Document+D+Spanish+Settlers


 * Document D: Spanish Settlers **

In 1598, New Mexico colonial settlers fit into three categories. Some hoped to get rich from mineral wealth, but were unsuccessful and many quickly returned home. Another group was that of young unattached men. These men found the life in New Mexico too tough and generally returned home. The third group consisted of rugged soldiers, who adjusted to the environment. These men received titles, encomiendas, and farm lands. Because there was a shortage of Spanish women in the colony, many turned to Indian women. In 1631, Fray Estevan de Perea commented on New Mexican colonists as “mestizos, mulattos, and zambohijus.”[|[1]] One mestizo, Diego de Santiago, witnessed an Indian ceremony and testified on April 6, 1632, “…all one night the Indians were doing dances in the estufa [kiva] and that they [Santiagio and Garcia] entered the estufa at the first quarter of the night and they say [the Indians] dance for a good length of time…Leaving them dancing they went to sleep…They returned in the morning and found [the Indians] still dancing, and then they went out of the estufa dancing, and they went around all of the Pueblo together…They all got in line and all took gold of straw and dirt…An Indian from among them passed by all of them with an arrow in his hand, touching them with the arrow on the chest…Finally he threw the arrow toward the west, after which all the Indians cast the earth and straw that they had in their hands towards there…They did nothing more nor did he [Santiago] see more.”[|[2]]

Another Spanish soldier detailed his life in 1681 in a letter.

“From the time of General Alonso Pacheco de Heredia [1642-44], during whose term he [Mendoza] entered this kingdom as a child of twelve years, he has seen fourteen señores governors who have governed this kingdom, and they have always taken action against the natives of all nations due to their idolatries and evil customs. He knows particularly that Don Fernando de Argüello in his time [1644-47] had twenty-nine Jemez Indian hanged in the pueblo of Los Jemez as traitors and confederates of the Apaches, and that he had imprisoned a number of them for the same crime and for having killed Diego Martínez Naranjo. And in the time of Señor General Herando de Ugarte y la Concha [1649-53] there were hanged as traitors and confederates of the Apaches some [Tiwa] Indians of La Isleta and of the pueblos of La Alemeda, San Felipe, Cochití, and Jemez, nine from the said pueblos being hanged. The common people of this kingdom have always been punished as idolaters, and in particular in the time of Señor General Don Fernando de Villanueva [1665-68], in the province of Los Piros, some were hanged and burned in the pueblo of Senecú as traitors and sorcerers.”[|[3]]

Spanish colonists were dependent on Indian labor. There was a consistent argument of Indian labor between colonial governors, settler colonists, and the friars. There was also conflict over land rights between Indians and the colonists. Cick here to return to the Spanish Settlers Main Page.

[|[1]] Gutiérrez, R.A. (1991). //When Jesus came, the cornmothers went away: Marriage, sexuality,// // and power in New Mexico, 1500-1846. // Stanford: Stanford University Press. Retrieved  from ACLS Humanities E-Book. p.103

[|[2]] Knaut, A.L. (1964). //The Pueblo Revolt of 1680//. Norman and London: University of  Oklahoma Press. p.85-86

[|[3]] Knaut p.165