Jose Antonio Esquibel's Blog, page 4
May 19, 2012
The Luján Project Moves Forward
The Luján Project is utilizing social media as a medium for collectively conducting genealogical research into the early roots of the Luján family of 17th and early 18th-century New Mexico. This currently includes the Facbook page of the New Mexico Genealogical Society, the Web blog of Henrietta Martinez Christmas, and this Goodreads blog.
The findings of The Luján Project will be compiled and organized to present a well-documented, comprehensive history and geneaolgy of the Luján family of 17th and early 18th-century New Mexico.
In addition to clarifying and verifying the genealogy of the early Luján family of New Mexico, the project is also intended to instruct people in methods and sources for conducting 17th and 18th-century New Mexico genealogy. The steps that are being taken for The Luján Project can be used for researching other families.
To date, The Luján Project has extracted information on Luján people from the 1692/83 census of families willing to re-settle northern New Mexico (Kessell, Hendricks, and Dodge, "To the Royal Crown Restored, pages 33-65), also from the 1697 list of livestock distributed to settlers (Kessell, Hendricks, and Dodge, "Blood on the Boulder," pages 1138-1158), and from the records of the Vargas trial of 1697-98 (Spanish Archives of New Mexico, Series II, no. 71 (Reel 3).
If you are interested in being part of The Luján Project
Here are the instructions posted on the Facebook page of the New Mexico Genealogical Society:
Our next step requires a number of volunteers. The task is to search for Luján individuals listed in the extracted diligencias matrimoniales for the years 1679 through 1750 in the 11 volumes of “New Mexico Roots, Ltd.” This can be accomplished using the PDF versions available online. Each volume is searchable by going to the Edit menu tab of the PDF file and click on Find to pull up the search box. Simply enter the surname ‘Lujan” in the search box to locate the Lujan entries. With 4-6 volunteers, we can divide up the volumes.
The current volunteers are myself, Henrietta, Marilyn Herrera Britton, Stan Lucero, and Pauline Sanchez Montano. Anita Gómez can help beginning in the late summer/early fall, and Robert Orlando Blea submitted some lineages. Anyone else care to join in the fun?
I will take Vol. 6: Lucero to Martinez which contains the Luján section, and get this material organized. I can also search Vol. 5: Griego to Lucero and Vol. 7: Martinez to Ojeda.
Henrietta, Marilyn, Stan and Pauline: If each of you can search two volumes of New Mexico Roots, we will have this part of the project covered. Let me know if you can help at this time.
We are looking for anyone with the surname of Luján mentioned in Fray Angélico’s summaries for entries from the late 1670s to 1750 –grooms, brides, parents, deceased spouses, witnesses, sponsors, etc.— and will need to document the citation for each record that is located.
For entries of brides, parents, deceased spouses, we need the full DM summary extracted (DM entry date and number, name of groom, grooms parents, name of bride, brides parents, witnesses, sponsors (if given) and date of marriage (if given) and the page number. You can try to copy the entry from the PDF version and paste it into a Word document, but I’ve found that it doesn’t always work well.. If there is a long narrative summary, only relevant info about Luján individuals needs to be extracted.
Example—
DM 1689, Jan. (no. 5), El Paso del Norte. Pedro Madrid (20), n. of Santa Fe,
soldier of this Presidio, son of Sargento Mayor Roque de Madrid and
Juana de Arbizu y Gamboa, and Isabel Lujan (16), n. of El Rio Arriba in New Mexico, d. of Alferez Felipe Serna and Isabel Lujan. Witnesses: Francisco Gómez Robledo, 62, former Maese de Campo of the Kingdom; Don Fernando de Chaves, 44, former Capt. Of the Kingdom; Luis Martín, 60 former Capt. Of the Kingdom who knew pair both at Santa Fe and ion El Paso; Antonio Martín, 42, first cousin of the bride. Pair married, Jan. 10, 1689, with witnesses Andrés Hurtado and Josefa de Hinojos. (NMR, 1037-1038)
For Luján individuals who were witnesses, simply record the name, age, place of origin (if given), occupation (if given), and marriage status (if given), and number of years the person knew the bride or groom (if given), and any other testimony that Fray Angélico extracted.
Example:
Witness: Juan Luján, age 36, native of New Mexico, new bride for 20 years (NMR, 766, DM 1699, April 3, no. 2, Santa Fe for Diego Lucero and Ana Archuleta).
If there are any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
The findings of The Luján Project will be compiled and organized to present a well-documented, comprehensive history and geneaolgy of the Luján family of 17th and early 18th-century New Mexico.
In addition to clarifying and verifying the genealogy of the early Luján family of New Mexico, the project is also intended to instruct people in methods and sources for conducting 17th and 18th-century New Mexico genealogy. The steps that are being taken for The Luján Project can be used for researching other families.
To date, The Luján Project has extracted information on Luján people from the 1692/83 census of families willing to re-settle northern New Mexico (Kessell, Hendricks, and Dodge, "To the Royal Crown Restored, pages 33-65), also from the 1697 list of livestock distributed to settlers (Kessell, Hendricks, and Dodge, "Blood on the Boulder," pages 1138-1158), and from the records of the Vargas trial of 1697-98 (Spanish Archives of New Mexico, Series II, no. 71 (Reel 3).
If you are interested in being part of The Luján Project
Here are the instructions posted on the Facebook page of the New Mexico Genealogical Society:
Our next step requires a number of volunteers. The task is to search for Luján individuals listed in the extracted diligencias matrimoniales for the years 1679 through 1750 in the 11 volumes of “New Mexico Roots, Ltd.” This can be accomplished using the PDF versions available online. Each volume is searchable by going to the Edit menu tab of the PDF file and click on Find to pull up the search box. Simply enter the surname ‘Lujan” in the search box to locate the Lujan entries. With 4-6 volunteers, we can divide up the volumes.
The current volunteers are myself, Henrietta, Marilyn Herrera Britton, Stan Lucero, and Pauline Sanchez Montano. Anita Gómez can help beginning in the late summer/early fall, and Robert Orlando Blea submitted some lineages. Anyone else care to join in the fun?
I will take Vol. 6: Lucero to Martinez which contains the Luján section, and get this material organized. I can also search Vol. 5: Griego to Lucero and Vol. 7: Martinez to Ojeda.
Henrietta, Marilyn, Stan and Pauline: If each of you can search two volumes of New Mexico Roots, we will have this part of the project covered. Let me know if you can help at this time.
We are looking for anyone with the surname of Luján mentioned in Fray Angélico’s summaries for entries from the late 1670s to 1750 –grooms, brides, parents, deceased spouses, witnesses, sponsors, etc.— and will need to document the citation for each record that is located.
For entries of brides, parents, deceased spouses, we need the full DM summary extracted (DM entry date and number, name of groom, grooms parents, name of bride, brides parents, witnesses, sponsors (if given) and date of marriage (if given) and the page number. You can try to copy the entry from the PDF version and paste it into a Word document, but I’ve found that it doesn’t always work well.. If there is a long narrative summary, only relevant info about Luján individuals needs to be extracted.
Example—
DM 1689, Jan. (no. 5), El Paso del Norte. Pedro Madrid (20), n. of Santa Fe,
soldier of this Presidio, son of Sargento Mayor Roque de Madrid and
Juana de Arbizu y Gamboa, and Isabel Lujan (16), n. of El Rio Arriba in New Mexico, d. of Alferez Felipe Serna and Isabel Lujan. Witnesses: Francisco Gómez Robledo, 62, former Maese de Campo of the Kingdom; Don Fernando de Chaves, 44, former Capt. Of the Kingdom; Luis Martín, 60 former Capt. Of the Kingdom who knew pair both at Santa Fe and ion El Paso; Antonio Martín, 42, first cousin of the bride. Pair married, Jan. 10, 1689, with witnesses Andrés Hurtado and Josefa de Hinojos. (NMR, 1037-1038)
For Luján individuals who were witnesses, simply record the name, age, place of origin (if given), occupation (if given), and marriage status (if given), and number of years the person knew the bride or groom (if given), and any other testimony that Fray Angélico extracted.
Example:
Witness: Juan Luján, age 36, native of New Mexico, new bride for 20 years (NMR, 766, DM 1699, April 3, no. 2, Santa Fe for Diego Lucero and Ana Archuleta).
If there are any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.
May 5, 2012
Domínguez de Mendoza Paper and 2012 New Mexico History Conference
Today, the New Mexico Statehood Conference continues in Santa Fe. Although Marc Simmons and I were scheduled to present our paper on Juan Domínguez de Mendoza at the 10:30 session on ‘Colonial New Mexicans,” circumstances kept us from be present. Although discouraged by the turn of events keeping us away from the conference, we are both very grateful to Henrietta Martinez Christmas and John L. Kessell for making arrangements to have our paper on Juan Domínguez de Mendoza read during the session. Here is an excerpt from the paper, titled—
Juan Domínguez de Mendoza:
Soldiers and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest, 1627-1693
Marc Simmons and José Antonio Esquibel
Excerpts from the paper read at the
2012 New Mexico Statehood History Conference,
May 5, 2012
SCHOLES, ADAMS & JOHNNY DOMÍNGUEZ
Marc Simmons
“Two weeks ago I received in the mail from UNM Press the first copies of the book “Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, Soldier and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest, 1627-1693.” At long last, the final volume of the Coronado Historical Series, initiated in 1940, had made its way into print.
How that occurred forms a mini-saga, almost as extraordinary as the life of Domínguez de Mendoza himself. The discovery of his Personal Services record, comprising 51 bound documents, running from the 1640s to the mid-1690s, opened a new and wider window on 17th-century New Mexico.
It was historian France V. Scholes of the University of New Mexico who stumbled upon this documentary treasure trove while doing research in 1928 at Spain's Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid-(MSS 19258). A cursory reading of the papers convinced him of their importance, since from them Juan Dominguez de Mendoza emerged as a major political and military figure on the New Mexico frontier, a man who had slipped through the cracks and today remained largely unknown.
Scholes always said that the Domínguez de Mendoza Service Record was the first one to surface for a prominent 17th-century New Mexican. It was also rich in significant new details concerning politics, church affairs, bureaucratic squabbles and especially the wars with Apaches and Navajos. In short, the book confirms that Juan Dominguez de Mendoza was a pivotal figure in New Mexico’s early colonial period.”
THE MOST BRILLIANT SERVICES IN THE KINGDOM
José Antonio Esquibel
“After reviewing the military service papers of Maestre de Campo Juan Domínguez de Mendoza in January 1672, Governor Juan Rodríguez de Medrano Messía dictated this accolade:
‘As is proved by his papers which he presented to me, [he is] a hidalgo, well-known, outstanding, and honored, and he proves by the said papers that he has served His Majesty in these provinces more than thirty-six years at his own cost and expense, and during the said time he has occupied all the posts of militia and republic which there are in this kingdom, as is shown by the said papers, and I consider them the most brilliant services of this kingdom.’
Although the phrase ‘the most brilliant services in this kingdom’ may seem an exaggeration, the rare collection of the military service records of Juan Domínguez de Mendoza offers one example after another of the outstanding services he provided to the Spanish crown at his own expense and at risk to his life. Even his startling physical appearance served as a testament to the dangers of military duty in Spain’s farthest northern frontier. In October 1684, he was described as:
‘a tall man, although not excessively so, of good stature, black-haired of goodly countenance, somewhat dark in complexion and going gray, has a good mustache, and appears to be about sixty years of age. He has three wounds, all on the left side. The first is in a shoulder blade, which was broken at the Peñol de Acoma and as a result he has a withered shoulder. The second is in his left hand, the whole span of the said hand being cleft. The third is above the knee on the said left side, across the thigh, and he has another wound on the right side of his head. He received these in active wars, and this cabildo knows it was in the royal service of His Majesty.’
Throughout his career as a frontier soldier, Juan Domínguez de Mendoza faced his mortality during many military campaigns. If he feared death, he faced his fear with resolve and courage. His body bore the marks of that courage in wounds and deformities that scarred his body, noticeable to anyone who came near him. He may very well have relished the opportunities to describe with specific details the battles and hand to hand combat that earned him those physical marks of valor. It is reasonable to suppose that the scars and acts of bravery earned him a measure of respect among other soldiers and royal officials.
The documents that make up the military service portfolio of Juan Domínguez de Mendoza represent a remarkable account of one man’s service to the crown in frontier New Mexico during the seventeenth century. Although there are indications that such records were kept by many other soldiers of New Mexico, the records of Domínguez de Mendoza are rare, representing the only set of its kind to be uncovered to date, thanks to the effort of Scholes.
These records, along with other previously unpublished documents extracted from various archival sources, offer the most comprehensive account of a single individual that lived in New Mexico during the 1600s. Yet, even these valuable and astonishing records are scant in regard to the many other details of the personal and professional life of Domínguez de Mendoza that remain unknown.
In all, seventy-eight historical documents are translated and presented in ‘Juan Domínguez de Mendoza: Soldier and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest, 1627-1693.’ The value of these documents goes beyond the information about the career of Juan Domínguez de Mendoza. They are an uncommon treasure trove of historical information about seventeenth-century New Mexico prior to 1692, in particular, regarding military customs and practices, cooperative military relations between the Spaniards and Pueblo Indians, names and activities of nomadic tribes, and the severe circumstances of living in a dangerous frontier.”
Juan Domínguez de Mendoza:
Soldiers and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest, 1627-1693
Marc Simmons and José Antonio Esquibel
Excerpts from the paper read at the
2012 New Mexico Statehood History Conference,
May 5, 2012
SCHOLES, ADAMS & JOHNNY DOMÍNGUEZ
Marc Simmons
“Two weeks ago I received in the mail from UNM Press the first copies of the book “Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, Soldier and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest, 1627-1693.” At long last, the final volume of the Coronado Historical Series, initiated in 1940, had made its way into print.
How that occurred forms a mini-saga, almost as extraordinary as the life of Domínguez de Mendoza himself. The discovery of his Personal Services record, comprising 51 bound documents, running from the 1640s to the mid-1690s, opened a new and wider window on 17th-century New Mexico.
It was historian France V. Scholes of the University of New Mexico who stumbled upon this documentary treasure trove while doing research in 1928 at Spain's Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid-(MSS 19258). A cursory reading of the papers convinced him of their importance, since from them Juan Dominguez de Mendoza emerged as a major political and military figure on the New Mexico frontier, a man who had slipped through the cracks and today remained largely unknown.
Scholes always said that the Domínguez de Mendoza Service Record was the first one to surface for a prominent 17th-century New Mexican. It was also rich in significant new details concerning politics, church affairs, bureaucratic squabbles and especially the wars with Apaches and Navajos. In short, the book confirms that Juan Dominguez de Mendoza was a pivotal figure in New Mexico’s early colonial period.”
THE MOST BRILLIANT SERVICES IN THE KINGDOM
José Antonio Esquibel
“After reviewing the military service papers of Maestre de Campo Juan Domínguez de Mendoza in January 1672, Governor Juan Rodríguez de Medrano Messía dictated this accolade:
‘As is proved by his papers which he presented to me, [he is] a hidalgo, well-known, outstanding, and honored, and he proves by the said papers that he has served His Majesty in these provinces more than thirty-six years at his own cost and expense, and during the said time he has occupied all the posts of militia and republic which there are in this kingdom, as is shown by the said papers, and I consider them the most brilliant services of this kingdom.’
Although the phrase ‘the most brilliant services in this kingdom’ may seem an exaggeration, the rare collection of the military service records of Juan Domínguez de Mendoza offers one example after another of the outstanding services he provided to the Spanish crown at his own expense and at risk to his life. Even his startling physical appearance served as a testament to the dangers of military duty in Spain’s farthest northern frontier. In October 1684, he was described as:
‘a tall man, although not excessively so, of good stature, black-haired of goodly countenance, somewhat dark in complexion and going gray, has a good mustache, and appears to be about sixty years of age. He has three wounds, all on the left side. The first is in a shoulder blade, which was broken at the Peñol de Acoma and as a result he has a withered shoulder. The second is in his left hand, the whole span of the said hand being cleft. The third is above the knee on the said left side, across the thigh, and he has another wound on the right side of his head. He received these in active wars, and this cabildo knows it was in the royal service of His Majesty.’
Throughout his career as a frontier soldier, Juan Domínguez de Mendoza faced his mortality during many military campaigns. If he feared death, he faced his fear with resolve and courage. His body bore the marks of that courage in wounds and deformities that scarred his body, noticeable to anyone who came near him. He may very well have relished the opportunities to describe with specific details the battles and hand to hand combat that earned him those physical marks of valor. It is reasonable to suppose that the scars and acts of bravery earned him a measure of respect among other soldiers and royal officials.
The documents that make up the military service portfolio of Juan Domínguez de Mendoza represent a remarkable account of one man’s service to the crown in frontier New Mexico during the seventeenth century. Although there are indications that such records were kept by many other soldiers of New Mexico, the records of Domínguez de Mendoza are rare, representing the only set of its kind to be uncovered to date, thanks to the effort of Scholes.
These records, along with other previously unpublished documents extracted from various archival sources, offer the most comprehensive account of a single individual that lived in New Mexico during the 1600s. Yet, even these valuable and astonishing records are scant in regard to the many other details of the personal and professional life of Domínguez de Mendoza that remain unknown.
In all, seventy-eight historical documents are translated and presented in ‘Juan Domínguez de Mendoza: Soldier and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest, 1627-1693.’ The value of these documents goes beyond the information about the career of Juan Domínguez de Mendoza. They are an uncommon treasure trove of historical information about seventeenth-century New Mexico prior to 1692, in particular, regarding military customs and practices, cooperative military relations between the Spaniards and Pueblo Indians, names and activities of nomadic tribes, and the severe circumstances of living in a dangerous frontier.”
May 1, 2012
France V. Scholes (1897-1979): Writings on Seventeenth-century New Mexico
With the publication of the Juan Domínguez de Mendoza book (UNM Press, 2012), the names of France V. Scholes and Eleanor B. Adams are brought to attention.
I first encountered the name of Scholes when I entered the University of New Mexico in 1975. The admission office was located in Scholes Hall. I knew nothing of the man for who the building was named, France V. Scholes, although I referred to and entered that building many times as a student of UNM.
In early 1986, my budding interest in my family genealogy led me to learn more about the history of New Mexico. In various history books of New Mexico I encounter the name of France V. Scholes and the titles of his writings. After I purchased a copy the 1975 edition of Fray Angélico Chávez’s “Origins of New Mexico Families in the Spanish Colonial Period,” which I bought at the UNM Bookstore in August 1987, and read the various genealogy summaries of early New Mexico families, I noticed the regular reference to one important work by Scholes titled “Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1669-1670” (Santa Fe, 1942). From history books I collected the titles of several articles written by Scholes that appeared mainly in the “New Mexico Historical Review.”
I managed to read Scholes’ information packed book, “Troublous Times,” from a library copy and I collected copies of some of his articles, which offered me insight not only into the history of seventeenth-century New Mexico, but also into the sources that Scholes consulted, many of which were also consulted by Fray Angélico Chávez. Chávez extracted and compiled the genealogies and brief histories of New Mexico families of the 17th and 18th centuries from a variety of primary sources, mainly the copies of Inquisition records related to New Mexico. Scholes summarized many of the same records to produce narrative historical accounts.
I’m indebted to the works of Chávez and Scholes for germinating within me an interest in 17th-century New Mexico genealogy and history. Although I intermittently read copies of the Inquisition records housed at the Center for Southwest Research at UNM’s Zimmerman Library between 1987 and 1994, it was when I returned to live in New Mexico in 1995 that I began to regularly consult those records, resulting in the extraction of both historical and genealogical information that has shaped my writings and the information I shared through the Internet on the “Beyond Origins of New Mexico Families” Web site.
When I first visited Marc Simmons at his residence in 2000, one of the questions I asked him was about his future projects. One project he mentioned was his desire to complete the book started by Scholes concerning the military services papers of Juan Dominguez de Mendoza with translations made by Eleanor B. Adams. I was already familiar with some of the typescript transcriptions and translations of the Domínguez de Mendoza records that were part of the Scholes Collection at the Southwest Research Center (UNM Zimmerman Library). Various scholars had consulted and referenced some of these papers in their publications.
With the 2012 publication of the long delayed “Juan Domínguez de Mendoza: Soldier and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest, 1627–1693,” the names of France V. Scholes and Eleanor B. Adams are again in the limelight among those interested in New Mexico 17th-cnetury New Mexico.
For those readers not familiar with the writings of Scholes, below is a list of some of his work that may be of interest. Although it will take some effort to locate copies in libraries, some of his articles that were published in the “New Mexico Historical Review” can be read at
http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng.... Alternatively, many back issues of the New Mexico Historical Review can now be purchased online for a reasonable price at www.newmexicohistoricalreview.org.
The following works by France V. Scholes are worth reading to gain an understanding of 17th-century New Mexico history—
France V. Scholes, “Documents for the History of the New Mexican Missions in the Seventeenth Century, New Mexico Historical Review 4 (January 1929), 45-58. Also see Scholes’ correction to this article published in New Mexico Historical Review 19 (1944), 243-46.
France V. Scholes, "The Supply Service of the New Mexican Missions in the Seventeenth Century," in New Mexico Historical Review, 5 (1930) 93-115, and 386-404.
France V. Scholes, "Problems in the Early Ecclesiastical History of New Mexico," in New Mexico Historical Review, 7 (January 1932), 32-74.
France V. Scholes, “Civil Government and Society in New Mexico in the Seventeenth Century,” New Mexico Historical Review, 10 (April 1935), 71-111.
France V. Scholes, “The First Decade of the Inquisition in New Mexico,” New Mexico Historical Review, 10 (October 1935), 195-241.
France V. Scholes, “Church and State in New Mexico, 1610-1650,” New Mexico Historical Review, 11 (1936): 9-76, 283-294, 297-349, and 12 (1937), 78-106.
France V. Scholes, "Royal Treasury Records Relating to the Province of New Mexico, 1596-1683," New Mexico Historical Review 50 (1975), 5-24 and 139-164.
France V. Scholes, Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659–1670 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1942). This material was originally published as a serial in the New Mexico Historical Review as follows—
“Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659–1670,” New Mexico Historical Review 12 (1937), Issue 2, 134–174.
“Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659–1670,” New Mexico Historical Review 12 (1937), Issue 4, 380–452.
"Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659-1670,"New Mexico Historical Review 13 (1938), Issue 1, 63-84.
"Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659-1670," New Mexico Historical Review 15 (1940), Issue 3, 249-68.
"Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659-1670," New Mexico Historical Review 15 (1940), Issue 4, 369-417.
I first encountered the name of Scholes when I entered the University of New Mexico in 1975. The admission office was located in Scholes Hall. I knew nothing of the man for who the building was named, France V. Scholes, although I referred to and entered that building many times as a student of UNM.
In early 1986, my budding interest in my family genealogy led me to learn more about the history of New Mexico. In various history books of New Mexico I encounter the name of France V. Scholes and the titles of his writings. After I purchased a copy the 1975 edition of Fray Angélico Chávez’s “Origins of New Mexico Families in the Spanish Colonial Period,” which I bought at the UNM Bookstore in August 1987, and read the various genealogy summaries of early New Mexico families, I noticed the regular reference to one important work by Scholes titled “Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1669-1670” (Santa Fe, 1942). From history books I collected the titles of several articles written by Scholes that appeared mainly in the “New Mexico Historical Review.”
I managed to read Scholes’ information packed book, “Troublous Times,” from a library copy and I collected copies of some of his articles, which offered me insight not only into the history of seventeenth-century New Mexico, but also into the sources that Scholes consulted, many of which were also consulted by Fray Angélico Chávez. Chávez extracted and compiled the genealogies and brief histories of New Mexico families of the 17th and 18th centuries from a variety of primary sources, mainly the copies of Inquisition records related to New Mexico. Scholes summarized many of the same records to produce narrative historical accounts.
I’m indebted to the works of Chávez and Scholes for germinating within me an interest in 17th-century New Mexico genealogy and history. Although I intermittently read copies of the Inquisition records housed at the Center for Southwest Research at UNM’s Zimmerman Library between 1987 and 1994, it was when I returned to live in New Mexico in 1995 that I began to regularly consult those records, resulting in the extraction of both historical and genealogical information that has shaped my writings and the information I shared through the Internet on the “Beyond Origins of New Mexico Families” Web site.
When I first visited Marc Simmons at his residence in 2000, one of the questions I asked him was about his future projects. One project he mentioned was his desire to complete the book started by Scholes concerning the military services papers of Juan Dominguez de Mendoza with translations made by Eleanor B. Adams. I was already familiar with some of the typescript transcriptions and translations of the Domínguez de Mendoza records that were part of the Scholes Collection at the Southwest Research Center (UNM Zimmerman Library). Various scholars had consulted and referenced some of these papers in their publications.
With the 2012 publication of the long delayed “Juan Domínguez de Mendoza: Soldier and Frontiersman of the Spanish Southwest, 1627–1693,” the names of France V. Scholes and Eleanor B. Adams are again in the limelight among those interested in New Mexico 17th-cnetury New Mexico.
For those readers not familiar with the writings of Scholes, below is a list of some of his work that may be of interest. Although it will take some effort to locate copies in libraries, some of his articles that were published in the “New Mexico Historical Review” can be read at
http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng.... Alternatively, many back issues of the New Mexico Historical Review can now be purchased online for a reasonable price at www.newmexicohistoricalreview.org.
The following works by France V. Scholes are worth reading to gain an understanding of 17th-century New Mexico history—
France V. Scholes, “Documents for the History of the New Mexican Missions in the Seventeenth Century, New Mexico Historical Review 4 (January 1929), 45-58. Also see Scholes’ correction to this article published in New Mexico Historical Review 19 (1944), 243-46.
France V. Scholes, "The Supply Service of the New Mexican Missions in the Seventeenth Century," in New Mexico Historical Review, 5 (1930) 93-115, and 386-404.
France V. Scholes, "Problems in the Early Ecclesiastical History of New Mexico," in New Mexico Historical Review, 7 (January 1932), 32-74.
France V. Scholes, “Civil Government and Society in New Mexico in the Seventeenth Century,” New Mexico Historical Review, 10 (April 1935), 71-111.
France V. Scholes, “The First Decade of the Inquisition in New Mexico,” New Mexico Historical Review, 10 (October 1935), 195-241.
France V. Scholes, “Church and State in New Mexico, 1610-1650,” New Mexico Historical Review, 11 (1936): 9-76, 283-294, 297-349, and 12 (1937), 78-106.
France V. Scholes, "Royal Treasury Records Relating to the Province of New Mexico, 1596-1683," New Mexico Historical Review 50 (1975), 5-24 and 139-164.
France V. Scholes, Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659–1670 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1942). This material was originally published as a serial in the New Mexico Historical Review as follows—
“Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659–1670,” New Mexico Historical Review 12 (1937), Issue 2, 134–174.
“Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659–1670,” New Mexico Historical Review 12 (1937), Issue 4, 380–452.
"Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659-1670,"New Mexico Historical Review 13 (1938), Issue 1, 63-84.
"Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659-1670," New Mexico Historical Review 15 (1940), Issue 3, 249-68.
"Troublous Times in New Mexico, 1659-1670," New Mexico Historical Review 15 (1940), Issue 4, 369-417.
April 28, 2012
Domínguez de Mendoza Paper for New Mexico History Conference
Marc Simmons and I completed our paper on Juan Domínguez de Mendoza for the 2012 New Mexico Statehood History Conference being held in Santa Fe May 3-5th (http://www.hsnm.org/2012%20Items/home...).
We are both very disappointed that circumstances have arisen that prevent both of us from being present at the conference to sign books and give our presentation about the new book and Juan Domínguez de Mendoza.
First, a conflict came up for Marc. I was planning to present and very much looking forward to sharing insights about Juan Domínguez de Mendoza and his remarkable career, and celebrating the fact that the book is finally published.
However, my daughter, Jael, is graduating with a Masters Degree on May 4th here in Colorado on the evening before the planned presentation on Saturday, May 5th. I've very proud of my daughter's academic accomplishments (two bachelor degrees and now a masters), and I have invested many more years in her than I have with the Domínguez de Mendoza book. Also, family members are coming for the weekend to celebrate the event.
Thanks to Henrietta Martinez Christmas and John Kessell our paper on Juan Domínguez de Mendoza will be read as part of the session on Colonial New Mexicans on Saturday, May 5th (10:30am-12:00pm). The other presenters are Robert Torrez and Robert J.C. Baca.
I'll post excerpts of the paper on this blog after May 5th.
Marc and I were planning to sign books at the conference, but we will need to postpone the book signing. However, UNM Press will have the Domínguez de Mendoza book available for sale during the conference, if you haven't already purchased a copy. I’ll post details of any upcoming book signing opportunities as they develop.
We are both very disappointed that circumstances have arisen that prevent both of us from being present at the conference to sign books and give our presentation about the new book and Juan Domínguez de Mendoza.
First, a conflict came up for Marc. I was planning to present and very much looking forward to sharing insights about Juan Domínguez de Mendoza and his remarkable career, and celebrating the fact that the book is finally published.
However, my daughter, Jael, is graduating with a Masters Degree on May 4th here in Colorado on the evening before the planned presentation on Saturday, May 5th. I've very proud of my daughter's academic accomplishments (two bachelor degrees and now a masters), and I have invested many more years in her than I have with the Domínguez de Mendoza book. Also, family members are coming for the weekend to celebrate the event.
Thanks to Henrietta Martinez Christmas and John Kessell our paper on Juan Domínguez de Mendoza will be read as part of the session on Colonial New Mexicans on Saturday, May 5th (10:30am-12:00pm). The other presenters are Robert Torrez and Robert J.C. Baca.
I'll post excerpts of the paper on this blog after May 5th.
Marc and I were planning to sign books at the conference, but we will need to postpone the book signing. However, UNM Press will have the Domínguez de Mendoza book available for sale during the conference, if you haven't already purchased a copy. I’ll post details of any upcoming book signing opportunities as they develop.
April 22, 2012
Special Price on Domínguez de Mendoza Book
Just learned that UNM Press is offering 40% off the the regular list price of books April 1-30th. Thanks to Mark DeSautel for letting me know.
The special price for the "Juan Domínguez de Mendoza" book is now $39.00 (hard cover; regular list price of $65). What a deal! Spread the word.
In addition to historical information about seventeenth-century New Mexico and genealogical and historical information about the Domínguez de Mendoza family, you’ll find historical and genealogical information on the Anaya Almazán, Paredes, Guadalajara, and Durán y Chaves as well as references to many other individuals that lived in New Mexico prior to 1680.
Be sure to read the end notes, which contain lots of additional details.
I've posted a photo of the attractive book jacket cover on my Facebook Authors page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jos%C3%...
The special price for the "Juan Domínguez de Mendoza" book is now $39.00 (hard cover; regular list price of $65). What a deal! Spread the word.
In addition to historical information about seventeenth-century New Mexico and genealogical and historical information about the Domínguez de Mendoza family, you’ll find historical and genealogical information on the Anaya Almazán, Paredes, Guadalajara, and Durán y Chaves as well as references to many other individuals that lived in New Mexico prior to 1680.
Be sure to read the end notes, which contain lots of additional details.
I've posted a photo of the attractive book jacket cover on my Facebook Authors page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jos%C3%...
April 21, 2012
"Juan Dominguez de Mendoza Book in Hand
I learned last weekend that the “Juan Domínguez de Mendoza” book was being distributed. I eagerly anticipated receiving copies of the book from UNM Press. The copies were delivered to my residence on Tuesday while I was traveling out of state. It wasn’t until very late this past Thursday that I returned home and with great satisfaction opened the box and held a copy of the book in my hand. A large amount of time and effort by France V. Scholes and Eleanor B. Adams and then by Marc Simmons and me is now condensed into a single volume. I’m very honored to have been allowed to help bring this book into print.
The book jacket design in quite attractive and rather than being bound in the reddish cloth with gold lettering, as featured in the UNM Press Spring catalogue and the online images, the cloth cover is a sandy tan color. The total number of pages of the book came to 487 instead of the 464 that was originally advertised.
I’m particularly pleased that the inside cover and the back cover of the book jacket acknowledges that the “Juan Domínguez de Mendoza” book is a volume of the influential Coronado Historical Series, representing the previously y absent volume 7 of the series. Although the “Juan Domínguez de Mendoza book is seventy years late in completion, it can now take its place among the works of a variety of esteemed scholars.
If you pre-ordered the book, you should be receiving your copy, if you haven’t received it already. Send me your comments as your read the book. No need to wait until you are finished. Marc Simmons and I would very much enjoy your comments and questions. You can send comments via a response to this blog, or on my Facebook authors page, or directly to me via e-mail at jesquibel@yahoo.com.
The book jacket design in quite attractive and rather than being bound in the reddish cloth with gold lettering, as featured in the UNM Press Spring catalogue and the online images, the cloth cover is a sandy tan color. The total number of pages of the book came to 487 instead of the 464 that was originally advertised.
I’m particularly pleased that the inside cover and the back cover of the book jacket acknowledges that the “Juan Domínguez de Mendoza” book is a volume of the influential Coronado Historical Series, representing the previously y absent volume 7 of the series. Although the “Juan Domínguez de Mendoza book is seventy years late in completion, it can now take its place among the works of a variety of esteemed scholars.
If you pre-ordered the book, you should be receiving your copy, if you haven’t received it already. Send me your comments as your read the book. No need to wait until you are finished. Marc Simmons and I would very much enjoy your comments and questions. You can send comments via a response to this blog, or on my Facebook authors page, or directly to me via e-mail at jesquibel@yahoo.com.
April 15, 2012
Now Available: Juan Domínguez de Mendoza Book
I just learned via e-mail that someone was able to pick up a copy of the "Juan Domínguez de Mendoza" book this past Friday (April 13th). I knew that UNM press was expecting to have the book back from the printer by mid-April. I was also hoping to get copies in advance, but have not yet received any.
It will be very gratifying to see the actual book and have it in hand after seven decades and the extra effort of the past 12 years to get the manuscript in order and prepare it for publication.
David Schneider had written UNM Press last fall when he first saw the dimensions of the book described in the UNM Spring Catalog. He was alarmed that UNM Press was not making the book's dimension match those of the other volumes of the Coronado Historical Series and that no dust jacket was mentioned in the description.
Well, UNM Press increased the dimensions of the book and included a handsome dust jacket. Marc Simmons and I reviewed the dust jacket just before the book was sent to the printer. David Schneider is among the first people to pick up the book. He wrote this initial comment in a recent e-mail to me: "The book is beautiful and comes very close to matching the other 11 volumes....Congratulations on a fine, fine effort!
It will be very gratifying to see the actual book and have it in hand after seven decades and the extra effort of the past 12 years to get the manuscript in order and prepare it for publication.
David Schneider had written UNM Press last fall when he first saw the dimensions of the book described in the UNM Spring Catalog. He was alarmed that UNM Press was not making the book's dimension match those of the other volumes of the Coronado Historical Series and that no dust jacket was mentioned in the description.
Well, UNM Press increased the dimensions of the book and included a handsome dust jacket. Marc Simmons and I reviewed the dust jacket just before the book was sent to the printer. David Schneider is among the first people to pick up the book. He wrote this initial comment in a recent e-mail to me: "The book is beautiful and comes very close to matching the other 11 volumes....Congratulations on a fine, fine effort!
April 1, 2012
December 1692 Census of El Paso Citizens: An Important Research Source
"The Luján Project" was just informally launched through the Facebook page of the New Mexico Genealogy Society. It will be interesting to see if a group effort can be organized via Facebook to advance the research of the Luján family history and genealogy of 17th and early 18th century New Mexico.
It is very easy to find genealogical lineages on the Internet, but generally there are no sources to help verify the information. I'm hoping that with The Luján Project, interested people can work together to track down source to verify, correct and update the Luján family genealogy.
The December 1692 census of families that registered their intent to leave the jurisdiction of El Paso del Norte and resettle in northern New Mexico is an important source for conducting New Mexico genealogy research for the later part of the 1600s and early 1700s and for re-confirming lineages found on the Internet or in books. An expert and credible translation of the census is found in John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks and Meredith D. Dodge, “To the Royal Crown Restored: The Journals of Don Diego de Vargas, New Mexico 1692-1694,” Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995, pages 34-65.
I highly recommend consulting and or obtaining a copy of this translation to use in your family research of New Mexico ancestors. See below for more details.
After his return from his successful negotiation with Pueblo Indian leaders in October and November 1692 to restore Spanish government to New Mexico, Governor don Diego de Vargas began the process for re-populating northern New Mexico. One of his first orders of business was an accounting of those NM citizens of the El Paso del Norte jurisdiction who were willing to go with him as settler of the kingdom of New Mexico.
He started in community of El Paso del Paso del Norte on December 22, 1692, and traveled to four other towns where he registered the intent of 131 household living in five communities of the El Paso jurisdiction: 50 from El Paso del Norte, 29 from Real de San Lorenzo, (seat of the town council of the Villa Santa Fe in exile), 2 from the Pueblo of Senecú, 16 from the Pueblo of la Isleta, 15 from the pueblo of Socorro, and 19 Mexican Indian families living in the jurisdiction that had lived in the Villa de Santa Fe. He concluded the census on January 2, 1693.
If you’re interested in knowing which communities your ancestors resided during the years of exile in the El Paso, this census gives you a sense of their places of residence in December 1692.
What makes this particular census valuable is that it is an every name account of household members, including orphans and servants. The age of most children are also given, although the ages of the adult heads of household are not. In some cases a household consists of as many as three generations and in some cases extended family groups are listed together, one entry after the other.
Kessell, Hendricks and Dodge not only provide a translation of the census, they also include useful endnotes on many of the heads of households. Also, the index of their book helps locate heads of households, but does not include names of children of servants.
In your genealogy files, cite this source as John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks and Meredith D. Dodge, “To the Royal Crown Restored: The Journals of Don Diego de Vargas, New Mexico 1692-1694,” Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995, pages 34-65. It is a credible, scholarly source.
The source used by Kessell, Hendricks and Dodge for their translation is from Archivo General de la Nación, México, Historia, 37:7. Another version is preserved as Archivo General de Indias, Guadalajara, 139:7, Expediente sobre la conquista de Nuevo Méjico. A copy of this version is house at the Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico (Albuquerque) and was originally was translated by J. Manuel Espinosa, “ Population of El Paso District in 1692, in “Mid-America: An Historical Review, 23 (January 1941):61-84.
Photocopies of original census that were bound into thin books are located at Special Collections/Genealogy Library in Albuquerque and the Denver Public Library/Western History and Genealogy Department under these titles and compilers—
J. Richard Salazar, “Census of the year 1692: The Pueblo del Rio del Norte” (Albuquerque Public Library and Denver Public Library/Central)
J. Richard Salazar, “1692 Population Census Taken by Don Diego de Vargas for the following Pueblos: Pueblo del Paso, Real de San Lorenzo, Pueblo de Senecu, Pueblo de Ysleta” (Albuquerque Library)
There is also another compilation, but I’m not familiar with it: Shirley Clayton, “Spanish Census Records: El Paso, 1684, 1692; New Mexico De Vargas Reconquest, 1693”
It is very easy to find genealogical lineages on the Internet, but generally there are no sources to help verify the information. I'm hoping that with The Luján Project, interested people can work together to track down source to verify, correct and update the Luján family genealogy.
The December 1692 census of families that registered their intent to leave the jurisdiction of El Paso del Norte and resettle in northern New Mexico is an important source for conducting New Mexico genealogy research for the later part of the 1600s and early 1700s and for re-confirming lineages found on the Internet or in books. An expert and credible translation of the census is found in John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks and Meredith D. Dodge, “To the Royal Crown Restored: The Journals of Don Diego de Vargas, New Mexico 1692-1694,” Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995, pages 34-65.
I highly recommend consulting and or obtaining a copy of this translation to use in your family research of New Mexico ancestors. See below for more details.
After his return from his successful negotiation with Pueblo Indian leaders in October and November 1692 to restore Spanish government to New Mexico, Governor don Diego de Vargas began the process for re-populating northern New Mexico. One of his first orders of business was an accounting of those NM citizens of the El Paso del Norte jurisdiction who were willing to go with him as settler of the kingdom of New Mexico.
He started in community of El Paso del Paso del Norte on December 22, 1692, and traveled to four other towns where he registered the intent of 131 household living in five communities of the El Paso jurisdiction: 50 from El Paso del Norte, 29 from Real de San Lorenzo, (seat of the town council of the Villa Santa Fe in exile), 2 from the Pueblo of Senecú, 16 from the Pueblo of la Isleta, 15 from the pueblo of Socorro, and 19 Mexican Indian families living in the jurisdiction that had lived in the Villa de Santa Fe. He concluded the census on January 2, 1693.
If you’re interested in knowing which communities your ancestors resided during the years of exile in the El Paso, this census gives you a sense of their places of residence in December 1692.
What makes this particular census valuable is that it is an every name account of household members, including orphans and servants. The age of most children are also given, although the ages of the adult heads of household are not. In some cases a household consists of as many as three generations and in some cases extended family groups are listed together, one entry after the other.
Kessell, Hendricks and Dodge not only provide a translation of the census, they also include useful endnotes on many of the heads of households. Also, the index of their book helps locate heads of households, but does not include names of children of servants.
In your genealogy files, cite this source as John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks and Meredith D. Dodge, “To the Royal Crown Restored: The Journals of Don Diego de Vargas, New Mexico 1692-1694,” Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995, pages 34-65. It is a credible, scholarly source.
The source used by Kessell, Hendricks and Dodge for their translation is from Archivo General de la Nación, México, Historia, 37:7. Another version is preserved as Archivo General de Indias, Guadalajara, 139:7, Expediente sobre la conquista de Nuevo Méjico. A copy of this version is house at the Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico (Albuquerque) and was originally was translated by J. Manuel Espinosa, “ Population of El Paso District in 1692, in “Mid-America: An Historical Review, 23 (January 1941):61-84.
Photocopies of original census that were bound into thin books are located at Special Collections/Genealogy Library in Albuquerque and the Denver Public Library/Western History and Genealogy Department under these titles and compilers—
J. Richard Salazar, “Census of the year 1692: The Pueblo del Rio del Norte” (Albuquerque Public Library and Denver Public Library/Central)
J. Richard Salazar, “1692 Population Census Taken by Don Diego de Vargas for the following Pueblos: Pueblo del Paso, Real de San Lorenzo, Pueblo de Senecu, Pueblo de Ysleta” (Albuquerque Library)
There is also another compilation, but I’m not familiar with it: Shirley Clayton, “Spanish Census Records: El Paso, 1684, 1692; New Mexico De Vargas Reconquest, 1693”
March 31, 2012
Luján Family of 17th-century New Mexico: Part 1
There hasn't been an update to the Lujan family history and genealogy of 17th-century New Mexico based on research into primary record probably since the work of Fray Angélico Chávez published in his book, "Origins of New Mexico Families (1954).
With a little bit of time given to research and patient compilation of information from a variety of sources, a revised and updated family history and genealogy can be generated.
Here is some information on Juan Luján II and Juan Luján III that goes "Beyond Origins" that did not get transferred to the New Mexico History Web page along with other entries from the original "Beyond Origins of New Mexico Families" Web site.
Fray Angélico Chávez mentioned that Juan Luján II was referred to as El Viejo in relation to another Juan Luján (ONMF: 63). Chávez suggested the two were father and son, but did not have documentation to confirm this relationship. In May 1663, while providing testimony to authorities of the Office of the Inquisition, Diego Romero mentioned “dos hermanos” named Capitán Juan Luján and Juan de Archuleta. Juan de Archuleta was married with María Luján (ONMF: 6), daughter of Juan Luján II. As such, the brotherly relationship referred to by Romero was that of brothers-in-law, confirming that Capitán Juan Luján was a son of Juan Luján II.
The elder Luján, Juan Luján II, also held the rank of Capitán and in 1661 gave his age as sixty, indicating he was born circa 1601. In February 1659, he was described as a vecino of the jurisdiction of La Cañada. The younger Juan Luján was alcalde mayor of the jurisdiction of La Cañada in 1661 and provided testimony on 29 October of that year as part of the investigation of the Inquisition regarding Governor don Bernardo López de Mendizábal. The younger Luján declared he was forty-two years of age, indicating he was born circa 1619.
On 15 May 1661, testifying at the Pueblo de Senecú in the case against Governor don Bernardo López de Mendizábal, fray Antonio de Tavares, age thirty-two, mentioned the name of Capitán Juan Luján, but it is unclear whether he was referring to the elder or the younger Luján. In his testimony, Tavares described Capitán Juan Luján as “mestizo amulatado” and identified him as alcalde mayor of the Picurís area. During his tenure as governor of New Mexico (1659-1661), don Bernardo López de Mendizábal appointed Capitán Juan Luján as alcalde mayor del los Teguas, which referred to the jurisdiction of La Cañada. It is unclear whether the elder or younger Luján was appointed to the position.
In the same case, Miguel de Noriega, a vecino of Mexico City living in Santa Fe (former secretary of Governor López de Mendizábal) referred to “Juan Luján, mestizo, vecino de la Cañada.” Again, it is unclear if the reference is to the elder or younger Luján.
The references to Juan Luján as mestizo support other references found by fray Angélico Chaves indicating that either the first Juan Luján, who came from the Canary Islands to New Mexico in 1600, or his son, married an Indian. The first Juan Luján settled in La Cañada by October 1601, according to his own testimony given at the Pueblo de San Gabriel on 5 October 1601.
Capitán Juan Luján, the younger, may very well be the same man known as Capitán Juan Luis Luján (ONMF: 62) who was married with Isabel López del Castillo. This couple had a daughter, Ana María Luján, who was born circa 1660, and a son, Pedro Luján, that was born circa 1669. In 1681, Capitán Juan Luis Luján provided information that gives his estimated year of birth as sometime between 1615-1621, and in 1689 he gave his age as seventy to eighty (1619-29). Additional research is needed to confirm if he is indeed the same person as Capitán Juan Luján, son of the elder Juan Luján
Researcher: José Antonio Esquibel
Sources: AGN, Real Audiencia, Concurso de Peñalosa, Tomo I, ff. 141 & 211, and Tomo III, Leg. 1, no. 1, f. 95 and Leg. 1. no. 2, f. 6; AGN, Inquisition, t. 593, ff. 46 & 96; Hammond and Rey, Vol. II, 733-34; Fray Angélico Chávez, “New Mexico Roots,” 1101 (DM 1689, Oct. 22 (no. 4). El Paso del Norte for Pedro Luján and Francisca de Salazar, and 1379, DM 1660, May 30 (no. 8), El Paso del Norte for Juan López Olguín and Ana María Luján.
With a little bit of time given to research and patient compilation of information from a variety of sources, a revised and updated family history and genealogy can be generated.
Here is some information on Juan Luján II and Juan Luján III that goes "Beyond Origins" that did not get transferred to the New Mexico History Web page along with other entries from the original "Beyond Origins of New Mexico Families" Web site.
Fray Angélico Chávez mentioned that Juan Luján II was referred to as El Viejo in relation to another Juan Luján (ONMF: 63). Chávez suggested the two were father and son, but did not have documentation to confirm this relationship. In May 1663, while providing testimony to authorities of the Office of the Inquisition, Diego Romero mentioned “dos hermanos” named Capitán Juan Luján and Juan de Archuleta. Juan de Archuleta was married with María Luján (ONMF: 6), daughter of Juan Luján II. As such, the brotherly relationship referred to by Romero was that of brothers-in-law, confirming that Capitán Juan Luján was a son of Juan Luján II.
The elder Luján, Juan Luján II, also held the rank of Capitán and in 1661 gave his age as sixty, indicating he was born circa 1601. In February 1659, he was described as a vecino of the jurisdiction of La Cañada. The younger Juan Luján was alcalde mayor of the jurisdiction of La Cañada in 1661 and provided testimony on 29 October of that year as part of the investigation of the Inquisition regarding Governor don Bernardo López de Mendizábal. The younger Luján declared he was forty-two years of age, indicating he was born circa 1619.
On 15 May 1661, testifying at the Pueblo de Senecú in the case against Governor don Bernardo López de Mendizábal, fray Antonio de Tavares, age thirty-two, mentioned the name of Capitán Juan Luján, but it is unclear whether he was referring to the elder or the younger Luján. In his testimony, Tavares described Capitán Juan Luján as “mestizo amulatado” and identified him as alcalde mayor of the Picurís area. During his tenure as governor of New Mexico (1659-1661), don Bernardo López de Mendizábal appointed Capitán Juan Luján as alcalde mayor del los Teguas, which referred to the jurisdiction of La Cañada. It is unclear whether the elder or younger Luján was appointed to the position.
In the same case, Miguel de Noriega, a vecino of Mexico City living in Santa Fe (former secretary of Governor López de Mendizábal) referred to “Juan Luján, mestizo, vecino de la Cañada.” Again, it is unclear if the reference is to the elder or younger Luján.
The references to Juan Luján as mestizo support other references found by fray Angélico Chaves indicating that either the first Juan Luján, who came from the Canary Islands to New Mexico in 1600, or his son, married an Indian. The first Juan Luján settled in La Cañada by October 1601, according to his own testimony given at the Pueblo de San Gabriel on 5 October 1601.
Capitán Juan Luján, the younger, may very well be the same man known as Capitán Juan Luis Luján (ONMF: 62) who was married with Isabel López del Castillo. This couple had a daughter, Ana María Luján, who was born circa 1660, and a son, Pedro Luján, that was born circa 1669. In 1681, Capitán Juan Luis Luján provided information that gives his estimated year of birth as sometime between 1615-1621, and in 1689 he gave his age as seventy to eighty (1619-29). Additional research is needed to confirm if he is indeed the same person as Capitán Juan Luján, son of the elder Juan Luján
Researcher: José Antonio Esquibel
Sources: AGN, Real Audiencia, Concurso de Peñalosa, Tomo I, ff. 141 & 211, and Tomo III, Leg. 1, no. 1, f. 95 and Leg. 1. no. 2, f. 6; AGN, Inquisition, t. 593, ff. 46 & 96; Hammond and Rey, Vol. II, 733-34; Fray Angélico Chávez, “New Mexico Roots,” 1101 (DM 1689, Oct. 22 (no. 4). El Paso del Norte for Pedro Luján and Francisca de Salazar, and 1379, DM 1660, May 30 (no. 8), El Paso del Norte for Juan López Olguín and Ana María Luján.
March 27, 2012
Mestizaje: Indian Roots In 17th-Century New Mexico Family Genealogy
A recent post on the Facebook page of the New Mexico Genealogical Society mentioned that the results from the New Mexico DNA Project shows that of 710 maternal DNA samples of men with roots in New Mexico (mainly Hispanic men) 77.89% (546 individuals) have Native American DNA.
The genealogical research of the past sixty years has uncovered the diverse geographic and ethnic origins of Nuevomejicano families of the Spanish government era (1598-1821). The increased interest of people in researching their own family lineages has served to document a rich tapestry of geographic, ethnic, and cultural origins.
Often overlooked is the fact that many of the early families of New Mexico were part Indian and these Indian roots were diverse. Families such as the Montoya, Griego, and Anaya Almazán had roots among the Aztecs of the Valley of Mexico. The Luján, López de Gracia, Márquez, Martín Serrano, and Naranjo families were uniquely Nuevomejicano in their blending of Spanish and Pueblo Indian households and extended families.
The progenitors of the Montoya family of New Mexico offer one of the earliest examples with specific details about the particular origin of their Indian roots. Bartolomé de Montoya (born 1572) emigrated from Spain, being a native of Cantillana in the province of Andalucía. His wife, María de Zamora, was a Mexican Indian native of the Barrio de San Sebastián in Mexico City, located near the acequia of the city. The Barrio de San Sebastián was one of four indigenous barrios of Mexico City in the sixteenth century, being formed from the older Aztec barrio of Atzacualco (Tzaqualco) of Tenochtitlán.
María de Zamora moved with her parents to Oaxaca when she was seven years of age and then her family relocated to the Pueblo of Tezcuco, an indigenous community that quickly developed into a multi-ethnic community, where she married Montoya. This couple resided in the Barrio de San Lorenzo in the Pueblo de Tezcuco before coming to New Mexico as settlers in 1600.
In all likelihood, each of the Montoya-Zamora children was born in the Pueblo de Tezcuco. Their daughter, Petronila de Zamora, married Pedro Lucero de Godoy, a man of Spanish background and an encomendero in New Mexico. Diego de Montoya, the son of Bartolomé de Montoya and María de Zamora, attained the privilege of encomendero of the Pueblo of San Pedro in New Mexico. Encomenderos received tribute from the Pueblo Indians in return for armed military protection. Today, most of the people carrying the Montoya and Lucero surnames are descended of Diego and his sister Petronila, respectively.
Another family of blended Spanish and Mexican Indian ancestry is the Griego. Juan Griego traveled from Greece to New Spain where he most likely married Pascuala Bernal. This couple came to New Mexico in 1598 where their children, identified as mestizos, were born. As an adult, their son Juan Griego spoke the Náhuatl language of the Aztec Indians from the Valley of Mexico. He served as an interpreter of the Tewa language and attained the privilege of being an encomendero in New Mexico. His wife, Juana de la Cruz, also mestiza, was a daughter of the Spaniard Juan de la Cruz and his Mexican Indian wife, Beatriz de los Ángeles.
The Griego family, like the Montoya family, attained the highest social and political positions within New Mexico’s seventeenth century society. This was also the case with the Anaya Almazán family. Francisco de Anaya Almazán, a native of Mexico City born to Spanish parents, settled in New Mexico where he married the daughter of early settlers of New Mexico, Francisco López and María de Villafuerte.
María de Villafuerte, born in the latter half of the 1500s, was a highly acculturated Mexican Indian woman from the Pueblo de Cuatitlán, then located just north of Mexico City. Cuatitlán, also spelled Cuautitlán, is popularly known as the birthplace of San Juan Diego, the humble Mexican Indian man to whom the Santísima Virgen de Guadalupe appeared in 1531. It is not surprising to learn that her grandson, Cristóbal de Anaya Almazán owned a painting of Virgen de Guadalupe, indicating a personal devotion to La Guadalupana on his part. Cristóbal was also an encomendero in New Mexico.
Soon after the arrival of don Juan de Oñate and his group of colonists, there were several unions between his soldiers and the Pueblo Indians. Among the earliest was that of the Martín Serrano family. Hernán Martín Serrano, a Spaniard from Zacatecas, bore two sons. The mother of his son and namesakes, Hernán Martín Serrano, the younger, was a Tano Indian woman named doña Inés. She appears to have been the same Tano woman named Inés who was taken from New Mexico when the Castaño de Sosa expedition left New Mexico in 1591. She returned to New Mexico in the company of don Juan de Oñate with the expectation of serving in a role similar to that of the famous ‘la Malinche’ who accompanied Hernán Cortés.
In 1626 doña Ines was described as “an acculturated Tano Indian woman whom they treat as a Spanish woman." She resided in Santa Fe where her son, Hernán the younger, maintained his residence until the 1680 revolt of the Pueblo Indians. He attained military distinction in New Mexico and was also given the highest social privilege of being an encomendero. His brother, Luis Martín Serrano, was described as being a mestizo, but it is not certain if his mother was also doña Inés.
The records from the journals of don Diego de Vargas reveal the familial interrelationship between various groups of Pueblo Indians and Spanish settlers. There was a segment of New Mexico’s seventeenth-century society that crossed community boundaries. Tewa relatives of Juan Ruiz de Cáceres, an interpreter of Tano and Tewa languages, lived at San Juan Pueblo. In 1692 he took into his care two Pueblo Indian cousins, Tomé and Antonia, after almost thirteen years of being separated.
The soldier Miguel Luján, brother-in-law of Juan Ruiz de Cáceres, had comadres and relatives among the Tewa and Tano Indians who occupied Santa Fe after the revolt. One of Luján’s niece’s was the wife of the Pueblo leader don Luis Tupatú, known also as El Picurí in reference to his home community. Luján took into his care the sister of this niece.
In 1692, Francisco Márquez, a soldier, was reunited with his aunt, Lucía, who was part Tewa from Nambé Pueblo, and her grown daughter. Lucía’s husband, Pedro Márquez, settled in Casas Grandes after the Pueblo Indian revolt and never returned to New Mexico. Lucía assisted Governor Vargas during the period of restoration of New Mexico to the Spanish crown.
Underlying the restoration of New Mexico to the Spanish crown during the period of 1692-1696 was desire of family members to be reunited and to restore the broken bonds caused by the revolt of 1680. These bonds crossed cultural and linguistic borders and formed an important part of the unique heritage of Nuevomejicano society.
The genealogical research of the past sixty years has uncovered the diverse geographic and ethnic origins of Nuevomejicano families of the Spanish government era (1598-1821). The increased interest of people in researching their own family lineages has served to document a rich tapestry of geographic, ethnic, and cultural origins.
Often overlooked is the fact that many of the early families of New Mexico were part Indian and these Indian roots were diverse. Families such as the Montoya, Griego, and Anaya Almazán had roots among the Aztecs of the Valley of Mexico. The Luján, López de Gracia, Márquez, Martín Serrano, and Naranjo families were uniquely Nuevomejicano in their blending of Spanish and Pueblo Indian households and extended families.
The progenitors of the Montoya family of New Mexico offer one of the earliest examples with specific details about the particular origin of their Indian roots. Bartolomé de Montoya (born 1572) emigrated from Spain, being a native of Cantillana in the province of Andalucía. His wife, María de Zamora, was a Mexican Indian native of the Barrio de San Sebastián in Mexico City, located near the acequia of the city. The Barrio de San Sebastián was one of four indigenous barrios of Mexico City in the sixteenth century, being formed from the older Aztec barrio of Atzacualco (Tzaqualco) of Tenochtitlán.
María de Zamora moved with her parents to Oaxaca when she was seven years of age and then her family relocated to the Pueblo of Tezcuco, an indigenous community that quickly developed into a multi-ethnic community, where she married Montoya. This couple resided in the Barrio de San Lorenzo in the Pueblo de Tezcuco before coming to New Mexico as settlers in 1600.
In all likelihood, each of the Montoya-Zamora children was born in the Pueblo de Tezcuco. Their daughter, Petronila de Zamora, married Pedro Lucero de Godoy, a man of Spanish background and an encomendero in New Mexico. Diego de Montoya, the son of Bartolomé de Montoya and María de Zamora, attained the privilege of encomendero of the Pueblo of San Pedro in New Mexico. Encomenderos received tribute from the Pueblo Indians in return for armed military protection. Today, most of the people carrying the Montoya and Lucero surnames are descended of Diego and his sister Petronila, respectively.
Another family of blended Spanish and Mexican Indian ancestry is the Griego. Juan Griego traveled from Greece to New Spain where he most likely married Pascuala Bernal. This couple came to New Mexico in 1598 where their children, identified as mestizos, were born. As an adult, their son Juan Griego spoke the Náhuatl language of the Aztec Indians from the Valley of Mexico. He served as an interpreter of the Tewa language and attained the privilege of being an encomendero in New Mexico. His wife, Juana de la Cruz, also mestiza, was a daughter of the Spaniard Juan de la Cruz and his Mexican Indian wife, Beatriz de los Ángeles.
The Griego family, like the Montoya family, attained the highest social and political positions within New Mexico’s seventeenth century society. This was also the case with the Anaya Almazán family. Francisco de Anaya Almazán, a native of Mexico City born to Spanish parents, settled in New Mexico where he married the daughter of early settlers of New Mexico, Francisco López and María de Villafuerte.
María de Villafuerte, born in the latter half of the 1500s, was a highly acculturated Mexican Indian woman from the Pueblo de Cuatitlán, then located just north of Mexico City. Cuatitlán, also spelled Cuautitlán, is popularly known as the birthplace of San Juan Diego, the humble Mexican Indian man to whom the Santísima Virgen de Guadalupe appeared in 1531. It is not surprising to learn that her grandson, Cristóbal de Anaya Almazán owned a painting of Virgen de Guadalupe, indicating a personal devotion to La Guadalupana on his part. Cristóbal was also an encomendero in New Mexico.
Soon after the arrival of don Juan de Oñate and his group of colonists, there were several unions between his soldiers and the Pueblo Indians. Among the earliest was that of the Martín Serrano family. Hernán Martín Serrano, a Spaniard from Zacatecas, bore two sons. The mother of his son and namesakes, Hernán Martín Serrano, the younger, was a Tano Indian woman named doña Inés. She appears to have been the same Tano woman named Inés who was taken from New Mexico when the Castaño de Sosa expedition left New Mexico in 1591. She returned to New Mexico in the company of don Juan de Oñate with the expectation of serving in a role similar to that of the famous ‘la Malinche’ who accompanied Hernán Cortés.
In 1626 doña Ines was described as “an acculturated Tano Indian woman whom they treat as a Spanish woman." She resided in Santa Fe where her son, Hernán the younger, maintained his residence until the 1680 revolt of the Pueblo Indians. He attained military distinction in New Mexico and was also given the highest social privilege of being an encomendero. His brother, Luis Martín Serrano, was described as being a mestizo, but it is not certain if his mother was also doña Inés.
The records from the journals of don Diego de Vargas reveal the familial interrelationship between various groups of Pueblo Indians and Spanish settlers. There was a segment of New Mexico’s seventeenth-century society that crossed community boundaries. Tewa relatives of Juan Ruiz de Cáceres, an interpreter of Tano and Tewa languages, lived at San Juan Pueblo. In 1692 he took into his care two Pueblo Indian cousins, Tomé and Antonia, after almost thirteen years of being separated.
The soldier Miguel Luján, brother-in-law of Juan Ruiz de Cáceres, had comadres and relatives among the Tewa and Tano Indians who occupied Santa Fe after the revolt. One of Luján’s niece’s was the wife of the Pueblo leader don Luis Tupatú, known also as El Picurí in reference to his home community. Luján took into his care the sister of this niece.
In 1692, Francisco Márquez, a soldier, was reunited with his aunt, Lucía, who was part Tewa from Nambé Pueblo, and her grown daughter. Lucía’s husband, Pedro Márquez, settled in Casas Grandes after the Pueblo Indian revolt and never returned to New Mexico. Lucía assisted Governor Vargas during the period of restoration of New Mexico to the Spanish crown.
Underlying the restoration of New Mexico to the Spanish crown during the period of 1692-1696 was desire of family members to be reunited and to restore the broken bonds caused by the revolt of 1680. These bonds crossed cultural and linguistic borders and formed an important part of the unique heritage of Nuevomejicano society.
