Apache Life

The Apache developed technology that made them mobile enough to follow buffalo herds. They used portable, collapsible housing: teepees made from sewn together hides wrapped around poles. More important, they trained dogs to carry their household goods in packs on their backs.

In 1720, the Faraón were east of Santa Fé. Farther north, Paloma and El Cuartelejo Apache bands lived on both sides of the Platte river. To the west, the Sierra Blanca, La Jicarilla and La Flecha bands exploited the canyons near the headwaters of rivers that flowed from the eastern side of passes through the Sangre de Cristo. On the other side of those passes were pueblos that held trade fairs: Taos, Picurís, and Pecos.

Their living arrangements were dictated by the seasonal nature of their food supply. In 1715 Gerónimo Ye, chief of Taos, told the governor in Santa Fé the Faraón returned to their river bank settlement "at the end of April or the beginning of May" when they planted their crops. They harvested in "the middle of August when the moon is almost full. At this time they are shaking out the grain from the ears of corn. Having finished doing this and having buried it beneath the soil, they all go on a hunt for buffalo where they maintain themselves." They lived there in "thirty houses of wood entirely smeared with clay outside," according to the chief of Picurís, Lorenzo.

When Antonio Valverde was trailing the Ute and Comanche in September of 1719, he passed scattered small farming settlements along the streams flowing from the canyons on the eastern face of the Sangre de Cristo. At La Ciéneguilla, he saw "a small adobe house" where Apache "had sown and reaped their maize fields."

At the next Canadian tributary north, he passed "some fields of maize, frijoles, and squashes" in September. About "an arquebus shot" away he saw an adobe house with a flat roof. "Farther up the river eight other houses were found" of La Flecha.

Valverde was following the same general route used by Juan de Ulibarrí in 1706 when he went to El Cuartelejo. At Sierra Blanca he saw "corn, frijoles, and pumpkins" in July. He was told, when he returned, he "would find them together in the rancherías of the Jicarillas."

The Comanche targeted Carlana’s band. Valverde was told they had "attacked two houses" and "burned the people living in them." Half the people fled east. The others were going to La Jicarilla for protection. They were then living in "twenty-seven tipis" in September.

Comanche had raided another settlement the year before Valverde arrived. They killed 60 and absconded with 64 women and children, burned "a little house in the shape of a tower" and set fire to "heaps of maize."

Valverde went up river about five miles where he "found seven terraced houses" with "many ditches and canals in order to irrigate their fields." It was still September and "they had already gathered their crops of corn." They were "placed it in the shape of a wall about half a yard high." They were still processing it. "There was much corn in heaps not yet husked."

From Jicarilla, Ulibarrí met the Penxayes to the east. He noted in late September, they too had "much land planted to corn, frijoles, and pumpkins" on the banks of the Purgatorie. Representatives came down to where he was standing near a mesa in the canyon, so he didn’t see where they lived.

Ulibarrí’s comments make it sound like the Apache broke into small farming settlements in summer along protected streams when game was scarce. After the harvest, they reassembled into larger communities, presumably in places where there was adequate fuel. Groups of men then left to hunt buffalo, probably during the period the animals also were merging into larger groups headed for winter forage.

At El Cuartelejo, Ulibarrí was told the émigrés from Picurís were living in four satellite rancherías: Tachichichi, Nanaje, Adidasde, and Sanasesli. Before they arrived "at the plaza which the rancherías formed," Ulibarri passed a group of "casitos" near a low cliff, "la bajada de dicho alto." In 1726, Bourgmont’s chronicler described them as "sizeable dwellings."

In 1706, the Spaniard praised the "good climate, for at the end of July they had gathered crops of Indian corn, watermelons, pumpkins, and kidney beans." He noted the men they met were out hunting buffalo. After finding us "they had returned to assure the safety of their ranches and maize fields."

When the French arrived, they were sowing "hardly any maize." However, they did "sow a little and a few pumpkins." The difference was reflected in their food. In August of 1706, they gave Ulibarrí "bison meat, roasting ears of Indian corn, tamales, plums." In October of 1724, they served Bourgmont "bison meat cooked in a pot, and some meat that had been dried in the sun, with dried plums pounded up with their pits and cooked in a pot." Later, Philippe de la Renaudiére recorded, "they brought us two plates of maize they had cooked. It was all they had in the village."

Between the two expeditions, the remote settlement had been absorbing refugees from the Comanche. When they heard Valverde was coming in 1719, they came with the Paloma and other exiles to met him along the Platte. He left for Santa Fé before they all arrived. Even so, "they numbered more than two hundred tents, and more than three hundred Indians under arms. Together with the crowd of woman and children there were probably more than one thousand persons."

When Bourgmont visited the main El Cuartelejo settlement five years later, more bands had moved to them for safety, probably including people from some of their own rancherías. The population probably had doubled to "about 140 dwellings, housing about 800 warriors, more than 1,500 women and about 2,000 children."

Instead of living in small groups that reunited for hunts, they lived in large settlements that divided into smaller groups to forage. Renaudiére said, they left "in bands of 50 to 80, sometimes even 100 households together; when they return to their permanent villages, those who had stayed at home leave at once, while those returning bring with them provisions of dried meat, either bison meat or venison, killed not far from their villages."

The disparity in numbers of men and women may have grown. In 1706, Ulibarrí had met a man traveling with "two women and three little boys." In 1624, Renaudiére said some "have as many as four wives."

El Cuartelejo may have been in a situation like the besieged Arkansas described by Jacques Marquette in the post for 12 May 2015. The need to find camping places for so many probably usurped their farm lands. The dangers of enemy attacks made it impossible to find develop new lands along the river. The men who provided meat were protected by their hunting weapons.

Notes: La Ciéneguilla is the Mora valley.

Gerónimo. Testimony before Council of War, Santa Fé, 20 July 1715, translation in Thomas.

Lorenzo. Testimony before Council of War, Santa Fé, 22 July 1715, translation in Thomas.

Renaudiére, Philippe de la. Journal of the Voyage of Monsieur de Bourgmont, translation in Frank Norall, Bourgmont, 1988.

Thomas, Alfred B. After Coronado, 1935.

Ulibarrí, Juan de. Diary of expedition to El Cuartelejo, 1706, translation in Thomas. Thomas wasn’t sure of the translation of "la ranchería que esta muy cerca a la baxada de dho alto, de cuyos ranchos, o casitos," and so gave the Spanish. We all know bajada from our drives from Albuquerque to Santa Fé. "Dho" was the standard abbreviation of "dicho," in Spanish texts of the 1700s, and seems to have meant small.

Valverde y Cosío, Antonio. Diary of the campaign against the Ute and Comanche Indians, 1719, translation in Thomas.

Apache Geography

The treeless great plains cover some 500,000 square miles. Very little is habitable without artesian wells and imported fuel. The few clear flowing rivers were used by buffalo, and their hunters. The climate is perennially inhospitable, cold in winter, dry in summer.

When Antonio Valverde was pursuing the Utes and Comanche in 1719, his mission was foiled by weather. He began by hugging the foothills going north where they could find water and kill deer. Snow fell for three days in late September north of the Purgatorie river. "The north wind blew with such biting sharpness all had arrived on the spot numb." They faced sleet a few days later in early October above the Arkansas river. They also confronted bears, a mountain lion, and a wildcat.

When they turned to follow the Platte east in mid-October, "such a furious hurricane came up that it obliged them to withdraw to their tents, which it seemed would be uprooted. The hurricane lasted all night."

Soon after, they came upon herds of buffalo. Wood became so scarce, they burned dried droppings. When their adversaries turned north again, the Apache scout, Carlana, warned them they had taken a route with "few springs, and those too scanty to support" the horse herd.

After all this, Valverde was forced to retreat. He already knew "the rigor of the snow and cold weather, which in these lands is so extreme that it benumbs and annihilates."

Bourgmont faced different environmental challenges when he traveled west in 1724. It was so dry when they left in July, the Missouri river dropped four feet. Then, on July 20^th "toward four o’clock in the afternoon, a strong wind came up, with loud thunder and with lightening." They had heavy rain again on July 22, drizzle on the 23^rd, and heavy rain again on the 25^th and 26^th.

After that spate, the weather got "very hot’ on July 28. The next day they stopped midday "to avoid the great heat." The day after was "very hot all day." That night it rained for three hours. The group soon turned back because illnesses fostered by high humidity and mosquitoes had weakened Bourgmont.

They returned in October and faced the same challenges that had confronted Valverde. They had frost on the 10^th and 15^th. When they had finally reached the El Cuartelejo Apache, "at one in the afternoon it began to sleet" on October 21. They terminated their meeting, because both groups wanted to move before conditions deteriorated. On their return trip the French "saw many bands of wolves."

We’re all familiar with the workings on the monsoons, which begin in July and often dump in October. But they usually drop rain in fall, not snow and sleet. As near as climatologists can determine, temperatures in the first third of the eighteenth century were still several degrees lower than they are today.

Ed Cook found, until 1713, about 40% of the plains was experiencing drought in any given year. The number dropped in 1713 to about 20%. After that dry seasons affected about 35% of the area.

If the plains were a little wetter it might explain why the buffalo seemed so attractive to so many bands on its perimeter. Estimating their population size is difficult because it ultimately relies on guesses about forage availability, which in turn depended upon rain. Most observations only indicate where animals were grazing, not how many there were in total.

When Juan de Ulibarrí went to El Cuartelejo in the summer of 1706, he only encountered stormy weather once, on August 14. He did not mention seeing buffalo herds or any other game, perhaps because the animals were in summer pastures. When he got to the Apache settlement, the men had to travel to locate meat.

Seven years after 1713, in the area coveted by the Comanche, Valverde’s men started coming upon numbers of deer after the first snows north of the Purgatorie. They continued to catch them north near the Arkansas where the also found "lot of good fat prairie hens" and "met some herds of buffalo."

On October 4, Valverde noted: "many deer and prairie chickens which moved about in flocks were caught to such an extent that nowhere else were more caught because of the abundance of this region."

North of the Arkansas they no longer saw deer, but continued to meet "some herds of buffalo." The numbers increased when they turned east to follow the South Platte. At one point, he recorded the herds were so great, more than 800 head, "that in the distance they looked like rolling hills."

Coming from the other direction five years later, natives with Bourgmont "killed, yesterday and today, about 20 deer and several turkeys." In late July, after a rain storm, they saw a "herd of deer on rise of ground."

When he returned in October, his men accompanied the Kansa west to their hunting grounds. On October 12, his chronicler reported, "We see quantities of bison bulls and cows, herds of stags and does, more than 200 all together. There are turkeys along the streams and rivers."

The next day, Philippe de la Renaudiére wrote, "we saw on all sides more than 30 herds of bison. They are so numerous it is impossible to count them. There appeared to be four or five hundred at least in each herd. We see herds of deer that are almost as numerous." On the 14^th, there were "herds of bison in great number, as far as we could see."

Given the October dates and stormy weather, both Valverde and Bourgmont probably were seeing what had been small summer herds that had begun congregating into larger ones for the move to winter feeding grounds. They probably were not familiar with the grazing habits of buffalo, and thought what they observed existed year round. They only reported the herds existed, but never mentioned if they were moving north or south.

The Apache, Comanche and Kansa knew better. They didn’t hunt in summer, but in fall. Still they too may have thought the size of the herds were normal. The older men would have remembered drier times, but in ten years the younger generation only would have known the herds that had expanded when forage had improved.

They likely were living in a small time period before population limits were reached, and population sizes stabilized. If Cook is correct, they all - buffalo, natives, Spanish and French - were living in a golden age of abundance on the great plains.

Notes: Animals identifications are from translations of Spanish and French texts; the translators made no attempt to identify species. The year 1713 is not unique to Cook: Lisa Graumlich found evidence the Sierra Nevada to the west were wetter between 1713 and 1732 than they had been earlier.

Cook, Ed, Richard Seager, and Celine Herweijer. "The Characteristics and Likely Causes of the Medieval Megadroughts in North America," Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University website.

Graumlich, Lisa J. "A 1000-year Record of Temperature and Precipitation in the Sierra Nevada. Quaternary Research 39: 249-55:1993, cited by Scott Stine, "Climate, 1650-1850," in University of California, Davis, Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project: Final Report to Congress, Vol. 2, Assessments and Scientific Basis for Management Options, 1996.

Renaudiére, Philippe de la. Journal of the Voyage of Monsieur de Bourgmont, translation in Frank Norall, Bourgmont, 1988.

Thomas, Alfred B. After Coronado, 1935.

Ulibarrí, Juan de. Diary of expedition to El Cuartelejo, 1706, translation in Thomas.

Valverde y Cosío, Antonio. Diary of the campaign against the Ute and Comanche Indians, 1719, translation in Thomas.

Pueblo Life

Little is recorded in this period about daily life in Santa Clara and San Juan pueblos. This was partly because they were able to enforce their accommodation to the Reconquest by having as little contact as necessary with Santa Cruz, and by using the law to punish transgressors like Antonio and Juan Tafoya.

The other reason so little information exists is the priests and alcaldes mayores assigned to supervise the pueblos weren’t interested. In 1730, the bishop of Durango accused the two local Franciscans of negligence. Antonio Valverde had diluted the role of the civilian-military administrators, and Pedro de Rivera Villalón made the posts less lucrative in 1726.

There were two times governors did interfere in local affairs in these years, probably based on reports from other pueblos. In 1710, José Chacón moved to eliminate the surviving scalp dances and kivas. Oakah Jones found evidence the San Juan regretted the loss of both.

Juan Flores Magollón intervened in 1714 when he ordered "all married persons in towns to live together." Frederic Athearn said, he believed the "old way of Indian life, that is, living with one's parents would cause bad marriages and represented reversion to Indian habits that the Spanish were trying to break."

The impact of Flores’ action is harder to evaluate from contemporary evidence. Natives were exempt from pre-martial investigations by the church, according to Angélico Chávez. The only marital records that survived are 14 sacramental records beginning in 1726 at Santa Clara and 15 from San Juan beginning in 1727.

Year	SC-SC	SC-Pueblo	SC-Other	SJ-SJ	SJ-Pueblo	SJ-Other
1726	3
1727						1
1728	2			2
1729			1	2	2	1
1730	2		1	1	2
1731	3		1
1732		1		4
Total	10	1	3	9	4	2

Total Santa Clara (SC): 14
Total San Juan (SJ): 15

Juan Agustín de Morfi found evidence 210 souls lived in San Juan in 1707 and 272 in 1746. Assuming population growth was steady, there may have been 243 people in the pueblo in 1726, with two or three coming of marital age a year. If those numbers are reasonable, most people were married within the church.

At Santa Clara there were 400 people in 1708 and 70 families in 1744. If there were six in a household in the later year, that would have meant 420 people, or 410 in 1726 with ten coming of age a year. Morfi’s numbers may be doubted, since they indicated Santa Clara was twice the size of San Juan in 1708.

If his population statistics are useful, then more couples in the western pueblo avoided religious oversight. San Juan had a resident priest in these years, though he may have been absent in 1731 when no marriages were performed. He also had a fiscal mayor, Bentura, and a sacristan mayor, Diego. Santa Clara was served from San Ildefonso and no local ecclesiastic officials were mentioned in the marriage records.

It’s possible San Juan’s population actually was lower then. There were seven marriages with people outside the pueblo. Four widowers married widows from Pojoaque, Nambé or San Ildefonso, while two women wed Apache men. In addition, one man married a woman from Nambé in 1730, with no note either was previously wed.  One widower married internally.

Perhaps a preference for women moving to the home of the husband may explain why no widows married men from other pueblos. The Apaches who married pueblo women may have been members of bands. Captives were often women used as domestic help.

Santa Clara recorded only one inter-pueblo marriage, one between a local man and a Tigua woman. There was also one union between a pueblo man and an Apache. Two marriages were sponsored by Españoles. One was an Apache ransomed by Cristóbal Tafoya. It’s not clear if either pair moved into the pueblo, or if they simply used the pueblo mission. Their surnames followed the local pattern.

One possible explanation for the differences in church sanctioned marriages between the two pueblos is that San Juan had been able to adapt the ceremony to indigenous traditions. In all but five of the ceremonies, 66%, all the witnesses were male. Two of those with female sponsors were in the early years, one in 1727 and one in 1729. A man and a woman stood with the bride and groom at all Santa Clara weddings.

All the 1730 marriages at San Juan were witnessed by either the governor, Francisco Oyenge, or the cacique, Juanchuelo. In 1732, both the governor, Diego Chinago, and the cacique, Juanchuelo, blessed the marriage of the capitán mayor of war, Antonio Catiz, with Isabel. Only one Santa Clara wedding was sponsored by a governor, that of Antonio Secabi and Ysabel Puechan in 1726. Joseph witnessed the ceremony with María Naranjo.

Naranjo was one of the few in either pueblo to have a Spanish surname. Diego Peña was wed at San Juan in 1732. The last name of Joan Auqebar, who married at Santa Clara in 1726, might have been derived from Aguilar. The rest of the second names may have been individuals’ actual native names. None appear today as last names on the web or in the local telephone book.

Almost everyone had a baptismal name. The only exception was the cacique at San Juan. The most common male name at San Juan was Diego, followed by Bentura/Ventura and Juan/Joan/Juanico. Juan/Joan was the most popular at Santa Clara followed by Antonio.

María was the most common female baptismal name at San Juan and Juana was second. At Santa Clara, the popularity of the two was reversed. Ysabel also was common at Santa Clara.

I don’t know if the cacique Juanchillo was the same man as the herbalist mentioned twenty some years earlier by Leonor Domínguez. The variations on Juan may have referred to Juan de Dios, a saint remembered as a healer.

Notes: The post for 28 June 2015 reported the bishop of Durango criticized Juan de la Cruz of San Juan and Manuel Sopeña of Santa Clara. Post for 24 May 2015 has more on the pueblo rituals. Post for 3 January 2016 has more on the alcaldes mayores. Juanchillo was mentioned in the entry for 19 April 2015.

Athearn, Frederic J. A Forgotten Kingdom, 1978.

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

Flores Magollón, Juan. Interrogatorio de 1711-1712 y respuestas de indios, 1711; cited by Jones.

_____. Bando, ordering all married persons in towns to live together, 30 April 1714; listed in Ralph Emerson Twitchell, Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 1, 1914.

Jones, Oakah L. Pueblo Warriors and Spanish Conquest, 1966.

Morfi, Juan Agustín de. Descriptción Geográfica del Nuevo México, 1782; translation in Alfred Barnaby Thomas, Forgotten Frontiers, 1932.

New Mexico Genealogical Society. New Mexico Marriages Church in Sam Juan Pueblo 1726-1776, 1831-1855 and Church in Santa Clara Pueblo 1726-1832, extracted by M. Eloise Arellanes and compiled by Margaret Leonard Windham and Evelyn Luján Baca, 1998.

Santa Cruz Crime

Families in Santa Cruz were less able to handle problem members through manipulating the external justice system than were those in the more closely-knit Chimayó. Conflicts could simmer then erupt into violence.

In 1714, Diego Martín Moraga was tried for injuring a carreta maker, José Vasques. José de Atenza brought criminal charges against Francisco Afan de Ribera in 1724 for attacking him and his son Gregorio. Ribera was a merchant, and his inventory was seized during proceedings.

José Antonio Naranjo wounded Lorenzo Jaramillo so badly in 1731, the man died. Naranjo fled. The proceedings in the archives are incomplete. Lorenzo was the son of Roque Jaramillo and José Antonio the son of José López Naranjo.

A land dispute between Cristóbal Tafoya and Isabel González lasted for years. Before the Pueblo Revolt, Juan de Herrera and Ana López del Castillo owned land in La Cañada. Their son Miguel married Antonia Archuleta, sister of Isabel’s husband Juan de Archuleta. Their daughter Isabel married Tafoya.

In addition, Ana had another daughter, known as María Herrera or de Tapia. She married Diego de Velasco, a lame carpenter. The two inherited Ana’s property.

In 1712, Miguel Herrera broke into his stepsister’s house and assaulted her husband. Velasco killed him. Apparently Miguel’s wife died before 1715, and her share of Miguel’s land went to Isabel González as the widow of Antonia’s brother Juan.

Cristóbal Tafoya civil filed a suit against González in 1715 over land. It apparently wasn’t resolved, because her son Diego broke into Tafoya’s house in 1719 and beat his wife, Isabel Herrera, and Tafoya’s nephew. He was probably Cristóbal, the son of Antonio Tafoya.

The tangled affairs of Francisco Xavier Romero were simple compared to those of old La Cañada families like the González Bernals and López del Castillos. After he was convicted of killing a steer owned by a member of Santa Clara, he had been exiled to Albuquerque. In 1716, settlers in Santa Cruz asked to have him return. He had become their local barber.

One of his young male patients complained in 1728 that he had made overtures to him. Those who testified in the criminal case indicated it wasn’t an isolated instance. Romero’s daughter Juana María had married Juan Antonio López, who had been accused of breaking into the home of Juan de Dios Romero and "ill-treating" two young men in 1719. Most of the records have disappeared from the archives.

Notes: Barbers were the physicians who bled patients; for more information, see the entry for 16 April 2015.

Athearn, Frederic J. A Forgotten Kingdom, 1978; surveys crimes.

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

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914.

Santa Cruz Daily Life

Jean l’Archevêque’s effects were inventoried in 1721. The list came to 98 pages. Henrietta Martinez Christmas has published a portion on her website, 1598 New Mexico. While he was living among the well-to-do in Santa Fé, some items reveal daily life anywhere in the province within the agricultural economy.

He had three cornfields to support a household of at least six: himself, his wife, his personal servant, his younger illegitimate son and his mother, and the woman who raised his children. There may have been more dependents, but these are all I’ve seen mentioned. Perhaps the mother of his son still did the cooking and cleaning, perhaps there was another woman.

As mentioned in the post for 11 March 2015, if a field was a fanega that barely fed three people, three fields were enough to support his household and leave a reserve for seed and insurance against a bad year.

To raise that corn, he had a ploughshare and three wooden points. Christmas didn’t mentioned livestock, but presumably there were some kind of work animals. The inventory also listed three iron shovels.

Archevêque probably didn’t plant or harvest his own land. The only time he might have had to work in the fields was when he was a captive living with the Hasinai. In jail and as a soldier, he probably bought his meals. He had the income to hire help, and they may have supplied their own draft animals.

His account books indicated he hired Hambrosio de Balbause in July of 1719 for some service. Given how a Frenchman would transcribe Spanish names, this might have been Ambrosio Villapando. His father, Juan de Villa el Pando, had come north as a soldier. He was dead by 1718, when Ambrosio married María Romero. He was probably a soldier, and Archevêque may have hired him over another as a posthumous favor.

Archevêque owned an ax, a necessity when wood needed to be chopped to heat the residential area and cook the meals. Everyone in the household might have used it, but more than likely this was another chore he hired done or delegated to a servant. He probably bought fire wood cut to length.

The kitchen had a copper kettle and an iron griddle. The first would have been used to boil beans or corn, the second to make tortillas. In his record of his campaign to the east, Antonio Valverde mentioned eating boiled mutton and corn gruel. He also mentioned dispensing pinole and tea. All would have required a large, metal pot.

Archevêque would have been able to purchase other foods like wheat and beef, when they were available. Indeed, in the absence of a functioning cabildo, he may have acted as a middle man letting contracts for the city’s food. One account book "listed the major and minor cattle, which Antonio Montoya shall deliver in the year 1720 by halves." Montoya was the son of Diego Montoya and María Josefa de Hinojos, who returned with the Reconquest and settled in Bernalillo.

The primary utensils in Archevêque’s household were six spoons and six forks made from silver, and two lead candlesticks. Kitchen tools included a "chocolate pitcher of copper," a silver salt cellar, "a brass mortar with its pestle," and "a large knife to pound meat."

The inventory was consistent with the trade goods Bourgmont sent to the Apache: a kettle, an axe, some awls, and some knives. It also was similar to the utensils taken by Pedro de Villasur on his military campaign: silver platters, cups, spoons, and a candlestick.

Silver probably was less dear than metals like tin used to produce pewter and military alloys. The modern inexpensive metals - stainless steel and aluminum - didn’t exist. Servants and common folk may have used wooden spoons or eaten foods wrapped in corn husks or tortillas that didn’t require tools to eat. Valverde mentioned his men ate tamales and fruit, while the Apache offered ears of corn.

Martinez didn’t mention crockery or baskets, which may have been obtained from one of the pueblos or at one of the trade fairs. China was being imported through the Philippines at Acapulco, and being manufactured in Pueblo. It may not have survived the trip north, or it may not have been in the reprinted list.

Archevêque was a merchant trader, working with his two older sons. One was in Sonora, probably buying goods, when his father was killed. The men probating the estate inventoried boxes of goods that may just have been received. They suggest some necessities still had to be imported.

These included blankets from Campeche. While some of the early settlers from Mexico City had been weavers, they may not have brought their tools with them. Bourgmont believed red Limbourge blankets were appreciated by natives on the plains.

Archevêque also supplied silk, English linen and silver buttons for clothing, and women’s shoes. Among the gifts Francisco Cuervo gave pueblo representatives were "ribbons, hats, needles, beads." While tailors came north from Mexico City, women, servants or hired help probably did much of the sewing. Archevêque’s account books indicated he’d sold finished socks to Pancho.

Among the luxury goods in the storage boxes were tobacco, two loaves of sugar, and loose chocolate. The executors paid the men opening the boxes with a plug of tobacco. The children’s caretaker, Francisca de Velasco, oversaw their work. She was given six pounds of chocolate "as a gift, with its sugar for her consumption, because she asked for it, she is old and infirm."

The executors found ingots of gold in an elk skin bag in one box. It would have been more useful buying goods in Sonora than in Santa Fé. However, Archevêque or his son, probably also took local goods down to sell, like the inventoried elk skins. I don’t know if the half pack of saddle girths was for the local market, the south, or the journey between.

Notes: Jean l’Archevêque was perhaps the most atypical man living in Nueva España, but he is the one who has been the most researched. By default, he had become the template used to understand the lives of the less conspicuous. His family unit was described in the post for 14 October 2915. Hambrosio de Balbause was hired 9 July 1719; Hambrosio de Palbanoy was hired 18 July 1719. I assume they were the same man.

Salt was collected at the salt lakes near Salinas. Juan Bustamante organized a military escort for collectors that left from Galisteo in June of 1730, and Gervasio Cruzat y Góngora announced one in August of 1732. In earlier years, when the trip was less safe, salt may have been a trade good.

According to Wikipedia, a cost-efficient manufacturing processes for aluminum didn’t exist until 1888; one for stainless steal was introduced in 1915. The diet of Valverde and his men was discussed in the post for 19 August 2015. Bourgmont’s gifts were mentioned on 20 September 2015, Villasur’s on 26 September 2015.

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

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

Christmas, Henrietta Martinez. "Jean L'Archibeque - 1720 Estate," 1598 New Mexico website, 4 April 2013.

Rael de Aguilar, Alonso. Certification, 10 January 1706, collected by Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier and included in Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett; Cuervo’s list.

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914; Twitchell, Archives volume 1 has notice of l’Archevêque estate; volume 2 has the announcements for salt trips.

Economics and Credit

Pedro de Rivera Villalón may have exaggerated the role of governor as the sole source for currency in Nuevo México. As indicated in the last post, other people regularly went to Chihuahua and Parral where they may have traded for cash.

However, his access to the payroll did put him in an ambiguous position. He bought supplies, then sold them to soldiers and deducted the costs from their salaries at prices he controlled.

The men themselves didn’t complain because the governor, Juan de Bustamante, "was able to keep accurate records."

The governors cached money from the payroll by continuing the salaries for unfilled positions. In 1726, Rivera found there were "800 pesos from the position of Don Alonso Rael de Aguilar, which had been vacant for two years; 225 pesos from another vacant post."

In addition, the previous governor, Antonio Valverde "had 2,084 pesos on deposit, which came from Don Félix Martínez’s position." Martínez, who was governor between 1715 and 1716, had left another "2,139 pesos" that passed to Bustamante. Rivera impounded it all.

Very little of the presidio money reached Santa Cruz, except through family transactions. Agricultural societies were notoriously bereft of hard cash. Money lending in anticipation of crops greased trade that otherwise would have stagnated. Barter served as the common exchange medium.

Charles Cutter suggested the use of two currency rates hindered the accumulation of wealth in the colony. Merchants used the peso de plata when they set prices, but used the peso de la tierra when they accepted farm goods in payment. The one was worth about twice the other.

Cristóbal Tafoya Altamirano was probably typical of the middling level in the local economy. He borrowed currency, which he repaid in agricultural goods, and sold livestock where he could.

He left a record of his dealings with one of the governors. He said he had agreed to serve Martínez for 430 pesos a year, and that he had received a 200 advance from him in Mexico City and 160 in Santa Cruz.

Since Martínez’s tenure was cut short, Tafoya was left owing him 200 pesos. As of 1718, he had "paid him twenty fanegas of corn at the price of two pesos each, and three of wheat at two pesos and fifty cents each."

One doesn’t need to calculate the relative values of currencies to know a wide discrepancy existed between the 400 peso salary of an enlisted man and two pesos for a year’s worth of corn for two adults and a child or 7.5 pesos for half a year’s wheat crop.

Tafoya probably sold most of his livestock in Chihuahua where he received currency la plata. However, his balance sheet in 1718 indicated he did make strategic loans of a bull to a priest, Lucas de Arevalo, and an ox to "an Indian of Picuris, by the name of Trujillo." He had lent horses to Francisco, a war captain at Taos, and to "Juan Estevan de Apodaca, a soldier of this garrison."

Apart from work animals critical to people’s survival, Tafoya had more direct dealings with members of his extended family. He paid Tomás García for two cows that then were lent to Bartolomé Sánchez. He lent "another cow" to García. Sánchez was the "retired Ensign of this garrison" who had been caught stealing cattle with him in 1696. The other may have been Tomás García de Noriega, the stepson of his brother Antonio’s wife. The soldier had married the widow of Cristóbal de Cuéllar in 1705.

He left no indication what he expected in return for his loans, only that he expected to have the animals returned.

Notes: The cattle theft was discussed in the post for 2 February 2015. The value of a fanega was mentioned in the post for 11 March 2015.

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

Cutter, Charles R. The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 1995.

Rivera Villalón, Pedro de. Proyecto (inspection report), 1728, in Thomas H. Naylor and Charles W. Polzer, Pedro de Rivera and the Military Regulations for Northern New Spain, 1724-1729, 1988.

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

Economics and Trade

Santa Cruz was a node in the northern frontier economic network. The center was Santa Fé, where Pedro de Rivera Villalón noted in 1726, "all the commerce of New Mexico consists of goods brought in by the governor for his soldiers" and sold at inflated prices.

In 1728, Rivera set prices for military gear sold to soldiers, and was able to reduce their pay to 400 pesos a year. They still got a premium "because of the higher costs in getting what they need, given the distance." Men in presidios around Parral received 365 pesos.

Three officers were given 15 to 30 pesos more. There had many more with titles like "capitán de campaña, ayudante de la capitanía general, alféreces reales, and other titles never before used in that garrison." This particular form of what is now called "fraud, waste and abuse" of government money goes back as far as the term of Juan Flores Mogollón, as indicated by the roster for Juan Páez Hurtado’s expedition published on 16 August 2015.

There were 100 soldiers when he arrived, and 80 when he left. Rivera noted he "dismissed twenty men who, with the title reformados, were a waste of money." The appointment of an individual to two posts had been banned by the military code introduced in Habana in 1719. He believed such men forced the others to do their work, and the functional level at the presidio was 80.

These reformados were "the alcaldes mayores, who had the privilege of retirement and who received a fixed salary from the king." The conversion of these positions into tools of the governor probably occurred during the tenure of Antonio Valverde. That was when, according to the post for 18 June 2015, the identity of the alcaldes became obscure in the record.

The position remained, but it could no longer be filled by a man on active duty in the presidio.

The 100-man garrison served "more than 600 families." If the men were drawn evenly from the population, 15% of the families had some connections to the major employer. As it was, some families had several members in the military. Still, even with the reduced garrison, nearly 10% of the households had some direct income.

In Santa Cruz, Cristóbal Tafoya Altamirano had retired and his youngest brother still served.

Eighty men required at least 30 fanegas of corn a year. They also required meat, wheat, and other foodstuffs. Items like sugar were imported by the governor or merchants like Jean l’Archevêque before he died. The rest had to be purchased locally from farmers who produced more than they ate.

In 1718, Tafoya lived on a ranch with his wife, and two nearly adult men. In addition, he must have had captives to watch his livestock, work his fields, and prepare their food. They all might have required three fanegas of corn. If his married son’s family lived with him, they would have needed a fanega. His younger illegitimate daughter may have lived in the household, may have been part of the servants, or lived elsewhere with her mother. They too may have needed a fanega.

Tafoya didn’t raise corn in 1718, but had five fanegas planted in wheat and surplus livestock.

He apparently was shipping animals to Chihuahua or Parral. He owed a merchant in Chihuahua 25 pesos and was owed 10 pesos by a miner there. He also owed a few pesos to a man in Parral for which he had "agreed to pay with a little Indian girl."

The presidio provided escorts for pack trains to El Paso twice a year. There were yet no presidios between there and Parral. Military installations usually followed successful silver mines, and El Real de Minas de San Francisco de Cuéllar Real had only been founded in 1709 by Blas Cano de los Rios and Antonio Deza y Ulloa. It became the villa of San Felipe el Real de Chihuahua in 1718. It’s probably a coincidence that Tafoya’s mother’s name was Felipa Taguada de Ulloa.

In 1724, an attorney who had had close ties with Archevêque, Francisco de Casados, said "every year they go to the royal stores at Chihuahua to buy what they need in clothing and other things necessary for their maintenance." At the same hearing on trade, Páez said "the inhabitants of this kingdom go to the royal stores of Chihuahua and Parral to get the goods they need for their use."

The viceroy heard rumors that year the "Spaniards of this region have been buying from the French in the colony of Louisiana merchandise to the amount of twelve thousand pesos." The governor, Juan de Bustamante, couldn’t find evidence, but then he only asked men who had gone on expeditions with Antonio Valverde or Pedro Villasur, or who lived in Santa Fé.

He made his inquiry before Bourgmont made contact with the Apache. After that, more routes were open to bypass crown monopolies for nonedible goods like knives and kettles through trade on the frontier with non-pueblo bands.

Notes: The value of a fanega was mentioned in the post for 11 March 2015. Standardized spelling of Chihuahua from Chiguagua.

Casados, Francisco Lorenzo de. Declaration on trade with French, 21 April 1724, in Thomas.

Felipe V. Reglamento de Habana, 1719, in Naylor.

Naylor, Thomas H. and Charles W. Polzer. Pedro de Rivera and the Military Regulations for Northern New Spain, 1724-1729, 1988.

Páez, Juan Páez. Declaration on trade with French, 21 April 1724, in Thomas.

Rivera Villalón, Pedro de. Proyecto (inspection report), 1728, in Naylor.

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

Thomas, Alfred B. After Coronado, 1935.