Melzer Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico's Past, Volume 1

The Spanish Colonial & Mexican Periods, 1540-1848
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-1-936744-96-1
Verlag: Rio Grande Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 364 Seiten

Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico's Past has one main goal: to reveal the sharp contrasts in New Mexico history. As with all states, New Mexico has had its share of admirable as well as deplorable moments, neither of which should be ignored or exaggerated at the other's expense. New Mexico's true character can only be understood and appreciated by acknowledging its varied history, blemishes and all. The first of three volumes, Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico's Past: The Spanish Colonial and Mexican Periods represents the New Mexico Historical Society's humble gift to New Mexico as the state celebrates its centennial year of statehood in 2012.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Melzer, Richard

Leseproben

Retrograde Franciscans in New Mexico, 1625-52

Paul Kraemer

The Franciscan Order is almost eight hundred years old. In the entire history of the order, their efforts in seventeenth century New Mexico are historically unique. Never before or since has the Order enjoyed such a complete monopoly of their own brand of Christianity. And, after a brilliant beginning, never before or since has the Order suffered such a definitive repudiation and slaughter of its ministers as occurred at the end of the century.1 While the causes of the Pueblo Revolt are complex, most historians concur that the revolt was basically a religious one. As Marc Simmons put it, “the underlying cause can be found in the religious attitudes brought to New Mexico by the Franciscans and colonists.” However, as Simmons also pointed out, problems did not really become evident until about 1650, that is, after about half a century of almost spectacular success.2 Did the religious attitudes of the Franciscans then change or what? Jake Ivey’s work on the Franciscan tolerance of kivas being built in the church conventos after 1620, and the subsequent back-filling of these kivas after 1640, appears to be a clear demonstration of change in the religious attitudes of the Franciscans during the early pre-revolt period.3

The focus of this chapter concerns another aspect of the Franciscan attitudes during this early period. We call this aspect the retrograde Franciscans because a small group of friars did innovative outreach programs toward the south, instead of continuing the generally northward movement of the frontier of New Spain.

The Oñate expedition into New Mexico in 1598 crossed the frontier of the middle corridor near Santa Barbara, and the settlement of New Mexico left an uncontrolled gap of some eight hundred miles.4 The gap was not only military and governmental, but also reflected Franciscan organization. In 1604, the entire northern frontier except New Mexico came under the jurisdiction of the independent Franciscan Province of Zacatecas.5 These friars of the Zacatecas Province were relatively few in number, and they could make little progress in filling the gap.6 By 1630 the frontier of New Spain had only advanced a few miles, to be stalled at Parral.7 By contrast, the friars of New Mexico remained under the jurisdiction of the Holy Gospel Province headquartered in Mexico City. By 1630 they had established missions and churches in some thirty pueblos.8 They had recently received a new contingent of thirty friars and were soon budgeted for a total of sixty-six friars.9 Their famous publicist, Fray Alonso Benavides, who served as their custodian from 1626-1629, made their efforts famous throughout the Catholic world.10 It seemed that they were poised to achieve even more challenging conversions.

Their outreach program was basically inspired by Benavides and continued by their next custodian, Fray Estevan Perea. The program was extremely ambitious and involved a very large area that was about six hundred miles wide. The program was directed at the numerous non-Pueblo Native American groups that had been skipped when the Franciscans came to the lands of the Pueblo Indians. The overall scope and timing of the effort including deep penetration into Texas and Sonora, have been largely ignored.

Figure 1 illustrates the known locations of the targeted groups during the early 17th century. The Jumano Indians were perhaps the first of the non-Pueblo groups to attract the serious attention of the friars. As early as 1613 when Fray Juan Salas founded the mission at Isleta Pueblo, large groups of Jumano Indians would come every summer to trade. Salas was able to develop firm rapport with these nomadic traders, and they invited him to come with other friars to their homeland, which was in what is now central Texas.11 At that time there were too few friars available for such a venture. Later Benavides, as custodian, took a personal interest in converting the Piro and Tompiro Pueblos south and east of Isleta. At the Tompiro Pueblo, now known commonly as Gran Quivira, he found many Jumanos living adjacent to the Pueblo people. Together with another friar, Father Francisco Letrado, he established the mission of San Isidro, and named the double community Pueblo de las Jumanas.12 By that time more friars were available, and, in 1629, Benavides dispatched Father Juan Salas and another friar, Diego López to accompany some Jumano Indians on an evangelical mission to the Jumano homeland on the plains of central Texas.13

Figure 1. Tribal groups targetd by the retrograde Franciscans.

Various Jumano locations have been postulated as home base for these itinerant traders in this time period.14 The destination of the Salas expedition was probably near the Rio Nueces in north central Texas. While the entrada produced only ambiguous converts, it yielded the famous story of the miraculous “Lady in Blue” who wandered among the Indians preaching to them in their own languages.15 Further efforts to convert the Jumanos of Texas were made in 1632, when two friars, Pedro Ortega and Ascencion Zarate, penetrated even further into central Texas, two hundred leagues from Santa Fe.16 After this, however, Jumano attitudes toward Franciscans became unfriendly and the Jumanos refused to return to the mission at San Isidro. Interestingly, commercial relations with the Spanish colonists of New Mexico continued and even expanded for many years after 1632.17

During his four years in New Mexico, Benavides demonstrated a great interest in the conversion of the Apache and Navajo peoples. He claimed he converted several chiefs and he sent missionaries to the Gila Apache and Navajo areas.18 But little came of these efforts. Benavides also wanted to expand directly south where the backward Manso and Suma Indians were strategically located straddling the Camino Real. Soon after Benavides left New Mexico in late 1629, his efforts at the Piro Pueblos near present day Socorro served as a base for efforts to convert the Manso and Suma. These early efforts were largely due to two Barefoot Friars that had come to New Mexico with the returning custodian, Estevan Perea, in 1629. The Barefoot Friars were members of the autonomous, hyper-zealous order of Discalced Franciscans, who had a single province in New Spain, the Province of San Diego. The two friars were Father Antonio Arteaga and his companion, a lay brother named Juan Garcia de San Francisco.19

Both were assigned to the Piro Pueblos and soon ran the three missions that were near present day Socorro. The northern one, Sevilleta, is still on current road maps near La Joya. The Socorro mission at the Pueblo of Pilabo is thought to have been situated at or very near the present church, San Miguel, in Socorro. Senecú is thought to have been located on the east side of the Rio Grande river across from San Marcial.20 The two friars labored for about ten years, with occasional preaching tours to the Manso and Suma tribes which were the better part of two hundred miles further south. There may have been other friars that participated. Sometime before 1640, they preached to Indians in the Janos/Casas Grandes area, south of present day Columbus, New Mexico.21 But progress was slow, as had been the case with the Jumano. What the Franciscans had to offer was simply not wanted. In 1639, Father Arteaga and his companion went back to New Spain, Arteaga to accept leadership of all Barefoot Friars of the San Diego Province.22 However, before he left, he participated in the Sonora effort, as we shall see. Juan Garcia de San Francisco went back to take orders and become a full-fledged priest. He then returned to New Mexico and continued the work, ultimately to become an important mission leader. But it would be many years before missions would be established for the Manso and Suma Indians.23

When the efforts at the San Isidro Mission started to turn sour, and the people at the Pueblo de las Jumanas became unfriendly to Father Letrado, he asked to be transferred to the Zuni Pueblos. This transfer took place sometime in 1631.24 As it turned out, the Zunis were not happy with Father Letrado either. They told him of other tribes far to the south of Zuni, who they called the Cipias and the Ipotlapiguas. In fact these tribes were Opata who lived in northern Sonora.25 Father Letrado requested permission to attempt their conversion, but was refused. Instead, Father Martín Arvide was selected. Arvide walked to Zuni and then in early February 1632 started out walking south on the old trade trail. The Zunis picked this time to kill Father Letrado, then tracked down Father Arvide and killed him also.26 In addition to the predictable retaliation of Spanish soldiers against the Zuni, these events increased Franciscan interest in the Cipias and Ipotlapiguas. But not by the Zuni route. Later in 1632, Father Tomás Manso (his name has no relationship to the Manso Tribe) had a different plan. As the new manager of the mission supply service, his interest was both religious and commercial. In fact, as historians Rick Hendricks and Gerald J. Mandell have detailed, the Manso family managed to combine religion, business, political office, and even slave trading into an impressive entrepreneurial web on the seventeenth century northern frontier.27

In late 1632 then, Father Manso, probably with Father Arteaga’s...