La Cañada may have been hours from Santa Fé, but it wasn’t allowed to remain isolated. The Inquisition reached wherever there was a friar. Its few persecutions coupled with memories from Spain and México City were enough. Fear of suspicion kept society fragmented, even in times of crises.
The life of Bartolomé Romero and his family illustrates the many ways a cultural heritage of intimidation and informing was perpetuated.
He was born in Corral de Almaguer near Toledo to Bartolomé Romero and María de [Ad]eva. Stanley Hordes thinks the half obliterated name on his baptismal certificate may originally have been Benavedas. In 1574, the Inquisition in México City argued Diego de Ocaña was Jewish because his mother was a Benadeves and “the Xuárez de Benadeva family, Jews of Sevilla, is widely recognized in being of the generation of Jews.”
While still in México Bartolomé married Luisa López Robledo, daughter of Catalina López and Pedro Robledo. Robledo had been born in La Carmena, then moved to nearby Toledo where he sought confirmation of his pure Christian ancestry by becoming a lay collaborator, a familiar, of the Inquisition at a time when the Robledo name was still associated with conversos.
Whether or not they had any Jewish ancestry, Romero and Robledo were among the first to enlist with Juan de Oñate. Later, Romero and members of his family were called by the Inquisition to provide evidence against their neighbors and in-laws. Whether they cooperated because they were true supporters of the Franciscans, or because they adopted that role to deflect suspicion is a question best left to those who study human behavior under extreme situations.
In 1632 Bartolomé made his first recorded report. Alameda pueblo was performing “strange rites.”
Bartolomé Romero and his wife had three sons and two daughters. Ana married Francisco Gómez and María married Gaspar Pérez, a Flemish armorer who had close relations with the Apache.
María’s son, Diego Romero, is the one who was indicted with Gómez’s son Francisco, and prosecuted separately by the Inquisition for meeting with the Apache while leading the supply train that brought López de Mendizábal north. He was banished to Parral. His wife, Catalina de Zamora refused to follow. She was the daughter of Pedro Lucero de Godoy which made her María’s niece. When Diego remarried in exile, the Inquisition arrested him for bigamy. He died in jail in Veracruz.
María Romero gave evidence against Beatriz de los Ángeles and Juana de la Cruz, wife of Juan Griego’s son.
Bartolomé’s son Bartolomé and grandson Diego had been with another of the indicted conspirators, Nicolas de Aguilar when he was arrested. The others in the group were Andrés López Sambrano and Juan Luján. Andrés brother, Hernán, had died when he betrayed Beatriz and was bewitched.
Antonio López Zambrano testified against Francisco Gómez Robledo. Chávez doesn’t mention Antonio, but says Andrés’s daughter, Josefa López de Grijalva, was married to Lucero’s son, which made Gómez’s sister, Francisca, his mother-in-law.
Bartolomé Romero, the oldest son of Bartolomé who was with Aguilar at Isleta, married María Granillo del Moral, daughter of Francisco Pérez Granillo. A son and a daughter moved to the mining area of Sonora. His other son, Bartolomé Romero, married Josefa de Archuleta, then disappeared from the public record. She was the daughter of Juan de Archuleta.
He gave evidence against his daughter-in-law’s neighbors, Beatriz de los Ángeles and Juana de la Cruz.
Her father, Francisco Pérez Granillo, appeared as a government clerk in 1617. The livelihood of her brothers came from the supply trains after they were run by civilian contractors. Alonso Pérez Granillo had an estancia near Alamillo, but moved to Nueva Vizcaya by 1680 where he was the alcalde mayor of the wagon trains and Janos.
Francisco Pérez Granillo the younger was in charge of the wagon trains in 1661 and 1664. He was married to Sebastiana Romero, whose parents weren’t identified by Chávez. Their son was Luis, who was alcalde mayor of Jémez and Queres pueblos in 1680 and escaped from Jémez. He returned as Diego de Varga’s lieutenant and made the survey of La Cañada. He was childless; his wife didn’t return.
Tomás Pérez Granillo had African and Indian parents in Santa Fé and worked as a driver on the wagon trains. He resettled in México after he and his wife smuggled out the child of Juan Manso de Contreras. His relation to Luis isn’t known.
What is known is that he was an Inquisition witness against Ana Romero’s son, Francisco Gómez Robledo.
Bartolomé senior’s second son, Matías Romero, married Isabel de Pedraza, a cousin of María de Archuleta, daughter of Asencio de Arechuleta. He refused to testify against Gaspar Pérez, claiming ignorance of the situation, but María de Archuleta did testify against Beatriz and Juana.
The third son, Agustín, married Luisa Díaz. He died young and was buried at the pueblo of San Diego. He can’t have been the owner of the land in La Cañada that Luis Pérez Granillo described after passing the meadow of Ambrosio Sáez in 1695: “in the middle of that vega is the hacienda where Agustín Romero was settled at planting time, because he had fields there. One citizen with his family can live very well there.”
One can only assume Agustín was the illegitimate child of one of the Romero sons, perhaps even the dead Agustín.
He wouldn’t have been the only one. Louisa Romero married Juan Lucero y Godoy, while Pedro Romero married Juan’s sister, Petronila de Salas. Chávez didn’t place either in the extended Romero family, but also didn’t indicate others with the common name Romero had moved north.
The daughter of Francisca Romero and Matías Luján was involved with either Antonio or Bartolomé Gómez Robledo, the illegitimate sons of Francisco and Bartolomé. Chávez doesn’t identify Francisca’s parents.
Alonso Romero was a servant on the hacienda of Felipe Romero. Chávez says he was really Alonso Cadimo, and was probably a child of Francisco Cadimo, who came with Oñate. The boy was ransomed from the plains Indians and settled on Felipe’s estancia with his wife María de Tapia. Juan de Tapia had married Bartolomé senior’s daughter Francisca.
Domingo Romero was one of the mestizo leaders of the Pueblo Revolt at Tesuque pueblo.
The only man who was with Aguilar when he was arrested who did not witness against any of the accused was Juan Luján. His kin in the río abajo were already supporting the Franciscans.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Esquibel, José Antonio. “The Rodríguez Bellido Family,” La Herencia, summer 2009.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695 describing the settlement of La Cañada, included in Blood on the Boulders: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, New Mexico, 1694-97, volume 2, 1998, edited by John L. Kessell, Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge.
Hordes, Stanley M. To the End of the Earth, 2005.
Kessell, John L. Spain in the Southwest, a Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California, 2002; on Diego Romero.
Scholes, France V. “The First Decade of the Inquisition in New Mexico,” New Mexico Historical Review 10:195-241:1935.
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