In the early years after the Reconquest, Santa Cruz lacked the skills it needed to maintain Spanish medical culture.
No midwives were mentioned in the lists of Mexico City colonists, and there may have been none. Two women died in childbirth on the journey north: María López de Arteaga, wife of Manuel Vallejo González, and María Antonia Chirinos, wife of Juan Manuel Martínez de Cervantes.
In Spain, when the imbalance between blood and the other three humors was serious, a barber was engaged to bleed the person. One barber had come with the group from Mexico City, Nicolás Moreno Trujillo, but he returned south in 1705. Angélico Chávez said another, Antonio Durán de Armijo, came from Zacatecas. He lived in Santa Fé.
By 1715, Francisco Xavier Romero was working in Santa Cruz as a barber. When he came from Mexico City, he listed himself as a baker and miller. Chávez identified him as a shoemaker.
When one of the other humors was deemed the problem, the body was purged with a herbal emetic.
There probably were no herbalists. The abilities to identify and remember plants can be transferred, but not the lore. The first summer in Santa Cruz, men complained "poisonous herbs" were killing their stock.
Records of pueblo medical practice in 1700 probably do not exist. If members had been reticent before the trial of 47 medicine men in 1675, they would have been mute after the Reconquest. Popé had been one of those tried and freed.
A few reports have survived that describe medical relations between San Juan and its neighbors.
In 1704, Felipe Morgana filed a complaint against Juan Chiyo for failing to cure his blindness.
In 1708, Leonor Domínguez reported Augustina Romero, María Luján and Ana María de la Concepción Bernal had been bewitched. She said the healer was Juanchillo. He said he had treated the first two with beneficial herbs.
In the same deposition, Leonor said she had been bewitched, but she did not seek help from a native healer.
In 1715, Antonia Luján claimed Francisca Caza had bewitched her when she refused to drink a potion she had been offered to improve her lot. Soon after, she began to suffer pain. She paid the woman to cure her, but didn’t get well. She then paid another native woman to cure her with an herb from Galisteo. When that failed, she complained to the Santa Fé alcalde. He only took up the case when she added she believed her husband was seeing Caza.
In two cases, the herbal healer was the same man. Leonor identified him as Juanchillo, a carpenter and herbal healer. His wife was listed in one place as Chepa, and another as Josefa. Felipe Morgana called him Juan Chiyo. Tracy Brown identified him as "Juan el carpentero."
The one who dealt in potions, Francisca Caza, was from San Juan, but lived in Santa Fé. Her husband, Francisco Cuervo, was a Jumano Indian, perhaps from the Salinas area.
In the case mentioned in the posting for 25 March 2005, Ines de Aspeitia used a charm, not a herbal potion. She was described as a native of Mexico City and "dark skinned" in 1693.
Notes:
Angulo, José de Angulo. List of colonists from Mexico City, 7 September 1693, in Kessell.
Brown, Tracy L. Pueblo Indians and Spanish Colonial Authority, 2013.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition; discusses Felipe Morgana.
Enbright, Malcolm and Rick Hendricks. The Witches of Abiquiu, 2006; discusses Antonia Luján.
Kessell, John L., Rick Hendricks and Meredith Dodge. To the Royal Crown Restored, 1995.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 1914; volume 1 has the 1696 request to move because of poisonous herbs; volume 2 discusses Leonor Domínguez and Augustina Romero.
Velázquez de la Cadena, Pedro. List of families going to New Mexico, 4 September 1693, in Kessell.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Spanish Medicine
Political conflicts between religious and secular authorities carried over to medicine. In Europe, the medical school at Salamanca in the kingdom of León had become the most prestigious in 1252. It relied upon Arab translations of newly discovered works by Greek and Roman physicians.
Hippocrates and Galen believed the body contained four fluids that must be kept in balance. Each had specific qualities. The humors were considered extensions of the natural world where each plant embodied one of the traits.
Diseases were associated with each humor and treated by stimulating the opposing traits. Phlegm was cold and moist, yellow bile hot and dry. Thus, if one caught a common cold, one kept warm and drank hot liquids to warm the interior. Chicken soup or tea and honey is used today.
Blood was hot and moist, black bile cold and dry. Rhazes associated smallpox with blood. Individuals were most vulnerable at the age when the warm blood of childhood was changing to the cool blood of adults.
Once smallpox became an established disease in Mexico, it recurred about every fifteen to twenty years. At least fourteen colonists from Mexico City had pock marked faces. Most of the seven men were over 20 years old, most of the girls younger than 13.
When medicine failed to cure, the church offered an alternative. It argued diseases were caused by some invasion engineered by Satan that had to be removed. The most famous case in the years of the Reconquest was Charles II, king of Spain.
As was mentioned in the post of 8 March 2015, his biological condition was beyond the experience of any physician. Even today, medicine could no more than use dialysis when his kidneys began failing. It couldn’t change his genetics, and probably could do nothing to improve his sperm.
By the late 1690s, his failure to produce an heir was an international concern. Madrid was split between those lobbying for collateral branches in France and in Austria. In 1698, a Dominican, Pedro Matilla, seized power from the wife of Charles, Mariana of Neuburg. The archbishop of Toledo supported the French claims, and so maneuvered his replacement with Froilan Díaz, another Dominican.
The production of an heir was placed in his hands. He assumed the king had been possessed, and asked for help from Antonio Álvarez de Argüelles. At the time Argüelles was exorcizing demons from nuns in Oviedo in Asturias. It was hoped they could tell them who had bewitched the king.
The first demon consulted through the nuns said, indeed, the king had been bewitched when he was fourteen, just at he reached the age of legal maturity. It added, the spell was prepared by his mother and given him in a cup of chocolate. The solution was to oil and purge Charles.
Consultations continued in Oviedo, but the demons gave conflicting answers. One had the audacity to blame Mariana. The Austrian emperor, Leopold, sent his own exorcist, Mauro Tenda, who worked over Charles. Mariana was the sister of his third wife, Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg.
The treatments ended when Mariana plotted her return to power by using the Inquisition. Tenda was arrested in January of 1700, and Díaz dismissed. The king died in November.
Notes:
Lea, Henry Charles. A History of The Inquisition of Spain, volume 2, 1922, on the exorcisms of Charles.
McCaa, Robert. "The Peopling of Mexico from Origins to Revolution," in A Population History of North America, edited by Michael R. Haines and Richard H. Steckel, 2000, on status of smallpox in Mexico.
Winslow, Charles-Edward Amory. The Conquest of Epidemic Disease, 1980. Rhazes full name was Muhammad ibn Zakariy R z .
Individuals identified with pockmarked faces in a 7 September 1693 list of colonists prepared by José de Angulo, reprinted in To the Royal Crown Restored, 1995, edited by John L Kessell, Rick Hendricks and Meredith Dodge.
Simón de Molina, age 40
José Velásquez Cortés, age 36
Juan de Gamboa, age 34
Tomás Palomino, age 26
Georgia Ruiz, age 22
Cristóbal de Góngora, age 20
Bartolomé de Luna Bautista, age 18
Gertrudis de la Candelaria y Herrera, age 12
Magdalena de Esquibel, age 12
Juana Cortés, age 11
Josefa Antonia del Aguila, age 10
María de Anzures, age 9
Juan de Sayago, age 4
María de la Encarnación, married, no age given
Total: 14
Females: 7
Under 18: 7, 6 females
Hippocrates and Galen believed the body contained four fluids that must be kept in balance. Each had specific qualities. The humors were considered extensions of the natural world where each plant embodied one of the traits.
Diseases were associated with each humor and treated by stimulating the opposing traits. Phlegm was cold and moist, yellow bile hot and dry. Thus, if one caught a common cold, one kept warm and drank hot liquids to warm the interior. Chicken soup or tea and honey is used today.
Blood was hot and moist, black bile cold and dry. Rhazes associated smallpox with blood. Individuals were most vulnerable at the age when the warm blood of childhood was changing to the cool blood of adults.
Once smallpox became an established disease in Mexico, it recurred about every fifteen to twenty years. At least fourteen colonists from Mexico City had pock marked faces. Most of the seven men were over 20 years old, most of the girls younger than 13.
When medicine failed to cure, the church offered an alternative. It argued diseases were caused by some invasion engineered by Satan that had to be removed. The most famous case in the years of the Reconquest was Charles II, king of Spain.
As was mentioned in the post of 8 March 2015, his biological condition was beyond the experience of any physician. Even today, medicine could no more than use dialysis when his kidneys began failing. It couldn’t change his genetics, and probably could do nothing to improve his sperm.
By the late 1690s, his failure to produce an heir was an international concern. Madrid was split between those lobbying for collateral branches in France and in Austria. In 1698, a Dominican, Pedro Matilla, seized power from the wife of Charles, Mariana of Neuburg. The archbishop of Toledo supported the French claims, and so maneuvered his replacement with Froilan Díaz, another Dominican.
The production of an heir was placed in his hands. He assumed the king had been possessed, and asked for help from Antonio Álvarez de Argüelles. At the time Argüelles was exorcizing demons from nuns in Oviedo in Asturias. It was hoped they could tell them who had bewitched the king.
The first demon consulted through the nuns said, indeed, the king had been bewitched when he was fourteen, just at he reached the age of legal maturity. It added, the spell was prepared by his mother and given him in a cup of chocolate. The solution was to oil and purge Charles.
Consultations continued in Oviedo, but the demons gave conflicting answers. One had the audacity to blame Mariana. The Austrian emperor, Leopold, sent his own exorcist, Mauro Tenda, who worked over Charles. Mariana was the sister of his third wife, Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg.
The treatments ended when Mariana plotted her return to power by using the Inquisition. Tenda was arrested in January of 1700, and Díaz dismissed. The king died in November.
Notes:
Lea, Henry Charles. A History of The Inquisition of Spain, volume 2, 1922, on the exorcisms of Charles.
McCaa, Robert. "The Peopling of Mexico from Origins to Revolution," in A Population History of North America, edited by Michael R. Haines and Richard H. Steckel, 2000, on status of smallpox in Mexico.
Winslow, Charles-Edward Amory. The Conquest of Epidemic Disease, 1980. Rhazes full name was Muhammad ibn Zakariy R z .
Individuals identified with pockmarked faces in a 7 September 1693 list of colonists prepared by José de Angulo, reprinted in To the Royal Crown Restored, 1995, edited by John L Kessell, Rick Hendricks and Meredith Dodge.
Simón de Molina, age 40
José Velásquez Cortés, age 36
Juan de Gamboa, age 34
Tomás Palomino, age 26
Georgia Ruiz, age 22
Cristóbal de Góngora, age 20
Bartolomé de Luna Bautista, age 18
Gertrudis de la Candelaria y Herrera, age 12
Magdalena de Esquibel, age 12
Juana Cortés, age 11
Josefa Antonia del Aguila, age 10
María de Anzures, age 9
Juan de Sayago, age 4
María de la Encarnación, married, no age given
Total: 14
Females: 7
Under 18: 7, 6 females
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Language of Witchcraft
During the Salem witchcraft trials, Betty Parris and the other witnesses used the conventions of witchcraft when called to testify. Mary Warren accused Ann Pudeator of "biting me, pinching me, sticking pins in me and choking me." Mary Walcott said Sarah Wilde "did most grievously torment me by pricking and pinching me and [...] almost choke me to death."
Mary Beth Norton has noted the first confessions by Abigail Hobbs didn’t use such ritualized language. Instead, she used phrases then common to describe attacks by the Abnaki. Abigail accused her mother, Deliverance, who did use the approved language of witchcraft in hopes of leniency.
Carlos Ginsburg has described a similar progression in language in Friuli, a region in northeast Italy. When priests first noted the existence of pagan agricultural rituals in the 1500s, the accused tried to explain what they were doing.
The priests didn’t understand them, because they had been trained to believe in different causes. From their continued questions, the Friulians realized the answers they needed to give. With time, they may even have adopted some of the practices expected by their prosecutors.
The language of witchcraft had been developing for decades. In 1425, Bernardino Albizeschi began preaching in the countryside to revive the Catholic faith. The Franciscan, now Saint Bernardino of Siena, railed against Jews and witches.
In 1487, a Dominican codified beliefs in the Malleus Maleficarum that witches were aided by Satan. Heinrich Kramer described the forms witchcraft could take. The Roman Catholic Church condemned his work because the church claimed there were no such things as witches. Belief in them was the work of the devil.
The Spanish Inquisition was still rooting out vestiges of Judaism and Islam. The Papal Inquisition was concerned with Protestants, pagans, and heresy.
Kramer’s work gained credence through the activities of Charles V, the Hapsburg grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella. He introduced uniform laws into the Holy Roman Empire of Austria in 1531. The Constitutio Criminalis Carolina defined witchcraft as a serious crime to be investigated by secular courts using torture and punished by fire.
The man most active in exorcizing demons within German-speaking lands was Francesco Maria Guazzo. In his Compendium Maleficarum of 1608 the Ambrosian brother wrote, "the attendants go riding flying goats, trample the cross, are made to be re-baptised in the name of the Devil, give their clothes to him, kiss the Devil's behind, and dance back to back forming a round."
Notes:
Essex County, Massachusetts. Records of the Salem trials are available on a University of Virginia website; spelling modernized for readability.
Ginsburg, Carlos. I Bernandanti, 1966; translated as The Night Battles by John and Anne Tedeschi, 1983.
Guazzo, Francesco Maria. Compendium Maleficarum, 1608, quotation from Wikipedia article on "Witches' Sabbath."
Norton, Mary Beth Norton. In the Devil’s Snare, 2002, from review by Jill Lepore, The New York Times Book Review, 3 November 2002.
Mary Beth Norton has noted the first confessions by Abigail Hobbs didn’t use such ritualized language. Instead, she used phrases then common to describe attacks by the Abnaki. Abigail accused her mother, Deliverance, who did use the approved language of witchcraft in hopes of leniency.
Carlos Ginsburg has described a similar progression in language in Friuli, a region in northeast Italy. When priests first noted the existence of pagan agricultural rituals in the 1500s, the accused tried to explain what they were doing.
The priests didn’t understand them, because they had been trained to believe in different causes. From their continued questions, the Friulians realized the answers they needed to give. With time, they may even have adopted some of the practices expected by their prosecutors.
The language of witchcraft had been developing for decades. In 1425, Bernardino Albizeschi began preaching in the countryside to revive the Catholic faith. The Franciscan, now Saint Bernardino of Siena, railed against Jews and witches.
In 1487, a Dominican codified beliefs in the Malleus Maleficarum that witches were aided by Satan. Heinrich Kramer described the forms witchcraft could take. The Roman Catholic Church condemned his work because the church claimed there were no such things as witches. Belief in them was the work of the devil.
The Spanish Inquisition was still rooting out vestiges of Judaism and Islam. The Papal Inquisition was concerned with Protestants, pagans, and heresy.
Kramer’s work gained credence through the activities of Charles V, the Hapsburg grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella. He introduced uniform laws into the Holy Roman Empire of Austria in 1531. The Constitutio Criminalis Carolina defined witchcraft as a serious crime to be investigated by secular courts using torture and punished by fire.
The man most active in exorcizing demons within German-speaking lands was Francesco Maria Guazzo. In his Compendium Maleficarum of 1608 the Ambrosian brother wrote, "the attendants go riding flying goats, trample the cross, are made to be re-baptised in the name of the Devil, give their clothes to him, kiss the Devil's behind, and dance back to back forming a round."
Notes:
Essex County, Massachusetts. Records of the Salem trials are available on a University of Virginia website; spelling modernized for readability.
Ginsburg, Carlos. I Bernandanti, 1966; translated as The Night Battles by John and Anne Tedeschi, 1983.
Guazzo, Francesco Maria. Compendium Maleficarum, 1608, quotation from Wikipedia article on "Witches' Sabbath."
Norton, Mary Beth Norton. In the Devil’s Snare, 2002, from review by Jill Lepore, The New York Times Book Review, 3 November 2002.
Thursday, April 09, 2015
Witchcraft
Reports of witchcraft are difficult to interpret because language obscures the component parts. Take the Salem witch trials that took place in the newly organized crown colony of New England between February of 1692 and May of 1693, just as Diego de Vargas was preparing for the Reconquest at El Paso del Norte.
The daughter of one of my immigrant ancestors, Sarah Wilde, was hung. Testimony of some witnesses included recitals of grievances of the kind that fester in small communities. In her case, two men were angry because she had refused to lend them scythes when they had broken theirs. Members of their family were affronted when one of her stepsons, Ephraim Wilde, began courting a cousin.
Sarah was denounced by Deliverance Hobbs, who had been arrested by Ephraim. He was the constable. Wilde’s first wife’s family resented his remarriage and accused them both of killing their chickens. In the past, others had accused her of adultery and dressing too gaudily
Witchcraft accusations often mask resentments or fears of envy that have no culturally accepted modes of expression. Scapegoats become their public face.
Another thread in the Salem trials was the feeling of impotence directed against a healer when loved one dies. Joseph Neal accused Ann Pudeator of speeding the death of his wife. The woman had smallpox, and Ann used a mortar to compound something. When questioned, Ann said she only used neatsfoot oil.
Then, healing women were targets of abuse. Today, malpractice suits abound.
The Massachusetts trials began when nine-year-old Betty Parris and her eleven-year-old cousin Abigail Williams began experimenting with spells they heard described by Betty’s family slave. When confronted, Tituba said she knew about the occult from Barbados, but that everything she knew was protective, not offensive.
The mother of the men who asked for the scythe reprimanded Sarah Wilde. She reported Sarah did "look back upon me and immediately I did fall into such a trembling condition that I was as if all my joints did knock together so that I could hardly go along."
The next time the mother saw Sarah Wilde she said, "I was immediately taken with such a pain in my back that I was not able to bear it and fell down in the seat and did not know where I was and some people took me up and carried me out of the meeting house."
The use of spells to influence human behavior filtered into the Americas with African slaves. They often were used by a woman who wanted to win the affections of a man, or harm him or a perceived rival. The most important sources for spells and herbal medicines in La Cañada before the Revolt had been two Mexican natives, Beatriz de los Ángeles and Pascuala Bernal. In the early years after the Reconquest, a woman from Mexico City, Ines de Aspeitia, used hidden bones against her husband.
Why the women in New England had the same physical symptoms as Leonor Domínguez is an interesting question. Does anyone have any information on the effects of fear on the body? Leave a comment or send me an email at nasonmcormic@cybermesa.com.
Notes: When I write about witchcraft, I try to distinguish between spells, failures of herbal medicine, communal jealousies, and witchcraft as defined by early modern European writers.
Essex County, Massachusetts. Records of the Salem trials are available on a University of Virginia website; spelling modernized for readability.
The daughter of one of my immigrant ancestors, Sarah Wilde, was hung. Testimony of some witnesses included recitals of grievances of the kind that fester in small communities. In her case, two men were angry because she had refused to lend them scythes when they had broken theirs. Members of their family were affronted when one of her stepsons, Ephraim Wilde, began courting a cousin.
Sarah was denounced by Deliverance Hobbs, who had been arrested by Ephraim. He was the constable. Wilde’s first wife’s family resented his remarriage and accused them both of killing their chickens. In the past, others had accused her of adultery and dressing too gaudily
Witchcraft accusations often mask resentments or fears of envy that have no culturally accepted modes of expression. Scapegoats become their public face.
Another thread in the Salem trials was the feeling of impotence directed against a healer when loved one dies. Joseph Neal accused Ann Pudeator of speeding the death of his wife. The woman had smallpox, and Ann used a mortar to compound something. When questioned, Ann said she only used neatsfoot oil.
Then, healing women were targets of abuse. Today, malpractice suits abound.
The Massachusetts trials began when nine-year-old Betty Parris and her eleven-year-old cousin Abigail Williams began experimenting with spells they heard described by Betty’s family slave. When confronted, Tituba said she knew about the occult from Barbados, but that everything she knew was protective, not offensive.
The mother of the men who asked for the scythe reprimanded Sarah Wilde. She reported Sarah did "look back upon me and immediately I did fall into such a trembling condition that I was as if all my joints did knock together so that I could hardly go along."
The next time the mother saw Sarah Wilde she said, "I was immediately taken with such a pain in my back that I was not able to bear it and fell down in the seat and did not know where I was and some people took me up and carried me out of the meeting house."
The use of spells to influence human behavior filtered into the Americas with African slaves. They often were used by a woman who wanted to win the affections of a man, or harm him or a perceived rival. The most important sources for spells and herbal medicines in La Cañada before the Revolt had been two Mexican natives, Beatriz de los Ángeles and Pascuala Bernal. In the early years after the Reconquest, a woman from Mexico City, Ines de Aspeitia, used hidden bones against her husband.
Why the women in New England had the same physical symptoms as Leonor Domínguez is an interesting question. Does anyone have any information on the effects of fear on the body? Leave a comment or send me an email at nasonmcormic@cybermesa.com.
Notes: When I write about witchcraft, I try to distinguish between spells, failures of herbal medicine, communal jealousies, and witchcraft as defined by early modern European writers.
Essex County, Massachusetts. Records of the Salem trials are available on a University of Virginia website; spelling modernized for readability.
Sunday, April 05, 2015
Chronicles of Leonor: Her Family
Behind the events that drove Leonor Domínguez to seek redress from the governor for the criminal intimacy between her husband, Miguel Martín, and a native woman lay a web of entrapping conditions and beliefs.
At the heart was the experience of the refugee camp at Guadalupe del Paso where they both were born. When other children hear scary tales collected by the brothers Grimm, they probably heard true tales of horror and betrayal from relatives still traumatized by the Revolt.
Even today, Donald Rivara knows the legends of the Domínguez family. He says the "Indians were led by their chief, Alonso Catití (our half-breed uncle, son of our ancestor Diego Márquez and a San Domingo Pueblo woman)."
Three of Leonor’s great-aunts on her father’s side "and their families were slaughtered in the revolt." Her uncle Lázaro on her mother’s side was killed at Galisteo. After the Reconquest, another maternal uncle, "Alonso, was later killed by Apaches in 1696."
Her father, Antonio Domínguez de Mendoza, died in 1689. Her mother, Juana de García y Noriega, refused to return with Diego de Vargas. Leonor must have come back with her sisters and her aunt Josefa de García y Noriega.
After the Entrada, the first generation of children tended to marry people they had learned to trust at Guadalupe. Outside their barricaded world were things they couldn’t control - illnesses, injuries, probably hunger and malnutrition in the early years. The harsh winter of 1706 had been followed by drought in 1707. Most of the crops had been lost. By the time Lent arrived on March 9 of 1708, the food supplies probably were low.
Since the counter Reformation, the church had emphasized fasting for forty days as a way to distinguish the faithful. Individuals were limited to one complete meal a day, with two smaller, meatless meals to maintain strength. Normal eating patterns were allowed on Sundays and for pregnant women. This exemption brought the number of fast days to the forty associated with Christ’s time in the wilderness.
While the deposition provides no dates for the events leading up to her attack on Holy Thursday, one comment by Catarina Rosa hints most things occurred during the Lenten period. When Leonor refused to eat anything provide by Catarina at San Juan, Leonor said it was because she was fasting. Catarina responded "What, today, Sunday you are fasting?"
Fear is a powerful agent. Leonor lived in fear of the dreaded enemy at San Juan, fear the church wouldn’t deem her a good Catholic if she didn’t fast, fear of infidelity when her husband away. Her in-laws didn’t help when they sided with her husband in disputes and spent their time gossiping about spells.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Rivara, Donald. Contributions related to Leonor Domínguez, Genealogy Trails website, 2009.
Scurlock, Dan. "Modern and Historical Climate," in From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998.
At the heart was the experience of the refugee camp at Guadalupe del Paso where they both were born. When other children hear scary tales collected by the brothers Grimm, they probably heard true tales of horror and betrayal from relatives still traumatized by the Revolt.
Even today, Donald Rivara knows the legends of the Domínguez family. He says the "Indians were led by their chief, Alonso Catití (our half-breed uncle, son of our ancestor Diego Márquez and a San Domingo Pueblo woman)."
Three of Leonor’s great-aunts on her father’s side "and their families were slaughtered in the revolt." Her uncle Lázaro on her mother’s side was killed at Galisteo. After the Reconquest, another maternal uncle, "Alonso, was later killed by Apaches in 1696."
Her father, Antonio Domínguez de Mendoza, died in 1689. Her mother, Juana de García y Noriega, refused to return with Diego de Vargas. Leonor must have come back with her sisters and her aunt Josefa de García y Noriega.
After the Entrada, the first generation of children tended to marry people they had learned to trust at Guadalupe. Outside their barricaded world were things they couldn’t control - illnesses, injuries, probably hunger and malnutrition in the early years. The harsh winter of 1706 had been followed by drought in 1707. Most of the crops had been lost. By the time Lent arrived on March 9 of 1708, the food supplies probably were low.
Since the counter Reformation, the church had emphasized fasting for forty days as a way to distinguish the faithful. Individuals were limited to one complete meal a day, with two smaller, meatless meals to maintain strength. Normal eating patterns were allowed on Sundays and for pregnant women. This exemption brought the number of fast days to the forty associated with Christ’s time in the wilderness.
While the deposition provides no dates for the events leading up to her attack on Holy Thursday, one comment by Catarina Rosa hints most things occurred during the Lenten period. When Leonor refused to eat anything provide by Catarina at San Juan, Leonor said it was because she was fasting. Catarina responded "What, today, Sunday you are fasting?"
Fear is a powerful agent. Leonor lived in fear of the dreaded enemy at San Juan, fear the church wouldn’t deem her a good Catholic if she didn’t fast, fear of infidelity when her husband away. Her in-laws didn’t help when they sided with her husband in disputes and spent their time gossiping about spells.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Rivara, Donald. Contributions related to Leonor Domínguez, Genealogy Trails website, 2009.
Scurlock, Dan. "Modern and Historical Climate," in From the Rio to the Sierra: An Environmental History of the Middle Rio Grande Basin, 1998.
Thursday, April 02, 2015
Chronicles of Leonor: The Chronology
Behind the legal progression of the investigation into witchcraft instigated by Leonor Domínguez, there were the events that led to her formal accusation. The chronology is confused because many witnesses denied their roles during the official investigation. As near as I can tell, this is what happened.
She and Miguel Martín were married in October 1707. She was 21, he 20. Nothing in the record indicates where they were living in 1708, but it may have been the rancho north of San Juan that Sebastían Martín had received the year before from the widow of his cousin, Matías Martín.
Leonor’s disquiet began when two members of her family told her Miguel was having intimate relations with native women.
One report came from her cousin, Alonso Rael de Aguilar, the son of her mother’s sister Josefa García de Noriega. He told her Miguel had bragged he had two women in Taos and one in San Juan. He claimed the last was Angelina Pumazjo, daughter of Catarina Rosa.
The other report was less reliable. The Domínguez family, like the Martín Serranos, had two layers, legitimate offspring and the half-recognized. María Domínguez, aged 23, had married Pedro de Ávila. He had come from Zacatecas in 1693, and was commonly referred to as El Piojo, the louse.
María told her about the woman at San Juan when the two were grinding corn. When questioned, she denied the conversion, but agreed they had ground corn together. She added what may have been half-remembered gossip. She said, Miguel Martín had brought her some beans, which she refused to eat because they came from "the house of his mistress."
Leonor then asked Miguel if the reports of adultery were true. He claimed he had said it as a joke.
Later, Leonor asked Miguel to take her to the San Juan home of Catarina Luján to get some lime. Instead, he took her to the home of Catarina Rosa. Leonor believed she was being tricked. He said she had changed her mind in route.
When they got there, Catarina Rosa offered her some meat and bean cakes. She refused because she was fasting. While they were there, Martín Fernández, age 25, entered and told her to eat. He says Leonor nearly fell trying to climb out, but refused to lie down. He made her eat some of the food.
Miguel’s behavior aggravated her fears. Sometime he returned from San Juan with his hands and arms so swollen he couldn’t eat. He told investigators he had fallen while "trying to mount to the house."
When he was asked if it were true his sister-in-law had been bewitched, he answered he’d been away at the time, and hadn’t heard anything after he returned. Nothing was said about his activities. Circumstantial evidence suggest it was more he likely he was working for one of his relatives who had land near Taos than it was he was away on militia duty.
The critical incident occurred on Holy Thursday, April 5. She attended mass with Casilda Contreras, wife of Francisco, another of Miguel’s brothers. She was wearing a mantle owned by Ana María de la Concepción Bernal.
In church, Leonor noticed some native women she thought were talking about her. She moved closer to hear, and said one touched her on the back. At the time, she thought the woman was trying to steal buttons from the mantle. Then she thought the woman was Catarina Rosa.
Catarina claimed she had gone to mass on Resurrection Sunday and seen Leonor then. She said she was home on Holy Thursday, because her grandchild was dying. Miguel’s brother Sebastían was at San Juan at the time.
When Leonor left church she saw her husband and slapped his face, accusing him of adultery. He told her not to be a fool. He later agreed the incident occurred on Holy Thursday.
Leonor turned to Casilda, who told her, "You are foolish to stay where you are; you will see they will do you harm." She later agreed she was there on Thursday, but denied saying anything.
Leonor returned to the church that night when "the agonies seized upon her." She had to be restrained by Juana Martín and Petrona Domínguez. Juana was Miguel’s sister and married to Felipe Arratia. Petrona was a sister of Leonor’s father. She had married Simón Martín, who was a son of Miguel’s uncle Cristóbal Martín.
After that Leonor was confined in the home of her sister, Antonia Domínguez de Mendoza, with the "violent pain of the disease newly acquired" and a "horror" of the church. Her sister had married Tomás Jirón de Tejeda, a painter from Mexico City.
Leonor filed her complaint on May 13. The depositions were taken in the homes of Tomás Jirón and Sebastían Martín. The investigators agreed she was ill, but only specified "in bed, ill and suffering" or "in bed, ill with many ailments."
What happened next is conjecture. Official sentencias were flexible according to Charles Cutter, and sometimes relied of subtle devices like humiliation. Leonor’s goal had been to stop any adultery on her husband’s part. Before she filed her denuncio, the women in the family had tried to dissuade her.
After the juicio plenario process began, and members of Miguel’s families were questioned, one suspects the men began to exert some pressure on him to at least be discrete. The brother and two cousins related to Leonor may have been prodded to act, or one of his many uncles may have talked to him, or some of his many brothers or cousins may have teased him into conformity.
All we know is she and Miguel appeared together in the church record in 1718 as witnesses for a marriage between María Martín and Luis Archuleta. No mention is made of children, but church records don’t exist for Santa Cruz between 1728 and 1751.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Esquibel, José Antonio. "Descendants of Hernán (I) Martín Serrano in New Mexico: An Authoritative Account of the Five Generations," 2013, available on-line.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914.
She and Miguel Martín were married in October 1707. She was 21, he 20. Nothing in the record indicates where they were living in 1708, but it may have been the rancho north of San Juan that Sebastían Martín had received the year before from the widow of his cousin, Matías Martín.
Leonor’s disquiet began when two members of her family told her Miguel was having intimate relations with native women.
One report came from her cousin, Alonso Rael de Aguilar, the son of her mother’s sister Josefa García de Noriega. He told her Miguel had bragged he had two women in Taos and one in San Juan. He claimed the last was Angelina Pumazjo, daughter of Catarina Rosa.
The other report was less reliable. The Domínguez family, like the Martín Serranos, had two layers, legitimate offspring and the half-recognized. María Domínguez, aged 23, had married Pedro de Ávila. He had come from Zacatecas in 1693, and was commonly referred to as El Piojo, the louse.
María told her about the woman at San Juan when the two were grinding corn. When questioned, she denied the conversion, but agreed they had ground corn together. She added what may have been half-remembered gossip. She said, Miguel Martín had brought her some beans, which she refused to eat because they came from "the house of his mistress."
Leonor then asked Miguel if the reports of adultery were true. He claimed he had said it as a joke.
Later, Leonor asked Miguel to take her to the San Juan home of Catarina Luján to get some lime. Instead, he took her to the home of Catarina Rosa. Leonor believed she was being tricked. He said she had changed her mind in route.
When they got there, Catarina Rosa offered her some meat and bean cakes. She refused because she was fasting. While they were there, Martín Fernández, age 25, entered and told her to eat. He says Leonor nearly fell trying to climb out, but refused to lie down. He made her eat some of the food.
Miguel’s behavior aggravated her fears. Sometime he returned from San Juan with his hands and arms so swollen he couldn’t eat. He told investigators he had fallen while "trying to mount to the house."
When he was asked if it were true his sister-in-law had been bewitched, he answered he’d been away at the time, and hadn’t heard anything after he returned. Nothing was said about his activities. Circumstantial evidence suggest it was more he likely he was working for one of his relatives who had land near Taos than it was he was away on militia duty.
The critical incident occurred on Holy Thursday, April 5. She attended mass with Casilda Contreras, wife of Francisco, another of Miguel’s brothers. She was wearing a mantle owned by Ana María de la Concepción Bernal.
In church, Leonor noticed some native women she thought were talking about her. She moved closer to hear, and said one touched her on the back. At the time, she thought the woman was trying to steal buttons from the mantle. Then she thought the woman was Catarina Rosa.
Catarina claimed she had gone to mass on Resurrection Sunday and seen Leonor then. She said she was home on Holy Thursday, because her grandchild was dying. Miguel’s brother Sebastían was at San Juan at the time.
When Leonor left church she saw her husband and slapped his face, accusing him of adultery. He told her not to be a fool. He later agreed the incident occurred on Holy Thursday.
Leonor turned to Casilda, who told her, "You are foolish to stay where you are; you will see they will do you harm." She later agreed she was there on Thursday, but denied saying anything.
Leonor returned to the church that night when "the agonies seized upon her." She had to be restrained by Juana Martín and Petrona Domínguez. Juana was Miguel’s sister and married to Felipe Arratia. Petrona was a sister of Leonor’s father. She had married Simón Martín, who was a son of Miguel’s uncle Cristóbal Martín.
After that Leonor was confined in the home of her sister, Antonia Domínguez de Mendoza, with the "violent pain of the disease newly acquired" and a "horror" of the church. Her sister had married Tomás Jirón de Tejeda, a painter from Mexico City.
Leonor filed her complaint on May 13. The depositions were taken in the homes of Tomás Jirón and Sebastían Martín. The investigators agreed she was ill, but only specified "in bed, ill and suffering" or "in bed, ill with many ailments."
What happened next is conjecture. Official sentencias were flexible according to Charles Cutter, and sometimes relied of subtle devices like humiliation. Leonor’s goal had been to stop any adultery on her husband’s part. Before she filed her denuncio, the women in the family had tried to dissuade her.
After the juicio plenario process began, and members of Miguel’s families were questioned, one suspects the men began to exert some pressure on him to at least be discrete. The brother and two cousins related to Leonor may have been prodded to act, or one of his many uncles may have talked to him, or some of his many brothers or cousins may have teased him into conformity.
All we know is she and Miguel appeared together in the church record in 1718 as witnesses for a marriage between María Martín and Luis Archuleta. No mention is made of children, but church records don’t exist for Santa Cruz between 1728 and 1751.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
_____. New Mexico Roots, Ltd, 1982.
Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.
Esquibel, José Antonio. "Descendants of Hernán (I) Martín Serrano in New Mexico: An Authoritative Account of the Five Generations," 2013, available on-line.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914.
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Chronicles of Leonor: The Investigators
Ralph Twitchell, a lawyer for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, was trained in history and law at the University of Michigan. In the early twentieth century, he indexed the surviving Spanish archives in Santa Fé and in the Library of Congress.
He included the Royal Judiciary investigations of Leonor Domínguez’s witchcraft accusations "in full," because he thought the "record of the this trial, of consuming interest, and showing the manner in which proceedings of this sort were conducted."
They also are the most complete window we have into the social relations in Santa Cruz during the period when Spain was being transferred from the Hapsburgs.
In the years before he died, Charles II had questioned the value of the Inquisition. The man who replaced him in 1700, Philip V, was from the French House of Bourbon. Its progenitor was Henry III of Navarre who became Henry IV of France in 1589. He had been raised a Protestant Huguenot, converted when he was crowned, and assassinated as unreliable in 1610.
The fate of the women in the pueblo lay in the hands of three men who no longer saw prosecuting witchcraft as likely to further their careers. One was an admiral from Spain, the others soldiers from New Spain.
The governor treated it as a routine matter. His procedures were rooted in medieval Castilian law understood in Spain, México, and the colony. In 1550, the methods had been modernized to emphasize investigation over presumption of guilt, and to consider the well-being of the community, the equidad, over individual interests.
The governor, José Chacón de Medina Salazar y Villaseñor, was the first appointed by the new king of Spain, Philip V. He could trace his family back to medieval Navarre. At least one ancestor had died at Acre during the Fourth Crusade.
By the time his grandfather came of age, his branch of the family had moved to Andalusia and were supporters of the Spanish monarchy. Before Charles V ascended the Spanish throne, he had inherited Flanders from his father. When he was elevated to king in 1515, the King of France, who claimed the lowlands, expected him to pay homage. War ensued.
Gonzalo Chacón de Narváez y Alarcón served in Flanders where he fought a duel with his superior. He left for the Indies. Eventually he became capitán alcalde of one of the fortresses protecting Havana harbor, Castillo San Salvador de la Punta, in 1516.
His son, Gonzalo Chacón de Narváez y Treviño Guillamás, was born in Cuba where he became Almirante y General de Galeones, the great sailing ships of trade and war. He retired to Seville and Andalusia in 1655. He was named Marquis of Peñuela in 1692 by Charles II. The title went to his older son, who died in 1705 with no heirs.
José Chacón was also an admiral. He had married Antonia Torres de Navarra and Monsalve in Seville. Since nothing more is heard of him, he must have returned to Spain in 1712 where their son, Luis, eventually succeeded to the title.
At the time he dismissed the case Chacón may have been aware that one, if not both, of the men he had appointed as investigators had developed ties with Domínguez’s family. It certainly is the sort of thing members of her husband’s family, the Martín Serranos would have let be known.
Juan García de la Riva’s wife, Feliciana Rael de Aguilar, was the daughter of Leonor Domínguez’s aunt. Josefa García de Noriega had married Alonso Rael de Aguilar in Guadalupe del Paso. He had come from Lorca in Múrcia, Spain, probably as a solider.
His father, Miguel García de la Riva, had come in 1693 from Mexico City with his family. Juan apparently enlisted as a soldier. The family aligned itself with the governors. One sister, Teodora, married Vargas’s aide. Juan Páez Hurtado rose to governor in 1704. Another sister, María Francisca, entered the household service of the next governor, Francisco Cuervo y Valdés.
Miguel and many other family members returned to New Spain. In 1716 his widow, Micaela Velasco, returned to Santa Fé to collect affidavits to support the paternity claim for María’s children by Cuervo. Juan returned with her and died in México in 1717.
Juan de Ulibarrí’s connections are harder to decipher. He had come from San Luis Potosí as a solider. By 1704, he was second in command of the Santa Fé garrison.
He married Juana Hurtado, who may have been the daughter of Andrés Hurtado and Bernardina de Salas y Orozco. Angélico Chávez says that Juana had been captured by the Indians in 1680 and freed in 1682. However, he gives no more information on her fate. Her brother, Andrés Hurtado, was the first husband of Leonor’s sister Antonia Domínguez de Mendoza.
It’s no wonder Chacón decided to dismiss a case that might have the undesirable consequence of attracting the attention of Franciscans still loyal to his predecessor. Chacón knew from Spain, the necessity of building useful alliances. Although he seemed to side with one side over the other in the matter, both had signaled in their depositions they would prefer to keep the family matter private.
Notes:
Chacón, José Luis Diaz. Geneología del Apellido Chancón, available on-line. The chronology is confusing because there are no death dates, and the first marquis isn’t always listed.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914; names standardized to those used by Chavez.
He included the Royal Judiciary investigations of Leonor Domínguez’s witchcraft accusations "in full," because he thought the "record of the this trial, of consuming interest, and showing the manner in which proceedings of this sort were conducted."
They also are the most complete window we have into the social relations in Santa Cruz during the period when Spain was being transferred from the Hapsburgs.
In the years before he died, Charles II had questioned the value of the Inquisition. The man who replaced him in 1700, Philip V, was from the French House of Bourbon. Its progenitor was Henry III of Navarre who became Henry IV of France in 1589. He had been raised a Protestant Huguenot, converted when he was crowned, and assassinated as unreliable in 1610.
The fate of the women in the pueblo lay in the hands of three men who no longer saw prosecuting witchcraft as likely to further their careers. One was an admiral from Spain, the others soldiers from New Spain.
The governor treated it as a routine matter. His procedures were rooted in medieval Castilian law understood in Spain, México, and the colony. In 1550, the methods had been modernized to emphasize investigation over presumption of guilt, and to consider the well-being of the community, the equidad, over individual interests.
The governor, José Chacón de Medina Salazar y Villaseñor, was the first appointed by the new king of Spain, Philip V. He could trace his family back to medieval Navarre. At least one ancestor had died at Acre during the Fourth Crusade.
By the time his grandfather came of age, his branch of the family had moved to Andalusia and were supporters of the Spanish monarchy. Before Charles V ascended the Spanish throne, he had inherited Flanders from his father. When he was elevated to king in 1515, the King of France, who claimed the lowlands, expected him to pay homage. War ensued.
Gonzalo Chacón de Narváez y Alarcón served in Flanders where he fought a duel with his superior. He left for the Indies. Eventually he became capitán alcalde of one of the fortresses protecting Havana harbor, Castillo San Salvador de la Punta, in 1516.
His son, Gonzalo Chacón de Narváez y Treviño Guillamás, was born in Cuba where he became Almirante y General de Galeones, the great sailing ships of trade and war. He retired to Seville and Andalusia in 1655. He was named Marquis of Peñuela in 1692 by Charles II. The title went to his older son, who died in 1705 with no heirs.
José Chacón was also an admiral. He had married Antonia Torres de Navarra and Monsalve in Seville. Since nothing more is heard of him, he must have returned to Spain in 1712 where their son, Luis, eventually succeeded to the title.
At the time he dismissed the case Chacón may have been aware that one, if not both, of the men he had appointed as investigators had developed ties with Domínguez’s family. It certainly is the sort of thing members of her husband’s family, the Martín Serranos would have let be known.
Juan García de la Riva’s wife, Feliciana Rael de Aguilar, was the daughter of Leonor Domínguez’s aunt. Josefa García de Noriega had married Alonso Rael de Aguilar in Guadalupe del Paso. He had come from Lorca in Múrcia, Spain, probably as a solider.
His father, Miguel García de la Riva, had come in 1693 from Mexico City with his family. Juan apparently enlisted as a soldier. The family aligned itself with the governors. One sister, Teodora, married Vargas’s aide. Juan Páez Hurtado rose to governor in 1704. Another sister, María Francisca, entered the household service of the next governor, Francisco Cuervo y Valdés.
Miguel and many other family members returned to New Spain. In 1716 his widow, Micaela Velasco, returned to Santa Fé to collect affidavits to support the paternity claim for María’s children by Cuervo. Juan returned with her and died in México in 1717.
Juan de Ulibarrí’s connections are harder to decipher. He had come from San Luis Potosí as a solider. By 1704, he was second in command of the Santa Fé garrison.
He married Juana Hurtado, who may have been the daughter of Andrés Hurtado and Bernardina de Salas y Orozco. Angélico Chávez says that Juana had been captured by the Indians in 1680 and freed in 1682. However, he gives no more information on her fate. Her brother, Andrés Hurtado, was the first husband of Leonor’s sister Antonia Domínguez de Mendoza.
It’s no wonder Chacón decided to dismiss a case that might have the undesirable consequence of attracting the attention of Franciscans still loyal to his predecessor. Chacón knew from Spain, the necessity of building useful alliances. Although he seemed to side with one side over the other in the matter, both had signaled in their depositions they would prefer to keep the family matter private.
Notes:
Chacón, José Luis Diaz. Geneología del Apellido Chancón, available on-line. The chronology is confusing because there are no death dates, and the first marquis isn’t always listed.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition.
Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914; names standardized to those used by Chavez.
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