Historical Sketch of the Catholic Church in New Mexico

"In a few years the Spaniards began to assume the prerogatives of masters; a rule of tyranny and slavery was established. Instead of letting the priests alone to see to the conversion of the Indians, fanatical Spaniards tried to convert them with the sword. In a short time they looked upon the Spaniards with intense hatred; low murmurs followed, and then open revolt. They were arrested and severely punished, but never resigned. Thus it went on for centuries; the Church suffered much in those times, and the conversion of the Indians was greatly retarded. Finally it culminated in the great Rebellion of 1680..."

"In the year 1680, Popé, a native of the pueblo of San Juan, a man of decided ability and great eloquence, visited all the pueblos of New Mexico and pictured to them the wrongs they were suffering, and roused them to a desire of throwing off the yoke. ...San Juan, however, remained faithful to the Spaniards, and was on that account called San Juan de los Caballeros—The gentlemanly San Juaners. Nicholas Bua, governor of San Juan, Popé's son-in-law, was put to death at the hand of Popé himself for fear he would betray him to the Spaniards."

"Popé visited Bua at night, and under the pretext of communicating to him important secrets, drew him out of the pueblo into a dark spot, and while speaking to him, plunged a knife in his heart. Bua did not expect such a treatment, and was unarmed. He fell with a faint cry, and was soon dispatched and buried secretly by the treacherous Popé."

"All Christians, priests and seculars, women and children, fell under their blows, except a few of the handsomest maidens whom the warriors reserved for wives. General Otermin, the governor, was unprepared and paralyzed with fear; the capital was besieged by an army, and Otermin with a few followers, unable to defend Santa Fé, resolved to leave it to its fate, and with all the Spaniards fled, and never rested till he reached El Paso, where the Franciscans supported him and his followers for a whole winter. Some of the Spaniards settled in Socorro, desiring to return to Santa Fé in a short time."

"Santa Fé was given up to pillage. The churches were desecrated and partly pulled down. ...The Indians, putting on priestly vestments, were seen riding about the city, drinking from sacred vessels... In other pueblos and villages, the priests and Spaniards, not being aware of the rising, remained quietly in their houses, and were all massacred... then the churches were razed to the ground; the worship of the serpent, with its dances, including the indecent cachina, were prescribed anew to all good Indians, the estufas were reopened, and they were ordered to abandon even the names of their baptism, and take new ones. It was decreed in solemn council that "God, the Father, and Mary, the Mother of the Spaniards were dead, and that the Indian gods alone remained." They made offerings of flour, feathers, corn, tobacco and other articles... After this, all those grim warriors repaired to the little Santa Fé river, and there, divesting themselves of their scant clothing, washed their whole bodies with amole or soap-weed, to "Wash off their baptism.""

"On the 5th of November of the following year, Otermin, equipped by the Franciscans of El Paso, started with an army to reconquer New Mexico. All the old inhabitants of Santa Fé, eager to recover their property, went with him. They suffered greatly while crossing La Jornada del Muerto, where for a distance of ninety miles, water is not to be found, except what collects in holes after a rain. ... It has been named the "Journey of Death," on account of the number of persons killed, either by Mescalero Apache Indians, by want of water, or by storms while crossing it. To-day the A.T.S.F. railroad passes through it, and water has been found in about its center. ... the priests, and in particular, Father Ayeta, of El Paso... baptized many at La Isleta and Sandia, but when the army reached the Pueblo of Cienegilla, near Santa Fé, Juan, a Tozuque Indian, advised them of a plot to destroy them. Afraid of remaining any longer in the country, they set out on their homeward journey and reached El Paso on the 11th of February, 1582."

"Several other attempts at conquest were made in 1685 by Domingo Jeronza Petrez de Cruzate, the newly appointed governor. ...he was governor until 1689, but never reached his capital."

"In 1692, a new expedition was entrusted to Don Diego de Vargas Zapate Lujan, by the Viceroy, Count Galvas. ...Diego de Vargas deserves more than a passing notice. It has been said that he was an avaricious and ambitious man. It is true that later on, when he had conquered all the Pueblos, and placed them under the Spanish rule, he seemed to incline to those vices, but he was a man of faith, feared by the Indians who remained his enemies, but kind and generous to those who acknowledged his rule. ...Vargas carried everywhere with him a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and wherever he stopped, a little sanctuary was built, and devotions were offered by the army. We may meet yet several of those places, called by the people los palacios, among others one near Agua Fria, five miles west of Santa Fé. He entered the city by the road called El camino de Vargas, and stood with his troops near the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Thence crossing the Rio Santa Fe at a place called yet—Puente de Vargas, he went to the very spot where now stands the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary, and there he erected a palacio. On the next day... Vargas with his small troop, attacked the Indians, who were centered on a waste which is now the beautiful plaza of Santa Fé; they had fortified themselves, and were reinforced by the neighboring pueblos, to the number of ten thousand. The battle raged with great ardor on both sides from four in the morning until nightfall, without apparent result. Then Vargas, in the name of his troops on their bended knees, before the statue of Mary, made the solemn vow, that should he take the city, every year that same statue should be brought in solemn procession from the principal church in the city to the spot on which they were camping, where he should build a sanctuary, and there be left for nine days, the people flocking to the chapel to thank Mary for this victory, attributed to her. On the dawn of day, the next morning, he attacked with impetuosity the fortified Indians, and drove them from the plaza; at eight o'clock they retired upon the loma, north of the city where he attacked them, and by noon not an Indian was seen in the neighborhood."

"Faithful to his promise, Vargas built the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Rosary, and the fulfilment of the vow, commenced then, still continues every year on the Sunday after the Octave of Corpus Christi, by carrying what is most probably the identical statue possessed by Vargas, and called by the people Nuestra Senora de la Victoria, "Our Lady of the Victory," in great pomp, with music and pious chanting, from the Cathedral of St. Francis to the Chapel of the Rosary, and for nine days mass is chanted there, all the people making daily pilgrimages in thanksgiving for the favor received."

"Soon universal peace reigned in New Mexico. Vargas then repaired the churches, and among the first the old church of San Miguel, but did not complete it, and it remained in that state until 1710, when the front tower was built by the Marquez de la Penuela... He built the Rosario, and no doubt, repaired the old Castrense, for his own use. This church was on the spot occupied now by the great merchant houses of Spiegelberg and Don Felipe Delgado. The Cathedral of San Francisco was re-built somewhat later, I think about 1730, long after the removal of Vargas. The church of Guadalupe... being somewhat out of the city, seems to have suffered less than the other churches at the time of the Rebellion."

"The conquest of New Mexico terminated there... At that epoch, the authority of the Spaniards both ecclesiastical and civil, was acknowledged in all the pueblos."

"The Pueblos, then as now, were a distinct people... They lived in villages, cultivated the soil, and had trades and manufacture. The Navajoes and Apaches of to-day are as easily distinguished from the Pueblos as in the time of the earliest conquerors of New Mexico."

"Learned treatises have been written on the subject; some contending that the Pueblos are of Aztec, others that they are of Toltec origin. ...Their traditions say that they came from the north. ...I think the opinion which says that they are the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, mixed with some Tartars, is not at all improbable. I lately saw a work in which the author tries to prove they were Phonicians and not Jews."

"Classed by dialects, the pueblos of New Mexico, at the period of the arrival of the Spaniards, spoke four separate and distinct languages, called the Tegua, the Piro, the Queres and the Tagnos. This classification has passed away, and today all the Pueblos of New Mexico are divided, as to dialect, into five classes: 1, Sandia, Isleta, Picuris and Taos; 2, Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ana, Laguna and Acoma; 3, Jemes; 4, Zuni; 5, San Juan, Santa Clara, Nambe, San Ildefonso, Pojuaque and Tezuque. Thus by language, these Indians are nearly all cut off from verbal communication, not only with Mexicans, but with Pueblos of a different dialect."

"I have visited several pueblos in New Mexico; everywhere you find a square, small or large, according to the size of the village; around the "plaza," the dwellings are erected close together, so as to present outwardly an unbroken line of wall to the height of two or three stories. Viewed from the inner square, it presents the appearance of a succession of terraces with doors and windows opening upon them. To go to the house of the governor of Tezuque, for instance, you go up a ladder of about ten feet. There you meet a terrace about six feet wide, and the door of the sleeping apartment opens on that terrace, which has another ladder to go higher. To go to the lower apartments, you place the ladder and descend through a hole; these apartments have no windows, and this hole is the door and the chimney. This description, with slight variations, is applicable to all the pueblo villages..."

"Time, decay and want of proper care, are rapidly carrying off forever many documents of great importance, sole survivors of many more, which formed a part of the archives of Santa Fé. Papers of value... have disappeared; many others are in a perishing condition, and it is said that in 1846, Governor Armijo used up a large quantity of them for cartridges; and alas! he was not the only one that did it."

"Under the Spanish governments the whole military, civil and ecclesiastical administration was admirably carried out, and the official reports are models of completeness and brevity."

"Many stories are told of what passes in their Estuva, but all this is exaggeration. However, it must be acknowledged that they have... among them many secret societies that no one outside of the pueblo can ever penetrate. They are good tillers of the ground, and some pueblos have great herds of cattle and horses; their principal manufacture consists of pottery. The vases and other article's they make are all of classic and Biblical shapes. These vases are extensively used through the territory."

"In the year 1600, Pedro de Peralta was governor, and probably the first who used that title. During that period, according to Shea's Catholic Missions, the country was nearly abandoned by the Spaniards. Still we find General Arguello as governor in 1640, and he defeated the first great insurrection of the Indians. In 1650, General Concha was governor, and he was called upon to quiet the second revolt of the pueblos. He administered the Territory till 1656, when he was relieved by Enrique de Abilu y Pacheco, of whom little is known. General Villanueva administered after him, and his administration which lasted to the year 1675, was disturbed by constant uprisings of the Indians who had found refuge with the Apaches in the Magdalena Mountains. In the year 1675, Juan Francisco Frecenia... had still greater difficulties to contend with than his predecessor. He left the government in the hands of Antonio de Otermin [who was] forced... to return to El Paso in 1680..."

"From 1692 to 1694, and again in 1703, New Mexico was ruled by General Don Diego de Vargas Zapatoz Lujan Ponce de Leon, who signs himself, Marquez de la naba de Brazinas, gobernado, capitan, restorador, conquistador, a sa Casta, reconquissador y poblador castellano, por sa Majestad, etc., etc. (Marquis of the root of Brazinas, governor, captain, general, restaurer, conqueror at his cost, reconquerer, Castilian and Castilian founder for His Majesty, etc. etc.)"

"It is customary for a certain class of men to assert at all times and places, that this continent is indebted entirely to the Saxon or Anglo-Saxon race for its population, its civilization and its progress. ...The world forgets too often that it was a child of the Latin race, a stanch Catholic, a pious hero, who conceived the idea of the Western continent, and it was a Spanish Sovereign, a stout Catholic, Isabella surnamed "the Catholic" who placed at his disposal the means necessary to pursue his researches in the pathless and unknown Western Ocean."