiting the large number of men in the expedition who were from the Canary Islands, and if so, if relics of feudal obligations nearly as important as kinship were involved.

Several of the men brought Indian servants. The assumption has always been that these were common law wives, rather than the retainers of well-to-do men. If so, their presence in Las Casa’s reinforcements suggest that they were men who could not or would not marry daughters of Spanish settlers or local mestizos. They also suggest men who might have had a stronger interest in migration than silver.

Among those who stayed, at least for a few years, were Juan López de Medel, who Chávez thinks became Mederos. He brought María, her daughter Mariana, her sister Catalina who was married to Francisco, and Augustina. Juan Luján brought Francisca Jiménez.

Juan Bautista Ruato came with a mulatto slave, Mateo. Chávez believes he was the same man as Juan Bautista Suazo. One possible descendant, Juan de Suazo, was married to Ana María Bernal, a likely descendant of Juan Griego’s son Francisco Bernal. They returned from exile and lived at Senecú. Another was María Suazo who married Diego López Sambrano, a man banned from the reconquest for his treatment of natives before the rebellion.
He was the only one from the island of Tenerife to last; the others were from La Palma.

One man who brought a servant who didn’t appear again in the record was Pedro Rodríguez. He came with Magdalena. Another was Cristobal de Brito who was responsible for Beatriz de los Ángeles and Juan Tarasco. However, his last name persisted after the reconquest among people of mixed race backgrounds.

Of the men who didn’t bring a servant, only one stayed in the area, Juan Ruiz Cárceres. Domingo Gutierrez left no record, beyond his last name. Both were from La Palma.

Luis Moreno and Francisco Suarez never appeared again in the public record in any way. They were from Tenerfire.

Notes: I only counted kinship ties I mentioned; there would be a great many more in Chávez’s book if you followed all the children through all their marriages and in-laws.

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

Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695 describing the settlement of La Cañada, included in Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.

Gray, Vikki and Angela Lewis. "Partial List of People Who Came to New Mexico in 1600," GenWeb site; has more detail than Chávez on people who came and didn’t stay, including servants.

Henningsen, Gustav. "The Database of the Spanish Inquisition. The Relaciones De Causas Project Revisited" in Heinz Mohnhaupt and Dieter Simon, Vorträge zur Justizforschung, 1992, cited by Wikipedia.