SALVADOR ROMERO & the PUEBLO REVOLT, EXILE, &
RECONQUEST 1680-1715
Preface
Salvador Romero was a native of the La Cañada region of Nuevo México, having been born before the Reconquest about 1660. A prenuptial investigation stated he was son of Captain Diego Romero and Sebastiana “Martin”. His father is speculated to have been the infamous Captain Diego Perez Romero and his mother was certainly Sebastiana de Mondragon but that is pure conjecture due to preponderous of circumstantial familial evidence. If he indeed was the son of Captain Diego Perez Romero, Salvador was a great grandson of Captain Bartolome Romero who was a native of Corral de Almaquer, Spain, near Toledo.
According to Fray Angélico Chávez , author of Origins of New Mexico families, Salvador Romero was a soldier at Casas Grandes during the Pueblo Indian Revolt but returned to Rio Arriba Nuevo México in 1693 with his wife Maria Lopez de Ocanto and children. Maria Lopez de Ocanto was the daughter of Domingo Lopez de Ocanto and Juana de Mondragon.
Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez de Ocanto had several children born during the exile at Guadalupe del Paso as well as others back in the northern Rio Arriba region of Nuevo México.
Salvador Romero,
Natural Son of Captain Diego Romero
It was asked by a historian “Why, if Spaniards fleeing Santa Fé in August 1680 could save the much-venerated statue of la Conquistadora, but could not seemingly save the baptismal, marriage, and burial registers from Santa Fé or any of the Franciscan missions? Why does not a single encomienda title or land grant survive from pre-1680 Nuevo México ? Would legal minded Spaniards who meant to return not have carried such precious documents on their persons?”
Some speculate that the surviving local records may have been collected during the colony's exit to the Guadalupe del Paso district south of the Rio Grande, then lost.
However a more plausible explanation is that the Spaniards were taken by surprise, missions destroyed along with their records, and Santa Fé being under siege, survival was the only concern, not records.
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| La Conquistadora |
We only know the parents of Salvador Romero from a 1683 pre-nuptial document, while as a refuge, he stated that his parents were Captain Diego Romero and Sebastiana “Martin”, both deceased. The document was for permission to marry Maria Lopez de Ocanto who claimed that she did not know her parents.
This information is baffling however as that Salvador’s mother was very much alive and married to Domingo Martin Barba. Maria’s father had just died the previous year in 1682 when she was 14. The real reason for the deception was the fact that Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez de Ocanto were first cousins.
Catholic authorities forbade close relationships without a “dispensation” which was a costly affair.
Salvador’s father Captain Diego Romero was dead, having died in a Vera Cruz prison in 1678. His mother, Sebastiana de Mondragon, not Martin, was very much alive, as she was a 43 year old woman and did not die until 1728 after returning to the Rio Arriba district of Nuevo México.
Additionally Salvador’s wife, Maria Lopez de Ocanto’s parents Juan de Ocanto and Juana de Mondragon were well known as they were prominent people. Salvador Romero’s second cousins were all the grandchildren of Matias Romero, Bartolome Romero, and Governor Francisco Gomez.
Salvador Romero was born in 1660 during the governorship of Bernardo López de Mendizébal of whom his father was a close ally. However the downfall of Governor de Mendizébal by agents of the Franciscans also ruined Captain Diego Romero who was arrested along with the governor.
His parents evidently had a concubinage relationship which may have lasted longer if not for his arrest in 1662.
Salvador Romero’s had only one full sibling, Ynez Romero born in 1662, however, evidently when his mother married Domingo Martin Barba in 1669 he had five half siblings, names unknown.
Both Salvador and Ynez were the “natural” children of Captain Diego Romero, meaning their parents were not married. Their father could not have wedded their mother, Sebastiana de Mondragon, as he was already married to another woman, doña Catalina de Zamora, who was connected to the powerful Lucero de Godoy family. Captain Diego and doña Catalina de Zamora had no children of their own.
The two children of Captain Diego Romero by Sebastiana de Mondragon were infants when their father was arrested in 1662. The children would not have had any contact with him and probably barely knew him if at all. In 1663 he had been banished from Nuevo México, although his legal wife Catalina de Zamora was still alive and was probably supported by her brother Juan Lucero de Godoy.
All of Captain Diego’s property and estates had been forfeited. Even then, as natural offsprings, Salvador and Ynez Romero, would not have been heirs to any estate their father may have had.
The childhoods of Salvador and his sister were probably difficult due to the lack of a father but not necessarily deprived. They were raised in both Santa Fé and some in “la Cañada ” most likely reared in the household of their grandfather Juan de Mondragon. However they would have been better off than most others.
La Cañada was a region north of Santa Fé which is today in the Santa Cruz River Valley between the towns of Chimayó and Española. The Santa Cruz River valley was a home for most of the Romero Spanish rancheros and other estancieros well before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
Salvador and Ynez’s mother Sebastiana de Mondragon married Domingo Martin Barba in 1669. He would have been their stepfather. Domingo Martin Barba and Sebastiana had five children all born between 1670 and 1680 and it is not known if Salvador and Ynez went to live with them.
Salvador was trained as a soldier cadet as an adolescent as were most young boys. While his father may have been disgraced, his connections with the Bartolome Romero clan and his grandfather being an encomendero would have given his certain privileges.
His sister Ynez married Blas Griego the son of Juan Griego when she was 14 or 15. The Griego clan were enemies of Governor de Mendizábal and collaborated with the Franciscans in having him arrested and sent to Ciudad de México for trial .
The Mondragon Family
Much of the origins of the Mondragon family of Santa Fé Nuevo México is based on conjecture from the few mentions of them in Chave’s Origins of Nuevo México Families. It is known that Sebastiana de Mondragon and Juana de Mondragon were daughters of Alférez Juan de Mondragon and his wife Juana Sanchez de Monroy. Capitán Juan de Mondragón “vecino of Santa Fé ”, provided testimony on 28 May 1675, in the case of bigamy trial brought by the Inquisition against Captain Diego Romero who was also known as Diego Pérez de Salazar.
This shows that Juan de Mondragon knew Captain Diego he was the son of Gaspar Pérez and María Romero and strengthens the assumption that he was the father of two of Mondragon's grandchildren. Juan Alonso Mondragon was the progenitor of all the Mondragon descendants in new Mexico.
In the testimony given, Capitán Mondragon declared he was “español, age sixty-six (born circa 1609), and a widower of María Escalona. He was literate as he signed his statement with “shaky handwriting”. Fray Angélico Chávez recorded that Capitán Juan de Mondragón was married to Juana Sanchez de Monroy, so this Maria Escalona must have been a second wife but who her family was, is unknown. The name Escalona may have been a mistranscription of Escallada which’s origins is not known, unless it is a corruption of “Escarramad.”
A Juan de la Escallada was a soldier escorting the Wagon-trains in 1652 and 1658. He was married to Ynez Lucero de Godoy who escaped the 1680 massacre with two grown daughters and four small children. As that most families records were destroyed prior to the Pueblo Indian revolt of 1680 it is difficult to ascertain a reconstruction of this family. A Maria Escallada married Sebastian de Herrera in 1683 after his family had been killed in Taos in 1680.
Ynez Lucero de Godoy’s name is given as “González” in 1682 when identified as the mother of María de la Escallada, twenty-five years old, widow of Andrés de Peralta, and her sister, Juana, widow of Manuel de Peralta.
Alférez Juan de Mondragon held the encomienda of the Piro pueblo people of Senecú, located in the southernmost occupied pueblo prior to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Senecú was not a very rich pueblo but the people living there were obliged to pay tribute to Juan de Mondragon who would have had a home in Santa Fé as was required of all encomenderos. Since he held the encomienda of Senecú in 1660, he was most likely relatively wealthy compared to others, until he lost everything in the Pueblo Indian Rebellion.
Senecú was originally located on the northwest side of the Rio Grande, in the Rio Abajo district with its mission church located approximately two miles west-northwest of the Ysleta, in what is today part of the Spanish mission of San Antonio de Padua. It was abandoned after the revolt.
Juan Alonso Mondragon was born between 1603-1609 to unknown parents possibly in Ciudad de México. The surname may have been taken from the village of Mondragon, in the Basque region on the northeast coast of Spain bordering France. As a young man, he was mentioned as a soldier escort for a wagon supply train from Ciudad de México in 1629 and probably was a native of the city. He was already a captain when he went with caravan escorts in 1639, 1643, and 1653. In 1642, as a captain, Mondragon acted as a witness in the trial of the conspirators against Governor Rosas.
Alférez Juan de Mondragon was an important figure in Santa Fé . He must have been married by 1637 when he served as a Regent in Santa Fé in 1637 and a High Sheriff there in 1662 and 1664. He may have had an estancia in La Cañada as that is where two of his daughters married their husbands.
The area of La Cañada included most of modern Rio Arriba County between Espanola and Chimayo along the Santa Cruz River.
He was said to be “more than eighty years old when the Pueblo Indians rose up to drive out the Spanish”, which would have made him born earlier than 1600.
When a muster of the refugees was taken in Guadalupe del Paso “he was very poor” with twenty-four members in his refugee family. He died two years later in 1682 in Guadalupe del Paso.
Alférez Juan de Mondragon and Juana de los Reyes Sanchez de Monroy had at least four children. A daughter Juana de Mondragón was born circa 1638 and died perhaps by 1680. She was the wife of Domingo de Ocanto. Another daughter, Sebastiána de Mondragón was born circa 1640 died 1728. She was wife of Domingo Martin Barba but also the mother of Captain Diego Romero’s children.
Sebastian Mondragón de Sánchez "Monroy"
A son Sebastian Mondragón de Sánchez "Monroy" was born circa 1642 and died 1703. He married Maria Bernal. Sebastian Mondragon was also known as Sebastian Sanchez de Monroy and Sebastian Sanchez de Mondragon. He married Maria Bernal. He returned to northern Nuevo México with the Vargas Reconquest and was a widower in 1693 and remarried on December 27 1693. As the wedding feast was going on, the Tanos Indians within the walls of Santa Fé were about to rebel and start Vargas’ famous battle for Santa Fé . His bride was a widow when she died in 1727 and was simply referred to as “Maria de Mondragon,” widow of Sebastian “Monroy.”
Juan Alonso Mondragon was the son of Sebastian Mondragon de Monroy and Maria Bernal. He was married to Sebastiana Trujillo, in 1703 at Santa Cruz, and stated both his parents were deceased. Juan Alonso Mondragon was living in the Pojoaque area in 1715. He was twenty eight years old [1687] . However in 1719 he said that he was forty-four, [1675] a native of Nuevo México , and a resident of Santa Cruz. His known children were Juana Mondragon born 1711, Catalina Mondragon circa 1719, Francisco Xavier Mondragon born 1721 and Salvador Mondragon, mentioned with his mother, February 2, 1742. “ Very likely another daughter was a Maria de Mondragon, wife of Miguel Carrillo.”
Melchora de los Reyes Mondragón and Juan Fernandez de la Fuente
Another daughter of Captain Juan de Mondragon and Juana Sanchez was Melchora de los Reyes Mondragón who was born circa 1644 and possibly married to Juan Fernandez de la Fuente by 1670. Captain Juan Fernandez de la Fuente was stationed at Casas Grandes in 1681-84, in the company of New Mexicans from Guadalupe del Paso. Salvador Romero was stationed in Casas Grandes at the time of the revolt.
Melchora’s descendants are possibly 24 year old son Alonso Fernandez, in 1695, who asked to marry “Catalina Martin de Salazar”, the daughter of Alférez Pedro Martín Serrano y Salazar and Juana Apolonia de Arguello. Catalina Martin de Salazar’s sister Francisca Martin de Salazar married Pedro Lujan the son of Juan Luis [Ruiz] Luján and Isabel López del Castillo. Juan Luis Lujan was one of the witnesses to Melchora’s niece, the daughter of Sebastiana Mondragon, Ynez Romero’s marriage in 1692. Melchora de los Reyes Mondragon’s heir one known grandchild would have been Isabel Lujan who married Juan Lucero de Godoy. Melchora de los Reyes Mondragon was living in Santa Fé after the Reconquest and claiming, along with her sister Sebastiana, land owned by their father before the “uprising of the Indians”.
Maria de Mondragon was possibly another daughter who died before 1680.
Juana de los Reyes Sanchez de Monroy wife of Juan Alonso de Mondragon
Juana de los Reyes Sanchez de Monroy origins and family life is an enigma with the most likely scenario was that she was first married to Álvaro García Holgado and later to Juan Alonso Mondragon. She is listed in the Oñate annals as coming to Nuevo México as a 9 year old girl with her father Pedro Sanchez de Monroy.
Some genealogist referred to Juana de Los Reyes Sanchez de Monroy as “mulata” meaning her ancestry was both African and European. Others referred to her as mestizo, a word used “to designate a person of mixed-race descent of European, African, or indigenous.
She was born circa 1591 in Nueva España to Pedro Sánchez de Monroy and Isabel “Los Reyes”, probably in Ciudad de México or possibly in Zacatecas where her father owned a mine. In 1598, her father joined the Oñate expedition to colonize “Provincia de Nuevo México”. The records state that Pedro brought his wife and children but does not name them. They were among the "loyal settlers" who did not return to Nueva España in 1601.
Juana’s father Pedro Sánchez de Monroy was born circa 1548 in Ciudad de México, the capital of Nueva España and died circa 1630 in Nuevo México, Nueva España. As a member of the 1598 Oñate Expedition his age was given as 50. When he passed muster with Oñate's troops in 1597 and then again in 1598, he listed as Pedro Sanchez, son of “Herman Martinez de Monroy”. This may been a mistranslation as he was also said to be the son of Hernan Sánchez de Monroy and an unknown Aztec Woman. His father Hernan de Monroy would have been born in Spain.
Monroy “is a Spanish surname of toponymic origin, derived from the place name Monroy in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain. It is believed to have originated from the Latin word "murus" meaning "wall" or "fortress", indicating that the original bearers of the surname may have been associated with a fortified structure.” He was an early immigrant to Nueva España perhaps a soldier with the earliest conquistadors.
“After a decade of conquest, exploration, and administrative turmoil, Spain created the viceroyalty of Nueva España in 1530 in order to centralize its control over the territories of the Aztecs, Mayas, and other indigenous groups of Mesoamerica, while curbing the evolution of powerful local fiefdoms among the conquistador class.”
It is fairly certain that at this early age of conquest, that Hernan Sanchez de Monroy would have had an Indian woman as the mother of any of his children rather than a woman from Spain.
Pedro was born about 1548 to Hernan Martin de Monroy and an unknown mother in Ciudad de México. He would have been considered a Mestizo, or mixed race, however he was well off enough to own a mine in Zacatecas.
Pedro Sanchez de Monroy’s married his wife Isabel de los Reyes who was also thought to be of Aztec descent by whom he had several daughters. He became a member of the Juan de Oñate Expedition of 1598 when he was 50 years old. His wife was not named in the Oñate Expedition papers so she may not have moved to Nuevo México or perhaps had already died. Two of his daughters, Juana de los Reyes Sánchez and Juana Sanchéz de Monroy came to Nuevo México as children and were married there.
At age 53, Pedro Sanchez Monroy was also a member of the loyalist group who on 15 Oct 1601 at San Gabriel del Yunque, Nuevo México, who stayed when about 400 colonists deserted and returned to Nueva España . A year later on 1 Jan 1602, he was a member of the group who signed a letter to the King of Spain in support of the colony. He died circa 1630 about 80 years old
Álvaro García Holgado
Juana de los Reyes Sanchez de Monroy was married first to Álvaro García Holgado when she was about 14 and he was nearly 27. They had three known children, Diego Garcia Holgado born about 1605 in San Gabriel del Yunque, Nuevo México, Francisco García Holgado was born about 1610 at San Gabriel del Yunque, and Juan García Holgado was born in 1621.
It is likely that they had another son named Alvaro Garcia Holgado who held positions as an alderman and councilman and legal counselor of the cabildo of the Villa de Santa Fé in 1643 which indicated he was literate and very likely received at least a small level of education.
In his politics, García Holgado was a supporter of the governors as the primary governing authority in Nuevo México in opposition to the Franciscans who contended their authority superseded that of the governors.
Álvaro García Holgado was a “mulato” born circa 1578 who came to Nuevo México in 1600 as a soldier with the group of pobladores [settlers] recruited in Ciudad de México as reinforcements for the colony in Nuevo México. His place of origin is not known and the names of his parents are also unknown. He was not accounted for on the muster roll of August 1600 because he had been sent to Nuevo México ahead of the group of recruited pobladores in June 1600 with several other soldier to get cattle and other food provisions to the Oñate colony, which was in dire need.
In October 1601 he was one of the soldiers along with Pedro Sanchez de Monroy who expressed support of Juan Oñate in a letter written to royal officials in Ciudad de México denouncing those who had left the colony. In 1609 Álvaro García Holgado was one of the soldiers who accompanied incoming governor don Pedro de Peralta from Ciudad de México to Nuevo México.
In 1626, when the Franciscan leadership denounced Governor don Juan de Eulate to the Inquisition for his disrespect of the Franciscans and for undermining their authority in Nuevo México, they also denounce García Holgado, a supporter of the governor, for saying many times that married life was better than living a life of religious vows.
Inquisition officials in Ciudad de México gave no credence to the accusation and there was no action taken against either Eulate or García Holgado. In addition to also stating that married life was better than that of the clergy, he also told the Indians that the Franciscans were their enemies, especially for making them give up their “idols,” and that the Catholic king did not want the Indians to give those up.
Also denounced at that same time was a brother-in-law of Álvaro García Holgado named Juan Gómez de Luna, an interpreter and an encomenderos of the Pueblo de San Lázaro.
Captain Álvaro García Holgado was summoned to appear before Padre fray Alonso de Benavides, the Comisario of the Inquisition in Nuevo México , and he presented himself on the morning of June 1, 1626, in the Villa de Santa Fé .
He declared he was married and was a vecino of the villa and gave his age as 48, indicating an estimated year of birth as 1578. When asked if he knew the reason he was called forward, he stated that three years earlier Governor Eulate had left the villa with thirty soldier to castigate the Indians of Jemez Pueblo and that while on the journey, which was during the time of Lent close to Holy Week, Eulate and a few of his top commanders ate meat, which wasn’t necessary since they had beans, biscocho, and other provisions to eat.
One of those commanders was Captain Juan Gómez, whom García Holgado identified as his brother-in-law. None of the other men ate meat and García Holgado later reprehended his brother-in-law for having done so. García Holgado signed his statement, indicating he was literate.
In 1632, Álvaro García Holgado mentioned his son, Diego García, who was age 27, indicating he was born circa 1605. In that same year, Diego referred to a brother named Juan García, born circa 1612, who was identified as a soldier and a mulato and was also known as Juan García Holgado and resided in the jurisdiction of Isleta in 1638.
If Álvaro García Holgado was the alderman and councilman and legal counselor of the cabildo of the Villa de Santa Fé in 1643 and not a son of his, then the birth of the children of Juan Alonso Mondragon by Juana Sanchez de Monroy is problematic.
Some suggest that he actually died circa 1636 around the age of 58 leaving Juana a widow at the age of 45.
After the death of Álvaro García Holgado around 1635 or 1636, Juana de los Reyes Sanchez de Monroy married Captain Juan Alonso de Mondragón and had at least four children by him . Juan Alonso Mondragon, who was at least 10 years younger than Juana Sanchez de Monroy, married the widow of Álvaro García Holgado for her lands. She may have been as old as 53 years old when her last child was born. She died sometime between 1645 and 1650 and Captain Juan Alonso de Mondragón married Maria Escalona who would have been his children’s step mother.
The Family of Domingo Martin Barba husband of Sebastiana Mondragon
Domingo Martin Barba was the step father to the children of Captain Diego Romero. He was not related by blood to either Salvador Romero or Ynez Romero, however he was a witness to the prenuptional investigation of Salvador and Maria Ocanto. Domingo Martin Barba was an uncle to Maria Lopez de Ocanto as her mother was Domingo's sister in law.
Domingo Martin Barba was the son of "Alonso Martin Barba" but it is not clear whether his father was "old Alonso Martin Barba" or his son Alonso el Mozo, “the younger”. Old Alonso Martin Barba was married twice and it is likely that Domingo was a son of a second wife. Old Alonzo Martin Barba “of La Canada” first wife, Maria Martin, was allegedly poisoned by a Maria Bernal with whom Alonso was “having relations”
It was believed that the grandfather of Old Alonzo Martin Barba was Pedro Serrano de Martinez 1507-1571 of Albacete, Castille-La Mancha , Espana. He was married to Ana Maria de La Barba 1520-1599. They were the parents of Pedro Martin Barba 1550-1620 who left Spain for Nueva España. He was married to Catalina Vázquez E Acuña Astudillo de Fuentes O Andrada
Thier son Alonzo Martin Barba was born about 1579, in Sombrerete, Zacatecas, Nueva Galicia, Nueva España and called the son of Pedro Martin Barba. He married Maria Martin in 1596, in the Viceroyalty of Nueva España New Spain.
There is no primary documentation that María Martín, wife of Alonso Martín Barba, was a daughter of Hernán Martín Serrano el Mozo. However Fray Angélico Chávez wrote that María Martín “was very likely a daughter,” but he did not have any documentation to verify this relationship. Nevertheless, the Martin Barba families and the Martin Serrano families lived In close proximity of each other in La Canada and family groups usually settled near each other on the frontier.
So probably in the 1630’s, Captain Alfonso Martin Barba was the “padrino” of Diego Perez y Romero, son of Gaspar Perez ’s at his Catholic confirmation when Romero was between ages of 8 and 16 years old.
Old Alonso and his second wife Francisca de Herrera Abrego, were the wedding sponsors of his granddaughter Ynez de Zamora to a Sargento Juan Lopez. She was the daughter of Ana Martin Barba and Alférez Diego de Montoya. Alonzo stated in 1632 he was a fifty year-old and a captain living in Santa Fé.
Old Alonzo Martin Barba died 21 July 1643 at Santa Fé.
This second wife Francisca de Abrego must have been quite a bit younger than her husband as she escaped the Indian massacre of 1680 with eight children and grandchildren, “all very poor”. Angélico Chávez wrote “ She might well have been the Francisca de Herrera Abrigo who in 1634 was the twenty-year-old second wife of Alonso Martin Barba.
Children by Alonzo's first wife Maria Martin were probably a daughter married to Francisco de Salazar in 1613, Maria de los Angeles Martin Barba wife of Gaspar de Arratia and secondly Francisco de Ribera, Ana Martin Barba 1599-1648 wife of Diego de Montoya, Maria Martin Barba wife of Francisco de Montoya, Diego Martin Barba 1612–1643 married Isabel de Cabanillas. He was beheaded in 1643 as part of the conspirators who assassinated Governor Rosas.
Children by Francisca de Herrera Abrego were Alonso Martin Barba el Mozo 1635–1669 who may have never married and Capitan Domingo Martin Barba 1636–1691 who married Sebastiana Mondragon, Esteban Martin Barba 1640–1680 who was killed in 1680 during the Pueblo Revolt married Maria Lujan, and Lucia Martin Barba 1642 was wife of Juan de Gamboa.
Alonso Martin Barba el Mozo was mentioned in 1660 as a son of Alonso Martin Barba when he was an Alférez living in the pueblo Cochiti in La Cañada about 35 miles south west of Santa Fé and 8 miles north of Santo Domingo. Sometime later he was exiled from the Salinas country for concubinage with his “comadre”, close friend, Ynez. He was dead by 1669.”
Fray Angélico Chávez mentioned “The three Martin Barbas found listed in 1680-1681are the following: Domingo Martin Barba, forty-two or forty four years of age, escaped with his wife and five children. He was described as a native of Nuevo México , of good, slender stature, swarthy, with a thick, black beard, and some upper teeth missing, Estaban Martin Barba and Estaban’s son Juan.”
Sebastiana Mondragon and Domingo Martin Barba's descendants
Evidently Sebastiana Mondragon had five children by Domingo Martin Barba between 1669 and 1680 however only one, a daughter named Maria Martin Barba born circa 1669 is known and she married Juan Madrid y Ruiz Caceres. They were married 5 May 1691 at Real de San Lorenzo. Her brother in law then became Captain Roque Madrid.
“5 May 1691 Juan Madrid (49) de Nuevo Mexico, vecino de El Paso, viudo de Ana Lopez Olguin, HL Maese Campo Francisco Madrid y Sebastiana Ruiz (dftos) con Doña Maria Martin Barba (22) de Nuevo Mexico, vecino de San Lorenzo, HL Capt. Domingo Martin Barba (dfto) y Sebastiana Varela”
Juan Madrid father was Francisco de Madrid el Mozo who was despised by Governor Lopez Mendizabal for “his pretension.” His wife was a daughter of Juan Ruiz Caceres.‘ “His sons were Lorenzo, Roque, and, perhaps, Francisco III, Pedro, and Juan.
Juan Madrid escaped with a wife and six small children and was described in 1681 as a native of New Mexico, forty years old, of thickset, medium build, dark, with curly, gray beard and thick, black hair; also, a cataract over the left eye.” He had three successive wives: Micaela Martin died before 1673, Ana Holguin [Olguin] died 1687, and Maria de Mondragon died by 1690. Juan Madrid’s family stayed at Guadalupe del Paso.
Sebastiana Mondragon’s granddaughter, Manuela Madrid, became the wife of Antonio Valencia in 1710. Maria the daughter of Juan Madrid and Micaela Martin married Alonso Cisneros in 1690.” The identity of Micaela Martin has not been identified but would have been too young to have been a daughter of Old Alonzo Martin Barba.
The Diligencia Matrimonial recorded on 5 October 1690, at Real de San Lorenzo listed “ Alonso Sisneros (20), native of New Mexico living in San Lorenzo, son of Bartolomé Sisneros and Ana Gutiérrez, native of New Mexico, and María Madrid (19) of San Lorenzo, daughter of Juan Madrid and Micaela Martín, natives of New Mexico, both deceased.”
Interestingly however, it is that many of the same witnesses were also ones listed for the marriage of Ynez Romero and Juan de Dios Lucero de Godoy in 1693.
“Witnesses: Pedro Hidalgo, notary; Nicolás Venzor (30) of Sta. Ysabel living in La Cieneguilla, who knew the groom for six years; Nicolás López (20) of El Paso del Norte, who knew groom at Cieneguilla in the house of Nicolás Venzor; Miguel Miran (30) of El Paso, same testimony as López; Luis Maése (32), Agustín Luján (36), Alonso Maése (60), the three natives of New Mexico living in San Lorenzo. Pair married 8 Oct 1690, with witnesses Nicolás Venzor, Maese de Campo Luis Granillo, Sargento Mayor Ygnacio Baca.”
Governors Juan Durán de Miranda & Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza The 1660’s
In the 17th Century, the northern province of Nuevo México was much larger than the modern state of New México. The area encompassed the San Luis Valley to the north in Colorado, to the Concho River in the Mexican state of Chihuahua in the south. It also included much of western Texas just pass the Pecos River, and to the Santa Cruz River the eastern portion of Arizona.
Nuevo México was Nueva España’s most northern province just north of Nueva Vizcaya and could only reached from Ciudad de México by the 1600 mile El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro also known as the Silver Route.
The king’s highway crossed the Rio Grande at El Paso del Norte (The Northern Pass) well within Nuevo México. The Rio Grande north of El Paso del Norte was called Rio del Norte and as it flowed southeast it was called Rio Bravo.
“El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro brought wagon trains of good to trade as well as new settlers into Nuevo México.
The Spanish government kept strict control over travelers coming into and leaving Nuevo México. Very few family groups arrived in Nuevo México in this period.
Ever since about 1660, the Province of Nuevo México had been divided for purposes of administration and defense into two major districts known as the Río Arriba and the Río Abajo, literally the upriver and the downriver sectors of the Rio Grande Valley.
The governor at Santa Fé commanded upriver, and for the downriver he appointed a lieutenant governor. The division between the two district began at a place called “La Bajada”, where El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro from Santa Fé wound down into the valley just above the mission of pueblo of Santo Domingo. Here travelers passed from Río Arriba to Río Abajo.
The majority of the Spanish population lived in Santa Fé and outlying communities in La Cañada and Taos. The district of Rio Abajo had fewer Spaniards but was a larger area reaching down south of El Paso del Norte to the Concho River.
Pueblo Indians of Northern New Mexico
“The Pueblo people, an indigenous group residing in the southwestern United States, possess a rich and enduring history, culture, and traditions. They are known for their architectural prowess, evident in their iconic multi-story adobe structures, reflecting both their artistic skill and adaptability to the arid environment. Their intricate pottery, woven textiles, and ceremonial dances showcase a vibrant and complex cultural heritage.
The Pueblo people have a strong connection to their ancestral lands, passed down through generations, and their spiritual beliefs and practices are deeply intertwined with the natural world, emphasizing harmony and respect for the earth’s resources.”
The Tewa
The Tewa are a linguistic group of Pueblo Native Americans who speak the Tewa language and share the Pueblo culture. Their homelands are on or near the Rio Grande in New Mexico north of Santa Fe. They comprise the following communities of Nambé Pueblo, Pojoaque Pueblo, San Ildefonso Pueblo Ohkay Owingeh, Santa Clara Pueblo, and Tesuque Pueblo.
In 1598, Juan de Oñate established the Spanish capital of New Mexico at Yungue, a Tewa village located across the river from San Juan Pueblo. Later, the capital was moved to San Juan Pueblo, another Tewa Pueblo native to the region. From then on, Oñate and his other men subjected the Tewa and other native peoples to harsh conditions and rule. They forced the religion of Catholicism onto them, which was the predominant religion in Spain during these early years of colonization. In the early years of Spanish colonization, the Spanish established missions in all the pueblos.
The Keres
The name "Keres" refers to seven present-day Keresan-speaking Pueblo Indian tribes of New Mexico. Acoma and Laguna are commonly designated as Western Keresans as contrasted with the Eastern Keresan villages, or pueblos, of Santa Ana, Zia (Sia), San Felipe, Santo Domingo, and Cochiti. Each pueblo, together with its satellites, constitutes an independent tribe with its own political, Ceremonial, and social structures.
The Western Keresan villages, Acoma and Laguna, lie, respectively, some sixty and forty miles west of Albuquerque, in west-central New Mexico. Santa Ana and Zia are located on the Jemez River some miles above its confluence with the Rio Grande and twenty-seven and thirty miles north of Albuquerque. Cochiti, Santo Domingo, and San Felipe are on the Rio Grande and lie, Respectively, twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five miles southwest of Santa Fe.
The Tiwa
The Tiwa Indians, also known as Tigua, are a group of Tanoan Pueblo tribes which live in three geographic regions, including Taos and Picuris in northeast New Mexico, Sandia and Isleta near Albuquerque, New Mexico, and at Ysleta del Sur, near El Paso, Texas. Traditionally, they spoke one of three Tiwa languages.
They were first mentioned by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, in reference to a community that he referred to as both Tigua and Tiguex, when he encountered them during his expedition in 1540 into what is now New Mexico. Receiving a friendly reception, Coronado found them growing corn, beans, and various melons, as well as hunting local game, and making robes of skins, feathers, and
cotton. The ancestry of the de Ocanto family is thought to descend from the Tiwa people.
In 1629, it was estimated that the Tiwa were living in eight pueblos with about 6,000 inhabitants. Though many of the original Tiwa communities were situated in the midst of the inhospitable desert, it was bountiful with game and water. However, in addition to the Spanish encroachers, they were also were forced to contend with the fierce Apache Indians, who were constantly raiding them. This resulted in the later abandonment of three pueblos. By 1680, the Tiwa were living primarily at the pueblos of Puaray, Sandia, Alameda, Isleta, Taos, and Picuris.
The Pecos
The Pecos Indians
Long before Spaniards pueblo village of the Pecos was the juncture of trade between people of the Rio Grande Valley and hunting tribes of the buffalo plains. Its nearly 2,000 inhabitants traded with the Plains tribes, mostly nomadic Apaches, who brought slaves, buffalo hides, flint, and shells to trade for pottery, crops, textiles, and turquoise with the river Pueblos. The frontier people of Pecos had to be vigilant with nomadic Plains Indians, whose intent--trade or war--could be unpredictable
Pecos Indians were middlemen, traders and consumers of the goods and cultures of the very different people on either side of the mountains. They became economically powerful and practiced in the arts and customs of two worlds.
The Pecos Indians remained Puebloan in culture, despite cultural blending, practicing an ancient agricultural tradition borne north from Mexico by the seeds of sacred corn. Spaniards would soon learn that the Pecos could be powerful allies or determined enemies.
Governor Don Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza &
Juan Durán de Miranda
Don Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza was born 1623 in Ciudad de México and came to Nuevo México with his father in the mid-1630s. Tomé’s brother was Captain Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, and both were prominent figures in pre-Revolt Nuevo México, when Salvador and Ynez Romero were children and adolescents. Captain Diego Romero the father of Salvador Romero had served with don Juan Domínguez de Mendoza on several expeditions along with Domínguez de Mendoza’s sons in law Cristobal Anaya and Francisco Anaya .
In the first half of the 1660’s, Don Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza lived below Isleta Pueblo, which was 75 miles from Santa Fé and 10 miles south of today’s Albuquerque, in the Rio Abajo district of Nuevo México. Since about 1656 Don Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza held the office of alcalde mayor of the Isleta region and Lieutenant General of the Rio Abajo district. He was replaced in both offices by his brother Juan Dominguez de Mendoza in 1659 by Governor Bernardo López de Mendizábal.
The governor gave Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza an encomienda to the south of Isleta with all the Pueblo Indian population who resided there. Outside of Isleta, the Dominguez de Mendoza family settled to the west of El Cerro de Tomé next to Rio Grande.
The village of Tomé was built in the place where he resided.
In 1662 Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza was again appointed Lieutenant Governor, and when Governor Diego de Peñalosa fled Nuevo México, Domínguez de Mendoza became interim Governor in 1663 until in 1664 when Juan Durán de Miranda was appointed governor.
A faction, led by Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza, accused the governor of “grave charges" which caused him a brief imprisonment and the seizure of all his goods. Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza was then appointed “Acting Governor of Santa Fé de Nuevo México” once again.
However, Domínguez de Mendoza’s government only lasted until Durán de Miranda was exonerated and released from prison in Ciudad de México.
Governor Fernando Villanueva y Armendaris 1665-1668
Juan Durán de Miranda recovered his government in the province a year later but was soon replaced by Fernando Villanueva y Armendaris. Villanueva y Armendaris was appointed governor and “captain general” of Nuevo México , to replace Juan Durán de Miranda in 1665. At this time, some of the Pueblo Indians taking advantage of the absence of leadership, had planned a revolt in an alliance with the Apache, with the aim of killing the Governor Villanueva and some priests. The revolt was promoted by the Piro Indian Pueblos of Senecú, with the support of the natives of Socorro.
Upon learning of the revolt from the “Christianized Indians” who feared they would be killed or enslaved by the Apache, Governor Villanueva repressed the perpetrators and conspirators and hanged six Pueblo Indians that promoted the rebellion. Then after severely punishing all the people he considered linked to the revolt, “whether they were conspirators or accomplices, both in Senecú and Socorro”, Governor Villanueva then “forgave all other members of the revolt.
In 1666 Tomé Domínguez de Mendoza once again was named an interim governor of Nuevo México when Governor Villanueva returned to Nueva España for an eye-treatment. However, by February 1668, Governor Villanueva had returned. He learned of Apache raids on Spanish homes in the Salinas and Piro regions of Rio Abajo.
Governor Villanueva “begged” custos Talabán “to throw open the mission’s larders to provide provisions for the expedition “and to loan as many horses and mules as needed.” Custos Talabán balked at the request stating the Missions needed all that it had due to “the plague of locusts that laid waste the fields and also the scourge of crop failure." The custos said he needed the food stuff to feed the “conventos”, the missions, with food “to keep missionaries in the field”. Additionally he alleged that when “Santa Fé was starving, Santo Domingo had sent maize”, as had Padre Fray Diego Enríquez of Pecos Mission.” He said that Santo Domingos were starving and “out scavenging for food.”
Despite all this, to placate the governor, Custos Talabán, said “he would try to scrape together provisions for the campaign. However as for the horses, “so essential to their scattered ministry”, he said he would have to consult some of the other missionaries on whether to provide them. “After all, they had acquired these animals through their own diligence and with their alms.”
Basically Custos Talabán felt that the civil authorities should shoulder the expense of a campaign as that the king of Spain had “granted encomiendas to armed men who pledged in return to defend this land at their own expense.”
However other Friars at Santo Domingo unanimously wanted the custos to “solicit from the conventos whatever provisions they could spare as well as a loan of horses and mules,” since the uprising threatened the missions.
However a stipulation was demanded that a legal guarantee from the governor that stated that horses and mules lost or killed during the campaign would be replaced. “Without them, how could they get round to administer the sacraments?” Politely, Governor Villanueva thanked Custos Talabán for the offer of provisions, but he balked at the guarantee of replacing lost animals.
“Reconvening his council, the governor presented the friars' offer. They thought the offer was not enough and hardly appropriate.” The war council position was “This was not an adventure or an aggressive war, rather it was a general defense of the realm, of conventos and of friars as well as of everyone else, Christians all.” Without the full support of the Franciscans’ wealth the “retaliatory campaign was scrapped.”
Governor Juan de Medrano y Mesía 1668-1671
Governor Villanueva ended his government on November 29, 1668 and Don Juan de Medrano y Mesía assumed the “unhappy governorship in November 1668”. During the first seven months of his term, the Apache people killed, “by his tally, six Spanish soldiers and three hundred and seventy-three Christian Indians, stealing more than two thousand horses and mules and as many sheep.
In one assault on the Ácoma pueblo in June 1669, “they abducted two Ácomas alive, murdered twelve, and ran off eight hundred sheep, sixty cattle, and all the horses.”
Governor Medrano y Mesía sent out forty-One year old Captain Francisco Javier to punish the Apaches. Captain Javier was the son in law of Juan Griego and brother in law of Blas Griego, Ynez Romero’s future husband. He led a small company of soldiers who were nearly overwhelmed by the Apaches. Cristóbal Duran de Chávez, a brother in law of Tomé Dominguez de Mendoza “died in the fray.”
The Governor vowed to retaliate by launching from Jémez Pueblo a force of fifty soldiers and six hundred Christian Indians. But like the previous governor he would need the friars' help. He argued "If these voracious enemies are not punished” and their fields “not laid waste, they will surely devastate this kingdom. That is what those Apaches shout for all to hear and in Spanish!”
Again the governor implored Custos Talabán to send to Jémez whatever supplies the conventos could contribute. Again the Franciscan Custos declined to assist but little.
Custos Talabán alleged that “driven by their hunger, even the mission Indians had taken to robbing the conventos.” He claimed that the friars had been obliged to feed both the pueblos of Senecú and Socorro, and now Ácoma after the Apache attack. He said that if he had not sent aid to the Tewa conventos of Nambé, San Ildefonso, and San Juan, in Rio Arriba, “their ministers would have had to leave.” Further he argues that without the mission’s “dole of seed” to the Indians, he claimed "there would not now be an Indian alive."
In appeasement, Custos Talabán did volunteered two hundred sheep and two dozen cattle, as well as a Franciscan friar to serve as a chaplain in the campaign.
The immediate results of the campaign are not known. If the Spaniards and their Pueblo allies did destroy Apache and Navajo crops, they only succeeded in aggravating famine on the western front and the raids did not cease but increased.
Padre Fray Juan Bernal wrote in 1669 to Ciudad de México the conditions that existed in Nuevo México. “The first of these calamities is that the whole land is at war with the very numerous nation of the heathen Apache Indians, who kill all the Christian Indians they encounter. No road is safe. One travels them all at risk of life for the heathens are everywhere. They are a brave and bold people. They hurl themselves at danger like people who know not God, nor that there is a hell.”
“The second calamity is that for three years no crop has been harvested. Last year, 1668, a great many Indians perished of hunger, lying dead along the roads, in the ravines, and in their hovels. There were pueblos, like Las Humanas, where more than four hundred and fifty died of hunger. The same calamity still prevails, because there is no money, there is not a fanega of maize or wheat in all the kingdom."
The Difficult 1670’s
The children of Captain Diego Romero, Salvador and Ynez, relied on their grandfather Alonso Mondragon and later their stepfather Domingo Martin Barba as children and became adolescents during the 1670s’ hard times. This may have prompted the fatherless brother and sister to become a soldier and a young bride. Salvador Romero, no doubt, was a cadet in the military during his youth, perhaps as young as 12 years old. His sister Ynez Romero was married at a young age, probably around 14 years of age, or younger. She married Blas Griego, the son of Juan Griego and Juana dela Cruz of La Canada. Blas Griego’s brother, Nicolas Griego, was married to Antonia Martin Barba probably Domingo Martin Barba’s sister. By this time Salvador and Ynez’s mother Sebastiana de Mondragon was married to Domingo Martin Barba who would have been a brother in law to Nicolas Griego.
A drought swept through the province of Nuevo México in the 1670s causing a famine among the Pueblo Indians. Padre Fray Alonso de Benavides wrote in multiple letters to the King, describing the conditions, and noted "the Spanish inhabitants and Indians alike eat hides and straps off of carts". He added as a result the Spaniards, "have sustained themselves for two years on the cowhides they have in their houses to sit on. They roast them and eat them. And the greatest woe of all is that they can no longer find a bit of leather to eat, for their livestock is dying off.”
The lack of food supplies and increased raids by bands of Apache and Navajo forced the abandonment of six pueblo communities in 1672. The pueblos within Juan de Mondragon's ,encomienda at Senecú were raided several times by Apache warriors.
Governor Juan Durán de Miranda 1671-1675
Governor Don Juan de Medrano y Mesía was replaced in 1671 by Juan Durán de Miranda who was appointed for a second term as Governor. The clashes between church and state in the 1670’s most likely caused the Pueblo people to increasingly reject Spanish domination during the drought and famine it caused. In addition, the Mission Supply Service from Ciudad de México, founded by former Governor Manso, reduced the food supplement and other products that were to be distributed among the indigenous population, causing them to rebel against Governor Durán de Miranda’s government.
In July 1671, Governor Durán de Miranda elevated Juan Dominguez de Mendoza to Maese de campo [Field Marshall] to lead a military campaign against the Gila Apache and the "Siete Ríos Apaches", in the South of Nuevo México. Apache raids continued and on 23 January 1675, the Senecú pueblo and San Antonio de Padua mission were both destroyed. A Franciscan priest was killed during the raid. The destruction severely limited the tributes coming from Juan de Mondragon’s encomienda.
Governor Juan Francisco Treviño 1675-1679
The Franciscans blamed the drought and famine in Nuevo México on the Indians for their adherent to their old religion. The Indian shamans and medicine men blamed Christianity brought by the Spanish for the crop failures and starvation of their people.
When Salvador Romero was 15 years old, Governor Durán de Miranda was replaced by Juan Francisco Treviño, a religious fanatic. As governor, Treviño persecuted the Pueblo Indians for practicing their old religion, which was one of the main causes for the Pueblo Revolt five years later. His knowledge of the religious practices of the Pueblo people however was largely derived from Padre Fray Alonso de Posada's work, which detailed the aspects of shamanism among the Indians.
Upon receiving news that the Pueblos were again building kivas, Governor Treviño ordered Franciscan missionaries to investigate. Kivas were subterranean pit-houses used for religious and ceremonial purposes. Although they varied in shape and size, they were traditionally circular with a hole in the floor. The hole in the ground represented the connection to the underworld, which the Pueblo tribes believed was their place of origin. Kivas connected the world above to the spirits of the underworld, and the floor opening allowed the people to have a closer communion with the spirits below. The pueblos routinely prayed to the underworld through ceremonies and brought offerings to the spirits to receive good fortune. They feared that failing to perform these rituals would upset the spirits, which in turn would cause their crops to die and their overall world to become unbalanced.
When Governor Treviño's secretary, Captain Francisco Javier confirmed the use if Kivas, the governor ordered his troops to burn the kivas and idols of the Pueblo people. Captain Javier led soldiers to the various pueblos and "gathered up many idols, powders, and other things which he took from the houses of the sorcerers and from the countryside." Among the Indians, Javier soon became a hated man, along with Luis de Quintana and Diego Lopez Sambrano. They were notorious for their “cruelty to the Indians”
Unrest among the Pueblos came to a head in 1675 when Governor Treviño ordered the arrest of forty-seven Pueblo holy medicine men who were accused of practicing "sorcery” and witchcraft which allegedly caused the death of several missionaries. Four of these medicine men were sentenced to death by hanging, “three of those sentences were carried out, while the fourth prisoner committed suicide.” The remaining forty-three were publicly flogged, sentenced to prison until they could be sold into slavery.
When some of the Pueblo villages leaders heard of what had happened, they sent seventy warriors to Santa Fé demanding the release of detainees. The governor complied, probably in part because the colony was being seriously targeted by Apaches and Navajo war parties and he could not afford to risk a Pueblo revolt.”
Po’ pay or "Popé"
After his release, Po'pay retired to the remote Taos Pueblo and began planning a rebellion against the hated Spanish. He promised the Pueblo people that, “once the Spanish were killed or expelled, the ancient Pueblo gods would reward them with health and prosperity.” Destroy the Spanish and the old ways of life and independence would return.
The following year in 1676, Governor Treviño appointed Tomé Dominguez de Mendoza as Lieutenant Governor of Rio Abajo. In June of that year, he was ordered to form an troop to punish the Apache who were attacking Socorro and Senecú. His brother Captain Juan Dominguez de Mendoza was appointed as commander of these Soldiers.
Salvador Romero being 16 years old probably was among the troops as the two pueblos were part of his grandfather’s encomienda. Also as relations with the Indians were strained all able bodied men and youths were expected to serve as soldiers.
The Senecú Pueblo had been attacked by Apaches in 1672 and in 1675. After the Apaches were routed, the pueblo was resettled in 1677 by “reportedly over 100 Christian Piro Indian families. Within three years Senecú was once again abandoned when the Christian Piro followed the Spaniards out of Nuevo México. The people of this pueblo settled in the El Paso del Norte district in a village called Senecú del Sur. The old pueblo was not resettled after the Spanish re-conquest.
In 1677, Governor Treviño returned to Ciudad de México and don Tomé Domingues de Mendoza, who had joined the cabildo, [advisory group of the most important citizens], of Santa Fé , continued to “participate in political and military functions in the province until Antonio de Otermín arrived as the new Governor.
While Salvador Romero was campaigning, his younger sister Ynez Romero married.
Blas Griego Salvador Romero's Brother in Law
Ynez’ husband was Blas Griego born circa 1643, the son of don Juan Griego and Juana dela Cruz whose homestead was in la Cañada. Ynez probably resided with the Griego extended family where she had at least one daughter, Josefa Griego, born circa 1678. She probably had more children as records showed that she had “children” when she escaped the Revolt of 1680. However they may have died young but while in exile she had a son named Juan Griego born in 1686.
Custos Francisco de Ayeta and Governor, Antonio de Otermín
Padre Fray Francisco de Ayeta was born in 1643, and “was a tireless Spaniard” who had taken over the misappropriated Nuevo México mission supply caravans in 1674. Fifteen years before, the mission supply wagons had been surrendered to a lay contractor, ex-governor Juan Manso at the insistence of the Franciscans themselves. “Since then, the missionaries had done nothing but complain”.
Juan Manso, the enemy of Governor de Mendizébal, had provided only “one wagon for every three friars, instead of one for every two as before, and he had overloaded them with commercial cargo.” His greed and incompetence “delayed delivery, and when the caravans did finally reach Nuevo México, he ordered everything dumped at San Felipe, obliging the friars to haul their own supplies from there”, a distance of 40 miles to Santa Fé .
Padre Fray Ayeta agreed to carry a petition from the Nuevo México Franciscans to the viceroy of 
Nueva España in the summer of 1676. He was able to persuade “royal authorities” to terminate the “old royal contract in favor of a lump-sum annual payment of 330 pesos for each priest and 230 for every lay brother.” With the money, Padre Fray Ayeta bought “wagons, mules, and the usual supplies as well as 1000 horses and set out for the colony at the end of February 1677.
Nueva España in the summer of 1676. He was able to persuade “royal authorities” to terminate the “old royal contract in favor of a lump-sum annual payment of 330 pesos for each priest and 230 for every lay brother.” With the money, Padre Fray Ayeta bought “wagons, mules, and the usual supplies as well as 1000 horses and set out for the colony at the end of February 1677.
Francisco de Ayeta, now a Nuevo México Custos, left with a caravan conveying not only the regular triennial mission supplies, but also with another governor, don Antonio de Otermín along with fifty convict soldiers including a 15 year old Francisco Blanco de la Vega, their commander, and their sergeant as reinforcements for Nuevo México's frontiers, along with one hundred arquebuses [fire arms]; one hundred hilts for swords and daggers; fifty saddles with bridles and spurs; and one thousand horses.
The caravan reached Santa Fé in December 1677.
Unlike former Custos Talabán, “Ayeta now threw himself into the business of defense.” He stated the friars “must make every sacrifice.” The new custos, sent from Santo Domingo supplies to Galisteo to support ten of the soldiers and all the refugees from the deserted Salinas pueblos. He arranged for more supplies for Senecú, reestablished through "the vigilance, promptness, Christian application, and pious zeal" of Governor Otermín. Custos Ayeta had other mission provisions delivered for the remaining soldiers' mess in Santa Fé , along with twenty protective leather doublets, without which "they could not go out on campaign, except in great danger."
The new governor, Antonio de Otermín arrived in Santa Fé in December 1677 and was apprised immediately of the dire situation in the colony and the growing unrest of the Pueblo people due to the former governor's harsh suppression of their religion and the continuing raids by the Navajo and Apache which the Spaniards were unable to prevent. “If the Spaniards, friars and colonists alike, were consistent in anything, it was that the mission Indians should work, produce food stuffs, and pay tribute” however with the drought and lack of protection from raids, the Pueblo people became increasing persuaded by the converts of Po’pay" the Shaman..
The Franciscans and colonists were inconsistence with their treatment of the Indians. Franciscans smashed the objects of the “Pecos' worship”, ordered piles of kachina masks and prayer sticks put to the torch” while other friars “seemed to look the other way, so long as the children combed their hair and came to catechism”.
"Former Governor López de Mendizábal had “commanded the natives to revive their kachina dances and Encomendero Francisco Gómez Robledo said he saw no harm in the dances.” That attitude, however, had them before the Inquisition in Ciudad de México. Some Spaniards at Galisteo even undressed and joined in dancing with the Indians. Then came Fray Alonso de Posada and more bonfires and with Governor Treviño came the destruction of Kivas and the arrest and execution of Pueblo holy men."
Padre Fray Ayeta left Nuevo México almost immediately to return to Ciudad de México and by September 1678, “the indefatigable Ayeta” was back” urging for another fifty men, armed and outfitted as the previous ones, but "omitting the thousand horses that went in 1677 and applying the three thousand “pesos of their value to the maintenance of the men." He then headed north for a third time in 1679.
In 1679 there were only 150 Spanish males in Nuevo México who could bear arms. Salvador Romero and his brother in law Blas Griego would have been numbered among them. The Pueblo Indian population of Nuevo México was recorded to be about 17,000, with 6,000 men capable of bearing arms.
Captain Diego Romero’s Bigamy Trial
While Otermin was governor in Santa Fé, young Salvador Romero and his sister would have been aware of the bigamy trial scandal of their father who had been banished from Nuevo México. Ynez was a bride and probably a young mother at the time. Certainly, as young teens, Salvador and Ynez would have been aware that the Lucero de Godoy family brought the charges of bigamy after it was learned that their father had married a woman in México while still legally married to Catalina de Zamora. The children’s grandfather Alférez Juan de Mondragon was one of many called to testified against their father as well as Ynez’ father- in-law Juan Griego. Salvador and Ynez’s, however, may never have known that their father was condemned in Ciudad de México and sentenced to be a galley slave. Captain Diego Romero died in prison in Vera Cruz, Nueva España in 1678 before his sentence could begin. As that messages between Ciudad de México and Santa Fé took six months or more, whether the news ever reached Nuevo México is doubtful as people were still testifying in July 1679. Then in 1680 all communication with Santa Fé was halted.
AUGUST 1680 PUEBLO INDIAN REVOLT
The calamities of the 1670s had forced the “unruly Hispanic community to pull together” and according to Custos Francisco Ayeta, colonists and missionaries “joined in grateful thanksgiving” for "such a good governor" as Antonio de Otermín. While Governor Antonio de Otermín was praised by the Franciscans, however the colonists had “a less enthusiastic view of him”.
The Summer of Discontent
The Spanish population of Nuevo México in 1680 was only about 2,500 people “scattered thinly throughout the region”, which included mestizos, and their native servants and slaves. “Santa Fé was the only place that approximated being a town” with nearly 400 of people living in the Capital. “The rest being scattered along pueblo settlements and encomiendas along the Rio Grande.”
In the summer of 1680 Padre Fray Ayeta's mission supply caravan found the Rio Grande in flood and had to rest at Guadalupe del Paso “in the heat of mid-summer. Governor Otermín sent 67 year old Pedro Leyba as Maese de Campo with twenty-seven soldiers under his command to Guadalupe del Paso to escort the Ciudad de México wagon-train to Santa Fé. While seemingly a small amount of soldiers, the Spainards could have only muster between 150 and 170 men to defend the colony and that included adolescent cadets and old men.
Some were even scattered on expeditions as far away as 
in Nueva España. This was the case with Salvador Romero who was away from Santa Fé in a company of soldiers on a patrol to Casas Grandes 150 miles south of Guadalupe del Paso where Andres de Lopez Garcia was Alcalde Mayor. He was over 450 miles away from his relatives in Rio Arriba
in Nueva España. This was the case with Salvador Romero who was away from Santa Fé in a company of soldiers on a patrol to Casas Grandes 150 miles south of Guadalupe del Paso where Andres de Lopez Garcia was Alcalde Mayor. He was over 450 miles away from his relatives in Rio Arriba
At the capital, the Santa Fé cabildo [city council] alleged that Governor Otermín was "either unable or unwilling to govern, or both. They felt he relegated all authority to Maese de campo Francisco Javier, his secretary of government and war, "a man of bad faith, avaricious and sly."
The “cruel Javier” had driven the Indians of Nuevo México, in the words of the cabildo, "to the ultimate exasperation." At the Pecos pueblo, Javier had seized a camp of Apaches to whom he had given assurance of safe-conduct. Instead he “distributed some of these captives to his friends and shipped the rest off to Parral for sale.” At this time Parral was one of the largest cities in Nueva España. It was a mine-ranch complex, requiring large amounts of food and labor. Despite the fact Parral was not the most lucrative of the northern Mexican colonial mines, by 1640 Parral's population was 8,500, making the town the largest north of the tropic of cancer in the Americas. To the Pecos Tribe of Rio Abajo, who gained much of their livelihood from trade with Apaches, the “treacherous act of Francisco Javier” was grounds for rebellion.
Additionally, the northern Pueblos had banded together under the leadership of Po’pay for one big effort to drive out the Spaniards. Po’pay was determined to retake Nuevo México from the Spanish. He traveled to various villages, meeting with "Medicine Men and Chiefs", many of whom agreed to join him. It took time, but a plan was created that involved many different villages.
It was agreed that native people living in the pueblos would attack the Spanish on the same day and execute the hated Spanish missionaries, destroy the missions, and execute any Spaniard who refused to leave Nuevo México. For eighty years the Franciscan friars had oppressed the native Pueblo people in Nuevo México forbidding their religious practices and forcing them to convert to Christianity.
Additionally the Spaniard's system of land grants called encomiendas forced pueblo villages to pay taxes in the form of tribute to the elite encomienderos, who used the pueblo natives as servants, laborers, and in some cases as slaves.
Salvador Romero’s father had been an encimiendero before he was banish, but his grandfather Juan de Mondragon and his sister's father in law, Juan de Griego. were among the 25 encomienderos which were allowed to tax the Pueblo Indians, usually paid by enforced labor on their lands as well as tribute.
In the decade of the 1670’s suffering from a long and terrible drought, the Pueblo people could not pay the hefty taxes the Spanish imposed and were often starving themselves. As this encomienderos system was one of the abuses that led to the 1680 revolt, all the encomiendas were eventually withdrawn after the Revolt, and during the Reconquest the encomiendas system was abolished in Nuevo México.
However in 1680 it was too late and the Pueblo Indians had suffered enough. “Dire straits placed stress on the social relations and fostered the disaffection that eventually erupted with the August 1680 Pueblo Indian uprising that forced the Spanish vecinos to flee their homes and take refuge in "El Paso del Río del Norte.”
The Revolt of 1680
In July 1680, Christian Pecos Indians warned Maese de campo Francisco Gómez Robledo, the first cousin of Salvador Romero's father, of the impending rebellion well in advance, twenty days, by one account but the warning was ignore. By Thursday, August 8, Padre Fray Fernando de Velasco, Custos of the convento at the Pecos Pueblo “knew that something was afoot. "His Indians had told him that two Tewas from Tesuque Pueblo located about 7 miles north of Santa Fé , had come round to announce a general uprising of all the Pueblos in league with Apaches, now set for the night of August 13.” Padre Fay Velasco wrote immediately to Governor Otermín in Santa Fé and sent an Indian as a runner." The plotting Indians deliberately relayed the wrong date for the uprising to the Indian allies of the Spanish.
On Friday, August 9th, Governor Otermín had received the warning from Padre Fray Velasco, and another from the Custos Juan Bernal at Galisteo Pueblo, and a third from the alcalde mayor of Taos” of troubles brewing in the north. Additionally, two Pueblo leaders of the Galisteo Basin, allies of the Spanish, sent to Governor Otermín news of a planned rebellion of the Pueblo against the Spanish on August 13th.
The governor dispatched Francisco Gómez Robledo to pick up the two Tewa Indians from the Tesuque Pueblo who was said to have alerted the Pecos Indians. Otermin then alerted the other alcaldes mayores to be on high alert.
When Francisco Gómez Robledo, returned with the two native messengers from the Tesuque Pueblo, he stated "here are the two Indians, who freely confess that an uprising is certain." To which Governor Otermín is alleged to have replied, "Have them put in prison until Maese de campo Francisco Javier arrives." The members of the Santa Fé cabildo would later attributed much of the Pueblo uprising casualties , to the “excessive confidence Governor Otermín placed in Francisco Javier and his own inactions.
The two Tewa Indians soon confirmed a planned the attack on the pueblos and Franciscan missions on August 13th. They claimed that a “tall black man with large yellow eyes, a representative of the Pueblo deity Pohé-yemo, had commanded all the Pueblos to rebel.” The governor was convinced that the devil had appeared to the Indians. The governor ordered the arrest of the Tesuque natives, however when the news about the arrest of the messengers was spread among the Pueblo people, Po’pay decided to execute the plan of vengeance immediately.
Governor Otermín stated he sent runners to notify Tomes Dominguez de Mendoza, lieutenant general of Rio Abajo and to “all the other alcaldes mayores, “so that they could take every care and precaution against whatever might occur, and so that they could make every effort to guard and protect the religious ministers and the temples [churches]”. But he later stated that "my efforts were of little avail, " due to the "cunning and cleverness of the rebels" which "were such, and so great ” The Indians had prevented the governor's orders to the “lieutenant general” from passing through to the south. Of the “three orders which I sent to the said lieutenant general, not one reached his hands.”
“After eighty years of submissive resentment, the Pueblos had finally gone for the jugular.”
The Feast of San Lorenzo Massacres in Rio Arriba
At 7:00, the morning of 10 August 1680, the Pueblo Indians living in the pueblos of Taos, Santa Clara, Picuris, Santa Cruz, Tewa, and other villages attacked the Spanish settlements and missions without warning. The Puebloans stole the Spaniards' horses in outlying haciendas to prevent them from fleeing. Roads leading to Santa Fé were sealed off and a total of 380 to 400 people were slain including men, women, children in the pillaged Spanish settlements. At the hated Catholic missions, 21 of the 33 Franciscan missionaries were slaughtered.
Governor Otermín later wrote of the slaughter outside of the capital of Santa Fé , writing it was “so easy for the said rebels to carry out their evil designs, for it [the colony] is entirely composed of estancias, quite distant from one another.”
Governor Otermín also wrote. “I was about to go to mass, when there arrived Pedro Hidalgo, who had gone to the pueblo of Tesuque, accompanying Father Fray Juan Pio, who went there to say mass. He told me that the Indians of the said pueblo had killed the said Father Sanchez de Pio and that he himself had escaped miraculously. He told me also that the said Indians had retreated to the sierra [mountain] with all the cattle and horses belonging to the convent, and with their own.” This Pedro Hildago, who was 34 years old at the time, would later escape with his wife Ana Griego Montoya and a family of eight persons.
As frantic settlers fled south to the safety of Santa Fé, Governor Otermín sent out Captain Francisco Gomez Robledo with a squadron of soldiers to investigate the attacks reported by Pedro Hidalgo. He returned on the same day, reporting on the death of Padre Fray Juan Pio.
Governor Otermín wrote regarding the revolt, “Believing that the uprising of the Tanos and Pecos might endanger the person of the reverend father custodian, I wrote to him to set out at once for the villa [Santa Fé ], not feeling reassured even with the escort which the lieutenant Francisco Gomez [Robledo] took, at my orders.”
The governor feared that the “custos” at the pueblos of Los Taos and of Picuris might be in danger, as well as the alcalde mayor and the residents of that valley. Also the governor said that La Cañada and Taos “was the only place from which I could obtain any horses and cattle-for all these reasons I endeavored to send a relief of soldiers.”
Captain Francisco Gomez Robledo’s company, “learned that in La Canada, as in Los Taos and Pecuries, the Indians had risen in rebellion, joining the Apaches of the Achos nation". “Thereupon I sent an order to the alcalde mayor, Luis de Quintana, to come at once to the villa [Santa Fé ] with all the people whom he had assembled in his house, so that, joined with those of us who were in the casas reales, [the governor’s palace] we might endeavor to defend ourselves against the enemy’s invasions.
Luis de Quintana, the twenty-four or twenty-five years old Alcalde Mayor Los Canada had a wife and infant daughter. However he had become notorious among the Pueblos for “his cruelty to the Indians along with Francisco Javier and Diego Lopez so that Captain Diego Vargas had to promise the Indians in 1692 that he would not allow these three men to return to Nuevo México.
It was probably at this time August 10th or 11th that the Greigo, Martin Barba, Martin Serrano, and Ocanto families all fled the Espanola valley of La Canada in carts, horseback, and on foot with their servants who were also in danger, for the perceived safety of Santa Fé . Abandoning their estancias in La Cañada various members of the Mondragon-Griego extended families managed to escape the uprising. It is not known how many members of this clan however lost their lives in the attacks certainly some young men died who were soldiers. The Pueblo rebellion “had robbed and profaned the convents and had robbed all the haciendas of those murdered and also all the horses and cattle of that jurisdiction and La Canada.”
Blas Griego and Ynez Romero
Thirty six year old Blas Griego escaped the massacre with seventeen persons in his family which included his young wife Ynez Romero and his infant daughter Josefa Romero and certainly several others and servants. Blas Greigo’s siblings were Nicolas Griego, Maria de la Cruz Aleman, wife of Diego Lopez del Castillo,” Graciana Greigo wife of the hated Francisco Xavier,” and Juana, nick named “La Clériga” for her piety”. Blas' widowed aunt Catalina Bernal, with a family of nine persons, children and grandchildren, also fled to Santa Fé .
Nicolas Griego died prior to the revolt but his widow Antonia Martin Barba, by whom he had three daughters, Catalina Griego, Juana Griego, and Maria Griego all escaped possibly in the household of Blas Griego.
Probably other children of Nicolas Griego were Juan Griego, Bartolome Griego , and Agustin. Juan Griego, born in 1661 was not married when he passed muster in 1680 along with seven persons, his mother, brothers and/or sisters, “and another boy.” He was nineteen or twenty years old, a native of New México , possessing a good physique, large eyes, a pointed beardless chin, and long hair.“ Bartolomé Griego was a youth killed by the Santa Clara Indians.”
Agustin Griego, born in 1657, was single when he passed muster with his mother, brothers and/or sisters, and “was proficient, and very useful to the Governor, as an interpreter in the Tewa language.” In 1681 he was described as a bachelor twenty four years old, born in Nuevo México , tall and slender, swarthy, having a long, beardless face, a long nose, and black hair.“ He was still living in 1690,“ but it is not known if he actually returned with the Reconquest. His widow, Josefa Lujan, and their son, Miguel Angel, were living in the Rio Arriba area after the reconquest.
When the Indians rebelled in 1680, Blas Griego’s brother in law, Diego Lopez del Castillo was a 95 years old Sargento Mayor, and a native of the “Kingdoms of Castile. He was married and had two daughters with him. He was described as “a very old man” with a family of daughters.
Blas sister Graciana, born in 1627, was married to the hated Maese de campo Francisco Javier She died prior to 1680 when Francisco was Secretary of Government and War and Alcalde Ordinario, holding the rank of Maese de Campo. He escaped the Indian massacre with four daughters and two sons, declaring he had lost two mulatto slaves at Picuris.‘
Blas Griego’s mother in law, forty year old Sebastiana de Mondragon, married to Domingo Martín Barba fled with her five children all under the age of 10 born between 1669 and 1680, one being Maria Martin Barba de Madrid. While they were able to escape the massacre they lived in extreme poverty as did most of the refugees. The family all managed to escape with an Indian servant.
Sebastiana Mondragon’s brother in law, Alférez Esteban Martin Barba was killed at Santo Domingo “with the friars and two other soldiers." His widow Maria Lujan and her 20 year old son Juan Martin Barba, daughter Josefa Martin Barba and younger children fled to Santa Fé .
Sebastiana's brother in law Domingo Ocanto was a 42 year old Sargento Mayor, forty-two years old, when he fled with his wife Juana de Mondragon and their six children. At Guadalupe de Paso, he claimed to be too ill at the time for military service, but the following year he was in good health and took part in the Otermín Campaign.’ In 1682 he is mentioned as having died en route to Nuevo México .“
Sebastiana de Mondragon’s father, Juan de Mondragon was a widower and was more than eighty years old when the Pueblo Indians revolted. He fled, certainly with the help of his children and sons in law Domingo Martin Barba and Domingo de Ocanto and most likely Blas Griego. His son, 25 year old son Sebastian Sanchez de Mondragon also known as Sanchez de Monroy, was married with three children also survived by fleeing to Santa Fé . When Juan de Mondragon reached the safety of Norte de Paso in October 1680, he was “very old and extremely poor, passed muster on foot, naked, with twenty-four members of his family."
The Taos Valley Massacre
The Picuris Indians rose in revolt on August 10 as planned and attacked the Spaniards in Taos and Picuris Valleys. The hated Maese de Campo Francisco Javier, the brother in law of Blas Griego, had a hacienda at the Picuris Pueblo 17 miles south of near Taos. He was not there when the Picuris Indians killed his “mulatto” slave and her son along with Padre Fray Mathias Rendon, the “Custos of Picuris” at San Lorenso de Pecuris. Francisco Blanco de la Vega, 18 year old, who was among the soldier convicts sent to Santa Fé in 1677 was also slain.
At the Taos Pueblo and mission some seventy settlers and Indian servants were killed. Franciscans priests, Custos Francisco de Mora, Padre Fray Antonio de Mora, Padre Fray Juan de la Pedrosa, and Padre Fray Antonio de Pio were killed at the mission. As well was Marcos de Las Heras “the alcalde mayor”, “fourteen or fifteen soldiers, along with all the families of the inhabitants of that valley, “all of whom were together in the convent.” They may have been attending Mass when the church was attacked.
Marcos de Las Heras, the 25 year old Alcalde Mayor of Taos, came as a volunteer guard of the convicts sent up in 1677. He and his wife Bernardina Sanchez de la Cruz were killed in Taos. Two landowners, don Diego Lucero de Godoy and Domingo de Herrerawere away as was Domingo de Herrera when their families were massacred at Taos. They were among the 27 soldiers who were sent by Governor Otermín to Guadalupe del Paso with Maestre de Campo Pedro Leyva to escort Padre Fray Ayeta's mission supply wagon-train up to Santa Fé , when the Indians struck Taos. They lost their entire families in the massacre. Thirty year old Domingo de Herrera’s family consisting of his wife, Maria Ramos, his seven children, his mother-in-law, and two brothers-in-law.”
Diego Lucero de Godoy, the brother of Catalina de Zamora widow of captain Diego Romero, stated that thirty-two persons of “his household had been massacred". Diego Lucero’s step mother, Francisca Gomez Robledo, the second wife of his father Pedro Lucero de Godoy, was among the colonists who were massacred. She was first cousin to Captain Diego Romero and sister of Captain Francisco Gomez Robledo. Also included were Diego Lucero de Godoy's half brothers and sisters, and servants.”
Nambé Pueblo
At the pueblo mission of Nambé located between Taos and Tesuque, Padre Fray Tomas de Torres, along with his brother Sebastian de Torres, his wife and a child were slain the morning of August 10th. Nambé once belong to the family of Domingo Lopez de Ocanto as an Encomienda.
San Francisco de Pojoaque Pueblo
The Gomez Robledo clan resided in the Pojoaque area and possibly the Mondragon families as well. The Pojoaque Pueblo was 3 miles west of mbé and 17 miles north of Santa Fé . There the families of Captain Francisco de Jimenez and Pedro Romero were slain.
Captain Francisco Jiménez was referred to in 1663 as belonging to the Griego clan. He was either a son or a nephew of Felipa Jiménez wife of Diego Gonzalez Bernal, who was the son of Isabel Bernal, the daughter of Juan Griego and Pascuala Bernal. Francisco de Jimenez, his wife and entire household were killed. The house of Francisco Jiménez was still remembered at La Cañada after the Reconquest in 1692.
Pedro Romero’s wife, doña Petronila de Salas, and their ten sons and daughters, which “included three grown sons and some grown daughters, the rest of them young” were all slain. In the histories of those slain it is not known whether Pedro Romero was slain with his family and “there is no way of connecting him with the other Romeros of his day.” He was “named after one of the Twelve Apostles, as were most members of this family for several generations.” Whether he was a true Romero or had taken the name as had Captain Diego Romero is also unknown.
He certainly could have been of the clan of Bartolome Romero and Luisa Robledo as that his wife Petronila was a stepdaughter of Antonio de Salas who himself was the stepson of Pedro de Godoy, Captain Diego Romero’s father in law.
Petronila de Salas’s biological father was Diego de Vera who married in 1622 Maria de Abendafio, the daughter of Simon de Abendano and Maria Ortiz who was the daughter of Juan Lopez Holguin and Catalina de Villanueva. However, in 1625 Padre Fray Alonso Benavides, who had been a sheriff in the Canary Islands, came to Santa Fé and compelled de Vera to disclose his bigamous status. He had a wife already left behind in the Canary Islands. He was tried by the Inquisition but had an easy sentence of being sent back to the Canary Islands and banished from Nuevo México.
After the annulment, Maria Abendafio married Antonio de Salas and Diego de Vera’s two little girls then used the last name of de Salas. His daughter Maria Ortiz de Vera married Manuel Jorge, a crypto-Jew and had three daughters before marrying later Diego Montoya the son of Bartolome de Montoya and Petronila de Zamora. Petronila de Salas was married to Pedro Romero.
Petronila de Salas stepfather Antonio de Salas was accused in 1664 of having “relations with Petronila” and was said to be “jealous of her husband, Pedro Romero.” That Pedro Romero was so closely associated with the Lucero de Godoy family indicates that he must have been related to the family of Bartolome Romero but as that his entire family was killed, his line died out.
San Ildefonso Mission
San Ildefonso Pueblo Mission is located at the foot of Black Mesa, ten miles northwest of the Pojoaque Pueblo. The San Ildefonso Indians played a major role in the great Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Their chief, Francisco, was one of the major leaders of the rebellion that successfully drove the Spanish out of the region for a number of years. The two resident missionaries at San Ildefonso were killed and a number of Spanish pobladores, and the church was destroyed during the revolt.
Padre Fray Luis de Morales, Custos of San Ildefonso came to the Pecos Pueblo by August 1672. He did not stay at Pecos many years. In August 1680 “Fray Luis died a martyr at his post in San Ildefonso”
Santa Clara Pueblo
At the pueblo of Santa Clara, north of San Ildefonso, three members of a convoy of 11 soldiers had been killed with six others having escaped by flight. Led by forty-seven year old Captain Francisco de Anya, Alcalde Mayor of the Tanos pueblos in Rio Abajo, he was in command of the squad sent out by Governor Oterim.
Captain Francisco de Anaya was married first to Geronima Pérez de Bustillo and to secondly Francisca Dominguez de Mendoz, a sister of his brother’s wife. The Spanish troop was attacked by the Santa Clara Indians on August 10. Anaya and five soldiers escaped and subsequently took part in the defense of Santa Fé .”
One of the soldiers killed was Bartolomé Griego, a nephew of Blas Griego and Ynez Romero. He was a “youth killed by the Santa Clara Indians in August, 1680.” Another young soldier was twenty year old Felipe Lopez Garcia, reported killed at Santa Clara who came to Nuevo México in 1677 as a convict. The third was Marcos Ramos, also a convict soldier, killed by the Indians at Santa Clara Pueblo on August 10, 1680, also being one of the convicts brought to Nuevo México three years earlier.
Los Cerrillos Pueblo
Los Cerrillos about 25 miles south of Santa Fe was an important turquoise mining area. However in 1680, a landslide occurred in the hills, causing turquoise mines to collapse killing about 25 Pueblo miners. When the Spanish attempted to restart mining operations, the Native workers revolted.
At the same time as other Spaniards were being massacred in Rio Arriba and Rio Abajo, 38 year old sargento mayor, Bernabé Marquez was besieged by the Indians at Los Cerrillos but was able to request assistance from Santa Fé. He wrote “saying that he was surrounded and hard pressed by the Indians of the Keresan and Tanos nations.” His family consisted of his wife Maria de Chavez, sister of Don Fernando Diego y Chaves and “six half-grown children, seven servants, and a brother-in-law of military age.” They were rescued on the night of 12 August 1680 by a force sent by Governor Otermín from Santa Fé . Governor Otermín ordered all the “families of Los Cerrillos” to come to Santa Fé where he was arranging the “casas reales” to house fleeing families.
The Siege of Santa Fé 13 -19 August 1680
After Governor Otermín sent out troops to “alarm the countryside”, the Spanish who survived the attacks in the Rio Arriba fled to the safety of Santa Fé and further south in Rio Abajo fled to the pueblo Isleta where they were armed and prepared for additional attacks. Certainly by Tuesday August 13, all the Spanish settlements in Nuevo México had been destroyed and the families that survived in Rio Arriba had fled to Santa Fé which was now under siege.
Governor Otermín learning of so many “untimely deaths” feared that from not receiving any word from lieutenant general Tomes Domiguez de Mendoza in Rio Abajo that “he was in the same exigency and confusion, or that the Indians had killed most of those on the lower river.”
The governor admitted “To this was added a certain degree of negligence by reason of the report of the uprising not having been given entire credence” as is apparent from the ease with which they captured and killed both those who were escorting some of the religious, as well as some citizens in their houses, and, particularly, in the efforts that they made to prevent my orders to the lieutenant general passing through.
As news of widespread death and devastation in the outlying districts reached Santa Fé , Governor Otermín ordered the town’s residents to shelter in the “thick-walled” Governor’s palace and fortify the “casas reales” and the other government buildings on the north side of the plaza. Padre Fray Francisco Gómez de la Cadena, Custos of the Santa Fé convento, and his assistant, Padre Fray Francisco Farfán, “consumed the Blessed Sacrament, packed up the objects of divine worship, and joined the others.”
Two Indians sent to scout the Galisteo Basin, had reappeared out of breath with word that “all the Indians of the pueblos of the Pecos, San Cristóbal, San Lázaro, San Marcos, Galisteo, and La Ciénaga, who numbered more than five hundred, were one league from the capital "on the way to attack it and destroy the governor and all the Spaniards."
Governor Otermín wrote his account of the besiegement of Santa Fé , writing “On Tuesday, the 13th of the said month, at about nine o’clock in the morning, there came in sight of us in the suburb of Analco, in the cultivated field of the hermitage of San Miguel, and on the other side of the river from the villa, all the Indians of the Tanos and Pecos nations and the Keresan of San Marcos, armed and giving war whoops.”
“As I learned that one of the Indians who was leading them was from the villa [Santa Fé ] and had gone to join them shortly before, I sent some soldiers to summon him and tell him on my behalf that he could come to see me in entire safety, so that I might ascertain from him the purpose for which they were coming.”
"Upon receiving this message, he came to where I was, and, since he was known, as I say, I asked him how it was that he had gone crazy too, being an Indian who spoke our language, was so intelligent, and had lived all his life in the villa among the Spaniards, where I had placed such confidence in him and was now coming as a leader of the Indian rebels.”
The leader was a Spanish-speaking Tano Indian named Juan, whom Governor Otermín had sent out three days before with a letter for Alcalde mayor José Nieto at Galisteo which never recieved. The rebel Indians instead had elected Juan as their captain. Upon entering the capital, Juan “rode a horse and sported a priest's sash of red taffeta" evidently taken from a dead priest. "Armed like a Spaniard with arquebus, sword, dagger, and leather jacket, Juan agreed to parley with Governor Otermín in the plaza. He was not intimidated as he presented the governor with an ultimatum.”
Juan told the governor, "Give us Francisco Javier, who is the reason we have risen, and we will remain in peace as before." He added, “Many more Indians were on their way to attack Santa Fé .” They were bringing two banners with crosses, one white and the other red. If the Spaniards chose the white cross, they would be spared to leave Nuevo México . If they chose the red cross and war, they would surely die.”
Governor Otermín noted “Thus if we wished to choose the white it must be upon our agreeing to leave the country, and if we chose the red, we must perish, because the rebels were numerous and we were very few; there was no alternative, inasmuch as they had killed so many religious [priest] and Spaniards.”
The governor appealed to Juan’s Catholicism and he “spoke to him very persuasively, to the effect that he and the rest of his followers were Catholic Christians, asking how could they expected to live without the religious [priests]; and said that even though they had committed so many atrocities, still there was a remedy, for if they would return to obedience to his Majesty they would be pardoned; and that thus he should go back to this people and tell them in my name all that had been said to him, and persuade them to agree to it and to withdraw from where they were; and that he was to advise me of what they might reply.”
Juan after speaking to hid warriors, returned “after a short time, saying that his people asked that all classes of Indians who were in our power [slaves] be given up to them, both those in the service of the Spaniards and those of the Mexican nation of that suburb of Analco.” He also demanded also “that his wife and children be given up to him, and likewise that all the Apache men and women whom the Spaniards had captured in war be turned over to them, inasmuch as some Apache who were among them were asking for them.”
Juan told the governor, “If these things were not done, they would declare war immediately," and the warriors were "unwilling to leave the place where they were, because they were awaiting the Taos, Percuries, and Teguas nations, with whose aid they would destroy us.”
Governor Otermín felt it was a bluff that any Apache were with the Pueblo warriors “because they were at war with all of them” and he felt “that these parleys were intended solely to obtain his wife and children and to gain time for the arrival of the other rebellious nations to join them and besiege us.”
While these talks were progressing, the Pueblo Indians began pillaging the “hermitage and the houses of the Mexicans” outside the plaza of the capital. Upon realizing what was happening, the Governor told Juan, “to return to his people and say to them that unless they immediately desisted from sacking the houses and dispersed, I would send to drive them away from there.” “Juan laughed and spurred his horse back across the Río de Santa Fé to the Analco district where the rebels greeted him "with bugle, with solemn pealing of the bells of the San Miguel chapel, and with hurrahs, mocking the Spaniards."
The Pecos arrived soon after the parley with the governor and joined the Tanos and Keres warriors "armed and giving war whoops." The Indians did not “cease the pillage” as demanded by Otermin but advanced towards "the villa with shamelessness and mockery.”
“When the natives began pillaging the abandoned houses of the Indians who lived in the barrio of Analco and then set fire to the chapel of San Miguel, Governor Otermín dispatched a troop of soldiers to disperse them. But the rebels, taking cover in the gutted houses, put up such a fight that the governor was obliged to join the action himself.” The battle lasted most of the day.
The Puebloan Indians, “Finding themselves repulsed, they took shelter and fortified themselves in the said hermitage and houses of the Mexicans, from which they defended themselves a part of the day with the firearms that they had and with arrows.”
The Spanish then set fire to some of the “houses in which they were, thus having them surrounded and at the point of perishing” a band of Teguas from Tesuque appeared on the road and it was “necessary to go to prevent these latter from passing on to the villa because the casas reales were poorly defended.”
Pueblo Reinforcements
Just as the Spaniards put the Pecos and Tanos to rout, hundreds of “newly arrived Tewas, Taos, and Picurís,” threw themselves at Santa Fé from the other side. The Pueblo reinforcements shifted the battle and Spanish fell back to Santa Fé .
During this first skirmish, when “many of the rebels remained dead and wounded, our men retired to the casas reales with one soldier killed and the maese de campo, Francisco Gomez Robledo, and some fourteen or fifteen soldiers wounded.” Back at the governor’s palace the wounded were tended to and the Spanish intrenched and fortified “ourselves as best we could.” “When the sun set, the Pecos and Tanos, having suffered heavy casualties, withdrew, leaving the siege of Santa Fé to the Indians of the north. After all, the revolt was their idea.”
14 August 1680 Wednesday
Governor Otermín continued, “On the morning of the following day, Wednesday, August 14, I saw the enemy come down all together from the sierra where they had slept, toward the villa. Mounting my horse, I went out with the few forces that I had to meet them, above the convent.
The enemy saw me and halted, making ready to resist the attack. They took up a better position, gaining the eminence of some ravines and thick timber, and began to give war whoops, as if daring me to attack them.”
“I paused thus for a short time, in battle formation, and the enemy turned aside from the eminence and went nearer the sierras, to gain the one which comes down behind the house of the maese de campo, Francisco Gomez [Robledo]. There they took up their position, and this day passed without our having any further engagements or skirmishes than had already occurred, we taking care that they should not throw themselves upon us and burn the church and the houses of the villa.”
15 August 1680 Thursday
The next day, Thursday, August 15 the enemy obliged us to take the same step as on the day before of mounting on horseback in fighting formation. There were only some light skirmishes to prevent their burning and sacking some of the houses which were at a distance from the main part of the villa. I knew well enough that these dilatory tactics were to give time for the people of the other nations who were massing to join them in order to besiege and attempt to destroy us, but the height of the places in which they were, so favorable to them and on the contrary so unfavorable to us, made it impossible for us to go and drive them out before they should all be joined together.
16 August 1680 Friday
On August 16 came a group of Keresan warriors from Cochití and Santo Domingo led by mestizo Alonso de Catiti. His brother was with the defenders of the governor's house in Santa Fé , Nuevo México.
“He informed the Spanish that the attackers of Santa Fé were 2,500 people and the city could not withstand their attacks. Otermín then blocked the Casa Real (Royal House) ready for an assault by the Puebloans forces that had surrounded the city.
“These rebels were saying that now God and Holy Mary, whom the Spaniards worshipped, had died, but the god they obeyed had never died, and therefore they would take possession of the kingdom, having done with all the Spaniards.”
The nations of the Taos, Pecuries, Jemez, and Keresan having assembled during the past night and when “dawn came more than 2,500 Indians fell upon us in the villa, fortifying and intrenching themselves in all its houses and at the entrances of all the streets.” They burned the holy church and “many houses in the villa.”. The Spanish tried to save the church and “brutal hand-to-hand fighting carried on throughout the day.”
The Pueblo reinforcements destroyed the ditch that carried water into Santa Fé and were able to cut off the water “which comes through the arroyo and the irrigation canal in front of the casas reales.
“We had several skirmishes over possession of the water, but, seeing that it was impossible to hold even this against them, and almost all the soldiers of the post being already wounded, I endeavored to fortify myself in the casas reales and to make a defense without leaving their walls.
“The Indians were so dexterous and so bold that they came to set fire to the doors of the fortified tower of Nuestra Senora de las Casas Reales, and, seeing such audacity and the manifest risk that we ran of having the casas reales set on fire, I resolved to make a sally into the plaza of the said casas reales with all my available force of soldiers, without any protection, to attempt to prevent the fire which the enemy was trying to set.”
“With this endeavor we fought the whole afternoon, and, since the enemy, as I said above, had fortified themselves and made embrasures in all the houses, and had plenty of harquebuses, powder, and balls, they did us much damage.”
As night fell, the Spanish took refuge within the walls of Palace of Governors plaza but were without water. “Night overtook us and God was pleased that they should desist somewhat from shooting us with harquebuses and arrows. We passed this night, like the rest, with much care and watchfulness, and suffered greatly from thirst because of the scarcity of water.”
17 August 1680 Saturday
Despite the lack of water, fighting resumed the next day. The Spanish were able to drive the Pueblos 
off from the gates of the fortified casa reale but suffered heavy casualties. The Pueblo Indians, who were carrying Spanish weapons and riding Spanish horses, were unable to take the town as the Spanish eventually pushed them back.
off from the gates of the fortified casa reale but suffered heavy casualties. The Pueblo Indians, who were carrying Spanish weapons and riding Spanish horses, were unable to take the town as the Spanish eventually pushed them back.
“On the next day, Saturday, August 17 they began at dawn to press us harder and more closely with gunshots, arrows, and stones, saying to us that now we should not escape them, and that, besides their own numbers, they were expecting help from the Apaches whom they had already summoned. They fatigued us greatly on this day, because all was fighting, and above all we suffered from thirst, as we were already oppressed by it.
At nightfall, because of the evident peril in which we found ourselves, by their gaining the two stations where the cannon were mounted, which we had at the doors of the casas reales, aimed at the entrances of the streets, in order to bring them inside, it was necessary to assemble all the forces that I had with me, because we realized that this was their [the Indians’] intention.”
“Instantly all the said Indian rebels began a chant of victory and raised war whoops, burning all the houses of the villa, and they kept us in this position the entire night, which I assure your reverence was the most horrible that could be thought of or imagined, because the whole villa was a torch and everywhere were war chants and shouts."
“What grieved us most were the dreadful flames from the church and the scoffing and ridicule which the wretched and miserable Indian rebels made of the sacred things, intoning the alabado and the other prayers of the church with jeers.”
“Finding myself in this state, with the church and the villa burned, and with the few horses, sheep, goats, and cattle which we had without feed or water for so long, that many had already died, and the rest were about to do so, and with such a multitude of people, most of them children and women, so that our numbers in all came to about a thousand persons, perishing with thirst-for we had nothing to drink during these two days except what had been kept in some jars and pitchers that were in the casas reales.'
The Puebloans after having cut the water supply to the casas reales, children were dying of thirst. "Surrounded by such a wailing of women and children, with confusion everywhere, I determined to take the resolution of going out in the morning to fight with the enemy until dying or conquering.”
18 August 1680 Sunday
Governor Otermín assembled his council of war which decided to make a surprise attack on the Pueblo Indians. The Indians had “already begun their victory celebration when a do-or-die force of mounted Spaniards suddenly broke out, caught the besiegers off guard, and trampled some of them under the hoofs of their horses. They claimed to have killed more than three hundred in all. They captured forty-seven. The rest were soon in flight.
“Considering that the best strength and armor were prayers to appease the divine wrath, though on the preceding days the poor women had made them with such fervor, that night I charged them to do so increasingly, and told the father Custos and the other two religious to say mass for us at dawn and exhort all alike to repentance for their sins and to conformance with the divine will, and to absolve us from guilt and punishment.”
“These things being done, all of us, who could, mounted our horses, and the rest went on foot with their harquebuses, and some Indians who were in our service with their bows and arrows, and in the best order possible we directed our course toward the house of the maese de campo, Francisco Xavier [Javier], which was the place where (apparently) there were the most people [Indians] and where they had been most active and boldest.”
“On coming out of the entrance to the street it was seen that there was a great number of Indians. They were attacked in force, and though they resisted the first charge bravely, finally they were put to flight, many of them being overtaken and killed. Then turning at once upon those who were in the streets leading to the convent, they also were put to flight with little resistance.”
“The houses in the direction of the house of the said maese de campo, Francisco Xavier, being still full of Indians who had taken refuge in them and seeing that the enemy with the punishment and deaths that we had inflicted upon them in the first and second assaults, were withdrawing toward the hills, giving us a little room, we laid siege to those who remained fortified in the said houses."
" Though they endeavored to defend themselves, and did so, seeing that they were being set afire and that they would be burned to death, those who remained alive, surrendered and much was made of them. The deaths of both parties in this and the other encounters exceeded three hundred Indians.”
“Finding myself a little relieved by this miraculous event, although I had lost much blood from two arrow wounds which I had received in the face and from a remarkable gunshot wound in the chest on the day before, I immediately had water given to the cattle, the horses, and the people.”
“Because we now found ourselves with very few provisions for so many people, and without hope of human aid, considering that our not having heard, in so many days, from the people on the lower river, would be because of their all having been killed, like the others in the kingdom, or at least of their being or having been in dire straits," Governor Otermín made the decisions "with the view of aiding them and joining with them into one body, most conducive to his Majesty’s service,”
19 August 1680 Monday Abandonment of Santa Fé .
Governor Otermín and his war council thought that if they wanted to survive the Pueblo Revolt, they had to go to Isleta Pueblo, where they hoped other people were who had survived the revolt. he siege had lasted a week. According to reports from the Pueblo captives, most of the people of rural Rio Arriba and Rio Abajo had been killed by them. Believing that in northern Nuevo México all settlers had been killed by the Puebloans, the governor did not feel safe remaining in the capital, although Santa Fé had resisted many of the attacks of Puebloans.
Although the Spaniards managed to defeat many Puebloans warriors, a number of Spanish soldiers were killed. Governor Otermín arranged for the execution of the 47 Pueblo prisoners that he had captured and arranged with his war council for a general exit from the city.
20 August 1680 Tuesday or 21 August 1680 Wednesday
After Governor Otermín had interrogated and executed the 47 prisoners, he “provisioned everyone for the road from his own stores” and led the orderly exodus of a thousand refugees out of Santa Fé that “had served as seat and symbol of Spanish authority for seventy years.”
In desperation, Governor Antonio de Otermín, “sallied outside the palace with all of his available men and forced the Puebloans to retreat with heavy losses.” He then led the Spaniards out of the city and retreated southward along the Rio Grande, heading towards El Paso del Norte, 350 miles away.
“I trusted in divine providence, for I left without a crust of bread or a grain of wheat or maize, and with no other provision for the convoy of so many people except four hundred animals and two carts belonging to private persons, and, for food, a few sheep, goats, and cows.”
The Puebloans shadowed the Spaniards all along the way but did not attack. Roughly 3,000 Spanish and Christian Pueblo Indians left Santa Fé and started to make their way south down the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.
Massacres in Rio Abajo
South of Santa Fe, the settlements were also attacked prior to the assault on the capital. The settlements had no warning as that the first messenger sent out by Governor Otermin to warn Padre Fray Juan de Talaban at Santo Domingo was killed before he reached Santo Domingo just south of Santa Fé .
Santo Domingo
An escort of four soldiers, which included Manuel de Peralta, Nicolas Lopez and Alférez Esteban Martin Barba who was Sebastiana de Mondragon’s brother in law, accompanied Padre Fray Francisco Antonio Lorenzana, and Padre Fray Joseph de Montesdoca to Santo Domingo.
When other Soldiers were sent out to reconnoiter with the soldiers and priests, "they did not pass beyond Santo Domingo, because of their having encountered on the road the certain notice of the deaths of the religious [priests] who were in that convent, and of the alcalde mayor, some other guards, and six more Spaniards whom they captured on that road.” There at the pueblo mission of Santo Domingo, Indians had killed Padre Fray Juan de Talaban, as well as the alcalde mayor, Andres de Peralta, together with the rest of the soldiers who went there.
Alcalde mayor Andrés de Peralta’s widow, María de la Escallada later remarried Sargento Mayor Sebastián de Herrera Corrales whose family had been massacred at Taos. Manuel de Peralta, very likely one of the four soldiers massacred with Andrés de Peralta at Santo Domingo, had married married Juana de la Escallada.
The San Felipe Pueblo
At San Felipe the Indians killed Pedro de Cuellar Corsado’s wife and daughter while he was with the Captain Pedro Leyva party that had gone south to Guadalupe del Paso to meet the Ciudad de México wagon-train. The thirty year old Pedro de Cuellar Corsado came to New México as a convict in 1677 sentenced to serve as a soldier for four years.‘ He must have married in Nuevo México after his arrival, While he was away his estancia near San Felipe Pueblo was sacked and destroyed.’
The Galisteo Mission Pueblo Massacre
The Galisteo Pueblo mission was in the Salinas district about 25 miles south of Santa Fé and 25 miles west of the Pecos Mission in the foothills of the Santa Fé Mountains. The Missions at Galisteo Pueblo and San Marcos were located between Santa Fé and today’s Albuquerque in the Galisteo Basin. While Galisteo was a much larger community than San Marcos, an estimated 600 Keres people lived there. The resident priest of San Marcos was Fray Manuel Tinoco while Custos Juan Bernal and Fray Domingo de Vera were stationed at the Galisteo Pueblo.
Padre Fray Manuel Tinoco of San Marcos was slain as he was hurrying towards the Galisteo Pueblo. The Tanos Indians had attacked Galisteo and slew Custos Juan Bernal and Fray Domingo de Vera as well as a number of Spanish men, women, and children.
Maestre de Campo Pedro Leyva
Alcalde mayor José Nieto and Maestre de Campo Pedro de Leyva had married sisters of Francisco Garcia Holgado. Two sons of Maestre de Campo Pedro Leyva, Juan de Leyva and Nicolás de Leyva as well as Francisco de Anaya, the son of Captain Francisco de Anaya,who was sent with the escort were also slain. Another son Pedro de Leyva was not home at the time of the revolt, perhaps with his father’s escort party at Guadalupe de Paso. His son José de Leyva’s wife Juana Fresqui was killed by the Indians in 1680 and their two daughters were taken in captivity. They were not rescued until 1692 by a relative, Juan Holguin. He was referred to briefly with Cristobal Holguin in 1668.Perhaps he was his brother, if not a son.‘
Under the assumption that Governor Otermin and the northern refugees were all dead, Pedro Leyva was elected and installed as temporary governor for a short-lived term, until fleeing south, he met Governor Otermín and the Santa Fé refugees at El Alamillo; there he learned about his family’s fate. At this time, also, he held the high military rank of Maese de Campo and was well thought of by all.
Massacre Galisteo Pueblo
Joining forces, Tanos, Keres of San Marcos, and Pecos had marched off to assault the villa of Santa Fé . Defeated there, they had come back to Galisteo “in foul humor”. Because six Tanos of Galisteo had been killed at Santa Fé and many others badly wounded, “the Indians of that pueblo vented their rage" on the men women and children of Galisteo.
The roll of Spaniards killed that day included, sixty-five year old Alcalde mayor José Nieto and his wife Lucia Lopez de Garcia Holgado, their daughters Maria and Juana, and Catalina Garcia Holgado the wife of Maestre de Campo Pedro Leyva and their children Juan, Nicolas, and Dorotea.
Two grown sons of Alcalde mayor José Nieto, Francisco Garcia Nieto and Cristobal Nieto, were soldiers and away when their parents and sisters were killed at Galisteo. Francisco Nieto reported later that “the enemy had killed his father, mother, two sisters, a sister in-law, and four nephews and nieces.
He was wrong, not knowing that Cristobal Nieto’s wife, Petrona Pacheco, with five daughters and a son, were taken captive instead. Twelve years later, in 1692, Roque de Madrid found Cristobal Nieto’s wife with an “increase of three since her captivity”. Cristobal Nieto was residing in Sonora at the time but was joined again with his family, who all came back to Santa Fé with the Reconquest,
Pedro Garcia a Tano Indian An Eye Witness
A Tano Indian by the name Pedro Garcia, who had been reared in Jose Nieto’s estancia which “lay only a league or so from Galisteo”, escaped and later related to Governor Otermín what he had seen and heard during the first days of the revolt. He testified how the Galisteos Indians had killed the “Padres of Galisteo” and also “slaughtered his master and his mistresses, Lucia, Maria, and 'Juana."
Pedro Garcia reported that while he was “chopping weeds in a plot of maize on the Nieto estancia, he looked up to see Bartolomé, cantor mayor of the pueblo of Galisteo, coming toward him, his eyes filled with tears. "What are you doing here?," asked Pedro. The hysterical reply, if Pedro's memory served him, went something like this: “The Indians want to kill the custos and the other Fathers and Spaniards! They say that the Indian who kills a Spaniard will get an Indian woman, whichever one he wants, as his wife. He who kills four Spaniards will take four, and he who kills ten or more will have that many women for wives. They say they have to kill all the servants of the Spaniards and those who speak Spanish. And they have also ordered that everyone take off their rosaries and burn them. Hurry, get going with your wife and the little orphan girl you have, and perhaps you will be fortunate enough to make it to where the Spaniards are gathered and escape.”
The Pecos Mission
“The Pecos Indians played a double role, or rather, they acted in the interest of at least two factions, one of which chanted, "Death to the Spaniards!," and another which evidently did not.” The Pecos noted that they did not kill, “old Fray Fernando de Velasco. Instead, they disclosed to him the plot, and saw him off to Galisteo, where the Tanos promptly dispatched him.”
As he was riding off to Galisteo, there the “rebels fell on him in a field within sight of his destination’, where the “naked bodies of Custos Bernal” and two other friars laid.
The Pecos however “did join Tanos and Keres before Santa Fé on August 13, armed and giving war whoops."
By most accounts, the Pecos did kill Fray Juan de la Pedrosa at Pecos along with at least one Spanish family. After the reconquest, Diego Vargas inquiring about “about a Spaniard who was at their pueblo of Pecos at the time with his wife and children” wrote “they remain silent.” Some account state that there were two Spanish women and three children slain.
The de Anaya & de Carvajal families at Angostura
The Angostura Hacienda of Agustin de Carvajal was 40 Miles southwest of Santa Fé and 18 miles from Santo Domingo. Agustin de Carvajal was one of the fourteen men originally ordered executed, for the assassination of Governor Rosas, by Nuevo México Governor Pacheco, in 1643, but escaped the sentence with his brother-in-law, Fernando Duran y Chaves.
By 1680 he had taken as his third wife, Damiana Dominguez de Mendoza, widow of Alvaro de Paredes and daughter of Lieutenant Governor Tomé Dominguez de Mendoza. They were massacred by the Santo Domingo Indians at their Angostura home.
“Two weeks later, their bodies were found by the fleeing refugees of Santa Fé , but who found no signs of his sons or the rest of the family.” Agustin was sixty and Damiana was fifty, when they were slain along with Dona Ana de Carvajal, the fifty-six years old, widow of Don Fernando Duran y Chaves as well as a grown daughter.
Also at Angostura resided Cristobal de Anaya who had been arrested along with Captain Diego Romero in 1662. “In 1680 death fell suddenly on Cristobal de Anaya, his wife, Leonor Dominguez de Mendoza, daughter of Captain Tomé Dominguez de Mendoza, six children, and four others of his household, when the Santo Domingo Indians pounced on his estancia at Angostura, leaving their naked bodies across the threshold.“
Two of the adult sons were spared as they were away as soldiers.
Francisca Dominguez de Mendoza, the wife of Captain Francisco de Anya, and sister of Leonor was also killed, mostly likely at Angostura. Captain Francisco de Anya. He had been attacked at Santa Clara north of Santa Fé . In 1682, a “captured Indian deposed that he had seen Francisca Dominguez’ nude body out on a field, her head bashed in, and a very small infant dead at her feet."
Maese de Campo Tomé Dominguez de Mendoza of the Sandia Pueblo District
In April, 1680, Maese de Campo Tomé Dominguez de Mendoza was fifty-four years old, his wife Damiana was fifty. His brother Juan Domínguez de Mendoza was forty-six, and his wife Leonor was forty. All were living on their lands south of the Sandia Pueblo. In August 1680, thirty-eight members of the Dominguez de Mendoza’ extended family were attacked and killed during the Pueblo revolt.
Tomé Dominguez de Mendoza's son José Dominguez de Mendoza was a soldier with the Pedro Leyva party which had gone to meet the Ciudad de México wagon-train at Guadalupe del Paso when the Indians struck the northern colony in 1680. Another son Francisco Dominguez de Mendoza’ died in the war against the Puebloans, and his sons Juan Dominguez de Mendoza and Diego Dominguez de Mendoza both were injured in the same war by poisoned arrows. Tomé Dominguez de Mendoza also stated that the Indians killed many of his sons, daughters, grandsons, a granddaughter, two sons-in-law, his brothers, nephews, and two “callados [servants]”
Tomé Dominguez de Mendoza son, thirty-two year old Antonio Dominguez de Mendoza was married to Juana Garcia de Noriega, the daughter of Juan Alonso Garcia Lieutenant General for the Rio Abajo. One of Antonio Dominguez de Mendoza's brother in laws, Lazaro Garcia, was killed in the 1680 uprising.
The Spanish Exodus from Nuevo México
After Governor Otermín surrendered, on August 21, the survivors from Santa Fé headed en masse the 22 miles towards the La Alameda. At La Bajada, where the road from Santa Fé wound down the black basalt descent to the valley just above Santo Domingo, the refugees passed from Río Arriba to Río Abajo. The uprising of 1680 had cut off all Spanish communications between the two regions.
"Filing past Santo Domingo, they looked in vain for signs of life. There was evidence of a struggle in the convento. The bodies of three friars, among them ex-custos Fray Juan de Talabán, had been dragged into the church and buried in a common grave. Five more bodies lay outside.
24 August 1680 Saturday
"While a pack of rebels harried the rear of the retreating cavalcade", Pedro García, "who did not want to be a rebellious traitor," tried with his wife and another woman to catch up. The rebel Indians "grabbed the two women but he eluded them and, covered by Spaniards, he reached safety."
25 August 1680 Sunday 
The Caravan of thousands traveled the 11 miles from Santo Domingo to San Felipe. “All along the valley, similar scenes of carnage greeted the forlorn column. They halted at the narrows, south of San Felipe, not far from the home of swaggering Cristóbal de Anaya Almazán, who had risen to the rank of sargento mayor despite his trial by the Inquisition. His naked body and those of his wife, six children, and several other persons were heaped up at the front door. The revolt had wiped out the entire Anaya clan, save one."
"Sickened by the sight, Captain Francisco de Anaya, a brother of Cristóbal, wounded in the fighting at Santa Fé, must have thought of his own family. All of them dead.”
Near the estancia that had been Cristóbal de Anaya's, Governor Otermín summoned Pedro Garcia the Tano Indian. The governor heard Pedro's story near the pillaged Anaya house. He asked Pedro if he knew why the Indians had rebelled. Pedro recalled what the Indian Bartolomé had said. The Pueblos were tired of all the work they had to do for the Spaniards and the missionaries. It rankled them that they did not have time to plant for themselves or to do the other things they needed to do. Fed up, they had rebelled.
Concluding his testimony, Pedro explained why he had fled to overtake the retreating Spaniards. He had had heard from "the Tewas, and from Taos, Picurís, and Utes, that they would annihilate any Indian, or pueblo, who refused to participate in the revolt. For that reason, and because he was a Christian, Pedro had resolved to throw his lot with the Spaniards."
Twenty-Two miles down the Camino, Governor Otermín said, ““In this manner, and with this fine provision, besides a few small ears of maize that we found in the fields, we went as far as the pueblo of La Alameda, where we learned from an old Indian whom we found in a maize field that the lieutenant general [ with all the residents of his jurisdictions had left some fourteen or fifteen days before to return to "Pass of the North" to meet the wagons.”
Alameda Pueblo was just north of Modern Albuquerque, 55 miles south of Santa Fe and 25 miles from Isleta Pueblo. Governor Otermin stated “This news made me very uneasy, alike because I could not be persuaded that he would have left without having news of me as well as of all the others in the kingdom, and because I feared that from his absence there would necessarily follow the abandonment of this kingdom."
"On hearing this news I acted at once, sending four soldiers to overtake the said lieutenant general and the others who were following him, with orders that they were to halt wherever they should come up with them.”
News of the Revolt Reach El Paso de Norte
Two hundred and eighty miles down river, at Norte de Paso, Padre Fray Francisco de Ayeta and Captain Pedro Leyva’s company of soldiers who were there to escort the supply caravan to Santa Fe, received the first jumbled reports of the disaster. A report sent by messengers from lieutenant governor Alonso Garcia was finally received. "The strong-willed friar Ayeta" received the news from Nuevo México “that would have caused an Old Testament prophet to cry out in anguish and rend his garments.” It had finally happened, "the disaster that has threatened so many times." He fell on his knees in prayer. Then Fray Ayeta "reacting with his usual vigor, unloaded some of his supply wagons and outfitted a rescue expedition of armed men, friars, and provisions.
Captain Alonso García,
After the arrival of the Santa Fe refugees under the command of Governor Otermín, at the Isleta Pueblo, they learned of a another group of refugees who had arrived there a few weeks before them. They had been the refugees under the command of Lieutenant general, Alonso Garcia. The scared Santa Fé survivors rested at Isleta to recoup and three days after leaving Isleta, thirty miles south of Isleta, at the place of Las Vega de Las Nutrias or meadow of the beavers, Governor Otermín, received a message finally from Lieutenant general, Alonso Garcia.
Captain Alonso García, a 53 year old native of Zacatecas, was the Alcalde of Sandia at this period and owned the Estancia de San Antonio in the Rio Abajo, fifty miles from Santa Fé. He held the rank of Maese de Campo, when the Indians rebelled and was responsible “for the flight of the Rio Abajo people without going to the aid of the colonists in Santa Fé .” For this reason later he underwent a court martial” in El Paso de Norte but was exonerated and held his old titles.
When all communication between these Rio Arriba and Rio Abajo became impossible, the two commanders had decided "independently to flee southward to the comparative safety of El Paso de Norte. Assuming that everyone else upriver was dead, Lieutenant General Alonso García and the refugees had started south on foot to save themselves. They had with them "a multitude of small children."
Captain Garcia wrote “I am sending the said Maese de Campo, Pedro de Leiva, with the rest of the men whom he brought so that he may come as escort and ahead of the supply train." Evidently the soldiers Fray Ayeta had sent had rendezvoused with Garcia's refugees. Governor Otermín, wrote back that hus his refugees were “so short of provisions and of everything else that at best I should have had a little maize for six days or so.”
Alamillo Pueblo
Fifty miles south of Isleta at the Alamillo Pueblo, north of Socorro, the governor interrogated another Indian, an aged Southern Tiwa man of Alameda Pueblo who was captured on the road. Governor Otermín demanded through an interpreter. “what had possessed the Pueblos to forsake their obedience to God and king?" The old man replied, "For a long time because the Spaniards punished sorcerers and idolaters, the nations of the Tewas, Taos, Picurís, Pecos, and Jémez had been plotting to rebel and kill the Spaniards and the religious, and that they had been planning constantly to carry it out, down to the present occasion.”
The Indian declared “that the resentment which all the Indians have in their hearts has been so strong, from the time this kingdom was discovered, because the religious and the Spaniards took away their idols and forbade their sorceries and idolatries; that they have inherited successively from their old men the things pertaining to their ancient customs; and that he has heard this resentment spoken of since he was of an age to understand.”
The Puebloans did not block the Spanish passage out of Nuevo México, they wanted them gone not destroyed.
8 September 1680
Within days of reaching a place called "Fray Cristobal", sixty miles from Isleta Pueblo, Governor Otermín wrote to Fray Ayeta on 8 September 1680, “I am slowly overtaking the other party, which is sixteen leagues, [42 miles], from here, with the view of joining them and discussing whether or not this miserable kingdom can be recovered. For this purpose I shall not spare any means in the service of God and of his Majesty, losing a thousand lives if I had them, as I have lost my estate and part of my health, and shedding my blood for God. May he protect me and permit me to see your reverence in this place at the head of the relief.
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| Fray Cristobal |
13 September 1680
Fray Cristobal & “Jornada del Muerto”.
When Governor Otermín learned that the Río Abajo people under Captain Garcia were already retreating downriver, he sent four riders ahead with orders for them to stop and wait for him. The four soldiers in pursuit of Alonso Garcia overtook him and his refugees at a place called Paraje de Fray Cristobal. Alonso Garcia was ordered to remain there until the two groups of refugees met up which was some five weeks after the initial outbreak of the revolt. The “Paraje de Fray Cristóbal” was an unpopulated stopping place along the old Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. It was the last watering and grazing place along the Rio Grande available, before crossing of the “Jornada del Muerto”.
inglorious trek southward through the dry Jornada del Muerto while upriver, the Indian rebels were celebrating." Approximately some 380 colonists and twenty-one Franciscans had been killed and an unknown about captured. Perhaps news of the expulsion of the Spaniards may have by this time reached Casas Grande where Salvador Romero was stationed. His mother, stepfather, his half siblings, his married sister and his grandfatehr were all among the refugees among the thousands gathered at Fray Cristóbal, .
The most feared section of the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro heading south to El Paso de Norte was the crossing of the Jornada del Muerto, [Route of the Dead Man], of nearly 62 miles “of expansive, barren desert without any water sources to hydrate the men and beasts.” It must have been brutal in the heat of September with little water and food for the families mostly on foot trekking towards the Norte de Paso canyon cut by the Rio Grande.
The Refugees at La Salineta
The Refugees reached La Salineta now located in Vinton Texas, about four leagues or roughly ten milesnorth of their destination, the mission Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. At La Salineta Governor made several important decisions. First, a muster was taken of the total number of soldiers, women, children, servants, and Indians which amounted to 1,946. Of this number, 317 were Indian inhabitants of the four Piro pueblos of Senecú, Socorro, Alamillo, and Sevilleta, together with Tiguas from Isleta, Nuevo México. These Indians "fled for the safety of the Pass of the North rather than because of any special loyalty to the Spaniards.”
A second important decision made by Governor Otermín at La Salineta was to delay the reconquest of Nuevo México until further aid could be obtained from the viceroy of Nueva España. Thirdly, Governor Otermín decided that in view of the many dangers and inconveniences confronting the refugees at La Salineta, the whole camp should be moved across the river closer to the Guadalupe mission, where pasture was available for livestock and wood for building shelters.
“Their spirits were greatly bolstered with the arrival of a large supply expedition of some twenty-four wagons of provisions led by Fray Francisco de Ayeta coming from the south.
Here at La Salineta the refugees remained through the first week of October” when then they were then escorted to El Paso de Norte by soldiers of the Spanish supply train. Thus, by October 9 all the refugees had arrived two leagues downriver from Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico.
The Victorious Pueblo Indians
In August 1680 over 400 Spaniards were massacred and the rest driven out of Nuevo México by the Pueblo Indian revolt. Abandoning their estancias in La Cañada and property in the Villa de Santa Fé , various members of the Romero-Griego–Bernal-Mondragon- Ocanto extended families managed to escape the uprising by were in abject poverty. It is not known how many members of this clan lost their lives in the attacks. After the Spanish were gone, the Pueblos destroyed Spanish buildings, including homes and churches. During the 12 years the Spanish were in exile at El Paso del Norte, the Indians destroyed many mission church records including baptismal, marriage, and death ledgers as well as legal documents located in Santa Fé.
Po’ pay and his followers took over Santa Fé and the Pueblo Indians maintained control of northern Nuevo México for the next 12 years. Speaking the Spanish language was outlawed, and the use of Christian names was banned. However, life for the Pueblo was difficult. They had become dependent on the tools and amenities they enjoyed under Spanish rule. The Apache and Navajo continued their raids, and the Pueblo had trouble protecting themselves.
During their raids, the Apache took horses, which became a significant development in the West. Once they had horses, they were able to spread across the Great Plains, taking horses with them, and spreading them to other tribes. The Plains Tribes gained a new means of mobility that allowed them to combat each other and, later, attack Americans as they moved west.
Tomé Dominguez de Mendoza
Not all refugees were completely destitute. When Tomé Dominguez de Mendoza and some of his family fled “south with the rest of the Rio Abajo people,: His caravan of fifty-five persons, including servants, consisted of wagons and thirty horses. His conduct however was criticized, with some “accusing him of moving all his hacienda goods out of Nuevo México, burying plough shares and other implements on the way to lighten the wagons, when he well knew that the Santa Fé people were besieged and in need of help.”
Refugees at Guadalupe del Paso
It’s a misnomer to say the Spanish were driven out of Nuevo México when actually the refugees who fled to Guadalupe del Norte were still residing in the Province of Nuevo México as the capital was temporarily transferred from Santa Fé to El Paso de Norte. Until acquired by the United States in 1846 Nuevo México was much larger than the current state and extended past the Rio Grande south to the Province of Nueva Vizcaya which is now the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Durango.
After an exhaustive study of possible sites on both sides of the Rio Grande, Governor Otermín decided to use those settlements that already existed. He and most of the settlers preferred to settle Spaniards and Indians together, but this was overruled by Fray Ayeta and higher Nueva Espana authorities.
The Mission Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe
The Friars began their work in the mid-1650s. In 1659 they founded the Mission of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe del Paso del Norte. It was for the conversion of the native Manso people living near the Rio Grande where the Camino Reale from Ciudad de México to Santa Fé crossed the river. This mission became the southernmost of the Nuevo México chain of missions along El Camino Real.
Refugees from northern Nuevo México began to overwhelm the Guadalupe del Paso Mission with almost two thousand destitute refugees. Spanish colonists and Pueblo natives scattered along the river in a number of places south of the Mission. Needing food and supplies for survival, they soon depleted Mission stores.
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Rather than undertaking a full-scale counterattack against the northern Pueblo tribes, Governor Otermín, decided to establish a fort and refugee camp at the Paso del Norte with the intent to organize a stronger military campaign at a later time.
By October 9, the Spanish refugees had been settled in three man camps at intervals of five miles downriver from the Guadalupe del Paso mission. These settlements were Real del Santísimo Sacramento, Real de San Pedro de Alcántara, and Real de San Lorenzo, apparently located near the site of Oñate taking formal possession of Nuevo México for his king, Philip II in 1598. At Real del Santísimo Sacramento on October 12, 1680, a Catholic Mass was celebrated, the first, according to one authority, to be held on soil that eventually became a part of the state of Texas.
In October 1680, Salvador Romero was a soldier away at Casas Grandes when his family had fled south with the rest of the Rio Arriba people. The Casas Grandes pueblo complex was situated in a broad, fertile valley along the “Casas Grandes or San Miguel River”, approximately 180 miles southwest of Rio del Norte. His mother Sebastiana de Mondragon, step father Domingo Martin Barba and their children, as well as his sister Ynez Romero, her husband Blas Griego and their children were safe although impoverished at the Guadalupe Mission, as were most of the Spanish who barely escaped with their lives.
The Franciscans at Guadalupe del Paso desired to keep the Spanish refugees "spatially segregated from the Guadalupe and refugee natives" but colonial authorities were against this. They felt that spatial separation between colonists and natives "had greatly facilitated the Pueblo Revolt". Colonial officials, however, kept Indians from "various native nations separate from each other". Consequently, separate settlements with their own chapels were "devised for different refugee Pueblo native groups but each of these settlements also included Spanish colonists."
The refugees colonists settled south of the Rio Grande where over the next 12 years founded the villas of San Pedro de Alcántara, Real del Santisimo Sacramento, and San Lorenzo de la Toma. Additionally communities were established ar El Real de San Lorenzo, Ysleta, Senecú, Socorro, and others named after former Pueblos abandoned. T
Juan Alonso Garcia Lieutenant General for the Rio Abajo.
Juan Alonso Garcia was castigated by Governor Otermin for not coming to the aid of those besieged in Santa Fe. A native of México City,, he was 51 years old in 1680 when he led the refugees from Rio Abajo " accompanied by his wife, Isabel Duran y Chaves, their children, and a son-in-law.” Although he had a Court Marshal he was exonerated, as he was an “able commander", and was placed in charge of Guadalupe del Paso in that year by Governor Otermín after facts came out. His family suffered casualties as that one of his sons, Lazaro Garcia, had been killed by the Indians.
The children of Alonso Garcia added “de Noriega” to their family name, “derived most likely from their father’s parents or grandparents.” his surviving children were Alonso Garcia de Noriega, Juan Garcia de Noriega, and Tomas Gracia de Noriega. His two known daughters was Josefa Garcia de Noriega who later became the wife of Alonso Rael de Aguilar.
Salvador Romero son of Captain Diego Romero and Sebastiana Mondragon
Salvador Romero joined his family at Guadalupe de Paso by 1681 where he passed muster the as a native of Nuevo México, twenty-one years old and single. He was described as having a good slender build, a long beardless face, and long black hair. Upon returning to his family, Salvador settled in Real de San Pedro de Alcántara, an area just north of the Rio Grande that is now within Texas where many of the refugees from the Rio Arriba area were living.
Salvador Romero’s grandfather, Juan de Mondragon, his aunt of Melchora de los Reyes Mondragon and Uncle Sebastian de Mondragon, also all survived the exodus. However it is unclear whether his aunt, Juana de Mondragon, wife of Domingo de Ocanto survived the exodus.
His uncle Sebastian Mondragon was reported in muster rolls as being married and very poor, with a family of three. In 1681 he as twenty-three or twenty-five, and was described as a native of Nuevo México, having a medium build, swarthy complexion, with black and very curly hair, a black mustache and scant beard.”
Sebastian Mondragon in 1692 acted as an interpreter during the first Captain Diego Vargas Campaign back up the Rio Grande Valley and he eventually returned with the Reconquest. In 1693 “Sebastian de Mondragon y Monroy” was a prenuptial witness for Miguel Maese the son of Alonzo Maese. Alonso had been a witness for Salvador Romero's prenuptials. Juan de Mondragon was more than eighty years old and very poor, when he passed muster in 1680 with twenty-four members in his refugee family.“ He died two years later in Guadalupe del Paso.
Salvador Romero’s sister Ynez Romero, her children and her husband Blas Griego, the son of Capitán Juan Griego and Juana dela Cruz, all survived the exodus out of La Canada. In 1681 Blas Griego was mustered into service at Guadalupe del Paso and was described as a native of Nuevo México, thirty-seven years old, married , tall and thin, swarthy, with black hair and beard.
The Entrada of November 1681
Governor Antonio de Otermín made an attempt to reconquer Nuevo México in 1681. In preparation for an expedition to Nuevo México to restore Spanish rule, Governor Otermín ordered the establishment of a presidio at El Paso de Norte and ordered an up-to-date muster of all soldiers and settlers in the area. this certainly would have included 21 year old Salvador Romero.
Maese de Campo Juan Dominguez de Mendoza, “an able commander”, was placed in charge of soldiers at Guadalupe del Paso by Governor Otermín, and he was entrusted with a campaign against the Nuevo México Pueblos in late November 1681 into January 1682. The campaigned “turned into a fiasco due to his own machinations contrary to the Governor’s policy.”
“Moving upriver with their none-too spirited three hundred soldiers, servants, and Indians, the Spaniards half expected to be greeted as liberators by throngs of repentant Pueblo Indians, however at the many villages, "they lay utterly deserted, so they set fire to them. The Spanish recaptured Isleta by surprise and the Franciscan friars "absolved the people, baptized their infants, and burned the objects of their idolatry."
From Isleta, Juan Domínguez de Mendoza went with sixty picked horsemen and some Indians on foot to scout upriver in Rio Arriba. Salvador Romero may have with him as that he was a seasoned soldier and would have known Rio Arriba well. Juan Domínguez de Mendoza’s company spoke with Pueblo leaders who told him that their people had the intention of attacking and killing all settlers if they returned to the region.
As far as Cochiti, 35 miles west of Santa Fé “the wary Domínguez de Mendoza found that the Pueblo Indians, "defying driving snow and cold, had taken to the hills. Making his camp in the protected plaza of Cochiti, the Spaniard encountered nearby hundreds of rebels gathered on a fortified mesa." Domínguez and his men claimed to recognize among them Taos, Picurís, Tewas, Tanos, Pecos, Keres, Jémez, Ácomas, and Southern Tiwas.
The mixed race Alonso Catiti, a leader of a parley, “begged for peace, and for time to send messengers to all the people so that they would come down to their pueblos and receive the Spaniards. Actually he was buying time to rally his forces."
Indian informers told Domínguez de Mendoza that Catiti planned to send into the Spaniards' camp “the most comely Pueblo girls and to spring his trap while the enemy enjoyed the carnal pleasures of the bait”. Recognizing their peril, the Spaniards beat an orderly retreat to the camp of Governor Otermín back at Isleta. There the soldiers were attacked in January, 1682 by the Puebloans, but they were defeated.
Governor Otermín burned both the Isleta Pueblo, and the Sandía Pueblo and took its 385 residents as hostages however only 305 survived the trip back to El Paso de Norte. The governor settled them with other Tiguas at the mission of Corpus Christi de la Isleta, near the site of Real de Santísimo Sacramento.
“Just before the entire expedition turned back for El Paso, Father Ayeta expressed his disillusionment. He had expected Pueblos by the hundreds, sorely abused by Apache and despotic rebel leaders, to fall on their knees and beg for absolution. Instead he had found them "exceedingly well satisfied to give themselves over to blind idolatry, worshipping the devil and living according to and in the same manner as when they were heathen." It was a shock to the evangelist.”
Governor Otermín and Father Ayeta had badly misjudged the temperament of the Indians.
The resulting entrada of November 1681 produced only negative results, but in his retreat to the El Paso de Norte area in January, Otermín’s unsuccessful attempt to reconquer a portion of Nuevo México brought forth the realization that the restoration of Spanish rule would take much longer than originally expected, and that therefore the temporary settlements at Guadalupe del Paso “should be given a much greater degree of permanence.”
12 Year Exile at Norte del Paso
The Spanish now realized that the reconquest of Nuevo México was not going to happen quickly and made arrangements for an indefinite stay, establishing Norte del Paso as the temporary capital of Nuevo México.
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“Because they were considered temporary settlers, the New Mexicans were permitted to plant their crops wherever they considered it most convenient. They soon began to encroach on lands that belonged to the Mansos, Sumas, and Janos Idians, making for uneasy neighbors. The large number of captive Tiguas now in El Paso further increased tensions between the native people and Spanish. The situation worsened when Apache raiders began to shift their activities south, from the recently abandoned Nuevo México missions to El Paso.”
Thus, by early 1682 there were eight settlements in the Norte del Paso area. Three were Spanish, San Lorenzo, San Pedro de Alcántara, and the Presidio of San José. Five were Indian, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe for the Mansos, San Antonio de Senecú for the Piros, Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur for the Tiguas, Nuestra Señora de Socorro for the Piros, and San Francisco for the Sumas.
Governor Don Domingo Jironza Petriz de Cruzate 1683-1686
In August 1682, Otermín fell ill, so he requested to be replaced in the government of Nuevo México. He was replaced by Domingo Jironza Pétriz de Cruzate. Late in 1682 Otermín, suffering from ill health, asked to be relieved of his command, and by the end of the summer of 1683, Otermín's ill health and military failures had led the Spanish government to appoint a successor, Don Domingo Jironza Petriz de Cruzate
The newly elected Governor Jironza Petríz de Cruzate established a Presidio at San Pedro de Alcántara and reorganized the Spanish and native settlements, establishing two new missions for the natives. Salvador Romero was stationed at the San Pedro de Alcántara Presidio
“Stepping into a quagmire mess, Cruzate faced the difficult challenge of having to re-conquer Nuevo México and to prevent a social upheaval in the newer settlements along the Rio Grande. The Spanish colonists either wanted their old homes back, or for new ones to be found.”
"The situation at Gudalupe del Paso was dismal. There were few horses and mules, an acute shortage of grain, and almost no livestock. Warlike tribes threatened daily life and property. The poverty, the misery, and the constant dread of Indian attack had driven many Nuevo México refugee families to illegally desert the El Paso settlements."
The Viceroy of Nueva España had forbidden the refugees from leaving the Norte de Paso area for other provinces further south, however, some illegally fled anyway due the poverty of those in exile.
A muster of men capable of bearing arms, counting not only the poorly equipped presidial garrison organized in 1683 but Indian allies as well, turned out scarcely three hundred in all.
Marriage of Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez de Ocanto
On 4 January 1683, Salvador Romero, at the age of 22, sought to marry 14 year old Maria del Ocanto in the jurisdiction of El Paso del Río del Norte. So an inquiry to see whether there was any impediment to their marriage was done. He declared he was a “vecino de las probincias de la Nueva México residente en está juridicion de San Pedro de Alcantara”, and identified his parents as Capitán Diego Romero and Sebastiana Martín, “both deceased. María Lopes de Ocanto, parents were listed as unknown" but she was listed as a "native of this province.”
The witnesses for the prenuptial investigation were Luis Maese, age 30 more or less, Agustin Luján, age 29, single of Nuevo México, and presently living at San Pedro de Alcántara, Alonso Maese , age 49 [1634] , vecino of Nuevo México and Domingo Martín Barba, age 44 also a vecino of Nuevo México and living at San Pedro de Alcántara. Agustin Lujan, Domingo Martin Barba, Luis and Alonso Maese all had to have known both Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez’s families in La Cañada to have been called to testify at the prenuptial investigation that the couple had no impediment to their marriage.
The witnesses must have falsely testified as they all would have known that the couple were first cousins, grandchildren of Alonso Mondragon. However as there was no “impediment” found, the couple received the sacrament of marriage on 17 January 1683 and a record of it was entered in the book of marriages by Father fray Diego de Mendoza. Cristóbal Tapia and his wife, Juana de Balensia [Valencia] as sponsors.
Cristóval Tapia [Cristobal de Tapia] had held lands two leagues below “Isleta Pueblo prior to the Rebellion” thus he may not have known the couple all that wll as the Romero and Ocante family were from the Rio Arriba District Tapia was described in 1681 as having a good thickset stature, an aquiline face, and black hair and beard.“
Although, for the prenuptial investigation, Salvador stated his parents were deceased, which was true for Captain Diego Romero, it was not for his mother. Sebastiana Mondragon was about 43 years old and very much alive and her husband Domingo Martin Barba, was Salvador Romero’s step father. As one of the witnesses who testified there was no impediment he certainly would have known that in reality Maria del Ocanto was his niece by marriage as she was the daughter of his sister in law Juana de Mondragon.
The Other Prenuptial Witnesses
Luis and Alonso Maese were brothers who testified there was no impediment between Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez de Ocanto. These Maese brothers were probably the sons of Esteban Maese and Antonia González Lobon, a sister of Diego Gonzalez Lobon and an aunt of a Pedro de Montoya.
Antonia González Lobon’s full name also links her with her mother’s Carvajal family. A native of Santa Fe , Antonia was an important witness concerning gubernatorial scandals of 1664, when she was forty-eight years old and a widow. Again she was also an important witness late in 1705, when she was too old to recall her years. Perhaps she is the Dona Antonia Gonzalez whi was mentioned in 1682 as the widow of Esteban Maese.
Juan Alonso Maese Lopez de Tapia son of Esteban Maese
Juan Alonso Maese Lopez de Tapia was born circa 1641 son of Esteban Maese and Antonia Gonzales de Vitoria. Alonso married Catalina Montano the daughter of Capitan Lucas Montana and Maria Sebastiana Lopez de Gracia. He escaped the 1680 Massacre with 15 persons in his family including his mother and children “all very poor.”
"29 Sep 1680: Alonso Maese passed muster with a thin, lame horse, sword, his harquebus of His//Majesty, married, with fifteen family members including his mother, sisters, and sons, completely poor and a son that can bear arms, without any. Signed Alonso Maese. In 1681 he stated he was 40 years old and had a son Juan who was 20 [1660]. “
During the 1684 Census of the Village de real de San Lorenzo, a visitation was made by Juan Severino Rodriquez de Zuballe, Attorney General, Luis Granillo, Sargento Mayor, and Francisco Romero de Pedraza, Secretary of the Cabildo. Their report stated, "The family of Alonso Maese: Although he planted a small cornfield, they will probably have nothing at harvest time because they eat the corn piecemeal as it becomes available. The family consists of 11 persons who all dress so poorly that it is hard to imagine. He has 2 horses, a saddle and firearm."
Miguel Maese son of Alonso Maese
Miguel Maese, the oldest son of Alonso Maese had returned to Nuevo México with his wife Maria Perea. His marriage documents stated “28 Apr 1693: diligencias matrimoniales (no. 20), El Paso del Norte, Miguel Maese (22 circa 1671), soldier of the Presidio of El Pilar and San Jose, son of Alonso Maese and Catarina Montano, vecinos of Nuevo México, and Maria Varela de Losada (20), of El Paso, daughter of Juan de Perea and Aldonsa Varela de Losada, natives of Nuevo México. Witnesses: Capt. Rafael Telles Jiron (30), Presidio soldier; Juan Olguin (36), Presidio soldier; Sebastian de Mondragon y Monroy (42 ; Francisco de Santiago, Presidio soldier; Antonio de Escalante. Sebastian de Mondragon was Salvador Romero’s uncle born circa 1651.
`The pair were allowed to marry on 15 June 1693, with the witnesses being Antonio Lucero and Rafael Telles Jiron. Rafael was the brother of Maria Zapata who would marry Salvador Romero’s son Diego Romero.
"Alonso Lopez de Tapia" and Catarina Montano's son Juan Lopez de Tapia age 17 in 1680 married an Estefania Gonzales,
Gabriel Maese son of Alonso Maese
Gabriel Maese applied to marry Beatriz Lucero de Godoy in 1691, but it is not known if the marriage took place. Beatriz Lucero de Godoy was the daughter of Alférez Francisco Lucero de Godoy and granddaughter of Pedro Lucero and Luisa Gomez y Robledo. Francisco Lucero de Godoy was Captain Diego Romero’s brother in law.
In 1692 Governor Diego Vargas’ forces rescued a youth who claimed to be Francisco de Anaya, a son of Cristobal de Anaya, “having been a captive since 1680. He was placed in the care of his uncle, the Armorer Francisco Lucero de Godoy.” This youth drowned when crossing the Rio del Norte in June, 1694. “A curse, it appears, had decreed that this entire family should perish.”
“6 Jul 1691: diligencias matrimoniales (no. 1), Real de San Lorenzo. Gabriel Masese and Beatriz Lucero de Godoy (18), daughter of Francisco Lucero de Godoy and Dona Josefa Sambrano de Grijalva. Instead of the surname Tapia, MAESE is used in the text for both groom and his father. Witnesses, all of San Lorenzo: Sargento Mayor Juan Lucero de Godoy, notary; Juan Gonzales Bernal (23), Pedro Madrid, Capt. Pedro de Leyva (48), Antonio Sisneros (26), Juan Griego (34), Agustin Lujan (36).
“Francisco Gonzales de Apodaca, criollo of Nuevo México, says the bride cannot marry the groom because he himself had relations with her, and he is related to the groom in the 2nd degree of consanguinity for being the blood brother of his mother (incomplete).”
Francisco Maese son of Alonso Maese
Francisco Maese married Juliana del Rio daughter of Captain Juan del Rio and Ana de Moraga. They were married at Guadalupe del Paso in 1701. “El Paso del Norte. Francisco Maese, native of Santa Fé in Nuevo México and Presidio soldier, son of Afonso Maese and Catarina Montano, and Juliana del Rio, resident of Real de San Lorenzo, daughter of Captain Juan del Rio and Ana Moraga,. Witnesses: Juan de Jurado [Hurado] (30), soldier, Pedro Madrid (60) and Cristobal Nieto (30), both of San Lorenzo. Pair married, Oct. 15, 1701.
Ana Maria Maese daughter of Alonso Maese
Ana Maria Maese became the wife of Alfonso Hidalgo in the same year of 1701. “Oct 1701: diligencias matrimoniales (no. 5), El Paso del Norte. Alfonso Hidalgo, native of Santa Fé living in Real de San Lorenzo, son of Pedro Hidalgo, deceased, and Ana Griego Montoya, and Ana Maria Maese, native of Nuevo México living in the same place, daughter of Alonso Maese and Catarina Montano, natives of Nuevo México living in the same place. Witnesses: Nicolas Pacheco? (40), soldier who knew groom for 24 yrs.; Rafael Telles Jiron (40), soldier, same testimony; Domingo de Misquia (21), soldier; Manuel de Vargas (25), who knew bride for 3 yrs. Pair married, Oct. 23, 1701..
Alfonso Hidalgo was the son of Pedro Hidalgo and Anna Griego Montoya. Pedro Hidalgo is first heard of when he escaped the Tesugue Indians, August 10, 1680, after he saw them kill Father Sanchez de Pro. He passed muster with a family of eight persons, and was described as being thirty-four years old, a native of Nuevo México , of good stature, swarthy, with a thick beard and short, curly hair; he also had the scar of a burn on his neck. At Guadalupe del Paso he was an officer of the Conquistador Confraternity.
From later sources we know that his wife and mother of his son Alfonso, was Ana Griego Montoya, also referred to as Ana Martin Griego in 1705, residing as a widow in Guadalupe del Paso. A literate man, Hidalgo had acted as a notary for the friars, as may be seen in diligencias matrimoniales between 1682 and 1694. He also acted as interpreter for the Pecos when Vargas made his first Entry in 1692. Neither he nor any of his family returned to Nuevo México in 1693 or after.
Juan Maese son of Alonso Maese
“26 Feb 1711: diligencias matrimoniales (no. 12), El Paso del Norte. Juan Maese (21 circa 1690), native of El Paso and soldier, son of Alonso Maese, native of El Paso, and Catarina Montano, deceased, and Josefa de la Aguila (24), native of Ciudad de México, daughter of Miguel Geronimo de la Aguila, native of Andalucia, and Dona Geronimo de Florida, native of Ciudad de México , deceased. Witnesses: Sargento Jose de Contreras (56) who knew groom for 15 yrs.; Francisco Suazo (34) who always knew groom; Sargento Francisco Montes Vigil (54), now Sargento of the royal Presidio in Santa Fé , who knew bride for 15 yrs.; Jose Quintana (33), native of Nuevo México who knew bride from 2 yrs. Pair married, Mar. 18, 1711, with witnesses Rafael Telles, and Juan de Dios Lucero, who was the husband of Ynez Romero.
Cayetano Maese son of Alonso Maese
“30 Jun 1714: diligencias matrimoniales (no. 22), El Paso del Norte. Cayetano Maese (20)circa 1694, native of El Paso and Presidio soldier, son of Alonso Maese and Catarina Montano, both deceased, and Antonia Brito (20), native of El Paso, daughter of Francisco Brito, deceased, and Micaela Francisca de la Cruz. Witnesses: Cristobal Gongora, notary, now living in El Paso; Cristobal Hidalgo (35), Juan de Avalos (43), Antonio de Lara (52), Francisco del Rio (43). Pair married, July 17, 1714, with witnesses Diego Trujillo, Tomas Lucero, Cayetano Diaz. Before the year was out Salvador and Maria had a child. They named Domingo Romero the name of Maria’s father and Salvador’s stepfather. Domingo Romero was born in San Pedro de Alcántara in Guadalupe Del Paso district, and married Maria Montes Vigil in Santa Fé , Nuevo México. He died 24 May 1774 in Albuquerque, Bernalillo, Nuevo México at the age of 90.
.This family did not return with the reconquest but continued to live in Real de San Lorenzo.The Maese families which remained at Guadalupe del Paso after 1693 kept the old spelling of the name even to this day. During the past century, the descendants of those who returned to Nuevo México dropped the final vowel, and pronounced it as one syllable, “Més.”
Luis Maese son of Esteban Maese
Luis Maese gave his age as “30 more or less” which meant he was born circa 1651 in Nuevo México. He would have been ten years older than Salvador Romero. At the age of 24, circa 1675 Luis Maese married Josefa Montoya de Archuleta. He escaped the Pueblo Indian Revolt with his family in 1680 and by in 1684 they were residing in Real de San Lorenzo. They were still living there in 1692 according to the muster record.
It is not known whether Luis Maese and Josefa de Archuleta returned to Santa Fé in 1693 as others from Guadalupe del Paso did, but it is certain that two of their daughters Antonia and Francisca, were living there in 1727, when they sold some paternal lands. Both parents were referred to as dead by then.
Daughter Antonia Maese married Mateo Martin and was a widow in 1767 with two twin sons, both named Joaquin Martin, and known as “los Joaquines.” Daughter Francisca Maese married Simon Nieto, a San ta Fe soldier and was dead by 1728.
Cristobal Maese son of Luis Maese
Cristobal Maese married Gertrudis Josefa Sanchez de Oton born 1690, the daughter of Olaya Lopez de Ocanto and granddaughter of Domingo de Ocanto, He died December 1716. In 1717 Bernardo Hernando Fernando a 45 year old soldier at the Santa Fé Presidio applied to marry Gertrudis Josefa Sanchez de Oton (27), widow of Cristobal Maese.
Agustin Luján married widow of Miguel Maese
Agustin Luján, age 29, born circa 1654 was single of Nuevo México, and presently living San Pedro de Alcántara in 1683. He was a soldier and he later married the widow of Miguel Maese who had returned to Nuevo México with his wife Maria Perea. But some time before 1701, on a trip back to Santa Fe from Guadalupe del Paso, he was killed by Apaches. In Maria Perea’s last will, made in 1715, she mentioned her only child by Miguel Maese, Catalina Maese, who was married at that time to Juan Antonio Dominguez.. In the will she also mentioned a boy, Miguel Maese, fifteen, whom she had reared from birth.“
Captain Juan Domínguez de Mendoza Expedition
With winter rapidly approaching, Cruzate was understandably overwhelmed during the early autumn months of 1683. “But on October 20, a potential lifeline came riding into El Paso.” A delegation from the Jumano tribe, which had been close allies with the Spaniards, arrived in El Paso. The head leader of the delegation was a man named Juan Sabeata who was an ardent supporter of the Catholic faith and well versed in several languages which included: Spanish, Castilian, and numerous Native languages from all across present day state of Texas.
Sabeata related a number of divine experiences that he stated he had personally witnessed from God while waging war against the encroaching Apache tribe. “Inspired by Sabeata's stories, and with a sudden sense of possibly adding an entirely new kingdom to Spain's domain, Governor Domingo Cruzate agreed to establish the mission the Jumanoes desired and to organize a major exploration of the eastern Jumano homelands.”
In November 1683, Governor Jironza Petriz de Cruzate appointed Lieutenant General Juan Dominguez de Mendoza to assemble an expedition to the Jumano country. Mendoza was a capable military man with more than thirty years’ experience serving the Spanish military in present West Texas and Nuevo México .
Captain Domínguez de Mendoza was a son in law of Felipe Romero de Peraza, the first cousin of Salvador Romero's father Captain Diego Romero. It is possible even likely that 23 year old Salvador Romero was a soldier on the expedition. "Born in 1631, Juan Domínguez de Mendoza likely viewed more of the Texas plains than any previous Spanish explorer. Mendoza accompanied Diego de Guadalajara's expedition from Santa Fe to the juncture of the Concho River near present-day San Angelo, however, little else about the expedition is known. He later served as lieutenant general and maestre de campo in New Mexico, where Mendoza was instrumental in countering the Pueblo Indian revolt of 1680, though eventually the Spaniards were forced to withdraw to the El Paso area. Three years later, Mendoza and Fray Nicolás López began an expedition to establish trade, found missions, and explore new territory." T
The entrada set off from El Paso on 15 December 1683, going down the Rio Grande 250 Miles to the village of La Junta de los Rio. The expedition, joined by many Indians, followed Indian trails north to the Pecos River, then followed the Concho River downstream to its junction with the Colorado River. Domínguez de Mendoza probably saw more of the Texas plains than any previous Spanish explorer.
On returning to La Junta de los Ríos, Domínguez de Mendoza took possession of the north bank of the Rio Grande in the name of Spain. Domínguez and Fray López returned to El Paso, and then went on to Ciudad de México in 1685, where they made a strong case for sending soldiers and missionaries to the Jumano country. Mendoza returned to El Paso intending to settle more missions, but Indian revolts prevented this. However, Governor Jironza Petriz de Cruzate was unable to help since his forces were tied up combating local insurrections by the Suma and the Manso Indians.
Lieutenant General Juan Dominguez de Mendoza must have been unhappy with the governor as he was the leader of a desertion plot in 1685 involving other members of his family, including his son Baltasar.”
In 1689,his son Baltasar obtained permission to leave for Nueva España with his mother, Isabel Duran y Chaves, and her servants.” Juan’s only known daughter was Maria, wife of Diego Lucero de Godoy, also got permission to leave for Nueva España in 1689.” Diego Lucerno de Godoy was once a brother in law of Captain Diego Romero.
Juan Dominguez de Mendoza and his son Baltasar later received permission to voyage to Spain, "undoubtedly, to seek royal favors. They lost all but their lives in a shipwreck, but Juan died shortly after in a Madrid hospital after forty four years of Indian fighting in Nuevo México.“ He died in October 1693, in Madrid, Madrid, Spain, at the age of 66.
The Revolt at Norte del Paso 1684
The Indians of the region were “pushed over the edge by widespread famine in the winter of 1683-1684, caused by the strain that the influx of people to the area had put on local resources. Taking advantage of the absence of so many soldiers from Norte de Paso with the Mendoza and López expedition, in the spring of 1684, the Mansos people revolted along with the Sumas, Janos, Julimes, Apaches, Conchos, and other groups, while the Piros, Tiguas, and a small number of Mansos remained loyal to the Spanish.
“Many of the disaffected were young men 20-30 years old who had been inspired by the success of the Provincia de Nuevo México Pueblo Revolt.”
The 1684 revolt was so devastating that Governor Jironza Petriz de Cruzate was forced to move the Presidio San José closer to Guadalupe del Paso at the pass of the Rio Grande and gather all of the Spanish and native people who remained loyal around it for protection. It was renamed the Presidio Paso del Rio and a Spanish settlement called Paso del Norte sprung up around it.
San Lorenzo, Socorro, Senecú, and Ysleta were relocated to the area of the presidio and San Pedro, San José, and Guadalupe de los Sumas were abandoned. Santa Gertrudis, San Francisco, and Sacramento had been destroyed in the revolt and were not rebuilt.
Late in 1684, driven by hunger, the Sumas returned to Guadalupe de los Sumas, but many of the Mansos continued to revolt until 1686. Most of the native people who participated in the revolt never returned to the missions of El Paso. They had been brought closer together by their experience and developed a common identity as "Apache," which came to mean hostile bands that opposed Spanish ways. The serious Indian revolt in 1684 caused a 50 percent decline in the Indian population of Guadalupe de Paso. After a colonial investigation of the rebellion, the Colonial Governor Jironza Petriz de Cruzate executed the rebel leaders.
In 1685 during these times Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez de Ocanto had a daughter named Agustina Romero born most likely at San Lorenzo at Guadalupe del Paso as San Pedro had been abandoned. She would later marry Miguel Tenorio de Alba and later Mateo Márquez in Santa Fé .
The De Ocanto Family
The earliest known ancestor of the de Ocanto or Del Canto family is Pedro del Canto who was born circa 1550 at Ciudad de México, Nueva España of Tiwa Pueblo Indian parentage. Being that Pedro del Canto was born in Ciudad de México it is supposed that both his of Tiwa Pueblo parents from the Taos area would have either been captured and brought back forcibly to Ciudad de México by probably the Francisco Vázquez de Coronado expedition.
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| Tiwa Indigenous family |
Coronado had assembled an enormous expedition at Compostela, México in 1540–1542, to explore and find the mythical Seven Golden Cities of Cibola. Coronado and his supporters sank a fortune in this ill-fated enterprise. They took 1,300 horses and mules for riding and packing, and hundreds of head of sheep and cattle as a portable food supply.
The Spanish attacked the Tiwa people, in what is now known as the Tiguex War, the first battle between Europeans and Native Americans in the American West. During the winter of 1540-41, 12 pueblos of Tiwa Indians along both sides of the Rio Grande, north and south of present-day Bernalillo, New Mexico, battled with the Spanish. Finally, the Indians surrendered and though they were “pardoned,” the Spaniards proceeded to burn at the stake, 200 of the captives, of whom about half were shot down in an attempt to escape the torture.
The war and the many diseases that the Spanish brought, later resulted in the abandonment of many of the villages.
Coronado's party found several adobe pueblos in 1541 but no rich cities of gold. Further widespread expeditions found no fabulous cities anywhere in the Southwest or Great Plains. A dispirited and now poor Coronado and his party began their journey back to Nueva España leaving Nuevo México behind in 1542. It is likely that some of Coronado's horses escaped, to be captured and adopted for use by Plains Indians.
Pedro del Canto is believed to have been the husband of a Tiwa Pueblo woman named Maria Lucia perhaps Lopez. They had a son named Juan López del Canto.
Juan Lopez del Canto
Juan Lopez del Canto was born circa 1573 also in Ciudad de México. That
indicated that at least two generations of Tiwa Pueblo Indians were his ancestors. Juan Lopez del Canto was recruited to traveled back north with the Juan Oñate Expedition of 1598 as an interpreter possibly, and he stayed on “to be a founding resident of Nuevo México.” When many of the soldiers chose to leave the early colony in 1601, Juan Lopez del Canto chose to stay. He was described in the Oñate annals as having a good stature, a black beard and a cross on his forehead. He married Juana Saavedra or Sayabedra also a Pueblo Indian probably in San Gabriel del Yunque. He is believed to have died in 1607 at the newly formed Spanish Fort of Santa Fé soon to be capital of Nuevo México . His wife died in 1610.
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| Tiwa male |
indicated that at least two generations of Tiwa Pueblo Indians were his ancestors. Juan Lopez del Canto was recruited to traveled back north with the Juan Oñate Expedition of 1598 as an interpreter possibly, and he stayed on “to be a founding resident of Nuevo México.” When many of the soldiers chose to leave the early colony in 1601, Juan Lopez del Canto chose to stay. He was described in the Oñate annals as having a good stature, a black beard and a cross on his forehead. He married Juana Saavedra or Sayabedra also a Pueblo Indian probably in San Gabriel del Yunque. He is believed to have died in 1607 at the newly formed Spanish Fort of Santa Fé soon to be capital of Nuevo México . His wife died in 1610.
Juan Lopez de Ocanto el Mozo, “the Younger”
Juan Lopez de Ocanto II was born circa 1607 in San Gabriel, Nuevo México, as a full blood Tiwa, born of Tiwa parents. However, he was orphaned at 3 years if he was born in 1607. He was raised among the participants of the Oñate colonists, possibly with the family of Alférez Diego Montoya, a Spaniard, married to Maria de Zamora, who was herself a Mestiza.
Juan Lopez de Ocanto el Mozo was said to have married Maria Ynez de Zamora de México the daughter of Alférez Diego Montoya and Ana Maria Martin de Barba who was said have Taino Indian Ancestry. Her grandparents, Alférez Bartolomé Montoya and Maria de Zamora came to Nuevo México in 1600 from Ciudad de México .
Maria de Zamora wife of Alférez Diego Montoya was born in Ciudad de México at San Sebastian, and was the daughter of Pedro de Zamora, who was a resident of that city and former Alcalde Mayor of Oaxaca and Agustina Abarca de Azteca. Their daughter Maria de Zamora married Bartolome Montoya.
Alférez Diego Montoya married Maria Ana Martin Barba
Diego Montoya’s aunts married Diego Robledo, the brother in law to Captain Bartolome Romero, and Pedro Lucero de Godoy.
The Jemez and Nambé Pueblos had been part of the encomienda that had belonged to Juan Lopez de Ocanto before he died in 1644. The number of encomienda grants, ranging from several entire pueblos to a fraction of one, depended on a soldier-citizen's rank and the services he had rendered. Legally, a grant of Indians in an encomienda did not imply use of native land or labor, but rather only the collection of tribute in kind as personal income, usually corn and cotton mantas (blankets) or animal skins. In turn, it was the encomenderos duty to respond to the governor's call to arms, providing his own horses and weapons, whenever the need arose. Since their encomienda income, however small, was a distinct advantage in the colony's limited economy, encomenderos became something of a local aristocracy, held in some degree of respect by less fortunate settlers. Many encomenderos acquired country estancias near the pueblos to supplement their encomienda revenues by growing wheat and other crops and raising livestock.
Maria Ynez de Zamora married Juan Alonso Lopez de Ocanto
Ynez de Zamora was first married in 1634 to Juan Lopez, a native of Cartagena de Levante, who came to Nuevo México with the twelve soldiers recruited at Zacatecas in 1633." It was learned that Lopez already had a “mulatto-mestiza wife” in Havana Cuba. The marriage was annulled on the charge of bigamy and she married . At the age of 35, in 1642, Juan Lopez de Ocanto was listed as a captain and would have been aware of the assassination of Governor Rosas as that his wife’s uncle Diego Martin Barba was executed in 1643 as one of the eight conspirators. Ynez de Zamora de Montoya on her mother’s side was a cousin of Domingo Martin Barba who married Sebastiana Mondragon, the mother of Salvador Romero. Ynez and Alonso had an unnamed daughter and Domingo de Ocanto before Juan Lopez de Ocanto died in 1644.
Domingo Lopez de Ocanto married Juana de Mondragon
Domingo Lopez de Ocanto or Del Canto
Domingo Lopez de Ocanto or Del Canto was born circa 1634-1638, in Santa Fé , Nuevo México, Viceroyalty of Nuevo España to Juan Lopez De Ocanto, and Ynez de Zamora. His family had an encomendera at Nambé and Jemez. The encomenderos' “prestige, coupled with the fact that they were required to maintain residence in Santa Fé, elevated them to dominance in the provincial government.”
In 1661 Domingo Lopez de Ocanto was clerk of the Cabildo of Santa Fé, holding the rank of Alférez. In that year he complained however that Governor Bernardo Lopez de Mendizabal (1659-61) had taken from him his encomienda of Nambé and Jemez which belonged to his conquistador father Juan Lopez de Ocanto. The Governor stated that Nambé was given to Domingo’s older sister since he was but a child when his father died.
Captain Antonio de Salas, stepson of Domingo’s great-uncle Pedro Lucero de Godoy was the encomenderos of Pojoaque, nearby Nambé. Salas complained about the rule that encomenderos had to live in Santa Fé by order of Governor Bernardo Lopez de Mendizabal (1659-61).
According to Salas’ testimony the Indians had asked him to take up residence in their pueblo, which the governor’s predecessor, let him do so. Salas had built a ranch house and grazed an extensive herd of cattle and sheep nearby. He claimed that his presence not only gave the Indians greater security, but that they could get milk and wool and could work out their tribute payments by working on his house and tending his herds. The governor, however, ordered Salas to raze his house and leave the pueblo. In his suit for damages during the governor’s malfeasant investigation of 1661, Salas argued that the law against encomenderos residing in the pueblos was perhaps justified in Nueva España, “where peace and security prevailed”, but not so in Nuevo México, where pueblos were increasingly subject to attack by nomads. “Former governors recognized this danger, and from the beginning allowed encomenderos to live near their charges. Salas added that his practice was common in most of the pueblo districts.”
The Encomenderos increasingly resented Governor Bernardo Lopez de Mendizabal for their being called away from their estancias to lead lengthy campaigns. While that call often could not be helped, many soldiers regarded service at distant places like Taos or Zuni as a form of banishment; indeed, some governors used assignments in these areas as a means of getting insubordinates temporarily out of their hair.
During the inquisition investigation of heretical Crypto Jews in Nuevo México in 1662, the sons of former Governor Francisco Gomez Robledo, Francisco, Juan and Andres, were all accused of being circumcised, which was considered by inquisitors as a “certain indication of Judaism”. The men were all first cousins of Captain Diego Romero who was also accused of heresy. Domingo López de Ocanto “of La Canada” was “one person who testified of seeing that Juan and Andrés were circumcised. He testified that knowledge of the brothers’ “circumcisions was widespread among the community”. He stated that he was the same age as the Gómez Robledo brothers and “when they were young boys used to bathe together, and that it appeared to him that they had their parts circumcised, and that all of the young men of that age know this.”
When the Inquisición prosecutor, Padre Fray Rodrigo Ruíz, asked if he had heard any other person or persons who were circumcised, Domingo Lopez de Ocanto replied that he only knew of Juan Gómez Robledo and Andrés Gómez Robledo, “sons of Francisco Gómez, deceased, citizens of the Villa of Santa Fé”. As a result of this revelation of the Gómez Robledo brothers having been circumcised, Padre Fray Rodrigo Ruíz suggested that “Juan and Andrés Gómez, brothers, sons of Francisco Gómez and doña Ana Romero with regard to the aforesaid sign of circumcision or cutting, which demonstrates that they are observers of Judaism, as a consequence should be severely castigated by the Holy Office with the penalties established by law.”
When Domingo Lopez de Ocanto or Del Canto married Juana de Mondragon in 1669, in Santa Fé. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 7 daughters. Juana de Mondragon was the daughter of Alonso de Mondragon and Juana Sanchez de Monroy, born circa 1655 in Santa Fé , Nuevo México.
His father in law, Juan Alonso de Mondragon, held the encomienda of Senecú. He would have been quite aware that his sister in law, Sebastiana de Mondragon was the mother of Captain Diego Romero’s children, Salvador and Ynez and that Romero had been arrested and sent to Ciudad de México for a trial before the Inquisition. Domingo Lopez de Ocanto was also a brother in law of Domingo Martin Barba who married Sebastiana de Mondragon in 1669.
In 1669 when his sister in law Sebastiana Mondragon married Domingo Martin Barba, a distant relative, he was referred to as a man of virtue. Domingo de Ocanto and Juana de Mondragon eventually were the parents of at least 3 sons and 6 daughters born during the 1660’s. They were Juan de Ocanto Lopez [1660–1721], Jose de Ocanto Lopez [1662–1714], Olaya de Ocanto Lopez de Oton [1664–1707] wife of Felip Sanchez Altamirano, Luisa Lopez de Ocanto 1665–Deceased] wife of Juan de Ribera, Maria Mondragon De Ocanto [1668–1710] wife of Salvador Romero, Alfonsa Maria Lopez de Ocanto Lopez [1668–1719], Jose Miguel de Ocanto Lopez [1670–1723] married Petra Maria Santiago, Juana Lopez De Mondragon wife of Antonio Ruis, and Margarita Peregrina De Oton wife of Tiburcio De Ortega.
Domingo de Ocanto escaped the massacre and in 1680 at the age of 42 when he was a Sargento Major. That year he also claimed to be ill and was married with 6 children in his household. His good health returned in 1681 and took part in Governor Otermín’s Campaign to recapture Nuevo México, however he died in 1682 enroute at the age of 44 or 48
Gertrudis Josefa Sanchez de Oton daughter of Olaya Lopez de Ocanto de Oton
Olaya Lopez de Ocanto daughter of Domingo de Ocanto and first cousin to both Salvador Romero and Maria de Ocanto, married Felipe Sanchez de Altamirano and had at least one daughter named Gertrudis Josefa Sanchez de Oton who was married Cristóbal Maese son of Luis Maese.
From testimony at a prenuptial investigation hearing, it is found that
her first husband, Cristóbal Maese, died in December, 1716. Only two months later, in February,
1717 she sought a new partner, Antonio Martín, 23, the son of Hernando Martín and Maria
Montaño. Gertrudis stated she was 27 and living in Santa Fe. At the prenuptial hearing, Juan
Martín, 23, volunteered testimony that he was the prospective groom’s first cousin, and had had
sexual relations with Gertrudis. Then Francisco Martin, Juan’s father and the groom’s uncle,
testified that they had also had sexual relations with Gertrudis. This led the Father Custodia to
declare that Gertrudis and Antonio should await a resolution to the case, which appears to have
not been in their favor.
In July, 1717, Gertrudis sought to be the wife of Bernardo Hernando Fernández, 45,
a Santa Fe Presidio soldier who was widowed of Inés González de Zaldivar. At the prenuptial
hearing for this proposed marriage, Gertrudis testified that she was 27, and had been a widow for
seven or eight months, but the hearing was filled with wild accusations against her, thus
preventing the marriage from taking place.
Bernardo Madrid, a soldier, stated at the hearing that
on his way from Las Salinas he had heard that Jose Antonio Fernández, the prospective groom’s
son, had already had illicit relations with Gertrudis. This son, age 21, then testified, admitting he
had relations with her, and had them before she became a widow. He also stated that he had not
so testified earlier as he feared his father.
Gertrudis admitted to having relations with the
intended groom since she became a widow the previous December, and for three months while
she lived in the Fernández home. The church denied permission for the marriage, mainly based
on her sexual relations with men who were related to one another. If the men she was involved
with were not related she would have received permission to marry.
The Marriage was denied by the authorities, and bride was consigned to the house of 56 year old Capt. Diego Aries de Quiros, and was admonished to cease her wild conduct.
Cayetano Moya married in January, 1722 at the age of sixteen, Gertrudis Sánchez de Oton of Santa Cruz, the widow of Cristóbal Maese. Within five years of their marriage, Gertrudis was deceased and was buried at Santa Fe.
Luisa Lopez de Ocanto daughter of Domingo De Ocanto
Luisa Lopez de Ocanto was the wife of Juan de Ribera who was born circa 1652 and was residing among the refugee colonists at Ysleta del Paso in 1685. A Juan Griego Ribera is mentioned in 1682 and possibly is the same man. His middle name shows that he belonged in some way to the Griego people. He joined the 1693 reconquest and afterwards declared that he was a native New Mexican, having been born, therefore, in the Guadalupe del Paso district, south of the Rio Grande. He must have been living there when the Rebellion came. His son, Francisco de Ribera, married a Juana Romero at Albuquerque in 1710.‘ He died prior to 1721,and his widow then married Cristobal Gallegos in 1728.
Norte del Paso 1686-1690
Governor Pedro Reneros de Posada
Pedro Reneros de Posada, in February 1686, was appointed governor of Nuevo México and began serving in that capacity in the fall of that year. Governor Posada had to faced Sumas, Mansos, Jocomes and Janos tribes that had rebelled against the Spaniards and to deal with the refugees escaping from Nuevo México. Morale was low among the soldiers who were not getting paid so much so that in 1687 Governor Posada passed a law prohibiting the sale of horses by Nuevo México soldiers. however the governor led troops against one of the groups of the tribes in the summer of that year, with a victory and the Indians were captured and sentenced.
Governor Posada led a troop of soldiers to northern Nuevo México again in 1688 in search of the Pueblo Indians, who had rebelled against the Spaniards, in order to repress them. The troop arrived in the region of Sia (today known as Zia) about forty-five miles northwest of modern Albuquerque. However, his expedition was a failure and Posada was only able to catch a few horses and sheep. He also led an expedition to the territory of the Keresan Indian tribe.
Over all, Governor Posada’s administration was considered negative by the Viceroy of Nueva España for not having achieved its objectives of securing Santa Fe. In addition, he was accused by the soldiers of the presidio El Paso of not having paid their salaries during his administration. This complaint brought him to trial. For all these reasons, he was dismissed from his political post in 1688 and was replaced by Domingo Jironza Petriz Cruzate, who had already governed Santa Fé de Nuevo México previously.
Maria Isabel López Romero daughter of Salvador Romero
In 1687, Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez de Ocanto’s daughter, Maria Isabel López Romero, was born at San Lorenzo. She would later married Cristóbal García Holgado on 6 November 1702 in Santa Fé . She died on 1 January 1782, in Albuquerque, Bernalillo, Nuevo México, at the age of 98. She had a son, Cristobal, November 29, 1703,” and another child on January 20, 1708,whose name the Padre forgot to enter,“ “probably a miscarriage that did not survive. In 1710, January 14, they had another boy, Nicolas Holgardo.' A daughter Maria Petrona Candelaria was born on February 4, 1727, and a son Alonso in 1730.
Governor Domingo Jironza Petriz Cruzate
Governor Domingo Jironza Petriz Cruzate's first action was to march north, where he sacked and burned the Zia Pueblo. This was the bloodiest engagement during the Pueblo Revolt, causing the Indians to abandon their settlements and retreat into the mountains. Six hundred Indians were killed, but the Spanish again did not have sufficient resources to follow through and were forced to retire to El Paso. As that Salvador Romero had military experience, it is most likely he participated in all these engagements in upper Nuevo México
The Pueblo Shaman leader Po’pay died, probably in 1688. His “united Pueblo nation” that he envisioned was divided, weak and suffering constant attacks from Apache, Navajo, and Plains Indians. When the Spanish tried to retake Nuevo México in 1681 and 1687, both times, Po’ pay raised an army and fought them off. However Po’ pay’s death further weakened the Pueblo people's resolve to repel the Spanish from returning to Nuevo México.
Diego Antonio Romero, son of Salvador Romero
In 1689, Diego Antonio Romero, son of Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez de Ocanto,
was born 1689 at San Lorenzo. At the time there were only five settlements on the Rio Grande at the Pass of the North that remained for the rest of the Spanish colonial period, El Paso del Norte, San Lorenzo, Senecú, Ysleta, and Socorro. Diego would grow to manhood in his ancestral homeland of La Canada, marry and would be the direct ancestor of the Romero's of Rawlins, Wyoming.
Joaquin Romero, Jose Romero, and Juan de Dios sons of Salvador Romero
Three other sons were born to Salvador and Maria. However one name, Joaquin Romero, who was born in 1690 was probably born at San Lorenzo. The birth years of Salvador's two additional sons, named Jose Romero and Juan de Dios Romero are unknown and may have been born after the reconquest and baptismal records lost. It is possible that the son Juan de Dios was named after his aunt Inez’s new husband Juan de Dios Lucero de Godoy who she married in 1692, which would place his birth perhaps in 1692.
The Early 1690's at Norte del Paso
Salvador Romero’s step father Domingo Martin Barba died in 1691 most likely at San Lorenzo.
His widow, Sebastiana Mondragon was living in exile probably at San Lorenzo also, perhaps with her nearly grown Martin Barba children when she became a widow. None of the children by Domingo Martin Barba have been positively been identified except one and they may have died young. She didn't seem to have much to do with her Romero offspring. Fray Angélico Chávez wrote regarding her, “A relic of the preceding century was old Sebastiana de Mondragon, who returned with the Reconquest to claim property in Santa Fe owned by her father, Juan de Mondragon, prior to the “uprising of the Indians.”
Ynez Romero de Villar sister of Salvador Romero
Salvador Romero's sister Ynez Romero de Villar's husband, Blas Griego, died in April 1692. He “was found dead near the post of Ysleta in the savannah and the bones are buried in the church of the post of Senecú.” He was 49 years old when he died and no cause of death was given. He was the father of two children Josefa Griego who was born prior to the 1680 Revolt and Juan Griego born on 30 August 1686, in San Lorenzo , Guadalupe del Paso, Nuevo México.
Josefa Griego niece of Salvador Romero
Josefa Griego married in 1699 at San Lorenzo in El Paso del Norte to Jose Romero, a soldier of Santa Fe Presidio whose parents were said to be unknown. She was listed as the daughter of Alferez Blas Griego deceased and “Ines Romero”. As that Jose Romero's parents were supposedly unknown there was no impediment to their marriage however this may simply been a ruse like Maria Ocanto did for her marriage. The Witnesses were Jose de Contreras, a soldier, who married to Maria Valencia, Antonio de Avalos who married Gerénima de Herrera , and Francisco Marquez who was married to Estele Lujan and living in Santa Cruz in 1709.
Juan Griego nephew of Salvador Romero
Juan Griego's first wife was Antonia Varela as he was referred to as “widowed of Antonia Varela buried in this church” when he married Juliana Saiz on 25 November 1716, in Albuquerque. “Juan Griego son of Alférez Blas Griego, deceased, and Ines Romero, vecinos of El Paso del Norte, and Juliana Saenz , 14) of Santa Fé , native of Nuevo México and daughter of Agustin Saenz (Saez) and Antonia Marquez, deceased. They were the parents of at least 7 sons and 6 daughters. He died on 27 November 1742, in Albuquerque at the age of 56.
The witnesses to the marriage were all soldiers at Santa Fe except teh notary Antonio de Silva. Francisco Garcia (40) of Albuquerque, married and soldier in Santa Fé ; Ventura Candelaria (30); Dimas Jiron de Tejeda (26), native of Ciudad de México, married and soldier in Santa Fé ; Pedro Martinez, native of Puebla, soldier and married."
Juan Greigo father in law, Agustin Saez, was the son of Captain Ambrosio Saez and Ana Rodriguez,‘ who enlisted at the mining town of Parral for the Reconquest of 1693. His was one of the families that had to vacate Santa Fé on December 27, 1693, when the Tanos people decided to fight for the town instead of departing peacefully. He was warned beforehand by an Indian who had served his father before the Rebellion of 1680.” His first wife, Leonor de Herrera, seems to have died at Guadalupe del Paso before 1692. The wife who came up to Santa Fé with him was Antonia Marquez, who was dead by 1709, when he applied to marry Isabel Madrid, a marriage that did not take place?
In 1701, Agustin Saez was banished from Santa Fé for adulterous relations while his Marquez wife was still living.‘ He died intestate prior to 1725,when his long-dead second wife was referred to as “Pascuala Vasquez,” daughter of the first wife of Captain Diego Arias de Quirés;” but the woman’s name was actually Antonia Marquez, daughter of Nicolas Marquez and Ana Maria Montoya." His known children by Antonia Marquez were Francisco and Juliana.’ Francisco married Juana de Herrera in 1718,when his mother is mentioned as deceased and Juliana became the wife of Juan Griego of Albuquerque.”
Marriage of Ynez Romero to Juan de Dios Lucero de Godoy
Ynez Romero, upon her application to marry Juan de Dios Lucero de Godoy as her second husband, had an impediment of consanguinity completed to determine if the couple were too closely related to marry.
“6 June 1692, Real de San Lorenzo, Juan de Dios Luzero de Godoi, 30 [1662] single, soldier of this presidio of Nuestra Señora del Pilar and Glorious San Jose, native of the province of Nuevo México and the villa of Santa Fé , son of Maese del Campo, Pedro Luzero de Godoi and Doña Francisca Gomez Robledo with Ynes Romero, 30 [1662] more or less, and lived in the villa of Santa Fé, married with Blas Griego who was found dead out at a camp two months ago more or less, buried in Senecú near San Lorenzo del Ysleta, daughter of Captain, Diego Romero and Sebastiana Mestas, natives of this province of Nuevo México at the Cañada.”
Ynez Romero, for some unknown reason, stated during her prenuptial investigation that her mother’s name was “Sebastiana Mestas.” Why the discrepancy between the name given by her brother Salvador for his mother and that given by Ynez is puzzling. It may have been to disguise the close relationship the brother and sister had to their future spouses. Salvador married his 1st cousin and Ynez married her second cousin.
When Sebastiana de Mondragon was named as "Sebastiana Martin" by Salvador, she was still married to Domingo Martin Barba. However Domingo had died by the time Ynez was married. It is possible that Sebastiana was living with the members of the Maese families, some of whom, along with Domingo Martin Barba, claimed that there was no impediment to the marriage of her brother Salvador and cousin Maria Lopez de Ocanto even though they were first cousins. It is doubtful that Ynez did not know her mother's true identity but the ruse must have been for the investigation.
Ynez Romero’s father, Captain Diego Romero, was the first cousin to Juan de Dios Lucero’s mother Francisca Gomez Robledo. Therefore Ynez and Juan de Dios were second cousin, not closely enough related for a serious impediment according to the Catholic Church, but needing an expensive dispensation and many witnesses.
“The summary of the prenuptial investigation, made by Fray Angélico Chávez of Ynez Romero to Juan de Rios Lucero de Godoy, gives a quote from the prenuptial investigation document that her parents Diego Romero and Sebastiana Mestas were “naturales de la probincias del nueba México en la Cañada,” which means “natives of the provinces of Nuevo México in La Canada.”
Juan de Dios Lucero de Godoy son of Pedro Lucero de Godoy
Juan de Dios Lucero de Godoy’s mother was Francisca Gomez Robledo the granddaughter of Captain Bartolome Romero and Luisa Robledo through their daughter Ana Gomez. Ynez Romero’s father Captain Diego Romero was the grandson of Captain Bartolome Romero and Luisa Robledo through their daughter Maria Perez. His mother was among those slain at Taos during the Revolt.
Juan de Dios Lucero was the son of Pedro Lucero de Godoy. His half sister was Catalina Zamora the legitimate wife of Ynez Romero's father Captain Diego Romero. Juan de Dios was born circa 1656 in Santa Fé and would have been 24 when his mother was slain in Taos. He possibly may have been a soldier and away with Salvador Romero at Casas Grande or part of the troop sent to escort the supply wagon train prior to the Revolt
He passed muster in 1681 as a bachelor twenty-five years of age and described as robust, medium height, having good features, a thick, black beard, and wavy hair.-“‘Between September 23 and 26, when he passed muster again, he had married Maria Varela, probably a sister of his brother Antonio Lucero’s second wife. Maria Varela must have died prior to 1692. They had at least one son named Juan de Dios Lucero de Godoy who married Maria Madrid sister of Roque Madrid. Ynez Romero became her step mother.
Ynez Romero’s husband Pedro Lucero de Godoy was an assistant Alcalde at Guadalupe del Paso and in 1711 he was a witness to the marriage of Juan Maese the son of Alfonso Maese. Alfonso was one of the witnesses to Salvador Romero's prenuptial investigation.
While Salvador Romero had returned to Santa Fe, Ynez Romero remained in Guadalupe del Paso, Nuevo México, Nueva España with her husband and died 26 Jan 1733 at about 71 years of age. The children of Ynez Romero and Juan de Dios Lucero de Godoy were Lazaro Lucero De Godoy 1693–1756 who married Maria Gutierrez de la Carrera; Cayetano Lucero De Godoy 1693–1745, Antonia Lucero Del Villar 1694–?; Geronima Lucero (del Villar) 1695–1753, Pedro Lucero de Godoy 1700–1775; Andres Lucero; and Francisco Lucero de Godoy who married Gregoria Varela de Losada.
The Impediment Witnesses
The Witnesses to the prenuptial document of Ynez Romero were Luis Martin Serrano, 70 [1722], from the post of Paso, who testified that Blas Grieg Captain was dead, Juan del Rio, 42 [1650]; Juan Luis [Ruiz], 77 [1615].
Luis Martin Serrano eI Mozo
Captain Luis Martin Serrano II was the son of Luis Martin Serrano and ‘Catalina de Salazar born circa 1622. He escaped the 1680 massacre with his wife Antonia de Miranda and twelve children, four of these being sons of military age. Luis held the rank of captain.” The next year he gave his age as forty-eight or fifty, and declared that a son of his, eighteen years old, was ready to bear arms. He himself was described as a native of Nuevo México, married, having a good, slender physique, dark complexion, black hair and beard, and a mole on the left cheek.” His two sons were Antonio, twenty-six, and Luis, “the Younger” thirty—four; both were married.”"
Juan del Rio son of Diego del Rio de Losa
`Juan del Rio was a captain in 1680 age about 30. He was married and had seven small children.“ In 1681 he gave his age as thirty-one or thirty-five, and was described as a native of Nuevo México , of a slender and good build, with a large nose, wavy hair, and a black beard. He was also an officer of the Confraternity of La Conquistadora in 1693.” His wife was Ana de Moraga. Their daughter Juliana de Rio married Francisco Maese the son of Alonso Maese who was a witness to Salvador Romero's marriage.
Captain Juan Luis [Ruiz] “El Viejo,” and the Lujan Family
Captain Juan Luis “El Viejo,” was also know as "Juan Luis Lujan" and "Juan Ruiz" and had an estancia near Chimayó prior to the Pueblo Indian uprising of August 1680. Luis passed muster in 1680 with his wife, one grown son, and three small children. In 1681 he said that he was sixty to sixty-six years old, a native of Nuevo México , and was described as having a good and robust stature, a long face, and gray hair.’
Later in1689, Captain Juan Luis, with his wife and children, are mentioned among the refugees at Guadalupe del Paso who were related in some way to José Baca, recently murdered by Silvestre Pacheco.
"The name “Luis” is here tofore unknown in Nuevo México" according to Fray Chaves. "A clue as to its origin comes later when this individual appears as a witness under the names, “Juan Luis Lujan” and “Lujan.” He is, moreover, a native of Santa Fé , from seventy to eighty years of age at the time.‘
In other words, Fray Chaves believed this Luis family belonged to the Ruiz Céceres-Lujan clans, the name having become corrupted as in other instances. Apparently, Juan Luis’ wife was a Baca, perhaps the Isabel Baca who was the mother of Juana Ruiz Caceres, wife of Antonio de Avalos.
Decades later Roque de Madrid referred to Juan Ruiz Céceres as his grandfather, hence another daughter of his had married Francisco de Madrid, father of Roque who was also witness to the marriage of Ynez Romero and Juan de Dios Lucero.
In May 1663, while providing testimony to authorities of the Office of the Inquisition, Ynez's father Captain Diego Romero, mentioned two men as “dos hermanos” and named Capitán Juan Luján and Juan de Archuleta. Juan de Archuleta was married to María Luján, a 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. This made it clear that the Luján were well known to Captain Diego Romero and thus they would have known his children’s Romero’s family background.
According to his testimony recorded in April 1689 at El Paso del Río del Norte, Captain Juan Luis and María Luján were parents of Juan Luis Luján,. The source for this information is the prenuptial investigation record of Sebastián Rodríguez Brito and Antonia Naranjo.
Captain Juan Luis, the elder, was born circa 1606-1615. He gave his age as 80 in April 1689, indicating he was born circa 1609 and his wife, María Luján, was deceased at the time. He gave his age as 84 in June 1690, indicating he was born circa 1606. He gave his age as 77 in June 1692, indicating his year of birth as 1615.
There is as yet no known records that confirm the names of the parents of Captain Juan Luis or María Luján. In 1693 his son was referred to as "Juan Ruiz Lujan age 60 plus [1633]. He may have been alive as late as May 1697 when a Juan Luis was accounted for as having the rank of captain in the account of Nuevo México pobladores receiving livestock. However this may have been his son Juan Luis Luján, also known as Juan Luis who gave his age as 60 in August 1693 having been born circa 1633 and declared he was a native of Nuevo México when he was a witness to a prenuptial investigation in 1693, at El Paso del Norte
In August 1691 Juan Luis [Ruiz] Luján mentioned that he had gone to the mercury mines in the company of his “compadre”, Francisco Gómez Robledo the grandson of Bartolome Romero. He mentioned that “On his father’s orders, he brought a load in two cow hides.”
This event of the expedition to the mercury mines occurred during the tenure of Governor don Luis de Guzmán, who was governor from 1647-1649. The stated relationship with Francisco Gómez Robledo is significant. Captain Juan Luis [Ruiz] Luján thus had a long-time association with the Gómez Robledo-Lucero de Godoy clans. “This clan, and Captain Juan Luis, belonged to the same political faction that supported the authority of the governors in opposition to the supporters of the Franciscans.”
Juan Luis [Ruiz] Luján married Isabel López de Castillo, a native of Nuevo México, daughter of Estéban López, native of Ciudad de México and María de las Nieves, a native of Nuevo México . This couple, whose names were recorded as Juan Luis and Ysabel Lopes were godparents for two children, baptized at El Paso del Norte. They were the parents at perhaps four three children.
Matías Luján, son of Juan Luis [Ruiz] Luján
Most likely a son of Juan Luis was Matías Luján, born circa 1643-1652, married Francisca Romero de Salazar and the daughter of Bartolome Romero who was an uncle to Captain Diego Romero. Matías Luján gave his age as 40 in September 1692 when he was a witness for the prenuptial investigation of Francisco Gonzalez de Apodaca, age 20 native of La Cañada, resident of Corpus Christi de Isleta, son of José González de Apodaca and Antonia Martín, with María López de Luna, daughter of Captain Diego de Luna and Elvira García.
In 1702, a daughter of Matias named Juana Luján, was identified as a first cousin of Captain Salvador Olguín, Felipa Manzanares and Simón Martín. We know that Captain Salvador Olguín was a son of Juan López Olguín and Ana María Luján, a known daughter of Juan Luis Luján and Isabel López del Castillo.
Matías Luján identified himself as resident of Isleta of the Tegua Indians. Matias Lujan came back to his pre-Revolt lands at Santa Cruz in La Cañada where he had been born and reared at the place called San Cristobal de la Cañada. He was either a son of Captain Juan Luis and Maria Lujan or Lujan and Isabel López del Castillo. In 1693-1695 he gave his age as fifty [1643-1645.” Juana Lujan, daughter of Matias Lujan and Francisca Romero had a prosperous homestead near San Ildefonso, including Apache and other Indian servants. Her three children, Francisco, Juan, and Luisa Gomez del Castillo were already adults in 1732. They sometimes were called “Lujan,” but mostly “Gomez del Castillo,” a name which became permanent.
Antonio Gomez Robledo
There was no “Gomez del Castillo" family in Nuevo México before or during this time. What seems very likely is that Juana Lujan had her three “natural” children at Guadalupe del Paso by either Antonio Gomez Robledo or his cousin Bartolome Gomez Robledo. Fray Angélico Chávez wrote “As for Antonio, a guess of mine is that he was the son of a Lopez del Castillo woman; that he had certain natural children by Juana Lujan at Guadalupe del Paso, 1681- 1693, and these came to Nuevo México as “Gomez del Castillo.” Moreover, they were very close to the Roybal-Gomez Robledo clan in the Pojoaque area.”
He also stated Antonio Gomez Robledo’s cousin “Bartolomé II, was tall and thin, with a ruddy beardless face, pleasing features, and long straight hair.“ This man might well be the culprit of my “Gomez del Castillo” guess, instead of his cousin Antonio. Juana Lujan and her children were very close to the family of Ignacio Roybal, whose wife was Francisca Gomez Robledo, the daughter of Andres Gomez Robledo. She was the great granddaughter of Bartolome Romero and Luisa Robledo as well as second cousin to Salvador and Inez Romero.
Agustin Luján son of Juan Luis [Ruiz] Luján
Agustin Lujan born circa 1655 escaped in 1680 with his wife, two children, and three sisters-in-law. He was a Santa Fé soldier who married Maria (Luisa) Perea, widow of Miguel Maese, in 1701.“ Maria Luisa Perea was the sister of Catalina Varela, wife of Martin Hurtado and was mentioned in a hexing incident.
Ana María Luján daughter of Juan Luis [Ruiz] Luján
Ana María Luján, born circa 1662, who married on 30 May 1682, at El Paso del Río del Norte, with Juan López Olguín, born circa 1660, native of Nuevo México , son of Captain Salvador Olguín [Holguin] and Magdalena Fresquí.
Pedro son of Juan Luis [Ruiz] Luján
Pedro Luján born circa 1669 married on 10 January 10, 1691, at El Paso del Río del Norte, Francisca Martin de Salazar born circa 1675, daughter of Captain Pedro Martín Serrano and Juana de Argüello .“With so many mix-ups after the Reconquest, besides those before the Rebellion, it is most difficult to identify the people who went by the name of Luján.
The Marriage Witnesses
The witnesses to Ynez Romero and Juan de Dios Lucero's marriage on June 10 were Captain Alonso del Rio, Maria Gonzales de la Concepcion, and Maese de Campo Roque Madrid, “all residents of this real and soldier of the presidio”.
Alonso del Rio son of Diego del Rio de Losa
Alonso del Rio was born circa 1641 a native of Santa Fe and in the exile a resident of San Lorenzo. He was the widower of Maria Gonzales who buried at San. Lorenzo and was said to be the son of Captain Diego del Rio de Losa and Maria Madrid both deceased. He most likely was the brother of Juan del Rio
He was a Captain and Regent was with the Pedro Leyva escort party at Guadalupe del Paso when the Pueblos Revolt began. He was married but had no children at this time. He signed up for the Otermín campaign in 1681, declaring that he was forty “elder and ancient” of that place.“ He had been the mayordomo of the Conquistadora Confraternity from 1685 to 1691,and continued remitting his dues to Santa Fé after the Reconquest.’ In 1699 Capt. Alonso del Rio age 53 [1646] married Rosa Paez Hurtado Lopez at El Paso del Norte.
Roque de Madrid son of Francisco de Madrid
Roque de Madrid was the son of Sargento Mayor Francisco de Madrid and Sebastian Juana Ruiz Caceres bon in 1644. He became Sargento Mayor of all troops in Guadalupe del Paso by 1688, when he gave his age as forty-four. [1644]" He took a leading part in the Vargas Expeditions of 1692 and 1693, and also in the serious Pueblo uprising of 1696. He married Juana Lopez Pacheco de Arvid, who returned with him. Their family, settling at Santa Cruz. They had a grown son, José, in 1702,“and a daughter Josefa, who married Cristobal de la Serna in 1694. Two other young Madrids of the same generation, Pedro and Matias, also living at Santa Cruz, and married into the same Serna family, were in all likelihood the sons of Roque. He was a brother in law to Sebastiana Mondragon and Domingo Martin Barba’s daughter.
Return to Santa Fé
During the years the Spanish were in exile at El Paso del Norte, many if not most mission church records were destroyed including baptismal, marriage, and death records as well as legal documents located in Santa Fé. The Romero survivors of the Pueblo Revolt waited as refugees at El Paso de Guadalupe until 1692, when Military leader and Governor Don Diego de Vargas undertook the "Reconquest" of Nuevo México
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| Governor Vargas |
The Pueblo Indian uprising of August 1680 had claimed the lives of many of the Romero family, however archival records confirmed that the greatest number of returning grandchildren to pre-revolt lands were descendants of the Romero de Pedraza families. The exceptions were the few Romero people returning to Nuevo México who were members of the family of Alonso Cadimo Romero, a mestizo who lived and worked in the household of Félipe Romero, first cousin of Captain Diego Romero, and one male descendant of Captain Diego Romero, Salvador Romero, his “natural” offspring.
Francisco Xavier Romero who came up from Ciudad de México was never members of the family of Captain Bartolome Romero and Luisa Robledo but lived among.
The Reconquest
The Reconquest of Nuevo México was a military campaign to place the Santa Fe back under the rule of the Spanish Crown and to restore Christianity and Spanish property rights in the Rio Aribba and Rio Abajo. The campaign began under the governorship of don Diego de Vargas who had been assigned with the task of reconquering and pacifying the Nuevo México province for Spain.
In July 1692, Governor Diego de Vargas, with between 40 and 60 Spanish soldiers, and an equal number of Pueblo allies who supported a return to Spanish rule, marched from El Paso del Norte to “reconquer” Provincia de Nuevo México. By August 1692, Governor Vargas had marched to Santa Fé unopposed.
Luis Tupatú
Luis
Tupatú, was a Pueblo leader of mixed race, having had some relatives of Spanish origin. He led the Picuris during the revolt and became a leader of the northern Pueblo people during the period following
the expulsion of the Spanish from New Mexico. He was from Picuris Pueblo and took over the leadership position from Po'pay after the shaman leader died.
While Luis Tupatu was a member of the community of Puebloans, his uncle Miguel Luján was one of the captains of soldiers that accompanied Governor Diego de Vargas in 1692. "In addition, his wife belonged to a family formed by Tewas, Criollos Spaniards, and mestizos."
At Santa Fé, Tupatú negotiated a peace plan with Governor Vargas to stop the fighting between Pecos and Taos Indians as they needed the Spanish to avoid further serious attacks by the Apache. Governor Vegas promised clemency and protection to the 1,000 Pueblo people assembled at Santa Fé if they would swear allegiance to the King of Spain and return to the Christian faith. After much persuading by the Spanish, the Pueblo Indians agree to peace.
Tupatú was appreciated by Governor Vargas and the Spanish government in Santa Fe, and was officially appointed governor of thirteen villages of Northern New Mexico. Thus, the month after his appointment, he earned a written title that symbolized his authority.
After the Reconquest Tupatú and Miguel Lujan were appointed to inspect the homes at Santa Cruz, and in 1698 he owned the property that had formerly belonged to Alonso del Rio.“ But nothing is known about his immediate antecedents, or of his wife and children, if any.
Repossession of Northern Nuevo México & Spanish Recolonization 1693-1699
On 14 September 1692 Governor de Vargas proclaimed a formal act of repossession. From Santa Fé, Governor de Vargas “went forth to conquer other rebel pueblos” and then he returned to El Paso del Norte in late December, 1692. In a period of five months Vargas, seemingly, had recovered the whole of Nuevo México . “The stage was now set for phase two of Vargas' plan which was the recolonization of Nuevo México.”
Upon arriving back in El Paso del Norte, Governor Vargas found living conditions for the citizens less than comfortable with many without basic needs. A census, conducted from 22 December 1692 through 2 January 1693 showed that Norte del Paso had 382 inhabitants contained in fifty households. At the home villa of Salvador Romero's family and relatives, San Lorenzo two leagues from El Paso, another 266 persons resided, while at Ysleta, four leagues south of the city, 118 residents lived. At Senecú, three leagues from El Paso another 130 residents were counted. Altogether the El Paso area had about 1,000 Spanish persons in early 1693. Many of the families that decided to risk their futures in Nuevo México were motivated by land and to escape poverty in Guadalupe de Paso.
To resettle Nuevo México, Diego de Vargas saw that it would take the full cooperation of the refugees at El Paso as well as more money than what was granted by the viceroy at Ciudad de México for the project. He stated “that livestock, grain, seeds, wagons, mules, horses, plus household goods were needed to make the expedition a success. He also requested forty more missionaries to insure that the abandoned pueblos would be adequately served.
By the summer 1693, Governor Vargas reported that he could count on forty-two soldiers plus 200 horses, along with supplies and sixty-two volunteer families from as far away as Ciudad de México, ready to make the journey into Nuevo México . “Since not all residents of El Paso were enthusiastic about returning to their previous homes, the volunteer families were a godsend.”
In 1693, 500 Spanish and native families returned to Nuevo México, which depleted the populations of many of the Guadalupe del Paso settlements. When many in the Guadalupe del Paso area returned to their former homes in Rio Abajo and Rio Arriba, five settlements on the Rio Grande remained for the rest of the Spanish colonial period. These were El Paso del Norte, San Lorenzo, Senecú, Ysleta, and Socorro, the last three named for the pueblos which were abandoned in 1680.
Salvador Romero’s sister Ynez and her family chose to remain at San Lorenzo which soon was part of the portion of Nuevo México south of the Rio Grande which was later called Chihuahua. However Salvador Romero, who was a 33 year old soldier made the decision to return north with his wife, María López de Ocanto and his children born in exile.
On 13 October 1693 the permanent resettlement expedition began. The familes were divided into three sections of 800 people, and set out with 900 head of livestock, 2,000 horses and 1,000 mules. The pobladores reached Robledo by October 18th. “The trip was slow and rough. Nuevo México in October and November was cold and the land was covered with snow. The party was not prepared for the cold they encountered. The chill winter months took their toll on the party. Women and children died of cold and starvation.” In 1693, Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez de Ocanto had five known children when they returned to Nuevo México. They were 10 year old Domingo Romero, 8 year old Agustina Romero, 6 year old Isabel Romero, 4 year old Diego Antonio Romero and 3 year old Joaquin Romero. Twenty-Five year old Maria Lopez de Ocanto would have been responsible for the care of all these children as Salvador would certainly had been a soldier on patrol.
Finally in late December 1693, the Vargas expedition arrived at Santa Fé still in the possession of Tanos Pueblo Indians. There the caravan found themselves “without living quarters, without food, and, worst of all, among unfriendly natives.” The Spanish tried to trade with local pueblos for badly needed grain, only to find that none was available for them. As the cold weather continued, more children and infants died.
Governor Vargas decided that the Tanos Indians, who occupied Santa Fé, should return to their pueblo at Galisteo and the town would be turned back over to the Spanish. When the Indians heard of the proceedings, they vowed to resist any attempted resettlement.
Retaking Santa Fé and Pacification of the Pueblos
In the early morning of 28 December 1693, Governor Vargas “sounded the alarm and the battle for Santa Fé was on”. For two days it raged, as the Spanish attacked the walls of the city while the Indians repelled them. Finally, on December 30th, 1693, Santa Fé was taken after hand-to-hand combat. Certainly as a former soldier, Salvador Romero would have participated in the retaking of Santa Fé.
The Spaniards not only gained badly needed shelter, but they found the houses well provisioned with maize and beans. The Spanish, now protected in the villa of Santa Fé, could go to work pacifying the outlying pueblos. This included sending forth missionaries. Also a cabildo, was set up in Santa Fé which consisted of both civilians and military men who helped the governor provide defense for the city.
Salvador Romero along with Maria Lopez de Ocanto and their children, lived in or near the recaptured Santa Fé. Within Santa Fé, life seems to have been on a communal basis, less from desire, than from necessity. From the descriptions of Governor Vargas' distribution of foods and goods, grains were gathered in a central place for storage. Food supplies were evidently doled out by a single authority, as was clothing, medicine, and other goods.
For housing, the pobladores at first lived in woolen or hide tents and finally in adobe huts. “Chances are good that several families inhabited each house, for the simple reason that too few houses existed. Santa Fé resembled more a primitive commune than a Spanish capital. “Within the houses were supply depots, quarters for soldiers and governmental offices. The general populace lived in single or multiple adobe houses outside the defensive perimeter. When danger threatened, the occupants could flee to the square where attackers had to scale walls of some magnitude.”
A census taken 23 June 1694 showed that only 66 Spanish families remained in Nuevo México and among them was the family of Salvador Romero. Of course, in Santa Fé and the pueblos, bureaucracy absorbed some of the more educated colonists.
Villa de Santa Cruz
Governor Vargas planned to spread the population of Santa Fé's residents throughout Nuevo México. The governor felt that to help protect the Franciscans, another Spanish town would be needed. In 1695 he assigned fifty families to move north into La Cañada to create a new town. The site was located upriver 25 miles northwest of Santa Fé between the capital and Taos Pueblo, in the valley of the Santa Cruz River. The Santa Cruz area was originally inhabited by the Tewa but “was established as a new Spanish villa for those that had arrived from Ciudad de México.
Santa Cruz was founded for two reasons. First, the settlement was used to spread Spanish colonists along the upper Rio Grande and secondly it was planned that the city would be maintained for the defense of the many pueblos in this area.
“To this end, a proclamation of April 19th established the town of Villa Nueva de Santa Cruz de Españoles Mexicanos del Rey Nuestro Señor Carlos Segundo, or in English The New Town of the Holy Cross of Mexican Spaniards under the King Our Lord Charles II. This lengthy name was shortened to Santa Cruz de la Cañada.
On April 21, 1695 sixty-six families moved to Santa Cruz, the first new town established in Nuevo México since 1610. Also settling in the jurisdiction of the Villa Nueva de Santa Cruz were families that held land in the area prior to the August 1680 Pueblo Indian uprising, such as the large Martín Serrano extended family at Chimayó, the Moraga family in the area of Pueblo Quemado (modern-day Córdova), the Archuleta family, the Herrera family, the Salazar, and the Luján family.
Other pre-revolt families that established themselves in the jurisdiction of Santa Cruz included the Apodaca, the Durán, the Madrid, the Márquez, the Mondragón, the Montoya, the Serna, the Torres, and the Trujillo. Salvador Romero was not listed as an original settler as that he had not owned any land prior to the revolt.
Santa Cruz was given a military government composed of an alcalde mayor, a capitán of the militia, an alférez (second lieutenant), a sergeant, an alguacil (constable), and four military squad leaders. Each family was provided with half “afanega” of seed along with implements for farming.
Of the residents listed in 1695, thirty percent were artisans and craftsmen, while others were skilled laborers. Still more were unskilled. All soon learned that in order to survive they had to work together and do necessary jobs. These people were forced by the environment to become shepherds, farmers, and ranchers. The Nuevo México “frontier tempered a Spanish settler into a man of the land.”
The Indian Revolt of 1696
The winter of 1695/6 brought starvation to the pobladores, occasioned by drought during the previous summer, a plague of worms, and a severe lack of sufficient tools and new cattle. By 1696 two hundred Spanish pobladores were reported to have died of starvation over the winter. A report depicted the people of Santa Fé as living on horses, cats, dogs, rats, ox hides and old bones. Nearly naked and gaunt, desperate people were said to be roaming the streets. The plight of the Spanish in Nuevo México that winter was not lost upon the Indians who saw the starving pobladores as an opportunity for a new revolt. The pobladores in Nuevo México were so weak that they could not possibly withstand an Indian uprising.
Reports from the missions poured into Santa Fé stating an Indian uprising was likely. Throughout the spring of 1696 letters came to Santa Fé, from outlying missions, but Governor Vargas was helpless because Ciudad de México refused to send more troops.
In June 1696, five missionaries were killed and despite weakness, Governor Vargas moved swiftly against the Indians. An ordered was issued to call in all missionaries, while squads of men were sent to certain very dangerous missions to escort the friars. Salvador Romero if at all healthy would have participated.
Governor Vargas organized an expedition to reduce the number of pueblos on “a systematic basis beginning at Santa Cruz and worked into the Chimayo Mountains. Vargas engaged with Ute and Taos Indian forces at Santa Cruz and defeated them in July. Once the battle of Santa Cruz was decided, the various Pueblos Indians returned home and the revolt was over. The uprising had taken the lives of twenty-one settlers, and five missionaries. Churches and religious articles were burned, but as Vargas wrote to the viceroy, he was in no way defeated. He said the only way Nuevo México could be lost was from hunger not Indians.”
Pockets of resistance remained, nevertheless, Vargas prepared to send a few friars back into the field and with the help of Fray Custos Francisco de Vargas, he began to replace lost horses, livestock and religious articles for the missions. The Pueblos Missions of Sandia, Zia, and Santa Ana were restored, as was Santa Cruz. “The revolt of 1696 stirred Ciudad de México to action. In November that year the viceroy approved Vargas' requests for more supplies for the colony which arrived at Santa Fé in April, 1697.
Salvador and María were living in Santa Fé when in May, the goods from Ciudad de México were distributed among 1,007 persons, who were described as follows: ninety six families totaling 404 persons natives of Nuevo México, seventeen families of “Mexicans of the group residing in Santa Fé prior to 1680” totaling seventy one persons , 124 families from Zacatecas and Sombrerete totaling 449 persons with eighty three listed as orphans, bachelors, single women, and half-breeds. Salvador Romero’s family would have been among those residing in Santa Fé prior to 1680. Once back in Rio Arriba during the decade between 1696 and 1706, Salvador amd Maria possibly had three more children , Jose Romero, Pasquala Romero, and Buena Ventura Romero.
Governor Pedro Rodriguez Cubero 1697-1703
The year 1697 promised to be much better than any previous times for the settlers of Nuevo México . The revolt of 1696 was crushed. Supplies finally arrived from Nueva España. The next several years would be a time of turmoil, not from Indian unrest and famine but “caused by internal politics regarding the governorship of Nuevo México between Pedro Rodriguez Cubero who was sent to replace Governor Vargas. His five year term ended in 1693, however, he was told to continue his position as governor until relieved by Pedro Rodriguez Cubero who arrived in July 1697.
When Cubero arrived in Santa Fé, Governor Vargas was unwilling to hand over the reins of power and wrote to the viceroy seeking a postponement of Cubero's assumption on the grounds that he (Vargas) was not given a fair hearing. Meanwhile, Governor Vargas persuaded the cabildo of Santa Fé to give him a statement of loyalty to no avail as that Cubero assumed the office in 1697.
During the tenure of don Pedro Rodríguez Cubero as governor of Nuevo México, many of the citizens of the Villa Nueva de Santa Cruz continued to struggle with farming, raising livestock, and the rising threat of attacks by bands of Navajo and Apache. Gradually, residents left the region for other parts of Nuevo México. Salvador and María moved a lot during the Cubero administration. In 1697 they were living in Santa Fé, later in Santa Cruz and in 1702 they were in Sandia. But by in 1705, they were back in Rio Arriba where they were living near Chimayo. When don Diego de Vargas returned in November 1703 for his second term as governor, he found the Villa Nueva de Santa Cruz was nearly abandoned.
The Eighteenth Century in Northen Nuevo México
By 1700 nearly 1,500 Spanish settlers were to be found in northern Nuevo México some from the prerevolt colonists and some from the pobledadors from Ciudad de México. They in large, were the ancestors of all people of Spanish New Mexican-Spanish heritage. Meantime in Santa Fé , now a city of 300 people, society and government revolved around the fact that the capital was not secure from hostile natives. The military was the key to the safety of province. It kept the Indians at bay. Every man was required to serve in the militia, although exceptions could be made. Also the legal battle over the governorship if Santa Fé continued in Ciudad de México for several more years. On March 20, 1700 Diego de Vargas’s case was settled and he was appointed governor once more.
Nuevo México had no industry to speak of as the sheep, cattle and horses imported during the Vargas era were just beginning to become productive. Indians still provided most of the foodstuffs for the settlers as they reestablished their farming enterprises. From self-supporting agriculture came a need to diversify into cattle and sheep raising. The land was better suited to such endeavors. Sheep took little water and could graze on the poorest of lands. Cattle, too, could be raised on the relatively bad forage. For these reasons the hide and wool trades became major industries.
A tiny trade between Nueva España and Nuevo México existed, but the balance was heavily tipped in favor of the merchants of Parral and Chihuahua. The residents of Santa Fé had little to export and a great need for imports. A trade in horses, sheep, cows, blankets and other goods kept Nuevo México going. From this early date Nuevo México was continually in debt to the merchants of northern Nueva España . It took governmental subsidies to bail out the New Mexicans.
Pascuala Romero daughter of Salvador Romero
The family of Salvador Romero lived in several places perhaps at various presidios where he was a soldier. A daughter, Pascuala Romero, was born in the Pueblo Sandia on 7 April 1702 and baptized in “extremis” on 11 Apr 1702 as she must have been extremely ill.
Marriages of Agustina Romero daughter of Salvador
That same year of 1702, his sixteen year old daughter Agustina Romero married Mateo Márquez. In a nuptial investigation taken in May 1702 it was reported "Santa Fé. Mateo Marquez (23), native of Santa Fé, son of "Cristobal" Marquez and Ana Maria Montoya, natives of Nuevo México and Agustina Romero, daughter of Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez de Ocanto. Witnesses: Cristobal de Gongora, notary, Juan de Paz Bustillos (40), Miguel Moran (30), native of Nuevo México.” The pair were married, June 12, 1702.
Mateo Marquez was actually, probably, the son of “Nicolas Marquez”. This Nicolas Marquez might well have been the son of Catalina Marquez by her in infamous husband, Nicolas de Aguilar, of the preceding century.” Nicolas de Aguilar had been arrested and tried by the Inquisition along with Agustina’s grandfather Captain Diego Romero in 1662. Fray Angélico Chávez wrote, “Nicolés Marquez had been the husband of Ana Maria Montoya, who married Diego Arias de Quiros in 1694.” She had two Marquez children: Antonia and Mateo. Mateo married Augustina Romero at Santa Fé in 1702. They had a daughter, Ana Maria, who married Domingo Valdés.
Salvador Romero's father in law was Domingo de Ocanto and his wife's niece was Gertrudis Josefa Sanchez de Oton who was the widow of Cristóbal Maese son of Luis Maese. She was ordered to reside in Diego Arias de Quiro's house household until she mended her "wild conduct."
The witnesses to Agustina’s marriage were Juan de Paz Bustillos was one of the colonists that was brought from Ciudad de México in 1693. Miguel Moran returned to his native Santa Fe in 1693 with his wife, Celestina de la-Cruz. Cristobal-de Gongora, the “Secretario de Cabildo”, lived in Santa Fé with his wife, Ynez de Aspeitia, known as “La Memela.” He left her on grounds of adultery and witchcraft.’ He was a soldier of the Presidio and also sang in the church choir.
Salvador Romero's son in law Mateo Marquez died not long after his marriage to Agustina Romero who remarried in November 1705 to Miguel Tenorio de Alba. “15 Nov 1705: Santa Cruz. Capt. Miguel Tenorio de Alba (30), native of the city of Zacatecas, son of Juan Tenorio de Alba and Josefa Lopez Sandoval, deceased, and Agustina Romero (20), daughter of Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez de Ocanto living in El Puesto de Chimayo. Witnesses: Miguel de Quintana, notary; Jose Lopez (20), native of La Villa de los Lagos living in Santa Fé; Antonio Duran de Armijo (32), native of Zacatecas, barbero and married, living in Santa Fé; Juan de Aragon (43) and Ambrosio Fresqui (36), both of Santa Cruz. married, Nov. 28, 1705.
Miguel Tenorio de Alba was a native of Zacatecas, twenty-one or twenty-two years old in “Reconquest times”.‘ He first settled in the newly founded town of Santa Cruz in 1696. He was a member of the Confraternity of La Conquistadora.‘ “Their children were: Manuel, married to Francisca de la Vega y Coca; Juan, presumably a son, who married Margarita Coca, October 23, 1728;Miguel II, husband of Barbara Tafoya; Francisca, who married Cristobal de Armenta in April, 1735; and Luisa, wife of Bartolomé Fernandez de la Pedrera, May 8, 1740.” Miguel Tenorio was an ancestor of Libradita Romero who married Ricardo de Jesus Romero a direct descendant of Salvador Romero.
The witnesses to Agustina’s marriage were Ambrosio Fresqui who was an Alférez of the militia at Santa Cruz in 1703. Miguel de Quintana came with the colonists of 1693. He was born in México City, the son of José, and was twenty-two years old.
Tomasa Romero daughter of Salvador Romero
Salvador Romero and Maria Lopez de Ocanto may have had a daughter named Tomasa Romero, said to have been born in 1704 possibly in Santa Fé .
The Death of Governor Diego de Vargas
On 10 November 1703 don Diego de Vargas reached Santa Fé to replace Governor Cubero. He quickly established himself in the Governor's Palace and wrote a report to the viceroy describing the conditions of Nuevo México , in which he denounced Cubero for "ignorance of frontier problems," particularly because Cubero had virtually abandoned Santa Cruz, one of Vargas' pet projects. Also, he complained that Cubero had spread the settlers in Santa Fé out too far making defense difficult.
In the spring of 1704 Governor Vargas prepared for a campaign into the Sandia Mountains south of Santa Fé to eliminate some Apache raiding along the Rio Grande. He chose Sandia as his headquarters. With fifty soldiers, perhaps including 44 year old Salvador, the governor set out from Santa Fé to that pueblo. From there he went to the abandoned ranch of Francisco de Ortega, about 20 miles east of present-day Albuquerque. On April 1st, he pushed into the mountains and the next day while in pursuit of his enemies when he became ill. Returning to Sandia, he drew up his last will and received the sacrament of extreme unction.
Governor don Diego de Vargas died at Sandia on April 8, 1704. The exact cause of his death unknown. He requested that his body be laid to rest under the main altar of the church at Santa Fé.
“Upon the death of Diego de Vargas, a political vacuum was left in the province. He was the governor of Nuevo México for ten years, twice the normal term of office and his death was bound to cause some distress.” Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdes was appointed to replace Vargas.
Governor Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdes 1704-1707
After Governor Vargas' death, conditions in Nuevo México were not good. An undated document from probably 1705, in the form of a petition to the cabildo of Santa Fé , asked for help particularly for the poor and widows who were on the verge of starvation. In the petition residents accused Governor Cuervo of having done nothing to relieve the plight of the capital and of Nuevo México in general. No requests for aid from Santa Fé were made to Ciudad de México although there a serious lack of foodstuffs and clothing existed throughout the province.
The governor made movement within Nuevo México restricted and required permission. “With a small population in a large area, surrounded by hostile Indians and containing untrustworthy pueblo Indians, the threat of warfare, raids or massacres were always present. To keep the populace in one place benefited not only the government but also the settlers. Unrestricted movement or a mass exodus would place the province in a tenuous situation. The government knew that every person was needed for defense. Settlers were kept under strict control and movement was severely restricted.
Apparently the government feared a mass exodus. To prevent this, a system of passes was developed. In November, 1704, a petition from fifteen Santa Fé settlers requested permission to leave Nuevo México . It was denied by the Santa Fé cabildo which was delegated by the governor to handle this matter. Reasons given by the petitioners included illness, inability to make a reasonable living, poor living conditions, the constant threat of Indians, and personal reasons.
“The problem of Indian raiders in Nuevo México was hardly new. Raiding plains Indians supplemented their food supplies, particularly when game was poor, with the foodstuffs of pueblo natives. The Spanish inherited this problem when they settled in the valleys of Nuevo México . During the eighteenth century, the Spanish crown was obligated to protect not only Spanish settlers but also pueblo Indians from the raids. However, because there were not enough troops to handle the situation, losses of critical foods such as grain and beef were considerable. Outlying districts like Taos or Pecos were most vulnerable and protection was virtually impossible. These troubles, along with blazing summers and freezing winters made crops hard to maintain.
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Buenaventura Romero son of Salvador Romero
Salvador and Maria’s youngest son, Buena Ventura Romero, was born circa 1706. Buena Ventura Romero married Maria Rosa Garcia de Noriega, daughter of Luis Garcia de Noriega and Josefa Xavier Y Baca. Luis Garcia de Noriega and Josefa Xavier Y Baca were married 27 August 1703. He was a grantee of San Antonio in the Rio Abajo."
A Will dated 20 Jan 1747 of Josefa Xavier Y Baca the wife of Luis Garcia de Noriega, mentions a daughter Maria Rosa Garcia de Noriega wife of Ventura Romero. A document dated 3 September 1767 through 19 January 1771 contains a lawsuit between Ventura Romero and Antonio Baca regarding some sheep. Antonio Armijo is also a part of the suit.
A marriage record dated 4 February 1776 from San Juan de Los Caballeros shows a Lorenzo Romero age 21 (1755) as the son of Buena Ventura Romero and Maria Rosa Garcia de Noriega. Lorenzo Romero married Maria Geronima Chaves y Lujan.
Reorganizing the Franciscans
The Franciscan missions of Nuevo México were the only institutions to see major growth during the early eighteenth century. Governor Vargas reestablished them in 1695, and after interruption during the revolt of 1696 they were put back into operation. Franciscan friars went into each mission to minister to the natives. They recorded baptisms, births, and deaths as part of their duties. Not only did the friars record the vital statistics, but they also taught the natives Catholic Church rituals.
Additionally, the Franciscans who maintained the pueblo missions were also opposed to having Spanish settlers near them. “They were considered bad influences, since when Spaniards were about, the natives adopted such nasty habits as drinking, gambling, and prostitution.”
The Spanish insisted that Franciscan friars remain in the pueblos so that the “Catholic religion, as well as moral standards, could be taught.”
When the Bishop of Durango claimed that Nuevo México was in Durango's bishopric, he insisted that he should control the actions of the Franciscans in Nuevo México instead of Ciudad de México Inquisition. This was done to prevent a repetition of the Church-State strife that precipitated the revolt of 1680. He ordered all priests to stop interfering in governmental affairs as they had in the Seventeenth Century and prohibited the friars from going to Santa Fé without permission.
To prevent a repetition of the revolt of 1696, the governor proposed to keep the Indians and Spanish apart.
In 1706 in response to the fear of renewed Indian trouble, the governor, decreed that all Spanish people living in pueblos had to leave and not re-enter without his express permission. This decree had Spanish settlers being clustered in two (later three) areas of Nuevo México ; Santa Fé , Santa Cruz, and after 1706, Albuquerque. Little attempt to settle in or around Indian pueblos was made after the governor’s ban. Although Albuquerque, Santa Cruz and Santa Fé were three major European settlements in Nuevo México , they “were not immune from raiding Indians, a lack of proper tools, flash floods, and poor soil conditions.
The Spanish hired Indian servants, who "lived in", and who were generally counted as family members when a census was taken. In many cases children of servants were literally family. From this came families in which illegitimate children were born of Indian servants. The result was an infusion of mixed blood into New Mexican society. No fixed Spanish colonial policy prohibited miscegenation and thus Nuevo México was a veritable melting pot of races. In 1717 a royal decree ordered that Spanish be taught Indians in all provinces of the Empire.
The Viceroy Duke of Alburquerque
In 1706, Viceroy Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, the 10th Duke of Alburquerque interested in the progress of Nuevo México, wrote Governor Cuervo y Valdes inquiring about conditions in Nuevo México. He asked about the Apache threat, the conduct of the war against the Hopi, and details of Vargas' death two years earlier. He requested that the number of soldiers and settlers killed in campaigns against the Indians be listed, and he asked for an outline of Nuevo México's defense needs.
Governor Cuervo y Valdes was ordered by the viceroy to do something about the Hopi in northern Arizona. He organized a campaign against them in September 1706. The purpose of the expedition was to capture their pueblos. In September, the governor dispatched a force of Spanish soldiers, pueblo allies, and some settlers under the command of Maese de campo Roque Madrid. Salvador Romero was 46 years old in 1706 and he still may have participated as he would have been acquainted with Madrid from Guadalupe de Paso.
The expedition managed to capture two pueblos and by the end of 1706, Cuervo could report to Ciudad de México that the Hopi were pacified.
By order of the viceroy, another town was established near the pueblo of Sandia. It was designed to provide defense for southern Nuevo México . In addition it would provide new agricultural lands. The area was peopled by settlers from Santa Fé and families recruited in Nueva España .
In July 1706 the viceroy's orders were received at Santa Fé . In a gesture of loyalty, Cuervo named the site Albuquerque, after the Duke of Albuquerque.
Thirty families moved south and set up housekeeping at Albuquerque that same year. As time passed, the little town grew to become the third largest city during the Spanish period. It served as a way station between Santa Fé and El Paso del Norte and, as was planned, it helped defend the Camino Real.
Cuervo had greater ambitions; he wanted to found a presidio at either Zia or Socorro, but these projects were not fulfilled.
The new peace caused the governor to concentrate on construction of a new settlements south of Santa Fé in 1707. He establishing the Indian town of Santa Maria de Galisteo about twenty miles south of Santa Fé . The population was mainly Tanos Indians consisting of 150 families or 630 persons.
Governor Jose Chacon Medina, Marques de la Peñuela 1707-1712
Governor Cuervo's term of office expired in 1707 and, on August 1, 1707 Admiral Don Jose Chacon Medina Salazar y Villaseñor, Marques de la Peñuela, took over as governor of Nuevo México. Governor Peñuela began his administration by reviewing the province. He then called for immediate reforms. His first order dealt with the problem of illegal sales of guns and horses to hostile natives. He also ordered that military officers could not sell horses from the royal horse herd without his permission. Such sales of horses were a serious matter, for without the animals the defense of the whole of Nuevo México , would be seriously damaged.
The soldiers often caused as many problems for Nuevo México as the natives. The troops were poorly paid or, more often, not paid at all. They were required to supply their own horses, weapons and clothing from a most meager salary.
The next concern of Peñuela was the inspection of citizens and their arms. He ordered the men of Santa Fé , Albuquerque, and Santa Cruz to stand for inspection in September. He told all to have their weapons in order and he declared that he was calling the inspection because of "the threat of the infidel enemies of the Apache nation." The purpose of the muster was to make sure that all residents had weapons. That is, guns, and that they were cleaned and prepared for use in case of attack.
Further, the occasion was to be used for instruction in the use of firearms.
Every man was required to have certain weapons on hand. Each household was supposed to have at least one gun, several swords, lances, and pikes for defense. Often the poorer families relied on gifts of weapons from the crown. Otherwise their richer neighbors could defend them in case of attack. That there was a problem in keeping weapons available is seen in the Duke of Alburquerque's order that: "twenty-five guns must be kept in working order at all times."
Hexing Case
Miguel Martin Serrano married Leonor Dominguez do Mendoza in 1707.‘’'Both are mentioned in a hexing case in 1708. Three Indian women were accused by Leonor Dominguez of practicing demoniacal arts. The acts were said to have caused the Dominguez woman to lose the use of her legs. After considerable testimony the case came to naught for it turned out that the three Indian women were accused out of revenge. The Dominguez woman, in her complaint, also accused the three of sleeping with her husband.
The governor ruled that the witchcraft complaint was false and the three women were freed. In his order Governor Peñuela stated that the complaint was "false, futile and despicable." Cases of "witchcraft" were usually nothing but petty fights over small matters.
Leonor Dominquez de Mendoza’s aunt was Petronila Dominquez de Mendoza. She was first married to Bartolome Trujillo in 1692 with witnesses being Domingo Martin Serrano, Matias Lujan and Juan Griego. She was the daughter of Francisco Dominques de Mendoza.
In 1709 Governor Peñuela undertook one major military expedition against the Navajos to the west. He raised a militia and prepared to protect the westernmost pueblos of Acoma and Zuñi. It took nearly a year to organize the expedition, as seen in the fact that late in 1709 the governor still was issuing orders for the muster of militiamen. The Spanish were successful in driving back the Navajos and peace was developed in late 1709 and early 1710.
The balance of Peñuela's term was quiet. Other than the normal court cases and the flow of viceregal decrees, life in Nuevo México became more and more peaceful.
In 1712 Governor Peñuela notified New Mexicans that a caravan would leave for Nueva España in May and asked that those who wished to join it report to him. His final decrees were that September 16th should be celebrated as the official anniversary of Diego de Vargas' conquest, an order which has been carried out to this day.
The death of Maria Lopez de Ocanto
Maria Lopez de Ocanto died on 5 May 1710, in Santa Fé, Nuevo México , at the age of 42. She lived during a most difficult time. As a 12 year old girl she suffered through the siege of Santa Fé and was a refugee to Guadalupe del Paso for 12 years. She lost her mother at a young age and her father at the age of 14. She then was married to her first cousin Salvador Romero, a soldier.
She was a mother at the age of 15, and she cared for 5 children during the reconquest of northern Nuevo México at the age of 25 and several more after coming back in her birth place. She experienced deprivation living on the frontier with her husband away on many campaigns. There were no doctors at all in Nuevo México and births were delivered by midwives and illness were treated with herbs and poultices. She was probably simply worn out.
Governor Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollon 1712-1715
In 1712 when term of governor expired for Governor Peñuela , he was replaced by Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollon, the former governor of Nuevo Leon. After he assumed office on October 5, 1712, one of his first orders was an investigation of former governor which was favorable and who left Nuevo México with a good record.
Governor Mogollon reached Santa Fé on October 5, 1712 and during the first year he administered the territory, a Suma Indians revolt broke out against the government of Nuevo México in Norte del Paso. Thus, Governor Mogollon had to suppress the revolt with a troop.
His position as governor lasted only a few years, because it was discovered that he had been involved in an embezzlement of funds, so he was removed from office on October 5, 1715, being replaced by Felix Martínez de Torrelaguna. Shortly after that, Mogollon left Nuevo México . The trial for Mogollon was finally held in Santa Fé in 1721 when Mogollon no longer lived there. Thus, he was neither found nor presented for trial.
Death of Salvador Romero
Salvador Romero lived as a widower for a few years after his wife had died in 1710. When his son Diego Romero married Josefa de Medina of Santa Cruz in 1714, the wedding documents stated that his parents were both deceased. However there is a record dated from 23 October 1715 that stated “ Salvador Romero, resident of Chimayó, was bound for Chihuahua, Norte del Paso.” This possible could have been a man of the same name related to the Romero de Pedraza clan or even to Franscico Xavier Romero no relation..
Salvador Romero’s family identify themselves as of the original families of Nuevo México. Their experience of military campaigns, farming the land, raising livestock, along with their long history of interactions with friendly and hostile bands of Indians, made them true pioneers.
Sebastiana Mondragon
Salvador Romero’s mother, Sebastiana died on 25 November 1728, a widow eighty-eight years old. Fray Angélico Chávez referred to her as “A relic of the preceding century was old Sebastiana de Mondragon, who returned with the Reconquest to claim property in Santa Fé owned by her father, Juan de Mondragon, prior to the “uprising of the Indians .”
