Encomiendas evolved in the Caribbean from medieval Castilian roots. According to Robert Himmerich y Valencia, they began as rights to labor, repartimiento, but were expanded to include commodities in México where Aztec traditions of tribute were perpetuated.
By the time Juan de Oñate was proposing his contract for conquest, Himmerich y Valencia says encomiendas were declining in importance in México. Still Oñate asked for the right to grant them for three generations. At the time the viceroy controlled all grants made in México, including those transferred through death and marriage. He was only willing to allow Oñate the right of encomienda, if he agreed to submit all names of grantees to México City for his approval.
If any governors followed that stipulation, no one has found the documents generated by the approval process in the Mexican archives. The only sources on encomenderos seem to be Angélico Chávez’s Origins of New Mexico Families and Inquisition records published by early scholars.
Oñate is only known to have granted one encomienda, the Santiago de Jémez, to his new lieutenant, Juan Martínez de Montoya, in 1606. The reason may be the pueblos, unlike the Indians dominated by the Aztec in México, had no concept of tribute. Chávez says the governor in 1613, Pedro de Peralta, sent his immigrant ancestor, Pedro Gómez Durán y Chaves, to collect from Taos and he failed.
It’s possible the reporting requirement fell into abeyance when a new viceroy replaced the one who’d distrusted Oñate in the period before governors were able to execute their right of conferment. When they began is unknown, but Chávez says his ancestor had an encomienda by 1621 for the area around Sandía and Santa Ana.
It may also be the viceroys lost interest, once repartimiento and tribute were replaced by debt peonage on the large agricultural plantations that developed to supply food for México City and the mining town of Zacatecas. The transition was well underway by the time Oñate came north, according to Peter Bakewell.
The Mexican economy was then suffering from an increase in food prices and a decline in the supply of mine labor, factors which may have influenced adventurous men to enlist to avoid hard labor to eat. Oñate, after all, was offering men the opportunity to revive the success of the original conquistadors in a time of economic stagnation.
The number of encomiendas in New Mexico was officially limited to 35, the number of pueblos that might need military protection. David Snow has compiled a list of 41 men and women associated with 26 native communities through two generations.
One reason the number of encomenderos proliferated relative to the number of encomiendas is simple inheritance. Taos may have been granted to Pedro Robledo, who came with Oñate in 1598. All we know is Juan de Tapia, the husband of his daughter, Francesca Robledo, claimed a quarter share, and Francisco Gómez Robledo, his great-grandson through another daughter, Luisa Robledo, had 2 ½ shares. No one has mentioned the owners of the other share or shares.
Another reason for the increase in the number of encomenderos through time is grants were used by governors to reward or punish men who did or did not support them. Luis de Rosas and Bernardo López de Mendizábal were both accused of exercising the right of revocation.
In 1661, Andrés Hurtado, a young man of 31 from Zacatecas, had the encomienda for Santa Ana and neighboring pueblos. Chávez doesn’t mention how it transferred from his ancestor to Hurtado, but does say the latter fell into disfavor with López, who ordered him to move his young family from the Sandía pueblo area to Santa Fé in December.
In contrast, Gómez Robledo became one of the more dependable military leaders, serving governor after governor. He told the Inquisition in 1662 he’d been "undertaking many risks and enterprises, bearing the costs himself, without receiving any salary, serving as royal ensign of the aforesaid town of Santa Fé, captain of the infantry, sergeant major, and commander of the companies of New Mexico, and maestre del campo of the company."
By then, he’d accumulated an interest in at least seven encomiendas that had to have been granted at different times. The first would have been Tesuque and Taos. Next might have been Pecos and Sandía. The other pueblos, Abó, Ácoma, and the Hopi villages, were pacified later.
A more important reason for the increase in encomenderos is that, through time, the grants came to be seen as commodities to be traded, not feudal contracts requiring military service in return for pay. As the Apache became a greater menace in the later 1600's, Allen Anderson says many men were less willing to take time from their ranches to provide military service. Some argued they were only required to attend the governing council in Santa Fé, the cabildo.
Sales of encomienda in México in the first generation were rare, but not illegal, as they were in Peru. However, they had to be approved by the viceroy. Himmerich y Valencia says the changing attitude toward transfers came from a 1536 royal instruction, the Law of Succession, which defined encomiendas as property that could be inherited.
There was no way the viceroy could have foreseen how that concept of property would evolve in the northern province. When Gómez Robledo was arrested in 1662, the description of his rights to tribute was made more precise. They included:
* All of the pueblo of Pecos, excepting for twenty-four houses held by his brother-in-law, Pedro Lucero de Godoy
* Two and a half parts of the pueblo of Taos
* Half of the Hopi pueblo of Shungopovi
* Half of the pueblo of Ácoma, except for twenty houses
* Half of the pueblo of Abó, which he had received in exchange for half of Sandía* All of the pueblo of Tesuque, which for more than forty years neither he nor his father had collected because of services rendered on contract in lieu of tribute.
The value of the rights to tribute depended on the number of people living in a pueblo who could pay. In México, Himmerich y Valencia said a man needed at least two to survive. According to John Kessell, the most valuable here was Pecos. Gómez Robledo could have collected corn and blankets from 340 households there, but only from 110 in Taos, 80 from Shongopovi, 50 from Ácoma, and 30 from Abó.
The association of encomiendas with wealth came from the right to repartimiento which was sometimes exercised in place of tribute, and sometimes, extralegally, in addition. Many encomenderos acquired large land holdings next to pueblos, then coerced local men, women, and children to work for substandard pay. In some cases, they also meddled in intertribal trade with plains Indians for goods like hides that could be resold in México.
It was López’s attempt to reform repartimiento, not the encomiendas, that united the colony against him. On his journey north to take command in 1659, the new governor heard reports of abuses and sensed growing unrest among the southern pueblos. When he arrived, France Scholes says he decreed the daily wage would double from half a real to a real and would include meals.
In 1661, estancia owners claimed "they had suffered heavy losses because they had been obliged to do without Indian laborers in harvesting crops and herding livestock" while nine of the Franciscan missions said they "had suffered a loss of more than six thousand head of stock because they had been deprived of the labor of Indians as herdsmen."
As an aside, Bakewell says the economic problems in México began, not with the conversion to wage labor, but with the epidemic of 1576-1579 that contributed to the need to pay higher prices for scarcer Indian labor. Here men were blaming the governor for a loss of income which probably was caused by dry weather that was leading to famine, epidemics and raids by nomadic Indians on the pueblos. When the native population began dropping, the available labor would have decreased, leading to the unrest López detected. The arid conditions would have affected crop and herd sizes, while the value of encomienda tribute also would have fallen with the population.
The association of encomiendas with status probably arose in the second and third generations of the colony when their economic value was declining, but new settlers, like Hurtado, were coming north with the supply trains and mestizo children of the first generation, like the son of Juan Griego, were rising. Then it was not enough to be the son or grandson of a conquistador, but one needed to have been signaled out as a conquistador of the first order.
And so, vague claims have been handed down. Chávez’s family knows that Pedro’s son, Fernando Durán y Chaves, "inherited Don Pedro’s estancia of El Tunque and his encomienda." They know the location of Fernando’s later land holdings, but all they know of the encomienda is that they had inherited it from the first generation, they didn’t have to earn it like Gómez Robledo.
They were hereditary encomenderos.
Notes:
Anderson, H. Allen. "The Encomienda in New Mexico, 1598-1680," New Mexico Historical Review 60:353-377:1985.
Bakewell, Peter John. Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico: Zacatecas, 1546-1700, 1971. The pathogenic cause of the matlazahuatal pandemic is not known; it affected pure blooded Indians, not mestizos or Spaniards.
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989; the descendants’ claim to the Santa Ana encomienda was consolidated when Hurtado’s daughter, Lucía de Salazar, married Fernando’s son, also Fernando Durán y Chaves.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Himmerich y Valencia, Robert. The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521-1555, 1991.
Hordes, Stanley M. To the End of the Earth, 2005; the quotation from Gómez Robledo had a different purpose than indicated here.
Kessell, John L. Kiva, Cross and Crown, 1995,
Scholes, France V. Troublous Times in New Mexico 1659-1670, 1942.
Snow, David H. "A Note on Encomienda Economics in Seventeenth-Century New Mexico" in Marta Weigle, Hispanic Arts and Ethnohistory in the Southwest, 1983.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Sunday, April 13, 2014
La Cañada - Encomenderos
An encomienda was more important to defining a family’s social status than land. Its owner, an encomendero, was required to be a citizen of Santa Fé where he was usually on the governing council, the cabildo. He was also required to provide military service, which made him part of the officer corps. They became the functioning shadow government that ruled the colony through the triennial changes in governors sent from México City. Indian labor, tribute, land and wealth followed.
Juan de Herrera came with the reinforcements sent in 1600 when he was twenty, and lived in Santa Fé where he married Ana López del Castillo, a granddaughter of Asencio de Arechuleta. He was granted the encomienda of Santa Clara pueblo for his lifetime.
When Luis Pérez Granillo surveyed La Cañada in 1695 he noted Marcos de Herrera had a hacienda with “only enough land for one citizen with his family” and across the arroyo he had “another suerte and some agricultural fields.” Not only was the land separated but the location may have been less than prime. Granillo said the “house, because it was next to the arroyo or stream, was carried away by a great flood that occurred.”
The most important thing about his land was that it was next to ‘another suerte of agricultural lands follows that the convento of Santa Clara Pueblo owned and held.”
Angélico Chávez could find no tie between Marcos and Juan or his children. From the location, one may guess Marcos was an agent of the family who lived near the Santa Clara pueblo to collect tribute and otherwise oversee family interests.
Chávez noted in his own family, that the family name was often given to Indian servants or their children. He recognized some were illegitimate babies the family was willing to raise and give some position as adults.
Marcos married Francisca Gutiérrez, whose origins are equally obscure. She could be descended from Domingo Gutiérrez, one the Canary Islanders in the 1600 group, or related to Gonzalo Hernández de Benhumea who came at the same time. He brought his wife, Juana Gutiérrez, daughter, Isabel Gutiérrez, and a mulatto named Isabel. Juana’s father, Hernán Gutiérrez, lived in Morón, now part of Tamaulipas which wasn’t conquered until 1554.
The Montoya family is another with encomiendas and obscure descendants. Granillo said the “hacienda that belonged to Bartolomé Montoya is next to the arroyo. Only the ruins of the house in which he lived can be seen. It also has lands for only one citizen.”
Bartolomé Montoya arrived with the reinforcements that arrived in 1600. He had been born near Sevilla and married María de Zamora, whose father, Pedro de Zamora, had been alcalde mayor of Oaxaca. They had two daughters, three sons, and servants.
His son, Diego de Montoya lived in Santa Fé where he married Ana Martín. Her mother was supposedly poisoned by her father’s mistress, María Bernal, a granddaughter of Juan Griego. They had three children, before she died, and he remarried a widow with three girls who sometimes took his name.
Diego’s son Bartolomé inherited the encomienda of San Pedro Pueblo. Chávez believes he’s the same Bartolomé Montoya who escaped the revolt and was described as destitute in 1680. He had seven children, but Chávez couldn’t trace them from there.
The only Montoya he finds associated with the villa of Santa Cruz after the reconquest is Felipe Montoya who settled in Bernalillo after the reconquest. His daughter, María, married Cristóbal Martín Serrano, son of Hernán Martín Serrano and nephew of Luis.
Felipe’s son, Clemente, married Josefa de Herrera (Luján) in Santa Cruz in 1701 and died in 1753. The only Josefa de Herrera he mentions is the daughter of Juan de Herrera, who married Domingo Martín Serrano, the probable brother of Marí’s husband.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Gordejuela, Juan de. “Women Who Joined Don Juan de Oñate’s New Mexican Settlement; The Gordejuela Inspection, 1600,” available on Southwest Crossroads website.
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.
Juan de Herrera came with the reinforcements sent in 1600 when he was twenty, and lived in Santa Fé where he married Ana López del Castillo, a granddaughter of Asencio de Arechuleta. He was granted the encomienda of Santa Clara pueblo for his lifetime.
When Luis Pérez Granillo surveyed La Cañada in 1695 he noted Marcos de Herrera had a hacienda with “only enough land for one citizen with his family” and across the arroyo he had “another suerte and some agricultural fields.” Not only was the land separated but the location may have been less than prime. Granillo said the “house, because it was next to the arroyo or stream, was carried away by a great flood that occurred.”
The most important thing about his land was that it was next to ‘another suerte of agricultural lands follows that the convento of Santa Clara Pueblo owned and held.”
Angélico Chávez could find no tie between Marcos and Juan or his children. From the location, one may guess Marcos was an agent of the family who lived near the Santa Clara pueblo to collect tribute and otherwise oversee family interests.
Chávez noted in his own family, that the family name was often given to Indian servants or their children. He recognized some were illegitimate babies the family was willing to raise and give some position as adults.
Marcos married Francisca Gutiérrez, whose origins are equally obscure. She could be descended from Domingo Gutiérrez, one the Canary Islanders in the 1600 group, or related to Gonzalo Hernández de Benhumea who came at the same time. He brought his wife, Juana Gutiérrez, daughter, Isabel Gutiérrez, and a mulatto named Isabel. Juana’s father, Hernán Gutiérrez, lived in Morón, now part of Tamaulipas which wasn’t conquered until 1554.
The Montoya family is another with encomiendas and obscure descendants. Granillo said the “hacienda that belonged to Bartolomé Montoya is next to the arroyo. Only the ruins of the house in which he lived can be seen. It also has lands for only one citizen.”
Bartolomé Montoya arrived with the reinforcements that arrived in 1600. He had been born near Sevilla and married María de Zamora, whose father, Pedro de Zamora, had been alcalde mayor of Oaxaca. They had two daughters, three sons, and servants.
His son, Diego de Montoya lived in Santa Fé where he married Ana Martín. Her mother was supposedly poisoned by her father’s mistress, María Bernal, a granddaughter of Juan Griego. They had three children, before she died, and he remarried a widow with three girls who sometimes took his name.
Diego’s son Bartolomé inherited the encomienda of San Pedro Pueblo. Chávez believes he’s the same Bartolomé Montoya who escaped the revolt and was described as destitute in 1680. He had seven children, but Chávez couldn’t trace them from there.
The only Montoya he finds associated with the villa of Santa Cruz after the reconquest is Felipe Montoya who settled in Bernalillo after the reconquest. His daughter, María, married Cristóbal Martín Serrano, son of Hernán Martín Serrano and nephew of Luis.
Felipe’s son, Clemente, married Josefa de Herrera (Luján) in Santa Cruz in 1701 and died in 1753. The only Josefa de Herrera he mentions is the daughter of Juan de Herrera, who married Domingo Martín Serrano, the probable brother of Marí’s husband.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Gordejuela, Juan de. “Women Who Joined Don Juan de Oñate’s New Mexican Settlement; The Gordejuela Inspection, 1600,” available on Southwest Crossroads website.
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.
Sunday, April 06, 2014
La Cañada - Juan Griego’s Children
The most important thing about Juan Griego’s children is that they were mestizos and legitimate in a generation when mestizos were primarily servants or unacknowledged bastards. As a result, their marital choices were limited. After Isabel Bernal married Sebastián González, their cousins referred to their descendants "for generations" as "los Griegos" according to Angélico Chávez.
One son of Griego and Pascula Bernal, Francisco Bernal, married Bernardina Morán, who married Pedro de la Cruz when Francisco died. Catalina Bernal married Juan Durán, also called Juan de la Cruz, while Juan Griego married Pedro’s sister, Juana de la Cruz. María Bernal married Juan Gómez Barragán, who served as a Tewa interpreter, and Juana Bernal wed Diego de Moraga, a jailor whose house was near a spring by the Santa Fé swamp. The other son, Lázaro Griego, left no record.
If you took this list of names literally, you might think the Griegos were close to the Cruz family, especially since Luis Pérez Granillo says in 1695 Pedro La Cruz had a house that "is found to consist of only one room. It has lands for only one citizen and his family" while Nicolás de la Cruz had a surviving dwelling "and the lands are only those necessary to maintain his family, with pastures of the same quality."
You may even think Juan Griego had accumulated a larger than normal estate to help support his extended family because Granillo said there "is a larger suerte of land than any of the others and is very extensive. Thus, two families will be able to live here, dividing the agricultural land and pastures between them."
You would be right and wrong. When Angélico Chávez was researching his own family, who first settled in the area of the modern Santa Ana pueblo, he discovered when the father of an illegitimate child had some status, the baptismal certificate said parentage unknown. In many cases, the infant was baptized as de la Cruz, from the cross.
The usage preceded Oñate. One of the men in his expedition, Juan de la Cruz, was described as the quadroon son of Juan Rodríguez born in the valley of Toluca.
The only Nicolás de la Cruz Chávez could identify was the governor’s town crier and he may actually have been Sebastian Rodríguez, a Loandan referred to as "de nación Angola." He returned with Diego de Vargas from Guadalupe del Paso, settled in Santa Fé and married Juana de la Cruz in 1697. Only she may have been Juana Apodaca and was accused of sorcery in Santa Fé in 1712.
The association of the Juana de la Cruz name with witchcraft goes back to the wife of Juan Griego junior. Her mother was Beatriz de los Ángeles, who came with Oñate in 1595, as the Indian servant of Cristóbal de Brito, a man from the Canary islands. She married the Juan de la Cruz from Catalonia and was in demand as someone who knew herbal medicines.
When the Inquisition first became active in 1626 as the result of a Franciscan, Esteban de Perea, feuding with the governors, one of Perea’s complaints was that the current governor, Felipe de Sotelo Osorio, had brought some one from San Juan "versed in magic and black art to Santa Fé to try to save the life of a soldier who had been bewitched."
The soldier was Juan Diego Bellido, the lover of the widowed Beatriz who had beaten her. It was said she had given him a potion that ultimately killed him. During the investigation, the Inquisition representative, Alonso de Benavides, was told many women consulted her because their husbands were unfaithful, that she had magically cured María Granillo, in 1628, that Bartolomé Romeo claimed his wife and her daughter, María Pérez Granillo del Moral, had been bewitched by Beatriz’s daughter Juana, and that Hernando Márquez Sambrano had been bewitched by Juana when he beat her and that Beatriz had killed him.
When Perea reviewed the evidence years later and found it didn’t implicate a governor or raise serious issues of faith, he chose not to pursue the charges. He noted many of the witnesses were simple women, mulattos and mestizos, whose testimony could not be trusted to reveal anything more than jealousies and intrigues existed at every level of the small society of northern New México.
Juan junior knew both Tewa and Nahuatl, and served the governors and army as an interpreter. His family had acquired some social status. His mother-in-law’s husband had had the encomienda of Cuquina. His sister Isobel’s husband had the right to tribute from Humanas. By 1628, José Antonio Esquibel says he had a home in the capital, the place in La Cañada, and inherited land in Mexico City, as well as commercial contacts there.
Juan and Juana’s children should have had more marital opportunities than they had had, but their children still seem to have stayed within the neighborhood. Graciana married Francisco Xavier, Nicolás married Antonia Martín, Juan married the sister of Francisco Sáez, Juliana, Agustín married Josefa Luján and María de la Cruz Alemán married her cousin María Barragán’s widower, Diego López del Castillo.
After the reconquest, Agustín’s widow returned, remarried and feuded with her children over rights to Griego land. His son Pedro married Juana Mestas and was living in Santa Cruz in 1726.
Juan Griego the grandson and Juliana Sáez started over in Albuquerque where their son Joaquín Griego married Francisca de la Luz Candelaria. Los Griegos is now a neighborhood of the North Valley.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Esquibel, José Antonio. "The Griego-Bernal Family," La Herencia, Fall 2008
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, 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.
Scholes, France V. "The First Decade of the Inquisition in New Mexico," New Mexico Historical Review 10:195-241:1935.
One son of Griego and Pascula Bernal, Francisco Bernal, married Bernardina Morán, who married Pedro de la Cruz when Francisco died. Catalina Bernal married Juan Durán, also called Juan de la Cruz, while Juan Griego married Pedro’s sister, Juana de la Cruz. María Bernal married Juan Gómez Barragán, who served as a Tewa interpreter, and Juana Bernal wed Diego de Moraga, a jailor whose house was near a spring by the Santa Fé swamp. The other son, Lázaro Griego, left no record.
If you took this list of names literally, you might think the Griegos were close to the Cruz family, especially since Luis Pérez Granillo says in 1695 Pedro La Cruz had a house that "is found to consist of only one room. It has lands for only one citizen and his family" while Nicolás de la Cruz had a surviving dwelling "and the lands are only those necessary to maintain his family, with pastures of the same quality."
You may even think Juan Griego had accumulated a larger than normal estate to help support his extended family because Granillo said there "is a larger suerte of land than any of the others and is very extensive. Thus, two families will be able to live here, dividing the agricultural land and pastures between them."
You would be right and wrong. When Angélico Chávez was researching his own family, who first settled in the area of the modern Santa Ana pueblo, he discovered when the father of an illegitimate child had some status, the baptismal certificate said parentage unknown. In many cases, the infant was baptized as de la Cruz, from the cross.
The usage preceded Oñate. One of the men in his expedition, Juan de la Cruz, was described as the quadroon son of Juan Rodríguez born in the valley of Toluca.
The only Nicolás de la Cruz Chávez could identify was the governor’s town crier and he may actually have been Sebastian Rodríguez, a Loandan referred to as "de nación Angola." He returned with Diego de Vargas from Guadalupe del Paso, settled in Santa Fé and married Juana de la Cruz in 1697. Only she may have been Juana Apodaca and was accused of sorcery in Santa Fé in 1712.
The association of the Juana de la Cruz name with witchcraft goes back to the wife of Juan Griego junior. Her mother was Beatriz de los Ángeles, who came with Oñate in 1595, as the Indian servant of Cristóbal de Brito, a man from the Canary islands. She married the Juan de la Cruz from Catalonia and was in demand as someone who knew herbal medicines.
When the Inquisition first became active in 1626 as the result of a Franciscan, Esteban de Perea, feuding with the governors, one of Perea’s complaints was that the current governor, Felipe de Sotelo Osorio, had brought some one from San Juan "versed in magic and black art to Santa Fé to try to save the life of a soldier who had been bewitched."
The soldier was Juan Diego Bellido, the lover of the widowed Beatriz who had beaten her. It was said she had given him a potion that ultimately killed him. During the investigation, the Inquisition representative, Alonso de Benavides, was told many women consulted her because their husbands were unfaithful, that she had magically cured María Granillo, in 1628, that Bartolomé Romeo claimed his wife and her daughter, María Pérez Granillo del Moral, had been bewitched by Beatriz’s daughter Juana, and that Hernando Márquez Sambrano had been bewitched by Juana when he beat her and that Beatriz had killed him.
When Perea reviewed the evidence years later and found it didn’t implicate a governor or raise serious issues of faith, he chose not to pursue the charges. He noted many of the witnesses were simple women, mulattos and mestizos, whose testimony could not be trusted to reveal anything more than jealousies and intrigues existed at every level of the small society of northern New México.
Juan junior knew both Tewa and Nahuatl, and served the governors and army as an interpreter. His family had acquired some social status. His mother-in-law’s husband had had the encomienda of Cuquina. His sister Isobel’s husband had the right to tribute from Humanas. By 1628, José Antonio Esquibel says he had a home in the capital, the place in La Cañada, and inherited land in Mexico City, as well as commercial contacts there.
Juan and Juana’s children should have had more marital opportunities than they had had, but their children still seem to have stayed within the neighborhood. Graciana married Francisco Xavier, Nicolás married Antonia Martín, Juan married the sister of Francisco Sáez, Juliana, Agustín married Josefa Luján and María de la Cruz Alemán married her cousin María Barragán’s widower, Diego López del Castillo.
After the reconquest, Agustín’s widow returned, remarried and feuded with her children over rights to Griego land. His son Pedro married Juana Mestas and was living in Santa Cruz in 1726.
Juan Griego the grandson and Juliana Sáez started over in Albuquerque where their son Joaquín Griego married Francisca de la Luz Candelaria. Los Griegos is now a neighborhood of the North Valley.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Esquibel, José Antonio. "The Griego-Bernal Family," La Herencia, Fall 2008
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, 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.
Scholes, France V. "The First Decade of the Inquisition in New Mexico," New Mexico Historical Review 10:195-241:1935.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
La Cañada - Juan Griego
The fourth of the larger hacienda owners, Juan Griego, is the most enigmatic. We know nothing about him, except that he once said he was from Candia on the island of Crete, that he came with Juan de Oñate in 1595 as a married man, and that he said he was the son of Lazarus.
Stanley Hordes has speculated he may have been a covert Jew, based on an accusation made by Teresa de Aguilera y Roche, wife of Bernardo López de Mendizábal, when she was being tried by the Inquisition in Mexico City for Judaizing. She claimed he "died with a çapote in his mouth, and with his face against the wall, without desiring to reconcile himself, or to be a Christian, even in this hour and as a consequence, they say that he was buried in the hills of Santa Ana."
David Gitlitz suggests that when Jews in Spain and Portugal were forced to convert, many were able to live with the subsequence compromises until they faced death. Then, many believed "the deathbed reaffirmation of Judaism assured their place in the continuum of the ancestral tradition." For this reason, the Inquisition was especially mindful of the behavior of the dead, and in the Edicto de Fe issued by the Inquisition in Mexico City in 1639 proscribed these customs.
Gitlitz says "one of the most common and most persistent" rites was turning the heads of the dying towards the wall. Schulamith Halevy found the tradition has persisted among those living in México today. The underlying reference is to Hezekiah, king of Judah, who, when the prophet Isaiah came to warn him to prepare to die, turned his face to the wall to speak directly to God.
As with many things about Griego, so little is known you can draw any conclusion.
When Ferdinand expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, some went to Candia, a city the Venetians had heavily fortified. In 1574, when Griego was about nine years old, they sent Giacomo Foscarini to reorganize the city. As head of the Inquisition, he was particularly hard on Jews and Greeks who did not accept the Roman Catholic church.
A blogger calling himself Iaonas proposes a different historic background. He notes that when the Turks took Constantinople in 1453, many Greeks joined the Spanish army where they were skilled artillerymen. Among the ones he names were Theodoro Griego who served in Pánfilo de Narváez’s attempt to sabotage Cortés in México, Pedro de Candia and Jorge Griego who joined Pizarro in Peru, and a different Juan Griego who was awarded a small encomienda in México for supporting Cortés.
They could both be right, one right, or both wrong. You’re still left with only two facts. Griego was apparently a commonly accepted nom de combat and, unlike many of the men who came with Oñate, he had "complete armor for himself."
The most extraordinary thing about him is that, when he was in México, he married an Indian rather than treated her as a mistress to be brought north as a servant. No more is known about Pascula Bernal than she spoke Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and the tribes of the central valley.
Her name may have come from living in an area assigned to Francisco Bernal or Juan Bernal. Both had come to México with Narváez in 1520 and both were officially citizens (vecino) of Puebla. Francisco had encomiendas for Tanchinamol, Mecatlán and Heusco. Juan had the encomienda of Acatlán south of Puebla, according to Robert Himmerich y Valencia.
The natives in Puebla weren’t Aztec, but groups that had been conquered by them who spoke their language and supported Cortés. According to Wikipedia, Mixtecs were found in Acatlán, Popolocas in Tepexi, the Olmec-Xicalancas and Nahuas in the central part of the modern state, and the Totonacas, Mazatecos and Otomi in the north.
The Huastec of the Indian town of Tanchinamol split from the Maya and migrated to northern Veracruz around 1200bc. The Acatlán shared pottery techniques with the Olmec. Mecatlán is a Xicotepec ranchería in modern Puebla.
Pascula’s cultural heritage could have been that of any of the conquered people, or a mix. However, the fact that it probably was derived from the Puebla-Veracruz border area may explain the presence of çapote. Casimiroa edulis is a subtropical tree with a perishable, sweet fruit that wouldn’t grow here or survive transport by wagon train. More likely it was the large pit Teresa heard about.
About thirty years before the Oñate expedition, Spanish botanist Francisco Hernández found cochiztzaputl fruit produced drowsiness and the seeds were poisonous. In the same years, Florentine Codex compiler Bernardino de Sahagún was told by the Aztec they used it as a sedative and that "it brings, it lowers the star of the night."
White sapote commonly has been used to treat rheumatism and arthritis in Mesoamerica. The Mayo used the leaves to lower blood pressure, while Costa Ricans used them to treat diabetes.
Griego may have been suffering from any of these ailments and been treated by Pascula, or he may have been in such pain she gave him something to sleep, or, acceding to his request, may have prepared him to die and given him a toxic dose.
Gitlitz says it was common for Spanish conversos "to ease the journey of the deceased with offerings of food and money." The Mayan placed corn and stone beads in the mouths of the dead for the same reason.
You may take Griego at face value, as have descendants who have identified ancestors for both him and his wife, or you may take his reference to his father as a sign he spoke in riddles. He could have been a Spanish Jew in exile or a Greek. She may have had Mayan ancestors or not.
All we know is that they both died far from their native homes, strangers in a strange, strange land.
Notes: Hezekiah is found in Isaiah 38:2-3 and Kings 20:2.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Gitlitz, David M. Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews, 1996; he mentions a twentieth century Portuguese legend that Jews, to avoid contamination by the last rites, asphyxiated a dying relative so he would be dead before the priest arrived.
Halevy, Schulamith Chava. Descendants of the Anusim (Crypto-Jews) in Contemporary Mexico, 2009.
Hernández, Francisco. Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae, published in 1651 and cited by Morton.
Himmerich y Valencia, Robert. The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521-1555, 1991. Juan Bernal had three sons, one who became a priest, a second Juan who lived on a government pension, and a third who died young. Nothing more is known about Francisco.
Hordes, Stanley M. To the End of the Earth, 2005.
Iaonas. "Greek Conquistadors and Explorers in the Spanish Army," Blogspot website, 11 December 2011.
Morton, Julia F. Fruits of Warm Climates, 1987.
Sahagún, Bernardino de. Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva España, c.1577, translated as Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Book XI - Earthly Things by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson, 1963.
Wikipedia. "Puebla" downloaded 5 March 2012.
Yetman, David and Thomas R. Van Devender. Mayo Ethnobotany, 2002.
Stanley Hordes has speculated he may have been a covert Jew, based on an accusation made by Teresa de Aguilera y Roche, wife of Bernardo López de Mendizábal, when she was being tried by the Inquisition in Mexico City for Judaizing. She claimed he "died with a çapote in his mouth, and with his face against the wall, without desiring to reconcile himself, or to be a Christian, even in this hour and as a consequence, they say that he was buried in the hills of Santa Ana."
David Gitlitz suggests that when Jews in Spain and Portugal were forced to convert, many were able to live with the subsequence compromises until they faced death. Then, many believed "the deathbed reaffirmation of Judaism assured their place in the continuum of the ancestral tradition." For this reason, the Inquisition was especially mindful of the behavior of the dead, and in the Edicto de Fe issued by the Inquisition in Mexico City in 1639 proscribed these customs.
Gitlitz says "one of the most common and most persistent" rites was turning the heads of the dying towards the wall. Schulamith Halevy found the tradition has persisted among those living in México today. The underlying reference is to Hezekiah, king of Judah, who, when the prophet Isaiah came to warn him to prepare to die, turned his face to the wall to speak directly to God.
As with many things about Griego, so little is known you can draw any conclusion.
When Ferdinand expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, some went to Candia, a city the Venetians had heavily fortified. In 1574, when Griego was about nine years old, they sent Giacomo Foscarini to reorganize the city. As head of the Inquisition, he was particularly hard on Jews and Greeks who did not accept the Roman Catholic church.
A blogger calling himself Iaonas proposes a different historic background. He notes that when the Turks took Constantinople in 1453, many Greeks joined the Spanish army where they were skilled artillerymen. Among the ones he names were Theodoro Griego who served in Pánfilo de Narváez’s attempt to sabotage Cortés in México, Pedro de Candia and Jorge Griego who joined Pizarro in Peru, and a different Juan Griego who was awarded a small encomienda in México for supporting Cortés.
They could both be right, one right, or both wrong. You’re still left with only two facts. Griego was apparently a commonly accepted nom de combat and, unlike many of the men who came with Oñate, he had "complete armor for himself."
The most extraordinary thing about him is that, when he was in México, he married an Indian rather than treated her as a mistress to be brought north as a servant. No more is known about Pascula Bernal than she spoke Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and the tribes of the central valley.
Her name may have come from living in an area assigned to Francisco Bernal or Juan Bernal. Both had come to México with Narváez in 1520 and both were officially citizens (vecino) of Puebla. Francisco had encomiendas for Tanchinamol, Mecatlán and Heusco. Juan had the encomienda of Acatlán south of Puebla, according to Robert Himmerich y Valencia.
The natives in Puebla weren’t Aztec, but groups that had been conquered by them who spoke their language and supported Cortés. According to Wikipedia, Mixtecs were found in Acatlán, Popolocas in Tepexi, the Olmec-Xicalancas and Nahuas in the central part of the modern state, and the Totonacas, Mazatecos and Otomi in the north.
The Huastec of the Indian town of Tanchinamol split from the Maya and migrated to northern Veracruz around 1200bc. The Acatlán shared pottery techniques with the Olmec. Mecatlán is a Xicotepec ranchería in modern Puebla.
Pascula’s cultural heritage could have been that of any of the conquered people, or a mix. However, the fact that it probably was derived from the Puebla-Veracruz border area may explain the presence of çapote. Casimiroa edulis is a subtropical tree with a perishable, sweet fruit that wouldn’t grow here or survive transport by wagon train. More likely it was the large pit Teresa heard about.
About thirty years before the Oñate expedition, Spanish botanist Francisco Hernández found cochiztzaputl fruit produced drowsiness and the seeds were poisonous. In the same years, Florentine Codex compiler Bernardino de Sahagún was told by the Aztec they used it as a sedative and that "it brings, it lowers the star of the night."
White sapote commonly has been used to treat rheumatism and arthritis in Mesoamerica. The Mayo used the leaves to lower blood pressure, while Costa Ricans used them to treat diabetes.
Griego may have been suffering from any of these ailments and been treated by Pascula, or he may have been in such pain she gave him something to sleep, or, acceding to his request, may have prepared him to die and given him a toxic dose.
Gitlitz says it was common for Spanish conversos "to ease the journey of the deceased with offerings of food and money." The Mayan placed corn and stone beads in the mouths of the dead for the same reason.
You may take Griego at face value, as have descendants who have identified ancestors for both him and his wife, or you may take his reference to his father as a sign he spoke in riddles. He could have been a Spanish Jew in exile or a Greek. She may have had Mayan ancestors or not.
All we know is that they both died far from their native homes, strangers in a strange, strange land.
Notes: Hezekiah is found in Isaiah 38:2-3 and Kings 20:2.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Gitlitz, David M. Secrecy and Deceit: The Religion of the Crypto-Jews, 1996; he mentions a twentieth century Portuguese legend that Jews, to avoid contamination by the last rites, asphyxiated a dying relative so he would be dead before the priest arrived.
Halevy, Schulamith Chava. Descendants of the Anusim (Crypto-Jews) in Contemporary Mexico, 2009.
Hernández, Francisco. Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae, published in 1651 and cited by Morton.
Himmerich y Valencia, Robert. The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521-1555, 1991. Juan Bernal had three sons, one who became a priest, a second Juan who lived on a government pension, and a third who died young. Nothing more is known about Francisco.
Hordes, Stanley M. To the End of the Earth, 2005.
Iaonas. "Greek Conquistadors and Explorers in the Spanish Army," Blogspot website, 11 December 2011.
Morton, Julia F. Fruits of Warm Climates, 1987.
Sahagún, Bernardino de. Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva España, c.1577, translated as Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, Book XI - Earthly Things by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O. Anderson, 1963.
Wikipedia. "Puebla" downloaded 5 March 2012.
Yetman, David and Thomas R. Van Devender. Mayo Ethnobotany, 2002.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
La Cañada - Francisco Xavier
Another of the large landowners, Francisco Xavier, came with as an escort for the supply train that brought governor Bernardo López de Mendizábal north in 1658. He married Graciana Griego, granddaughter of Juan Griego, and rose as a military aide to the subsequent governors.
When he arrived, droughts were leading to famine among local peoples who were already turning to new gods, but the governor and the Franciscans spent their time feuding over who should receive tribute from the pueblos and how much laborers should be paid. Piñon nuts, food that fed people in bad times, were being shipped to México. Friars were more incensed by the governor not punishing the Chrsitian pueblos for kachina dances, than they were by heathen Apaches selling their children into slavery for food.
After López was arrested by the Inquisition, the governorship continued through men who were rarely allowed to finish their terms unmolested. Severe drought returned in 1666, which brought more raids by hungry Apache. Supply trains brought less food. The Piro and Salinas pueblos pillaged the conventos and their leaders were hung or sold into slavery.
Juan Bernal wrote his Franciscan superiors:
"For three years no crop has been harvested. Last year, 1668, a great many Indians perished of hunger, lying dead along the roads, in the ravines, and in their hovels...The same calamity still prevails, for, because there is no money, there is not a fanega of maize or wheat in the kingdom. As a result the Spaniards, men as well as women, have sustained themselves for two years on the cowhides they have in their houses to sit on. They roast them and eat them. And the greatest woe of all is that they no longer can find a bit of leather to eat, for their livestock is dying off."
No relief was sent and Xavier became Secretary of Government and War, responsible for fighting the Apache. Volcanic activity and more sunspots led to warmer temperatures. Epidemics followed malnutrition. Pueblo Indians, whose religion is centered on ritual appeals to rain gods to ensure plentiful harvests, began to question the power of the Spanish god.
The year Juan Francisco Treviño arrived as governor, 1675, one Franciscan, Francisco de Ayeta, sent a message to México City warning the colony was doomed without relief. Another, Andrés Durán, claimed he’d been bewitched at San Ildefonso. Treviño sent Xavier and a cadre of men to arrest 47 religious leaders. He hung three. Others were sentenced to the lash and slavery.
While they were awaiting punishment, Xavier "gathered up many idols, powders, and other things which he took from the houses of the sorcerers and from the countryside." Armed men from the Tewa speaking pueblos forced Treviño to free their leaders.
Relief finally came in 1679 with the new governor, Antonio de Otermin. Heavy snows that winter promised more relief. But it was too late. Otermin needed Xavier as his military commander.
When the pueblos erupted on August 10, Picuris killed Francisco Blanco de la Vega and her son, mulattos belonging to Xavier.
By the fifth day, many of the houses in Santa Fé had been burned and water stopped from flowing through the acequia. Soldiers had been fighting warriors through the streets. Otermin wrote his superiors, that that evening "we directed our course toward the house of the maese de campo, Francisco Xavier, which was the place where (apparently) there were the most people and where they had been most active and boldest."
Xavier managed to get to Guadalupe del Paso with his five children. The 54-year-old widower was allowed to return to México for health reasons. His son, Francisco Xavier, also returned south leaving his daughter, Josefa Xavier, with relatives. She returned with them as an orphan.
By the time Diego de Vargas entered Santa Fé in 1695, the Tano had heard Xavier was with him. They said "Give us Francisco Xavier, who is the reason we have risen, and we will remain in peace as before."
When Luis Pérez Granillo got to La Cañada, he saw his "houses are in ruins, though there is a small torreón standing. Although he lived on it alone, the site has ample lands for two families."
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, 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, quotation from Bernal.
_____. Kiva, Cross and Crown, 1995, other quotations.
Otermin, Antonio de. Report, 13 September 1680, in C. W. Hackett, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, vol. 3 , 1937.
Scurlock, Dan. From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998, on Apache selling their children.
When he arrived, droughts were leading to famine among local peoples who were already turning to new gods, but the governor and the Franciscans spent their time feuding over who should receive tribute from the pueblos and how much laborers should be paid. Piñon nuts, food that fed people in bad times, were being shipped to México. Friars were more incensed by the governor not punishing the Chrsitian pueblos for kachina dances, than they were by heathen Apaches selling their children into slavery for food.
After López was arrested by the Inquisition, the governorship continued through men who were rarely allowed to finish their terms unmolested. Severe drought returned in 1666, which brought more raids by hungry Apache. Supply trains brought less food. The Piro and Salinas pueblos pillaged the conventos and their leaders were hung or sold into slavery.
Juan Bernal wrote his Franciscan superiors:
"For three years no crop has been harvested. Last year, 1668, a great many Indians perished of hunger, lying dead along the roads, in the ravines, and in their hovels...The same calamity still prevails, for, because there is no money, there is not a fanega of maize or wheat in the kingdom. As a result the Spaniards, men as well as women, have sustained themselves for two years on the cowhides they have in their houses to sit on. They roast them and eat them. And the greatest woe of all is that they no longer can find a bit of leather to eat, for their livestock is dying off."
No relief was sent and Xavier became Secretary of Government and War, responsible for fighting the Apache. Volcanic activity and more sunspots led to warmer temperatures. Epidemics followed malnutrition. Pueblo Indians, whose religion is centered on ritual appeals to rain gods to ensure plentiful harvests, began to question the power of the Spanish god.
The year Juan Francisco Treviño arrived as governor, 1675, one Franciscan, Francisco de Ayeta, sent a message to México City warning the colony was doomed without relief. Another, Andrés Durán, claimed he’d been bewitched at San Ildefonso. Treviño sent Xavier and a cadre of men to arrest 47 religious leaders. He hung three. Others were sentenced to the lash and slavery.
While they were awaiting punishment, Xavier "gathered up many idols, powders, and other things which he took from the houses of the sorcerers and from the countryside." Armed men from the Tewa speaking pueblos forced Treviño to free their leaders.
Relief finally came in 1679 with the new governor, Antonio de Otermin. Heavy snows that winter promised more relief. But it was too late. Otermin needed Xavier as his military commander.
When the pueblos erupted on August 10, Picuris killed Francisco Blanco de la Vega and her son, mulattos belonging to Xavier.
By the fifth day, many of the houses in Santa Fé had been burned and water stopped from flowing through the acequia. Soldiers had been fighting warriors through the streets. Otermin wrote his superiors, that that evening "we directed our course toward the house of the maese de campo, Francisco Xavier, which was the place where (apparently) there were the most people and where they had been most active and boldest."
Xavier managed to get to Guadalupe del Paso with his five children. The 54-year-old widower was allowed to return to México for health reasons. His son, Francisco Xavier, also returned south leaving his daughter, Josefa Xavier, with relatives. She returned with them as an orphan.
By the time Diego de Vargas entered Santa Fé in 1695, the Tano had heard Xavier was with him. They said "Give us Francisco Xavier, who is the reason we have risen, and we will remain in peace as before."
When Luis Pérez Granillo got to La Cañada, he saw his "houses are in ruins, though there is a small torreón standing. Although he lived on it alone, the site has ample lands for two families."
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, 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, quotation from Bernal.
_____. Kiva, Cross and Crown, 1995, other quotations.
Otermin, Antonio de. Report, 13 September 1680, in C. W. Hackett, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, vol. 3 , 1937.
Scurlock, Dan. From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998, on Apache selling their children.
Monday, March 17, 2014
La Cañada - Large Land Owners
The larger land owners, that is those who owned enough land in La Cañada before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 to support more than one family, resembled the upwardly mobile in any small community after the Renaissance.
They often are in, but not part of their communities, because they arrive with ambitions, accumulate wealth, often through political connections, and leave when conditions warrant.
The largest land holding after that of the Martín Serrano family belonged to Sebastián González. He apparently was an absentee land owner because Luis Granillo reported "Alonso del Río had possession. Another two families had parts of this hacienda, so three families can fit and settle on this site. Its lands are of better quality."
According to Angélico Chávez, González didn’t appear in the public record until 1626, when he was described as an alférez (low level military officer) from Portugal. Chávez thinks he could have been the son of Diego Blandín, who was sentenced to join Juan de Oñate in 1598 by the Royal Audencía. Blandín was the son of Diego González from Coimbra, where covert Jewish practices were suspected, according to Stanley Hordes.
González married Isabel Bernal, the daughter of his neighbor next in La Cañada, Juan Griego, but apparently remained in Santa Fé where he and his children rose through the ranks of middling officials.
In 1642 he had was a regent of the colony. One son, Diego González Bernal was alcalde mayor of San Macros Pueblo in 1661. Two years later he as alcalde mayor of Galisteo pueblo, when he supported Bernardo López de Mendizábal against the Franciscans, then fled to Mexico for safety
In the same year, his brother Antonio González Bernal was acting secretary to the cabildo (governing council appointed by the governor). Others were less conspicuous. Many didn’t return in the reconquest, but some women were trying to regain the property of their mother. One, Melchora Bas González lived in Santa Cruz.
The next largest land owner in La Cañada, Ambrosio Sáez, came from Nueva Vizcaya with his wife, Ana Rodríguez de Anaya. He first appeared in the public record in 1665 in the military in the Sandía area, and later moved north. He was still in the military in 1680.
He, his wife, and ten children made it to Guadalupe del Paso where his son, Agustín Sáez’s wife died. Leonor de Herrera was the daughter of Marcos de Herrera. The family fled the refuge camp for México, although Agustín subsequently enlisted in the reconquest and came north with his new wife, Antonio Márquez.
Santa Fé banished him for adultery in 1701. His daughter, Juliana, married Juan Griego’s grandson. His son, Francisco Sáez, married Juana Herrera of Santa Cruz. Her parents were among the recruits who settled in the villa in 1696.
In describing Ambrosio’s land, Luis Granillo noted that "part of the rebel Tewa Indians from Tesuque Pueblo were camped out here last year, 1694, in order to take advantage of planting the land. For that reason, there are good dwellings. In my opinion, two or three citizens can settle with their families on this hacienda."
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, included 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.
They often are in, but not part of their communities, because they arrive with ambitions, accumulate wealth, often through political connections, and leave when conditions warrant.
The largest land holding after that of the Martín Serrano family belonged to Sebastián González. He apparently was an absentee land owner because Luis Granillo reported "Alonso del Río had possession. Another two families had parts of this hacienda, so three families can fit and settle on this site. Its lands are of better quality."
According to Angélico Chávez, González didn’t appear in the public record until 1626, when he was described as an alférez (low level military officer) from Portugal. Chávez thinks he could have been the son of Diego Blandín, who was sentenced to join Juan de Oñate in 1598 by the Royal Audencía. Blandín was the son of Diego González from Coimbra, where covert Jewish practices were suspected, according to Stanley Hordes.
González married Isabel Bernal, the daughter of his neighbor next in La Cañada, Juan Griego, but apparently remained in Santa Fé where he and his children rose through the ranks of middling officials.
In 1642 he had was a regent of the colony. One son, Diego González Bernal was alcalde mayor of San Macros Pueblo in 1661. Two years later he as alcalde mayor of Galisteo pueblo, when he supported Bernardo López de Mendizábal against the Franciscans, then fled to Mexico for safety
In the same year, his brother Antonio González Bernal was acting secretary to the cabildo (governing council appointed by the governor). Others were less conspicuous. Many didn’t return in the reconquest, but some women were trying to regain the property of their mother. One, Melchora Bas González lived in Santa Cruz.
The next largest land owner in La Cañada, Ambrosio Sáez, came from Nueva Vizcaya with his wife, Ana Rodríguez de Anaya. He first appeared in the public record in 1665 in the military in the Sandía area, and later moved north. He was still in the military in 1680.
He, his wife, and ten children made it to Guadalupe del Paso where his son, Agustín Sáez’s wife died. Leonor de Herrera was the daughter of Marcos de Herrera. The family fled the refuge camp for México, although Agustín subsequently enlisted in the reconquest and came north with his new wife, Antonio Márquez.
Santa Fé banished him for adultery in 1701. His daughter, Juliana, married Juan Griego’s grandson. His son, Francisco Sáez, married Juana Herrera of Santa Cruz. Her parents were among the recruits who settled in the villa in 1696.
In describing Ambrosio’s land, Luis Granillo noted that "part of the rebel Tewa Indians from Tesuque Pueblo were camped out here last year, 1694, in order to take advantage of planting the land. For that reason, there are good dwellings. In my opinion, two or three citizens can settle with their families on this hacienda."
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, included 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.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
La Cañada - The Site
The first Spanish speaking settlement along the lower Santa Cruz river was known as La Cañada.
It probably evolved from encomiendas granted to men who either settled close to the natives they were supposed to be protecting or sent their agents to the area to collect tribute. Hernán Martín Serrano, the son of an encomendero, says he was living in La Cañada in 1632.
After the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, while the Spanish refugees were living in El Paso del Norte, Tano speakers from the Galisteo Basin had moved into the settlement, probably to escape attacks by nomadic tribes and to be closer to their kin at San Juan.
When Diego de Vargas agreed to lead the reconquest, he believed he needed more settlers than those who remained in El Paso and requested reinforcements. According to Angélico Cháves, one group of 67 families had been selected by the viceroy, assembled by Cristóbal de Velasco, and brought north by Francisco Farfán. The second group was “recruited in Zacatecas and the Mines of Sombrerete by Juan Páez Hurtado.”
Vargas arrived in Santa Fé with just the refugees to find so much destruction that housing was scarce. When Farfán arrived with his group, conditions were more congested. The arrival of the Zacatecans was imminent when he negotiated with the Tano speakers from San Lázaro and San Cristóbal to move west of the Río Grande, so he could place the overflow population in La Cañada.
On 21 March 1695, his lieutenant governor, Luis Pérez Granillo, and a sergeant related to Miguel Luján, Juan Ruiz Cáceres, inspected the site. To avoid the calamities of 1598, Granillo had been told to locate a place where:
“they may immediately be given a permanent settlement; lands to sow; grass, woods, water, and watering places; ejidos; pastures; and everything they need to raise every kind of cattle, sheep, and goats.”
Coming down from San Juan, they first came to the hacienda of Juan Luis, then the ruin requested by the Tano for relocation.
At the Luis boundary, they found the estancia of the Martínez, who Cháves has identified as Luis Martín Serrano, brother of the above Hernán.
They crossed the Río Grande and, in order, found the property of the following men along the south side of the cañada:
Miguel Luján - hacienda with “lands for agriculture and irrigation” and limited pastures, with a house.
Marcos de Herrera - “suerte and some agricultural fields.”
Nicolás de la Cruz - “lot and agricultural fields” with a house.
Melchor de Archuleta - land for one family, house in ruins.
Juan Griego - suerte large enough to support two families.
Sebastían González - hacienda that had had three tenants, including Alonso del Río
Francisco Javier - hacienda large enough for two families, the house in ruins and a small torreón.
Pedro de la Cruz - land and one-room house.
They then crossed an arroyo and returned back up the cañada where they found the lands of the following:
Bartolomé Montoya - hacienda with destroyed house.
Diego López - hacienda and torreón, but apparently no house.
Marcos de Herrera - hacienda, with the remains of a house destroyed by the arroyo.
Santa Clara Pueblo - suerte and convento.
Francisco Gómez - hacienda and house foundations.
Ambrosio Sáez - hacienda that could support two to three families with buildings in tact.
Augustín Romero - hacienda and fields.
In total he found land to support 20 families, and more than twice that were expected to arrive from Zacatecas. Some of the original owners no doubt would claim their lands, leaving space in the capital, but potential overcrowding would still exist in both Santa Fé and the soon to be decreed villa of Santa Cruz.
Notes: Cañada apparently referred to the sandy or dry second bottoms of a river, ejidos were common lands, a suerte was an irrigated field, a torreón was a small defense tower.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, 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.
It probably evolved from encomiendas granted to men who either settled close to the natives they were supposed to be protecting or sent their agents to the area to collect tribute. Hernán Martín Serrano, the son of an encomendero, says he was living in La Cañada in 1632.
After the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, while the Spanish refugees were living in El Paso del Norte, Tano speakers from the Galisteo Basin had moved into the settlement, probably to escape attacks by nomadic tribes and to be closer to their kin at San Juan.
When Diego de Vargas agreed to lead the reconquest, he believed he needed more settlers than those who remained in El Paso and requested reinforcements. According to Angélico Cháves, one group of 67 families had been selected by the viceroy, assembled by Cristóbal de Velasco, and brought north by Francisco Farfán. The second group was “recruited in Zacatecas and the Mines of Sombrerete by Juan Páez Hurtado.”
Vargas arrived in Santa Fé with just the refugees to find so much destruction that housing was scarce. When Farfán arrived with his group, conditions were more congested. The arrival of the Zacatecans was imminent when he negotiated with the Tano speakers from San Lázaro and San Cristóbal to move west of the Río Grande, so he could place the overflow population in La Cañada.
On 21 March 1695, his lieutenant governor, Luis Pérez Granillo, and a sergeant related to Miguel Luján, Juan Ruiz Cáceres, inspected the site. To avoid the calamities of 1598, Granillo had been told to locate a place where:
“they may immediately be given a permanent settlement; lands to sow; grass, woods, water, and watering places; ejidos; pastures; and everything they need to raise every kind of cattle, sheep, and goats.”
Coming down from San Juan, they first came to the hacienda of Juan Luis, then the ruin requested by the Tano for relocation.
At the Luis boundary, they found the estancia of the Martínez, who Cháves has identified as Luis Martín Serrano, brother of the above Hernán.
They crossed the Río Grande and, in order, found the property of the following men along the south side of the cañada:
Miguel Luján - hacienda with “lands for agriculture and irrigation” and limited pastures, with a house.
Marcos de Herrera - “suerte and some agricultural fields.”
Nicolás de la Cruz - “lot and agricultural fields” with a house.
Melchor de Archuleta - land for one family, house in ruins.
Juan Griego - suerte large enough to support two families.
Sebastían González - hacienda that had had three tenants, including Alonso del Río
Francisco Javier - hacienda large enough for two families, the house in ruins and a small torreón.
Pedro de la Cruz - land and one-room house.
They then crossed an arroyo and returned back up the cañada where they found the lands of the following:
Bartolomé Montoya - hacienda with destroyed house.
Diego López - hacienda and torreón, but apparently no house.
Marcos de Herrera - hacienda, with the remains of a house destroyed by the arroyo.
Santa Clara Pueblo - suerte and convento.
Francisco Gómez - hacienda and house foundations.
Ambrosio Sáez - hacienda that could support two to three families with buildings in tact.
Augustín Romero - hacienda and fields.
In total he found land to support 20 families, and more than twice that were expected to arrive from Zacatecas. Some of the original owners no doubt would claim their lands, leaving space in the capital, but potential overcrowding would still exist in both Santa Fé and the soon to be decreed villa of Santa Cruz.
Notes: Cañada apparently referred to the sandy or dry second bottoms of a river, ejidos were common lands, a suerte was an irrigated field, a torreón was a small defense tower.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, 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.
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