Santa Cruz Households

When he visited Santa Cruz in 1760, Pedro Tamarón noted "there is no semblance of a town." When Antonia Serna donated the land for the church, she had given "sufficient land in order that in all four directions the citizens might build the houses they liked in the form of streets, with the church in the middle." That hope hadn’t materialized yet.

Instead, people continued to live in what Manuel Trigo had called an "unregulated manner." By 1750, a combination of population increase and drought had sent families up the Chama toward Piedra Lumbre. They also were settling along its tributaries, the Ojo Caliente and Río de Oso. To the east, settlers in Chimayó were moving to rivers at Cundiyo and Truches.

The 1750 census was taken by the friars, with varying information by jurisdiction. At San Ildefonso, Juan Antonio de Ezeiza include wives’ names for Spanish settlers outside the pueblo. Juan Joseph Pérez Mirabel reported similar information for La Soledad near San Juan. Antonio Gabaldón at Santa Cruz and the priest serving Chama, who did not sign his report, only named the heads of households. The two also included some of the same people.

Once the obvious duplicates were removed from the lists, the four reported 265 households with 1,825 people. That made an average size of 7. In fact, households with 8 or fewer individuals listed few or no servants. Those larger all had captive help. At La Soledad, the genízaros were listed separately, and their largest household had 6 individuals.

The chart below shows the very largest. Those with more than 12 individuals, were primarily north of town in La Soledad and Chama. Juan Antonio Luján had 27 people at La Soledad with male servants specified. Sebastían Martín, also at La Soledad, had 25 with male servants. Juan Esteban García Noriega, who had claimed land up the Chama, had 20 including servants.

Gabaldón said Ventura Mestas had 18 with servants; Manuel Sopeña, the priest assigned to Santa Clara, said he had 34. I suspect the difference between the two is the one subsumed everyone living in a homestead into one, while the other identified separate households within a multi-generation compound.

Household Size by Location
Household	La Soledad	Chama	Santa Cruz	San Ildefonso
27	1
25	1
20			1
18	1	4	2
17	1		1
16	1	1
15	1	2		1
14	1	4	1
13	1		2	1
12	1	1	5	1
11	2	2	2
10	4	2	5	1
9	1	2	10
8	1		15	1
7	1	1	20
6	8	6	22	1
5	9	4	28
4	2	4	26
3	8	2	16
2	5		14	1
1		1	2
Total	50	36	172	7

The largest households then probably were ranches with some combination of cattle, horses, sheep and goats. How many were involved in the developing wool trade mentioned in the post for 6 March 2016 is unknown.

Their dependence on the captive trade is obvious in the chart below. Most of the households in San Ildefonso owned captives, nearly half of those in La Soledad, and more than 40% of those in Chama. Only a quarter of the people in Santa Cruz had servants, and none of the 15 genízaro families listed at La Soledad had any reported.

Captives	La Soledad	Chama	Santa Cruz	San Ildefonso
21	1
18	1
14		1
13	1
10			1
9	1
8	1			1
7				1
6			3
5	3		1
4	3		2	2
3	2	2	4
2	4	2	9
1		3	14	2
0	18	11	101	1
Total	35	19	135	7

Notes:New Mexico Genealogical Society. "Spanish Colonial Census of New Mexico, 1750," in Spanish and Mexican Census of New Mexico, 1750 to 1830, prepared by Virginia Langham Olmsted.

Serna, Antonia. Quotation in Francisco Atanasio Domínguez, A Description of New Mexico, 1776, translated by Eleanor B. Adams and Angélico Chávez as The Missions of New Mexico, 1776, 1956; emphasis in original.

Tamarón y Romeral, Pedro. The Kingdom of New Mexico, 1760, translation in Eleanor B. Adams, Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.

Trigo, Miguel de San Juan Nepomuceno y. Letter to procurador general, José Miguel de los Ríos, Istacalco, 23 July 1754; translation in Bandelier, 1937.

Charts: Duplicates had to have the same head of household name. In those cases where the two had different total members, I took the lower number on the assumption the others appeared in the census under another entry.

Friars mentioned the number of children in 196 households and for all 15 genízaro households. The undifferentiated households included 16 in Chama that ranged in size from 3 to 18 members, with 7 having 8 or fewer members. The 38 in Santa Cruz ranged from 18 to 3 with 28 have 8 or fewer residents reported.

Santa Cruz Church Architecture

The Santa Cruz church probably was built in sections, with Juan Esteban García Noriega overseeing the construction of a rectangular building 33 varas long by 9 wide, or about 92.5' by 25'. The walls were a vara thick, or just under 3' and the height was 10 vara, or 28'. It’s not clear if these were internal or external dimensions.

It’s doors were on the eastern end, unlike cathedrals which normally have them at the west. This may have been a matter of practice. Traditionally, the priest faced east when he prayed, with his back to the congregation. In Santa Cruz, he may have faced the congregation.

There was one window over the door, facing east, and two in the gospel or south side. They all were filled with wooden bars. George Kubler suggested the placement of both the windows and door hinted at times of use. That is, eastern light was needed for morning activities and southern light for those later in the day. One on those of the side probably threw light on the altar at the western end.

Kubler noted that most church walls in Nuevo México were thicker and higher on the window side, with the roof tilted toward the other side. Windows were always a potential weakness, and directing water to the far side protected them against erosion.

Construction techniques also may have required the higher wall be thicker. He hypothesized the roof beams were raised by a team standing on top of the wall using ropes. Once a beam rested on the wooden tongues of the corbels, it had to be rotated and guided down to the other side.

Francisco Domínguez noted the roof had an unusual design, no doubt because of the extraordinary size of the building. Finding trees of an appropriate girth for more than 25', if they were external dimensions (or more than 33' in they were internal), and bringing them down from the highlands must have been a considerable undertaking.

García Noriega solved the engineering problem by making five cross beams, each from three trees. Domínguez doesn’t say, but he probably had one pointed in the opposite direction of the other two, to create similar widths that reinforced each other. They were wrought and had multiple corbels supporting them on the walls.

They would have been spaced a little over 8' apart. He then had twelve beams set across those beams, going the length of the church. They would have been less than 2' apart, and also were wrought.

The word the Franciscan Miguel de Menchero used to describe the church in 1744 that was translated as sumptuous probably referred to the massive size. The more disinterested obispbo de Durango described it as "rather large" but with "little adornment" in 1760.

García Noriega probably provided the wood himself from his land north of town. No mention is made of the men who did the actual work making and stacking the adobe bricks, hauling the timbers, or making the beams. He may have used his own captives, paid others for the use of theirs, or paid wages to man from the pueblos or local men who were available. It’s doubtful many contributed their time voluntarily, but as alcalde he may have some powers of persuasion.

José Villaseñor was told the church was being completed in 1748, which means six years after the church acquired rights to the land. The only times García Noriega would have needed large crews were when the roof beams were being set.

The floor most likely was dirt, and may have sloped from the entrance up to the altar end. It probably was used as a burial ground. Miguel Quintana was buried in the church by Antonio Galbadón in 1748. His daughter Lugarda specified in her will that she "be buried in the parish church of the Villa of Santa Cruz" the next year.

More interestingly, Juana García de los Reyes asked in her 1752 will to "be buried in the parish church of the villa in the Chapel of Our Lady of Carmen." That means that also had been built by then, probably by members of the confraternity established by Juan Mínguez.

Domínguez described it as a separate building, "outside the walls of the church" on the epistle or north side. In 1776, it was entered from the church by a "squared door in a strong wooden frame." The nave was 20 varas, or 56' long, and included 6 varas or 16' devoted to the altar. Twenty-six wrought beams supported the ceiling with corbels on the adobe walls. There were two windows on the east side with wood gratings.

She was the daughter of Francisco García and his wife María Montoya. Francisco probably was García Noriega’s brother. Her husband was Luis Martín Serrano II, the grandson of Hernán Martín Serrano.

There also was a convento for the friar, but its location at this time is not clear.

Notes: Vara to feet conversions have been rounded. The chapel and confraternity are for Our Lady of Carmel.

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

Domínguez, Francisco Atanasio. A Description of New Mexico, 1776, translated by Eleanor B. Adams and Angélico Chávez as The Missions of New Mexico, 1776, 1956; has description of church, and quotation about Serna donation.

García de los Reyes, Juana. Will, 1752; published by Henrietta Martinez Christmas, 1598 New Mexico, blog entry for 1 March 2013.

Kubler, George. The Religious Architecture of New Mexico, 1990 edition.

Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006; on Miguel de Quintana’s burial.

Menchero, Miguel de. Declaration, Santa Bárbara, 10 May 1744; translation in Bandelier, 1937.

Quintana, Gertrudis Lugarda de. Will, 12 May 1749; original in Ralph Emerson Twitchell, Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 1, 1914; English and Spanish versions in Lomelí.

Villaseñor y Sánchez, José Antonio. Theatro Americana, part 2, 1748; cited by Kubler.

Gabaldón and García de Noriega

Antonio Gabaldón and Juan Estevan García de Noriega began building the current Santa Cruz church before they formally acquired land. Miguel de Menchero told his Franciscan superiors in 1744, the local friar "is now building a sumptuous church by order of my prelates, without its costing his Majesty half a real for its material or building."

However, the building and the more constant attentions of a friar didn’t alter religious attitudes in the valley. In 1754, Manuel Trigo told his Franciscan superiors that, unlike the pueblos where Natives provided food and labor to the missions, Santa Cruz

"has only a church and a convent, whose minister is obliged to pay wages in order to obtain the necessary servants. The people are all whites, but they live in such an unregulated manner that they do everything possible to avoid paying dues, for everything is dispensed with the book of rates at hand."

The church may have been an exotic flower imported by people who were familiar with the ways of El Paso. The religious Antonio Valverde had headed the presidio there since 1699, and had been made a general in 1710. When he returned from his term as governor in 1721, he expanded his estates. In 1728, he left a ranch near the presidio and a hacienda at San Antonio de Padua near the abandoned pueblo of Senecú devoted to growing wheat. He owned nine African slaves and used more than thirty farm laborers. John Kessell’s team of translators credited these enterprises with making the settlement an economic hub.

The community included people whose parents had refused to return with the Reconquest, and new settlers attracted to the economic opportunities. Francisco Xavier came with the refugees in 1680, with his daughter, Josefa Xavier y Baca. His father was the Francisco who had settled in La Cañada, and later was proscribed by the pueblos. His wife, Juana Francisca Baca, was dead. Angélico Chávez didn’t indicate if she had been killed. He only said the girl was raised by relatives, when her father left the colony.

In 1703, García de Noriega’s first cousin, Luis García de Noriega married Xavier’s daughter. By then, she was living in Valverde’s household and was sometimes called Josefa Valverde. When Juan Estevan married in 1721, Valverde was the sponsor. Since the former governor had migrated from Spain, the connection may have been through his common law wife, María Esparza, or one of the families working for him.

Juan Estevan’s wife was Luisa Gómez del Castillo. Her grandparents were Matías Luján and Francisca Romero who had lived in La Cañada. Her mother, Juana, had children with one of the Gómez Robledos who didn’t return.

His grandfather, Alonso García, had come from Zacatecas and settled south of Santa Fé. Two of his sons, including Luis’s father, returned with the conquest. His own father, Juan García Noriega, remained behind with his wife, Francisca Sánchez de Iñigo. Two of her brothers, Pedro and Jacinto went north.

Juan Estevan’s early influences then included memories of those who didn’t return, reports of successes in Nuevo México by those who stayed in contact with their relatives, and the general prosperity of El Paso. They may have fostered the same views of self-importance that motivated which Cristóbal Tafoya Altamirano to regain his in-laws’ ancestral position.

His name first appeared in the Santa Fé court records in 1731 when he sued his wife’s uncle Juan over land he’d sold to the son-in-law of another brother, Miguel Luján. The parents of Miguel’s wife, Catalina Valdés, had migrated from Oviedo, Spain, and had come north with the settlers of 1693.

He may have been following the example of Valverde, when he came north came as a solider: he was listed as a capitán in 1733. His name appeared on land transfer records in 1736 as the local alcalde.

By then he was trying to create a ranch like Valverde. In 1737, he had two shepherds tending animals on royal lands near those of Antonio Trujillo. The recorded didn’t indicate if the men were hired help or captives.

In 1751, he filed a petition for rancho called Santa Bárbara that had been abandoned by Juan Antonio Luján. His widow was Manuel Rosalía de Beytia. Both her father and brother had been alféreces in the presidio.

Gabaldón’s ties to El Paso were more indirect. He entered the Pueblo Franciscan seminary when he was 16. His father had just died, and left his mother with an infant boy. Jim Norris noted, he came to Nuevo México in 1723 before he was old enough to have been ordained. From 1728 to 1731 he served as secretary to Menchero. Those may have been the three years Norris said he was in El Paso.

His brother Juan arrived in Santa Fé in 1731, and in 1735 married Antonia Juliana l’Archevêque She was Jean’s granddaughter through Miguel and María de Roybal. That made her the niece of Santiago de Roybal, who was the priest serving in El Paso for the Bishop of Durango. That also would have connected him with Luisa Gómez del Castillo, who was probably Santiago’s first cousin.

After that, Norris said, Galbadón’s name didn’t appear in the record until he died in 1759. He wasn’t elected to any office, he wasn’t reprimanded for leaving the mission without permission like so many, and he wasn’t moved around as much between pueblos or settlements.

Notes: For more on people on La Cañada before the revolt, see the entry for 23 March 2014 on Francisco Xavier, for 25 May 2014 on the Lujáns and for 8 June 2014 on the Romeros. María Esparza was mentioned in the post for 13 September 2015. The relationships Roybal and Gómez de Robledo were discussed in the post for 21 March 2016.

Bandelier, Adolph F. A. and Fanny R. Bandelier. Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.

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

Domínguez, Francisco Atanasio. A Description of New Mexico, 1776, translated by Eleanor B. Adams and Angélico Chávez as The Missions of New Mexico, 1776, 1956; on church acquisition of Serna land.

Kessell, John L., Rick Hendricks, Meredith Dodge, and Larry R. Miller. A Settling of Accounts, 2002.

Menchero, Miguel de. Declaration, Santa Bárbara, 10 May 1744; translation in Bandelier, 1937.

Naylor, Thomas H., Diana Hadley, and Mardith K. Schuetz-Miller. The Presidio and Militia on the Northern Frontier of New Spain, volume 2, part 2, 1997.

Norris, Jim. After "The Year Eighty," 2000.

Trigo, Miguel de San Juan Nepomuceno y. Letter to procurador general, José Miguel de los Ríos, Istacalco, 23 July 1754; translation in Bandelier, 1937.

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. . Spanish Archives of New Mexico, volume 1, 1914; details on García de Noriega 1751 land petition.

United States. Court of Private Land Claims. Santa Fe district. "Juan Esteban Garcia de Noriega Grant (N.M.)."

Wikipedia. Entry on "Antonio Valverde y Cosío" described his estate when he died; its source no longer has the information on-line.

Financing the Santa Cruz Church

Santa Cruz’s physical church was not financed by the state. In 1695, Diego de Vargas gave the missionaries possession of a building that had been built by San Lazaro, "until they rebuilt their church." It probably had been pillaged for building materials by the time he returned in 1703.

No doubt under pressure from de Vargas to restore the settlement, a new building was erected. In 1706, Juan Álvarez told the next governor, Francisco Cuervo, "the villa has a small church and a bell." The Franciscan custodio admitted the order had not assigned a friar to the site, but that Pedro Mata "carries all the ornaments and the altar from San Juan."

The order didn’t give the settlement the same status as that given to Natives, who were their especial charge. As can be seen in the table below, services and rites were conducted by whoever was available, except for the tenures of Juan Mingues from 1710 to 1715 and of Manuel de Sopeña from 1726 to 1732, Both those men were assigned to Santa Clara, and Sopeña may have been at San Ildefonso part of the time.

In 1730, Benito Crespo noted the friar for Santa Cruz was "endowed for the pueblo of Santa Clara, where he has never resided." He added the local church had been "built at the expense of its Spanish citizens."

Some see those words and think they’re testimony to the devoutness of the local settlers. Instead, they were a legal statement of responsibility. The obispo de Durango meant the building had not been funded by "the royal exchequer" that underwrote the activities of the Franciscans.

As noted in earlier posts, the visit by Crespo provoked the local friars into, at least, providing a semblance of service to the missions like Santa Clara the bishop thought could be decommissioned. When José Irigoyen was sent to Santa Cruz in 1732 from San Ildefonso, he found the building the Franciscans had rarely used to be in poor condition. He sent a proposal to the governor to restore it with Native labor. Gervasio Cruzat y Góngora refused because the friar didn’t have the proper authorization from Mexico City and hadn’t mentioned how he would pay for materials.

Cruzat did visit Santa Cruz and agreed the church was "beyond repair and in danger of collapsing." A petition was forwarded to the viceroy asking for permission to rebuild "at their own cost." Permission was granted in 1733, but by then Irigoyen had other interests, including the heresies of Miguel de Quintana.

The alcalde, Juan Estevan García de Noriega, may have been the one who handled the actual construction financing. In 1740, he signed a petition to establish a Sacrament Confraternity. Irigoygen by then had returned to the community.

Confraternities were one tool used by Franciscans to raise money to support themselves after they lost control of the tithes. David Brading noted, in 1775, Native villages in México were contributing so much of their "lands, capital and cattle" to the societies that supported church ceremonies, they were too poor to pay government taxes. The next year, officials in Madrid recognized the groups were secular in nature, not spiritual, and ruled their property was under the jurisdiction of the crown, not the church.

In 1740, the abuses weren’t yet obvious, and the bishop of Durango approved the one in Santa Cruz in January of 1741.

The next year Fray Antonio Galbadón acquired land for the proposed church from Antonia Serna. She was a cousin of García de Noriega’s wife through the Canary Island Lujáns who had settled in La Cañada before the Revolt.

When Serna died in 1776, the administer of her estate, Juan Pablo Martín Serrano, testified the land donation had been made "verbally" to him, so he sent the necessary legal papers.

One reason Martín Serrano had to recertify her gift was Franciscans and members of other orders had been using their abilities to write or witness wills to influence their contents. In 1754, Ferdinand VI forbid them from so interfering.

Santa Cruz had had its own problem in 1752 when José de Atienza’s heirs claimed the "disposal of his goods contrary to the statements of his widow." The ensuing testimony revealed the "counterfeited testimony of the Fray Manual de Sopeña," according to Ralph Twitchell.

Atienza was the notary who replaced Quintana in 1722. Atienza’s widow, Estafánia Trujillo, was the sister of Quintana’s widow, Gertrudis Trujillo. One suspects that if either Quintana or Atienza were still alive and still allowed to witness wills this particular case wouldn’t have arisen.

				Santa Cruz Friars
Begin Yr	End Yr	Friar			Primary Assignment
1710	1715	Juan		Mingues	Santa Clara
1712		Antonio		Aparico
1719		José Antonio	de	Torres
1721		Carlos		Delgado
1721		Miguel	de	Sopeña
1721	1721	José Antonio		Guerra
1726	1732	Miguel	de	Sopeña	Santa Clara
1727	1727	Francisco		Irazabal
1732		Juan José		Pérez Mirabal
1732	1732	Juan Antonio		Sánchez
1732		José	de	Bustamante
1732	1732	José		Irigoyen	San Ildefonso
1732	1733	José	de	Eguia
1733	1734	Juan José		Pérez Mirabal
1733	1733	Miguel	de	Sopeña
1734		Juan José	de	Oronzoro
1734		José		Irigoyen
1734		José Antonio		Guerra
1734	1734	Juan Antonio	de	Ezeiza
1734		Juan		Sánchez de la Cruz
1734		Juan José	de	Oronzoro
1734	1735	Juan Antonio		Sánchez	Santa Clara
1735	1735	Juan José		Pérez Mirabal
1735		Antonio		Gabaldón	Santa Clara
1735		José		Irigoyen
1735		José Antonio		Guerra
1735	1735	Juan George	del	Pino
1736	1736	Juan José		Pérez Mirabal
1736	1736	Antonio		Gabaldón
1736	1736	Juan George	del	Pino
1737	1737	José		Irigoyen
1737	1738	Miguel	de	Sopeña	Santa Clara
1737	1737	Juan José		Pérez Mirabal
1738	1741	José		Irigoyen
1741	1741	Juan Antonio		Sánchez
1741	1743	Antonio		Gabaldón
1741		Antonio		Zamora
1743	1743	Juan George	del	Pino
1743	1743	Juan José		Hernández
1744		Juan George	del	Pino
1744	1760	Antonio		Gabaldón
1745		Juan José		Hernández
1747		Juan José	de	Oronzoro
1747	1748	Juan José		Hernández
1747	1748	Miguel	de	Sopeña
1756		José		García de Noriega
1758		Miguel		Gómez Cayuela
1759		Francisco		Guzman
1760	1765	Francisco		Campo Redondo
1760		Mariano		Rodríguez de la Torre
1760	1760	Juan José		Pérez Mirabal

Notes: Antonia Serna was the daughter of Felipe de la Serna and Isabel Luján. She married Matías Madrid, who had died in 1727. They had two daughters, who would each have received a quarter of his estate then. He was the son of Roque de Madrid. The land Antonia ceded may have come from her half, or may have come from her inheritance from her parents. García de Noriega married the daughter of her second cousin, Juana Luján.

Martín de Elizacoechea was bishop of Durango in 1741. Transfer of notarization responsibilities was discussed in the post for 17 July 2016.

Álvarez, Juan. Declaration, Nambé, 12 January 1706; translation in Adolph F. A. Bandelier and Fanny R. Bandelier, Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya, and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, volume 3, 1937, translated and edited by Charles Wilson Hackett.

Bancroft, Hubert. History of Mexico, Volume III, 1600-1803, 1883; on wills.

Brading, D. A. Church and State in Bourbon Mexico, 1994.

Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957; on confraternity and source for table of priests.

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

Crespo y Monroy, Benito. Letter to the viceroy, Juan Vásquez de Acuña, 8 September 1730; translation in Eleanor B. Adams, Bishop Tamarón’s Visitation of New Mexico, 1760, 1954.

Cruzat y Góngora, Gervasio. Quoted by John L. Kessell, The Missions of New Mexico since 1776, 1980.

Domínguez, Francisco Atanasio. A Description of New Mexico, 1776, translated by Eleanor B. Adams and Angélico Chávez as The Missions of New Mexico, 1776, 1956; on church acquisition of Serna land.

Kessell, John L., Rick Hendricks, and Meredith Dodge. To the Royal Crown Restored, 1995.

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico, two volumes, 1914; José de Atienza case is in volume 2.

Vargas, Diego de. Possession given, Santa Cruz, 22 April 1695, translation in Twitchell, volume 1.

Miguel de Quintana’s Religion

Miguel de Quintana’s religious views evolved during his conflicts with local friars. In the beginning he utilized the metaphors then being propagated by the Franciscans to formulate his thoughts. His first poetic colloquia were addressed to Mary. In the second he said, she "frees you from the arrogant lion" and will intercede for him. In the third she said, "I am the refuge where the afflicted find solace."

When his problems with the friars persisted, Quintana turned directly to Jesus as represented in the Gospel of John. In that book, Jesus said "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Earlier he had said, "he that doth truth, cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, because they are done in God."

In the fourth coloquio, the one in which he was transferring his allegiance from Mary to her son, Quintana referred to his writing as "the supreme and divine light granted to you by the immense power of God." In the next poem set he wrote, "God is who grants you that light" and added "Trust in Jesus, Miguel, for that light you carry is bright."

When that rendering of his relationship with Christ failed to persuade the Franciscans, Quintana appealed to the love Jesus had promised when he said, "as the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you." In the same fourth coloquio quoted above, Quintana added "your poems and canticles raise you to Jesus, your God and sweet husband" and told the character Miguel "expect to be rewarded through His love."

When his problems with the friars continued, he turned to things he probably as taught was a student in Mexico City. At that time, Francisco Lomelí and Clark Colahan wrote the meditations of Miguel de Molinos were popular. They said the Spanish mystic had said "God is who He is." In the fifth coloquio, Quintana referred to "God is God," and repeated that phrase in his subsequent poems.

Finally, when he has been accused of listening to the devil, Quintana went beyond what he had been taught to describe a God very much like that of the Enlightenment, a God who "is very wise," is "Greek in His judgement," and "does not ask the impossible." He ultimately appealed to the implied reciprocity of John "I am come a light into the world; that whomsoever believeth in me, may not remain in darkness."

His trajectory from received to independent thought was the one thing most feared by the Church. Molinos’ Spiritual Guide had been accepted by the Church when it was published in 1675, but when it stimulated others to seek mystical communions with God that bypassed the clergy, he was condemned by the Inquisition.

Quintana was never willing to make the confession of error that Molinos did in 1687 before he was sentenced to life in prison, while Quintana was still a youth. In his last coloquio, the God of John told the character Miguel, "do not fear those varied and different thoughts, for all are rightly guided by My love," and reminded him again, "the inner light that you enjoy is Miguel, from Jesus Christ and not an illusion of the devil."

Notes: Quotations in order are from Gospel of John 8:12, 3:21, 15:9, and 12:46. English translations from Douay version as the closest Roman Catholic one in time to Quintana.

Douay College. The Holy Bible, New Testament,1582 at Rheims.

Lomelí, Francisco A. and Clark A. Colahan. Defying the Inquisition in Colonial New Mexico, 2006.

Quintana, Miguel de. Coloquios, 1732 and 1737; originals and translations in Lomelí.

Wikipedia. Entry on "Miguel de Molinas."