La Cañada - Hernán Martín Serrano

One is always curious about the people behind rosters like that of La Cañada produced by Luis Granillo in 1695.

Thanks to Angélico Chávez’s work identifying the Origins of New Mexico Families, it’s actually possible to reconstruct a little of the social structure that had evolved between the time Juan de Oñate arrived in 1598 and the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 in the area Pedro de Peralta abandoned in 1610 when he moved the colony of San Gabriel to Santa Fé.

If one uses land holdings alone to rank people, the descendants of Hernán Martín Serrano would have been the most important people in the La Cañada area. They were the only ones who owned an estancia in Luis Granillo’s survey of the abandoned site in 1695. Everyone else either had a hacienda or specified pieces of land. He noted the:

“ruins consist of the walls, which are standing. Five citizens had lived there with their families, settled with their members, since there were sufficient lands and pastures towards the north.”

Hernán Martín Serrano had come with Juan de Oñate in 1598 from Zacatecas as a sergeant under the command of Juan Ruiz. According to family genealogists, his grandfather, Hernán Martín Serrano, was born about 1500 in the Estremadura to Pedro Serrano and Catalina Fernandez, and had come with Hernán Cortés through Cuba as a blacksmith.

According to Robert Himmerich y Valencia, he had the encomienda of Macuilsuchil for a brief time, then the one in Malinaltepec. In the 1550's, he married the widow of Diego Correas, who had come from Cuba with Pánfilo de Narváez to serve under Cortés and had his own encomienda. After he died, his encomienda was reassigned to Luis de Velasco in the 1570's.

Encomiendas were contracts to protect native groups in return for tribute from them in the form of goods and services. Land was not a necessary part of the grant, though nearby land could be assigned separately. They often were given in lieu of salaries owed.

Hernán’s son, Hernán Martín Serrano, was born in 1529 in Guadalajara and moved to Zacatecas where his son, the one who came north with Oñate, was born in 1558. He relocated to Santa Fé where his son, another Hernán Martín Serrano, also resided.

When the son came to the attention of the Inquisition in Mexico City for his involvement with a “woman of low estate” in 1632, he said he was living at La Cañada. In 1664, when he was deposed in the trial of Nicolás Ortiz for the murder of the governor Luis de Rosas in 1641, he said he was an encomendero living in Santa Fé.

His brother, Luis Martín Serrano, was then living on the family land in La Cañada where he had been the alcalde mayor and captain of the Tewa jurisdiction. He had been more involved than his brother in the ongoing battles for power between the Franciscans and the civil governors that probably began before Juan de Escalona wrote the viceroy in 1601 insinuating Oñate should be removed and covertly blessing the desertion of the colony by most of the soldiers and friars.

The governor between 1656 and 1659, Juan Manso de Contreras, was the brother of Tomás Manso, a custodian for the Franciscans. In office, he fathered two illegitimate children. He baptized the girl as a godchild. He and his mistress faked the death of the boy, whom they hid at Luis Martín’s until he could safely be taken to México by the wife of Tomás Pérez Granillo to be raised by Manso.

The next governor, Bernardo López de Mendizábal, fought with the Franciscans and accused Martín of supporting them and having abetted the murder of Rosas by the family of a woman he had seduced. Manos was deputized by the Inquisition to arrest him.

Children of both Hernán and Luis escaped the Pueblo Revolt to return with Diego de Vargas. Some moved to Santa Cruz or married children of their parent’s old neighbors; others moved elsewhere.

Hernán had married three times. Andrés Martín, one of his children with Josefa de la Asención González, inherited his mother’s land in Chimayó, but moved to Alameda by 1734. Cristóbal Martín Serrano, a child of María Montaño, wanted to move to Chimayó, but died in Santa Cruz in 1736. His children by his other wife, Catalina Griego, stayed in Guadalupe del Paso.

Luis’s son, Luis Martín Serrano, had one son who called himself a “a charter settler of the new town of Santa Cruz” in 1713. His son, Antonio Martín Serrano, had wanted to marry Josefa Luján, daughter of Domingo Luján but she preferred Hernán’s son, Mateo Martín.

Luis’s other son, Pedro Martín Serrano de Salazar, lived long enough to return to La Cañada, but was dead by 1700. His daughter, Josefa Martín, married Andrés Archuleta, son of one of the Juan Archuletas. Andrés’ sister, María, married Josefa’s cousin Miguel Martín Serrano.

Pedro’s son, Sebastían Martín Serrano, inherited the spirit of the first Hernán Martín Serrano who rose from blacksmith to encomendero. He married María Luján, who said she was the daughter of Fernando Durán y Chaves and Elena Ruiz Cáceras, and the only survivor of that part of the family massacred in Taos in 1680. Cháves says the names Ruiz and Luján were used interchangeably, but doesn’t identify her place in the family.

Encomiendas were discontinued after the reconquest because their abuses had contributed to the discontent that fed the rebellion. Instead, land grants were made available.

In 1712 Sebastían was given the La Soledad grant of 51,387 acres north of San Juan. In 1714 he was alcalde of Santa Cruz. In 1730 he was in trouble with the governor, Juan Domingo de Bustamante, who ordered him to vacate lands near Taos that were too close to those of the pueblo.

Bustamonte’s reasons for given priority to the interests of natives were no longer religious, but imperial. European wars had been spilling into North America since King William’s War had begun in 1689. His superiors didn’t trust the French, who were trying to use the nomadic tribes as conduits for trade, and wanted to ensure the northern pueblos remained loyal and didn’t receive weapons.

Sebastían sued for damages and lost, but died with real estate in the Taos valley, Truchas and Chamisal.

Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.

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.

Himmerich y Valencia, Robert. The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521-1555, 1991.