José López Naranjo had an even greater need than Agustín de Salazar to prove his loyalty to the authorities if he wanted to remain in the area where he was born. His father, Domingo Naranjo, had been one of the leaders of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and he’d personally refused to spend the exile in Guadalupe del Norte.
In June of 1696, he established his bona fides when his brother Lucas was leading the Santa Clara resistance to the Spanish. José killed him and brought his head back to Diego de Vargas.
His ancestry is an even greater puzzle than Salazar’s. According to Angélico Chávez, Lucas had the dark complexion of the mulatto Domingo. José did not.
I suspect his ultimate Spanish ancestor was Alonso Naranjo, a native of Valladolid with a “tawny beard,” who came north with Bernabé de Las Casas in 1600, with 10 horses and 22 head of cattle. He left no further record, but the name Naranjo migrated into the pueblos, probably through children abandoned to their mothers.
According to Chávez, the mestizo heirs had contentious relations with their pure-blood cousins. Jémez killed Diego Martín Naranjo; San Felipe killed Bartolomé Naranjo in 1680 because they feared he’d betray their planned rebellion; a two-year old, María Naranjo, was kidnaped in 1680. Her mother, Juana Hurtado, also held captive, was the daughter of Andrés Hurtado, the father-in-law of Fernando Durán y Chaves.
Incidentally, that wasn’t the first connection between Chavez’s family and the Naranjos. Fernando’s father, Pedro Durán y Chaves paid Pascual Naranjo to take his place on a military campaign against other Indians. Pascual fled to Guadalupe del Paso with his family and didn’t return.
I suspect one of the women involved with Naranjo or one of their daughters was the one who became involved with a mulatto servant or teamster and gave birth to Domingo. Even today, a woman who has lost her status or sense of self worth may become vulnerable or open to other declassé men.
There’s no reason to think Domingo was involved with only one woman, especially after he acquired power in Santa Clara, nor, for that matter, is there any reason to believe a woman involved with him was monogamous. Lucas and José may have had different mothers or different fathers in one household.
Chávez thinks the name came directly through the father, some mulatto who came north with one of Oñate’s men and associated himself with Naranjo, taking his name. That man then worked as a herder in the area of Santa Clara, where he met the woman who would become Domingo’s mother. He believes the progenitor was part Tlascaltec and versed in Aztec lore.
Whatever the truth, José showed a willingness to destroy Indians on behalf of his Spanish masters. In 1702, he was alcalde mayor of Zuñi and active in subjugating the Hopi. In 1704, he was commanding native scouts in the campaign against the Apache, the one that caused Vargas’s death. In 1715, he was fighting the Navajo.
Unlike Salazar, he never asked for a land grant. Instead, he either settled on land between that claimed by Salazar and the Santa Clara on the west side of river, or received some from Salazar through a sale, trade, or gift.
Naranjo married María Catarina Luján, the illegitimate daughter of Matías Luján of Santa Cruz, who might have been the son of Juan Luján and brother of Juan Luis. The latter had the land north of that claimed by Salazar. Matías had married Francisca Romero, but had a daughter by a native servant. However, Chávez said, there was another Matías Luján in the area married to Catalina Verala, so nothing can be known absolutely.
Naranjo died in the Pawnee ambush of Pedro de Villasur in 1720, which Francisco Montes Vigil survived.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Simmons, Marc. “Trail Dust: Part-Indian Was Loyal to Spanish Cause,” The New Mexican, 11 September 2009.
Wild Horses Southwest Art Gallery. “History of the Horse in the United States of America's West,” gallery website.
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