Francisco Gómez Robledo’s encounter with the Inquisition arose from the feud between the Franciscans and Bernardo López de Mendizábal. Not content with having the governor removed from office in 1660, Alonso de Posada began collecting information on him and his wife, mainly from disgruntled servants and political allies of the friars.
In 1662 the Inquisition ordered the arrest of López, his wife, and his four closest aides: Gómez, Nicholas de Aguilar, Cristóbal de Anaya Almazán, and Diego Romero. The last three were accused of heresy, but charges against Gómez escalated for reasons far removed from the squabbles for power in Santa Fé.
He had the misfortune of being Portuguese at a time when anyone Portuguese was suspect. Spain had taken control of the country in 1580 and Portugal had successfully rebelled in 1640.
After some years of uneasy truce, the Spanish began attacking Portugal in 1659 and lost each time. In 1661, Charles the II of England married the sister of the Portugese king, reopening that conflict. Anxieties ran high among those attuned to the interests of the royal court until 1665, when Spain lost to Portugal one final time.
In 1662, Francisco’s sister’s husband, Pedro Lucero de Godoy, wrote his brother, Diego Lucero de Godoy in Mexico City, that one of the Franciscans, Juan Ramírez “was supported by royal provisions from the viceroy of New Spain, hinting at political connections within the viceregal court.” Diego was a lay priest there.
Gómez’s father, Francisco Gómez, was born about 1587 near Lisbon and orphaned at an early age. Angélico Chávez says his brother, a Franciscan friar, placed him with the family of Alonso de Oñate y Salazar, who brought him to México around 1604 when he was about 17.
Alonso was the son of Cristóbal Pérez de Oñate, who had gone to México City when he was 20, and later married Catalina de Salazar, daughter of México’s treasury officer. There is some consensus that Catalina was the descendant of a prominent Burgos Jewish family.
Whether Juan or Alonso knew anything about their mother’s family or that of Gómez is speculation, but Juan apparently wasn’t concerned about excluding potential conversos or marranos when he recruited men to go north with him. Indeed that may have been implicit in his demand that he be able to enlist man from any part of the kingdom of Spain.
Young Gómez may have been brought north by Juan de Oñate’s son, Cristóbal de Oñate, on one of his many trips between the México and the colony before he took over as governor in 1608. The names of people in the Oñates’ personal entourages weren’t included in official manifests.
He maintained close ties with the governors and México City. He was the military leader of the supply train escorts in 1616 and 1625, and was the designated governor when Luis de Rosas’ replacement died in 1641. By then, Francisco had married Ana Robledo, the daughter of Bartolomé Romero and Luisa López Robledo.
The evidence against Francisco junior came from Tomás Pérez Granillo, a servant of Juan Manso de Contreras, who once heard his father was a Jew. Diego de Melgarego, a servant of López de Mendizábal, claimed he’d heard López say his dad had “died with his face turned to the wall.”
Many of the charges against Francisco himself came from Franciscans. Antonio de Ybargaray, report a suspected Jew, Manuel Gómez, had stayed with him 28 years before, while Nicolas de Chaves claimed he’d been called a Jewish dog for years.
The most serious charge came from Domingo López de Ocanto, who said the boys with whom he’d bathed as a teenager all knew Francisco and his brothers had been circumcised. He added Goméz had a little tail protruding from his buttocks.
López de Ocanto bore a particular grudge against López de Mendizábal: the ex-governor had revoked the encomiendas for Nambé and Jémez he’d inherited from his father, on the grounds they should have gone to his older sister.
The inquisition ordered a medical examination of Francisco which confirmed the circumcision. He claimed the scar came from some small ulcers and requested a second examination in better light. That also suggested deliberate incision.
Meantime, his brother, Bartolomé Gómez Robledo was in México with Francisco’s horses and mules, as well as tribute from Ácoma, to provide necessary help. The accused brothers, Juan and Andrés, weren’t examined. For reasons unknown, Gómez was released in 1664. For whatever reason, the Inquisition in México had lost interest.
At the time of the Pueblo Revolt, he was still on active military duty, and involved in the response by the governor, Antonio de Otermin. He died in exile at Guadalupe del Paso.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Esquibel. José Antonio Esquibel. “Esta Gran Familia: The Genealogy of the Lucero de Godoy Family of Mexico City,” El Farolito, winter 2003, paraphrase from a genealogical website.
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.
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