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Chapter Thirteen Spanish Resettlement of Nuevo Méjico 1692 C.E.-1800 C.E.
When most Anglo-American, Northern European, and
non-Spanish historians and commentators write about Nueva España, España, and Españoles
or Spaniards they offer only the most obvious of circumstances. The
commentaries and conclusions drawn are normally offered without the
reasons for governmental actions in the Nuevo
Mundo. The undercurrent
that they inevitably stress for actions taken by the Españoles
is almost always the Black Legend and its relentless attack upon the
Noble Savage. These
represent their superimposed world view of España’s
conduct in her dominions. This
underpinning is served up in concert with the inevitable
characterization of the Españoles
as Conquistadores or conquerors first, followed by their being greedy,
cruel, and bloodthirsty. However, I must say that there are several
non-Spanish writers, commentators, and historians that I can think of as
fair minded and accurate. I
should say at the outset that both the Daughters of the American
Revolution and the Sons of the American Revolution have taken a highly
ethical and honorable position on España
and its subjects during the American Revolution, citing the many
kindnesses and assistance given by España
to the American Revolution. Another
is Judge Edward Butler who wrote the book “Gálvez.”
A second and third are Granville W. Hough a retired Lieutenant
Colonel, amateur genealogist, and
historian for forty-five years and his daughter, N. C. Hough.
These in particular are to be commended for their honesty and
love of the truth as it relates to España
and Españoles. Let me clarify, I’m not a historian.
My interest is the legacy of my progenitors, the Españoles
and my family, the de Ribera. They
have been misrepresented by those parties which choose to continue in
the mischaracterization of the Españoles and España.
Thus, undertaken in this family history is an effort to clarify
the state of affairs of Nueva España
and Nuevo Méjico during the period covered in this chapter in which my
family lines were participants. Also, a need exists to once again clarify the
complexity of España’s
governance of the Nuevo Mundo, Nueva España, and Nuevo
Méjico. That is to say,
at any given point in time during the Nuevo
Méjico Spanish Period (1598 C.E.-1821 C.E.) governance was
dependent upon political, religious, military, and economic
circumstances in the Viejo Mundo
or Old World and on the ground in the Nuevo Mundo. In
addition, conditions in Nueva España
and Nuevo Méjico were in a constant state of flux and transition due
many times to circumstances beyond the control of those Españoles in the Nuevo Mundo. One important aspect of this includes the fact
that España continually
underwent political and economic changes which impacted its Nuevo Mundo adversely.
Her initial Iberian Peninsula monarchy, that of Fernando II de Aragón
of the House of Trastámara the Kingdom of Aragón and Ysabel I,
the daughter of John II of Castilla
and Isabella of Portugal the
Queen of Castilla, was short-lived. An Austrian
monarchy, the House of Hapsburg, replaced it in the very
early-1500s C.E. And
finally, a French monarchy, the Borbóns,
of the early-1700s C.E. replaced it. The second and third monarchies were decidedly
expansionist and meddlesome as it relates to Europe.
This led to constant wars and the misuse of treasure which
further undermined her ability to govern the Nuevo
Mundo efficiently and effectively.
However, these factors do not make España
a totally corrupt entity bent only upon conquest and destruction of
Native peoples as anti-Spanish writers and commentators would have us
believe. Propaganda isn’t
always correct. The information provided by these
anti-Spanish sources especially that which is obviously of a biased or
misleading nature, has been used to promote Britain and the United
States over España. The
best offense is a great defense and all of that.
To benefit themselves, they publicized their particular political
causes and/or points of view. Therefore
these must be challenged intellectually. Additionally, as I’ve stated before, leading
Spanish historical figures were and are almost always served up by
anti-Spanish historians and commentators as cardboard figures. These
are presented as caricatures devoid of personal background and humanity
and given the label “Conquistador” or conqueror. What
this approach suggests is an ongoing ignorance of the facts and
conditions. It also does a
disservice to the many Spanish historical figures that played an
important part in Nueva España. The resulting logic tree is that these Conquistadores
after imposing their will upon the conquered only took what they wanted,
offering nothing of value to the region.
This is followed inevitably by the idea of unwanted colonization,
that position taken by one of the warring parties, the Natives.
According to the anti-Spanish historians and commentators, the Españoles never settled, but always colonized.
Therefore, they cannot be pobladores,
or settlers or Ciudádanos, or
citizens. The inevitable
result is that the Españoles
can only be seen as colonists. This
leads the reader to only one conclusion; the Españoles
were somehow illegitimate squatters.
If they were only squatters, whatever they did was of no
consequence. It would then
follow that because of the resulting illegitimacy of their colonial
presence in the Nuevo Mundo they had no
legal standing. Therefore,
before we can proceed with the story of my family, we must begin at the
beginning in order to clarify the reality of Spanish settlement. Let us begin with an important premise. The
España that these
anti-Spanish historians and commentators described did not exist.
They were not simply one people whose psyche was formed by the
almost 800 year Spanish “Reconquista” or Reconquest of Iberia and the removal of the Moros
or Moors. My statement is
based upon the proposition that España
was a place and people that continued to transition from its Iberian
inception in 1492 C.E. through its fall as a world empire after 1899
C.E., when it sold its last Pacific Islands.
España was not an Iberian monarchy for long, only 14 years.
In fact, she became an Austrian oriented empire in 1506
C.E. which lasted until 1700 C.E., a period of almost 200 years.
Later, España became a
French oriented monarchy from 1700 C.E. through her fall from
power in 1899 C.E., or another 200 years. Firstly, prior to España’s beginning (1492 C.E.), the lands of the Iberian
Peninsula on which it is situated were inhabited by many peoples who had
arrived there and settled [Libyans, Celts, Israelites, Carthaginians,
Greeks, Romans, Germanic Tribes, Moros
(Moors), etc.] over thousands of years.
Therefore, these were not Españoles,
but tribes with their own world views, religions, cultures, and
governance. It should be
obvious that over the course of time and history these tribes remained
by and large separate groups. Few
if any traveled beyond their farm or village.
Therefore, not all led the Reconquista,
that tribe was the Germanic Visigoths who later would be called the
Kingdom of Castilla. The others
followed into battle when necessary. The Iberian tribes did not suddenly coalesce into Españoles
upon the defeat of the Moros
by the original Germanic Iberian (Spanish) kings of Aragón
and Castilla in 1492 C.E.
Instead, all parties went through a gradual evolution until
arriving at an accommodation vis-à-vis
being Españoles.
As a result, España was based upon the beliefs of many Iberian tribes who came
together as a loose group of tribes in the state of becoming Españoles. The guiding light of the newly minted España
was Ysabel I’s continental state of Castilla.
It was steeped in many centuries of Visigoth culture and history and dedicated
to the Reconquista and the
defeat of the Islamic Moros.
Aragón’s
contribution to the new España
was that of a kingdom which was a maritime power and had a close
association with France. The
transition of these Iberians to Españoles
only became a reality after España’s
headlong plunge into exploration and settlement of the Nuevo
Mundo. It was at that
point that the men from all of the Iberia tribes partook in the quest
and began melding into subjects of el
Imperio Español. Additionally, one must remember that the expanded
exploration and settlement of the Nuevo
Mundo began and ended with foreign monarchs (Austrian and French),
not the Iberians. What the
Anti-Spanish writers fail to understand is that in 1492 C.E. after the
defeat of the Moros and the fall of Granada,
there was no “one” España. Instead,
Iberia consisted of many Españas
governed by one Iberian monarchy. Therefore,
there could have been no unifying Spanish belief other than the religion
of Catholicism. To clarify, the United States of America of 1776
C.E. was a largely European (British) affair.
Its people, culture, religion, and history were driven by
European men. Today’s
America has a large percentage of minority (Non-European) citizens, its
half female, and is a melding of cultures and religious views.
Can America of the 18th-Century C.E. be seen as the America of
today? Are the people,
language, culture, religion, etc. the same?
The answer is simple. No!
How then could España
remain the same at any given point in time?
The answer, it couldn’t. To further compound this problem of Iberian
unification, the original Iberian, proto-Spanish kings of Aragón and Castilla only
began their control of the majority of the Peninsula in 1492 C.E, the
same year that Cristóbal
Colón or Columbus sailed to the Nuevo
Mundo. Additionally,
control of the newly minted España
would only last a short 14 years, until 1506 C.E.
This is a very limited time for creation and consolidation of a
new nation. These
transitioning Iberians on the verge of becoming Españoles
had fought a long, hard, and bitter struggle of 781 years against the
entrenched, obstinate, religiously fanatical Islamic
Moros for their freedom. They
had battled, bled, died, and finally beaten a powerful and implacable
enemy. However, they were
still separate tribes and not one large consolidated, coalesced Spanish
nation. By 1504 C.E., Queen Ysabel I of Castilla was
dead. After his wife’s
death, Fernando II of Aragón would try to maintain his position over Castilla, but the Castilian Cortés
Generales or the royal court of España
chose to crown Ysabel's
daughter, Joanna, as queen. Her
husband was Felipe I, a
Habsburg. He was the son of
the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy.
Felipe I was declared
king of España jure uxoris, serving "by right of (his) wife."
His title of nobility was held by him because his wife held it suo
jure, "in her own right."
Soon, Joanna began her journey into insanity.
Those of the old Germanic order of Castilla
being Iberians (Españoles)
understood the meaning of Iberia (España)
as she did. This was quite a
different meaning from those held by the House of Habsburg or House
of Austria. This Iberian
Raison d'être was to all be erased with the imposition of sovereign
of foreign extraction in 1506 C.E. who knew nothing of that reality.
After all, Austrians were not Iberians. Felipe I was eventually declared king, but died later under mysterious
circumstances. At the time, Felipe
and Joanna’s oldest son Carlos
(Charles Quint) was only six.
It has been suggested that Felipe
was possibly poisoned by his Iberian father-in-law, Fernando
II. The Cortés then reluctantly allowed Joanna's father, Fernando
II, to rule España as regent
of Joanna and young Carlos.
Here it must be remembered that this body had considerable power.
The Cortés Generales
or General Courts had already come about when a new social class started
to grow. People living in
the cities were neither vassals nor nobles.
The King began admitting representatives from the cities to the Cortés.
By the time of young Carlos,
the Cortés already had the
power to oppose the King's decisions, thus effectively vetoing them.
In addition, some representatives were permanent advisors to the
King, even when the Cortés was not. As happens, life sorts itself out and the
Habsburgs remained. While España’s
Habsburgs’ were only a part of that major branch of the Habsburg
Dynasty, they would be associated with the future history of greater
Europe and its issues of succession and power via what they saw as the
possibility of a new Roman Empire spanning Europe under the Habsburgs.
España which had begun under the Iberian kings was barely 14 years
old and still in its political and cultural infancy when she gradually
began her transition from a monarchy with power over Iberia to an
Imperial worldwide power. The
Habsburgs would rule España,
when Carlos reached majority from 1516 C.E. through 1700 C.E.
This period of España’s
history would last 184 years during the 16th-and 17th-centuries C.E.
The great Habsburg rulers would be chiefly Carlos
I and Felipe II. This period
of Spanish history would be referred to as the "Age of
Expansion." Forty-four years later, in 1560 C.E., there were
barely 20,000 Españoles in
that area of España’s
Nuevo Mundo called Nueva España.
The Native population was devastated in the early Spanish Period,
with an estimated 70 to 90 percent dying due to disease, famine, and
other factors. There were an
estimated 25 million before the conquest and a little over a million by
1605 C.E. Here, I must explain to those that seem bent upon
presenting España and her
people as willingly participants in a planned genocide, it is not so.
This was not a Spanish government sanctioned “Intelligence
Operation” housed at Madrid,
España.
They did not purposely plan, develop, and execute such actions as
disease pandemics in government laboratories, create vaccinations to
purposely infect the population with deadly diseases, use drug
medications, deadly chemotherapy and radiation prescribed by doctors, or
escalate routine diseases such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, and
Parkinson’s to kill. Nor
did they deliberately design famines, implement weather
modification/control to deliberately produce droughts and floods in
food-growing areas to destroy the Native populations.
Rather, the devastation came about in the main by human contact
and diseases. These found
undefended human populations in which to grow, make ill, and eventually
kill. Now that I’ve
belabored the issue, let’s move on. During this period, Spanish imperial expansion
reached its zenith of influence, power, and control of territory
including the Américas, the
East Indies, the Low Countries and territories (now in France and
Germany in Europe), the Portuguese Empire (1580 C.E.-1640 C.E.), and
other territories such as Ceuta
and Oran in North Africa. Under the Habsburgs, España dominated Europe politically and militarily through much of
the Age of Expansion. It
achieved this by spending much of the Empire’s wealth in Europe and
neglecting its Spanish Nuevo Mundo.
However, it would experience a gradual decline of influence under
the later Habsburg kings in the second half of the 17-Century C.E.
After these any, many years, in 1700 C.E. the Austrian Habsburg
kings would be followed by a new foreign monarchy, the French Borbón
kings. During the early-18th-Century C.E., the Spanish Borbón
kings (Cousins of the French Bourbons) arrived on the Spanish throne. Immediately
upon assuming the throne the Borbón
Monarchy wanted complete control over the governance of their worldwide
empire. They arrived only to
find the governing machinery of España
cumbersome and ill suited for the new century.
It was clear to all that the policies of the last Austrian
Hapsburg kings had failed. Here, we must make clear that the first Borbón
monarch, Felipe V (1700 C.E.-1746 C.E.) and his son Carlos III (1759 C.E.-1788 C.E.) were dedicated to implementing new
methods of governing. These
were based upon the French model of governance inspired by the ideals of
Enlightenment. However, this
was not the only need of the French.
The Austrian Hapsburgs via España
and her wealth had been in an ongoing feud with France over control of
Europe. The Austrians had
used the wealth of España to
blunt France’s aspirations at every turn.
Now the shoe was on the other foot, as it were. What the
Borbón monarch faced was entrenched traditionalism.
The new Corona Española's
insistence would overcome these impediments and bring España
again to a status of world power of the first order.
But she would be opposed. That
opposition would come from France and Britain.
By the 18th and 19th centuries
C.E., the Spanish government would become concerned with the fact that
the northern frontier provinces of Nueva
España were under populated and thus vulnerable to foreign invasion
and occupation. This concern
was particularly important in its impact on the settlement of Tejas, Arizona, and Alta
California thought to be most vulnerable to foreign invasion.
As a result, the Corona Española would find it necessary, if not essential, to
marshal its secular and religious resources to settle these areas
quickly and prepare to protect them.
The Españoles had
already blazed a trail from Méjico
City northward to Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico via its Camino
Real. The trail would be
extended from the most northern point of the Camino
outward as España expanded
her holdings. Here, let me add another major
point to this discussion. For
some strange reason many people I speak to view España
as an exclusively Iberian, monolithic, homogeneous empire from 1492 C.E.
through its growth and demise. To
the contrary, it had over the course of centuries in fact become a
worldwide, multi-national, multi-ethnic, and multi-cultural entity. Given
this reality, it should be noted that to the degree possible, España
was inclusive of all its peoples. Peoples
throughout the Empire saw themselves as part of her.
As the Iberian Españoles
intermingled with others, these became part of the Imperio Español. It
would be of some value for the reader to begin to see España as an empire made up of many places, peoples, and cultures. This is no different than the
United States with its Pax Americana of our day. Her
citizens are African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic-American,
Native-American, European-American all being part of the greater nation
and union. In this context
the term Españoles takes on a
larger more complex meaning. Filipinos,
Pacific and Caribbean islanders, some in European non-Iberian nations,
and others saw themselves as part of the Empire.
So too, did those in Nueva España.
This happened not only through the government, but the Church,
and intermarriage. By this logic, I’m not
suggesting that the right of kings had been done away with or the rights
of the average man had increased in el
Imperio Español. What I
am saying is that given the cultural values of the time and the
governance of each land, nation states had their own unique set of
variables which drove day-to-day life.
Given the religious, political, and cultural conditions of the
time, each person operated under obvious constraints.
To put European and Spanish society in the context of the
freedoms of the 21st-Century C.E., with its citizen’s rights and
racial equality would be a mistake.
Instead, one must accept history for what it is. It
is simply a view of a given point in time with religious, economic,
social, governance, and political conditions as they existed then. The Spanish authorities in Nueva
España enjoyed the patronato
real or royal patronage over ecclesiastical affairs, granted to the Corona
Española by the Catholic Pope.
Based upon the
Spanish “New Laws” issued in the 1540s C.E., instructions from the
Spanish government were given as to which misiónes
were to be founded. This
policy was made to establish Spanish control of the land by teaching
Catholicism to the Natives. It
was hoped that this would eventually cause the Natives then to become
Spanish Ciudádanos. According
to the plan, they would be the pobladores
or settlers of the new forward areas of North America.
It was believed that this was the quickest way of founding
Spanish (Expanded view) villas
in such remote areas rather than moving large numbers of
racially/ethnically Iberian and other European pobladores
there from España or southern
Nueva España. It was a wise
choice given the fact that well-established communities did not want to
be relocated to such remote areas. The code of the Spanish New Laws issued early on
in the 1540s C.E. stated that (1) Natives should be permitted to dwell
in communities of their own, (2) They should be permitted to choose
their own leaders and councilors, (3) No Native might be held as a
slave, (4) No Native might live outside his own village nor might any
Spanish lay-person dwell within a Native village for longer than 3 days
and then only if he were a merchant, (5) Natives were to be instructed
in the Catholic faith. This
suggests a maturing of Spanish mind and heart as it relates to their
fellow man (New World Natives). The Spanish misión or mission system was that frontier institution which sought
to incorporate Natives into the Imperio
Español and its Catholic Church.
It was the Franciscans from several of Nueva
España’s provincias or
provinces and misiónero or
missionary colleges that would establish these misiónes
or missions. Further, the
system would ensure their tutelage by misióneros.
However, the Monarchy as patrons, would make final determinations
as to where and when misiónes
would be established or closed, what administrative policies would be
observed, who could be missionaries or misióneros,
how many misióneros could be
assigned to each misión, and
how many soldados or if any
would be stationed at a misión.
In turn, the state paid for the misióneros'
overseas travel, the founding costs of a misión,
and the misióneros' annual
salary. In addition, España intended to introduce the Natives of Nueva España’s Nuevo Méjico to certain aspects of Hispano
culture. In the case of northern Nuevo Méjico, the home of my progenitors, the misión efforts found river valleys surrounded by snow-covered
mountains. But it was also
harsh and unforgiving; one early settler called it a “glorious
hell.” The Españoles,
who came to this area in the late-16th-Century C.E., had brought their
century's old agricultural and irrigation system traditions with them to
the Nuevo Mundo.
They found that the valleys near the Río
Grande could be farmed when streams were channeled into irrigation
systems. More than two
centuries later, they would move east across the Sangre
de Cristo Mountains into new, greener valleys.
Later, the Españoles
would encounter new influences from a rapidly expanding United States of
America. It should be stated here that the misiónes
were not intended to be permanent. Most
anti-Spanish, anti-Catholic writers would have us believe that the
Catholic Church in concert España
planned to have these used indefinitely as reservations.
The truth is the Spanish government thought that within a
generation or two, the Natives would become loyal Spanish citizens or Ciudádanos,
reclaim their land, and contribute to the Spanish economy.
It was also believed that skilled immigrants would follow the
Franciscans to these areas and become pobladores there. The
best laid plans of men and all of that. As dictated by a larger plan, the
misiónes would be followed by presidios, next Spanish villas,
ranchos, and estancias,
and mines. Later, the misióneros supported by Real
Cédula or Royal Decree would establish autonomous Native-Christian villas. After the founding of a misión,
the Corona Española would usually provide military protection and
enforcement from a nearby presidio.
The Corona Española
would provide protection and order through its presidios.
The term presidio is
taken from the Spanish word “presidir”
meaning "to preside" or "to oversee."
These were fortified bases for military operations which were
established by España in
those areas it wanted to maintain control and/or influence over. At its inception, the royal
government would organize groups of Spanish pobladores
to populate the sparsely settled frontier areas in Spanish villas. The government
would also build military guarniciónes
or garrisons along the border. This
it did with the intent that the soldados
stationed in the presidios
would establish families and remain in the area once they retired, as
was the case with my progenitors, the de
Ribera. By the 18th-Century C.E., the
next two pronged phase would begin in Nuevo
Méjico. That initial
plan had begun with exploration of suitable sites for habitation, the
establishment of a misión,
followed by the building of a protected presidio
for keeping Spanish villas,
mines, ranchos, and estancias secure. These
were followed by a Catholic religious Native villa.
It would then progress to a secularized Native villa. Introduction of the Natives of Nueva
España’s Nuevo Méjico to certain aspects of Hispano
culture would be attempted later via a formally established recognition
of Native pueblos.
A joint institution of Native communities, the Church, and Corona
Española was be instituted later in response to difficulties
arising from having left control of relations between Natives on the far
flung northern frontier to pobladores and soldados.
At times, the early governance model of these regions led to
antagonized and abused Natives. Therefore,
it was believed that the Españoles
goals of military, political, economic, and religious expansion in North
America would succeed only to the degree the misión effort succeeded. Each Native villa would have communal property, labor, worship, political life,
and social relations all influenced by the misióneros
and insulated from the possible negative influences of other
non-Christianized Native groups and the Españoles
themselves. To achieve these
ends, the Christian villas
would have to be highly organized and disciplined. Daily life would follow a
well-structured routine. First
and foremost was prayer. It
was followed by the work necessary to ensure self-sufficiency.
Without work there could be no crops and meat from the cattle and
sheep. Churches, buildings,
homes, and agricultural structures would need to be constructed.
Training of the villa’s inhabitants was critical to its success.
Meals for a large workforce had to be properly planned and
prepared on time. There was
also some time for relaxation. All
of this was followed by frequent religious holidays and celebrations. It was hoped that the Natives of
the villa would mature in
their Christianity. It was
expected that this would be closely intermeshed with the Natives
learning Spanish political and economic practices until they would no
longer need a special misión
status. In this closely
supervised setting their communities could finally be incorporated into
normal secularized Spanish society.
This not to say that the policy would immediately overcome the Nuevo Mundo’s highly-regimented racial
and class distinctions. The
transition from official misión
status to ordinary Spanish society was to be no easy matter.
Additionally, Spanish laws for Nueva
España had no specified time for this transition to take effect. However, increasing pressure for
the secularization of most misiónes
would develop during the last decades of the 18th-Century C.E. forcing
these changes. In the end,
there would then be an official transaction for such a transition.
The misión's communal
properties were to be privatized. Direction
of civil life was to become a secular governance model.
The direction of church life would be transferred from the misiónero
religious orders to a Catholic diocesan church. The Spanish government also hoped that
intermarriage between Españoles
and the Natives would increase. They
planned for villas to grow up
around the misiónes, which
would then become parish churches. As
a result of this policy, the land on which the misiónes
were established was not given to the Catholic Church and remained the
property of the Spanish government.
It was intended to be held in trust for the Natives. As the Españoles explored the vast areas of the most northern part of Nueva
España, they named the Natives of the north "ranchería
people." Their fixed
points of settlements or rancherías
were usually scattered over an area of several miles and one dwelling
may be separated from the next by up to a half-mile.
Most of these ranchería
people were agriculturalists and farming was their primary activity.
In Nuevo Méjico
proper, they found the Pueblo,
Navajo, Apache, and other Native tribal groups.
However, early on they did not find the Comanche. Given the circumstances of Spanish governance in
the Nuevo Mundo, exploration
led to control of large expanses of water and land which were very
difficult to manage. Exploration
of new territories had remained an important part of España’s
efforts in Nueva España
and Nuevo Méjico.
Her policy for gradual settlement continued to be based upon the
process of misión
founding and placement, presidio
establishment, Villa building
and populating (Both for Españoles
and Christianized Natives), and finally the granting of ranchos and estancias.
In this way there was an orderly way to settle each forward area.
But, how was an area to be effectively and efficiently maintained
after initial settlement? The aforementioned Spanish
policies and strategies speak to a higher level of purpose.
The reality on the ground was quite different.
Therefore, before proceeding with this chapter we must first look back to how
Spanish settlements in Nueva España
and Nuevo Méjico were
established, supplied, survived, and then developed from 1598 C.E
through the resettlement period led by de
Vargas in the 18th-Century C.E. Spanish authorities had accepted
the reality that no wealthy Native empires like that of the Aztecas
conquered in 1521 C.E. would be found north of Nueva
España’s Méjico City.
Thus, España’s misión
policy and resulting history in the Southwestern part of the North
American Continent would be different from that of Azteca
Méjico. It reveals much
about España’s strategy for expanding in the region.
Misiónes were to
become the basis for future explorations, settlement, and the overall
maintenance of the vast areas of the region. What are today’s Américano
states of Florida, Nuevo Méjico, Tejas,
Arizona, and Las Californias
were systematically explored for the establishment of Roman Catholic misiónes
to be founded for the propagation of its doctrines.
The Franciscan order and its frayles
would found a series of misiónes
in Florida after 1573 C.E.
These would be established along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
The first misiónes in Nuevo Méjico were later to be established by frayles accompanying de Oñate's
expedition of 1598 C.E. The period of 1600 C.E.-1610 C.E. brought with it
further Spanish exploration of the region.
It had been the Late-16th-Century C.E. policy of the Españoles
to assign Catholic misióneros
as the principal agents for opening up new lands and the pacification of
the Natives. These were at
the vanguard of the exploration of Nueva
España and Nuevo Méjico.
In addition, the Corona Española also sent out military explorers.
This continued to be the rule.
The Spanish expeditions of Francisco
Vázquez de Coronado (1540 C.E.-1542 C.E.) and Don
Juan de Oñate (1598 C.E.) convinced those in power that the only
gold to be found in the northern parts of Nueva
España was that of the Native soul.
Thus, the conversion of the Natives of the region became España’s
major goal. By 1598 C.E., Capitán
and legal officer, Gaspar Pérez
de Villagrá (1555 C.E.-1620 C.E.)
was placed at the head of an expedition which went forward under the
broader Juan de Oñate
Expedition. Between 1601 C.E.-1603
C.E., de Villagrá served as
the alcalde mayor of the Guanacevi
mines in what is now the Méjicano
state of Durango. He is better
known for his authorship of Historia
de la Nueva Méjico, published in 1610 C.E.
His work tells a great deal about España’s
earliest presence in Nuevo Méjico. De Oñate was born in the Nueva España’s
city of Zacatecas to
Spanish-Basque colonists and Silver mine owners.
His father was Cristóbal
de Oñate, a descendant of the noble house of Haro,
and his mother Doña Catalina
Salazar y de la Cadena who was a descendant by her maternal line of
a famous Jewish Converso
family the Ha-Levi's. His ancestor Cadena,
in the year 1212 C.E., fought in the Battle of Las
Navas de Tolosa. The
family was granted a coat of arms and thereafter known as Cadenas.
Juan de Oñate married Isabel
de Tolosa Cortés de Moctezuma, granddaughter of Hernán
Cortés, the conqueror of the Triple Alliance, and great
granddaughter of the Azteca
Emperor Moctezuma II Xocoyotzin.
He was hardly a Spaniard of “Clean Blood” that most
Anglo-American writers would suggest.
He was in fact a man that exemplified the multi-cultural
(Jewish/Christian) reality of el
Imperio Español and married a part-Azteca
wife. This should have made
the Old Christians envious and critical of his efforts. From this point on, I will now present the Spanish
settlement of Nuevo Méjico in
a timeline fashion, as it is easier to convey the information to the
reader. The initial
settlement period we will view as beginning in 1599 C.E with de
Oñate Expedition and ending in 1680 C.E. with the Pueblo
Insurrection or Revolt. The
second settlement or resettlement period began in 1692 C.E. with the de Vargas re-entry and ends with his death in 1704 C.E.
The third settlement period begins after de
Vargas’ death in 1704 C.E., continues through the consolidation of
the governance of Nuevo Méjico and expansion throughout northern Nueva España until 1800 C.E. The first Spanish group was to the settle Santa
Fé de Nuevo Méjico area in 1598 C.E.
At this juncture, it is necessary to clarify a critical
historical reality of the conditions into which the Españoles
entered when they migrated northward to Nueva
España’s Nuevo Méjico
and beyond. It has occurred
to me that few non-Spanish commentators and historians view this
complexity in its entirety. By
this, I mean to say that the study and understanding by non-Spanish
historians of Spanish Nueva España
sets the historical stage with misunderstandings of the Españoles
and their Native (Indian) relations. Many
non-Spanish writers see this period of history through a perspective
which presents Natives as one large homogeneous group.
This is done rather than presenting the Natives as what they
were, a series of heterogeneous warring tribes which were constantly
vying for power and control over the lands and resources of their
enemies, of which the Españoles
were only one. The warring
Native tribes didn’t care who their enemy was at any given point in
time. An enemy was simply an
enemy. The ignorant would
also tend to see the Spanish Period as having Españoles
only originating from Iberian Peninsula stock, rather than from many
European nations both under the Imperio
Español and from without it. In
addition, many would not include those of mixed races (Mestízos,
Mulatos, etc.) who willingly became Españoles
in the sense of becoming an active, engaged, participant of that Empire
serving her alongside other members of that Imperio
Español. It should be said that presenting Natives as one
large group serves the Anglo-American, Northern European, non-Spanish,
anti-Spanish historical narrative where all Spaniards (as one large
group of Iberians) are bad and all Natives (as one large group of
Natives) are good. These
misguided commentators cannot for the life of them, leave-off using the
terms conquistador, colony, colonists, colonizing.
Interestingly, all others making it into the region can be
considered natives after some period of settlement.
The Apache and Comanche
were not always native to Nuevo Méjico,
and yet they are constantly referred to as migrants and then Natives.
Even the Américanos
are considered pioneers and later settlers, their colonies are never
mentioned. Where is the
fairness? In addition, the relationships between the Natives
were ever changing and dependent upon many factors and conditions that
existed on the ground at any given time.
In short, relationships were fluid.
The context of the Spanish and Native relationship in the region
must be viewed in this light. The
enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all of that. By the early-17th-Century C.E., the Spanish Misión
System was already a guiding institution in northern Nueva
España and Nuevo Méjico.
It sought to incorporate Natives into the Imperio
Español, with its Catholic religion and Hispano
culture. The system
accomplished this through formal establishment and recognition of Native
communities under the tutelage of misióneros
and the protection and control of the Corona
Española. The Españoles had already established presidios or fortified guarniciónes
of troops incrementally to protect its misiónes,
mines, ranchos or ranches, and
estancias or farms of the
heartland of Nueva España. These
were fortified bases for military operations which were established by España
in those areas it wanted to maintain control over and/or influence.
These presidios or
fortresses were built to protect against pirates, hostile Natives, and
invaders from enemy nations. In
western North America, a rancho
del rey or king's ranch would be established a short distance
outside a presidio.
This was a tract of land given to the presidio
as pasturage for horses and other beasts of burden of the guarnición.
These presidios
protected them from attacks by hostile forces from the remote northern
areas. The first Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico, Juan de Oñate (1598 C.E.-1610 C.E.), was under the Virreinato
of Nueva España. As such,
he was watched carefully and dealt with harshly when he failed to meet
its expectations. He was a
strict, demanding Gobernador
who overstepped his bounds of authority which would lead to his removal.
During his tenure the Españoles
granted Estancias to pobladores.
Estancia is used here
for landed estates of significant size and smaller for Nuevo Méjico. To use
the term hacienda would be
imprecise, as it also refers to landed estates of significant size.
In this decade, smaller holdings were termed estancias
or ranchos. These were
owned almost exclusively by the Españoles
who were either Peninsulares
(Born in España.) or Criollos (Born in the Nuevo
Mundo) and in rare cases by Mestízos
or individuals of mixed-race. In
Méjico landed estates of
significant size would be termed haciendas. In addition, “Land Grants” were made both to
individuals and communities during the Spanish Period (1598 C.E.-1821
C.E.) of Nuevo Méjico.
Unfortunately, nearly all of the Spanish records of land grants
that were made in what is now Nuevo Méjico prior to the Pueblo
Insurrection (Revolt) of 1680 C.E. were destroyed in that insurrection.
Thus, historians can often only be certain of land grants that
were made after the Spanish Resettlement of Nuevo
Méjico in 1693 C.E., or termed the “Reconquest” by many
writers. When discussing the
period, the preferred term is “Resettlement.”
As a point of reference there were two major types of land
grants, private grants made to individuals and communal grants made to
groups of individuals for the purpose of establishing settlements.
Communal land grants were also made to Native Pueblos
for the lands they inhabited. Given the fact that some of my progenitors entered
Nuevo Méjico, by 1598 C.E.,
it is necessary to present certain facts regarding the various Natives
tribes in the region. However,
first I will introduce some of my progenitors.
To clarify, I haven’t
offered much information on family lines other than the de
Ribera as it would be almost impossible to do them all justice in
such a limited family history. However,
here I will attempt to offer some insights into some of those other
three family lines. Notes: Firstly,
I am a direct descendant of Pedro
Lucero de Godoi (Godoy). His
was one of the “First Families” of Nuevo
Méjico who were members of the original de
Oñate settlement Expedition by the Corona
Española to Nuevo Méjico
(1598 C.E.). They remained
until 1680 C.E., and retuned during the Reconquest of 1692 C.E.
Juan
Lucero de Godoi (1625 C.E.-1693
C.E.) was Pedro's
eldest son. He served as
Secretary of Government and War in 1663 C.E.
Until 1693 C.E., he claimed
to have served the King for fifty-two years, from the time that he was
seventeen until his then present age of sixty-nine.
He had resided in Santa Fé
for forty years; his property there was at the "Pueblo
Quemado." Juan
was a Sargento Mayor and the Alcalde
Mayor of Santa Fé when he escaped the Indian siege of 1680 C.E.
with his wife, four grown sons bearing arms, and four grown daughters.
The next year, he was described as having a good stature with a
large, pock-marked aquiline face, crooked nose, and fifty-nine years
old. (Origins, p.60) Nicolás
Lucero de Godoi, a grandson,
was born in Nuevo Méjico, on
1635 C.E. to Juan Lucero de Godoy
and Juana De Carvajal.
Nicolás Lucero married
María Montoya and had 3
children. He passed away on
1727 C.E. in Albuquerque. Miguel
Lucero [(de
Godoi or Godoy) (Great Grandson of) was born in 1668 C.E. to Nicolás
Lucero de Godoi and María
Montoya. He died on June
15, 1709 C.E. and was buried at Zuñi
Pueblo, Nuevo Méjico. Miguel
Lucero (de Godoy) was born at Zuñi
Pueblo, Nuevo Méjico. He was
married María Ángela Teresa
Vallejos at Bernalillo, Nuevo Méjico in 1700 C.E. She
was the daughter of Manuel
Vallejos González and María
Nicolása López Solis. Miguel Lucero was found to be living in the Río Abajo at the start of the century. María
Ángela Teresa Vallejos was
born before October 16, 1685 C.E. in Ciudád
de Méjico, Nueva España,
baptized on October 16, 1685 C.E. in Ciudád
de Méjico, Nueva España
and died after 1750 C.E. in Nuevo
Méjico, Nueva España. Diligencia
Matrimonial: In 1700 C.E., at Bernalillo
Miguel Lucero (de Godoy), Santa
Fé Presidio soldier, son of Nicolás
Lucero and María Montoya,
natives of Nuevo Méjico
living here, married María Ángela
Teresa Vallejo, daughter of Manuel
Vallejo and María López
Solis, both deceased. Witnesses:
José Mascareñas (age 32) native of Méjico City, notary; Joaquín
Sedillo (age 35), native of Nuevo
Méjico, Cristóba; Jaramillo
(age 36). The
children of Miguel Lucero de Godoy
and María Ángela Teresa Vallejos
were: Manuel, María, born December 1, 1708 C.E., and Manuel Miguel II born on January 6, 1710 C.E. He
was born after the untimely death of his father who was wounded at El
Morro. Manuel
Miguel died shortly after at Zuñi
on June 15, 1709 C.E., where he was buried in the Misión's sanctuary on the Lectern Side
also called the Epistle Side of the church.
On December 8, 1710 C.E., his widow acted as sponsor with one Pedro
Lucero, who could well have been her brother-in-law, and one of the
sons of old Nicolás Lucero de
Godoy. Manual
Miguel Lucero
(de Godoy) II (G-G
Grandson of) was born on January 6, 1710 C.E. at Alburquerque,
Provincia de Nuevo Méjico in
the Virreinato de Nueva España.
He died January 25, 1766 C.E. in Tomé,
Provincia de Nuevo Méjico part of the Virreinato de Nueva España. He
was the son of Miguel Lucero de
Godoy and María Ángela
Teresa Vallejos. Manual
Miguel married: (1)
María
Rosa Baca in 1740 C.E.
She died on June 6, 1755 C.E. (2)
Antónia
Durán y Cháves He
was father of Joséfa Lucero; Diego
António Lucero; Miguel António
Lucero; Manuel Lucero; María de Loreto Lucero, and 12 others. Manuel
Miguel was the bother of María
de la Luz Lucero, half-brother of
Rosalía Romero; Capitán
Pedro Romero; Tadeo Romero;
Rosa Margarita Romero; Quiteria
Romero and, 2 others. His
occupation was that of a farmer. Loreto Lucero [Daughter of Miguel
Lucero (de Godoy) II] married Eusebio
Varela Eusebio
Varela is descended from Pedro
Varela. Juan
António (c.1742 C.E.-d.?) was
his son. Eusebio
Varela descended from the Varelas
as follows. In 1598 C.E., Juan de Onate conquered Nuevo
Méjico and established a Spanish colony there.
Among the soldados
serving under him were the Varela
brothers. Alonso Varela was of a native of Santiago, Galicia, España.
He was of good stature, chestnut colored beard, 30 years of age,
son of Pedro Varela.
He supplied a complete armor for himself and his horse.
Alonso had a brown beard and was of a good stature.
Most of de Oñate’s
soldados were not described as having “a good stature.”
Alonso was a brother to
the Pedro Varela. Pedro
Varela was also a native of Santiago, Galicia, España. He
was of good stature, red-bearded, 24 years of age, son of Pedro
Varela, and supplied the complete armor for himself and his horse.
He was “of a good stature” and “red-bearded.”
He was a brother to Alonso
Varela. From
Don Juan de Oñate, Colonizer
of New Mexico 1595-1628, Vols. I & II:
Statement of what I, Pedro Varela, am taking to serve his majesty in the Indies in Nuevo
Méjico: ·
One set of armor consisting
of a coat of mail, cuisse, and beaver of mail ·
One strong buckskin jacket ·
One harquebus with its
equipment ·
One hooked blade ·
One sword ·
One pound of powder ·
One set of horse armor ·
One leather shield ·
Ten horses and one donkey ·
Half a dozen pairs of
horseshoes with nails ·
Two jineta
saddles with all their trappings and bridles “I
am taking all of this to serve his majesty, and I swear by God and this
cross that everything contained herein is mine.
Done on this day, December 7, 1597 C.E., Pedro
Varela.” There was a
list for his brother Alonso,
though Alonso brought 12 horses and 2 mules.
Alonso was sworn in on
the same day as Pedro. It
is from this family line that the Varelas
descend. Juan
Lucero de Godoy (Antónia Varela de Losada,
Juan, Pedro, Pedro, Pedro)
was born 1684 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
He died on November 23, 1741
C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
On May 7, 1713 C.E., he married Ysabel
López Lujan at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico.
She was born 1692 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo
Méjico and died August 9, 1771 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo
Méjico. She was the daughter
of Pedro Lujan and Francisca
Martín Salazar.
Children of Juan Lucero de Godoy and Ysabel
López Lujan were as follows: ·
María
Antónia Lucero
de Godoy was born in 1714 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. She
married Luís Varela Jaramillo who
was born in 1710 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo
Méjico. He was the son of Cristóbal
Varela Jaramillo and Leonor
Lujan Dominguez. They
were married on November 23, 1729 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo
Méjico. ·
Juan
Lucero de Godoy was born in
1716 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. ·
Francisca
Alfansa Lucero de Godoy was born in 1718 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. She
died January 1786 C.E. at Albuquerque,
Bernalillo Nuevo Méjico. She
married Salvadór Manuel Secundo Armijo. ·
María
Ygnacia Lucero de Godoy was
born in 1721 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. She
married Manuel Sáenz Garvisu. ·
Ysabel
Lucero de Godoy was born 1722
C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
She died in 1758 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
She married Alonzo García
de Noriega. ·
Pedro
António Lucero
de Godoy was born in 1724 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
He married Margarita Lobato. José
Varela (Son of Eusebio)
married Rita Otero Bernardo
Varela (Son of José) married Altagracia López Marcelina
Varela (Daughter of José)
married Cruz Cebelles (Ceballos) Amalia
Ceballes (Daughter of Cruz)
married Isidro Ribera (Rivera) With all of that said, we will now get on with our
story.
Ten years after the Españoles settled Nuevo Méjico
in 1598 C.E. the Navajos had
obtained sheep, cattle and horses from Pueblo
Natives and were tending them. After
1700 C.E., the Españoles
would find the Navajo to be a
scourge because of their constant raids and alliances with other
Natives. The tribe managed
intermittent peace with one tribe or another, while it raided and fought
the Españoles and others. The
Navajo feared only the Utes,
who learned Plains warfare and used it effectively.
It is clear that once the Plains tribes acquired the horse, they
developed Native warfare into an art.
These Pueblo
Natives were groups of natives in central Nuevo
Méjico and northeast Arizona
that resided in permanent stone or adobe
dwellings. The term “Pueblo”
refers to a cultural classification, which disregards language and
tribal lines that separate the various Pueblo
groups. The Pueblo
were mainly agricultural, growing principally beans and maíz along with pumpkins, and sometimes cotton.
Despite the arid weather, the Pueblos
were excellent farmers. The
Natives did some limited hunting, mostly for jackrabbits.
Crafts such as weaving, pottery, and basket making were fashioned
with great skill and artistry. Women
crafted pots, made bread, and were the owners of the homes and gardens.
The men and women shared in activities such as basket and cloth
weaving, basket, building houses, and farming.
Individual “pueblos”
were independent identities that had connections to other pueblos
through related customs and languages. Converting the Pueblo Natives through misión
efforts became an integral goal of Spanish governance.
It should be noted that many Pueblos
converted for the protection against their traditional enemies the Apache
and the Navajo which the
Spanish presence afforded them. Later,
with religious conversion not complete among the Pueblos,
there emerged forms of resistance which would lead to war.
It must be said that they occasionally raided
nearby tribes. Later, when
the Españoles first began
settling in what is now the American Southwest they changed the dynamics
of the region by introducing horses.
The Apache quickly
adopt horses into their culture. Unfortunately,
as they did, they used them to dominate their neighbors through mobile
warfare. A report on the Apache would be compiled and printed for the King of España
later at Madrid in 1630 C.E. It
was written by a Nuevo Méjico
misiónero Franciscan fray.
Called “The Memorial
of Fray Alonso Benavides,” it was a comprehensive account of the Apaches
as they existed in that period. Wherein,
Benavides refers to all the outlying native tribes in Nuevo
Méjico as Apaches. He classifies
them as Gila Apaches, Navajo Apaches, and Apaches
Vaqueros. It must be
stated here that even then the Apaches
were a terror to the other native tribes of the region.
However, at that point in time they did not present a difficulty
for the Españoles. What is also of importance is the fact that the
Native Pueblo villages on the Río
Grande were surrounded by the Apache
nation. It was written that
as a people, the Apache
“were very fiery and bellicose, and very crafty in war.
Even in the method of speaking, they show a difference from the
rest of the nations.” Here
one must accept that before the arrival of the Españoles
Native vs. Native warfare was already a harsh reality.
The Españoles would
only be one more tribe to contend with.
There were many other Native tribes in the various
regions of Nueva España.
Many of these were warlike and would challenge the Españoles
for supremacy.
With Spanish expansion, Natives of the region
would begin to have concerns about encroachment upon their traditional
territories. These included,
the Navajo, Pueblo, and to some degree, the Apache.
The Comanche, however,
had not yet arrived on the scene in full force and were not impacted. The decade of 1620 C.E.-1630 C.E., saw continued
exploration and the planting of misiónes.
During the next 100 years the Franciscans would found more than
40 additional misiónes, most
of these along the Río Grande.
Fray Alonso de Benavides
was especially influential in directing the founding of 10 misiónes
between 1625 C.E.-1629 C.E. Thereafter,
he promoted them ably in España. The misiónes
of San Buenaventura and San
Isidro were established at the Pueblo
de Las Humanas at the Gran
Quivira which is located at the top of the windy Chupadero
Mesa on the south rim of the Estancia
Basin of central Nuevo Méjico.
During the early period of Spanish settlement of Nuevo
Méjico, Franciscan misióneros
undertook the conversion of the Salinas
Pueblos. Four of the misiónes established at that time are now included La
Purisma Concepcion at Quarai,
San Gregorio at Abó, and San
Buenaventura and San Isidro at
Gran quivira, or Pubelo de Las Humanas, as it was called in the 17th-Century C.E.
The other Salinas misiónes
were at Cililí, Taxique, and Tabirá.
The church of Misión San
Isidro was constructed between 1629 C.E.-1631 C.E.
The convento of this
original misión was situated
in a remodeled and extended portion of the house block north of the
church. Misión
San Buenaventura de las Humanas (Gran
Quivira) was established in 1629 C.E. Expansion of Spanish control over the area of Nueva
España outside of Nuevo Méjico
was also a feature of España’s
policy. To ensure that a
continuing string of presidio
protection was developed and employed for Nueva
España’s northern most areas, protective presidios
continued to be established and manned during this decade such as the Presidio
de Santa Catalina de Tepehuanes (1620 C.E.-1690's C.E.?) in Santa
Catarina de Tepehuanes, Durango.
There was also the placement of the Presidio
San Gregorio de Cerralvo, founded in 1626 C.E. in Nuevo
León, Méjico. Other Misiónes
and villas were also being built at a steady pace during the period. Overseeing all of this for Nuevo Méjico under the Virreinato
of Nueva España was
Juan Álvarez de Eulate y Ladrón de
Cegama (1618 C.E.-1625 C.E.).
He was born in Améscoa Baja, a town in Navarra,
northern España.
As a Spanish soldado who served with distinction in the Netherlands.
In 1602 C.E., de Eulate travelled to Flanders at his own expense and enlisted in
the army of Albert VII, Archduke of Austria.
Juan
Álvarez fought with valor in the brutal and protracted Siege
of Ostend, and was twice wounded. He
served under Don
Ambrogio Spinola Doria, 1st Marqués
of the Balbases Grandee of España in two
expeditions into Friesland, again distinguishing himself for his
bravery. In 1608 C.E., he
was given a certificate testifying to his excellent character and
service, and was allowed to return to España.
De Eulate was also a Capitán
in the Spanish fleet from 1608 C.E. to 1617 C.E.
Juan
Álvarez would be followed by Gobernador
Felipe de Sotelo Osorio (1625 C.E.-1630 C.E.)
who had joined the Spanish Navy in his youth, eventually becoming an
Admiral. Both of these Gobernadores
provided land grants for ranchos
and estancias in the Provincia. Those living
in the region would experience Navajo
unrest as a continued problem, while the Pueblo
and Apache contributed few
difficulties. The Comanche
as of yet had not come on the scene. The decade of
1630 C.E.-1640 C.E. brought
with it continued Spanish exploration in the region along with the
establishments of misiónes.
San Isidro Misión
in San Isidro, Doña Ana
County in Nuevo Méjico was
built between 1630 C.E. and 1635 C.E. of limestone quarried on site.
The church measured 109 feet long by 29 feet wide.
Inglesia de
San Isidro was very similar in design to the church at Abó.
A campo santo, or
walled cemetery, is attached to the structure just east of the church.
From 1631 C.E., Misión San
Isidro was administered as a Visita
of Abó, until 1659 C.E., when the new church and convento of San Buenaventura
were begun. A Visita was a visiting station or encampment of friendly Natives
close to a misión.
The Inglesia de San Isidro
was a focus of treasure hunters following the abandonment of Gran
Quivira. The Santa Fé
Presidio continued providing
protection for the region. The
Villa of Santa Fé was the capital and economic hub of the region and
administered by four Gobernadores
of Nuevo Méjico under the Virreinato
of Nueva España during the decade.
The first was Gobernador
Francisco Manuel de Silva Nieto (1630 C.E.-1632 C.E.).
He was followed by Gobernador Francisco de la
Mora Ceballos (1632 C.E.-1635 C.E.), Gobernador
Francisco Martínez de Baeza
(1635 C.E.-1637 C.E.), and Gobernador
Luís de Rosas (1637 C.E.-assassinated
1641 C.E.). These continued
land grants for both estancias
and ranchos. Natives in the region, the Navajo, Pueblo, and Apache
were relatively calm. The Comanche
were not yet a pronounced problem. The decade of
1640 C.E.-1650 C.E. had continued Spanish exploration and misión
building. In seeking to
introduce both Catholicism and European methods of agriculture, the misiónes
encouraged the Natives to establish their settlements close by, where
the frayles could give them
religious instruction and supervise their labor.
Unfortunately this arrangement exposed the natives to European
diseases, against which they had little immunity.
An epidemic in Nuevo Méjico
killed 3,000 Natives (Natives) in 1640 C.E.
This did not stop the establishment of Misión San Gregorio de Abó in 1640 C.E. by Fray Francisco Acevedo. Spanish presidio
placement continued in northern Nueva
España for the protection of the Españoles.
The Presidio de San Miguel
de Cerrogordo (1648 C.E.-1767 C.E.) in Villa Hidalgo Durango was
one such addition. The decade brought a new Gobernador of Nuevo Méjico,
Juan Flores de Sierra y Valdés (Died
1641 C.E.) a Spanish soldier who
joined the Spanish Army in his youth and later became a General of the Army. He was soon followed by Gobernador
Francisco Gómes (acting, 1641 C.E.-1642 C.E.), Francisco Gómes was
born in 1576 C.E. in Villa de Coima, Portugal.
He was the son of Manuel Gómes and
Ana Vicente and became an
orphan at an early age. Francisco was then raised in Lisbon
by his only brother, Alvaro
(or Alonso) Gómes,
a Franciscan who worked as a high sheriff of the Holy Office of the
Inquisition. His family was
probably of noble origin. Gómez resided for a time in Madrid
at the house of Alonso de Oñate,
the brother of Juan de Oñate.
This placed him in the court of King Felipe
II during the king's illness. Gómes probably
lived there until the death of king in 1598 C.E.
The next Gobernador was Alonso de
Pachéco de Herédia (1643 C.E.). He
was followed by Gobernador Fernando
de Argüello (1644 C.E.-1647
C.E.), and Gobernador Luís
de Guzmán y Figueroa (1647 C.E.-1649 C.E.).
Each would provide for new land grants for estancias
and ranchos and provide for
governance of the mostly peaceful Natives of the region. In the years of 1650 C.E. to 1660 C.E., there
would be continued activity in the areas of exploration.
Misión planning and
administration would be ongoing in the mid-1600s C.E., as Spanish
officials created the Jurisdicción
de las Salinas near the area of Misión
Nuestra Señora de Purísima
Concepción de Quarai which included Las
Humanas, Abó and Quarai, as well as Cililí,
Tajique, and Tabirá. Presidio protection remained an important aspect of Spanish control
during the period. The Villas
of the region continued to grow and prosper.
Four Gobernadores would administer Nuevo
Méjico under the Virreinato
of Nueva España, Gobernador Hernándo de Ugarte
y la Concha (1649 C.E.-1652 C.E.), Gobernador
Juan de Samaniego y Xaca (1652
C.E.-1656 C.E.). Gobernador Juan Manso de Contreras
(1656 C.E.-1659 C.E.) followed de
Samaniego y Xaca. De
Contreras was born in la
Villa de Loarca, Consejo de Valdes, in Oviedo
(Asturias, España). He
lived in Sevilla (Andalucía, España).
Juan Manso was the
younger half-brother of Fray Tomás
Manso who later became the bishop of Nicaragua. This
appointment led to good relations with the Franciscans.
Juan and Tomás Manso traveled to Nueva
España around 1652 C.E., on a mission to supply caravans from Méjico City
to Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
By 1656 C.E., he was involved with mission supply wagons. Juan
Manso was appointment Gobernador
of Santa Fé de Nuevo Méjico in 1656 C.E.
He soon issued legislation against the Pueblo
Natives, over religious issues. Contreras
would create many enemies among the pobladores
in Nuevo Méjico.
One of these enemies was a soldier, Francisco
de Anaya Almazán. Almazán occupied several important positions in both military and
administrative areas of government.
Manso had him jailed,
although he was able to escape with the assistance of Pedro
Lucero de Godoy and Francisco
Gómez de Robledo. The
reasons of imprisonment of Anaya
are unknown. Manso
was replaced in the Nuevo Méjico government
in 1656 C.E. by Bernardo López de Mendizábal.
Gobernador Bernardo López
de Mendizábal (1659 C.E.-1660 C.E.). De
Mendizábal (1620 C.E.-September
16, 1664 C.E.) was a Spanish politician, soldier, religious, and native
of what is today Méjico.
He served as Gobernador of
Nuevo Méjico between 1659 C.E.-1660 C.E. and as alcalde
mayor, or royal administrator in Guayacocotla
on the Sierra Madre Oriental,
northeast of Méjico
City. De
Mendizábal was born about
1620 C.E. in the town of Chietla,
in Puebla (present-day Méjico) at the family’s hacienda.
His father, Cristóbal López de Mendizábal, was a Basque Capitán and legal representative.
His mother, Leónor
Pastrana, was the granddaughter of Jew, Juan
Núñez de León.
De León
had been prosecuted by the Inquisition for having been accused of
secretly practicing the Jewish religion.
López also had a
brother, Gregorio López de Mendizábal.
López studied arts and canon law at a Jesuit college located at Puebla
and finished his studies at the university in Méjico City.
Mendizábal would later
join the Spanish Army, where he served in the "Galleon
de la Armada" and was stationed for a time at the Presidio
of Cartagena de Indias in
modern-day Colombia.
López occupied
government positions in Nueva
Granada, Cuba, and Nueva España. Among other of Lopez's directives as gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico,
he prohibited the Franciscan priests from forcing the Natives to work
without being paid. He was
one who recognized the rights of the Natives to practice their religion.
Lopez also permitted
the Pueblos to perform their
religious dances and religious practices which had been prohibited for
over 30 years. These
decisions caused disagreements with the Franciscan misióneros
of Nuevo Méjico
in their relations with the Natives.
A man named Contreras
moved to Méjico City,
where he remained until 1661 C.E. In
that same year, he was appointed Alguacil
mayor, or chief constable, to Nuevo Méjico. His responsibility was to
arrest Bernardo López de Mendizábal
following a commission from the Inquisition.
Mendizábal was
arrested in the spring of 1663 C.E. before completing his
administration. He was
condemned to prison by the Inquisition on thirty-three counts of
malfeasance and the practice of Judaism in 1660 C.E., leading to his
being replaced in 1663 C.E. De
Mendizábal died in prison before the final verdict was reached.
His arrest may have been due to his mother, Leonor
Pastrana, a granddaughter of a Jew, Juan
Núñez de León. Juan
was prosecuted by the Inquisition for having been accused of being a
secretly practicing Jew. Contreras
later moved to Parral, in Nueva Vizcaya where he became
administrator of the Nuevo Méjico Misión wagons.
He supplied wagons while working in Parral
until his death in 1671 C.E. Each of the gobernadores
had guided the provisioning of land grants for new estancias and ranchos and
had also continued Spanish efforts to Hispanicize the region’s Native
populations. By the decade of 1660 C.E.-1670 C.E., exploration
and misiónes were permanent
ways of life for the region’s pobladores.
With continued protection from the Presidio
of Santa Fé and the Villa
prospering, its Spanish population thought all was well.
Unfortunately, the Spanish Provincia
de Nuevo Méjico was to become the victim of a looming catastrophe in
the decades of the 1660s C.E. and 1670s C.E.
With repeated disputes between Franciscan frayles and royal gobernadores
over the use of Native labor and differing attitudes toward Native
religious practices, the Pueblos
were conflicted. Additionally,
the Españoles were prone to
rancorous disputes and occasional violence, as each partisan faction
vied for preeminence. Under these political conditions the Pueblo
Natives of the Provincia
became the objects of attack for their beliefs.
They were alternately persecuted for practicing them and later
having them tolerated. However,
the Church could not and would not condone them.
As for Native labor, it was at times abused and its resulting
products were appropriated by greedy government officials and
over-zealous misióneros.
The resulting widespread discomfort and anger in Nuevo
Méjico was exacerbated by unending droughts, contagious diseases
and their ravages, and Apache
raids against all quarters of the Provincia.
This combination of circumstances and their negative impacts
would later reach their severest levels during the 1670s C.E. Yet, even with these problems the Españoles
flourished.
The Villa of Alburquerque
(present-day Albuquerque, Nuevo Méjico) was founded in 1660 C.E. to meet the needs for
expansion. To administer the
Villa and the rest of Nuevo
Méjico four new Gobernadores
for Nuevo Méjico would be appointed.
The Virreinato of Nueva
España appointed Diego Dionisio de Peñalosa
Briceño y Berdugo (1661 C.E.-1664 C.E.).
He was a Lima-born soldado.
Peñalosa's
administration was notable for its positive treatment of the Pueblo
Natives and their religious practices.
This earned him the hostility of the Roman Catholic frayles,
who were determined to Christianize Native populations.
He later was declared a blasphemer and heretic by a Catholic
tribunal. Forced into exile,
he would become an active opponent of España’s interests and offered his services to England and
France, España’s rivals in
the colonization of the Nuevo
Mundo. On March 6, 1662
C.E., he led the Quivira
Expedition. This expedition
was later turned into a legend with a variety of fantastic objects. Juan
Durán de Miranda (First time as governor 1664 C.E.-1665 C.E.) was
a soldier who served as Gobernador of
Nuevo Méjico in the 1600s
C.E. He occupied the
position of Gobernador of
Nuevo Méjico twice (1664 C.E.-1665
C.E. and 1671 C.E.-1675 C.E.). He
was arrested in 1665 C.E. Despite
this, he was eventually appointed for a second term in Nuevo Méjico
in 1671 C.E. During this period, the Nuevo Méjico
government, the state, and the Church clashed.
Power over civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions was at issue as
one of the authorities abandoned its responsibility thus undermining the
provincial government. This
caused the Natives to increasingly reject the power and authority of el
Imperio Español. In
addition, the Misión Supply Service of the
Mansso Administration became ineffective which damaged Nuevo Méjico's stability. Since the misiónes
supplied food for the territory's population, this failure negatively
impacted the region. In July 1671 C.E., Miranda elevated Juan Domínguez
de Mendoza to the rank of Mariscal
del Campo or Field Marshal and led a military campaign against the Gila
Apache and the "Siete Ríos
Apaches," in the south of Nuevo Méjico. During de Miranda’s first administration, a faction led by Tomé
Domínguez de Mendoza accused and filed charges against Juan.
These charges caused Miranda to be imprisoned for a brief period in the Casa
de Cabildo or Council Jail at Santa
Fé.
In addition, he was subjected to "an iniquitous
residencia." This
was a judicial review of an official’s acts conducted at the
conclusion of his term of office. In
this case for it was for wickedness.
All of his goods were confiscated.
However, later he was released when he argued successfully at Méjico City against the
accusations for which he was charged. Also,
he was able to recover his property and position. In 1675 C.E., Miranda was replaced by Juan
Francisco Treviño as Gobernador. Next, came Gobernador
Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza
(acting, 1664 C.E.). De
Mendoza (1626 C.E.-After
1692 C.E.) was a
Spanish soldier (native of modern Méjico) who served as acting
Gobernador of Nuevo Méjico in 1664 C.E.
De Mendoza was born in
1626 C.E., in Méjico
City. His father was a
Spanish officer with the same name who arrived in Nuevo Méjico with the Juan
de Oñate expedition of 1598 C.E.
He had at least two siblings including the soldier Juan
Domínguez de Mendoza. De
Mendoza joined the Spanish
Army in his youth. Before
1662 C.E., he lived below Isleta
Pueblo, Nuevo Méjico.
When Mendoza arrived in
Nuevo Méjico,
a faction led by him accused and "filed grave charges" against
the Gobernador of
the provincia of Nuevo Méjico
Juan Durán de Miranda, which
caused imprisonment and the seizure of his goods.
In 1664 C.E., Tomé
was appointed Acting Gobernardor of Santa Fé de
Nuevo Méjico. However, his government
would only last a short time. Juan Durán de Miranda (1664 C.E.-1665
C.E.) was released from prison
when he defended his actions while in office about the charges issued
against him in Méjico City, recovering his government position in the provincia a year later. In August 1680 C.E., Tomé, his family, and other residents of Río Abajo, Nuevo Méjico would escape to
El Paso del Norte, Ciudád
Juarez in what is today modern Méjico.
The present-day Méjicano
villa of Paso del Norte at
Ciudád Juárez was founded in
1667 C.E. There,
he held several positions. One
of the positions he occupied was Maeses
de Campo "with full complement of arms."
In 1681 C.E.,
Mendoza, at sixty-one years
old, died from gout and a stomach disease. Gobernador Juan Durán de Miranda (1664 C.E.-1665 C.E.) was then followed by Gobernador
Fernando de Villanueva y
Armendáris (1665 C.E.-1668
C.E.). Fernando (died
May 17, 1679 C.E.) was a Spanish soldier, judge, and politician who
served as Gobernador of Nuevo Méjico. Fernando
was born in the early
17th-Century C.E. in San Sebastián,
in Quetzaltenango.
He was the son of Fernando de Villanueva y Armendáris and Clara de Irigoyen. In
1630 C.E., as a teenager, he was enlisted in the Marina
de guerra real Español of España
or Spanish Royal Navy. By
1634 C.E., he was promoted to the rank of second alférez
in the army of Cataluña.
There, he fought against the French, which attempted to invade Leocata
(a place in Cataluña), and he
successfully drove out the besieging army.
In April 1637 C.E., he joined the Royal Indian Navy, where he
fought in Algarve (in southern
Portugal).
Also, he received the promotion to soldier in the presidio,
on the Caribbean island of St. Martin, while in the army. He became a Teniente and sargento mayor
or sergeant major of the presidio
on the island. On four
occasions, Villanueva traveled
to Puerto Rico to get supplies
that were needed on the island. In
three of these trips, he had to fight against hostile forces.
On the trip he fought against the British on the island of
Anguilla and defeated them. Later, he left Saint Martin and traveled
to Nueva Vizcaya (consisting
of the current Chihuahua and Durango,
Méjico), where he obtained the title of Justicia Mayor and Capitán a
Guerra (Chief Judge and War Captain) in the Guanaceví mines and San Pedro,
in the villa of the Tepehuán
people. While there, Villanueva kept peace. When
revolt later broke out, he participated in putting down the rebellion
which resulted in charges being filed against him.
After leaving the provincia,
he joined the Barlovento Army,
with the goal to protect new international possessions of España. The
Barlovento Army was also
called the Armada de las Islas de
Barlovento y Seno Méjicano. It
had been authorized by the Corona
Española about 1635 C.E. The
name was abbreviated to Armada de
Barlovento, or Windward Fleet. The
purpose was to police the sea lanes in the Golfo
de Méjico and the
Caribbean Sea protecting Spanish shipping and coastal settlements from
foreign raiders. The return of the Barlovento Army to España
allowed Villanueva to return
to Cataluña in 1644 C.E., so
that he could fight in the Thirty Years War.
In March 22, 1646 C.E., he returned to the Barlovento
Army. After he arrived in Veracruz,
Villanueva became ill and obtained permission from the Commandante-General
to stay there for a while. The last Gobernador
of the decade was Capitán Juan
de Medrano y Mesía (1668 C.E.-1671
C.E.). As with the others,
he would preside over the administration and granting of lands for estancias
and ranchos.
He would also attempt to keep the Natives of the region peaceful.
He was appointed to office
by Virrey António
Sebastián de Toledo and began his administration suffering
persistent raids and hostilities from the Apaches.
During that period the hostilities caused fear and worry among
the pobladores.
It is also given as the reason for the abandonment of Chililí
and all the other pueblos in
the vicinity of Salinas.
The Gobernador
was to experience rivalry from his own both lay and ecclesiastical Españoles
which was reportedly due to continued controversy among them. It is reported that very serious charges
were instigated against him. He
fled his house with a Cristo
in hand, a lanza, and cloak on
his shoulder. It’s said he
shouted that he was leaving for Méjico
to seek justice from God and the King against a people abandoned by God.
He reached Méjico
safely, as about 1673 C.E. the future Misión
Supply Service had not been definitely decided.
At that time, he made bid on the contract two bids were received,
one from the Franciscan Order and the other from Medrano. His was the
more favorable. In 1674 C.E.,
it was decided that the wagons were to be sold and all accounts settled.
The regular journeys of the caravans, organized for transporting
supplies to Nuevo Méjico and the contracts came to an
end. This was not the end of
the supply service. Medrano failed to receive the contract. With the coming new decade of 1670 C.E.-1680 C.E.,
for Nuevo Méjico exploration
would continue. Also,
maintenance of the misiónes
would be an ongoing effort. It
is important to remember that in 1680 C.E., there were less than 2,400 Españoles
in Nuevo Méjico.
Therefore, the expansion of misiónes
meant thousands of friendly natives rather that warring tribes. Outside of Nuevo
Méjico in 1670 C.E., Chichimecas
invaded Durango.
Gobernador, Francisco
González was forced to abandon its defense.
Native insurrections were a continual problem throughout Nueva
España. Unfortunately, for the Españoles they had to great a faith in their Presidio at Santa Fé and
the strength of their Villa.
The Gobernador of Nuevo
Méjico, Juan Durán de Miranda
(1671 C.E.-1675 C.E.) would do little to improve either.
By 1672 C.E., Pueblo de Las Humanas was abandoned and nothing could be done.
The Apaches of northern
Nuevo Méjico became more and
more dangerous as time went on. In
a raid on a Zuñi pueblo, about 1672 C.E., and other pueblos farther east, they killed several frayles. Disease among the Natives was a continued problem.
Nueva España’s El Paso
had more than 25 percent of its
Misión Natives fall victim to Typhus before the scourge ended in
early-1675 C.E. The next Gobernador,
Juan Francisco Treviño (1675 C.E.-1679 C.E.) would inherit a disintegrating
situation and only make it worse. With
the administration at Santa Fé of
Gobernador Treviño the wave
of misery increased to its highest point.
Under his failed leadership, Pueblo
religious practice suffered unprecedented assaults.
On the Gobernador’s
orders kivas and pueblo
ceremonial rooms were demolished and destroyed.
During his first year in office, Gobernador
Treviño had 47 Pueblo religious leaders publicly whipped.
Four of which were later executed by hanging.
The Pueblos reacted swiftly and forcefully.
A large mob of insurgents laid siege to the provincial capital of
Santa Fé.
Approximately 70 entered the villa,
breached the Gobernador’s Palacio,
and took Don Treviño prisoner. Later, in exchange for his life the Gobernador
was forced to release the remaining Pueblo
religious leaders. These
actions did little to help the situation.
The Pueblos remained
angry and resentful. Almost
immediately, agitation and the planning for a wide-spread Pueblo
insurrection against Spanish authority were underway.
One of the freed leaders, Po'pay,
of San Juan Pueblo was to be the principal leader behind the Pueblo
Insurrection which was to oust the Españoles. The principal war chiefs who
acted with Po'pay were El
Jaca of Taos, Don Luís Tupatú
of Picurís, Alonso Catiti
of Santo Domingo, Luís
Cuniju of Jémez,
António Bolsas the
spokesperson for the Tanos Pueblos,
Cristóbal Yope of San
Lázaro, and Keres
leader Altónio Malacate. To make matters worse, there was open war between
the Pueblo Natives and the Apaches
at this time. Affairs
continued to grow out of control, and about 1676 C.E., the Apaches
destroyed churches and villas
and killed a good many Españoles.
The Spanish settlements were without suitable defense, each
frontier station having only five men poorly armed and almost no horses. By 1678 C.E., the Salinas pueblos and their misiónes
at Cililí, Taxique, and Tabirá began
experiencing grave problems. By
the late-1670s C.E., the entire Salinas
District near the area of Misión
Nuestra Señora de Purísima Concepción de Quarai was depopulated
of Native and Spanish inhabitants. This
was primarily due to a number of hardships including a series of
droughts, Apache attacks, and
unrest within the Spanish government causing people at Quarai
to decide to leave the pueblo.
Tiwa speaking
inhabitants it is said joined their linguistic kinsmen along the Río
Grande. It is reported
that by 1678 C.E., none of the Salinas
Valle pueblos and misiónes
had inhabitants. The next Gobernador
was António de Otermín (1679
C.E.-1680 C.E.). It is
assumed that he was born in the family home Otermín,
which in this time was recorded as Otromín
House. It is located on the
foothills of the Massif de Aralar,
natural border between Gipuzkoa
and Navarra, España. Treviño served as titular Gobernador
until 1683 C.E. De Otermín, Governador Treviño's
replacement, arrived inheriting an explosive situation in 1678 C.E.
One can speculate that Don
Otermín had some knowledge of the precarious nature of the Nuevo Méjico situation before assuming the governorship. It
has been suggested that he did little to mitigate the enmity which had
already driven a wedge between the Españoles
and the Pueblos. It has been offered that others, including a poblador
named Francisco Javier, who had served as Treviño's secretary of government and war, were leading advocates
for the relentless campaign against Native religious practices.
However, Don Otermín
retained Javier’s services
in the same position. There
is also some suggestion that those who had been responsible for the
campaign had remained active and influenced his administration.
Therefore, harassment and abuse of Pueblo
religious leaders may have continued.
Don Otermín was ensuring protection and expansion of the estancias
and ranchos. He paid little
attention to the Natives and their needs. The Navajo
remained the enemy of the Españoles.
The Pueblos were now a
powder keg ready to explode. The
Apaches, as well as the other
tribes of Nuevo Méjico, would
grow more war-like during the next two decades, and kill several of the Españoles.
For this they were hung or sold into slavery. The decade of 1680 C.E.-1690 C.E., would bring
with it the terrible consequences of intolerance and in some cases
outright greed. The Españoles would continue their endless exploration.
However, their misión efforts would be brought to an abrupt halt in Nuevo
Méjico. Critics have
charged that the Misión
System destroyed much of the Native culture and turned them into an
exploited and degraded labor force.
It is suggested by anti-Spanish writers that Native lives were
not improved by the misiónes.
That can hardly be the case.
Life in any system is a series of trade-offs.
Nueva España before the Españoles
wasn’t the perfection for the Natives of the region that some would
have us believe. Food was
scarce and warfare was an ongoing affair.
The Españoles brought
with them technology, training, new and important food sources, and the
horse. These changed life in
Nuevo Méjico forever. However,
these improvements came at a price.
They required order and compliance by the Natives.
The Españoles used the Church for this purpose.
There were Natives throughout Nueva
España that were resistant. They
wanted the benefits of the system, but none of the personal costs.
War and a free spirit were a large part of their nature and
culture. Many Natives wanted
to return to the old ways. By 1680 C.E., the Janos, Chihuahua Misión Nuestra
Señora de la Soledad de Janos which had been founded around 1580
C.E. by Franciscan misióneros was completely destroyed.
It was located near the Villa of Janos in the
current-day northern Méjicano
state of Chihuahua.
The Villa of Janos
had been subject to many raids by Apache
and Jumano Natives.
Yet in Nuevo Méjico of
the time, misiónes could be
found among most of the Nuevo Méjicano
Native villas. Resistance against Spanish authority and the
Church gave rise to sporadic insurrections, the most spectacular of
which was led by the Native Po'pay
in 1680 C.E. Following Po'pay’s instructions, the Natives first captured the Spanish
horses and mules, thus making it impossible for the Españoles to communicate rapidly with one another.
The insurrection was also timed to precede the arrival of the
caravan which brought supplies to the Spanish pobladores
from Méjico. At this time,
the Españoles would be low on
weapons and ammunition. Almost
400 Españoles were killed,
and the rest were temporarily driven from Santa
Fé and northern Nuevo Méjico.
The Pueblo Native’s
insurrection headed by its leader Po'pay
(1680 C.E.-1685 C.E.) was more than a move against Spanish governance
and wanting to live under their own rulers.
It was in fact a direct attack upon the religion of the Españoles
and their culture. In their
rage against Spanish Catholicism, the Pueblos
killed Franciscan frayles,
mutilated their bodies, and destroyed the churches.
Of the 33 Franciscan frayles
in the territory, 21 were killed in the insurrection.
Despite this, the misiónes
continued to be an important part of Spanish expansion further into Nueva
España and outward from Nuevo
Méjico. This expansion
of the faith would be a continued feature of Spanish religious and
cultural influence in the region. On August 9, 1680 C.E., two Pueblo leaders of the Galisteo
Basin in north-central Nuevo
Méjico, allies of the Españoles,
sent the news to Otermín of
an insurrection of the Pueblos
against the Españoles. According to
the message, two men from Tesuque
had planned the attack on the Spanish villas
and Franciscan misiónes. On August 20, 1680 C.E., pobladores and soldados
abandoned a fortified enclave and proceeded to raid the insurrectionists
at the Pueblo.
However, the Pueblos had a number of weapons, but Otermín´s army managed to defeat and kill many Native terrorists.
Unfortunately, the number of his soldados
killed exceeded that of terrorists.
However, the insurrectionist victory over the Españoles
to that point was simply astounding.
According to reports from the terrorist captives, most of the
people of the Provincia de Nuevo Méjico had been killed by them. After the limited success of defeat of Otermín’s
army, his council thought that if they wanted to survive of the Pueblo
Insurrection, they had to go to Isleta
Pueblo, where he had
established the other people who had survived the insurrection.
So, Otermín
surrendered some of his army’s arms to the pobladores
and, on August 21, 1680 C.E. they headed en masse at the Isleta Pueblo.
After their arrival, they met another group of refugees who had
arrived there a few weeks before them. During the Pueblo
Insurrection, Po'pay's
terrorists besieged Santa Fé,
surrounded the city, and cut-off its water supply.
Otermín immediately
assembled a council of war and it was decided to launch a surprise
attack on the Pueblo. Three days after his arrival, Otermín
obtained the position of Teniente-Gobernador.
On September 13, 1680 C.E. the number of refugees from Santa
Fé overtook those from Isleta.
By then, the number of insurgents was very large for a fight
against them. On that day, Otermín
was barricaded in the Palacio de
los gobernadores or Palace of the Governors.
He believed that all pobladores
in northern Nuevo Méjico had
already been killed by the Puebloans.
Otermín did not feel safe going to Isleta and called for a general retreat. All the while, the pobladores
of Santa Fé were alive and continued to resist the attacks of
Puebloans. He and the Fray
Cristóbal ordered to people
of Isleta to emigrate from Nuevo
Méjico. On September
21, 1680 C.E. the Spanish pobladores
left the capital city and headed to El
Paso del Norte (current Ciudád
Juárez) to plan the reconquest of Nuevo
Méjico. The number of
persons accompanying to Otermín
was at least 1,946. Five
days later, the pobladores arrived at Salineta,
north of El Paso del Norte.
At La Salineta
a meeting was organized. It
was also decided to delay the retaking of Nuevo
Méjico, until the pobladores
could get the help of the virrey.
The group of refugees with Otermín
at the Guadalupe Misión soon
left because of the dangers in El
Paso del Norte. By
October 9th, the refugees had made their way two leagues downriver from
the Guadalupe Misión. On September 16, 1680 C.E. a group Queres
warriors from Cochití and Santo Domingo led by Mestízo,
Alonso de Catiti, whose brother was with the defenders of the Gobernador's
house in Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico arrived. Alonso
informed the Españoles that the attackers of Santa
Fé were 2,500 strong and the city could not withstand them.
Otermín then blocked
the Casa Real or Royal House,
cutting the water supply, so the women and children, after exhausting
their supplies in a few days, began to die of thirst.
Otermín made his
decision. On August 21, 1680
C.E., he executed 47 prisoners that he had captured during raids.
He then arranged a retreat through a break in the Villa’s
fence. In the end, these Natives would once again lose
the land. Though, after the
Great Pueblo Insurrection of
1680 C.E. and resettlement 1692 C.E., the Españoles
would be forced to establish the first formal laws used to govern water
rights in Nuevo Méjico.
This was in part an effort to ease the tensions between the
parties. Even with the defeat, life went on as usual for
the Españoles.
No longer in Nuevo Méjico, they held at El
Paso de Norte and other places.
One of these was Juan
Rivera who was born in Nuevo Méjico.
He was the son of Francisco de Rivera and Los Ángeles
Martín.
He married Luísa López Ocanto about in 1680 C.E. at Guadalupe del Paso. Luísa
López Ocanto was born in Guadalupe
del Paso. She was the
daughter of Domingo López de Ocanto
and Juana de Mondragon.
The children of Juan Rivera and Luísa Ocanto
were: María Rivera, born
about 1680 C.E. in Nuevo Méjico
and died January 28, 1731-1732 C.E.
She married Francisco García
de Noriega on October 27, 1697 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
Juan Francisco Rivera
was born 1682 C.E. at Guadalupe
del Paso and died before 1725 C.E. in Albuquerque,
Nuevo Méjico.
He married Juana Romero on February 23, 1709 C.E.-1710 C.E. in Albuquerque,
Nuevo Méjico. She was
born 1690 C.E. and died at Albuquerque,
Nuevo Méjico. In November 1681 C.E., Otermín attempted to retake Nuevo
Méjico. While there, he
burned both Isleta Pueblo which had not taken part in the insurrection and Sandia
Pueblo. He then returned
to modern Isleta del Sur, near El Paso,
with a few prisoners, but little else. In Isleta
Pueblo, the pobladores were attacked by the Puebloans, but they were defeated.
So Otermín held a ceremony in which he reestablished Spanish
governance in the region and spared the Natives for their actions.
Otermín also gave
large amounts of maíz to the
local inhabitants, although he gave scarce amounts in Isleta. After Otermín’s
victory, he sent Juan Domínguez
de Mendoza and a company of Hispano
men and Pueblo allies north,
to the Tiwa and Keres lands of Albuquerque
and Bernalillo.
There Mendoza spoke
with Pueblo leaders who told
him that it was their intent to attack and kill the pobladores who returned to the region.
Therefore, Mendoza ordered that the pobladores
be directed to Isleta, where
the Gobernador was.
Otermín then traveled
with his army to northern Nuevo Méjico,
but found that the region of the Pueblos empty. Perhaps
because of fear of new attack by the insurrectionists being planned, he
decided to reconvene several councils of war. By February of 1681 C.E., Otermín led his army along with many of the inhabitants of Isleta
to El Paso (in the present Tejas),
while the other pobladores
fled to south and into the interior of Parral,
Chihuahua and west into Sonora.
Nuevo Méjico was
already in the hands of the Puebloans. By August 1682 C.E., Otermín fell ill and requested to be replaced in his position in
the government of Nuevo Méjico.
His replacement was Domingo
Jirónza (Xirónza or
Girónza)
Pétriz de Cruzate (1683 C.E.-1686 C.E.). In
that same year, de Cruzate
along with Fray Francisco
de Ayeta founded La Misión de
Corpus Christi de San António de la Ysleta
del Sur in Ysleta, Tejas.
By August, 1684 C.E., a vigorous retaliatory
attack had taken place by the combined forces of Españoles and Natives (allies) against an Apache ranchería.
The Españoles intent
was to kill as many of the men as possible in an effort to end Apache
attacks once and for all. Secondly,
they would capture and enslave the women and children.
This was thought necessary because Apache
raids had only grown bolder and more insistent.
There had to be an end put these attacks. What is very interesting is that records
show that Gobernador António de
Otermín dispatched one Pedro
Reneros de Posada to Méjico
City in 1684 C.E. This would
mean that de Otermín still had some power. Despite what the Españoles thought or believed about Nueva España the Native peoples were living under their own rulers
such as the Pueblos under Luís
Tupatu (1685 C.E.-1692 C.E.),
without a need for Spanish authority or governance.
In fact, the Españoles had almost given up on retaking and resettling the land. Soon, the Presidio
de San Felipe y Santiago de Janos was to be founded in 1685 C.E. at Janos,
Sonora, Méjico. The Gobernador
ordered Capitán Juan Fernández de la
Fuente to send troops to Janos
to establish the Presidio.
Its purpose was to counter the early Apache
thrusts into Sonora. The Españoles
were beginning to see what was to be an all-out war with the fierce Apaches.
The Presidio del Pasaje
(1685 C.E.), on Río Nazas
northwest of Cuencamé
Durango, the Presidio de San
Francisco de Conchos was founded in 1685 C.E. at San Francisco de
Conchos, Chihuahua,
and the Presidio de Casas Grandes
(1686 C.E.), was to be relocated to Janos,
Chihuahua in 1691 C.E. were
also a part of this fortress bulwark. The Pueblo
people would have none of the Spanish government.
And it wasn’t just the Pueblos. As stated
earlier, as a consequence of numerous and deadly raids by Apaches,
a presidio, or military
outpost, was established at Janos,
Chihuahua in 1686 C.E. in an
effort to hold the area. Yet,
despite the Pueblo
Insurrection and a surge in Apache
attacks, from 1687 C.E., Padre
Eusebio Francisco Kino, with the marqués de Villapuente’s
economic help, founded over twenty more misiónes
in the Sonora Desert (in
present day Méjicano state Sonora and U.S. state Arizona). Even as the new titular Gobernador
Pedro Reneros de Posada (1686 C.E.-1689 C.E.) came into office and
carried out the pretence of Spanish power in the region.
Back in September of 1681 C.E., de
Posada had passed muster before Gobernador
António de Otermín. He
reported that he was a thirty-year-old bachelor. That
same month, he enlisted as a presidial soldado.
De
Posada was a native of Oceño
(Peñamellera Alta) in eastern
Asturias, España. He
was born there approximately 1651 C.E. The
mountainous area surrounding the Peñamellera valle
or valley is narrow, and the valle
is held between the Cordillera de
Cuera to the north and the Picos
de Europa to the south. San
Juan de Oceño is the highest of the five villas
in the valley, at 3,280 feet. As early sacramental records at the
parish of San Juan have not
survived, it’s not possible to ascertain de
Posada's exact date of birth or the names of his parents. However,
there are other records from the area establishing that the surnames Reneros
and de Posada are clearly from
Oceño and used as early as
1584 C.E. In 1681 C.E., records describe de
Posada as being of good physique, with a ruddy complexion, wavy
chestnut hair and beard. One
assumes that he fought with de
Otermín in his unsuccessful 1681 C.E. campaign. De Posada rose quickly through the soldiering ranks to become an alférez
or Ensign and eventually a Capitán.
By April 13, 1682 C.E., we
find him in El Paso standing
as godfather for the son of Juan
Cabello and María Holguín,
António. Alférez
Pedro Reneros de Posada and Catalina
de Gamboa baptized their natural son, Francisco
Ascencio, on May 8, 1682 C.E. at the church of Nuestra
Señora de Guadalupe. Records show that in May 1686 C.E., Pedro
Reneros de Posada was residing at Méjico
City and was already using the title Gobernador
and Capitán General of
the provinces of Nuevo Méjico
when he agreed to repay 2,161 pesos
to one Juan de Somoano. By September 19, 1686 C.E., de
Posada is found in El Paso
assuming the governorship of Nuevo
Méjico. Within nine
days, Gobernador Pedro Reneros de Posada issued orders for Sargento
Mayor Roque Madrid, Capitán
Alonso de Aguilar, and Sargento
Juan de Vargas to carry-out the capital punishment and execution of
one Juan de Montoya, whom de
Reneros had found guilty of
treason. The three men were
gathered at eleven o'clock in the morning on the appointed date and
executed the order. An edict was issued on September 30, 1686
C.E., by Gobernador de Reneros
ordering the residents of the El
Paso area to be vigilant against possible Native hostilities. De
Reneros stated that Natives had found the Españoles
and Padres sleeping in 1680
C.E., during the Insurrection. He
demanded that they should not to let it happen once again.
The Gobernador told the
people that their sons and servants were to act as sentinels watching
carefully over their homes and lands. Those
without children would be responsible to perform this duty themselves. Pobladores
were ordered to remain on a war footing with their weapons at the ready
and be prepared to use them. Failure
to follow his order would have resulted in a sentence of two years of
service, without pay, protecting the horse herd of the
presidio. Gobernador
de Reneros addressed dueling,
which was apparently common in the area at the time. He
issued an edict on February 11, 1687 C.E., wherein he informed the pobladores
that it was against the law to threaten a fellow ciudadano
with a harquebus. No matter
how serious a situation, one could not challenge his fellow man to a
duel. A second was not to be
taken when going to confront someone and it was forbidden to carry a lanza or any other prohibited weapon. Dueling
was prohibited and wouldn’t be tolerated unless in such urgent cases
that the matter had to be settled with equal weapons, man-to-man, at the
risk of losing one's life. In
no case could a ciudadano confront someone with a weapon if one's opponent did not
have a weapon with which to defend himself. To
do so would be a criminal act. In early March1687 C.E., Gobernador
de Reneros issued an edict regarding control of livestock. He
was concerned about horses, cattle, and sheep being allowed to graze in
planted fields, especially those of wheat that had just come up, and
harm the critical acequias. Animals
found in planted fields or harming acequias
would be seized and their value applied to the damages to the crops or
repairs. Any money left over
after covering the damages would be kept in a fund for war expenses. Maestre
de campo (Master of field was a military rank created in 1534 C.E.by
King Carlos I of España. In the scale of
ranks was under the Capitán
General and above the sargento
mayor) Felipe Romero, Capitán
António Domínguez, and Ayudante
Juan García were assigned the duty of carrying-out the edict. An edict was issued on April 28, 1687 C.E.
by Gobernador de Reneros
ordering the ciudadanos of the
El Paso area not to purchase
stallions or mares, articles of clothing, or weapons from soldados. Should a
purchase of this kind be made, the item would be forfeit. Both
seller and buyer would also be subject to punishment. Further,
soldados were to bring all
their firearms to the gunsmith, Francisco
Lucero to be put in good working order. It
was also ordered that lanzas
made so that all would be ready in the event of Native hostilities. In the summer of 1687 C.E., Gobernador
de Reneros led soldados up
the Río Grande to the Jémez
River, which his party then followed to Santa
Ana. Once the
insurrectionists at Santa Ana had refused the surrender terms de Reneros proposed, a battle began. An
angry de Reneros then burned
the pueblo and returned to El
Paso with four Pueblo
leaders and ten other captives. De
Reneros later had the four leaders executed. He
found the other ten Keres
Indian captives guilty of taking part in the Insurrection (Revolt) of
1680 C.E. These ten captives
were then brought to El Paso
sometime after Gobernador de
Reneros' raid upriver at Santa
Ana. There they were
found guilty of treason and sentenced in October 1687 C.E.
Their sentence, to ten years of slavery in the silver mines of Nueva
Vizcaya and the insurrectionists were forbidden to return to of
Nuevo Méjico. The
proceeds of the sale of the insurrectionists went to the war fund. On July 3rd, Gobernador de Reneros began the trial of Silvestre Pachéco for the
killing of one José Baca. It
was alleged that the two men had fought, resulting in Pachéco
killing his brother-in-law, Baca
by attacking him with a hoe. Baca's immediate family came forward to request a pardon for Pachéco.
The case was not decided
until September 1690 C.E., by which time de
Reneros was no longer in the governorship of Nuevo
Méjico. Gobernador Jirónza would later pardon Pachéco and assess him a fine of one hundred pesos for his actions in Baca's
death. In 1689 C.E., Gobernador de Reneros came upon a large number of Suma
Indians in the area just below San
Lorenzo. These included
a group who had destroyed the misión
at Ojito some five years earlier. Knowing
that the Natives were dangerous, under a flag truce
de Reneros attacked and killed many of them. He
next had nine identified leaders and shot. The
other forty he ordered sold into slavery in the mines for ten years. He
selected two little girls and sent them to the Gobernador
of Nueva Vizcaya as gifts. On February 21, 1689 C.E., Domingo
Jirónza (Xirónza or Girónza)
Pétriz de Cruzate replaced Gobernador
de Reneros. Jirónza
then held de Reneros' residencia
or administrative review during which a charge was leveled by soldados
against the Gobernador. They
claimed that de Reneros had embezzled their salaries. Later,
when authorities in Méjico
City sought to examine the residencia
during subsequent litigation, it was found to be missing. The soldados
alleged that Gobernador de Reneros
had provided only a quarter of their pay for the years 1687 C.E. and
1688 C.E. It was alleged
that he then ordered each soldado
to attend a personal interview. They
reported that during the meeting, the Gobernador
coerced them into signing receipts for pay which he subsequently
collected and kept for himself. His
accomplices were said to have been Diego
Arias Quirós, Tomás Gutiérrez Carrera, and Leonardo
de Villanueva. When de
Reneros departed Nuevo Méjico for Zacatecas,
the three accompanied him. Later,
de Reneros was commanded to
restore the stolen salary to the soldados,
which was estimated at 26,000 pesos
for the year-and-a-half for which they were owed. In April 1689 C.E., Sebastián Rodríguez Brito and Antónia
Naranjo underwent a prenuptial investigation in El Paso. During the
investigation Brito stated
that Gobernador de Reneros,
whom he had served for three years, was attempting to prevent the
marriage by alleging that he was already married to a woman in Veracruz.
It was reported to the body that in the month of July 1687 C.E., Gobernador
de Reneros had as a slave in his domestic service Sebastián
Rodríguez Brito, the son of Manuel
Rodríguez and María Fernández.
It has been suggested that Brito
was probably born in the 1650s C.E.in or near Luanda, Angola.
The circumstances through which he came to the Nuevo
Mundo as a slave were never provided.
Estéban de Berdiguil,
a native of Méjico City,
testified that two Méjico
City merchants, one of whom was Juan
de Samano, had requested that Brito
be manacled and returned to his wife.
Due to this testimony, the marriage did not take place. Soon,
Gobernador de Reneros had a
change of heart and facilitated Brito
being freed from slavery. By
May 1689 C.E., Brito regained
his freedom and was living at El
Paso. In a larger context of life in Nueva
España, the Españoles
could not allow the Pueblo
people’s insurrection to last forever.
It was a matter of Spanish power and pride.
The latest titular Gobernador,
Domingo
Jirónza (Xirónza or
Girónza)
Pétriz de Cruzate (1689C.E.-1691 C.E.) was to be part of the upcoming change. De
Cruzate was baptized at Hecho
in the Spanish province of Huesca
in the Kingdom of Aragón on
September 11, 1640 C.E. A
marriage record exists for one Domingo
Xirónza who wed Sebastián de
Oquendo at Méjico City on
April 30, 1663 C.E. He was
the son of António Xirónza and Ana
Mangues Pérez. Those
with the Aragonese surname, Pétriz
had their seat in Hecho.
Three of his uncles bore the additional name, Redín y Cruzate: fray Martín,
Miguel António, and Tiburcio.
These men performed admirable services to the Corona
Española, especially Tiburcio.
It was he that drove Islamic corsairs from Spanish coasts until
joining the Capuchin Order and serving twenty years as a misiónero
in Africa and the Indies. De
Cruzate was also related to Fausto
Cruzat y Góngora, his contemporary, who was Gobernador
of the Philippines from 1690
C.E. to1700 C.E. and the son of the first Marqués
de Góngora, a title created by Carlos
II in 1695 C.E. De Cruzate and Fausto were
relatives of Gervasio Cruzat y Góngora,
who was the Gobernador of Nuevo
Méjico from 1736 C.E. to 1739 C.E. It
has been suggested that Domingo's
nephew, Juan Mateo Manje, added the surname Góngora to Jirónza's
list of names. In 1692 C.E.,
the Méjicano intellectual
giant, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora,
in his letter to Andrés de Pez
would mention that Jirónza
was his uncle. In 1675 C.E., Domingo had returned to España.
While in Madrid, Jirónza executed
the conveyance of a 3,000-peso
credit to Francisco Freire de
Andrade, supposedly for loans of cash he’d made to him for various
trips, illnesses, and other reasons.
One Francisca María Osorio referred to Jirónza as licenciado, or
licenciate, in a document implying he had a university degree. On April 10, 1680 C.E., Jirónza
left Cádiz sailing aboard the warship San José. He held the
rank of Capitán in command of
fifty soldados.
Domingo later held the
title of Inspector of the Presidios
of the Windward Islands, while simultaneously acting as a royal courier
to the Virrey of Nueva España. He
carried among those messages one to the Virrey.
It was an order to provide Jirónza
with a suitable position in the Indies.
The Virrey, Payo Enríquez de
Rivera, soon named Jirónza
to an available post, the alcaldía
or Mayor's office of Mestitlán.
Jirónza would serve in
this post with distinction until 1682 C.E. By May of 1683 C.E., Domingo
was already using the title of Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico. It is
known that Jirónza executed a
power of attorney to one Diego
Ignacio de Córdoba and to Juan
Pascual Lalana in Zacatecas.
De Córdoba operated as
a business agent and resident of Madrid. Juan Lalana was also a resident of Madrid, though no occupation was stated for him. It
is suggested that Jirónza intended de Córdoba
and Lalana to represent him before the king and his councils. The
purpose of which was to have them seek promotion or appointment to a
high position or office for military or judicial position in El
Imperio Español. All of
this was in an effort to provide documents attesting to his record of
service and the services provided by Domingo’s
ancestors to ensure a future position as he made his way to his current
post as Gobernador of Nuevo
Méjico. In 1684 C.E., we find Domingo
Jirónza leading an expedition against the Apaches. The following
year, he tried to gather and return the many Nuevo
Méjico refugees who had fled the El
Paso area against royal orders. Pedro
Reneros Posada replaced Domingo
Jirónza in 1686 C.E. He
would serve until 1689 C.E. Upon
his return to El Paso, Jirónza
led an expedition attempting the resettlement of Nuevo
Méjico in 1689 C.E. The
major action of the expedition was the destruction of Zía
Pueblo. During the
day-long battle, of Jirónza’s
contingent of eighty soldados,
fifty were wounded. An
estimated six hundred Natives were killed and seventy were taken captive
and removed to El Paso. España wanting to expedite territorial consolidation of Nueva España built the Méjicano
villa of Santiago de la Monclova, establishing it in 1689 C.E.
It is today, a city and the seat of the surrounding municipality
of the same name in the northern Méjicano state of Coahuila. In March, 1689 C.E., the
tenacious Apaches again thundered down on a villa
and drove off two hundred horses. Pursuit
was prompt and eighteen Apaches
were killed but only one of the horses was recovered.
As soon as the soldados
had returned to their presidio,
the insurrectionists, terrorists attacked and murdered a party from Arispe, consisting of Capitán
Cristóbal León, his son, two
other Españoles, and six
Native servants. Jirónza
followed the Natives with his “Compañía
Volante or Flying Company” and killed three of them.
The term "Flying Company" applies to a certain type of
cavalry troop. It was
frequently in the field pursuing hostile Natives and protecting frontier
settlements. The military
unit was detached from the main guarnición
in order to provide "quick-response." Soon,
Capitán Fuente arrived from Janos
to join in the punitive expedition.
The punishment was severe; the Apaches
were forced back to the Gila
River, and thirty-two of their warriors were killed.
A joint campaign of considerable importance was then waged
against the Apaches and their
allies in September, 1689 C.E., by three commanders, Jirónza,
Terán, and Fuente. Many Natives
were slain. The decade of 1690 C.E.-1699 C.E. would begin with
more Spanish exploration outward from Nuevo
Méjico.
In 1690 C.E., following various Native and buffalo trails, the
Spanish explorer Alonso de León,
crossed the Río Grande on his
way to East Tejas to establish
misiónes, effectively
establishing Old San António Road. The Old San
António Road was not a single road, but a network of trails with
different routes at different times.
Each trail's path was dictated by things as diverse as weather
and Native threats. During
this period, Tejas was a
Spanish provincia and the road
was used as a major thoroughfare between Méjico
City and East Tejas. In the Tejas
region at the close of the 17th-Century C.E., España responded to expanding French settlements in the Mississippi
River valley, and even incursions along the Red River, by establishing
two small forward misiónes in
1690 C.E. These were the
precursors to the larger, expanded misiónes
which would be expanded and followed by presidios,
ranchos, estancias, and villas. España would continue with its vanguard of Church influence by building the
first of its Tejas misiónes
when founding one near what is now Weches, Tejas
in 1690 C.E. However, it
would fail due to Native hostility.
The Españoles were anything but weak on the matter of overcoming
adversity. The Native
problem was beginning to test their ability to grow and thrive.
Even after the first Apache raids on Sonora
during the early part of the late-17th-Century C.E. the Españoles continued in their efforts.
The ongoing Native problem would lead Spanish authorities to
establish the protective Presidio
de San Pedro del Gallo in 1690's C.E. at San Pedro del Gallo, Durango.
To further counter the early Apache
thrusts into Sonora, a presidio was
established at Frontéras in
that same year in northern Opata
country. The year that Gobernador
Diego de Vargas (titular 1688
C.E.-1691 C.E., effective 1691 C.E.-1697 C.E.) of Nuevo Méjico came to power under the Virreinato of Nueva España,
Spanish explorers and misióneros
visited the interior of Tejas
and came upon a river and Native settlement on June 13th, the Feast day
of Saint Anthony, and named the location and river San
António in his honor. The Spanish thrust outward from Tejas
had begun with the Old San António
Road. It is generally
accepted that by 1691 C.E. the Old San
António Road had come into being.
Domingo Terán de los Ríos served
During the decade, misión efforts would continue everywhere possible in Nueva
España. Native alcaldes
were appointed in the misión
towns to maintain order and carry out their duties as police officers.
They dressed better than the other Natives wearing shoes and
stockings, which newly appointed officers dispensed as often as
possible. Many chose to go
barefoot or only wear stockings. When
a vacancy in the office occurred the Natives themselves were asked which
one they preferred of several suggested by the local Padre. The misiónes
had thousands of Native converts at the time of its greatest prosperity,
and a number of Native alcaldes
were needed there. The alcaldes of the Spanish people in the pueblos acted more as local judges and were appointed by the Gobernador. Natives chosen to be personal attendants of the Padres
were selected for their obedience and quickness of perception with much
care. Some seemed to have
reached the very perfection of silent, careful, unselfish service.
They could be trusted with the most important matters.
They were strictly honest. Many
of the Padres had their own private barbers.
Other Natives enjoyed the honor of a seat at the table with their
padre and generally
accompanied him on journeys to other misiónes. Later, when
the misiónes were
secularized, this custom, like many others, was ended. Native vaqueros,
who lived much of the time on the more distant cattle ranges, were
considered a wild group of men. These
were stationed as hill vaqueros,
who were very different from the vaqueros
of the large valle near the misiónes. It was the custom at all the misiónes and the rule of the Franciscan misióneros to keep the young unmarried Natives separate.
The young girls and the young widows at the misiónes
occupied a large adobe
building, with a yard behind it, enclosed by high adobe
walls. In this yard some
trees were planned, and a zanja
or water-ditch supplied a large bathing-pond.
The women were kept busy at various occupations, in the building,
under the trees, or on the wide porch; they were taught spinning,
knitting, the weaving of Native baskets from grasses, willow rods and
roots, and more especially plain sewing.
The treatment and occupation of the unmarried women was similar
at the other misiónes.
When heathen Native women entered, were brought in by their
friends or by the soldados,
they were put in these houses. They
would then be placed under the charge of older women who taught them
what to do. The women, thus separated from the men, could only
be courted from without through the upper windows facing on narrow villa
streets. These windows were
about two feet square, crossed by iron bars, and perhaps three feet
deep, as the adobe walls were very thick. However,
the rules were no stricter than those that still prevailed in some of
the Spanish-Américano
countries for those Natives of a much higher social class than these
uneducated Natives belonged to. Rules
for this region were adopted by the padres
from Méjicano models. After a Native, in his hours of freedom from toil,
declared his affection by a sufficiently long attendance upon a certain
window, it was the duty of the woman to tell the father misiónero or missionary and to declare her decision.
If this was favorable, the young man was asked if he was willing
to contract marriage with the young woman who had confessed her
preference. Sometimes there
were several rival suitors. After
marriage the couple was conducted to their home, a hut built for them
among the other Native houses in the villa
near the misión. The Native mothers were instructed on the proper
care of children and the cleanliness of the person was strongly
inculcated. In fact, the misión
Natives, large and small, were wonderfully clean. Their
faces and hair fairly shined as a result of soap and water.
In cases where a Native woman was so slovenly and neglectful of
her infant that it died, she was punished. The Padres
always had a school for the Native boys.
Every prominent misión
had Padres who paid great
attention to training the Natives in music.
Many young Natives had good voices, and these were selected with
great care to be trained in singing for the church choir.
It was thought to be such an honor to sing in church that, the
Native families were all very anxious to be represented.
Some were taught to play on the violin and other stringed
instruments. There were
often more than a dozen players on instruments.
Padres could be most
genial and kindly men of the misióneros.
It is surprising that people today believe that every one of the Padres
of the time was severe. At many of Nueva
España’s misiónes
there were sometimes large flocks of tame pigeons.
At the misiónes, the Padres’ doves consumed centals of wheat daily, besides what they
gathered in the villa.
The doves were of many colors, and they made a beautiful
appearance on the red tiles of the church and the tops of the dark
garden walls. The Native houses at the misiónes were never more than one story high, also of adobe,
but much smaller and with thinner walls.
The Natives covered the earthen floors in part with coarse mats,
on which they slept. The misiónes,
as quickly as possible, provided the Natives with blankets.
These were woven for home use and for sale under a padre’s
personal supervision. Ex-Gobernador
de Reneros had a dispute with the Tribunal of Accounts in Méjico
City regarding a request to be excused from paying for weapons that he
alleged had simply worn-out during his term as Gobernador.
On June 12, 1691 C.E., de Reneros presented a detailed accounting of the weapons and
related items. It was his
position that he should not be held accountable.
Apparently the tribunal agreed with the reasons he cited and
accepted his request. Later,
in October 1691 C.E., de Reneros
executed an obligation by which he promised to repay a loan of 425 pesos
to Julián Espinosa of Méjico City.
Acting as guarantor of the loan was General
Felipe de Montemayor y Prado. The Españoles
had once again turned their sights to Nuevo
Méjico. De Vargas had been appointed Gobernador
and Capitán-General of Nuevo
Méjico in Mid-1688 C.E. He
finally assumed the position in February of 1691 C.E.
Although his original intention was to immediately undertake the
retaking of Nuevo Méjico, economic conditions in El Paso and hostilities between the Españoles and Native tribes in northern Nueva España would prevent his departure until 1692 C.E.
The new Gobernador and Capitán-General
of Nuevo Méjico, de Vargas
was the man the Españoles had
chosen to regain the provincia.
He would use all of his considerable skills to achieve that end.
His resetteling of the land would begin as quickly as possible. In 1691 C.E., Ex-Gobernador of Nuevo Méjico
Domingo Jirónza had
planned another attempt at resetteling Nuevo Méjico,
but Suma uprisings south of El
Paso forced him to cancel the expedition.
He was in Méjico City
in early September when he acted as guarantor for four hundred pesos
for Sargento Mayor Francisco
António Castellanos, a ciudadano
of Puebla residing in Méjico
City. The pesos were owed to one Pedro
de la Parra who had loaned Castellanos
the money for outfitting him in Puebla. King Carlos
II was pleased with Jirónza’s
service and would have reappointed him to the governorship of Nuevo Méjico had Don Diego
de Vargas not already taken up the post.
In those circumstances, the king directed his Virrey
in Méjico City to find
another governorship for Jirónza.
He also granted Jirónza membership in one of the Spanish military orders although
there is no evidence that he ever became a knight. In April 1692 C.E., de Reneros wrote a letter from the virreinalor court at Méjico
City to Don Diego de Vargas. The
letter regarded the marital status of his former slave, Rodríguez
Brito, and provided news from that de
Reneros had been ill. It
was also stated that de Reneros
was by then in good health as were the horses he was riding.
He requested that de Vargas,
whom he considered a friend, to order him as he wished. By 1692 C.E., de
Vargas succeeded in persuading twenty-three Nuevo Méjico pueblos to rejoin the Imperio Español. Two
separate expeditions had been planned by de
Vargas. The first was
the reconnaissance of Nuevo Méjico.
The second was for the resettlement and reestablishment of
Spanish governance over the region.
The Españoles
considered the first expedition an unequivocal success.
During the four months of the expedition, de
Vargas succeeded in obtaining the loyalty from some of the pueblos. Unfortunately, the expedition was not without
hostility. The Gobernador's forces were faced with aggressive Native forces that
outnumbered the Españoles by
ten-to-one at Santa Fé, Jémez,
and the Hopi pueblos. Fortunately,
De Vargas' diplomacy prevailed
and bloodshed was avoided. He
then returned to El Paso and
began preparations for the resettlement of Nuevo
Méjico. The Provincia
remained in the hands of the Pueblos
for the next year. At this
point, the regaining of it was not yet completed. Santa Fé had been the capital of the Spanish province of Nuevo Méjico since 1610 C.E. The
Presidio of Santa
Fé was rebuilt after
1692 C.E. and named Presidio de Exaltación de la Cruz del Nuevo Méjico and was also
known as El Real Presidio de
Nuestra Señora de los Remedios y la Exaltación de la Santa Cruz.
The Palacio de los
gobernadores is at the heart of this presidio. Fortified
barracks were north of the Palacio.
The Plaza de Armas
outside the Palacio later
became part of Américano Fort
Marcy. The protective Presidio de Santa Rosa de Corodéguachi was founded in 1692 C.E.,
near the Sonora/Arizona border and later moved to Frontéras, Sonora The Apaches
were another issue. Near Zuñi,
in the autumn of 1692 C.E., a herd of cattle owned by Españoles
was stampeded by the Apaches
and stolen. With Native
unrest continuing throughout Nueva
España, the Españoles found it necessary to establish the Frontier Line Presidio
de San Felipe y Santiago de Janos (1691 C.E.-?) at Janos,
Chihuahua. After Gobernador
Diego de Vargas led the
resettlement of the Río Grande
Valley (1693 C.E.-1696 C.E.) in Nuevo
Méjico, détente
prevailed between the Españoles
and Pueblos. This was in
part due to the Pueblos'
diminished fighting capability. It
was also because of the necessity for a military alliance in the face of
constant Apache and Navajo
raids and warfare. In other parts of the region of Nueva
España, in 1693 C.E. there were Native insurrections. After
leaving Nuevo Méjico, Ex-Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico Don Domingo
Jirónza assumed command of a
highly mobile military unit in Sonora. That brave and capable
officer was placed in command of a “Flying Company” organized for
the defense of Sonora against
the marauding Apaches.
He immediately made two strong attacks on the Apaches. He
would later become Capitán for life of the Presidio
of Fronteras and alcalde mayor of Sonora.
Created in 1690 C.E., the Presidio
de las Fronteras de Sonora was for the first ten years of its
existence a “Flying Company” with no permanent base.
Initially, the military unit operated out of the mining camp of San
Juan Bautista. That same
year, Jirónza's nephew, Juan Mateo Mange, would come to Sonora
from España and his uncle
would make him a teniente in
the presidial company. In that same year, of 1693 C.E., Gregorio
de Salinas Varona further defined the course of the Old San
António Road while bringing relief supplies from Monclova.
Gregorio de Salinas Varona
(ca. 1650 C.E.-?) was a Spanish official who entered royal service as a
privada or private
and rose through the ranks. Earlier,
at Nueva España he had been
ordered by the new virrey, Conde de Gálvez, to join Alonso
de León's 1690 C.E. Tejas
Expedition. He journeyed
north toward Monclova
escorting four of the Franciscans destined for the first East Tejas
misión, San Francisco de los Tejas. By
royal order of May 30, 1691 C.E., de
Salinas was given command of the Presidio
de San Francisco de Coahuila (Monclova),
but other assignments kept him away from the post.
The previous month the virrey had ordered him to assist the expedition of Gobernador
Domingo Terán de los Ríos,
aimed at expanding the East Tejas
misiónero effort.
Later, he was ordered to undertake a relief expedition to the
afflicted East Tejas misiónes.
On May 3, 1693 C.E., he left Monclova
with twenty soldados and
ninety-six mules loaded with provisions.
On this expedition he defined a portion of the Old San
António Road. During
his term as Gobernador, de Salinas aided in the material improvement of the Coahuila
misiónes and assisted the reduction of numerous Natives. On October 4, 1693, de Vargas left El Paso for
Santa Fé with a resettlement
expedition comprised of one hundred soldados,
pobladores represented by
seventy families, and eighteen Franciscan frayles,
and Native allies. In
addition, several thousand horses and mules and approximately one
thousand head of livestock were herded along by the main force of the
expedition. Supplies and
three cannon were hauled by six wagons and eighty mules. Despite the relatively peaceful nature of de
Vargas's preliminary expedition and the submission of the
twenty-three pueblos, the
Spanish resettlement force of the second expedition met with Native
resistance upon their arrival in Nuevo
Méjico. Only 4 of the
23 pueblos remained loyal, Pecos,
Santa Ana, Zia, and San
Felipe.
The Gobernador of Pecos,
Juan de Ye, met de Vargas
before the Gobernador reached Santa
Fé warning him that most of the province had prepared for war. De Vargas arrived at Santa Fé to find Tewas
and Tanos tribesmen fortified within the plaza. The Gobernador
decided to establish an encampment near the villa.
The Españoles remained
camped outside Santa Fé
under difficult and the cold conditions for two weeks.
Twenty-three members of the expedition died from exposure.
With rumors of Pueblo
attacks and war running wild, the Españoles
decided that the Natives holding Santa
Fé should be confronted
and returned to their pueblo
of Galisteo. The Españoles
would accomplish this by force if necessary and then enter the town and
resettle it. As the Natives
at Santa Fé could see and hear the proceedings, they planned for
resistance. In the early morning of the 28th of December, de
Vargas was aroused by a messenger.
He was warned of an imminent attack by the native forces from Santa
Fé. Immediately, de Vargas made plans to counter the attack.
He also sent the Gobernador of Pecos to his
pueblo for reinforcements.
A squadron of Spanish soldados was dispatched to approach the walls of the villa
to estimate the force of armed warriors.
It was at this point that another force of Pueblos
arrived to aid those Natives on the Santa
Fé walls. With most of his soldado, de Vargas
proceeded to the walls attempting a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
During talks with the Españoles António Bolsas, the leader of the Natives, agreed to
discuss the situation with his Native forces and give reply to de
Vargas by evening. None
was forthcoming. Early the
next morning, a group of 140 reinforcements arrived from.
A determined De Vargas
next moved forward against the villa.
The Natives on the walls
began shouting threats that the entire province was against the Españoles and would kill them all, except for the frayles
who they would make slaves. Arrows
and stones followed the insults. The
valiant de Vargas shouted out the Santiago
y cierra, España!
A war cry of Iberian troops during España’s
Reconquista and that of the Imperio
Español, urging his men into battle.
Thus began the battle which lasted until early the next morning.
The Españoles were
victorious. De Vargas had succeeded in capturing the main city of Nuevo Méjico, its capital. With
this victory, he’d gained a solid foundation for the eventual
reestablishment of Spanish control over the entire region.
With the capture of Santa Fé complete, de Vargas
divided the stores of maíz,
beans, and other foodstuffs among the resettling Spanish Pobladores. Next, the Pobladores
then resettled into the houses which had been retrieved from the
defeated Natives. By 1694
C.E., the attempted insurrection by the Tewa
and Tano Pueblos to drive the Españoles
once more out of the area was put down by the Españoles.
But de Vargas' problems
with insurrection would continue. He
would soon discover that reestablishment of Spanish governance over the
region would prove no easy task. With
the beginning of 1694 C.E., Santa
Fé would find itself the lone outpost of España
in Nuevo Méjico.
Only 4 pueblos had
sided with the Españoles--Santa
Ana, San Felipe, Zia, and Pecos. By January of 1694 C.E., de Vargas had taken most of the Río
Grande valley. Now under
Spanish control, de Vargas’
defeats of the pueblos along
the Río Grande had gained him their stores.
In doing so he had forced their capitulation.
The reconstituted region soon began to grow as more pobladores
arrived from southern Nueva España.
Two new Spanish villas, Santa Cruz and Bernalillo
were founded and eleven misiónes
reestablished. Soon, the misióneros
felt secure enough to be assigned to various pueblos. But still, Nuevo
Méjico’s western pueblos
of Ácoma, Zuñi, and the Hopi
located in areas where Spanish governance was still unrecognized had not
been dealt with. To make
matters worse, hostilities began to emerge at the pueblos
that had accepted Spanish governance. In March 1695 C.E., Ex-Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico Jirónza granted power of attorney, first to Manuel
Tirrado, an official in the office of the secretary and then acting
secretary to the Virrey of Nueva España,
and second to Luís Ibáñez
de Ozerín, another official in the office of the secretary.
The holders of power of attorney were to collect from the royal
treasury in Méjico City,
2,086 pesos the crown owed Jirónza
for the period beginning on May 2, 1694 C.E. and lasting until October
20, 1695 C.E. for campaigns and other activities performed in the royal
service. Jirónza
also established his temporary headquarters during his 1695 C.E.
campaign against rebellious Pimas
at Cucurpe. During this
period of service in Sonora, Jirónza
led campaigns against Apaches,
Janos, Jocomes, Upper Pimas,
and Sumas. In April of 1694 C.E., de Vargas launched campaigns against those pueblos along the Río Grande
who still had not accepted Spanish governance.
These would continue through September of that year.
The continual battles for supremacy between the Españoles
and the Natives kept the Españoles
in Santa Fé from planting crops. Starvation
soon became a very real possibility. When two hundred and thirty
additional pobladores arrived
in June, the situation was exacerbated. My progenitor, Juan Felipe de
Ribera was born 1694
C.E. in Zacatecas, Nueva
España. Juan was one of those that entered Nuevo Méjico with the de
Vargas resettlement efforts. He
would die after a long, full life on October 01, 1767 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. In 1694 C.E., outside of Nuevo Méjico Comendador Jirónza
conducted four energetic campaigns against the Apaches
and other hostile tribes. A
band of Apaches had stolen
thousands of horses in northern Sonora.
Jirónza pursued these
marauders, killing thirteen of them and capturing seven.
Later in the same year, with the aid of Pima
warriors, he gained a great victory over six hundred of the invaders,
killing large numbers of them. In
cooperation with Capitán Fuente of the presidio
at Janos, and with the aid of the Pimas,
he invaded the territory of the Apaches.
His efforts would gain
meager results. Young ensign
Juan Mateo
Manje was associated with his
uncle, Comendador or Commander
Jirónza, in these Apache battles and was later assigned as military escort to the
Jesuit Padres on their
dangerous journeys into new territory.
In his Lux de Tierra
Incognita (Unknown land), Manje
makes frequent allusion to Apache
raids into Sonora for the purpose of stealing horses and ravaging the Spanish
settlements. He comments,
too, on the great difficulty of winning any of the Apaches
to the church; and consoles himself with the thought that, hard as it
may be to instill the Faith into the hearts of these people, when once
the impression is made it will be as if stamped on bronze. The Presidio
Santa Cruz de la Cañada,
in Santa Cruz, was established when
the Españoles resettled Nuevo Méjico and quickly moved to regain control of the middle Río
Grande Valley. In 1695
C.E., the town of "Villa
Nueva de Santa Cruz de los Españoles Méjicanos
de Rey Nuestro Señor Carlos Segundo" became the second town
established by the Españoles
(Santa Fé being the first).
The new villa, or seat
of government, was established at Santa
Cruz de La Cañada, north
of the capital at Santa Fé.
As the settlement's population grew, there was an urgent need to
establish communities further from the Río
Grande Valley and out into Nuevo
Méjico's mountain valleys which were more easily irrigated.
Much of this expansion was made possible through a system of land
grants that awarded tracts of land to individuals and groups who agreed
to establish settlements and cultivate land along the frontier.
Examples of this are communities that were established along Nuevo
Méjico's frontier during this period.
Among those that shouldered the burden of frontier settlement and
defense, was the growing Mestízo, or mixed blood, population of the province.
Among the least recognized and appreciated of these groups were
the Genízaro.
The Genízaro Natives
were from many tribes. For a
variety of reasons they had lost their tribal identity.
Many of them had been captive children who were raised in Spanish
households, had been baptized, assumed Spanish surnames, and eventually
became Hispanicized. By mid-year, 1695 C.E., the soldados of de Vargas were
dispersed. This left the
Franciscan frayles alone and
unprotected at their misiónes.
The winter of 1695 C.E.-1696 C.E. was harsh one, putting
additional burdens on the Spanish pobladores continued having difficulty providing food.
Those Pueblo leaders
hostile to the Españoles had
watched and waited. They now
perceived with the Spanish soldados
occupied elsewhere and the pobladores
in a weakened state the time was propitious for a second insurrection.
It appeared that they could be successful as they had fifteen
years earlier. By July of 1695 C.E., the misióneros began to fear that the Pueblos were preparing another uprising.
In December, the Custodio, Fray Francisco
de Vargas held a meeting to ascertain the extent of the possible
insurrection. With fears
rampant the frayles petitioned
the Gobernador to post soldados at the pueblos
for protection. Gobernador de Vargas made the decision not to send troops to the pueblos.
He reasoned that such an action would incite hostilities among
more loyal Natives. Despite
the fears of the frayles, an
insurrection did not occur in December of 1695 C.E.
However, their efforts at the pueblos
became increasingly difficult as actions on the part of the pueblos became increasingly hostile. By March of 1696 C.E., the misióneros again pleaded with de
Vargas for military protection as the rumors of war had greatly
increased. From San Juan, Fray Gerónimo
Prieto wrote that natives of the Hopi,
Zuñi, Ácoma, and other pueblos
were on their way to San Juan.
It was suggested that they were there to meet with
insurrectionist leaders under the pretense of coming to trade.
The tone of the frayles' letters appeared to be one of panic.
On the fifteenth of March, de
Vargas’ response to the request made by the Custodio
was to place soldados at some
of the pueblos.
However, by this time the misióneros
had abandoned their flocks in favor of the safer Spanish villas. It must be said that in addition to the Pueblos,
the Apache kept up continual, brutal attacks upon the forces of de
Vargas during his return march after the retaking of the Pueblos,
and succeeded in wounding a soldado
and capturing a number of horses. A
fray, named P. Casanes, was led into
an ambush by the Apaches, in
March, 1696 C.E., and was beaten to death with clubs and stones.
The Españoles had
arrived to retake the land, but the Natives would resist. It had been 11 months of increasing unrest at the Pueblos.
There had continued to be persistent rumors of an imminent
insurrection. Actions taken
by the Pueblos appeared to be
in preparation for a general insurrection.
On June 4, 1696 C.E., an insurrection broke out with 5 misióneros
and 21 other Españoles
killed. Before fleeing into
the mountains the people of the pueblos
had rose up and terrorist pueblo
forces among them burned the misiónes.
Only Tesuque, Pecos,
San Felipe, Santa Ana, and
Zia had remained loyal. Unfortunately for the Pueblos, the insurrection was poorly planned.
The insurrectionists, now terrorists, soon divided into several
factions. This was very
different from the Insurrection of 1680 C.E. which was well-planned and
executed. The pueblos of that time were of one accord, one organized and cohesive
group with a shared purpose. The
1696 C.E. insurrection was made under the command of one faction’s
leader, a Cochití named Lucas Naranjo. In late July 1696 C.E., de Vargas left Santa Fé
with Spanish soldados and
native troops from Pecos in
search of Naranjo and his
terrorists. They were found
hiding in the slopes of a canyon waiting for the arrival of the Españoles.
Naranjo was killed
during the battle by a harquebus shot to the Adam's apple and then
beheaded by the same Spanish soldado.
De Vargas was reported
as saying, "It gave me great pleasure to see the said rebel
apostate dog in that condition. A
pistol shot that was fired into his right temple had blown out his
brains leaving the said head hollow."
The remaining rebels had fled and the Pecos allies were given Naranjo's
head as a trophy of war. Soon after the death of Naranjo, the insurrection began to collapse.
The most persistent terrorists in the central Río
Grande Valley were destroyed. Those
who had fled their pueblos to
the mountains were leaderless and in desperate circumstance.
The Españoles had
appropriated stores of food after each victory, and the people remaining
in the mountains faced the choice of either returning to their pueblos
and accepting Spanish governance or starving. Although de
Vargas succeeded in subduing the terrorists closest to the center of
Spanish power in Nuevo Méjico,
the Pueblo terrorist fringe
was still unrepentant. Picurís, Taos, and of
course the western pueblos of Ácoma,
Zuñi and the Hopi were
outside the reach of de Vargas,
his troops and Native allies. In August of 1696 C.E., de Vargas mounted an expedition against the recalcitrant pueblo
of Ácoma. Having come to
the mesa, de Vargas and his troops could not mount an assault, but proceeded
to gather the sheep the Ácoma
had left at the base of the mesa.
After waiting below the mesa for several days and issuing threats and ultimatums, de
Vargas instructed his men to burn the Ácoma
fields and then departed to the east.
The Ácoma remained on their mesa. In September, the Gobernador moved against the northern pueblos still in insurrection. The
people of Taos were talked
down from the mountains after the peaceful capitulation of the pueblo's
leaders. At Picurís,
de Vargas found no one.
The Españoles set out
after the inhabitants of the pueblo
who, in the company of some Tewas,
Tanos, and Apaches, were fleeing eastward.
In late-October, de Vargas
caught up to the retreating Natives and, in a short battle, captured
approximately eighty of them. The
rest continued to flee eastward and were captured by a band of Apaches in western Kansas. Those
who had been captured were distributed to the victors to be held as
hostages until the remaining Picurís
returned to their pueblo. With Picurís
no longer a threat, the threat to the Spanish of Nuevo Méjico was eliminated. Slowly,
Natives remaining in the mountains descended to their pueblos.
Some leaders of small terrorist bands voluntarily surrendered
while others were tracked down with the help of friendly Pueblo allies. Still
other Natives did not return to their pueblos
along the Río Grande, but
continued to hide with the Apache
and the Navajos and at the pueblos of Ácoma, Zuñi,
and Hopi. The Pueblo
Insurrection of 1696 C.E. was over by the end of the year.
With the exception of the western pueblos,
the Pueblo Natives of Nuevo
Méjico had once more accepted Spanish authority. The Spanish villas
were being quickly reestablished. The
pobladores came well-prepared
with all that was necessary for the maintenance and enjoyment of life
according to the simple and healthful standards of those days.
They had seeds, trees, vines, cattle, household goods, and
servants. However, the
returning Spanish pobladores
would still suffer many hardships and privations in Nuevo
Méjico. In a few years,
their orchards yielded abundantly and their gardens were full of
vegetables. Poultry was
raised by the Natives, and sold very cheaply; a fat capon cost only
twelve and a half cents. Beef
and mutton were abundant. Wild
game was everywhere. At the
ranchos and estancias and the houses of the Españoles were rebuilt of adobe
with some roofs having red tiles. They
were very comfortable, cool in summer and warm in winter.
The clay used to make the bricks was of white or yellow adobe
of the Río Grande region.
Cut straw was mixed with the clay and trodden together by the pobladores
and Natives. When the bricks
were laid, they were set in clay as mortar.
Sometimes small pebbles from the brooks were mixed with the
mortar to make bands across the house.
All the timber of the floors, the rafters and crossbeams, the
doorways, and the window lintels were “built in” as the house was
carried up. After the house
was roofed it was usually plastered inside and out to protect it against
the weather and make it more comfortable.
A great deal of trouble was often taken to obtain stone for the
doorsteps. Curious rocks
were sometimes brought many miles for this purpose or for gate-posts in
front of the dwelling. The Nuevo Méjico
Gobernadores brought a number
of artisans from Nueva España’s
capital Méjico City.
Every misión and rancho
wanted them to improve the appearance of their churches and homes.
The demand was so great that there were not enough to go around.
There were masons, millwrights, tanners, shoemakers, saddlers,
potters, a ribbon maker, and several weavers.
The blankets and the coarse cloth were first woven at the misiónes.
Later, some cotton cloth was also made in a few cases, but only
where the cotton plant was found to grow well.
Pottery was made at the misiónes and soap. Afterwards at all the misiónes and on many large ranchos
the pobladores were obliged to
learn trades and teach them to their servants, an educated young
gentlemen was well-skilled in many arts and handicrafts.
He could ride, of course, as well as the best cowboy of the
Southwest, and with more grace. He
could throw la
reata or the lasso so expertly that I never heard of any Américano who was able to equal it.
He could also make soap, pottery, and bricks, burn lime, tan
hides, cut out and put together a pair of shoes, make candles, roll
cigars and do a great number of things that belong to different trades. In 1696 C.E., Don
Pedro Rodríguez Cubero
(1696 C.E.-1703 C.E.) became Gobernador
after de Vargas' term expired. He
would begin office with a growing province and newly arriving pobladores
bringing with them disease. By
1696 C.E., Pecos Villa
experienced a major epidemic (Fever).
To make matters worse for him the Apache
were now in his provincia in
force. As 1697 C.E. came, Cubero continued on in his work.
However, Native insurrection and war over many areas of Nueva
España would continue to plague the Gobernador and the other Españoles. That following year of 1698 C.E., found repeated
and vicious attacks made by the Apaches
on the Pima villages of
northern Sonora.
They were there to steal the maíz
and livestock that the Christian Natives had accumulated.
This highlights a very important point.
By this time in Spanish Nueva España’s history
Hispanicization had taken root. Many
Native bands, tribes, etc. had become acculturated Christians.
They spoke Spanish, ate Spanish food, dressed somewhat as Españoles,
practiced Spanish religion, and in effect had become part of the Spanish
system. Those tribes that
remained outside of the Spanish economic system chose to obtain what
they wanted by killing, stealing, and destroying. In a raid on Cocospera
in northern Sonora in
February, 1698 C.E., Padre Contreras
was wounded and barely escaped with his life, and two Pima
women were killed. The
savages descended three hundred strong, robbed the town, burned the
Church and the house of the Padre,
and killed women. The Native
men were nearly all away at the time on a trading trip in the north.
The few Pima men that
were left in the town followed the enemy, but were ambushed and
murdered. April 1698 C.E., emboldened by their victory at Cocospera,
the Apaches fell upon the Ranchería
Santa Cruz (At what is now Fairbank, Arizona).
The chief of the villa and two or three of his followers suffered immediate death.
Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino, the brave and devout pioneer Jesuit misiónero
to the Upper Pimas, had
erected an adobe house there.
He had also brought cattle and horses for to start a misión.
The house was built with embrasures and was surrounded by a corral.
After the death of the chief the surviving inhabitants were
driven into this house. Three
more of the people were killed as the fight progressed.
The Apaches then
climbed onto the roof and began burning the building.
With an arquebus they had taken in battle they killed another
man. They then slaughtered a
number of horses and cattle, set fire to the corral and buildings, and took whatever they could steal.
Thinking they had won a complete victory, they began feasting on
the animals they had killed, maíz, and beans they had stolen. Three miles down the San Pedro River at Quiburi
where Kino had started a misión,
lived Capitán Coro, a good
friend of Padre Kino’s. He was one the
best fighter in the Pima
nation. When word reached
him of the destruction and slaughter of Santa
Cruz, he left at once to assist his kinsmen.
At the time, a large number of Pimas
from San Xavier who had
arrived to trade happened to be at his village.
They joined him on the expedition. Capotcari was the Apache leader who
would parley with Coro after
he arrived on the scene. Capotcari made fun of Coro
and his band, calling them women. Capotcari
next declared that the Españoles,
with whom they were allied, were cowards.
He further stated that he had killed many Pimas
and Españoles, and dared Coro
to match ten Pimas against ten of his party and fight it out in this way.
This he proposed instead of fighting a general battle.
Coro accepted his proposal and picked ten brave Pimas
to meet ten of Capotcari’s
men. Capotcari
was as daring as he was abusive and boastful.
He led his band in person. The Apaches
were very effective in offensive warfare using spears, bows and arrows. However,
they were not as experienced at warding off the missiles of their enemy.
The Pimas were good
both in defensive and in offensive battle tactics.
Soon, Apaches were
either killed or unable to fight. This
left Capotcari to bear the
brunt of the fight. He was
skillful and could catch arrows launched at him with his hand. One
Pima warrior after engaged
him, rushed Capotcari.
Once upon him, the Pima threw him to the ground and pounded him to death with a stone.
It was a great victory for the Pimas.
The Apaches defeat was
impressive. The defeated Apaches
then attempted escape by fleeing to the woods and mountains. However,
the Pimas pursued them and scores of Apache were killed. Capitán
Coro sent word of his victory to Kino.
The Padre,
with Manje and Escalante, the Spanish military representatives, came to assess the
battle scene and count the dead. They
counted fifty-four dead bodies. It
has been suggested that many of the Apaches
wounded by poisoned arrows died during their attempted escape.
Later, Kino stated that
three hundred of the enemy was killed during the fight and an equal
number presented themselves at the nearest presidios
seeking peace. Toward the close of the 17th-Century C.E., Sonora
and Nueva Vizcaya or New Biscay suffered greatly from Apache
incursions. The province was
located in the north of Nueva España
and consisted of the area which is today the states of Chihuahua,
Sonora, and Durango in Méjico.
The Comandante en Jefe
or commanding officer responsible for the protection of this region
lived at San Juan.
There was a guarnición at Frontéras
and one at Janos to the east. These
cooperated with each other in efforts to hold the enemy in check.
By 1699 C.E., the Presidio
of the Frontier Line at San
Juan Bautista would need to be founded.
In cases of great need reinforcements were drawn from distant
points. The Natives were continually raiding the exposed villas
and misiónes. Their methods
were simple but effective. The
Apache rushed a community,
drove-off its livestock, and retreated quickly to their northern
strongholds. When the soldados
pursue them, it was often too late to matter.
They rarely had success recovering stolen property or catching
the thieving murderers. There
were times when stolen livestock was recovered and a few terrorists
killed. In the cases where
captives were involved, very few women and children were freed.
For many reasons the Españoles
were unable to achieve decisive victories against the Apaches. By 1699 C.E., the Keres who had fled from the pueblos
of Cieneguilla, Santo Domingo, and Cochití
after de Vargas’ retaking of Nuevo
Méjico built a new pueblo
on a stream called Cubero.
In the vicinity is a vast plain known as the Cubero
Plain, named because of the visit of Cubero
at this time. The pueblo
was also known as San José de la
Laguna, and later Laguna
Pueblo. The Spanish soon
followed with the placement of the Misión
San José de Laguna which was built in that same year at the Laguna
Pueblo. Despite the continued problems with the
Natives, life had to go on. On
November 5, 1699 C.E., Sebastian
Ruiz (age 22), and María de la 0 (age 24) married at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
Witnesses included Lorenzo Rodriguez, Teresa Olguín,
Juan de Ribera (49 years
of age), and the soldier Salvadór
Matiás (22 years of age) most
probably last name was de Ribera,
my progenitor. I end this portion of the Spanish Period with the
clear understanding that Nueva
España’s Nuevo Méjico did not stand alone.
It was only a part of a larger political, military, and economic
network of provinces. España’s strategy to hold on to the majority of the North
American Continent was doomed to failure.
She lacked the necessary resources, continued unnecessary
exploration, and her efforts to expand and settle in vast unsustainable
territories was unrealistic. She
could not maintain and protect the misiónes,
presidios, villas, ranchos, estancias,
and mines against Native tribes bent upon living the old way.
The Natives of this vast region had always been at war with one
another. They would continue
to be at war. To them, the Españoles were no more than another competing tribe, one to be
dealt with. Also, the
geographic spread of the region was far too great for control.
The 18th-Century C.E. was to see much more of the same Native
unrest, warfare, and raiding. Native tribal disputes and continued raiding and
warring would remain the theme throughout the Provincia. The
18th-Century C.E. would be an incessant cycle of raids on Spanish
settlements and Pueblos by the
various nomadic Native groups which inhabited Nueva
España and its northern frontier. Spanish
retaliatory campaigns against these raiders were the only means
available to contain such activities.
It should be clear to the reader that to fully understand the
scope of this problem it is necessary to realize that
Nueva España and Nuevo Méjico
were quite literally surrounded by hostile tribes.
As an example, along Nuevo
Méjico's northern and eastern frontier were the Comanche
and Jicarilla Apache.
To the north and northwest were the Utes,
who constantly fought with the Comanche,
and often allied themselves with the Españoles,
but they, too, raided the Spanish villas
and pueblos of the upper Río
Grande when it suited them. To
the northwest and west were las
provincias de Navajo, or Navajo
territory; and to the southwest, south and southeast, the various other Apache
tribes. Spanish Nueva España her provinces and settlements were the agreed upon
targets of opportunity for the Native raiders.
It is not difficult to see why Native relations dominated Nuevo
Méjico during this period. After 1700 C.E. and through 1709 C.E., surrounding
lands near Pecos, Nuevo Méjico
were given to several of the Native pueblos
as grants. Official Spanish
grants were at least four square leagues in size. The
word “league” originally meant the distance a person could walk in
an hour. On land, the league
was most commonly defined as three miles, though the length of a mile
could vary from place to place and depending on the era. These grants were intended
to provide for the security and subsistence of the pueblos by forbidding encroachment on cultivated Native land. There is little information concerning Apache
depredations between 1700 C.E. and 1724 C.E.
However, from 1700 C.E. through 1701 C.E. the Hopis
from surrounding villas
destroy Aguatuvi, a
Christianized pueblo.
In the last days of the year 1700 C.E. through the beginning of
1701 C.E., the Moquis (Hopis)
of the other Pueblos fell upon the unsuspecting villa at night. The men
were mostly killed, suffocated in their estufas
or stoves.
It is said; the women and children were dragged into captivity
and the houses were burnt. It
is clear that at any given point in time Native tribes could take
positions on both sides of the Spanish question.
Some were for peace and order in Spanish Nueva
España and others against it. It has been estimated that the Comanche
were established around 1700 C.E., after breaking away from Shoshone
Tribe. Over a period of time
their home territories became Nuevo
Méjico, Colorado, Tejas, Kansas, and Oklahoma. They
were led by Peace Chief and War Chief.
Their usual shelter was a tipi.
The women were in charge of the home and owned the tipi. The men were in
charge of hunting for food and protecting the camp.
They were reliant on the buffalo.
The Comanche held
tentative alliances with the Apache,
Kiowa, and Utes and waged
intermittent conflicts with both the Apache
and Españoles.
It was the Apache and Españoles who
became their principle enemies of the period.
The Comanche were known
to attack on nights with a full moon.
They were also skilled at fighting while on horseback.
By 1700 C.E. they were beginning to raid the Pueblos
and the Españoles in Nuevo Méjico. Native uprisings continued throughout Nueva España.
In the spring of 1700 C.E., Padre
Melchor Bartiromo, S. J., lavished praise on Ex-Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico Jirónza for
forcing Natives of the Tepoca,
Salinero, and Seri nations to sue for peace. Jirónza
relied on zeal and hard work, skills which he used to bring about
welcomed tranquility on the Sonora
frontier. He also
demonstrated a gentle nature and Christian piety when possible, but
deployed his military forces when needed. That following year, Ex-Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico Jirónza and his Flying Company were campaigning in
the fall of 1701 C.E. at the request of a Jesuit Padre, Miguel Guerrero,
who had asked him to punish some Natives described as witches who were
killing people in Nácori and Vacadéguachi. When Jirónza
and his soldados returned to San
Juan Bautista, they found General
Jacinto de Fuensaldaña, Capitán
of the presidio in Sinaloa, had
taken over the Capitanía of
the Flying Company. Fuensaldaña purchased a post on the northern frontier for one
thousand doubloons, serving first in Sonora.
On March 21, 1701 C.E. he took possession of the lifetime Capitanía
or Captaincy of Fronteras. In 1702 C.E., the Duque of Alburquerque, Francisco
Fernández de la Cueva Enríquez
(Genoa, Italy, November 17, 1666 C.E. - Madrid, España, June 28, 1724 C.E.), had arrived in Méjico
City. He was the 10th Duque de
Alburquerque, Grandee of España, a Knight of the
Order of the Golden Fleece since 1707 C.E., and virrey of Nueva España, virrey of Méjico, from November 27, 1702 C.E. to January 14, 1711 C.E.
On December 8,
1702 C.E. the Duque assumed
his duties as the 34th Virrey
of Nueva España. He was the nephew of Francisco
IV Fernández de la Cueva y Enríquez de Cabrera-Colonna, (Barcelona,
1618 C.E./1619 C.E. – Madrid, (Palacio
Real) March 27, 1676 C.E.), 8th Duque
de Alburquerque and many other lesser titles, also a Virrey of Nueva España, (1653 C.E.-1660 C.E.), and Viceroy of Sicily, (1667 C.E.–1670 C.E.),
and the son of the 9th Duque de
Albuquerque, and many other
lesser titles, the cadet brother of the 8th Duque,
and inheritor of the titles, Melchor
Fernández de la Cueva y Enríquez de
Ribera-Colonna, (Madrid,
March 2, 1625 C.E. - Madrid
October 12, 1686 C.E.). In 1665 C.E., his father, Melchor,
the 9th Duque, had married his niece Ana
Rosolea Fernández de la Cueva y Díaz de Aux, the 3rd Marquésa of Cadreita, Navarra,
daughter of the 8th Duque de Albuquerque Francisco IV Fernández de la Cueva and Juana
Francisca Díez de Aux y Armendáriz, the daughter of Lope
Díez de Armendáriz, Virrey of Méjico (1635 C.E.-1640 C.E.). This Virrey’s
administration was known for its luxury and magnificence.
On January 6, 1703 C.E., the palace guards in the Virreinalor
Palacio appeared wearing uniforms of the French mode for the first
time (three-cornered hats, etc.). The
uniforms attracted much attention. The
fashions at the court and beyond soon followed the look of French
fashion. This new fashion
and luxury was in stark contrast to the poverty being experienced by the
majority of the people of the virrey. Spanish military expansion continued with the Presidio
San Juan Bautista del Río Grande which was founded around 1703 C.E.
in San Juan Bautista,
now the present day Guerrero,
Coahuila. The Spanish Presidio System in Nueva España
by necessity continued to be fortified.
That same year, at Nuevo Méjico under the Virreinato
of Nueva España, Gobernador Diego
de Vargas (1703 C.E.-1704 C.E.) returned and took command.
Before his arrival, Cubero
fled fearing reprisals from the man he had arrested and humiliated. At this juncture, it is
important to place Spanish life in Nueva España and in particular Nuevo Méjico during the period in proper context relative to Native
warlike behavior and major disease epidemics.
The pobladores
continued on with their lives despite unceasing Native attacks and
sporadic epidemics. They
were marrying, buying, selling, raising families, and experiencing legal
disputes. For example in the
following year in 1704 C.E., my progenitor, Salvadór Matiás de Ribera lost his Vargas
Grant in the center of Santa
Fé due to a law-suit which
challenged his right to the property in question.
Though it had been granted to him by Cubero, Salvadór’s rights to the property had
been disputed and he lost. The
Grant was returned to its former owner. By 1773 C.E., his widow,
Juana de Sosa Canela and
only known child, his son, Juan
Felipe
would be seeking other grants in the Torreon
de la Cienega section of Santa
Fé. In that same year, the great general de Vargas
died of a sudden illness. He
was buried at the Santa Fé
parish church and Don Juan Páez
Hurtado (1704 C.E.-1705 C.E.) became interim Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico. Hurtado had arrived just in time to witness a major epidemic of a type unknown
at the Pecos Villa that year.
The Provincia which had seen so much turmoil would remain under the
watchful eye of the Virreinato
of Nueva España at Méjico City. Juan
Páez Hurtado would be the
33rd Spanish Gobernador of Nuevo
Méjico. He was in
office from 1704 C.E. through 1705 C.E.
Hurtado was preceded by
Diego de Vargas and would be
succeeded by Francisco Cuervo y
Valdés. He was born
December 22, 1668 C.E. in Villafranca
de las Marismas, at Sevilla
in Andalucía, España and
baptized in the parish of Santa
María la Blanca. Juan Páez
died on May 5, 1724 C.E. at the aged of 55 years in Nuevo
Méjico.
He was buried under the "Altar of the Basilica of Santa
María, la conquistadora,"in English, Saint Mary, the
Conqueror), Patroness of Nuevo
Méjico. Hurtado,
the Capitán General, Gobernador
and mayor of Santa Fé de Nuevo Méjico was born to a humble family.
When he was a teenager he enlisted in the Spanish Royal Army as a
cape, in Sevilla.
He would attain the grades of Sargento
and General.
Eventually, he sailed across the Atlantic Ocean headed for Nueva
España’s Mexican territory.
While there, he participated in many battles.
In Michoacán, in the present-day Méjico,
he began his military career under Mayor
Diego de Vargas. While
there, he married Pascuala López
Vera, with whom he had a daughter in 1688 C.E.
Hurtado later moved to Nuevo
Méjico. After de Vargas' death, he became the senior Captain General and Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico. Between 1704
C.E. and 1705 C.E. and 1716 C.E. and 1717 C.E., Hurtado
was twice Mayor of the capital
Santa Fé, occupying the
second tier of colonial officers in Nuevo
Méjico. Under his governance, the Faraónes
Apaches stole horses and mules
from the Españoles.
In 1714 C.E., Hurtado was assigned to punish the tribe and led an unsuccessful
expedition while searching for them. By 1705 C.E., Don
Francisco Cuervo y Valdéz became provisional Gobernador of Nuevo Méjico,
appointed by the Virrey of Nueva
España Don Francisco Fernández de la Cueva Enríquez, Duque
de Alburquerque.
Despite all of the problems that had come about previous to his
governorship, life in Nuevo Méjico
moved on. The misiónes,
the Villa of Santa Fé,
ranchos, and estancias
in the Provincia were being
reestablished and growing. Españoles such as Juan Rivera
and his wife were selling their land in Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
On September 19, 1705 C.E., a Señor
Casados purchased the land for 20 pesos from Juan Rivera and
his wife, María Gregoria García
de Noriega. That same
year, on November 9, 1705 C.E. Señor
Casados purchased another piece of property in Santa Fé from Juan de Ribera
and his wife. Spanish exploration continued to be an important
part of España’s strategy
for Nueva España.
By 1706 C.E., the Spanish explorer Juan
de Ulibarrí crossed Colorado
as far as the Arkansas Valley into Kiowa
County. And that same year,
the Comanche first became a
large issue for the pobladores
of Nuevo Méjico.
Spanish concern for the safety and security of its Ciudádanos
of Nuevo Méjico continued
as it built a military post at Albuquerque
along with the founding of a Villa
in honor of the Duque of Alburquerque, Francisco Fernández
de la Cueva Enríquez.
Gobernador Cuervo
founded San Francisco de Alburquerque
with 30 families. He also
resettled Santa María de Galisteo which was formerly Santa
Cruz de Galisteo with 14 Tanos
families from Tesuque, he moved some Tehua
families to Pojoaque, and
resettled the Villa de La Cañada
with 29 families. Later that
year, Gobernador Cuervo would
be ordered to rename Alburquerque
as San Felipe de Alburquerque in honor of King Felipe
V. 1707 C.E. brought a new Gobernador of Nuevo Méjico,
José Chacón Medina Salazar y
Villaseñor, Marqués de la
Penula (1707 C.E.-1712 C.E.) who became the new head of government
as Capitán
General, Gobernador of the Castle and the Provincia
de Nuevo Méjico from the March 2, 1706 C.E. to 1712 C.E. He
was Cuervo’s replacement.
José was an Admiral in
the Marina de guerra real Español
and the 3rd Marqués de Peñuela,
Knight of Santiago Orden.
He was born in Sevilla on March 4, 1668 C.E. His
parents were Gonzálo Chacón Narváez
y Trevino Guillamas
and Francisca Medina-Salazar Castañeda y Villaseñor.
He married Antónia Torres de Navarra y Monsalve on April 26, 1676 C.E.
Their children were María Ignacia Chacón y Torres de Navarra (December 13, 1704 C.E.),
Condesa de Mejorada and Luís
Ignacio Chacón y Navarra Torres.
Chacón immediately
rebuilt the chapel at San Miguel
at Santa Fé, which had been
sacked during the 1680 C.E. Native insurrection.
Clearly the Church remained a major part of Spanish life in the
region. Ex-Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico Jirónza
remained in San Juan Bautista
in retirement. In September
1708 C.E., he was mayordomo or
steward of the community church when he gave a receipt to Bachiller
António Fuertes de Sierra for
a hundred reales to cover the
burial expenses of Bachiller
Urbano de Noriega. The decade of 1710 C.E.-1719 C.E., continued with España’s
strategy of founding misiónes
and presidios. The San
Miguel Misión was originally built in 1625 C.E.
A policy of the period was employed in which where a presidio
could be built solely to protect a misión,
that misión would be
fortified. This was the case
with the chapel of the San Miguel
Misión being fortified in 1710 C.E.
This is not to say that the period did not have a robust presidio
strategy. In fact, the Presidio
de San Bartolomé (?-1710 C.E.) which was located 20 km east of Parral,
Chihuahua was replaced by
Flying Company (squadron) operating from the military post of Valle de San Bartolomé (1710 C.E.-?).
This was an inexpensive innovation which provided security while
keeping policing cost to a minimum. During the decade, Spanish rule continued to
exploit land grants as meaningful concessions from the Corona Española. It
permitted the settlement and granting of grazing rights on specific
tracts of land, while retaining title for the Corona
Española. Alameda Land Grant was situated on the west bank of the Río
Grande and presently a part of Albuquerque
and Río Rancho. The Alameda
Land Grant, also the Town of Alameda
Grant was an 89,000-acre parcel of land given by King Philip
IV of España in 1710 C.E. to Francisco
Montes Vigil. He
would later sell the land, which included only some farmland along the Río
Grande, to Capitán Juan Gonzáles of the Spanish Army. In
1929 C.E., 20,500 acres would be purchased by Albert F. Black who
established the Seven Bar Ranch. Between 1687 C.E. and 1711 C.E.
the misiónero and explorer, Padre
Eusebio Francisco Kino established many misiónes
in northern Nuevo Méjico, southern Arizona,
and Baja California.
The most notable of these was Misión
San Xavier del Bac south
of Tucson, Arizona.
Misiónes varied enormously in their economic and religious
success. Some could not
support themselves; others developed fertile fields and vineyards and
huge herds of cattle. Virtually
all successful religious conversion was among sedentary Natives who were
easier to control and more adaptable to agriculture and herding.
The few attempts to convert such warlike nomads as the Apaches
and Comanches failed dismally. The Virreinato
of Nueva España appointed Don
Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollón
(1712 C.E.-1715 C.E.) as Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico. He
replaced Gobernador Chacón, who was later indicted of malfeasance while in office, but
had by that point had disappeared. Despite
these illegal activities land grants continued. Elena Gallegos Land Grant was
created in 1694 C.E. for Diego
Montoya, though pobladores
may have occupied it even earlier, prior to the Pueblo
Insurrection. In 1712 C.E.
the grant, stretching from the crest of the Sandia
Mountains to the Río Grande,
was reissued to Elena Gallegos. Surviving documents make it clear that a
private land grant for the tract was issued to Diego Montoya in 1694 C.E. This
was most probably Capitán Diego
de Montoya II, Alcalde mayor
of the Puesto de Bernalillo, Regado.
He was born circa 1658 C.E. His
birthplace was Bernalillo,
Provincia de Nuevo México, and Reino de Nueva España.
The Capitán died in
1717 C.E., at Guadalupe del Paso,
Provincia de Nuevo México, and Reino de Nueva España.
Diego was the son of Diego
de Montoya I and María Ana Ortíz de Vera. The Capitán
was husband to: (1) María
Ana Ortíz de Vera; (2) María
de Aragón, and (3) María
Joséfa de Hinojos. He
was the father of Joséfa Montoya;
María Francisca Montoya; María
de la Rosa Montoya; Juan Estéban
Montoya; Luísa Montoya and
7 others. Diego
was the brother of Lucía de
Montoya; António de Montoya;
María Juana Ortíz y Baca; Felipe
Montoya and María Dolores de
Vera Montoya. He was
also the half-brother of Bartolomé
Montoya; Ynez de Zamora; Pedro Montoya, and Nicolás
Joséfa Zaldivar Jorge. The grant was reissued in 1712 C.E.
following the loss of the original/legal grant papers.
This reissuance of the land grant may have resulted from a
transferral of the tract to one Elena Gallegos that year. Either
Diego Montoya or his son
gifted or sold the land to Elena
Gallegos. She was the
daughter of António Gallegos
and Catalina Baca and was one
of the Hispano pobladores of Nuevo Méjico who
was present at the time of the Pueblo
Insurrection (Revolt) of 1680 C.E. Gallegos
was probably a child when the Insurrection occurred in 1680 C.E., and
fled south along with her family. They
returned sometime after the Spanish resettlement of Nuevo Méjico in the 1690s
C.E. Gallegos
was also the widow of Jacques Gurulé or Grolet
/Santiago Gurulé or Grolet,
was born 1663 C.E. La Rochelle, Charente-Martime, France.
He was the progenitor of one of my family lines and a member of
the ill-fated La Salle Expedition of 1687 C.E., by which the French
colonists were attempting to illegally claim Spanish territory.
The Expedition was a failure, with many of the colonists killed.
Jacques Gurulé
took refuge with or was captured by a band of Natives at modern-day Tejas.
The Spanish authorities considered the La Salle Expedition an
illegal trespass of Spanish territory and eventually sent Gurulé
and a fellow compatriot to prison in Méjico
and España.
His release from prison, allowed Gurulé
to become a Spanish ciudadano.
Jacques became known as
“Santiago Gurulé.”
Santiago made his way
to Nuevo Méjico
in the late 1690s C.E. On
December 10, 1699 C.E., at the age of about 36, he and Elena
Gallegos, then age 19, were married.
They had a son, António
Gurulé, in 1703 C.E. In
1711 C.E., eight years later, Santiago
Gurulé died at El Paso del
Norte, Tejas. About 1712
C.E., Elena Gallegos obtained
the land grant which bears her name. Her descendants subdivided the approximately
70,000-acre plot such that when the land grant was re-adjudicated by Américano
authorities in 1893 C.E. it was treated as what is called a communal
land grant. Much of northern
Albuquerque is built on the former land grant.
A large open space preserve is named for the grant. The Españoles
continued on with their lives despite Native attacks.
By 1712 C.E., there was war with the Navajos,
discontent among the pueblos,
and the Utes and Taos were at war
with one another. My progenitor, Salvadór Matiás de
Ribera who was born in 1675 C.E. at Puerto
de Santa María, España and died at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico before 1713 C.E. Salvadór
was a member of the Marina de
guerra real Español de España
or Spanish Royal Navy and came from España
on the ship Santo Tomás de Villanueva along with Toribio
Benito Sánchez. He had
married Juana Canela de Sosa
born about 1675 C.E. Salvadór
had been granted land in Santa Fé,
but lost it in a law suit brought against him by António Montoya on February 1, 1704 C.E. Life continued at a normal pace for the Españoles.
On example is my progenitor, Juan
Felipe de Ribera the only son of Salvadór
Matiás de Ribera.
Juan had been born in
1694 C.E., at Zacatecas, Nueva
España. He married María Estela Palomino Rendón
(b.1700 C.E.-d.1770
C.E.) on March
24, 1715 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. She was
the daughter of Francisco Palomino and Juana
Montoya. Francisco was a native of Puerto
Santa María, España. Juan
Felipe died on October 1, 1767 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. They had. They
had their first of 12 children around 1720 C.E.: 1.
António de
Ribera (b.1728 C.E.-d.1794 C.E.) 2.
Francisca
de Ribera (b.?-d.1737 C.E.) 3.
José
Miguel de Ribera (b?-d?) 4.
Juan
Miguel de Ribera
(b.?-d.1770 C.E.) 5.
Juan
Miguel Ribera
(b?-d?) 6.
María
de Loreto Ribera
(b.?-d.1822 C.E.) 7.
Salvadór de
Ribera (b.1720 C.E.-d.?) 8.
Lorenza Juana de Ribera (b.1723
C.E.-d.?) 9.
Vicente
de Ribera (b.1729 C.E.-d.1743
C.E.) 10.
Luís
Felipe de Ribera
(b.1730 C.E.-d.?) 11.
Ana
María de Ribera
(b.1762 C.E.-d.?) 12.
María Gertrudis de Ribera
(b. 1740 C.E.-d.?) at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. She would marry Miguel
Sandoval Martínez
on April 10, 1758 C.E. at Santa
Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. She is
also the Gertrudis Ribera
listed in the 1790 C.E. Spanish Census as Spanish, 59 years of age, a
widow, two sons (21 and 14), one female servant (Indian) 18 years of
age, one male servant (Mestízo)
14 years of age The children would grow as Nuevo Méjico grew. They
would prosper, marry, and have their own children. The same year of Juan Felipe’s marriage, acting
Gobernador for Nuevo Méjico Félix
Martínez de Torrelaguna (1715 C.E.-1716 C.E.) was appointed by the Virreinato
of Nueva España. Torrelaguna
was born in Alicante in Valencia,
España. He served as a senior
officer under Don Diego de Vargas,
who recruited by him in 1693 C.E.
at Zacatecas. He
fought well during the retaking of Nuevo Méjico
after the Pueblo Insurrection
(Revolt) of 1680 C.E.,
while serving as Ayudante to de
Vargas. Félix then
became the Comandante of El
Paso del Norte. From
1703 C.E.,
he had served as Capitán of
the Santa Fé Presidio.
On June 3, 1715 C.E., Félix Martínez
assumed command of the Santa Fé
Presidial Company from António
Valverde y Cosío.
The
Virrey appointed Félix Martínez to
succeed Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollón
as gobernador of Nuevo Méjico, and he took office in Santa Fé on December 1,
1715 as Gobernador-Capitán. Soon thereafter he placed Gobernador
de Mogollón in jail for two years. In June of that year, Gobernador de Mogollón
before his arrest had revalidated a land grant made previously a soldado,
Cristóbal de la Serna, who had been unable to take possession
previously in 1710 C.E. because of his military service.
The cacique, Gobernador,
and Tenente-Gobernador of the Pueblo
of Taos had been summoned by Alcalde
Juan de la Mora Piñeda and made no objection to the act of
possession by de la Serna. Unfortunately, Nueva España continued experiencing Native wars and raids.
Juan Felipe de Ribera,
my progenitor was at this time fighting against the Faraónes
Apaches, as were many soldados.
Due to these ongoing Native attacks, España
had to continue its Presidio
building program. The Presidio
de Santiago de Mapimí was one of these established in 1715 C.E., at
Mapimí, Durango. In 1716 C.E., with the coming of the new Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico, António
Valverde y Cosío (acting, 1716 C.E.), the Virreinato of Nueva España
felt it necessary to found other misiónes
in east Tejas.
Some of them prospered. As
an example San António became the home of several misiónes, including San António
de Valero (the Alamo).
Also, España’s presidio
policy remained in full force as Presidio de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de los Tejas was founded
in 1716 C.E. in Tejas.
Dolores was established
to protect the misiónes in
East Tejas and served as a
listening post for French activities in the region.
That same year, the Diego Lucero de Godoy (One of my family lines) Land Grant was
granted to António Martínez
and became the Martínez
Grant. Those who served as soldados such as my progenitor, Juan
Felipe de Ribera at the Presidio
in Santa Fé were busily
fighting against the Hopi in
1716 C.E. They defended the
frontier with great courage. The
de Ribera would be a military family.
Each successive generation would serve España
and its king. At the same time, 1716 C.E. Gobernador
Félix Martínez de
Torrelaguna was forced to bring war against the Moquis
who lived in the northeastern part of Arizona.
Félix Martínez
led an expedition into the Moquis
region in an effort to exert control over various Hopi towns and ensure their compliance with Spanish law.
The
tribes would later move from the east, westward looking for new lands.
Martínez also wrote an
Inscription on the famous Rock called El Morro on August 26,
1716 C.E. That same year, the Virreinato of Nueva España
found it necessary to appoint a new Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico Juan Páez Hurtado (acting, 1716 C.E.-1717 C.E.) to mount a Spanish
campaign against Utes and Comanche
to prevent further raids. It
was not successful. By 1717 C.E., Gobernador
Félix Martínez de Torrelaguna
was unwillingly replaced by Capitán
António Valverde y Cosío (interim, 1718 C.E.-1721 C.E.) and compelled to leave for Méjico
City. Early
that year, Félix Martínez gave up his office
due to legal problems stemming from presidio
supplies. However,
things had changed little in Nuevo
Méjico. That year, Pecos warriors fought side-by-side with the Spanish soldados
against the Comanche.
There would be severe attacks against Pecos
throughout the 1700s C.E. Pueblo
populations declined as warriors and farmers were killed by raids and as
smallpox ravaged the Río Grande. Outside of
Nuevo Méjico, greater Nueva
España was experiencing Native uprisings and attacks.
At the misión at Janos,
Chihuahua repopulation was attempted in 1717 C.E. with Janos
and Jocomes Natives of west Tejas.
A "peace establishment" was formed to integrate Apaches
into the settlement. These
resettlement efforts resulted in the villa
of Janos being reestablished
with Janos and Jocomes Natives. Of the
settlement offer made to Apache,
few took advantage of it. Unfortunately,
over the next several years, the Españoles
were forced to make a number of punitive raids against local Apache groups, both from the Janos
Presidio and others in the
area. From the Janos
Presidio located in the extreme northwest of Chihuahua,
Méjico and other presidios
in the area the Spanish military would intermittently continue to make
peace and do battle with the Apaches. The Españoles
realized that to explore, settle, and expand Tejas and beyond, they would need many more presidios. By May 5,
1718 C.E., the Presidio of the
Frontier Line San António de Béxar,
Tejas was founded.
At its establishment, it was not considered a presidio
of the line and was defended by a detachment according to the
regulations of 1772 C.E. Exploration continued beyond Nuevo Méjico’s most northern borders when in 1719 C.E. Gobernador
António Valverde y Cosío explored
Colorado as far as the Platte
River, and Kansas. The Gobernador learned the French, Pawnee, and Jumano languages. In Méjico,
Nuevo Méjico, and Tejas
areas there was conflict with the Apaches.
Upon his report to the virrey of Nueva España Gobernador
Cosío was ordered to establish a presidio
in Quartelejo or Cuartelejo currently Beaver Creek, Scott County, Kansas to prevent
the French from trading with Comanches. By then, the Comanche
were raiding the Villa of San
António as well as the other Native tribes.
The other tribes had primarily raided for plunder, but the Comanche
introduced a new level of violence and terror to the conflict.
Other Natives were among their victims. Because
of this, Gobernador Cosío was forced to lead a bloody campaign against the Comanches.
Juan Estrada de Austria (1721 C.E.-1723
C.E.) was appointed Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico by the Virreinato
of Nueva España. His focus
was largely internal toward the safety and security of his pobladores. However, España’s
concerns by necessity were focused upon all of Nueva
España’s safety and security within and beyond.
As a result, the Españoles
founded the Presidio Nuestra Señora
de Loreto in 1721 C.E., near Lavaca
Bay, now in Goliad, Tejas.
Loreto was also known
as La Bahía Presidio.
Its mission was to patrol the coast against invaders and rescued
shipwreck victims. España
also established the Presidio
Nuestra Señora del Pilar de los Adaes in that same year in Tejas.
Los Adaes was to
counter the French at Natchitoches, Louisiana. España continued with its misión
building program. Outside of
Nuevo Méjico the Franciscan misión
of Nuestra Señora del Espíritu Santo de Zúñiga, was built at Matagorda
Bay, Tejas in 1722 C.E. to help protect the coast from the French.
It would later be moved inland.
Spanish exploration with the intention of expansion also
continued. But this wasn’t
enough. That same year, a
convention of religious and secular leaders investigated causes of lack
of settlements between Alburquerque
and Chihuahua. Both
cites were impoverished and experienced and persistent attacks by local
tribes. The report
recommended starting a presidio
at with Socorro 50 soldados
and 200 pobladores. Life for the Españoles
continued at a steady pace despite Native attacks and the normal
difficulties. For example António
de Ribera
(Juan
Felipe, Salvadór Matiás)
was born in 1722 C.E. at Santa
Cruz, Nuevo Méjico. He
died February 24, 1794 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. António
married Graciana Prudencia
Sena, born 1728 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico on December 24, 1745 C.E. in Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. She
died June 22, 1810 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. She was
the daughter of Tomás António Sena and María
Luísa García de Noriega. Children
of António de Ribera and Graciana
Prudencia Sena were as follows: ·
José
Manuel de Ribera was born at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. ·
Nicolása
María de Ribera was born
September 12, 1748 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. ·
Matiás
de Ribera was born March 7,
1750 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
He married Juliana Peña was born at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico on May 3, 1780 C.E. at Santa
Fé. He joined the
Spanish Army on July 1, 1779 C.E. and died August 17, 1785 C.E. ·
María
Joséfa de Ribera was born
March 6, 1752 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. ·
Viterbo
de Ribera was born March 11,
1754 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
He married María dela Luz Pachéco. ·
Manuel
António José de Ribera was born June 29, 1756 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. He
married María Joséfa Labadía. ·
António
José de Ribera was born
January 8, 1759 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. He would
join the Spanish Army on July 1, 1779 C.E. and be placed on the Invalid
Roster list on July 15, 1802 C.E. ·
Santiago
Francisco de Ribera was born
November 30, 1760 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. ·
María
Rosalia de Ribera was born on
November 5, 1762 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. ·
Julián
Rafael de Ribera was born on
April 13, 1765 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. He later
married María Francisca Romero. ·
María
Luísa de Ribera was born in
1768 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. António,
Graciana, and their children
would work hard for a better life on their estancias
and ranchos. They would
accept the challenges the world brought their way and make the best of
it. By 1723 C.E., Juan
Domingo de Bustamante (1723 C.E.-1731
C.E.) was appointed Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico by the Virreinato
of Nueva España. Fray
Angélico Chávez indicates
that the de Bustamante family
of Nuevo Méjico
was apparently related to Don Juan Domingo de Bustamante, Gobernador of Nuevo
Méjico from 1722-1731 (ONMF:
150). It is also known that
one Don Bernardo de Bustamante y
Tagle and a José de
Bustamante y Tagle both left descendents in Nuevo Méjico (ONMF:
150-151). The exact
relationship between these three men has yet to be clearly determined.
However, Chávez
suggests that Don Bernardo de
Bustamante y Tagle may have been a brother or nephew of Gobernador de Bustamante,
and he identified José de Bustamante y Tagle. Gobernador
Don Juan Domingo de Bustamante
had been a vecino or
tax-paying citizen of Puente San
Miguel which was previously known as Bárcena
de la Puente in the Cantabria
region of España.
António Pérez de
Bustamante and his wife Joséfa
Sánchez de Tagle y Villegas from Puente
San Miguel, España were
quite possibly the parents of Juan
Domingo de Bustamante y Tagle. In
the clef of the entry arch of a Nuevo Méjico
chapel there is a small coat of arms divided into fourths, most likely
representing the family shield of the de Bustamante. During the administrative term of Gobernador
de Bustamante trade with the French in Louisiana was forbidden by Real
Cédula or royal decree. The
edict was issued after word reached Madrid
that some Nuevo Méjicanos had
made sizable purchases in French territory.
As de Bustamante
regulated trade with non-Christian Native tribes that year, an
investigation by the Virrey
was conducted. It revealed
illegal trade in Nuevo Méjico
with the French had been ongoing, in violation of the King's order
prohibiting trade with French from Louisiana.
Gobernador Bustamante
immediately mandated trade with Plains tribes could only be in Taos
or Pecos. The Spanish Gobierno
then forbade trade with the French.
These actions gave rise to the annual summer trade fairs at those
locations where Comanches, Kiowas and
others came in great numbers to trade captives for horses, grain and
trade goods from Chihuahua. Luís
López, Bernardino
de Sena, and Tomás de Sena
sent this petition to de
Bustamante which stated "we register the surplus land in the
abandoned Pueblo of Cuyamungué
as royal public, and we inhabited from where the boundary line of Tesuque
terminates to where the grants of Lázaro
Trujillo and the children of Juan
Mestas commence, and that your Excellency will be pleased to make
said grant, in the name of His Majesty, to us and our successors, for
raising all kinds of live stock, on both sides of the river and from the
bluff of the Pueblo of Cuyamungué
to the hills of Nambé
road..." One more
indication that life went on as usual despite all that was happening
around the Nuevo Méjicanos. There is no doubt that the Spanish settlements
continued to suffer as in the past.
But in the autumn of 1724 C.E. matters grew worse.
The Apaches had become
so aggressive that it appeared as if European civilization in northern Nuevo
Méjico would be ended. To
add to the woes of the exposed settlements, the Gobierno at this time issued orders to the commanding military
officer that he was to make no more aggressive campaigns against the Apaches,
but was to conduct a purely defensive warfare, waiting until an attack
was made and then pursuing and punishing the foe.
To the pobladores and misióneros this policy seemed very weak and dangerous, for it was
well known that attacks by the Apaches
were always aimed at undefended points.
The Padre Visitor, Miguel
Almanza, strongly remonstrated against the new policy, but we do not
know what the outcome was. That same year, Juan Páez Hurtado held a council or war at Albuquerque to discuss a possible campaign against the Apaches. As Apache
and Comanche raids continued
to escalate, the Presidio del
Pitic was founded in 1726 C.E. at Hermosillo,
a city in north western Méjico,
capital of the state of Sonora. In 1726 C.E.,
Ex-Gobernador of Nuevo
Méjico Félix Martínez de Torrelaguna returned
to Nuevo Méjico to defend
himself against legal actions, after which he returned to Méjico City for good. Incursions by the French continued in Nueva
España. 1727 C.E. saw
the French take Cuartelejo, in
Kansas. This in part was the
reason for a second policy issue looming on the horizon.
The Spanish Nuevo Mundo’s
Virreinato of Nueva España realized that North America was attracting other
European powers who wished to claim it as their own.
As a result, the Corona Española came to view the northern frontier of their empire
as a necessary defensive barrier. Thus
the Natives of these regions would need to be integrated as part of the Imperio
Español. Two Spanish inspections of the northeastern
frontier provinces of Nueva León,
Coahuila, and Tejas are outlined here. Firstly,
there was General de brigada
or Brigadier Pedro de
Rivera Villalón and engineer Francisco
Álvarez Barriero
inspection which was conducted in 1727 C.E. at the time when King Felipe
V's government was attempting reform fiscal abuses and mismanagement
then rampant on the northern frontier.
There was also an attempt to consolidate those areas España
actually controlled, rather than those that were claimed to be
controlled. Native attacks upon the region and other European
nation’s incursions into Nueva
España were not the only problems pressing the virrey.
In 1728 C.E.-1729 C.E., the Pecos
Villa had a major measles epidemic and incomplete sacramental
registers and anecdotal mentions in other archival records indicate that
another unnamed epidemic arrived at El Paso in 1728 C.E. The decade would end with General de brigada Pedro de
Rivera Villalón's suggestions resulted in the 1729 C.E. Military
Regulations for Northern Nueva
España. These dealt
with the frontier in a coherent manner with a unified view.
The Españoles would
proactively protect their interests. The period of 1730 C.E. through 1739 C.E., would
continue to see exploration and misión
building efforts. In 1730
C.E., Bishop of Durango, Benito Crespo made a visita
to Nuevo Méjico. Spanish villas
in all of Nueva España would
expand and the population of Españoles
would continue to grow. El Paso grew in importance in the Nuevo Méjico province. By
the 1730s C.E., it had begun to emerge as an important agricultural and
trade center close to El Camino
Real that stretched from Méjico
City to Santa Fé.
Known for its wine and brandy, El
Paso's economy literally floated on the products of local grapes.
Unfortunately, wave after wave of illness rolled over this and
other communities strung south from the Guadalupe
misión along the Río Grande. Nueva España’s Natives were also changing. The
Comanche remained to a great
degree almost purely nomadic and well-supplied with horses by the 1730s
C.E. With this capability
they became more elusive and mobile than their semi-nomadic counterparts
the Apache and Navajo, who were dependent upon agriculture or herding for part of
their livelihoods. The Comanche
both raided and traded with the Nuevo
Méjicanos. They were
especially prominent at the annual Taos
trade fair where they exchanged hides, meat, and captives peacefully.
They did this while continuing at the same time to raid
settlements of the Españoles
and Pueblo. The Utes
also continued to raid Nuevo Méjico
settlements from 1730 C.E. to 1750 C.E. Despite the world around them being a dangerous
place to live, the pobladores
continued to make life as normal as possible.
In 1731 C.E., Juan de
Ribera of Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico conveyed land to Manuel
Casillas. Juan would have been aware that Gobernador
de Bustamante was tried on charges of illegal trading with the French
and found guilty, and made to pay the costs of his trial.
Charges were also brought by Padre
José António Guerrero against the Gobernador
for forcing the Natives to work without pay. José
Miguel de Ribera (Juan
Felipe, Salvadór Matiás) was
born at 1730 C.E. at Santa Cruz,
Nuevo Méjico and died in 1769 C.E. at Santa
Cruz, Nuevo Méjico. He
married María Manuela Olguín
on June 4, 1765 C.E. at Santa Fé.
She was born on January 1756
C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico; and christened January 7, 1756 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. She
was the daughter of Tomás Olguín and María
dela Cruz Sandoval. The
children of José Miguel de Ribera and María
Manuela Olguín were as follows: ·
Miguel
de Jesús de Ribera ·
Juana
Antónia de Ribera was born in
June 1766 C.E. and christened on June 2, 1766 C.E. at Santa
Fé The year 1731 C.E. was a busy one. Gervasio
Cruzat y Góngora was to succeed de
Bustamante as Gobernador
and serve until 1736 C.E. Góngora
was a native of Pamplona (in Navarra,
España) son of Juan Cruzat y
Góngora and Doña Joséfa de
Góngora, both of Pamplona.
His father was Marqués of Góngora.
His grandfather, Fausto Cruzat y Góngora, was Gobernador
and Capitán General of the
Philippines and president of its audience.
Both Juan and Fausto
Cruzat y Góngora were knights of the Order of Santiago.
Góngora became a Coronel
in the army and in the spring of 1730 C.E. and was dispatched to América to take over the gobierno
of the Provincia of Nuevo
Méjico. He would found a misión
among the Jicarilla Apache which was hoped would gradually civilize them.
That year, Fray Juan Miguel Menchero
went to Nuevo Méjico as visitador.
The Church’s interest in converting the pagans was high. At that time Gervasio took office as Gobernador of the
provincia it was populated by Pueblo
Natives and Spanish pobladores.
The areas where they lived consisted of a strip of irrigated land
along the Río Grande.
The Españoles remained
surrounded by aggressive and warlike Plains Indians such as Navajo,
Comanche, and Apache. Also, in 1732 C.E., Cruzat banned gambling, drinking, and prostitution in the pueblos.
The Pueblo leaders had
become sophisticated in manipulating Spanish laws and dealing with
government officials. It has
been suggested that Cruzat
often gave them his support. Cruzat
issued a request to the alcaldes mayores of Nuevo Méjico asking them to notify their
people of a military expedition which would leave Galisteo on March 30, 1732 C.E. for the salt lakes.
This small, limited campaign against the Apaches
eventually took some captives who were sold into slavery, as was
customary of the time. That
same year, he prohibited sale of those captives to the Pueblo
Indians. The license to build a new church was
received by Cruzat in June
1733 C.E. He gave the
Franciscans permission to found the Misión
for Jicarilla Apaches on the Río
Trampas in Taos County, about 12 miles north of Taos, which would also serve as a defensive post.
Fray Juan Mirabel, who
took charge of the Misión,
considered that since the Jicarillas
were Christians they could rightfully make war on the Comanches, who had not been converted.
Later, the Misión was abandoned when Cruzat
prohibited the trade in hides. That year, he heard various cases against
local officials involving abuses against the Pueblo Indians such as extortion and forced labor, generally ruling
in favor of the Natives. Officials
who were dismissed in 1733 C.E. included the alcalde
of Bernalillo and the alcalde
mayor of Laguna and Ácoma.
In that same year, Cruzat also decided in favor of the Pueblo Indians of Isleta
in a dispute with one Diego de
Padilla, whose flocks had trespassed on the Pueblo
farmlands. In 1733 C.E., Cruzat also received a petition by a group of Plains Indians who
called themselves "Los Genízaros"
asking for a grant of land at the abandoned Sandia
Pueblo. They told the Gobernador that they had all been baptized and therefore, none were
servants of the Españoles.
The petitioners stated that they had become destitute while
serving as scouts on the border with Apache territory. The Gobernador
requested that they to identify themselves by name and
"nation." He then
denied the petition without giving a reason other than telling them that
they should settle in established towns and villas. By June 23, 1733 C.E., Cruzat
was ordering the pobladores at
Santa Cruz not to allow their animals to stray loose and tempt
Native raids. He was
concerned about raiding and issued an order that all ciudadanos
of Nuevo Méjico be
prepared for military duty. The Santa
Ana Pueblo tried to buy land from Balthasár
Romero in 1734 C.E. This
they claimed was their traditional property.
Despite the fact that the pueblo
was willing to pay, Cruzat
nullified the sale, which he said was "against the dispositions of
the royal laws of his majesty."
It would appear that this was a personal decision as no law
against the sale has been found. In 1735 C.E., the Teniente alcalde of Chama
was found guilty of trading illegally with the Comanches,
dismissed, and fined. It was
also the year Cruzat's term of
office expired and he was replaced by Enrique (Henrique) de
Olavide y Micheleña. By 1736 C.E., the Virreinato of Nueva España
appointed Gobernador Enrique
de Olavide y Micheleña (1736 C.E.-1738 C.E.).
Don Micheleña would serve until 1739 C.E. Religion continued to be in the forefront of
Spanish efforts in the Provincia.
In 1737 C.E., Bishop of Durango Martín de Elizacochea
made his visita and carved his
name on Inscription Rock. As
the Apache depredations
continued through remainder of the 1730s C.E., Capitán
Juan Mateo Mange, Jirónza's
nephew, in 1737 C.E.
would report that, "many mines have been destroyed, 15 large estancias
along the frontier have been totally destroyed, having lost two hundred
head of cattle, mules, and horses; several misiónes
have been burned and two hundred Christians have lost their lives to the
Apache enemy, who sustains himself only with the bow and arrow,
killing and stealing livestock. All
this has left us in ruins." By 1738 C.E., the Pecos Villa would suffer yet another major epidemic of smallpox.
In an 18 week period, 26 young children died. The year, 1739 C.E., brought with it Don
Gaspar Domingo de Mendoza’s
Governorship (1739 C.E.-1743 C.E.).
He would serve as Gobernador
until 1743 C.E. That same
year a party of Frenchmen came from Louisiana and settled at Cañada near Isleta.
Two of these men left an impact upon Nuevo
Méjico. Louis Marie
Colons was shot for his crimes. Jean
d'Alay becomes a barber in Santa Fé,
and married a Nuevo Méjicano
woman. The Villa
of Tomé was also founded that
year by 30 pobladores.
In that same year, Francisco
Rivera would take part of the founding of the Town of Tomé.
Note THE SPANISH ARCHIVES OF NEW MEXICO 285 citing his
participation: Acting Capitán-General. Revoked by Cruzat y Góngora, Gobernador. 956 TOWN of TOMÉ. Grant. 1739 C.E.
Reported Claim No. 2, q. v. The grant to the Town of Tomé
was made in the year 1739 C.E.; the new settlement was called "Nuestra
Senora de la Concepcion de Tomé
Domínguez " and was
named for the celebrated Capitán
Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza, who owned a rancho
near by prior to the pueblo
rebellion (Insurrection) of 1680 C.E. The grant is as follows:
"Sir Senior Justice: All
the undersigned appear before you, and all and jointly, and each one for
himself, state, that in order that his Excellency the governor may be
pleased to donate to them the land called Tomé
Domínguez , granted to those
who first solicited the same, and who declined settling thereon, we
therefore ask that the land be granted to us; we therefore pray you to
be pleased [eaten by mice] at that time [eaten by mice] said settlers,
we being disposed to settle upon the same within the time prescribed by
law; we pray you to be pleased to give us the grant which you have
caused to be returned, as you are aware that our petition is founded
upon necessity and justice, our present condition being very limited,
with scarcity of wood, pasture for our stock, and unable to extend our
cultivation and raising of stock in this Town of Alburquerque
on account of the many foot-paths encroaching upon us, and not permitted
to reap the benefits of what we raise, and, in a measure, not even our
crops on account of a scarcity of water, and with most of us our lands
are of little extent and much confined, etc." The original settlers were: Juan
Barela, Jose Salas, Juan Ballejos, Manuel Carillo, Juan Montaiio,
Domingo Sedillo, Matiás Romero, Bernardo Ballejo, Gregorio Jaramillo,
Francisco Sánches, Pedro Romero, Felipe Barela, Lugardo Ballejos,
Agustin Gallegos, Alonzo Perea, Tomás Samorra, Nicolás García,
Ignacio Baca, Salvador Manuel, Francisco Silva, Francisco Rivera, Juan
António Zamora, Miguel Lucero, Joachim Sedillo, Simón Samorra, Xptobal
Gallehos, Juan Ballejos, grandee, Jacinto Barela, and Diego Gonzáles. Too often we see writers of the Spanish Period and
of the decade of 1740 C.E.-1749 C.E. focusing upon one geographic area
to the neglect of other surrounding territory which might have an impact
upon an area under discussion and the subject at hand.
This would be the case in this chapter had I not included
expanded areas of Nueva España when
writing of Nuevo Méjico.
The Españoles of Nuevo
Méjico did not operate in a vacuum.
They were in fact impacted politically, economically, and
militarily by major problems occurring in greater Nueva
España. For example the
insurrection of the Yaqui, Pima, and Mayo Natives and
the areas of Sinaloa and Sonora
in 1740 C.E. are some of these. Capitán Diego de
Hurdaide had established San Felipe y Santiago on the site of the modern city of Sinaloa
almost a century and a half earlier in 1599 C.E.
From there, Hurdaide
waged vigorous military campaigns on the Cáhita-speaking
Natives of the Fuerte River -
the Sinaloas, Tehuecos, Zuaques, and Ahomes.
These Native groups, numbering approximately 20,000 people, had
resisted strongly. The Yaqui and Mayo Natives in
the area had lived peacefully and coexisted with the Españoles since the early part of the 17th-Century C.E.
Their insurrection was in part due to the Jesuits having ignored
growing Yaqui resentment over
lack of control of productive resources.
What other grievances they had will not be explored here. However,
one must accept that there must have been many. During the last half of the 17th-Century C.E.,
much of the agricultural surplus produced had been placed in
storehouses. These surpluses
were used by the misióneros
to extend their activities northward for the Las
Californias and Pima misiónes. The Pima
are a group of Natives living in
an area consisting of what is now central and southern Arizona.
A poor harvest in
late 1739 C.E., followed in 1740 C.E. by severe flooding exacerbated
Native food shortages. The
immediate cause of the insurrection is believed to have been the
inflexible Jesuit organization which disregarded Yaqui
demands for autonomy in the selection of their own village officials.
El Muni
and another Yaqui leader, Bernabé,
took the Yaquis' grievances to
local civil authorities. Resenting
this undermining of their authority, the Jesuits had Muni and Bernabé
arrested, not a good move. It was during this period that
the other nations of the Viejo
Mundo were turning their attention to the Spanish Nuevo
Mundo. From about 1710
C.E. to 1740 C.E. the Virreinato
government in Méjico City
considered Tejas, located on
the border with French Louisiana, to be the most vulnerable part of the
northern frontier. The issue
was the lack of proximity to other Spanish villas
with their economic and military support with which to maintain a firm
military border. However,
this wasn’t España’s only problem. During the 1740s C.E., that the Pima
Natives had begun feeling agitated by the presence of the Españoles
in their territory. The 1740
C.E. insurrection in Sinaloa
and Sonora primarily took
place in the Mayo territory
and in the Lower Pima Country.
Catholic churches were burned to the ground while Padres
and pobladores were driven out, fleeing to the silver mining town at Alamos.
In August 1740 C.E., Capitán
Agustín de Vildósola
defeated the insurgents. The
insurrection, however, had cost the lives of a thousand Españoles
and more than 5,000 Natives. After
the 1740 C.E. insurrection, the new Gobernador
of Sonora and Sinaloa began a program of secularization by posting guarniciónes
in the Yaqui Valley and encouraging Spanish pobladores to return to the area of insurrection. By 1741 C.E., Sabinal the southernmost settlement in Nuevo Méjico was established. Apache
raids had prevented Spanish resettlement of this area until the founding
of Sabinal. It was
established outside Belén,
with the west bank variant of the Camino
Real running through the villa. António de
Ribera (b.1728
C.E.-d.1794 C.E.) was the son of Juan Felipe de Ribera, the only son of Salvadór
Matiás de Ribera and María
Estela Palomino Rendón (b.1700
C.E.-d.1770 C.E.). He joined the
Spanish Army March 7, 1741 C.E.
He was listed as a farmer, age 19?, black hair and eyebrows, dark
eyes, heavy beard, and fair skin. António was placed on the Invalid Roster on July 1, 1779 C.E. In 1742 C.E., during the rule of Codallos
y Rabal, Sandia refugees were brought back from Payupki by the frayles Deglado
and Pino. Sandia had earlier been burned by the Españoles after the Insurrection of 1680 C.E.
The inhabitants then fled to the Hopi
country where they built the Villa
of Payupki. Fray
Juan Menchero, affirmed that had had been engaged for six years in misiónero
work with the Natives and had converted more than three hundred and
fifty of them, all of whom he had brought from the Hopi
province for the purpose of establishing the pueblo.
When the new pueblo was finally established six years later, in 1748 C.E., it was
given the name of Nuestra Señora
de Dolores de San António de Sandia. In August of 1742 C.E., we find the Gobernador
Gaspar Domingo de Mendoza
y Delgado of Nuevo Méjico
and Juan Felipe de Ribera
signing a decree to allow one Salvadór
Gonzáles to take possession of land which is a small Canyon with
Pine trees. Gonzáles
took possession on August 26, 1742 C.E. He
and other pobladores continued to move on with their lives despite the dangers
found throughout Nueva España. Joaquín Codallos y
Rabal (1743 C.E.-1749 C.E.) was made Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico under the Virreinato
of Nueva España.
Codallos
y Rabal joined the Spanish Army in his youth and soon achieved the rank of Mayor
or Major. Once assuming the
governorship of Santa Fé de
Nuevo Méjico, Codallos y Rabal began
issuing new laws. These
included the ban on illegal trade and gambling. Pobladores
of Albuquerque presented a
petition to the gobernador,
asking permission to sell wool locally and for export.
The issue was debated by officials of the city of Santa
Fé,
which led to acceptance of the wool trade and beginning of a trade route
between Albuquerque, Santa
Fé, and
Santa Cruz within the Provincia.
Some of the excess wool was exported to outlying regions of the Provincia
and other provincias within Nueva
España, providing favorable commerce for Santa
Fé
de Nuevo Méjico. A lone Frenchman, evidently a deserter from
Illinois, made his way into Pecos
early in June 1744 C.E. Gobernador
Codallos issued ordered to my progenitor, then Sargento Juan Felipe de Ribera, along with two soldados to the pueblo of
"Nuestra Señora de la
Defensa de Pecos to arrest the man. While
there, Juan Felipe was to
enlist four Pecos Natives and
bring this unidentified intruder in "well-secured.
Interrogated in Santa Fé,
he gave his name as Santiago Velo
(Jacques Belleau, Bellot, or Valle?) and confessed that he was a native
of Tours who had served as a soldier in Illinois.
Codallos had no use for
him. Dispatching the
Frenchman's statement directly to the virrey
and Velo himself to the Gobernador of Nueva Vizcaya,
he washed his hands of the matter. In 1745 C.E., Joaquín Codallos y Rabal made a "vista general," or general visit, traveling throughout the provincia
and asking ciudadanos to send
him a list of their problems. Later,
he had the population gathered at the square in Santa
Fé,
where the Gobernador invited
them to voice complaints against local officials or the Gobierno or government. Codallos
y Rabal next made visitas
to the majority of the towns and Spanish settlements.
Some exceptions were the distant villas
of the Ácoma Pueblo and Zuñi people. The visita
was of more of a benefit to the Natives rather than the Spanish pobladores
who lived there. He served until 1747 C.E., when Coronel
Francisco de la Rocha was appointed but declined to serve. Rabal
would continue until 1749 C.E. Exploration continued.
1746 C.E. Don José de Escandón
explored and settled the Río
Grande with seven detachments of soldados,
establishing towns. That
same year, Padre Juan M. Menchero founded a
short-lived settlement of 400-500 Navajo,
at Cebolleta (date is also
listed as 1749 C.E.). In
that same year, Native attacks upon the Españoles
continued forcing them to defend themselves and defeat a combined force
of Ute and Comanche insurrectionists near Alburquerque. Here, I shall offer information regarding another
family line, the Quintana.
Juan Bautista Quintana was born at Nuevo
Méjico in 1728
C.E. and died there on May 23, 1815 C.E.
He married María
Paula Sánchez in April of 1746 C.E.
He was of another family line, the Quintana.
The earliest I have recorded
is Joseph Quintana who married
Nicolása
Valdéz y Cervantes Altamirano.
Their son was Miguel Matiás Valdéz
Altamirano Quintana. He
was born in February 1675 C.E. and died April 9, 1748 C.E.
He came during the resettlement efforts to Nuevo
Méjico in 1693 C.E. Miguel
later married Gertrudis dela
Trinidad Moreno Trujillo. Their
son was José Quintana. José Quintana
was born in 1728 C.E. and died on May 23, 1815 C.E.
He married Lugarda Tafoya who was born in Nuevo
Méjico. They had a son
named Juan Bautista Quintana. Juan Bautista
Quintana was born at Nuevo
Méjico in 1728 C.E. and died there on May 23, 1815 C.E.
He married María Paula Sánchez in April
of 1746 C.E. Their son José
Vincente Quintana was born in Nuevo
Méjico in 1765 C.E. José
Vincente Quintana married María
dela luz Silva. They
had a son, José António Quintana
who was also born in Nuevo Méjico. He married María
de Jesús Lujan. They had a daughter María
Nicolása Quintana born at Nuevo Méjico in 1843 C.E. María
Nicolása Quintana married my
Great grandfather, José de la Anastacio Ribera
born 1840 C.E., in Nuevo Méjico
and died there on April 10,
1905 C.E. María
was an heir to the Ignacio de
Roibal Town of Jacona
Grant consisting of 6954.84 acres. The
Grant was litigated on March 25, 1909 C.E.
Her family’s portion was 28 acres.
In total, only 434.5 acres were returned to the descendents of
the original Grantee. In
essence, like many other of the Spanish Land Grants, the vast majority
was stolen “legally” by the Américanos, poetic justice and all of that.
Natives took the land from other Natives.
The Spanish took the land from the Natives.
The Américanos took the land from the Spanish.
The Natives now take the money from the Américanos
at their gambling casinos. The Native insurrectionists continued their
attacks upon the Españoles
while obtaining help from outside Nuevo
Méjico. Thirty-three
Frenchmen would arrive at Río de
Jicarilla in 1747 C.E. and sell firearms to the Comanches. That same
year, Ute attacks caused the
abandonment of Alburquerque. It
would be resettled again in 1748C.E. by the Españoles
and that year, the Españoles
carried out a campaign against the Caputa
Utes. During 1747 C.E., Fray Menchero traveled to Nuevo
Méjico as visitador. While on his
tour he turned west from Jornada
del Muerto, as far as the Gila,
then north to Ácoma.
Don Bernardo Miera y
Pachéco served with Menchero. My
progenitor, Salvadór de Ribera II (Juan
Felipe, Salvadór Matiás), grandson of Salvadór Matiás de Ribera served as the 1st Alférez or First Ensign at the Presidio
of Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico in 1747 C.E.. He
was born around 1720 C.E. Salvadór
married: (1)
Tomása
Rael de Aguilar was born 1732
C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
She was alive before January 1,
1781 C.E.
Tomása
was
the daughter of Alonzo
II Rael de Aguilar and Melchora
Sandoval Martínez. The
marriage took place on July 17, 1747 C.E., at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. (2)
(María)
Juana Abeyta was born in 1742
C.E. Their married took
place on September 24, 1786 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. Children
of Salvadór Matiás Rivera II and Tomása
Rael de Aguilar were as follows: ·
María
Petra Rivera was born on
August 4, 1748 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. ·
Gerbasio
Alfonso Rivera was born on
June 21, 1750 C.E. in Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico.
He would join the Spanish Army on March 19, 1777 C.E. and be
discharged on October 28, 1790 C.E. ·
Balthazár
António Rivera was born on
January 12, 1755 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. He would
join the Spanish Army on January 11, 1779 C.E. and be discharged on
October 28, 1790 C.E., be placed on the Invalid Roster on March 1, 1805
C.E. , and die on July 14, 1817 C.E. ·
José
António Rivera was born on
June 5, 1757 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. ·
Luís
Manuel Rivera was born on June
24, 1759 C.E. at Santa Cruz, Nuevo
Méjico and died on September 15, 1807 C.E. at Santa
Cruz, Nuevo Méjico.
He married María Joséfa de Jesús Ortíz. ·
Miguel
Gerónimo Rivera, my
progenitor was baptized on September 30, 1761 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. He
married: (1)
María
dela Cruz Gurulé on April 20
1784 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
She was born (Unknown) and died on October 22, 1799. Their son was Juan
Ribera born about 1785 C.E. Their daughter was
Juana María dela Cruz Ribera. She
was baptized on May 7, 1786 C.E. Juana
died on November 19, 1792 C.E. (2)
Francisca
Ortíz on May 6, 1790 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. She
was born (Unknown) and died on October 14, 1808 C.E. Their daughter
Juana María Antónia Ribera was born on (Unknown) and died on July 20,
1799 C.E. ·
María
Magdalena Rivera was born on
August 17, 1764 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. She died
on August 9, 1808 C.E. at Río
Arriba Santa Cruz, Nuevo
Méjico. She married José Miguel Trujillo. ·
José
António Rivera was born on
May 25, 1767 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. Tomasa
Rael de Aguilar was the
half-sister of Pedro Marcial Rael;
Josefa Rael de Aguilar; Julian
Lorenzo Rael de Aguilar; María
Manuela Rael de Aguilar and Feliciana
Rael de Aguilar. Salvadór enlisted on November 4, 1749 C.E. at the Santa Fé Presidio. This
was the only unit in which he served during his long military career.
His military record states that he took part in thirty military
campaigns during his career, being wounded four times by the Comanches.
Later, the record also states, “His advanced age demands his
retirement.” At the time,
in the year 1787 C.E., he was 67 years old. His
time of service was more than 39 years.
Like many other soldados
and members of the de Ribera
family, his enlistment at the Presidio
had been preceded by several years of service in the local militia. There is a Nuevo
Méjicano folk play of “Los
Comanches” which is still performed on horseback in the village of
Alcalde, Nuevo Méjico.
In the original transcripts of this play, probably depicts a 1760
C.E.-1779 C.E. battle between the Spanish military forces led by Don
Carlos Fernández against
the Comanche Chief Cuerno Verde. Salvadór
de Ribera II is one of the characters depicted.
It is the oldest folk play, still performed which was written in Nuevo Méjico, by Nuevo
Méjicanos, about an event which took place in Nuevo Méjico. Despite all that was going on around them, the Españoles
of Nuevo Méjico carried on with their lives in as an ordinary fashion
as possible. Nuevo Méjicanos continued to marry and have families, and build
homes on their ranchos and estancias.
One example is that of the Gregorio
Crespín House located at 132 E. De
Vargas St. in Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. The
house was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on May 29,
1975 C.E.
The Crespín
are another family line. Viscente
Crespín was born about 1726 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. Juana
Gertrudis Blea married Viscente
Crespín on May 23, 1747 C.E. at Santa
Fé. She was born about
in 1732 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
The Children of Viscente Crespín and Juana
Gertrudis Blea were: ·
Victoria Dolores Crespín who was born on
April 9, 1752 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. ·
Joséf Francisco Crespín who was born on
October 5, 1764 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. In the Fall of 1748 C.E., my progenitor, Teniente
of the Presidio of Santa Fé Juan
Felipe de Ribera escorted three Padres
to the Cebolleta Canyon to
baptize one hundred Native children and scouted areas for four new misiónes. Less
newsworthy than the Comanche
assault of that year, but more lethal, was an unnamed epidemic that
swept Nuevo Méjico late that summer.
Sixty-eight persons died at Santa
Fé between July and September.
Padre Urquijo was ordered to the villa
to help. And there were
others. Over the years,
epidemic disease claimed many more lives at Pecos
than did the violent assaults of Plains raiders.
The Pecos Villa
suffered that epidemic. At
least fifteen Pecos Villa children expired as well as three single men
"without receiving the sacraments because," in the words of Fray
Andrés García, "it is
the custom of these misión
Natives to notify the Fray
when there is no chance." Spanish exploration continued. In
1749 C.E., Miera y Pachéco mapped
the area around El Paso, down
to La Junta del Ríos.
This is located along
the southwestern frontier of Trans-Pecos
Tejas and northeastern Chihuahua.
In that region the two
largest rivers found within the vast Chihuahuan Desert intersect one
another, bringing that most precious desert resource, water.
The Río Grande
and Río Conchos
meet at the sister cities of Presidio,
Tejas and Ojinaga, Chihuahua
within the Presidio Bolson, a
drainage basin framed by rugged mountain ranges. That same year, Nuesta Señora de Santa Ana de Camargo
(modern Camargo, Tamaulipas, west of McAllen, Tejas)
was established at the junction of the Río
San Juan and the Río Grande. In 1749 C.E. Don
Tomás Vélez Cachupín took over as Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico and served
until 1754 C.E. Before
becoming Gobernador, Tomás
Vélez Cachupín was a colonial judge.
He was appointed gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico in
early 1749 C.E. and he assumed office in May of that year.
After settling in Nuevo Méjico as gobernador, he assessed the frequent attacks that the Comanches
made upon Spanish settlements in the provincia.
These attacks were dangerous because they included kidnappings
and killings of pobladores and
their descendants in the provincia.
These also slowed and in some cases curtailed economic growth.
The population of Natives in the region was higher than that of
the Españoles. However, it
was the Natives that suffered economically.
To remedy that disparity, Vélez
Cachupin decided to improve the quality of life of Natives.
He hoped through these efforts that they would learn respect his
authority. Additionally, he
wanted peaceful trade with the nomadic, warring tribes of the region
which would help the economy of Nuevo Méjico. Mistrust of the Natives
was a normal state of affairs as the Españoles
of the Provincia considered
the Comanches of the
southwestern United States their main enemy. By the decade of 1750 C.E.-1759 C.E., the Spanish
government wanted there to be more marriages between Spanish people and
the Natives. They planned
for towns to grow up around the misiónes,
which would then become parish churches.
The land on which the misiónes
were established was not given to the Catholic Church.
It actually belonged to España
held in trust for the Natives. In the 18th-Century C.E., and especially after
1750 C.E., Nueva España
fostered settlement of Nuevo Méjico
by a system of “Mercedes”
(wages or reward), or land grants, given to prestigious individuals and
to groups of more humble status. This
approach increased respect for Puebloan lands and also increased
tensions with Navajos and Apaches.
In these villas, the
bonds of religious godparentage, work on the acequias (irrigation ditches), and participation in the Penitentes
or a lay Catholic brotherhood provided social cohesion within a pattern
of dispersed settlement. The
approach was to serve as an organized expansion model over the great
distances of Nueva España. In 1750 C.E., at Cebolleta all went well for a brief time.
In the spring of 1750 C.E. conditions changed. Teniente-Gobernador
Bernardo António de Bustamante
along with the vice-custodio, Padre Manuel de San Juan Nepomuceno
de Trigo, went to investigate.
An investigation disclosed the real state of affairs. The
Padre at Cebolleta, Menchero
had been liberal with his gifts. He
had also made other promises; hence his success in bringing Navajos
to Cebolleta.
The Navajos claimed
that they had not received half the gifts promised. Additionally,
their present Padres, against
whom they had no complaint, were too poor to provide gifts.
The government and the Church had once again proved that they
were incapable of simple administrative control. Possibly as a result of these Native
resettlement efforts, in July of 1750 C.E., a group of approximately 130
Comanche arrived at Nuevo Méjico
and temporarily settled there in tents.
Forty of them settled in Taos to trade hides and slaves with the European traders.
The Gobernador, Tomás
Vélez Cachupín agreed to the trade with one proviso, he threatened
to declare the war if, after trading with the Europeans, the Comanches
attacked Pecos and/or Galisteo. The chiefs of
the Comanches agreed to this,
but another group of Comanche,
armed with bows, spears, and guns attacked Pecos
in November. After being
informed of the attack, Vélez
Cachupin led an army against the Comanches
searching for them for six days. Gobernador,
Tomás Vélez Cachupín soon
came upon an armed group of 145 Comanches. These
unexpectedly attacked him, which began the Battle of San Diego Pond. At dusk,
despite its extremely cold climate the insurgent Comanches fled to the center of the lake.
The gobernador ordered
his army to attack and kill any insurgents found.
Fortunately, upon hearing the screams of women and children the gobernador
called off the attack. With
the aid of an interpreter, he offered to spare the lives of any Comanches who surrendered immediately.
In the beginning, the Comanches were determined to fight.
The situation remained tense until, when at midnight, a sixteen
year old male left the pond holding a cross made of reeds and asked Cachupin for mercy. The
other insurgents saw that he was being well-treated by Cachupin and most decided to follow his example.
After this incident only the chief and seven warriors continued
resistance. The last of the
fighting was ongoing until three o'clock, until the Comanches were defeated. At
dawn, Cachupin counted 49
prisoners and 150 horses and mules. Cachupin
next warned the Comanches
against any further attacks on Spanish settlements, stating that if they
did, he would find and destroy their villas.
With the last of the warring Comanches
killed or captured, he released most of them.
Four natives Cachupin
gave snuff and ten arrows for hunting.
As a result, his courage in battle and his compassion for Natives
earned him a reputation among the Comanches.
He was from then on called the "astounding Capitán."
Cachupin’s
magnanimous gestures also increased the peace between the Españoles, Utes, and Apaches
who would later become principal allies. Alonzo or Gerbasio
Alfonso Rivera (de Ribera), son of
Salvadór Matiás Rivera (de
Ribera), was born in 1750 C.E. He
was listed in the Spanish Census of 1790 C.E. as a farmer in Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
Alonzo was the brother
of my progenitor, Miguel Gerónimo
de Ribera. By 1795 C.E.,
Corral de Piedra, Nuevo Méjico
was Alonzo’s residence.
His first marriage was to María
Abeyta. Their children
were Pedro António Ribera and María
Rita Ribera. After the
death of Miguel Gerónimo’s
first wife, María de la
Candelaria Crespín, Alonzo
adopted Miguel Gerónimo’s two children. Exploration was always the beginning of the
process for España’s method
of settling new territory. Once
an area was identified as appropriate, the Españoles
would establish misiónes
with presidios to guard them.
Nueva España was seen as the staging area for pobladores which would eventually settle all of North America.
España had made its
way from Méjico City
northward to Nuevo Méjico
and beyond. It had explored Tejas and extended its Camino
Real eastward toward Louisiana. She
now looked westward from Nuevo
Méjico over land to the
Pacific Ocean. It wasn’t until the mid-1700s C.E. that King Carlos
III of España began to think about Alta
or Upper California.
He was prompted to do so when he heard of Russian fur traders
moving down the west coast of North America from Alaska.
Carlos had also been
informed that English explorers were interested in the area.
The King wanting to secure España’s
claim to the land sent orders to his virrey
in Méjico City, telling him to organize an expedition to go to Alta
California. Father Junípero
Serra, a Franciscan misiónero
was selected as the religious leader of that expedition. The instructions to Padre Serra from the
Spanish government were to establish Spanish control of the land by
teaching Catholicism to the Natives.
According to the plan, the Natives would then become Spanish Ciudádanos and would be the pobladores
in the new land. This was
thought to be a quicker way of creating Spanish villas
in such a remote area, rather than sending large numbers of pobladores
there from España or southern
Nueva España.
Besides, pobladores did
not want to relocate to such a remote place. Again, the misiónes
were not intended to be permanent. The
Spanish Gobierno thought that
within ten years, the Las
Californias Natives would have become loyal Spanish Ciudádanos.
They would be ready to take
over the land and contribute to the treasury of España.
Skilled immigrants were expected to follow the Franciscans to Las
Californias, and become pobladores
there. All of this did not
mean that España was
neglecting Nuevo Méjico.
A Navajo misión was
established at Cebolleta in
the Mid-18th-Century C.E. These
misiónes were to be followed
by pueblos and villas as they had done successfully in other parts of the Nuevo
Mundo, including in Nueva España
for the previous 200 years. They
also had misiónes in other
parts of what is now known the Southwest.
This was an inexpensive method for settling new territory. In the 1750s C.E., the fiercest of all Apache
tribes, the Chiricahua, began hunting and raiding along the mountainous frontier
regions of both Sonora and Chihuahua.
By 1750 C.E. my progenitor, Juan
Felipe de Ribera was the Alférez
of the Santa Fé Presidio. In
that capacity, he was doing his best to defend the villas, ranchos, and estancias
of the Provincia against the Apache. By the 1750s C.E., the Corona Española as part of its Spanish rule gave ranchos
as concessions. By doing so,
it permitted settlement and granted grazing rights on specific tracts of
land, while the Corona Española
retained the title. These rancho
settlements by individuals were allowed only on tracts of land outside presidio,
misión, and pueblo
boundaries. The land
concessions were usually measured in leagues.
A league of land would encompass a square that is one Spanish
league on each side, or approximately 4,428 acres. The Spanish Gobierno
encouraged settlement of the Territorio
de Nuevo Méjico by the establishment of large land grants, many of
which were turned into ranchos,
devoted to the raising of
Corriente or common cattle or native cattle and sheep.
The ganaderos or owners
of these ranchos patterned
themselves after the landed gentry in España.
Their workers included Natives, some of whom had learned to speak
Spanish and ride horses. There
were hundreds of recognized land grants. España
made relatively few, with the greatest number being issued by the
government of Méjico, after
1821 C.E. The ranchos
established land-use patterns that are recognizable in the Nuevo Méjico of today. The story of the ranchos and the Corriente
and the “Open Range” of the Southwest really began two decades
before the pilgrims landed in 1620 C.E. on Plymouth Rock. This
is when adventurous Criollos or Spanish-born Américanos
and Mestízos or racially
mixed Spanish and Native settlers pushed past the Río
Grande River to take advantage of land grants in the kingdom of Nuevo
Méjico. At the time,
this would have included most of the western United States.
After the Spanish Period, one out of every three cowboys in the
late-1800s C.E. would be a Mexican vaquero.
I would suspect that most Americans believe that the cowboy,
Anglo-American cattlemen existed first. It is the nature of a conqueror, in this case the Américano,
to ensure that history is rewritten to reflect their view of what
happened or should have happened. Therefore,
popular American culture, books, and cinema reflect the American Cowboy
to the exclusion of the
caballeros, first, and later the vaquero.
This does not make the Américano
view bad or good. It simply
makes it the dominant view, the historically selective view.
When one takes the land from a people, one must ensure that the
conquered and their legacy are erased as best possible.
They can be romanticized, but never characterized as real.
This wouldn’t do. Once
you’ve taken the land (ranchos,
estancias) and the horses of the conquered, the caballeros
and the vaquero are left on the margins. They
can no longer be participants. This
would make them too real. At
best they can only be observers or ghosts of a time long since past. In an effort to clarify, the Españoles, and later for 25 years, the Méjicanos who worked the Corriente
cattle were called caballeros.
This was considered one of the highest stations one could achieve
in life. Caballero
is literally translated as "gentleman."
The root of the word comes from caballo,
Spanish for "horse." For
every caballero there were
perhaps dozens of independent
vaqueros working the herds. Later,
even the poor Méjicano vaqueros were very proud of their status.
There were few things they couldn't do from a saddle.
These were the true "drivers" of the cattle.
Today’s basic skills, traditions, and ways of working cattle
are rooted in the vaquero.
By 1800 C.E., the highly sophisticated Vaquero
culture had reached its peak in what is now the state of California.
To this day, few mounted herdsman on earth have achieved such
elegance, presence, and artistry for day-to-day work of handling cattle
and wild horses. The
beautiful equipment and exquisite horsemanship of the Californiano
is still highly regarded. His
clothing, horse gear, and working skills were unique to their culture. Despite possible Anglo-American objections,
today’s American cowboy developed from the vaquero.
That so-called uniquely American figure, the cowboy, did not
begin with the Norte Américano.
He had his origins in the Viejo
Mundo, in España. However, his
principal antecedent was most certainly the Vaquero,
who had for centuries developed in Spanish North America before Anglos
with their black slaves moved into the eastern United States. The Españoles
had their children in the Nuevo
Mundo, and these Criollos
kept the land and its resources. As
the Nuevo Mundo transitioned
and the Españoles intermarried
with the Natives, the Mestízos
came into being. They
prospered and need for help on the ranchos
also grew. The more numerous
Mestízos became vaqueros,
cowmen. These rough,
hard-working Mestízos were
hired by the Criollo caballeros
to drive cattle between Nuevo Méjico
and Méjico City.
Later, they would drive the herds between Tejas
and Méjico City. That
title, vaquero, though
denoting a separate social class, was similar to that of caballero.
It was a mark of pride. Vaquero
is a transliteration of the words “cow” and “man.”
Vaca means “cow." The
Spanish called themselves “cowmen.”
In English, it was described as cowboys. Important to both the caballeros and the vaqueros
was the horse saddle. What
Americans term the “western saddle,” they generally referred to as
the “Spanish saddle” during the first half of the 19th-Century C.E.
Thus, they had an awareness of its place of origin.
Americans of that time commonly used the term "Spanish"
to distinguish whatever related to Nueva España, now parts of Méjico
and her provinces to the north Tejas,
Nuevo Méjico and Las Californias. Within
the locus of the Nuevo Mundo,
it was specifically in Nueva España
which included modern day Nuevo Méjico
and Old Méjico, that the
western saddle originated and underwent a great deal of its development.
By the outset of the 19th-Century C.E., the saddle used by the caballeros
of Nuevo Méjico was founded
upon a saddletree incorporating almost all elements of design and
construction by which the western saddle tree is obvious today. By the time España’s
explorers set sail for the West Indies in 1492 C.E., two basic saddle
styles had been adopted and brought to the Americas
with the horse, a la estradiota,
and la jineta. La Estradiota or Spanish War Saddle also referred to as the Moro Cavalrymen Saddle
La Jineta
It was from both the a la estradiota and la jineta
style saddles that later horse saddles were designed and constructed
that the first vaqueros of Nueva
España developed an American saddle.
Each version of saddle would suit the rider’s own needs and
preferences. Modern-day
saddle experts have conducted research and have a reasonably good idea
how the western stock saddle evolved and what it may have looked like.
Unfortunately, there are no surviving fully documented saddles
from the American Southwest’s Spanish Period (1521 C.E.-1821 C.E.).
There exist a few inconclusive illustrations and literary
references to the estradiota, jineta, and
later vaquero-type saddles.
However, there is no consistent agreement between authorities on
exactly what the first vaquero saddle looked like. By 1821 C.E., Anglo-American settlers would make
their way to Tejas, becoming
the first English-speaking Méjicano
citizens of the newly formed Republic of Méjico.
Led by Stephen F. Austin, they arrived in San
Felipe de Austin, Tejas. Once
settled, they would take advantage of the vast expanse of Tejas
and its ample Corriente
cattle, which were free for the taking. It
was stated that there were millions of Corriente
or Longhorn cattle in the brush country of Tejas
that were loose, strayed, and had multiplied.
These new settlers had only to round up the cattle.
This was something the vaqueros had been doing for 223 years, since 1598 C.E., when Don
Juan de Oñate, one of the four richest men in Nueva
España, the present-day western United States and Méjico,
sent an expedition across the Río
Grande River into Nuevo Méjico. It is believed that de Oñate spent over a million dollars funding his expedition.
He reportedly brought some 7,000 animals to the present-day
United States. The
wool-bearing sheep exported from España,
sheep such as the Churra, Manchega,
Castellana, and Lacha were
sent to the Nuevo Mundo.
The term "Churro" is translated to mean "common" and now refers
loosely to all the breeds previously mentioned.
The long-horned livestock was also present. By the conclusion of the Civil War the
Anglo-American cattle-driving industry would be at its highest point of
development. However, it
changed with the introduction of barbed wire in 1873 C.E.
The industry caused a rapid rise in large private landholdings.
Under the circumstances of the existing Open Range policy, the
American Cowboys or "free-grazers" had full access to all land
for grazing their cattle. A
battle between private landowners and the others was about to explode.
Interestingly, one-third of these were the vaqueros
and one-fifth African-Americans.
It is easy to see why White America would champion the cause of
barbed wire. The Spanish Presidio
System continued its expansion,
just as the Apache offensives
would. That year 1751 C.E., Apache attacks were occurring in Sonora and Chihuahua and
carried through till 1774 C.E. As
a counter, the Presidio of San
Francisco Xavier de Gigedo
was founded in 1751 C.E. in Tejas.
The Sonoran Españoles mounted a punitive campaign against the Chiricahua,
capturing two of their leaders. That
same year, Gobernador Cachupín battled against the Comanches
and received a commendation from the Virrey. By November of that year, under their leader, Capitán-General
Luís Oacpicagigua, the Pima rose in insurrection. More
than a hundred pobladores,
miners, and rancheros were
killed. Churches were burned
and two Padres were also
killed. This Pima
Insurrection of 1751 C.E.-1752 C.E. was of great significance to the Españoles.
The Pima Natives had
lived for many centuries in scattered locations throughout what are
today the western two-thirds of southern Arizona
and northern Sonora.
While the Pimas Altos
or Upper Pima Natives lived in
the north, their linguistic brethren, the Pima Bajo or Lower Pima
lived farther south in lower Sonora.
On January 4, 1752 C.E., over 2,000 northern Pimans attacked one hundred Españoles.
Fortunately, they were repulsed with a loss of forty-three dead.
The Pima Insurrection
lasted only four months, ending with the surrender of Luís
Oacpicagigua. He
offered himself as a sacrifice and in atonement for his whole people. By
this, he endeavored to spare them the consequences of their uprising.
Soon afterwards, Ute leaders, Chiquito, don
Tomás, and Barrigon
met with the Gobernador of Nuevo Méjico. The
Spanish petitioned the Utes
for a trade agreement for deerskins, in the hopes of forestalling
further conflicts with the Mouache,
Caputa, and Chaguaguas. As 1752 C.E. arrived, the Presidio of the Frontier Line Guajoquilla
was erected on orders from the Virrey
Revilla Gigedo. It later
became known as San Eleazario.
The Presidio San Ignacio de
Tubac was also founded in that year at Tubac, Arizona.
Next, to come was the Presidio de Nuestra Señora de las Caldas de Guajoquilla.
It was founded in 1752 C.E. at Jiménez,
Chihuahua. It was later
to be known as San Eleazario. By 1752 C.E., two Frenchmen arrived in Santa
Fé with an authorized trading license from España.
The town burghers imprisoned them and confiscated their goods. In 1753 C.E., the Apaches attacked the settlements and ranchos near Valle de San
Buenaventura in Chihuahua. Miguel
Gerónimo de Ribera (Juan
Felipe 2, Salvadór Matiás
1) was born in 1734 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
He married Ana María
Fernandez who was born at Santa
Fé in 1753 C.E. The
children of Miguel Gerónimo de Ribera and Ana
María Fernandez were as follows: ·
Rosalia
4 de Ribera was born in
September 1755 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico and christened
on September 14, 1755 C.E. at Santa
Fé. ·
Vicente
4 de Ribera was born in
January 1763 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico and christened on January 22, 1763 C.E at Santa Fé. ·
José
Francisco 4 de Ribera was born in December 1777 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo
Méjico and christened on
January 1, 1778 C.E. at Santa Fé. The new Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico under the Virreinato
of Nueva España Francisco António Marín del Valle (1754 C.E.-1760
C.E.) was assigned in that same year. Soon,
the Apaches once again
attacked the settlements and ranchos
near Casas Grandes.
As a result, two years later, another expedition of 190 Sonorans,
140 Opata allies, and 86
Spanish troops from Chihuahua
would go out in search of the Apache
marauders during 1756 C.E. By 1754 C.E., the Utes had driven out the Navajos
from the upper San Juan
drainage and the Mouache Utes enter an alliance with the Jicarilla
Apaches. In 1754 C.E., the Gobernador, Tomás Vélez
Cachupín issued a price list for commonly traded goods and set
regulations governing the buying and selling at trade fairs, in order to
reduce misunderstandings between the Comanches
and pobladores. Because of Native attacks, the Presidio
of the Frontier Line, Presidio
Santa Gertrudis del Altar, was founded in 1755 C.E. in Altar,
Sonora Méjico with 30 soldados
from the presidio of Sinaloa.
The Presidio was
designed to restrain the Seris,
Pimas, and Pápagos. In 1755 C.E., the Villa of Laredo was
founded by Capitán Don Tomás
Sánchez de Barrera y Gallardo, a veteran Spanish officer.
He was forty years of age at the time he crossed to the north
bank of the river, locating a ford which he christened "El
Paso de Jacinto." It
was later to be called Native Ford, just west of what is now downtown
Laredo, Tejas.
Don Tomás petitioned Coronel
Escandón for permission to
found a town near the ranch. At
fist the famous explorer urged that the proposed town be located farther
north along the Nueces River.
The Capitán attempted
to carry out this suggestion and was repulsed by Native attacks.
Capitán Sánchez then reported that he considered that area of the
frontier undesirable. His
original request being granted, the Capitán
on May 15, 1755 C.E. moved three families and their belongings to
his new grant. He named the
settlement "Villa de San
Agustín de Laredo," after the city of Laredo
on the Bay of Vizcaya or
Biscay in the Spanish Province of Santander,
which had been the home of Coronel
Escandón.
The original settlement comprised fifteen "sitios
de ganado mayor," or grazing plots, for the common use of the
inhabitants. No individual
grants of land were made at that time. In 1755 C.E., Salvadór
de Ribera of Santa Fé, Nuevo
Méjico conveyed land by Pedro
Tafoya. An
entry into THE SPANISH ARCHIVES OF NEW MEXICO 209 shows a transaction by
Salvadór Matiás de Rivera (II).
1755 C.E., No. 772 Pedro
Tafoya conveying a House and lot to Salvadór
Matiás de Rivera (II). 1755
C.E., Santa Fé.
Signed and authorized by Francisco
Guerrero, Alcalde. Presidio
San Agustín de Ahumada was founded by Jacinto
de Barrios Leal y Jáuregui in 1756 C.E. in Tejas.
San Agustín curbed French trading activities along the
coast. Jacinto
was a native of Cádiz, Andalucía
España. Approximately,
1718 C.E., Jacinto started to
serve the Corona Española as
a soldado and was appointed Teniente
Coronel or Lieutenant Colonel of cavalry while he participated in
the campaigns against Italia. He would be
appointed Gobernador and Capitán-General or Captain General of Tejas in 1751 C.E., arriving at Los
Adaes in June of that year. During
his governance, in addition to other actions, he founded the Misión
Santa Cruz de San Sabá and the Presidios
of San Agustín de Ahumada and San
Sabá. In addition, he
moved the San Xavier misiónes and San Francisco
Xavier Presidio to the San
Marcos River. In 1751
C.E., early his term as gobernador,
three Frenchmen were found to have settled along the Trinity River
trading with the Natives. The
Spanish authorities arrested and expelled them from the Provincia. During the summer of 1756 C.E., Barrios
was appointed gobernador of Coahuila, while his partner Angel
Martos y Navarrete obtained the governorship of Tejas. The men exchanged
their currently governed territories to allow Barrios to stay in Tejas
longer (until 1759 C.E.) so he could finish the construction the Presidio
of San Agustín de Ahumada and establish a civil settlement in the near
places to presidio.
Barrios made a great
fortune in the fur trade with several Native peoples such as the Bidais
and Orcoquizas, through a strict control of indigenous industry.
He supposedly purchased French goods in Natchitoches, Louisiana.
He later sold these leather goods to the Native population.
This practice of smuggling from French Louisiana made Barrios a one of the most criticized figures in the history of Tejas.
He ended his term in Tejas
in 1759 C.E. Militarization continued in the region with the
founding of the Presidio
San Luís de las Amarillas
in 1757 C.E. in Tejas.
San Luís de las Amarillas
is also known as San Sabá
Presidio. It served as a
buffer for San António
against raids by the northern tribes (Norteños),
including Comanches and Apaches. Luís Felipe de Ribera,
the son of Juan Felipe de Ribera
and María Estela Palomino
married Polonia Antónia Peña
and enlisted in the Spanish Army on April 26, 1757 C.E., at age 28.
Luís Felipe was listed
as a farmer, 5’4” tall, black hair, reddish eyebrows, flat nose with
scar, and fair skin. He
would later be discharged on July 15, 1779 C.E. 1757 C.E. Don
Bernardo Miera y
Pachéco would accompany Gobernador
Marín on his official tour of inspection.
At the Gobernador's
expense, he would map the entire province.
From late June until December 1, 1757 C.E., they were in the
field. By the end of April
1758 C.E., Miera's elaborate
map was ready.
There were Seri
offensives from 1757 C.E. to 1766 C.E.
At the time of contact, the Seri
Natives lived along the arid central coast of Sonora and shared boundaries with the Yaqui on the south and the Pima
and Pápago on the east and
north. The first known
battle between the Seris and
the Españoles took place in
1662 C.E. A century later,
on November 3, 1757 C.E., a war party of Seri
and rebel northern Pimans struck the settlement of San
Lorenzo (Sonora), killing
thirty-two persons. This
invasion called for military reprisal, and the Españoles
dispatched troops to force the insurrectionists back to the coastal
area. The Chihuahuan desert is a very arid region.
The Presidio de San
Fernando de Carrizal, Chihuahua
(1758 C.E.-?) was situated there which had always marked its isolation.
This made it difficult to maintain the population.
Prior to the Spanish entrada
this desert area it was inhabited by Native groups such as the Sums,
Jumanos, Janos, Meek, and Apache.
These Native tribes resisted with force any attempt by the Españoles
to control the region, as well as España’s
religious instruction by the Church misióneros. Positioned in the middle of the desert,
agriculture there could not be achieved on a large scale.
As a result, the first activity in the area was the exploitation
of salt which was formed in the closed basins of the lakes in the
region. As the water
evaporated it left salt deposits. Later,
the Corona Española would
decide to establish military prisons, one of which was the Presidio militar of San
Fernando of the yellow of el
Carrizal. It was founded
on November 8, 1758 C.E. by Mateo
António de Mendoza Díaz de Arce Gobernador of Nueva Vizcaya. Its
placement was on the road from La
Plata which linked to the city of Méjico
with Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
Carrizal was virtually
the only intermediate point between the then villa of San Felipe de
Chihuahua (today the city of Chihuahua)
and the town of Ciudád Juárez
and at the banks of the River in del
Carmen, one of the few in El
Paso del Norte region. The
Presidio was established there to protect the emerging ranchos
and villas in the surrounding area.
Specifically, it was for the safety of the area against the
frequent Native uprisings. It
managed to stabilize the poblaicón
or population and create an environment of relative peace and
prosperity. It received its
name in honor of the then Virrey
of the Nueva España, Agustín de
Ahumada y Villalón, II Marqués
consort of the yellow. By 1759 C.E., a Presidio was built at Junta de
los Ríos in Tejas.
The Junta
de los Ríos is a fertile region
surrounding the juncture of the Río
Conchos and the Río Grande. Located at
29 degrees latitude and 104 degrees longitude, La
Junta forms a roughly triangular shape extending from the rivers'
juncture to approximately twenty-five miles in each direction along the
banks of the two waterways. It
straddles the United States-Méjico
border at the cities of Presidio, Tejas, and Ojinaga,
Chihuahua. In the 1760s C.E., Spanish authorities initiated
another program of temporal and spiritual settlement under the
leadership of José de Gálvez,
appointed visitador general by
King Carlos III.
The decade of 1760 C.E.-1769 C.E.,
also brought with it a renewed concern about Russian exploration,
fur-trapping, and raiding of settlements along the coast of Alta
California. For the Españoles
this represented only one more avenue for other European nations to
invade and later conquer the region, one which the Españoles
had to protect. The Spanish clergy remained concerned about their
flock in Nuevo Méjico.
In 1760 C.E., Bishop Tamarón of Durango
visited and lamented the state of affairs at the Pueblo
misiónes particularly that the Padres
could not speak the native languages and the Puebloans could not speak
enough Spanish to understand the doctrinal teachings. Nuesta Señora de
la Luz (Our Lady of the Light), or “La
Castrense” and Military Chapel, was built at Santa
Fé in 1760 C.E. by Nuevo Méjico’s
Spanish Gobernador Francisco António Marín del Valle (1754 C.E.-1760 C.E.).
This is where many of the de
Ribera men, as soldados were married over generations.
It stood on the south side of the Santa
Fé Plaza across from the Palacio
de los gobernadores. Upon
its completion, the church’s altar screen measured 18-by-14-feet and
is recognized as a masterpiece from the Spanish Colonial era.
The altar screen was made of limestone and depicted Jesús, María, and
various saints. It was
carved by the Santero, map
maker, explorer, and cartographer Don
Bernardo Miera y Pachéco. The Presidio
de la Junta de los Ríos Norte y Conchos was founded in 1760 C.E.
just southwest of present-day Presidio.
Despite the Spanish interest in building a presidio
at La Junta in 1747 C.E., it was not built until Capitán Alonso Rubín de Celis arrived on December 24, 1759 C.E.
The presidio was built between San
Francisco de los Julimes and Nuestra
Señora de Guadalupe pueblos.
It was completed by July 22, 1760 C.E., and its soldados
fought off a Native attack the same day.
The presidio would
later be abandoned in the fall of 1766 C.E. and moved to Julimes
on the Río Conchos.
In 1772 C.E. the king would order its reestablishment as the presidio
at La Junta, and by 1773 C.E. the fort was back at its original
site, though the name was shortened to Presidio
del Norte. As the pressure of constant warfare mounted in the
region and attacks were being waged by nomadic Natives insurrectionists,
the Spanish military adopted a policy of maintaining armed guarniciónes of paid soldados
(presidios) in the problem
areas. By 1760 C.E., España could boast a total of twenty-three presidios in the various frontier regions of Nueva España. The Apaches
would respond to these guarniciónes
by developing adaptations in their mode of warfare, subsistence, and
society. Their ability as
highly skilled horsemen and mobility helped them elude presidio
troops. That same year, Capitán
Juan Bautista de Anza took over command of the Tubac
Presidio in Southern Arizona
and embarked into Seri country
near the Golfo de California. In 1760 C.E., Gobernador
Cachupín retired, mired in
opposition by the Franciscans. He
was temporarily succeeded by acting Gobernador
Mateo António de Mendoza (1760
C.E.). That same year, Don
Francisco António Marín del Valle succeeded him.
He would later be followed by Gobernador
Manuel de Portillo y Urrisola (1760
C.E.-1762 C.E.). During the 1760s C.E., Spanish-Ute
relations progressed to the extent that it allowed Spanish trading
ventures into Ute territory as far north as the Gunnison River.
The Gunnison River is
a tributary of
the Colorado River, 164 miles
long, in the Southwest state
of Colorado.
It’s the fifth largest tributary of the Colorado
River. In late-1760 C.E., when Apache raiders hit the region south of San Buenaventura an expedition of 100 Spanish soldados and 130 Native auxiliaries attacked the raiders. In that same year, Domingo
de Ribera, the son of Juan
Felipe de Ribera and María
Estela Palomino Rendón who was born in Nuevo
Méjico, died on October 20, 1760 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. His
son Luís Felipe de Ribera
(Juan Felipe 2, Salvadór
Matiás 1) married Polonia Antónia
Peña (born 1746 C.E. in Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico, daughter of José
Miguel Peña and María
Francisca Rael de Aguilar) at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico on August 28, 1761 C.E.
He was born 1738 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. This
is the same Luís Felipe de Ribera
listed in the 1790 Spanish Census as Spanish, age 62, farmer, married to
Apolonia Peña (Spanish and age 48), 3 sons (ages 22, 12, 10), 3 daughters (ages 11,
8, 5), one male servant (Indian age 15), and one female servant (Indian
age 20). The Children of Luís
Felipe de Ribera
and Polonia Antónia Peña
were as follows: ·
José
António de
Ribera was born in Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. He
married: (1)
María Loreto Ortíz (2)
María Feliciana Loreto Ortíz (3)
María Ysabel Gutierrez ·
Ana
María Ventura de Ribera was born on July 14,
1762 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
She married José António Crecencio Sena who was born on April 22, 1752 C.E. He
was the son of José Vicente Sena and María
Teresa Vitón y Gallardo. ·
María
Luísa de
Ribera was born in August 1764
C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico
and was christened August 30, 1764 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. She
married Juan António García de
Alviar. ·
María
Viviana de
Ribera was born on December 9,
1766 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
She married Francisco Pachéco. ·
José
de Jesús de
Ribera was born on May 20,
1768 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. ·
Antónia
Gertrudis de Ribera was born on January
11, 1772 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo
Méjico. ·
José
Miguel de
Ribera was born on January 30,
1776 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
He married: (1)
Juana García (2)
María
Tomása Lobato ·
María
Agustína dela Luz de Ribera was born on August
29, 1778 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo
Méjico. ·
José
Joaquín de
Ribera was born on November
30, 1779 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo
Méjico. ·
María
dela Luz de Ribera
was born in 1781 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. She
married Simón António González. ·
María
Manuela de
Ribera was born on May 25,
1782 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
She married Diego Estanislado Sena. ·
María
Ygnacia I de Ribera was born on July 14,
1784 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. ·
María
Ygnacia de
Ribera was born on October 20,
1785 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
She married: (1)
Cristóval
Sánchez (2)
Patricio Romero The Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico under the Virreinato
of Nueva España was Tomás Vélez
Cachupín (1762 C.E.-1767 C.E.).
He would eventually be replaced in 1762 C.E., by Del Valle. Del
Valle would be succeeded late in the year by Don
Manuel Portillo Urrisola
who governed until 1762 C.E. In 1762 C.E., Gobernador
Tomás Vélez Cachupín ordered an expedition
for exploration of the Gunnison area of Colorado
in search of mines for precious minerals. It
was to be headed by Juan António
María de Rivera. Accompanying
him were Joaquín Laín, Gregorio Sandoval, Pedro Mora, and others. The
de Ribera Expedition would
find the Gunnison River in 1765 C.E.
The party mounted the expedition and traveled from Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico
northwest to the San Juan
River (possibly named in honor of Rivera).
It next moved across the southern spur of the La
Plata Mountains. Rivera
would skirt the San Juan
Mountains and get as far as the Gunnison River near present-day Delta,
where his troop carved a cross, a name, and the date into a tree.
De Rivera reported
finding silver in what are still called the La
Plata Mountains. He explored areas including parts of
Southern Rocky Mountains, Utah, and
Colorado.
De
Rivera became the first
recorded explorer of southwestern Colorado. Another entry into THE SPANISH ARCHIVES
OF NEW MEXICO 209 shows António
Rivera of Santa Fe, in 1762 C.E., and No. 775 Gregorio
Crespín conveying House and land to António
Rivera at Santa Fé, in
1762 C.E. Signed and
authorized by Manuel Gallego, Alcalde. Later, in 1765 C.E., Manuel de Rivera explored along what is now the Old Spanish Trail as
far north as Delta, Colorado. By the latter half of the 18th-Century C.E.,
frontier conditions in northern Nueva
España had deteriorated badly as a result of Native attacks and
plundering, poor management of presidios,
etc. These had adversely
affected Spanish settlement. The
Corona Española found it
necessary to order an examination of the entire frontier with the view
of relocating presidios and
making whatever other adjustments might be necessary to prevent further
abandonment of Nueva España
and Nuevo Méjico’s Spanish frontier settlements. The Marqués
de Rubí was given the
assignment of investigating this problem.
He began his assessment in 1766 C.E.
Royal engineers Nicolás de
La Fora and Joseph (José)
de Urrutia (later named Capitán
of Presidio San António de Béxar on July
23, 1733) assisted de Rubí by
drawing plans of presidios and
drafting maps of the areas traversed.
The Marqués de Rubí
would inspect the northern frontier between 1766 C.E. and 1768 C.E., in
the same manner as de Rivera. It was de
Rubí who recommended to King Carlos
III to approve a massive military reorganization for the region.
As a result of the de Rubí’s studies, a
new line of defense was established, uniform fortification plans were
prescribed, and numerous changes were made in regulations governing
military personnel. De Rubí's recommendations also led to the establishment of an
independent military commandery of the Interior Provinces and the
formation of a presidial cordon sanitaire for containment via a system
of alliances instituted by the Españoles
with friendly Natives which stretched across the northern reaches of Nueva
España. It was meant to
completely surround the marauding Native tribes, sealing them off from
Spanish held and controlled territory.
This was meant to isolate the raiders, particularly the Apaches. De Rubí’s recommendations strived for balance.
He concentrated on the placement of Spanish military forces where
they would best serve the needs. They
were not to be squandered on claimed territory.
Rather, they were meant to be deployed in occupied and controlled
areas. The approach was
logical and thoughtful. His recommendations also resulted in a new military line of defense.
It was to establish uniformity.
The new line of fortifications was to be composed of some fifteen
presidios situated at about 120 mile intervals.
These extend from the Golfo de California on the west to the Golfo de Méjico on the
east along what is now approximately the northern boundary of modern-day
Méjico. There is a broader view of Spanish military policy
in the Interior Provinces which must be presented here.
Marqués de Rubí’s
findings clearly demonstrate that ongoing and continuous warfare with
the Apaches was the most
serious threat posed to España's
hold on the areas of the northern frontier.
The Españoles had been
and were now the prey, the Natives the hunters. José Vicente de
Ribera was the son of Manuel António José Rivera. He
was born 1756 C.E. and died sometime before 1826 C.E. in Nuevo Méjico. He
married Joséfa Labadía (1766
C.E.-after 1826 C.E.) in Nuevo Méjico.
He would later join the Spanish Military in 1808 C.E.
Their children were María
Micaela who was born in 1782 C.E., Vicente
who was born in 1785 C.E., María
Trinidad who was born in 1789 C.E., María
Guadalupe who was born in 1797 C.E., Tomás
António who was born in 1801 C.E., Diego who was born in 1802 C.E.,
Juana de la Cruz who was born
in 1803 C.E., José Guadalupe
born in 1805 C.E., María del
Carmen born in 1808 C.E., and José
António, date of birth unknown. Manuel António was the child of António
(1726 C.E.) of Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico
and Graciana Prudencia Sena
who died on June 22, 1810 C.E. in Nuevo
Méjico. Their children
were Nicolása María de la Luz who was born in 1748 C.E., Matiás
de San Juan Nepomuceno who was born in 1750 C.E., Joséfa
de la Luz María who was born in 1752 C.E., José
Viterbo who was born in 1754 C.E., Manuel
António who was born in 1756 C.E., António
José who was born in 1759 C.E., Santiago
Francisco who was born in 1760 C.E., María
Rosalia who was born in 1762 C.E., Julian
Rafael who was born in 1765 C.E., and María
Luísa, date of birth unknown António was the child of Juan Felipe
(Born in 1694 C.E., at Zacatecas,
Nueva España and died 1767
C.E. at Nuevo Méjico and María Estela Palomino Rendón born at Santa Fé in 1700 C.E. In 1767 C.E., King Carlos III abruptly banished the Jesuit Order from all his realms. It
has been suggested that King Carlos
was attempting to centralize and secularize his political power.
It has also been reported that he and others viewed the Jesuits
as too internationally oriented, too strongly allied to the papacy, and
too autonomous from his throne and in whose territory they operated.
Hundreds of misiónes,
colleges, schools, and establishments had to be transitioned to other misiónero
orders or converted to other uses. The
Franciscans who assumed responsibility for the misiónero
effort in Sonora and Chihuahua
inherited all the difficulties and problems that had plagued the
Jesuits. These included
restless neophytes, Apache
hostility, disease, encroaching pobladores,
and lack of government support. By 1767 C.E., Capitán
Pedro Fermín de Mendinueta,
knight of Santiago succeeded Cachupín
as Gobernador of Nuevo Méjico
under the Virreinato of Nueva
España. He requested a presidio in Taos, and
established a presidio at Robledo,
consisting of 30 soldados from
Santa Fé. The Sonora
Campaign of 1767 C.E.-1771 C.E., also known as the Sonora Expedition of 1767 C.E. was led by Coronel Domingo Elizondo.
The expedition was the result of demands by pobladores
in Sonora who had for decades suffered raids by warring ranchería
groups of that provincia.
Pacification of Native insurrectionists of the coastal region was
the main objective of the expedition that was comprised of an
extraordinary 1,100 men. The
expedition represented the greatest military effort yet seen in this
Spanish frontier provincia. Juan José António
de Ribera (age 20) a native of La Villa de Santa Bárbara, San José del Parral was the son of Nicolás
de Ribera and Marcela de Ribas. He
married María Antónia López
(age 22) on January 8, 1767
C.E. She was from the San
Miguel de Baredo district, Alburquerque,
Nuevo Méjico. Her
parents were unknown, but were supposedly from San
Miguel de Baredo. Witnesses
were: Don José Hurtado de Mendoza, Notary; Feliciano Hurtado (age 34) of San
Miguel de Laredo who knew the bride in El
Parral; Félix Caporal
(age 35), who came here from Parral
with the groom and Felician
Hurtado. NM Roots Ltd.,
pg. 1547 Río Abajo López Diligencia Matrimonials, Premarital
Investigations, From Angelico
Chavez's, Roots, Ltd.248 My progenitor, Juan Felipe de Ribera died on October 1, 1767 C.E.
When he was twenty-two years old he had married María
Estela Palomino Rendón in 1716 C.E.
He stated that he had been born in Zacatecas
in1694 C.E., and came later to Santa
Fé. Juan
was a soldado all his life,
and a charter officer in Our Lady of Light.
He left a widow and several sons and daughters.
By 1770 C.E., when their mother was seventy years old, there were
seven out of the fifteen children living.
Five of children were found in records, four are listed here: ·
Vicente, 14 years old was killed by Apaches
"en el monte," in
May 1743 C.E. ·
Francisca died while a girl, on December 22, 1737 C.E. and was buried in the
Conquistadora chapel ·
Lorenza married Pablo António Baca
on May 24, 1743 C.E. This is
probably the same Lorenza Rivera
listed in the 1790 C.E. Spanish Census as Spanish, age 67, widow, with
one granddaughter age 11, one female servant (Indian age 27) ·
María de Loreto became the wife of Juan António
Ortíz ·
Juliana married José Rodríguez During the years, 1768 through 1776 C.E., Padre
Francisco Tomás Garcés explored
Arizona, Las Californias, and the areas surrounding the Gila and Colorado rivers.
While exploring the western Grand Canyon, he met the Hopi
and Havasupai peoples.
From 1768 C.E. to 1776 C.E., Padre
Garcés, Juan Bautista
de Anza, and native guides explored the region. During 1768 C.E., Coronel Domingo Elizondo
divided his Sonora Expedition
forces in an attempt to drive the Seri
Natives into one geographic area. The
intent was to use this as an advantage and force a decisive battle.
However, the mission failed to achieve its objective. The
Natives were very well-trained in the art of hit-and-run and ambush
style warfare. Therefore,
the Seri were able to avoid direct confrontations with the larger
Spanish army. Beginning in 1769 C.E., Padre Junípero Serra,
Catalonian soldados, and
Franciscan Padres founded
several presidios and
twenty-one Spanish misiónes
in Las Californias. These
were established along the
Pacific coast, from San Diego
(1769 C.E.-1833 C.E.) northward along Las
Californias’ El Camino Real. The Presidio
Real de San Diego was founded in 1769 C.E. at San Diego, California
along with its Rancho del rey
which was later to become Rancho
de la Nación. The bay
at San Diego was large and had a narrow entrance. This
ideal location was close to the Virreinato
of Nueva España at Méjico
City by sea and afforded protection from the winds for Spanish ships. As the end of the 18th-Century C.E. approached,
the Apaches represented a
major threat to the continued Spanish occupation of Sonora and Chihuahua.
Native insurrectionists exacted high tolls in commerce,
livestock, and lives. The
damage caused by Apache raids
was calculated in hundreds of thousands of pesos
and many ranchos, estancias,
and mining centers throughout Chihuahua
had to be abandoned. The
continuing Native attacks would eventually undermine the effectiveness
of the chain of presidios
which had been established to control them. The Apache
raiders in Chihuahua displaced
or assimilated other groups of hunter-gatherers known as the Sumas, Mansos, Chinarras, Sumanos, Jocomes, and Janos.
As a result, the Españoles, Pimas, and Opatas
found it expedient to form an uneasy, but necessary, alliance against
the Apaches.
The Opata Natives were
valuable to the alliance as they controlled the major river valleys of
Central Sonora. In 1769 C.E., Bernardo
de Gálvez was commissioned to go to the northern frontier of Nueva
España, where he soon became comandante
militar or commandant of military forces in Nueva
Vizcaya and Sonora.
It must be remembered that Nueva
Vizcaya consisted of a great deal of territory (610,000 square
kilometers), most of which today corresponds with four Méjicano
states. Because of its great
mineral wealth, the Españoles
took a special interest in the southern part of Sonora.
The Natives of Sonora waged a long battle of resistance against the Españoles.
Bernardo would lead
several major expeditions against Apaches, whose attacks and plundering seriously crippled the economy
of the region. The American
Southwest’s Pecos River, has
two early Gálvez crossing
names applied to it. The
first is the Paso de Matías and the second is the Paso de Gálvez. The decade of 1770 C.E.-1779 C.E. would continue
to see España’s method of
traditional placement of misiónes,
presidios, villas or pueblos, land
grant ranchos and estancias,
and mines as its settlement model. However,
the model would be much more simplified due to the region’s great
distance from supplies and support in Méjico
City. The primary innovation
would be the introduction of intendancies, an institution borrowed from
France. The
Intendants were royal civil servants in España’s
governmental regime. These
were a product of centralization policies of the Corona
Española. Intendants
were appointed "commissions," and not purchasable hereditary
"offices." This
prevented the abuse of sales of royal offices.
It also resulted in more tractable and subservient emissaries of
the king. Intendants were
sent to supervise and enforce the king's will in the provincias
and had jurisdiction over three areas: finance, justice, and military. They were first introduced on a large scale in Nuevo
España, by the Minister of the Indies José
de Gálvez, in the 1770s C.E., who originally envisioned that they
would replace the Virreinato
System altogether. With
broad powers over tax collection and the public treasury and with a
mandate to help foster economic growth over their districts, intendants
encroached on the traditional powers of a virrey,
gobernador and local officials, such as the Corregidores or Chief Magistrate of a Spanish town. These
positions would be phased out as intendancies were established.
The Corona Española
saw the intendants as a check on these other officers.
Over time accommodations were made.
For example, after a period of experimentation in which an
independent intendant was assigned to Méjico
City, the office was thereafter given to the same person who
simultaneously held the post of virrey.
Nevertheless, the creation of scores of autonomous intendancies
throughout the Virreinato,
created a great deal of decentralization, and in the
Capitanía General or Captancy General of Guatemala,
in particular, the intendancy would lay the groundwork for the future
independent nations of the 19th-Century C.E. By the 1770s C.E., the Comanche threatened the survival of Nuevo Méjico, stripping the provincia
of horses, forcing the abandonment of many settlements, and killing
many. During the period, the
Spanish Gobierno developed an
aggressive policy designed to defeat the various unfriendly Native
tribes in northern Nueva España
and obtain peace treaties with them. In 1770 C.E., Bernardo
de Gálvez assumed the post of Chihuahua
Comandante Militar or military
commandant at age twenty-four. He
soon campaigned against the Apache
from Chihuahua and began
driving them out, causing serious retaliatory attacks.
This was nothing new for
Janos and Chihuahua, towns
founded circa 1580 C.E. by Franciscan misióneros.
Guided by a Spaniard who had escaped Apache
captivity, de Gálvez's force of 135 soldados
and 50 Opata Native
auxiliaries crossed the Río
Grande in an icy downpour at the abandoned Presidio
del Norte (present-day Ojinaga,
Chihuahua) on October 21, 1770
C.E. There the Río
Grande makes its way across the usually dry country toward the Pecos. After following the Natives' trail all day, de
Gálvez's scouts came upon the enemy horse herd at pasture in late
afternoon. While the soldados
rested after dark in a fireless camp, the Opata
auxiliaries located the Apache
encampment. The troops
surrounded it before dawn. In
the surprise attack that followed, twenty-eight Apaches
were slain, while the Españoles
counted only one man wounded. Re-crossing
the Pecos River with
thirty-six prisoners and the Apache
horse herd, the soldados
marched toward Chihuahua.
This second crossing over the Pecos
River, probably near what is now Girvin in Pecos
County, was named Paso de Gálvez.
Five years later, Vicente Rodríguez a field
commander in the abortive Apache
campaign of 1775 C.E., then attached to the San
Juan Bautista Presidio,
identified the two crossings by name, Paso
de Matías and "Paso del
Señor Gálvez." He
indicated their locations in the account of his march to the Pecos. Arriving at the Pecos on November 1, 1770 C.E., the soldados found that the Native encampment from which their guide had
escaped had been moved. Their
provisions were waterlogged and spoiled.
The Españoles were
spurred from their misery of chasing and fighting the Apache, by Bernardo de Gálvez's
eloquent appeal. Following
after him the soldados plunged
their horses into the cold stream and continued their pursuit.
De Gálvez named the
place of crossing Paso de Matías,
for his father, Matías de Gálvez
(Virrey of Nueva
España, 1783 C.E.-1784 C.E.); it was later known as Horsehead
Crossing. During campaigns along the Pecos and Gila rivers in
1770 C.E. -1771 C.E., de Gálvez
was wounded twice. He gained
invaluable military experience from these campaigns which he would
employ a few years later during the America Revolution.
During these campaigns, the name Paso
de Gálvez was given to another crossing on the Pecos
River where de Gálvez led his
troops to victory in a fight with the Apaches With the many things going on in the region, life
still had to continue on. As
stated in the will of Domingo de
Benavides written in 1770 C.E., Juan
Felipe de Ribera owed him a plow.
This I assume was used by Juan
on his rancho. José Miguel de
Ribera’s “Will” from about 1770 C.E.: Know all who shall see this memorandum that I, Joseph
Miguel Rivera, resident of this villa
of Santa Fé, and the legitimate son of Alferez Don Juan Phelipe de Rivera, deceased and Doña
María Estela Rendón Palomino,
find myself ill in bed and make this last will in the following manner. I declare that I have been married according the
Church to Doña Manuela Olguín for a period of four years, more or less, during which time
we had two children one girl named Juana
Antónia, and one boy named Agustín
de Jesús, who I acknowledge as my legitimate children. It is my will that my brother and compadre,
Salvadór Matiás de
Ribera, is my executor. I declare as my goods 200 ewes, which are united
with those belonging to my mother and they are in possession of José
Chábes, resident of Atrisco;
with a share of twenty out of a hundred and half of the wool.
It is my will that they remain with him the one hundred with the
profit that belongs to it, to my wife Manuela
Olguín; and the other hundred to my daughter Juana Antónia, in the same conformity with the profits. I declare as my goods, three beasts belonging to
the mule family, two jacks and one mule, with four pack saddles with
full equipment. I declare as my goods three horses, my riding
saddle, bridle, spurs, little cushions, shield, gun with its case,
ammunition pouches, which, together with the two cows and one little
bull, are in possession of his grandfather, António
Sandobal, it is my last will to leave to my son, Agustín de Jesús,
that he may enjoy it with God’s blessing and with mine. I declare a house which I have built at the rear
of the one belonging to my mother, and it composed of three rooms, with
free ingress and egress. It
is my will that this be left to my wife. I declare as goods - fifteen goats, which, with
three and a burro and a jack,
belong to my wife. I declare that Francisco Montoya, resident of la
Sienega, owes me twenty sheep, I order them collected and delivered
to my wife. I declare that my old clothes and the other things
within the house, which may be recognized as mine, it is my wish that my
wife enjoy. I declare that Diego António Baca, resident of this villa, owes me a piece of plush, without trimming, I order it
collected. I declare that Joaquín Martín, a resident of El
Río Abajo owes me a
jack-ass, I order it collected and if it is verified that it should be
paid, he shall be given six pesos
of the land from my goods. I declare that António Sandobal, a resident of this villa, owes me a pattern of scarlet cloth, seven varas
long. He must deliver this
next year at the time when the neighbors may come and always when the
collection of these debts is made, I order my executor to deliver them
to my wife. I declare that all of the goods, which remained at
the end and death of my father, are in the possession of my mother, all
without anything having been lost by me.
It is my will that all that is contained in this will be complied
with fine and due effect. I attest that I know the grantor and he did not
know how to sign but at his request, José
Miguel Tafoya, signed and witnesses Joachin
Lain, rubric; and Miguel Tenorío
de Alba, rubric. [not dated] Presidio Monterey was established in 1770 C.E. at Monterey
Bay, Alta California.
Its exaggerated size and safety was based on misleading reports
of 17th-Century C.E. explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno (1548 C.E.-1624 C.E.).
Vizcaíno was born in
1548 C.E., in Extremadura,
Crown of Castilla España and
was a Spanish soldado who saw
military service in the Spanish invasion of Portugal
during 1580 C.E.-1583 C.E. Arriving
at Nueva España in 1583 C.E.,
he sailed as a merchant on a Manila
galleon to the Philippines in 1586 C.E.-1589 C.E.
In 1587 C.E., he was on board the Santa
Ana as one of the merchants when Thomas Cavendish captured it,
robbing him and others of their personal cargoes of gold.
He was also an entrepreneur, explorer, and diplomat whose varied
roles took him to Nueva España,
the Philippines, the Baja
California peninsula, the California
coast, and Japan. It became
the site of the capital and presidio
of Alta California By 1770 C.E., the Utes and Navajos were at
war with the Hopis. An Irish expatriate, Teniente-Coronel Don Hugo
O'Conor, was the officer selected to oversee and implement the new
policies. He was appointed
the first Comandante-Inspector
or Commandant Inspector of the Interior Provinces in 1771 C.E.
He would later control the military forces of the frontier
provinces and take over the command on February 17, 1772.
Don Hugo diligently
implemented the necessary military reforms and presidial realignments
over a six year period. During
those same years, he led a series of punishing campaigns against the Apaches.
These would usher in a decade of relentless Spanish offensives
meant to end Apache raiding.
The escalation of Indian hostilities forced the Españoles
to implement military centralization and command and control. O'Conor's response was a genuine determination to
see the vindication of the Spanish military against a worthy opponent,
the Apaches.
His comments were a simple attempt to recite the facts of the
situation. The Interior
Provinces were in under stress and in desperate straits when he assumed
command. As a result,
O'Conor focused his immediate efforts upon Nueva
Vizcaya, modern-day Chihuahua.
He saw this region as the
linchpin of the frontier’s military bulwark, its defensive wall. The Presidio
Arroyo del Cibolo was founded in 1771 C.E. as a detachment site.
A detachment, taken from the French détachement, is a military
unit. It can either be
detached from a larger unit for a specific function or be a permanent
unit smaller than a battalion. The
term is often used to refer to a unit that is assigned to a different
base from the parent unit. The
term “Detachment” is also the term used as the collective noun for
personnel manning an artillery piece (e.g. gun detachment).
The Presidio would be
deactivated in 1782 C.E. on orders from Teodoro
de Croix. The Presidio
Fuerte de Santa Cruz del Cibolo was founded in 1734 C.E. and
reestablished in 1771 C.E. near Cestohowa, Tejas
in Karnes County, Tejas ,
(between San António and
Goliad). In 1771 C.E., after thirty-eight months of
fighting, the Central Gobierno
in Méjico City put a stop to
the Sonora Campaign against
the Seri Natives, which was
regarded as both costly and unsuccessful. This decade saw much movement in its wall of
protective presidios.
Presidio of the
Frontier Line San Carlos de Cerro
Gordo was founded after 1772 C.E. in Big Bend Country as part of the
new frontier defense. The Presidio San Luís de las Amarillas San Sabá was founded that same year.
A third Presidio of the
Frontier Line, San Sabá Aguaverde
was founded in the new presidial line after 1772
C.E. near present-day Menard. The
Central Gobierno moved the Presidio
of the Frontier Line Santa Rosa
del Sacrament, now Ciudád Múzquiz,
Coahuila north after 1772 C.E. Presidio
of the Frontier Line La Bahía del
Espiritu Santo was founded in 1772 C.E. as the last and easternmost presidio
of the line. The original
site was where Fort Saint Louis stood on Matagorda
Bay. It was moved in 1726
C.E. to the Guadalupe River
and later removed to the north bank of the San
António River at the site of the present town of Goliad,
Tejas. In addition to the many changes in the wall of
protective presidios, when
Hugo Oconor or Hugh O'Connor assumed command of the military in Chihuahua in 1772 C.E., he instituted large scale campaigns against
the Apache in the area of Janos
to gain control of the region. Antónia Gertrudis
de Ribera was born before January 11, 1772 C.E. and
baptized January 11, 1772 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
She was the daughter of Luís Felipe de Ribera and Apolonia
Antónia Peña. Antónia Gertrudis is most likely the same Gertrudis Ribera married to Miguel
Lovato and listed in the Santa
Fé Baptisms, Volume III AASF# 1823-1826, Pg. 78, as Paternal
Grandparents for Jose Tomas Lobato
baptized on March 8, 1823 ae 2 da; s/Juan
Lobato and Candelaria Crespín,
vesinos del varrio del Río de Pecos: ap/
Miguel Lovato and Gertrudis
Ribera; am/ Cristóbal Crespín & Francisca
Armenta; gp/ José Pablo
Ortega and María Petrona Ortega. Presidio at El
Paso del Norte was founded as a result of the
Insurrection (Revolt) of 1680 C.E. in upper Nuevo
Méjico. Españoles moved downriver (southward) from Santa Fé and founded presidio
at the site of present Juárez,
Chihuahua.
Presidio was
constructed in 1683 C.E. In
1773 C.E., because the town of El
Paso was well populated and could defend itself, the presidio
was moved southward to Carrizal. Between 1773 and 1775, Hugo O’Conor succeeded in
relocating 12 presidios and
adding two others. Detachments
of troops were ordered to be stationed at San
António de Béjar and Arroyo
del Cibolo in Tejas.
These however were not considered to be Presidios of the Frontier Line. By 1773 C.E., the church at Pecos had been reduced to a visita
of Santa Fé, with a Padre
visiting only occasionally. The
route by way of the Pecos and Cañada were the
line of communications between the settlement at Santa Fé with the east, southeast, northeast, and the great
"buffalo plains." The
upper reaches of the Pecos
River, beginning in the neighborhood of the old pueblo
of Pecos, was the opening for
the old trail from Franklin, Missouri, to Santa
Fé. The Presidio
San António Bucareli de la Babia was founded in 1774 C.E. at
present-day La Babia, Coahuila. During this decade, James Cook of the British Navy
headed an exploration expedition of the northwest coast of Spanish
territory. There were also
subsequent fur trading activities by British ships which were considered
invasions of Spanish lands. In
an effort to exclude Britain and Russia from the eastern Pacific and to
protect and strengthen its claim, King Carlos
III of España sent forth from
Nueva España a number of
expeditions to the Pacific Northwest between 1774 C.E. and 1793 C.E. España’s
long-held navigation rights were strengthened and a settlement and fort
were built in Nootka Sound, Alaska. In 1774 C.E., de
Anza led a party from Sonora
to Las Californias.
The Russian advance down the Pacific Coast had caused España
to settle Alta California.
The first expeditions had been by water.
But the need of an overland route was keenly felt both as a means
of protection and as an economic saving in transportation.
Another would be undertaken in 1775 C.E.-1776 C.E. 1775 C.E. Juan
Bautista de Anza and Francisco
Tomás Garcés explored a route overland to Las Californias from the presidio
of Tubac, Arizona, where de Anza was
Comendador.
De Anza also founded
the cities of Los Ángeles, San
Francisco, and San José.
By 1775 C.E., O'Conor could claim success
for reforming the presidial guarniciónes
and establishing the all important presidial line.
While that presidial cordon sanitaire was in progress, he was
able to prepare for and launch two military campaigns against the Apaches
along the entire northern frontier.
However, these two campaigns failed to blunt Apache
counterattacks, though they were considered moderately successful. He remained convinced of the necessity of
continued military offensives into the Apache
homelands. It was these he
felt would achieve ultimate victory by the Spanish forces.
He advised Teodoro de Croix
to conduct constant offensives, sorties by the presidial guarniciónes. Further
he offered minute details regarding terrain, logistics, the routes that
Spanish columns should follow, the number of operational days for each
detachment, and the methods each should use in pursuit of the Apaches. O'Conor offered his appraisal of the fighting
qualities of the Native peoples allied with the Españoles. He advocated
their use as operating military auxiliaries and recommended using them
in greater numbers and to more effect.
He listed the various Apache
groups along with descriptions of their arms and tactics.
His conclusion was for further campaigns as the most effective
means of defeating the Apaches. In 1775 C.E., the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson was founded in Tucson, Arizona and the Presidio
Santa Cruz de Terrenate was founded near the present-day Tombstone,
Arizona. Late in that
same year, Presidio of the Frontier Line Santa
Cruz de Terrenate was relocated near what is now Fairbank Arizona.
Terrenate was
originally founded in 1742 C.E., in the southwest of the Huachuca
Mountains at Sonora. Between 1776 C.E.-1777 C.E., the military’s
reason for forming Francisco
Athanasio Domínguez and Silvestre
Vélez de Escalante Expedition was to attempt to find a route from Santa
Fé to Monterey, Alta California. The
two Frayles along with twelve
other men formed the Expedition The
party consisted of Juan Pedro Cisneros,
alcalde mayor of the pueblo
of Zuñi, Bernardo Miera y
Pachéco, a retired capitán
and ciudádano of Santa Fé, Joaquín
Lain, a ciudádano
of Santa Fé, Lorenzo
de Olivares of the pueblo El
Paso del Norte; the interpreter and guide Andrés
Muñíz of Bernalillo, who
had been a member of the previous de
Rivera expedition of 1765 C.E.; his brother António
Lucrecio Muñíz of Embudo,
Juan de Aguilar of Bernalillo, Simón Luzero,
a servant of Cisneros, and a
12 year old Ute boy. The Domínguez-Escalante
Expedition progressed through Ute
territory with the help of the 12 year old Ute
boy. The Ute
lands were then mapped by Miera
y Pachéco.
The force traveled into Colorado, discovering and naming the Dolores River. The
Expedition went north to Rangeley Colorado
and then west into Utah, across the Wasatch Mountains through Spanish
Fork Canyon and to Utah Lake. That
winter they traveled south as far as Cedar City before returning to Santa
Fé, crossing the Colorado
River en route. They were to
be the first Europeans in what is now Utah. The religious purpose of the Domínguez-Escalante
Expedition was the desire of becoming acquainted with the Natives to the
north and northwest while exploring their country with the view to
establishing misiónes. In 1776 C.E., the Presidio of the Frontier Line San
Buenaventura was founded by troops from Guajoquilla.
That same year, the Presidio de San Bernardino was founded near the present-day Douglas. The Presidio
Real de San Francisco was founded in Las
Californias in 1776 C.E. at the Bay of San
Francisco. It was placed
at the narrow entrance (the Golden Gate) called by the Españoles the "Boca de
San Francisco" (Mouth of San Francisco).
This northernmost position allowed protection of Spanish claims
on the northern coastline. Its
Rancho del rey was to become Rancho
Buri Buri or Sánchez
Rancho.
A 14,639-acre Méjicano land grant in present-day San Mateo County, California,
it was given to José António Sánchez
by Mexican Gobernador José Castro
in 1835 C.E. In the year 1776 C.E., at the time of the Américano
Declaration of Independence, according to the census taken by Padre
Domínguez, the Taos Valley area of Nuevo Méjico
contained 67 families with 306 Españoles.
The Ranchos de Taos
area was the most populated at that time. By 1776 C.E., King Carlos III ordered the separation of the Provincias Internas or Interior Provinces from Virreinato authority. It
was José de Gálvez, the new
Minister of the Indies (1775 C.E.-1787 C.E.), who established the Comandancia y Capitanía General de las Provincias Internas.
The innovation of the Comandancia y Capitanía General de las Provincias Internas or
Commandancy General of the Internal Provinces and the Commandancy
General of the Internal Provinces of the North had begun.
However, the Virreinato
of Nueva España was not split
into smaller administrative units as was the Virreinato
of Peru, but its military forces were placed under an independent
military commander. The Provincia of Las Californias
came under the administration of the new “Commandancy General of the Provincias
Internas or Internal Provinces of the North” to invigorate growth. In that same year, the King appointed Teodoro
de Croix (nephew of the former virrey)
the first Commandante-General of the Provincias
Internas. De Croix was independent of the Virrey
of Nueva España, to provide
more autonomy for the frontier provinces.
These included Nueva
Vizcaya, Nuevo Santander, Sonora y Sinaloa, Las
Californias, Coahuila y Tejas,
and Nuevo Méjico. O'Conor was promoted to General de brigada and appointed Gobernador of Yucatán.
Before assuming his new assignment, he wrote a lengthy report
outlining his educated opinions on the Northern frontier situation.
Virrey António María de Bucareli resisted an independent
government for the Interior Provinces.
As a feud had begun between the Virrey
and Commandante-General Teodoro de Croix, O'Conor attempted to vindicate himself due to
mounting criticism for his previous recommendations.
Unfortunately, O'Conor had been appointed by Bucareli
and he therefore sought to support his patron.
De Croix in attempting to magnify his new responsibilities belittled
O'Conor’s previous accomplishments. In that same year, it is estimated the Pecos,
Nuevo Méjico population
was 269 individuals. There
were also reports that the "miserable wretches" at Pecos were unable to use their irrigated fields to the north and
east of the pueblo because of
frequent attacks by the Comanche.
As a result, the pobladores resorted to traveling far and wide, selling their
possessions in an attempt to support their families. The new Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico under the Virreinato
of Nueva España, Francisco Trevre
became acting Gobernador in 1777 C.E. That
same year, the Presidio of the
Frontier Line Julimes was
established at the former site of the presidio
of La Junta, at the confluence
of the Conchos and Del Norte (Río Grande)
rivers. With time, the Españoles would by necessity attempt to evaluate, invigorate, and
reinforce their Nueva España
military network of presidios
along the exposed northern frontier.
Spanish General de brigada
Pedro de Rivera, the Marqués
de Rubí, and General de
brigada Hugo O'Conor's 1777 C.E. provided their assessments of the
frontier situation on the eve of the establishment of the independent
military government for the Provincias
Internas. From 1777 C.E.-1796 C.E. peace negotiations with
the Apaches and Comanches had become of paramount importance to the Españoles.
In 1777 C.E.-1778 C.E., Teodoro de Croix, the Commandante-General
of the Interior (frontier) provinces of Nueva
España, called together three large conferences to discuss the Apache
problem. The Apaches
had continued their debilitating attacks and raids on the frontier. These
had been ongoing since the Españoles
entered the country. With
each year matters only grew worse. The
Apaches had five thousand
insurrectionists, armed with bows, lanzas, and firearms. They
attacked only by surprise and only when they had the advantage. De Croix determined that it would take an army of at least 3,000 soldados
to confront and eliminate the Apache
threat. He finally came to
the conclusion that an alliance with the Comanches
was necessary. These dreaded
enemies of the Apaches he
thought, would bring about a resolution of the Apache
problem. Unfortunately,
bogged down with bureaucratic delays and obfuscation, de
Croix was never able to get the money or men necessary to implement
this plan. Implementation of
this aggressive policy of José de
Gálvez in Nuevo Méjico
fell to Juan Bautista
de Anza, who was appointed Gobernador
in 1777 C.E or 1778 C.E. It
was Gobernador de Anza who
decided to establish peace with the many hostile tribes that threatened Nuevo
Méjico's frontier. He
understood that he first had to break the power of the Comanche.
To accomplish this, he needed to deal decisively with Cuerno
Verde (Green Horn), the most influential Comanche
chief of the time. The Presidio
of the Frontier Line Tubac’s
guarnición was moved to Tucson
in 1777 C.E. The Presidio
of Tubac was originally
founded 1753 C.E., following the Pima
uprising of 1751 C.E. In 1778 C.E., Spanish laws were established which
prohibited Españoles and
Christianized Natives from trading with the Utes.
However, the ban was ineffective as traders continued visiting
and trading with the Utes. By 1779 C.E., the isolation of the frontier drove Nuevo
Méjico Gobernador Juan Bautista
de Anza, Padre Francisco Garcés,
and Padres Francisco Domínguez
and Silvestre Escalante to establish routes over land to Las
Californias. Don
Miera who had accompanied the Domínguez-Escalante
Expedition which had traveled as far north as Provo before returning to Nuevo
Méjico through the Hopi
province, also understood the importance of the land route. By 1779 C.E., the colonies of the United States of
America had already broken away from Britain. While
Nuevo Méjico
was not oblivious to the matter, the Provincia
had its own problems. Nuevo
Méjicanos struggled with poverty, raids from surrounding Native
tribes, and epidemic disease. The
Españoles also had to cope
with cultural isolation, and the barely passable distances to the
administrative centers, both of the church and the Gobierno.
By the time Don Miera completed his map, a bishop had come to Nuevo
Méjico for the last time until the territorial period. In June of 1779 C.E., España entered the American Revolutionary War as an ally of France,
renewing the Borbón Family
Compact. That same year, Juan Estéban de Ribera was born. At
age 25, he joined the Spanish military on February 24, 1804 C.E., at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico and listed his occupation as farmer.
His height was 5'1". Juan
Estéban’s father was Joseph
Viterbo de Ribera (b. 1754 C.E.-d. 1827 C.E.) and his mother was María
de la Luz Pachéco (b. 1761 C.E.-d. 1836 C.E.) they married in 1778
C.E. His grandparents were António
de Ribera (Born 1722 C.E.) and Graciana
Prudencia Sena (b-?-d.?). His
great-grandparents were Juan
Felipe de Ribera (b. 1694 C.E.-d. 1767 C.E.) and María
Estela Palomino Rendón (b 1700 C.E.-d.?) who married in 1715 C.E.
His great-great-grandparents were Salvadór
Matiás de Ribera (b 1675 C.E.-About 1713 C.E.) and Juana
de Sosa Canela (b-?-d.?).He would later die during a Smallpox
epidemic on November 28, 1816 C.E. In 1779 C.E., Juan
Bautista de Anza, the commander of the Tubac
Presidio gathered together an army of 560 men, which included 259
Native auxiliaries and Españoles.
They marched north to the Colorado Plateau, in search of Comanches.
The Mouache Utes and Jicarilla
Apaches joined Gobernador
of Nuevo Méjico de Anza in a military campaign. De
Anza managed to surprise the
Comanche Chief, Cuerno Verde south of present-day Pueblo, Colorado. In the
ensuing battle, Cuerno Verde
was killed and his tribe decisively beaten.
The Comanche
subsequently sued for peace with the Españoles.
Next, they joined the Nuevo Méjicanos in an expedition against their common enemy, the Apache.
Despite the decisive defeat, Comanche
raiding of Spanish settlements in Tejas,
northern Nueva España (Méjico),
and Nuevo Méjico did not
stop immediately. Ironically,
the effort to follow up and force the Comanche
into peace negotiations was hindered by the subsequent diversion of
Spanish resources to support the American Colonies' insurrection against
England. The decade of 1780 C.E.-1789 C.E., brought with it continued Spanish exploration and
expansion. By the 1780s C.E., a secondary feature of the Borbón
reforms was the attempt to end the significant amount of local control
that had crept into the bureaucracy under the Habsburgs, especially
through the sale of offices. The
Borbóns sought a return to a
monarchical ideal in which disinterested outsiders staffed the higher
echelons of regional government. In
practice, this meant that there was a concerted effort to appoint mostly
peninsulares or Iberian born Españoles.
Usually these were military
men with long records of service, as opposed to the Habsburg preference
for prelates. These men were
also willing to transfer to positions around the global Imperio
Español. The
intendancies described earlier were one new office that could be staffed
with peninsulares. Throughout
the 18th-Century C.E., significant gains were made in the numbers of gobernadores-Capitán Generales, audiencia
judges and bishops, in addition to other posts, who were Iberian-born. In the 1780s C.E., España was again losing interest in Las Californias, which had neither gold nor silver to make España
wealthy. It cost the Gobierno a great deal of money to maintain the harbor at San
Blas and keep it open. Food
waiting to be shipped to misiónes
sometimes lay rotting on the docks while waiting to be loaded on a ship. Between 1780 C.E.-1781 C.E., Pecos Villa in Nuevo Méjico
had a major Smallpox epidemic. Pedro António de
Ribera son of Alonzo
de Ribera and María Abeyta
(Beitia) was born about 1780
C.E. He married (1) María Dolores Maldonado on May 10, 1802 C.E., at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. The same Alonzo
Ribera was listed in the Santa
Fé Spanish Census of 1790 C.E. as being Spanish, age 43, a farmer,
and married to one María Beitia described as being Spanish, age 28, with 3 sons. It
showed one as 11 years of age and Natural, and two being the ages of 15
and 14 (adopted), one female servant (Indian, age 15).
Records show their children to be: ·
Guillen Benigno de Ribera ·
Tomás de Ribera ·
José Miguel de Ribera ·
Juan António de Ribera ·
María Antónia de Ribera ·
Anna María de Ribera ·
Alonso de Ribera ·
María Rosalia de Ribera ·
Jesús María (Juan) de Ribera ·
Gervacio Yldefonso de Ribera ·
María Rita de Ribera ·
Jesús María de Ribera 1780 C.E. brought with it many changes in location
of Spanish presidios of Nueva
España. Apache
attacks forced another relocation of the Presidio
Santa Cruz de Terrenate
in 1780 C.E., to a site near the arroyo
of Las Nutrias in what is now Sonora,
Méjico. In late-1775
C.E., the Presidio was
relocated to a place near what is now Fairbanks, Arizona.
The original Presidio was founded in 1742 C.E., southwest of the Huachuca
Mountains of Sonora.
In that same year, 1780 C.E., the Presidio
del Santísimo Sacramento del Valle de Santa Rosa was founded at Melcho
Múzquiz, Coahuila.
Another Presidio, the Presidio
of the Frontier Line Frontéras
was moved south later that year by Teodoro
de Croix. It had been
originally founded in 1692 C.E., and was located for a while to the
north in the San Bernardino
Valley, possibly in Arizona.
The Presidio of the
Frontier Line Monclova was
founded in 1674 C.E. The villa
or town of Monclova was the capital of Coahuila
in 1780 C.E. At that
time the presidio was located
to the east nearer the Río Grande. On May 1, 1781 C.E., during the Muster roll of Teniente-Coronel,
Don Juan Bautista de Anza’s company at the Royal Presidio
of Santa Fé, Sub-Teniente of Light Troop, Don
Salvadór de Ribera, my Great (G) GGGG Grandfather, was one of those
present and accounted for. He
was born in Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico about 1720 C.E. Also
present were Alonso Ribera
with horse herd, son of Salvadór
de Ribera who was born at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico about 1749 C.E., Baltasar
de Ribera with horse herd son
of Salvadór de Ribera, born
at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico on
January 12, 1755 C.E. Three soldados: Matiás de Ribera,
son of Luís Manuel de Ribera,
Salvadór de Ribera's brother,
was born at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico
on March 7, 1750 C.E., Joséph de
Ribera Ill related to Salvadór
de Ribera, probably a nephew, and António
de Ribera, brother to Salvadór
de Ribera who married Graciana
Prudencia Sena at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico on December 24, 1745 C.E., retired were also present. By 1782 C.E. the King of España ordered that a tax be paid by each misión. Even though at
the time, this was considered a hardship for the misiónes. In 1782 C.E., the Presidio of the Frontier Line Arroyo
del Cibolo was deactivated by order of Teodoro
de Croix. It was
originally founded in 1771 C.E. as a detachment site.
That same year, 1782 C.E., the Presidio
Santa Bárbara was established at Santa
Barbara Channel in Alta
California. It was
located at a poor bay but bridged the long distance between presidios
of San Diego and Monterey. It also
established a Spanish presence along the narrow corridor between ocean
and mountains vulnerable to Native attack. The
Presidio was planned as
jump-off point for Spanish expansion into the interior.
Its rancho del rey was
also founded nearby. It
would later become Rancho San
Julian. Spanish Enlistment Papers of Nuevo Méjico 1732 C.E.-1820 C.E., Spanish military 1782 C.E. and
November 18, 1782 C.E.
Juan Esteban de
Ribera was born in 1782 C.E.
He married María Antónia Martínez who was born in 1789 C.E. and was
christened on November 9, 1789 C.E. in Abiquiú,
Nuevo Méjico Nueva España. She
was the daughter of António José
Martín and María Bárbara
Beytia. Candelaria Crespín was born on February, 2, 1784 C.E. and baptized
on February, 4, 1784 C.E., at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. She
was the daughter of Cristóbal
Crespín and Antónia Lovato
and would later marry my progenitor Juan
Ribera. One of their
children was my great-great-grandfather José
Luís Ribera, born 1810 C.E. at Pecos,
Nuevo Méjico. María de la Cruz
Gurulé the daughter of José Gurulé and María Rita
Montoya married my progenitor, Miguel
de Ribera the son of Salvadór
de Ribera and Tomása Rael
on April 20, 1784 C.E. They
were wed at La Castrensa in Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico.
From 1760 C.E. to 1859 C.E., La
Castrense Church, the Spanish military Chapel, stood on the south
side of the Santa Fé Plaza across from the Palacio
de los gobernadores. The
church’s official name was Nuesta
Señora de la Luz or Our Lady of the Light. However,
most of the locals preferred to call it “La
Castrense.” Finally, in 1785 C.E., the Comanches started negotiations with de Anza. The following
year, a peace treaty was signed in which several of the Comanche tribes pledged to assist the Españoles against the Apaches.
Through this agreement the Comanches
could now ride openly into Spanish settlements and Nuevo
Méjicano traders could move safely on the Comanche
plains. José Vicente
Rivera (1785 C.E. to about 1850 C.E.) was born at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. He
married Daría Paula Padilla
(1808 C.E. to bef. 1841 C.E.) who was born at San
Miguel del Bado, Nuevo Méjico.
José Vicente would
later establish the small town of Ribera,
Nuevo Méjico about 1803 C.E.
just upriver from the San Miguel
del Bado Misión and just
a few miles southwest of Las
Vegas, Nuevo Méjico. José
Vicente and Paula had 8 children: ·
María Gertrudis (b.?-d.?) ·
Juan de los Dolores (b.? - d.?) ·
Jesús (b.? - d.?) ·
José Gabriela (b. 1826 C.E. - d.?) ·
María Teodora (b. 1828 C.E. - d.?) ·
José Urbano (b. 1832 C.E. - d.?) ·
Agustín, (b. 1838 C.E. - d.?) ·
Vibiano (b. 1858 C.E. - d.?) Luís Manuel de Ribera (Rivera) (Salvadór
Matiás, Juan Felipe, Salvadór Matiás II)
was born on June 24, 1759 C.E. at Santa
Cruz, Nuevo Méjico to Salvadór de Ribera II and Tomása
Rael de Aguilar.
He was listed as a farmer, age 23, black hair and
eyebrows, dark eyes, ruddy skin, aquiline nose, scars on left hand and
on the thigh of his left leg when he entered the Army.
Luís Manuel was placed on the Invalid Roster on July 1,
1779 C.E. and died on September
15, 1807 C.E. at Santa Cruz, Nuevo
Méjico. He married María Joséfa de Jesús Ortíz on July 29, 1785 C.E. at Pojoaque
Santa Cruz, Nuevo Méjico. She
was born on March 20, 1770 C.E. at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico and died at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. She
was the daughter of Gaspar Ortíz and Francisca
Joséfa Martin Serrano. Children
of Luís Manuel de Ribera and María
Joséfa de Jesús Ortíz were as follows: ·
María
Antónia de Ribera (b.?
- d.?) was born at Santa
Cruz Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. She
married Juan António Abeyta. ·
Juan
de Ribera (b.? - d.?) was born at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. ·
María
Dolores de Ribera was born on
September 13, 1786 C.E. at Santa
Cruz Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico
(d.?) ·
María
Ysabel de Ribera was born on
June 4, 1794 C.E. at Santa Cruz
Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico
(d.?). ·
Juan
de Jesús de Ribera was born
on 1796 C.E. at Santa Clara Santa
Cruz, Nuevo Méjico. He
married María Manuela Montoya (d.?). ·
António
José Roman de Ribera was born
on March 3, 1799 C.E. at Nambe
Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico
(d.?).
He married María Lugarda
Valdez y Bustos. ·
María
Catarina de Ribera was born on
November 28, 1801 C.E. at Santa
Cruz, Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico
(d.?). ·
María
del Rosario de Ribera was born
on August 22, 1804 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico
(d.?).
She married Ventura
Montoya. On May 7, 1786
C.E., Juana María
dela Cruz Ribera daughter of Miguel
Gerónimo Ribera and María
dela Cruz Gurulé was baptized. In 1786 C.E., the Virrey of Nueva España, Bernardo
de Galvez, instituted a series of reforms for the pacification of
the frontier. His Instrucción
of that year called for the formation of
establecimientos de paz or peace establishments for Apaches willing to settle down and become peaceful.
España's new policy
was one of pacification by dependency toward the Native peoples.
From then on the Españoles
would endeavor to make treaties with individual bands, persuade them to
settle near military stations where they would receive food rations,
give them low-quality weapons for hunting, encourage trade, and use the Bernardo
de Gálvez “divide and conquer” strategy where appropriate. The level of hostilities in both Chihuahua
and Sonora with the Apache
decreased. This gave way to
smaller-scale skirmishes. However,
the peace policy would not last. The
Apaches began raiding again.
In an eighteen month period (between April 19, 1786 C.E. and
December 31, 1787 C.E.) the Apaches killed 306 people and took 30 prisoners.
In the same period, the Spanish forces killed 326 Apaches
and captured 365 prisoners. Eventually,
the Apaches resumed peace
negotiations. In the years
that followed, Apaches settled
down peacefully at Janos, Bacoachi, Carrizal, San
Buenaventura, and Namiquipa. Soon, Apache
bands were persuaded to accept farmlands, food, clothing, agricultural
implements, and obsolete hunting arms.
The Españoles believed
that these measures would result in a new more effective relationship,
which is precisely what materialized. The
Españoles would have nearly
twenty-five years of peaceful relations with the Apaches. During that same period, on February 1786 C.E., Gobernador
Juan Bautista de Anza entered
into a formal peace treaty with the Comanche.
He did this having met with the Utes
represented by Chiefs Moara
and Pinto, who protested the proposed peace treaty.
However, de Anza
prevailed and a Peace Treaty was negotiated between the Mouache
Band of Utes, Comanche, and Españoles.
The treaty ended raiding of Nuevo
Méjico's settlements and gave the Españoles
a valuable ally against the Apache.
The Comanche honored
the agreement for several decades. This
respite allowed beleaguered Nuevo
Méjico to place its attention and resources on more pressing
matters. The years 1787 C.E through 1789 C.E., were
uneventful. Peace was
beginning to take hold in Nueva
España and throughout Nuevo Méjico.
However, the Españoles still found it necessary to establish presidios. Gobernador Fernando de
la Concha (1789 C.E.-1794 C.E.) of Nuevo
Méjico under the Virreinato
of Nueva España was appointed in 1789 C.E.
He was soon attending to a Treaty of Peace between the Españoles
and Utes. The
treaty would promise the Utes
aid against the Comanche and Navajos. At this time,
the Españoles also took
precautions against an alliance between the Mouache
Utes and Lipan Apaches.
That year would see the Apache Chief Squielnoctero
and his family surrendered at Janos
and the Presidio San Elizario
would be founded in Tejas. Miguel
Gerónimo de Ribera (Rivera) (Salvadór
Matiás, Juan Felipe, Salvadór
Matiás) became a Spanish Soldado
in 1789 C.E. Miguel
Rivera (age 22) and Francisca
Ortíz (His wife?) are listed in the Spanish
Enlistment Papers of New Mexico 1732 C.E.-1820 C.E. showing his
enlistment date as August 21, 1789 C.E.
He was baptized on
September 30, 1761 C.E. at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. He
married: (1) María
dela Cruz Gurule on April 20, 1784 C.E. at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. María
dela Cruz was born in 1766 C.E. at Santa
Fé. She was the
daughter of José Gurulé and María Rita Montoya. The
children of Miguel Gerónimo de
Ribera and María dela Cruz
Gurulé were as follows: ·
Juana
María dela Cruz de Ribera,
born May 1, 1786 C.E. in Santa Fé;
christened May 7, 1786 C.E. in Santa
Fé. ·
Juan
de Ribera (2) Francisca
Ortíz, they married on May 6, 1790 at Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. She
was born at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. María
Antónia Martínez was born in 1789 C.E.
She was christened on November 9, 1789 C.E. at Abiquiú,
Nuevo Méjico, in Nueva España.
Jose Luis Ribera, my great-great-grandfather married
María Antónia Martín, the
daughter of António José Martín
and María Bárbara Beytia. The decade of 1790 C.E.-1799 C.E., was one of
continued misión
building and exploration. Russian
fur trading activity in Alaska had begun in the
middle-to-late-18th-Century C.E. España
claimed the entire west coast of North America and therefore considered
this an encroachment and threat
Nueva España. By 1790 C.E., there were four towns with over
2,000 Españoles
each in the Provincia of Nuevo
Méjico. Thus, the
population had grown considerably since the resettlement of 1692 C.E. According the Santa
Fé Spanish Census of 1790 C.E., Alonzo
de Ribera’s occupation was that of a farmer at Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico. He
was born about 1750 C.E. - d.? His
residence in 1795 C.E. was at Corral
de Piedra, Nuevo Méjico. Alonzo
married (1) María Abeyta according to the Spanish Census of 1790 C.E., Santa
Fé, Nuevo Méjico. The
couple was married at Santa Fé,
Nuevo Méjico. Their
children were Pedro António de Ribera and a daughter, María Rita de Ribera. The San Juan
de los Caballeros, Nuevo Méjico Census of 1790 C.E., listed
Juan Victorino António de Ribera as 44 years of age, born in about
1746 C.E. – d.?. His first
family consisted of his wife Ana María Eulalia Tomása Vásquez, age 32.
She was born 1758 C.E. – d.?
Their children were: ·
Rosa de Ribera (b.? – d.?) ·
Juliana de Ribera (b.? – d.?) ·
María de los Mercedes de Ribera (b.? – d.?) ·
María Gertrudis de Ribera was born in 1790 C.E. – d.? ·
José António de Ribera (b.? – d.?) ·
José António de Ribera (b.? – d.?) ·
María Dolores de Ribera (b.? – d.?) ·
Juan (de Jesús) (Rosario) de Ribera was born in 1798 C.E. – d.? ·
José Pablo de Ribera was born in 1802 C.E – d.? With a peace agreement made with the Apache
Ojos Colorados in 1790 C.E., the area of Janos became relatively peaceful. The
Apache had been seriously
weakened by war and disease. San Felipe de Neri Church was founded 1793C.E. at Albuquerque
Nuevo Méjico. It is the
historic old Spanish Misión, San
Felipe de Neri Church. Gobernador Fernando Chacón
(1794 C.E.-1804 C.E.) of Nuevo
Méjico was established under the Virreinato
of Nueva España. The Spanish villa
of San Miguel, along the Pecos
River south and east of the Pueblo,
was founded in 1794 C.E. Because
the land was not being used intensively this pueblo
grant was not secure. To
show just how committed the Españoles
were to new settlements, one researcher has written, “In
their petition seeking to secure the San
Miguel del Bado Land Grant in 1794 C.E., the 52 settlers stated as
their primary reason that there was not sufficient water in Santa
Fé to sustain the growing population and livestock there. (It
appears that drought and an adequate water supply were problems even
then). The petitioners also
stated that many of them owned small parcels of land in Santa
Fé, but it was not sufficient to support their large families. Spanish law at the time required land
grants would not be awarded without settlers proving that they had
sufficient means and armaments to fortify a central location for the
protection of the inhabitants, thus making the settlement viable.
This assurance was made by Lorenzo
Márquez and the other 51
petitioners, and on November 25, 1794 C.E. Márquez,
António José Ortíz, alcalde
mayor of Santa Fé, on behalf of Carlos
IV, King of España, and
with the imprimatur of the Spanish Virrey
in Nueva España, granted the San
Miguel del Bado Land Grant to the following 58 founders, who are
listed alphabetically: Matías Anaya, José
Archibeque (or L'Archevêque), Ramón
Archuleta, José de la Cruz Arias, Juan
Armijo, Juan Domingo Armijo,
Pablo Armijo, Diego Baca, Diego Manuel Baca,
Ramón Baca, Juan Benavidez, José Miguel
Brito, Ventura Bustamante,
José Miguel Cazache, Juan
António Cheferi, António Durán,
José Esquibel, Xavier Fragoso,
Manuel Fuentes, Francisco Garduño, José María Garduño, Cayetano Guerrero, Cristobal
Guerrero, Felipe Jaramillo, Gerónimo López, Gerónimo López, José
María Lobato, António José Lucero, Juan Luján, Manuel Maese, Pablo
Maese, Manuel Maestas, José António Márquez, José Pedro Márquez,
Lorenzo Márquez, António Martín, Eusebio Martín, Francisco Martín,
José Cornelio Martín, Juan Domingo Martín, Francisco Martínez,
Balbaneda Morán, António Ortega, Damiana Ortega, Diego Padilla, José
António Rael, António María
Ribera, Polonia Rodriguez, Andrés Sandoval, Felipe Sandoval, Juan
José Sandoval, Matías Sandoval, Pedro Sandoval, Santiago Sandoval, José
María Troncoso, Domingo Trujillo, Josefa Trujillo and Miguel Urioste. These grantees agreed to one condition
imposed by the Corona Española
that the land was to be held in common, not only as between themselves,
but also for all pobladores
who might join them later. They
also agreed that within two years each poblador
would be equipped with firearms, under penalty of forfeiting their right
to the grant. The original grant contained
approximately 315,000 acres, bounded on the north by El Río de la Vaca from La
Ranchería to Agua Caliente,
on the east by La Cuesta (Villanueva)
and Los Cerritos de Bernal, on the south by Cañon Blanco, and on the west by a place commonly known as El
Guzano. Although each
grantee was apportioned a tract of land, the San
Miguel del Bado Grant was a community grant, as mentioned earlier. The grantees were taken to the land grant
at the present-day community of San
Miguel, where they could ford the Pecos
River. Once there,
ceremonies were held conveying and blessing the land. The
grantees promising to fortify the settlement with bulwarks and towers
and also promised to immediately begin the construction of a church in
honor of San Miguel, the
patron saint of their grant. The
pobladores then set upon the tracts of land apportioned to each, and
began construction of an acequias
or agricultural watering system of gravity-fed irrigation ditches for
irrigation, a plazuela or
central plaza for their mutual
protection and, of course, the building of their church. By the year, 1795 C.E., Spanish pobladores
who had been living within and close to the Taos
Pueblo for protection from
raiding Natives had moved to the location of the present-day town of Taos. In the following year, of 1796 C.E., Gobernador
Fernando Chacón approved a grant, and 63 families were placed in possession
of the Don Fernando de Taos
grant by Alcalde António José Ortíz. The
boundary of this grant overlaps with land granted earlier to the pueblo,
as well as the La Serna Grant. By 1796 C.E., António
Cordero y Bustamante was reporting that his policy of removing peaceful Apaches
from the presidios and urging them to return to the hinterland had met with
considerable success on the frontier.
The Janos Presidio, 1750
C.E.-1858 C.E., wrote that
because of high administrative costs, and apparently because of
restricted funds on the frontier due to the war with France, Spanish
authorities started removing peaceful Apaches
from the presidios and
returned them to the hinterland. They
were also told to continue to keep the peace. The San Xavier del Bac Misión was built by the Jesuits in 1797 C.E. It
was located nine miles from Tucson,
Arizona. Fray
Pedro Bojourquez had begun the project under the direction of the
Franciscan Frayles. In 1798 C.E., Miguel
Gerónimo de Ribera, my Great- GGGG-Grandfather and his wife, María
Francisca Ortíz, were padrinos for one Cayetano
Tiburcio Domínguez who was baptized on August 8, 1798 C.E.
His father was Bernabe Domínguez
and his mother María Tomása
Sandoval. With the closing of the 18th-Century C.E.,
Miguel Gallegos’ Will of
1799 C.E. is a fitting end to an era.
The former soldado of
the presidio at Santa Fé, Miguel Gallegos
died intestate. He was the
son of the Alcalde Manuel Gallegos
and Juana María Baca.
His goods were to be divided among his heirs.
These were his siblings, Manuel
Gallegos, Anselmo, Cristóbal, Juan,
and María Antónia.
Also María Antónia
Márquez, a niece of the deceased was to receive her portion. The formal inventory of goods and
belongings found in his house was conducted and listed.
One María García,
his servant, was directed to document everything that belonged to Señor
Gallegos.
As of October 8, 1799 C.E., he owned: Three varas (The vara is a
unit of linear measure, formerly used in Nueva
España, equal to about 33 inches)
of deep brown satin; one cotton velvet waistcoat, garnished with silver
galloon. One first-grade cotton velvet jacket
trimmed with silver galloon One first-grade woolen jacket trimmed
with silver One blue cloth jacket for a uniform,
second-grade One old of the same Another of the same, very old One old pair of black velvet trousers Another of the same of second-grade blue
cloth Another pair of the same, very old One new hart for work Another of the same, old One worn embroidered handkerchief Two old linen shirts One pair new cotton stockings One pair of the same very old Old woolen stockings One very old flesh-colored jacket One old muslin shirt Drawers of the same One pair of silver buckles Two pair buckskin boots One old serape One silver-handled short sword One shotgun One pistol One broken complete saddle tree One pair old saddle pads One pair of the same, very old Knapsack One very old bridle One pair spurs and stirrups One cartridge case One new shotgun case One leather shield One old embossed saddle composed of arms,
cuirass, and hind coverings Four oval picture frames, gilded One old linen mattress One old second-grade hoe One old second-grade adze Four old plow points One guitar One vial Six pesos
in reales 846 ewes in possession of the
shareholders, Patricio Salas
and António Salas One old rope Four old horses, surplus of the ____ 24 head of cattle of all ages, the same
that were partitioned among all the heirs and for funeral costs,
recording to the same Several head of cattle of all ages, which
are running loose and are not mentioned here because the exact number is
unknown A list of debts owed him The house which consists of four rooms
and its adjoining land enclosed by a wall measuring, from east to west,
329 varas (In Tejas, the measurement used for land was a vara, defined as 33 1⁄3 inches
or 1 yard = 1.08 vara.
The vara and the
corresponding unit of area, the square vara, were introduced in the 19th-Century C.E. to measure Spanish
land grants.) and 398 varas,
as measured from north to south. Signed António de Arce, Fray
Francisco de Ocio, and Juan de
Dios Peña. España proper was by this time in the early stages of collapse.
Her Nuevo Mundo was
beginning to fragment either by external forces led by Britain or from
internal revolution. Within
ten years, Nueva
España would begin to unravel. It
would later become Méjico after erupting in revolt beginning in 1810 C.E.
Nuevo Méjico would
feel the brunt of this dissolution by 1821 C.E. with Méjico
becoming an established independent nation and annexing the region. Men like Señor
Gallegos were the end of an
era. The Españoles would soon be replaced by the Méjicano. The Spanish
way of life, its culture, and manners of old would be gone within two
generations. First, the Méjicanos
would demand change. The new
state wanted the Spanish ways removed, buried.
It ordered all Iberian born Españoles
over 60 years of age to return to España.
Next, Méjico
sent its troops into northern Nueva
España including Nuevo Méjico,
Las Californias, Arizona,
Colorado, Tejas, and beyond to reinforce its claim to the land and
its promise. They took lands
and issued new land grants. This
they did not for the betterment of society as a whole, but for political
friends and those with clout in the new nation. Later, after 1846 C.E. the Américanos
would arrive and take what they wanted. First,
it was by the use of force and later they used the rule of law.
There was no need to demand change.
The use of the law by the quite, deceitful, greedy new arrivals
would see to this. Justice
was an unheard of word. 06/06/2016 02:32 PM |
