Hidden History of Spanish New Mexico

Ray John de Aragón

• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781609497606
• eBook ISBN: 9781614237013
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

New Mexico's Spanish legacy has informed the cultural traditions of one of the last states to join the union for more than four hundred years, or before the alluring capital of Santa Fe was founded in 1610. The fame the region gained from artist Georgia O'Keefe, writers Lew Wallace and D.H. Lawrence and pistolero Billy the Kid has made New Mexico an international tourist destination. But the Spanish annals also have enriched the Land of Enchantment with the factual stories of a superhero knight, the greatest queen in history, a saintly gent whose coffin periodically rises from the depths of the earth and a mysterious ancient map. Join author Ray John de Aragón as he reveals hidden treasure full of suspense and intrigue.

NATIVE AMERICANS

The Americas that Columbus found were populated with people the Spanish called “Indians” because they thought they had reached India. The Spanish called the new lands the West Indies. Spanish explorers came into contact with innumerable different and distinct Native American tribes as they traveled through South America, Central America and North America. They grouped the natives together under one name, but the truth of the matter is that the population was composed of hundreds of different and distinct groups with their own languages and diverse cultures. Some of these groups fought against one another constantly. The most powerful groups when Columbus sailed were the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan and the Incas of Peru.

AZTECS

The Aztecs settled on small islands in Lake Texcoco in 1325. According to legend, sun god Huitzilopochtli became divine king of the Aztecs in 1325 and ruled from the capital Tenochtitlan and its sister city Tlatelolco (today’s Mexico City). As time passed, the Aztecs built up a truly remarkable civilization that extended through most of present-day Mexico. The Aztecs were successful in defeating dozens of other tribes, and they ruled the land with a firm and steady grip, demanding heavy taxes.

According to one of Hernán Cortés’s men, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who recorded the events of the expedition, Cortés arrived with 508 soldiers on eleven ships, 100 sailors, sixteen horses and a few cannons, crossbows and other pieces of artillery. They named the landing site Veracruz, the “True Cross.” The Spaniards were awakened each morning by the screams of sacrificial victims. Cortés told Montezuma to stop, but he would not. The Spaniards were appalled at the horrible spectacle of human sacrifice. Aztecs were consumed and overcome with fear of the supernatural and superstition. Needless to say, the captive tribes did not like the idea that thousands of their young braves and maidens—and sometimes even children—needed to be sacrificed to the war god Huitzilopochtli and the sun god Quetzalcoatl to keep the Aztec gods happy. The Aztecs really did believe that if people weren’t sacrificed on the day before, then the sun would not come up on the next day and the world would plunge into eternal darkness. Of course, at one time, Europeans thought the world was flat and that if you traveled too far out on the ocean you would fall down into nothingness.

In 1519, war broke out, and Cortés, with 500 Spanish soldiers and 170,000 Indians who had been dominated and oppressed by the Aztecs, defeated the Aztec Empire, which had 180,000 warriors. The oppressed Indians had wanted to revolt for some time, but they did not have the right leadership. Cortés provided them with that opportunity and leadership. Francisco Pizarro, with the help of dominated and oppressed Indians, defeated the Inca Empire in Peru a few years later.

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

The Franciscan frays were having a hard time converting the Indians in the valley of Mexico after the conquest, and many of them were being martyred. The Aztecs and other tribes were constantly rebelling against the Spanish. Then a miracle took place in 1530 in which Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared to a native of Mexico whose Christian name was Juan Diego.

In December 1530, Mary (Our Lady of Guadalupe) asked Juan Diego to collect Rosas de Castilla (Castilian roses) from a rocky hill as proof of her appearances. The roses were indigenous to Castile, Spain, and were not known in the New World. Diego went to the bishop and told him that the mother of Jesus wanted a church to be built on the spot where she had appeared to him. The bishop did not believe him. According to tradition, San Juan Diego opened up his tilma (cloak), which he used to collect the flowers, and a miraculous image of Mary was imprinted in their place. The appearance of the roses in the middle of winter was a miracle in itself. This event is recorded in history in the Nican Mopohua, written in Náhuatl about 1540 by Bishop Colégio de la Santa Cruz. The Codex 1548, drawings of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, was discovered in 1995 in a private collection. The Codex signed by Don Antonio Valeriano and his teacher, Father Bernardino de Sahagún, has a date of 1548, and it was scientifically determined to be genuine. It substantiates the historical basis of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Many miracles were attributed to the apparition, but most significant was the conversion of over eight million Aztec Indians to Catholicism in the following seven years.

Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mixed media, Ray John de Aragón.

Spanish-controlled areas of the Western Hemisphere were divided up into two viceroyalties headquartered in Mexico City and Lima, Peru. The title of viceroy was given to personal representatives of the king who wielded considerable power over the newly acquired territories. New Mexico fell under the jurisdiction of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Within a few short years after the discovery, hundreds of Castilians crossed the Atlantic to spread newly defined Spanish pride to the new hemisphere. Unfortunately, some of the Spanish arrived in Hispaniola deathly ill. Present-day Cuba was called Hispaniola. In 1516, there was an outbreak of smallpox in Hispaniola, and from 1520 until 1524, the massive pandemic of this disease took the lives of more than 75 percent of the population. European diseases spread rapidly, and many Indians died. The Indians did not have the immune systems to fight off the diseases brought from the Old World.

Explorations of the newly acquired territories spread rapidly. Many Indian civilizations had risen and fallen like those of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans in Western history. The Olmec and the Mayans, for example, built temple pyramids that compare to those erected by the Egyptians. The Mayans developed hieroglyphics, the mathematical concept of zero and astronomical observatories like those built by the astounding Olmec. People who had developed extraordinary cultures inhabited the New World. These “Indians” had achieved tremendous technological advances during different periods of history.

Some tribes were very primitive and lived as Stone Age hunters and gathers, in contrast to others who lived under luxurious conditions in sumptuous surroundings. It was the wealthier and more powerful tribes that subjugated and controlled those who were weaker, and they pressed them into slavery and servitude. At the time of the arrival of Columbus, Native Americans were segregated by both poverty and wealth. Queen Isabella of Castilla wanted the natives to be treated with honor, respect and dignity. She also pushed for the enforcement of strict penalties against anyone caught abusing the Indians’ rights. It was through her that the Council of the Indies was established in 1503 as a governmental unit organized as the Secretariat of Indian Affairs, with broad powers to protect the Native Americans. The queen had so much concern and sympathy for the Indians that she alone established laws for their protection, giving them all the rights afforded to Spanish citizens. She also mandated that the Indians should be educated.

The first university on the American continent was founded in Mexico City in 1551. Mexico was also the site of the first school that specifically served to teach the Indians languages and the arts. The frays also learned to speak the languages of the Native American people. They did not force their Castilian language on the Indians. The Indians learned European artistic elements, which they combined with their own techniques while producing paintings, ceramics, textiles and lacquer work. This helped to develop a unique Mexican Baroque style. The first printing house and the first mint to produce coins were also established in Mexico City. This was accomplished in spite of the bubonic plague, which ravished Mexico from 1545 until 1548. American Indian Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (Quechua) illustrated his 1,189-page book, La Primer Nueva Crónica y Buen Gobierno, from 1600 until 1615. The plague was spreading in Europe and reached Madrid by 1599; it arrived in the southern city of Seville by 1600. Valencia lost an estimated 30,000 people. By the time it was over in Spain, almost 700,000 lives had been lost.

ENCOMIENDA

In the provinces of New Spain, some areas were named after the provinces of Spain, such as Nuevo León and La Nueva Galicia. Another practice adopted from Spain was the system of encomiendas (grants of land placed in trust), which was in effect in Spain since the Reconquista of 1492. After the reconquest of Spain, adelantados, governors of a province, could extract tribute from the Moors. The Spanish crown instituted the system of encomienda to regulate Indian labor in the Americas. In essence, those in charge of encomiendas had to instruct natives in the Spanish language and the Roman Catholic faith and protect them from any warring tribes. However, encomenderos (governors) in the New World could not own Indian land, in contrast to the encomenderos in Spain, who could. The Spanish crown of Castile had exclusive rights of administration, so harsh penalties were extracted on those who abused those rights—though in some cases natives were forced to do hard labor in mines and fields, akin to slavery of blacks in New England. However, if caught, adelantados in Spanish colonies would be forced to walk naked in the streets of Mexico City and Peru, and they would be stripped of all titles and possessions if they abused the natives in any way. Their disgrace would then pass on from that dark day to their descendants.

The quasi-feudal system of encomiendas persisted in Mexico until the revolution of 1821, but the practice had been abolished all the way back to 1720 in most Spanish-controlled areas, even in the territory of Santa Fé. It had come to pass that grantees of encomiendas could be conquistadores and soldiers, but notable Indians, Spanish women and Indian women could be recipients of titles as well. La Malinche and the daughters of the Aztec Montezuma received extensive encomiendas as dowries. Incan rulers also eyed encomiendas. Indentured Indian labor was supposed to end when the Spanish crown tried to put an end to the encomienda system. The Repartamiento and hacienda systems, which were large landed estates, were put in place of the encomienda.

Acequia. Photograph ©Ramón Juan Carlos de Aragón, 2011.

Segovia. Photograph ©Ramón Juan Carlos de Aragón, 2011.

In New Mexico, there were several haciendas: those of Don Pedro Durán de Chávez and his sons, Nicolas and Fernando, and the Don Severino Martínez hacienda. Don Severino’s hacienda in Taos, New Mexico, is a living ranch today. With the Repartamiento, land ownership was more profitable, and displaced Indians called Genizaros—those who had lost families through Indian raids—were raised on haciendas until emancipation, when they could marry or join Indians of their own tribes.

THE PUEBLOS AND MISSIONS

The Pendejo Cave people had been in New Mexico since about 10,000 BC. The inhabitants of the Sandia Cave and Clovis were ancient civilizations of New Mexico. The Clovis people were skilled hunters with knowledge of plants for food and had finely crafted tools. The Anasazi migrated into New Mexico sometime after AD 450 and left their homes in AD 1100. The Anasazi constructed elaborately carved dwellings and stone structures high atop cliff walls. They also had distinctive styles of pottery and baskets. Then the Pueblo people migrated into the Río Grande Valley about AD 1300. Approximately forty thousand people lived in sixty villages, where they built two- and three-story buildings that could have as many as three hundred rooms. The first floor did not have entrances or exits; instead, residents climbed up and in on ladders. This was to protect them against Apache attacks.

The Golden Age for the New Mexico missions and the building of churches began in 1610, and by 1816 one hundred churches had been built. Only one of these churches was expected to serve the colonists. The Santa Clara Indians, descendants of the inhabitants of the ancient Puyé Cliff dwellers near Española, settled in the area in 1550. Other missions the Franciscan frays established included those in the Hopi Indian tribe areas of Arizona and New Mexico; Santo Domingo Pueblo near the Cerrillos turquoise mines (destroyed by the floods and later relocated); the San Miguel in Socorro; San Agustín de la Isleta; San Isidro at Grán Quivíra, near Mountainair; San Buenaventura de Cochití; San Estevan del Rey de Acoma; San José (Giusewa) de Jémez; San José de La Laguna; Our Lady of Guadalupe in Zuni Pueblo; San Gregorio de Abó; Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Zia; San Felipe; San Ildefonso; Santa Ana; Santuario de Guadalupe Church in Santa Fé; San Lorenzo de Picurís; the Santuario de Chimayo Church and many others. In 1709, Santa Ana Pueblo negotiated for and obtained five thousand acres and then fifteen thousand acres of Spanish land grants to establish their pueblo. The Jicarilla Apaches settled in the San Juan Mountains. Mescalero Apaches settled in the Ruidoso area. Fray Junipero Serra, one of the most famous of the order of Franciscans ministering among the Indians, set his sights on the expansion of the church in 1769. Serra established a string of twenty-one mission churches serving over thirty thousand Indians from Arizona to California. The church of San Javier del Bac in Tucson was established in 1776.

Las Trampas Church, Arthur J. Merrill, Taos, New Mexico. Photo postcard, unknown date. Courtesy of the author.

Acoma Pueblo Church, Detroit Publishing Co., circa 1902. Photo postcard. Courtesy of the author.

Indians under the Spanish government were able to maintain their uniqueness, although in some instances they incorporated some Spanish influences into their own and vice versa. This was primarily due to trade between the Indians and the Spanish. For example, in New Mexico, it was not altogether unusual to see Pueblo Indian arts and crafts—like clay pots, Navajo weaving and other handmade items—among the furnishings of Spanish homes. The Indians likewise highly valued the painted wood panels, carved religious images and hornos that the Spanish colonists produced. Spanish colonists sometimes wore Indian moccasins called teguas and buckskin clothing. Indian women loved rebozos, the long-fringed shawls that Spanish women wore. They also liked the velvet blouses and cotton skirts. Indian women learned the art of spinning wool, weaving woolen blankets and making stockings. The interchange was continuous, and the development of Spanish culture in the New World was further enhanced by the Native American cultures. The Indians also felt positive influences from the Spanish way of life.

A Segovia pasture. Photograph ©Ramón Juan Carlos de Aragón, 2011.

The Spanish introduced horses, burros, cattle, swine, sheep, grains like wheat, butter, milk, sugar, salt, pepper, other spices and foodstuffs and new medicinal herbs, among many other things, to the Indians. They showed them how to make saddles and weave saddle blankets, although the Indians preferred to ride bareback. Pueblo Indians were converted to Catholicism, and they used Spanish baptismal names and were given Spanish surnames as well. Sometimes the friars Hispanicized an Indian name and had the Indians use that as their last name.

The Spanish, in turn, received cultural gifts from the Indians, including chile, tomatoes, beans, potatoes, turkey, buffalo meat and piñon nuts. They also learned about sites for turquoise, various clays, medicinal plants, plants that provided roots for shampoos and flower petals for dyes. The Spanish colonists also held trade fairs in their villages throughout the territory in which the villagers from various areas gathered and traded what they grew or created. For example, those who lived near the Las Salinas Salt Lakes traveled north to trade the salt they harvested for fruits and vegetables. The settlers eventually invited friendly tribes to the trade fairs, and they traded with the Indians. Rumors that other explorers were coming to North America circulated among the missionaries and Spanish settlements.

El Molino. Photograph ©Ramón Juan Carlos de Aragón, 2011.

AMERICAN COLONIES

On May 13, 1607, Captain John Smith established Jamestown, the first English settlement in what is now the United States, with 103 colonists. The bubonic plague came into the Americas once again, spreading from the New England colonies to Florida and Mexico.

Since San Augustine de la Florida, the present-day state of Florida (from the Spanish word for blooming, or “land of the flowers”), had been under Spain since the sixteenth century, the missionaries published a catechism in a language of Florida Indians. This book was printed in Mexíco City, the capital of New Spain, in 1612. They also published an Indian grammar book in 1614. Ne...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Historical Genesis of New Mexico Hispanics
• Native Americans
• Death, Faith and Life
• Bibliography
• About the Author