Sometime between the Big Bang and the discovery of the local ditch, I was reading about the Basketmakers.
I must confess I’ve always had a hard time remembering the various phases of prehistoric native culture. People are surprised. They think that because you’re interested in rocks you’d be interested in arrowheads - or projectile points as they’re now called.
I might be if they ever mentioned the rocks - the ones used and their sources. The first is interesting because of what it suggests about the body of scientific lore and the observations that built that knowledge about hardness, workability, and general geography. The second often implies the existence of trade networks or economic specialization.
But when what I read is details on corner notched or stem notched, my eyes glaze over.
I finally figured out the way to remember the phases: forget the points and think about the targets.
The earliest group in New Mexico were those using Clovis points to hunt mammoths, mastodons, and other very large mammals. They existed at the end of the glacial period, 13,000 years ago, when there still were such animals.
Next came the group who used Folsom points to hunt the animals that came next, the bison beginning some 11,000 years ago.
Some 8000 years ago, it’s estimated two-thirds of mammals weighing more than 100 pounds were extinct.
Natives still hunted animals like big horned sheep, but they had to supplement their diet with plant foods. Following ripening cycles of seeds and fruits became more important than following herds. By 7000 years ago, they had developed the first plant processing tools, the mano, metate and coiled basket. Hence the term Basketmaker I, now generally called Archaic.
When the climate changed yet again only the rabbit remained. By then, some 3500 years ago, a new body of scientific lore, one based on botany rather than zoology or geology, was substantial and people began growing their food, not hunting it. The development of one particular grass, corn, marks the beginning of the Basketmaker II phase.
Basketmaker III is marked by the replacement of the atlatl with the bow and arrow about AD 500 or 1500 years ago. Archaeologists, of course, always mention changes in farming and diet, housing, and the perfection of pottery. Oh, and of course major changes in projectile points with the change in the delivery system.
From there, the various phases of Pueblo life develop around AD 750 or 1250 years ago. That brings us to modern times, where my eyes have glaze over again.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
After the Big Bang
Between the Big Bang and before there was an Earth, there was activity.
I’ll admit, the Big Bang is one of those phrases I’ve picked up since graduate school with no understanding and little interest. Remember, in college, I’d already relegated all questions about the origins of the universe to that class whose answers led to more unknowns, and I’d accepted a level ignorance that was willing to stipulate - the Earth exists.
However, in Early Earth Systems, Hugh Rollinson has explained one consequence I find fascinating, the creation of the elements.
According to him, during the Big Bang the first three elements in the periodic table were created - hydrogen, helium, and lithium - along with the hydrogen isotope deuterium.
The hydrogen burned to produce helium at temperatures greater than 50,000,000c degrees.
The helium burned to produce carbon and oxygen at temperatures greater than 100,000,000c degrees.
The carbon and oxygen burned to produce the elements up to silicon in the table, including sodium, magnesium and aluminum. The stellar core had contracted and temperatures had risen even more.
The silicon burned to produce the elements up to iron at 1,000,000,000c degrees, then the process stopped. At that point, heat no longer was generated. The production of additional elements would have used energy. Sodium, potassium and calcium are in the range between silicon and iron in the periodic table.
Once the basic elements existed, they fell into three categories:
* Gases - hydrogen, helium
* Ices - water, methane, ammonia, nitrogen
* Rocks - magnesium-iron silicates
The first are essentially from the first phase of element creation.
The second group uses products from burning helium. Water is oxygen and hydrogen. Methane is carbon and hydrogen. Ammonia is nitrogen and hydrogen. Nitrogen falls between carbon and oxygen in the periodic table.
The rocks come from the third and fourth phases.
The ice, gas and dirt were circulating in a circumstellar disk where temperatures were falling. When they reached 700c or 1420F the iron began to become magnetic.
When the overall temperature fell into the range of 227c to 527c, the iron-magnesium silicates and iron-nickle began condensing.
Within the next 10,000 years, the small grains were kept buoyant by the gases, and began accumulating through nongraviational electromagnetic forces.
Then, when enough atoms had changed, gravitational forces took over. By the end of a million years, larger clusters (planetesimals) formed into planet embryos, a process that continued until all the material was absorbed into a larger body.
At that point, the gas had been dispersed, and no longer acted as a cushion between the embryos. They began colliding with one another which produced energy (heat) which began melting the material.
At the end of 100 million years the planet was formed, roughly 4,537 million years ago. The segregation of iron from silicon continued to form the core which was complete about 4,535 years ago.
Notes: See entry on Earthly Beginnings for 22 November 2011 for core formation and the role of temperature and iron in the process.
Rollinson gives temperatures in Kelvin which are 237 degrees greater than Celsius, a meaningless difference at these temperatures; you could even think of them as Fahrenheit without loss of meaning.
I’ll admit, the Big Bang is one of those phrases I’ve picked up since graduate school with no understanding and little interest. Remember, in college, I’d already relegated all questions about the origins of the universe to that class whose answers led to more unknowns, and I’d accepted a level ignorance that was willing to stipulate - the Earth exists.
However, in Early Earth Systems, Hugh Rollinson has explained one consequence I find fascinating, the creation of the elements.
According to him, during the Big Bang the first three elements in the periodic table were created - hydrogen, helium, and lithium - along with the hydrogen isotope deuterium.
The hydrogen burned to produce helium at temperatures greater than 50,000,000c degrees.
The helium burned to produce carbon and oxygen at temperatures greater than 100,000,000c degrees.
The carbon and oxygen burned to produce the elements up to silicon in the table, including sodium, magnesium and aluminum. The stellar core had contracted and temperatures had risen even more.
The silicon burned to produce the elements up to iron at 1,000,000,000c degrees, then the process stopped. At that point, heat no longer was generated. The production of additional elements would have used energy. Sodium, potassium and calcium are in the range between silicon and iron in the periodic table.
Once the basic elements existed, they fell into three categories:
* Gases - hydrogen, helium
* Ices - water, methane, ammonia, nitrogen
* Rocks - magnesium-iron silicates
The first are essentially from the first phase of element creation.
The second group uses products from burning helium. Water is oxygen and hydrogen. Methane is carbon and hydrogen. Ammonia is nitrogen and hydrogen. Nitrogen falls between carbon and oxygen in the periodic table.
The rocks come from the third and fourth phases.
The ice, gas and dirt were circulating in a circumstellar disk where temperatures were falling. When they reached 700c or 1420F the iron began to become magnetic.
When the overall temperature fell into the range of 227c to 527c, the iron-magnesium silicates and iron-nickle began condensing.
Within the next 10,000 years, the small grains were kept buoyant by the gases, and began accumulating through nongraviational electromagnetic forces.
Then, when enough atoms had changed, gravitational forces took over. By the end of a million years, larger clusters (planetesimals) formed into planet embryos, a process that continued until all the material was absorbed into a larger body.
At that point, the gas had been dispersed, and no longer acted as a cushion between the embryos. They began colliding with one another which produced energy (heat) which began melting the material.
At the end of 100 million years the planet was formed, roughly 4,537 million years ago. The segregation of iron from silicon continued to form the core which was complete about 4,535 years ago.
Notes: See entry on Earthly Beginnings for 22 November 2011 for core formation and the role of temperature and iron in the process.
Rollinson gives temperatures in Kelvin which are 237 degrees greater than Celsius, a meaningless difference at these temperatures; you could even think of them as Fahrenheit without loss of meaning.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Shadow of the Reconquest - The Ditches
Española is laced with overlapping, and sometimes crossing ditches when one diverts water from the Chama or Santa Cruz river in an area already served by another.
For instance, on the north side of town, the Hernández ditch leaves the Chama a few miles before Abiquiú and more or less follows route 84 to serve El Duende and Hernández. East of Hernández, the Salazar ditch leaves the Chama to follow the Denver and Rio Grande rail bed into town. The two cross just before the Chama meets the Río Grande when the Hernández returns to the river.
Soon after, the Vigil ditch leaves the Río Grande. It follows the old rail bed when the Salazar ditch moves inland. Just above the Valdez bridge, they cross when the Salazar returns to the Río Grande. The Vigil continues south to cross 84/285 as it turns north coming west over the Griego Bridge.
From there it goes east to empty into the Río Grande just above the bridge.
The ditches, like the land grants, weren’t planned; they evolved with necessity under Spanish and Mexican regimes. In the first decades after the United States controlled New Mexico, large grants like those given to Francisco Montes Vigil and his descendants were subject to intense litigation. Since fears of water scarcity led to the Santa Cruz dam in the 1920's, local ditches have been attracting the attention of speculators, developers and their lawyers.
Activity heightened after the San Juan-Chama Project became functional with the opening of the Abiquiú dam. Water rights for 20 acequias were reviewed in 1996 to ensure there were no unauthorized diversions of Río Grande water whose allocation was now governed by interstate agreements.
In 2009, users of the Chamita, Los Salazares and Hernández ditches were suing for an earlier date than 1714. Vickie Gabin argued “the Hernandez Ditch and the Salazar Ditch are part of one continuous irrigation system which irrigates the floodplain that lies south the of Rio Chama and west of the Rio Grande.”
Therefore, she hoped, if she could establish one piece had been in continuous use before the Pueblo Revolt, then the entire system would qualify for that date. Her basis was António Salazar’s contention that Alonso Martín Barba had claim to the land, which by implication must have been irrigated if it was claimed.
Unfortunately, if one looked carefully, one would notice Martín was living in Santa Fé in 1632 and his daughter María’s husband was at Zuñi around 1662. Further, Angélico Chávez said no Salazars reported to Guadalupe del Norte in 1680. It would be hard to argue continuous use.
It should also be remembered, though won’t be, the governors who made the grants were more concerned with their superiors’ expectations that they settle a frontier buffer with the French and that they reward important local mestizoes, than they were the accuracy of the claims. If they could guarantee Antonío Salazar’s loyalty and demonstrate the benefits of supporting the Spanish to others like him, they didn’t care who, if anyone, had the land before the revolt.
Even before the ditch dates were revisited, the Peña Blanca Partnership claimed the state law that allowed the Hernández ditch to refuse to give it water for an Española subdivision was unconstitutional. Richard Cook is a partner in the development group.
Española accepted its allocation level from the San Juan-Chama project in 1978. After that, the failure of some wells and the contamination of others by a dry cleaners, has reduced its supply of ground water.
In 2002, the city was floating a proposal that would have converted Los Vigiles Diversion Dam into the intake for a new drinking water plant which could then have processed the city’s allocation of Río Chama water.
In the same years, the city of Santa Fé was shopping for any available water rights to my local ditch. They hoped they could somehow convert them into increased access to Chama and Río Grande waters downstream.
The ditches sometimes seem like expensive, anachronistic subsidies for hay farmers, but when you see cities and developers start sniffing, you know they are more than artefacts of the local cultural heritage.
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
City of Española and Bureau of Reclamation. “Information Sheet” for the Drinking Water Project, Environmental Assessment, NEPA Scoping Meeting, held 25 July 2002.
Gabin, Vickie L. “Special Master’s Report on Priorities for Three Acequias,” filed in support of the defendants in State of New Mexico v. Roman Aragon, et alia, 16 December 2009.
Matlock, Staci. “Acequia Lawsuits: Granting of New Appeal Confounds Both Sides,” The New Mexican, 2 October 2007.
Wells, Stermon M. Watermaster’s Report for Rio Chama Mainstream, 2009.
Photographs:
1. Vigil ditch near the public library next to the Chama Highway (84/285), 20 August 2011.
2. Vigil ditch preparing to go under the Chama Highway, 10 February 2012.
3. Gate controlling entry of the Vigil ditch into the Río Grande above the Griego Bridge, 10 February 2012.
4. Ditch paralleling Vigil ditch near former Block-Salazar funeral home, moving toward the Río Grande, 3 May 2009.
5. Vigil ditch enclosed in metal fence in front of Frank Bond house, 20 January 2012.
6. Vigil ditch in front of Frank Bond house, 20 January 2012.
7. Vigil ditch before it crosses under the Chama Highway, 3 May 2009.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Shadow of the Reconquest - Culture Shocks
Fifteen years in refugee housing in Guadalupe del Norte must have had some effect on people who were wrenched from what at become a relatively cloistered world and thrown into the more cosmopolitan one nearer the silver mines of México.
After Diego de Vargas resettled New Mexico with recruits from Mexico City and Zacatecas, he and the subsequent Bourbon governors introduced more changes.
Fernando Durán y Chaves, the younger, and his wife, Lucía Hurtado de Salas y Trujillo, were the only members of Angélico Chávez’s family to return. The Franciscan historian says after the Reconquest, men in his family were no longer called into political or military matters as they had been. Such institutions had probably become more professionalized under the Bourbon bureaucrats or perhaps they just required men with different ambitions.
The family response seems to have been retreat. Fernando lapsed into senility. In 1712, he physically attacked the alcalde mayor of Albuquerque, Juan González Bas, as a “perro yndio Griego” and “un perro mulato.” González Bas was the descendant of Juan Griego who owned the Alameda grant north of his Atrisco grant.
In a similar incident in 1759, the ancien regime protested when José López Naranjo’s grandson, José António Naranjo, was made capitán de gente de guerra, They claimed he was only the commander of Indian troops, not the descendant of a conquistador like themselves. At that time, Chávez says, many of his supporters lived in Chimayó.
Chaves and his wife discouraged their children from mingling with newcomers, especially those from Zacatecas. The one who did, their great-grandson Cristóbal Chaves, had to visit his sister at Laguna to secretly marry a woman from Mexico City. The other descendants were reduced to asking the friars for dispensations to marry cousins because of the “paucity in this Kingdom of blood quality.”
One man they would have shunned was Francisco Montes Vigil, the original owner of the Alameda grant. It wasn’t that he was an español. Lucía’s family had had its share of misalliances, especially the marriage of her great-great-grandmother, María de Abendaño, to the bigamous Diego de Vera, a marriage that made her husband her cousin. There was also the more recent involvement of her sister Juana with some Naranjo.
The problem with Vigil was that he represented the new ways seeping north. Chaves was passing on the values of a disenfranchised nobility that had been resisting the power of a centralized government since Juan de Oñate was deposed, while the other was creating a culturally inherited ability to exploit institutional rules, adversity and even subjugation.
Vigil apparently connived with Juan Paéz Hurtado to pad the register of names recruited in Zacatecas and pocket commissions. Historians translating the papers of Vargas say his large family was broken into three units, each presumably paid the 320 peso recruiting fee, minus a kick back. When interrogated later, Vigil admitted he’d enlisted men from gambling halls under false names for Paéz and that Paéz kept 100 pesos for himself.
After he sold the Alameda grant to González Bas, Vigil and his family moved to the villa of Santa Cruz, perhaps because he saw more opportunities in the north, perhaps because it was a less hostile social environment for a restored mestizo raised by a well-connected father in an urban center.
His son, also Juan Montes Vigil, requested land north of the Truchas River in 1754. The land had become available when the alcalde, Juan José Lovato, changed the boundaries of the Truchas Land Grant made to eleven residents from Chimayó and Pueblo Quemado, five Romeros, four Espinosas, Francisco Bernal, and Cristóbal Martín. Vigil was an official witness to that transfer.
This wasn’t the only case of Lovato, the nephew or son of Bartolomé Labota who’d come with Paéz, changing grant boundaries. When Pedro Sánchez couldn’t produce the defining papers for his grant in 1742, Lovato altered the border with San Ildefonso. A Vigil descendant, José Ramón Vigil, bought eight of eleven shares in the grant in 1851 for $20, a yoke of oxen, 36 ewes and one ram.
Francisco, or one of his descendants ended up owning land between that of José López Naranjo and António de Salazar, perhaps after Naranjo died and Vigil survived the Pawnee attack in 1720 or maybe after Naranjo’s only son, José António Naranjo, fled the area in 1731 after killing someone.
No one has said exactly how it happened, only that the land was known as La Vega de los Vigiles when José Ramón’s daughter, Josefita Vigil, married José Benedicto Naranjo. Naranjo sold it to the Denver and Rio Grande, who, in turn, sold some to Frank Bond for his livestock shipping facility.
Benedicto was the great-grandson of José Geronimo Naranjo, the grandson of José López Naranjo. His son, José Alejandrino Naranjo, married Delfinia Vigil. Their son, Emilio Naranjo, was born in Guachupangue, the area abutting the Santa Clara reserve on the north.
Alejandrino had gone to the smelters and mines in Colorado to earn money rather than raise sheep for Bond. He sent his son to secondary school in Santa Fé and college in El Rito. Emilio built the Democratic Party in Rio Arriba county after World War II when Spanish speaking citizens in the area finally felt they were free to vote as they wished.
The railroad, of course, brought men like John Block who married Sofia Vigil Valdez. They adopted Fidel Salazar, the son of José Ramón Salazar and Francisquita de Sales Atencio, to raise as John Block, Junior. José Ramón was 20 years old when he became a father. Sofia was his aunt. Block senior was the prime mover behind building the Santa Cruz dam.
The only men of comparable ambition in the Chaves family were the children of Cristóbal Chaves and María Josefa Núñez. Some migrated to Ceboletta County when the Navajo were removed and others went to Mora County after Fort Union was established to control the Comanche.
Angélico was born to the latter branch. He remembered asking his mother, María Nicolasa Roybal, if any of her family were hermanos. She said “the family had always been such good Catholics that they had no cause for the joining the Penitentes.”
When he asked about the family of his father, Fabián Chávez, they had slipped so far she said “Your father’s people were not even good enough Christians to be Penitentes.”
Genealogies drawn from various sources:
Naranjo:
Alonso > ? > Domingo/? > José López > José Antonio > José Geronimo > António José > José Manuel > José Benedicto > José Alejandrino > Emilio
Vigil to Naranjo:
Francisco Montes > Francisco Montes > Manuel Gregorio > Nicolás António > José Ramón > Josefita who married José Benedicto Naranjo
Durán y Chaves/Chávez:
Pedro > Fernando > Fernando >António > Tomás > Cristóbal > José Mariano > José Encarnación > José Francisco > Eugenío > Fabián > Angélico
Salazar:
Hernán Martín Serrano > María Martín > María ? > Agustín Salazar > António Salazar > Francisco Miguel Salazar > María Salazar who married Julian Lorenzo Salazar > José Julian Salazar > Juan Francisco Estevan Salazar > Pedro Ignacio Salazar y Valdez > José Eutimio Salazar > José Ramón Salazar > Fidel Salazar/John Block Jr
Vigil to Salazar:
Francisco Montes > Juan Bautista Montes > António José Montes > Joe Dolores > María de la Luz who married Lorenzo Valdez > María del Carmel Valdez who married Juan Francisco Estevan Salazar
Notes:
Bowden J. J. “Ramon Vigil Grant,” New Mexico Office of the State Historian website.
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. My Penitente Land, 1974.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Kessell, John L., Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge. A Settling of Accounts: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, 1700-1704, volume 6, 2002.
Shiller, Mark. “The Truchas Grant,” available on-line.
After Diego de Vargas resettled New Mexico with recruits from Mexico City and Zacatecas, he and the subsequent Bourbon governors introduced more changes.
Fernando Durán y Chaves, the younger, and his wife, Lucía Hurtado de Salas y Trujillo, were the only members of Angélico Chávez’s family to return. The Franciscan historian says after the Reconquest, men in his family were no longer called into political or military matters as they had been. Such institutions had probably become more professionalized under the Bourbon bureaucrats or perhaps they just required men with different ambitions.
The family response seems to have been retreat. Fernando lapsed into senility. In 1712, he physically attacked the alcalde mayor of Albuquerque, Juan González Bas, as a “perro yndio Griego” and “un perro mulato.” González Bas was the descendant of Juan Griego who owned the Alameda grant north of his Atrisco grant.
In a similar incident in 1759, the ancien regime protested when José López Naranjo’s grandson, José António Naranjo, was made capitán de gente de guerra, They claimed he was only the commander of Indian troops, not the descendant of a conquistador like themselves. At that time, Chávez says, many of his supporters lived in Chimayó.
Chaves and his wife discouraged their children from mingling with newcomers, especially those from Zacatecas. The one who did, their great-grandson Cristóbal Chaves, had to visit his sister at Laguna to secretly marry a woman from Mexico City. The other descendants were reduced to asking the friars for dispensations to marry cousins because of the “paucity in this Kingdom of blood quality.”
One man they would have shunned was Francisco Montes Vigil, the original owner of the Alameda grant. It wasn’t that he was an español. Lucía’s family had had its share of misalliances, especially the marriage of her great-great-grandmother, María de Abendaño, to the bigamous Diego de Vera, a marriage that made her husband her cousin. There was also the more recent involvement of her sister Juana with some Naranjo.
The problem with Vigil was that he represented the new ways seeping north. Chaves was passing on the values of a disenfranchised nobility that had been resisting the power of a centralized government since Juan de Oñate was deposed, while the other was creating a culturally inherited ability to exploit institutional rules, adversity and even subjugation.
Vigil apparently connived with Juan Paéz Hurtado to pad the register of names recruited in Zacatecas and pocket commissions. Historians translating the papers of Vargas say his large family was broken into three units, each presumably paid the 320 peso recruiting fee, minus a kick back. When interrogated later, Vigil admitted he’d enlisted men from gambling halls under false names for Paéz and that Paéz kept 100 pesos for himself.
After he sold the Alameda grant to González Bas, Vigil and his family moved to the villa of Santa Cruz, perhaps because he saw more opportunities in the north, perhaps because it was a less hostile social environment for a restored mestizo raised by a well-connected father in an urban center.
His son, also Juan Montes Vigil, requested land north of the Truchas River in 1754. The land had become available when the alcalde, Juan José Lovato, changed the boundaries of the Truchas Land Grant made to eleven residents from Chimayó and Pueblo Quemado, five Romeros, four Espinosas, Francisco Bernal, and Cristóbal Martín. Vigil was an official witness to that transfer.
This wasn’t the only case of Lovato, the nephew or son of Bartolomé Labota who’d come with Paéz, changing grant boundaries. When Pedro Sánchez couldn’t produce the defining papers for his grant in 1742, Lovato altered the border with San Ildefonso. A Vigil descendant, José Ramón Vigil, bought eight of eleven shares in the grant in 1851 for $20, a yoke of oxen, 36 ewes and one ram.
Francisco, or one of his descendants ended up owning land between that of José López Naranjo and António de Salazar, perhaps after Naranjo died and Vigil survived the Pawnee attack in 1720 or maybe after Naranjo’s only son, José António Naranjo, fled the area in 1731 after killing someone.
No one has said exactly how it happened, only that the land was known as La Vega de los Vigiles when José Ramón’s daughter, Josefita Vigil, married José Benedicto Naranjo. Naranjo sold it to the Denver and Rio Grande, who, in turn, sold some to Frank Bond for his livestock shipping facility.
Benedicto was the great-grandson of José Geronimo Naranjo, the grandson of José López Naranjo. His son, José Alejandrino Naranjo, married Delfinia Vigil. Their son, Emilio Naranjo, was born in Guachupangue, the area abutting the Santa Clara reserve on the north.
Alejandrino had gone to the smelters and mines in Colorado to earn money rather than raise sheep for Bond. He sent his son to secondary school in Santa Fé and college in El Rito. Emilio built the Democratic Party in Rio Arriba county after World War II when Spanish speaking citizens in the area finally felt they were free to vote as they wished.
The railroad, of course, brought men like John Block who married Sofia Vigil Valdez. They adopted Fidel Salazar, the son of José Ramón Salazar and Francisquita de Sales Atencio, to raise as John Block, Junior. José Ramón was 20 years old when he became a father. Sofia was his aunt. Block senior was the prime mover behind building the Santa Cruz dam.
The only men of comparable ambition in the Chaves family were the children of Cristóbal Chaves and María Josefa Núñez. Some migrated to Ceboletta County when the Navajo were removed and others went to Mora County after Fort Union was established to control the Comanche.
Angélico was born to the latter branch. He remembered asking his mother, María Nicolasa Roybal, if any of her family were hermanos. She said “the family had always been such good Catholics that they had no cause for the joining the Penitentes.”
When he asked about the family of his father, Fabián Chávez, they had slipped so far she said “Your father’s people were not even good enough Christians to be Penitentes.”
Genealogies drawn from various sources:
Naranjo:
Alonso > ? > Domingo/? > José López > José Antonio > José Geronimo > António José > José Manuel > José Benedicto > José Alejandrino > Emilio
Vigil to Naranjo:
Francisco Montes > Francisco Montes > Manuel Gregorio > Nicolás António > José Ramón > Josefita who married José Benedicto Naranjo
Durán y Chaves/Chávez:
Pedro > Fernando > Fernando >António > Tomás > Cristóbal > José Mariano > José Encarnación > José Francisco > Eugenío > Fabián > Angélico
Salazar:
Hernán Martín Serrano > María Martín > María ? > Agustín Salazar > António Salazar > Francisco Miguel Salazar > María Salazar who married Julian Lorenzo Salazar > José Julian Salazar > Juan Francisco Estevan Salazar > Pedro Ignacio Salazar y Valdez > José Eutimio Salazar > José Ramón Salazar > Fidel Salazar/John Block Jr
Vigil to Salazar:
Francisco Montes > Juan Bautista Montes > António José Montes > Joe Dolores > María de la Luz who married Lorenzo Valdez > María del Carmel Valdez who married Juan Francisco Estevan Salazar
Notes:
Bowden J. J. “Ramon Vigil Grant,” New Mexico Office of the State Historian website.
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989.
_____. My Penitente Land, 1974.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Kessell, John L., Rick Hendricks, and Meredith D. Dodge. A Settling of Accounts: The Journals of Don Diego De Vargas, 1700-1704, volume 6, 2002.
Shiller, Mark. “The Truchas Grant,” available on-line.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Shadow of the Reconquest - José López Naranjo
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.
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.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Shadow of the Reconquest - Agustín de Salazar
Mestizos in Zacatecas like Francisco Montes Vigil had an easier time establishing their loyalty to Spain than those who’d lived in the colony before the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
Agustín de Salazar was a blind interpreter for Diego de Vargas, who was described as “proficient in his mother tongue.” He demonstrated his loyalty in 1693 in Santa Fé when he warned his superiors about hostile actions planned by the Tano speakers. He was helped out of the city by Miguel Luján, the one who had land in La Cañada that Angélico Chávez thought was kin to Juan Ruiz Cáceres and Juan Luján, also of La Cañada.
His son, António de Salazar requested land in 1714 owned by his grandfather, Alonso Martín Barba, on the west side of the Río Grande near the villa of Santa Cruz.
As near as I can tell, these were lands settled by Hernán Martín Serrano, which means António had to prove his lineage to a man who was born in Zacatecas and came north with Juan de Oñate. He and his wife, Juana Rodríguez, had two sons, Hernán and Luis, who used the land on the west side of the river mentioned by Luis Pérez Granillo in his 1695 report on La Cañada.
Juana wasn’t identified by Chávez, so it’s not clear how or if she were related to Pedro Rodríguez and Juan Luján who came from the Canary Islands to La Cañada two years later. Rodríguez was a common enough name, but the overlapping names that characterized their families also marked her own descendants. However, the confluence of names is more likely the result of general inbreeding that developed over three generations in an isolated community.
In addition to the two boys, Juana and Hernán had a daughter, María Martín, who must have inherited land north of her brothers.
María Martín was poisoned by María Bernal, probably in 1632. The daughter of Juan Griego and Pascula Bernal was then the widow of Juan Gómez Barragán and romantically involved with María Martín’s husband, Alonso Martín Barba. Before María Martín died, she had a daughter, María, who later married Bartolomé de Salazar, the grandfather of Antonio.
That much was accepted by the governor who granted him the lands.
The life of the younger María was much of a mystery to Chávez. At one point he said she “was accused of scandalous conduct” by the Inquisition.
In one place Chávez said Martín Barba’s daughter, María de los Ángeles Martín, married Gaspar de Arratia, who was dead by 1631, when she was 22. Agustín de Salazar was 33 in 1698, which means he would have been born around 1665, when this woman would have been about 56 years old.
María Martín might not have been Martín Barba’s first wife; her brother Hernán was 25 in 1632. Alonso’s daughter, María de los Ángeles Martín, was 23 that year. He was married to Francisca de Herrera Abregna by 1634, when his daughter Ana Martín’s daughter, Ynez de Zamoa, married Juan López.
Chávez also said María de los Ángeles Martín, or a sister also named María, married Francisco de Salazar, or something close: the writing wasn’t legible.
Francisco de Salazar was executed in 1643 for his involvement in the murder of Luis de Rosas in 1641. Bartolomé de Salazar, the husband of María Martín and grandfather of Antonio, was dead before 1662. Neither Salazar is identified further by Chávez, probably because neither was inventoried as part of the troops with Juan de Oñate and Bernabé de Las Casas.
Elsewhere, Chávez said the María Martín who married Bartolomé de Salazar, may also have been married to Bartolomé de Ledesma, if the two weren’t the same man. Ledesma was dead by 1667 when her brother, Hernán Martín Serrano, was the executor of the second’s estate.
Bartolomé de Salazar was alcade for Zuñi and Hopi. He and María had a daughter, Juana de Salazar, who was half Zuñi. She married Diego Luján.
Although we usually assume it’s the man who fathers an illegitimate child with a native, in this case it may have been the mother. If Agustín de Salazar was 33 in 1698 and part-Indian, he would have been born around 1665, after Bartolomé de Salazar was dead, if we can accept any dates and ages from a time without records.
Agustín married Felipa de Gamboa, the daughter of Cristóbal de Gamboa and Antonia López, a Tiwa speaker from Sandía pueblo.
Their son, António, married María de Torres, the daughter of Cristóbal de Torres and Angela de Leyva, who moved from Albuquerque to Santa Cruz to Chama after the reconquest. Her brother, Diego, was alcalde mayor for Santa Clara.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, included 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.
Agustín de Salazar was a blind interpreter for Diego de Vargas, who was described as “proficient in his mother tongue.” He demonstrated his loyalty in 1693 in Santa Fé when he warned his superiors about hostile actions planned by the Tano speakers. He was helped out of the city by Miguel Luján, the one who had land in La Cañada that Angélico Chávez thought was kin to Juan Ruiz Cáceres and Juan Luján, also of La Cañada.
His son, António de Salazar requested land in 1714 owned by his grandfather, Alonso Martín Barba, on the west side of the Río Grande near the villa of Santa Cruz.
As near as I can tell, these were lands settled by Hernán Martín Serrano, which means António had to prove his lineage to a man who was born in Zacatecas and came north with Juan de Oñate. He and his wife, Juana Rodríguez, had two sons, Hernán and Luis, who used the land on the west side of the river mentioned by Luis Pérez Granillo in his 1695 report on La Cañada.
Juana wasn’t identified by Chávez, so it’s not clear how or if she were related to Pedro Rodríguez and Juan Luján who came from the Canary Islands to La Cañada two years later. Rodríguez was a common enough name, but the overlapping names that characterized their families also marked her own descendants. However, the confluence of names is more likely the result of general inbreeding that developed over three generations in an isolated community.
In addition to the two boys, Juana and Hernán had a daughter, María Martín, who must have inherited land north of her brothers.
María Martín was poisoned by María Bernal, probably in 1632. The daughter of Juan Griego and Pascula Bernal was then the widow of Juan Gómez Barragán and romantically involved with María Martín’s husband, Alonso Martín Barba. Before María Martín died, she had a daughter, María, who later married Bartolomé de Salazar, the grandfather of Antonio.
That much was accepted by the governor who granted him the lands.
The life of the younger María was much of a mystery to Chávez. At one point he said she “was accused of scandalous conduct” by the Inquisition.
In one place Chávez said Martín Barba’s daughter, María de los Ángeles Martín, married Gaspar de Arratia, who was dead by 1631, when she was 22. Agustín de Salazar was 33 in 1698, which means he would have been born around 1665, when this woman would have been about 56 years old.
María Martín might not have been Martín Barba’s first wife; her brother Hernán was 25 in 1632. Alonso’s daughter, María de los Ángeles Martín, was 23 that year. He was married to Francisca de Herrera Abregna by 1634, when his daughter Ana Martín’s daughter, Ynez de Zamoa, married Juan López.
Chávez also said María de los Ángeles Martín, or a sister also named María, married Francisco de Salazar, or something close: the writing wasn’t legible.
Francisco de Salazar was executed in 1643 for his involvement in the murder of Luis de Rosas in 1641. Bartolomé de Salazar, the husband of María Martín and grandfather of Antonio, was dead before 1662. Neither Salazar is identified further by Chávez, probably because neither was inventoried as part of the troops with Juan de Oñate and Bernabé de Las Casas.
Elsewhere, Chávez said the María Martín who married Bartolomé de Salazar, may also have been married to Bartolomé de Ledesma, if the two weren’t the same man. Ledesma was dead by 1667 when her brother, Hernán Martín Serrano, was the executor of the second’s estate.
Bartolomé de Salazar was alcade for Zuñi and Hopi. He and María had a daughter, Juana de Salazar, who was half Zuñi. She married Diego Luján.
Although we usually assume it’s the man who fathers an illegitimate child with a native, in this case it may have been the mother. If Agustín de Salazar was 33 in 1698 and part-Indian, he would have been born around 1665, after Bartolomé de Salazar was dead, if we can accept any dates and ages from a time without records.
Agustín married Felipa de Gamboa, the daughter of Cristóbal de Gamboa and Antonia López, a Tiwa speaker from Sandía pueblo.
Their son, António, married María de Torres, the daughter of Cristóbal de Torres and Angela de Leyva, who moved from Albuquerque to Santa Cruz to Chama after the reconquest. Her brother, Diego, was alcalde mayor for Santa Clara.
Notes:
Chávez, Angélico. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Granillo, Luis. Report for 12 March 1695, included 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.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Shadow of the Reconquest - Land Grants
Colonial life after the reconquest was different than before; Spanish Bourbons were more interested than the Spanish Hapsburgs had been in making physical claims to their empire against forays by French Bourbons and the English.
Conflicts with Apaches and other hostile groups were no longer seen as acts of the unconverted, but as extensions of European politics. People who weren’t allies could no longer tolerated. Tano speakers were forced from the Santa Cruz area, then out of Chimayó. Land was opened, and people needed to colonize it.
Earlier concerns with the loyalty of Jewish and Moorish converts to the emerging Spanish state transferred to mestizos. A new class was defined, the español, which Angélico Chávez says meant an individual who had been fully acculturated into Spanish life and was restored to trust of the community.
The first man to request land under the new regime was Angélico Chávez’s ancestor, Fernando Durán y Chaves, the younger, who requested 41,533 acres in 1692 north of modern Albuquerque, west of the Río Grande he claimed had been settled by his father before the Pueblo Revolt. However, Diego de Vargas wouldn’t let him move there until he’d completed the Reconquest.
As it was, Chávez says, Vargas had to battle Apache who’d stolen Chaves’ livestock in 1704. He became ill during that campaign and died. The Atrisco Grant wasn’t completely secure until the Tiwa speakers living in Alameda, Puaray and Sandía pueblos moved west to Hopi territory where they joined the Tano speakers who’d refused to resubmit to the Spanish.
In 1710, Francisco Montes Vigil requested more than 100, 000 acres of Tiwa land north of Chaves and west of the Río Grande in return for his services in the Reconquest. He claimed “he was retiring from the army and had acquired a small start of cattle” and so “needed the tract in order to maintain his family, which was large, and also as a pasturage for his animals.”
Vigil and his wife, María Jiménez de Ancizo, had come north in 1695 in the group from Zacatecas led by Juan Paéz Hurtado. Vigil’s grandparents, Juan Montes Vijil and Catalina de Herrera Cantillana, had sufficiently established their ancient hidalgo lineage to be able to migrate from Estremadura to Mexico City in 1611.
His father, Juan Montes Vigil was an unmarried Zacatecan merchant wealthy enough to own at least one mulatto slave woman. He entered some real estate transaction there with Cristóbal Zaldívar, no doubt, some sort of kinsman of Cristóbal de Oñate.
When Francisco and his wife were interviewed by Paéz, they were able to satisfy him they were españols. They arrived in Santa Fé with their five children and a free mulatto servant.
Rather than settle the land, Vigil sold the Alameda Grant in 1712 for 200 pesos to Juan González Bas, a man descended from Juan Griego through his daughter, Isabel Bernal, who had married Sebastián González. Two years later, when he was about 49, Francisco divided 40 head of cattle amongst his children.
He remained active in the military. In 1716 he was with Felix Martínez in his war with the Hopi and in 1720 went with Pedro de Villasur to investigate French influence among the Pawnee. He was one of the few who survived an ambush. He was dead in 1730 at about age 65.
Vigil wouldn’t have been the only one to disguise personal motives in the language expected by a government trying to populate the frontier. Chaves may have said he was reclaiming his father’s land, but in fact he was requesting adjacent land. In 1705 he sold his patrimony to his sister’s husband, Manuel Baca, who owned the land to south.
Notes:
Bowden, J. J. “Town of Alameda Grant,” New Mexico Office of the State Historian website.
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989. Chávez believes the reason Chaves sold the land was his favorite son had been killed there in an accident.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Hendricks, Rick, John B. Colligan, Charles Martínez y Vigil, José Antonio Esquibel, Stanley M. Hordes, Richard Salazar, and Robert D. Martínez. Research on Monte Vigil published on Genealogía de México Weblog.
Conflicts with Apaches and other hostile groups were no longer seen as acts of the unconverted, but as extensions of European politics. People who weren’t allies could no longer tolerated. Tano speakers were forced from the Santa Cruz area, then out of Chimayó. Land was opened, and people needed to colonize it.
Earlier concerns with the loyalty of Jewish and Moorish converts to the emerging Spanish state transferred to mestizos. A new class was defined, the español, which Angélico Chávez says meant an individual who had been fully acculturated into Spanish life and was restored to trust of the community.
The first man to request land under the new regime was Angélico Chávez’s ancestor, Fernando Durán y Chaves, the younger, who requested 41,533 acres in 1692 north of modern Albuquerque, west of the Río Grande he claimed had been settled by his father before the Pueblo Revolt. However, Diego de Vargas wouldn’t let him move there until he’d completed the Reconquest.
As it was, Chávez says, Vargas had to battle Apache who’d stolen Chaves’ livestock in 1704. He became ill during that campaign and died. The Atrisco Grant wasn’t completely secure until the Tiwa speakers living in Alameda, Puaray and Sandía pueblos moved west to Hopi territory where they joined the Tano speakers who’d refused to resubmit to the Spanish.
In 1710, Francisco Montes Vigil requested more than 100, 000 acres of Tiwa land north of Chaves and west of the Río Grande in return for his services in the Reconquest. He claimed “he was retiring from the army and had acquired a small start of cattle” and so “needed the tract in order to maintain his family, which was large, and also as a pasturage for his animals.”
Vigil and his wife, María Jiménez de Ancizo, had come north in 1695 in the group from Zacatecas led by Juan Paéz Hurtado. Vigil’s grandparents, Juan Montes Vijil and Catalina de Herrera Cantillana, had sufficiently established their ancient hidalgo lineage to be able to migrate from Estremadura to Mexico City in 1611.
His father, Juan Montes Vigil was an unmarried Zacatecan merchant wealthy enough to own at least one mulatto slave woman. He entered some real estate transaction there with Cristóbal Zaldívar, no doubt, some sort of kinsman of Cristóbal de Oñate.
When Francisco and his wife were interviewed by Paéz, they were able to satisfy him they were españols. They arrived in Santa Fé with their five children and a free mulatto servant.
Rather than settle the land, Vigil sold the Alameda Grant in 1712 for 200 pesos to Juan González Bas, a man descended from Juan Griego through his daughter, Isabel Bernal, who had married Sebastián González. Two years later, when he was about 49, Francisco divided 40 head of cattle amongst his children.
He remained active in the military. In 1716 he was with Felix Martínez in his war with the Hopi and in 1720 went with Pedro de Villasur to investigate French influence among the Pawnee. He was one of the few who survived an ambush. He was dead in 1730 at about age 65.
Vigil wouldn’t have been the only one to disguise personal motives in the language expected by a government trying to populate the frontier. Chaves may have said he was reclaiming his father’s land, but in fact he was requesting adjacent land. In 1705 he sold his patrimony to his sister’s husband, Manuel Baca, who owned the land to south.
Notes:
Bowden, J. J. “Town of Alameda Grant,” New Mexico Office of the State Historian website.
Chávez, Angélico. Chávez: A Distinctive American Clan of New Mexico, 1989. Chávez believes the reason Chaves sold the land was his favorite son had been killed there in an accident.
_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, revised 1992 edition.
Hendricks, Rick, John B. Colligan, Charles Martínez y Vigil, José Antonio Esquibel, Stanley M. Hordes, Richard Salazar, and Robert D. Martínez. Research on Monte Vigil published on Genealogía de México Weblog.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Arroyo Seco - Human Factors
There are human factors affecting Arroyo Seco, but they are less dramatic than elsewhere.
A friend told me that before the bridge was built, the arroyo ran so hard it flipped a car and killed a friend.
Since they built the bridge, they’ve done things to protect the bridge and downstream residential property, including installing rock and wire reinforcements before the bridge. Below the bridge, they built levees on both sides to contain the flow.
Judging from the levees, the water must flow stronger to the right bank after the bridge. The area beyond is a wide wash.
Downstream the water may shift to the left.
The levee of that side become higher and wider, with more vegetation of both sides, presumably from more absorbed water.
Just before the arroyo crosses into the more recent alluvial soils, the water has carved an island.
The arroyo curves to the right, but there’s a spillway toward the left bank.
After the waters rejoin, the right bank is higher, straighter and more exposed than the left.
That flow continues to the confluence with the Río Grande, where the left side of the bottom is lower than the right and water flows back into the arroyo.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Arroyo Seco - Natural Influences
After I read Luis Granillo’s description of La Cañada with houses destroyed by an arroyo, I thought it time to see the rest of Arroyo Seco. I’d seen upstream parts that were accessible by car, but never ventured downstream from the bridge I cross to get into town.
The thing that has always struck me about this arroyo is that beyond the bridge it becomes the prettiest of the arroyos in the area, a wide sandy road winding between tree lined banks. Compared with the others, there is no deep erosion.
That may, in part, be due to human factors. This arroyo goes through residential, rather than pueblo land. The land owners are present, and probably much more likely to report people on ATVs breaking through fences and tearing by their houses. When I was walking in the arroyo, someone’s security system started screeching.
While early settlers must have grazed their cattle in the area upland from their irrigated fields, there may not have been the density of livestock there was in my area where ranchers were active and so less trampling disturbed the surface.
Perhaps more important, there are no major irrigation ditches dumping into the arroyo. Instead, waters are directed toward the Río Grande. The only one I know is the runoff from a lateral that drains from the acequia that comes to my area. The ditch is now buried and comes under the road, then the pipe just stops, leaving the water to find its way to the arroyo.
A large cottonwood has grown and directed its path.
The natural ditch is narrow and deep, but has little impact on the arroyo. The most it has done is expose some of the underlying rocks and pebbles.
When I looked at Daniel Koning’s geological map of the area, I realized there were also some historic reasons for the differences in this arroyo. Most of the settled land in the area is alluvium from the middle to upper Holocene that “generally supports junipers and grass” but with limited soil development.
Near the river most areas are more recent deposits that “supports sparser plant growth, particularly in regards to grass and trees, but more abundant woody shrubs.”
This arroyo is different in two ways. The confluence with the Río Grande is more subject to annual deposits, so, Koning says, the surface is “not vegetated and there is no soil development.”
The upstream banks are an upper Holocene deposit that Koning thinks “is probably related to regional arroyo incision and stream complex response phenomena that episodically occurred over the last several hundred years (since 800 to 2,000 years ago in the Rio Tesuque drainage).”
One forgets this arroyo has its origins in the Tertiary badland watershed with the Pojoaque River, while the arroyos near my house arises in closer Tertiary sedimentary ridges. Whatever those differences in rocks, which Koning defines in detail, the effect is the banks do not erode as easily.
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