CHAPTER ONE

The Romero Family of Correl de Almaguar, Toledo, Castilla, Spain

Beginnings

The Romero family of  Nuevo México , which at one point was one of the most powerful families in colonized  Nuevo México  was from a pastoral region of central Spain near the vicinity of the ancient city Toledo.

The city’s history’s reaches back to the Roman Empire. However, after the empire collapse in 479 A.D , the Germanic Visigoths swept into the Iberian peninsula and ruled the city for nearly 200 years from 500 A.D. to 700 A.D.  In 711 the Muslim Moors from Northern Africa conquered the Iberian peninsula and captured Toledo in 713. Muslim caliphates ruled the city for another 300 years.

During this period, there is evidence that Toledo retained its importance as a literary and ecclesiastical center for both Christians and Jews, as well as Muslims.  Jews in Spain were said to have been part of the Diaspora when Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple in 70 A.D. and expelled Jews from Palestine in 130 A.D.  Jews who migrated west to Iberia (Spain and Portugal), North Africa and the Middle East became known as Sephardic Jews, as it was the Hebrew term for Spain.  The Romero families were descendants of these Sephardic Jews and thus their ancient linage was from Palestine.

After the fall of the Muslim Umayyad caliphate in the early 11th century, Toledo became an independent kingdom with a population of about 28,000 including a Jewish population estimated at 4,000. Toledo experienced a period known as “La Convivencia”, of almost four centuries, when Medieval Toledo was ruled by the Moors, and the believers in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam lived together in peace and harmony. The Christian community of Toledo even had its own Catholic bishop.

                Because of its central location in the Iberian Peninsula, Toledo took a central position in the struggles between the Islamic and Christian rulers.  When Christian Castile conquered Toledo, the city served as the capital of Castile intermittently as Castile did not have a permanent capital and the city flourished..

Toledo

When Catholic Queen Isabella of Castle's marriage to Férdinand II of Aragon in 1469, that union created the basis of the de facto unification of Spain. The couple are known for being the first monarchs to be referred to as the "Queen of Spain" and "King of Spain", respectively. Their actions included completion of the “Reconquista” of driving the Moors from Granada, an edict to have Jews convert to Catholicism or be banished, and financing Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage to the New World which eventually established the Spanish empire in the Americas, making Spain a major power in Europe and the world. The wealth from these discoveries by Spanish Conquistadors  ultimately ushering in the Spanish Golden Age and provided a new home for many of the Romeros.

Juan ROMERO de CAVALLO & Braca SANCHEZ

A Spaniard named Juan Romero de Cavallo 1490–1550 was a native of the village of Corral de Almaguer, in the Kingdom of Castilla sixty miles east of Toledo. Today Corral de Almaguer is a Spanish municipality of Toledo in the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha.

Corral de Almaguer

Juan Romero is the earliest known ancestor of the many Romero families of  Nuevo México . His  surname Romero is an ancient Spanish surname meaning "one who has visited Rome". The suffix “de Cavallo” would imply that he was either from a knightly family or closely associated with Cavaliers and horses. The origins the old family name de Cavallo can be found within medieval Spain.  . 

While the patronymic and metronymic surnames, which are derived from the name of the father and mother respectively, are the most common form of a hereditary surname in Spain, occupational surnames also emerged during the late Middle Ages. The surname Cavallo was an occupational name for a knight or a knight's servant similar to Cavalier.

Juan Romero was born during the reign of King Férdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile. The names of his parents are unknown however they probably were converted Jews known as “conversos”.  Those families that became Catholics  were known as “conversos” or “New Christians.” If they continued to practice elements of Judaism they were known as “crypto-Jews”.

In 1492, Catholic Spain issued the “Alhambra Decree” which ordered the mass expulsion of Jews from Spain of those who did not convert. Additionally, at this time an office of Spanish Inquisition was established to root out heretics, and unconverted Muslims and Jews. The Inquisition even kept a record of New Christian families to determine those who were may have been  lapsed Catholics or  “Crypto-Jews” who still kept the “Law of Moses.”

Expulsion of Jews from Spain

Baptismal records from Corral de Almaguer note that other Romeros from the town either served as godparents of “New Christians”, or were, themselves, descendants of “conversos”. A Romero man from Quintanar de la Orden, located about fourteen miles from Corral de Almaguer, was convicted of practicing Judaism by the Inquisition of Cuenca in 1589.

When he was grown man, circa 1513, Juan Romero married a woman named Braca Sanchez however nothing is known of her. Sanchez is a patronymic surname meaning "son of Sancto," derived from the popular medieval given name Sancho, meaning "sanctified," and from the Latin sanctus.  As that “New Christian” Jews generally married among themselves  it is likely Braca Sanchez’s family were Conversos. 

                During Juan Romero’s life time, Hernando Cortez established the Viceroy of  Nuevo España and established Mexico City on the ruins of the capital of the Aztec Empire. Additionally Francisco Pizarro had established Lima, the capital of Peru after conquering the Inca Empire. The wealth of these two Empire made Spain a super power.

Juan Romero de Cavello died in 1550 about 60 years old during the reign of King Félipe [Phillip] II probably in the village of Corral de Almaguer.

Bartolome ROMERO y SANCHEZ & Juana Maria de GOMEZ y HIDALGO

When Bartolome Romero y Sanchez was born on 24 March 1514, in Corral de Almaguer, his father, Juan, was 24 and his mother, Braca, was 29. Bartolome Romero was christened a Catholic on 3 April 1514 at the church of Santa Catalina, in the village of El Bonillo, some 60 miles south east of Corral de Almaguer. This may have been the village of his mother.

Records show that Bartolome Romero was only 14 when his son Bartolome Romero y Gomez was Christened, which today seems very young. Among some cultures, adolescents were allowed to marry at the age of sexual maturity for both the male and the female.

The mother of his son was Juana Maria de Gomez y Hidalgo, with whom he had other children. She was at least 5 years older than him, born in 1509, the daughter of  Pedro Gomez and Maria Hildago.  Perhaps he married for the dowery that a wife would bring. Gomez is one of the Sephardic names of those Jews who converted to Catholicism. There is no record why he was married at a young age however in Jewish tradition a boy became a man at 13.

Conversion of Jews

Bartolome Romero and Juana Gomez had at least two known children, a son Bartolome Romero and another son known as Simon Romero de Los Angeles. The village of Los Ángeles de San Rafael is 85 miles north of Toledo.

While Bartolome Romero was born during the reign of King Felipe I of Castile, he  lived most of his liFé during the reign of King Carlos the First [Charles I]  who became King Charles V of the Hapsburg Empire. He rule much of Europe from Austria to the Netherlands and Spain from 1516 until 1558. During King Carlos reign, it was a time of great Spanish exploration with Magellan circumnavigating the world and Cortez’ conquest of the Mexica Empire in 1519 and Pizarro of Peru in 1524.

King Carlos was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, and held his court in Toledo, which served as the imperial capital. However, in 1561, his son King Felipe the Second [Philip II] moved the Spanish court to Madrid and the city of “Holy Toledo” declined in importance. Bartolome Romero died in 1563 at the age of 49  at Corral de Almaguer.

                 Bartolome ROMERO y GOMEZ & Maria de ADEVA y GOMEZ

Bartolome Romero was christened on 6 April 1528, in Corral de Almaguer, Castilla, Spain. He was 24 years old when he married Maria de Adeva in 1552. María de Adeva, born in 1532, was the daughter of Alonso Maria de Adeva and Teresa Gomez of El Bonillo, Castile, Spain.  So there must have been a connection between the conversos of the two towns.

Maria de Adeva’s mother Teresa Gomez, born in 1502, was certainly  a relative of  Bartlome Romero’s mother Juana Gomez possibly even sisters. If so, Bartolome and Maria were cousins. Maria’s father Alonso de Adeva, furthermore, was possibly a relative of the “Ben Adevas” family, which was a prominent Jewish family of Seville which later converted to Catholicism. Ben is the Hebrew word for son.  

Bartolome Romero came to age when King Carlos I passed the “Limpieza de sangre”  law that excluded those not of pure “Old Christian” and non-Jewish blood, from public office. His son King Felipe II also  began to put back into place the restrictive laws of generations before against all New Christians whether of Moorish or Jewish ancestry.

Limpieza de Sangre and Caste System

King Felipe II greatly expanded the Spanish Inquisition and made church orthodoxy a goal of public policy. Part of the excesses of Catholicism were from the rise of Protestants during the Reformation period from 1517 until 1648.  In 1559, three years after Félipe came to power, students in Spain were forbidden to travel abroad, the leaders of the Inquisition were placed in charge of censorship, and books could no longer be imported.

Bartolome Romero and Maria de Adeva had at least three children born at Corral de Almaguer. They were Juan Romero, born 12 November 1559, Catalina Romero born in 1561, and Bartolome Jose Romero born in 1563.

Maria de Adeva passed away on April 6, 1563 in childbirth in Corral de Almaguer, Castilla, Spain, at the age of 33. The couple  had been married 11 years. Bartolome Romero died in 1567 himself at Corral de Almaguer, leaving his young children orphans.  They certainly would have certainly been raised and cared for by family members.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Ancestry of Michael Ray Romero

of Rawlins, Wyoming

Preface

                Michael Romero is a descendant of Catholic and Mormon pioneers who founded large families and whose descendants are scattered mainly among the western states of  Nuevo México , Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah.  The  surname ROMERO is an ancient Spanish surname meaning "one who has visited Rome" and does not mean that all people of that surname are blood related however most who can trace their ancestry back to colonial  Nuevo México  as a province of  Nuevo España are most likely related.  Nuevo México, translated into English as New Mexico, was a part of Nuevo España or New Spain from 1598 until 1824 and a territory of Mexico from 1824 until 1846.

                Michael Romero's Spaniard ancestors were pioneers and colonizers of the American South West and were generally people of prosperous origins. They migrated from Spain in the Sixth Century to the Viceroy of  Nuevo España primarily and were part of the Spanish colonization of the northern province of  Nuevo México.   Nuevo México  was the northern outpost of the Vice-Royalty of  the Empire of  Nuevo España and the Romeros thrived in valleys of northern  Nuevo México  and southern Colorado which constituted the Spanish Frontier from the 1600's to the late 1800's.

                The Spanish frontiersmen and women who settled the Espanola Valley of  Nuevo México  were with Féw exceptions mostly soldier-colonists, in search of lands to till and lands on which to graze their stock.  They were artisans and craftsmen who made the articles that the settlers needed and fashioned the symbols of the faith of a deeply religious people.  Additionally they sought the security of people far from the Catholic Inquisition which were persecuting Catholics with Jewish ancestry. The heritage of Nuevo México is not from a Spanish aristocracy or gold seeking Conquistadors but rather from the 800 soldier-colonists who came with Don Juan de  Oñate to northern Nuevo México in the late 16th Century.  And also, of those families from El Paso and Zacatecas who made up the vanguard of the Reconquest of  Nuevo México  in 1693.

                Fray Angelico Chavez, a scholar priest and genealogist of  Nuevo México  who wrote the invaluable resource Origins of Families of  Nuevo México ,  stated that; "some of the Conquistadors appear to have noble antecedents in the dim past, but all were now ordinary military and pastoral people, good folks in the main, who were neither peons nor convicts."

The names and places of origin of the first settlers from 1598  were: Archuleta  from Eibar, Basque province of Guipazcoa, Barela, Varela/Varlea/Jamarillo from Compostela, Galicia, Spain, Bernal from Brito Canary Islands, Cadimo  from Salaícez de los Gallegos, Galicia, Spain, Carvajal from  Victoria, Ayotepe, Nueva España, Cruz from Barcelona, Catalonia, Durán de la Cruz  from Valle de Toluca, Nueva España, Griego  from the Greek Island of Crete, Hinojos  from Cartaya, Andalucía, Spain, Jiménez from Andalucía, Spain, López de Ocanto from México City, Nueva España, Luján  from Isle of La Palma, Canary Islands, Márquez  from  San Lucar de Barrameda, Andalucía, Spain, Martín Serrano/Martínez   from  Zacatecas, Nueva Galicia, Morán from Mora del Toro, Spain, Pedrasa from Cartaya, Andalucía, Spain, Pérez de Bustillo from México City, Nueva España, Robledo from Maqueda, Castilla, La Mancha, Spain, Romero from Corral de Almaguer, Castilla,  Spain, Ruiz Cáceres from Isle of La Palma, Canary Islands, Sánchez de Monroy from México City, Nueva España, Sosa from Albornoz Xuchíl, Nueva Galicia, and Valencia.

                Colonial  Nuevo México  never had a large population due to its isolation  from Spain and the population centers of  Mexico as well. Fifty years after the "reconquest" of1693 only 536 Spanish families were enumerated in all of  northern  Nuevo México  and a census taken by the Vice-Royalty of  Mexico revealed that in 1750, only 3,779 Spanish Settlers were numbered in the  Nuevo México  colony with the majority, 1,205 Spaniards, living in either the Santa Cruz dela Canada area or Alburquerque. By 1800 the total Spanish speaking population of  Nuevo México , Spaniards and Mixed bloods (Mestizos and Coyotes) numbered some 20,000. Native Americans not living within Spanish households were generally not counted.

As Spain’s power disintegrated in Europe, she lost her New World Empire  in the 19^th Century as Mexico declared independence in 1821.  Mexico claimed all the Spanish holdings in the entire southwest.  Mexican rule however only lasted 25 years, until the 1846 war with the United States.  

“Manifest Destiny” inspired the United States to expand across the North American Continent however even after winning the conflict with Mexico, disputes over  Nuevo México 's southern border continued until the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.  In 1861 the northern section of  Nuevo México  which included the San Luis Valley was given to Colorado Territory along with the Spanish-speaking settlers.

                During the Civil War, parts of the  Nuevo México  Territory was dominated by Texans, and joined the ConFéderacy.  Union troops from Fort Union in Mora County,  Nuevo México  and from Fort Garland in Costilla County, Colorado kept  Nuevo México  in the United States however. 

The native Indians capitalized on the power vacuum created by the Civil War and made raids against the English and Spanish speaking settlers. The United States Army retaliated, and by the 1880's, with treaties signed and Indians confined to reservations, hostilities on the Western frontier ended.

                The Frontier itself ended with the arrival of the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad in 1879. The Territory doubled its size in a decade and by 1882 a second railroad, the Southern Pacific was finished which linked Santa Fé with both the eastern and western seaboards.  The rails carried homesteaders, miners, and their equipment westward. Back east went ore, lumber, and livestock.  The Railroad would be the impetus for some of the Romero family to leave  Nuevo México  to work in railroad towns in Colorado and Wyoming.

                Michael Romero’s patrilineal line and be traced with certainty to Salvador Romero born circa 1661 19 years before the Spanish were driven out of Nuevo México.  by the Pueblo tribes in 1680. During the 13 years before the Spanish returned many church records were destroyed where baptismal, marriage, and death records would have been records. Salvador Romero’s father according to the Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of New Mexico, was Capitán Diego Romero and mother was Sebastiana Martin The HGRC does not have any further information regarding Capitán Diego parentage.  However some researchers maintain that Captain Diego Romero was actually Diego Romero the grandson of  Captain Bartolome Romero a member of the Juan de Onate Expedition that colonized New Mexico