The Spanish State, State Agents, and Indigenous Forms of Resistance in Eighteenth-Century New Mexico

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE

Fictive Conquest: The Spanish State, State Agents, and Indigenous Forms of Resistance in Eighteenth-Century New Mexico

THESIS

submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

in History

Anderson Maxwell Hagler

Thesis Committee: Associate Professor Rachel O'Toole, Chair Professor Heidi Tinsman Assistant Professor Alex Borucki

2015

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii

ABSTRACT OF THESIS iv

INTRODUCTION 1 1

CONQUEST DEFINED 3

CONQUEST INVERTED 10

DISCURSIVE CONQUEST 24

CONCLUSION 33

BIBLIOGRAPHY 36

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my committee chair, Professor Rachel O'Toole, who has patiently consulted with me on numerous occasions and provided valuable feedback. Without her guidance and consistent support this thesis would not have been possible.

I would also like to thank my committee members Professor Heidi Tinsman and Professor Alex Borucki, whose tutelage throughout the year provided inspiring ideas which hopefully emerge in this thesis.

iii

ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS

Fictive Conquest: The Spanish State, State Agents, and Indigenous Forms of Resistance in Eighteenth-Century New Mexico

Anderson Maxwell Hagler

Master of Arts in History

University of California, Irvine, 2015

Professor Rachel O'Toole, Chair

This thesis maintains that the ongoing conflicts between Spanish and indigenous peoples in the frontier region of the Kingdom of New Mexico in the eighteenth century demonstrated Spaniards' inability to achieve conquest. Spanish colonizers conceptualized a successful conquest in the Americas to include access to land and control over its resources. Nevertheless, analyzing this material mode of conquest on its own reveals an incomplete process. The Spanish state did not fully realize its ambition to occupy New

Mexico with Spanish colonizers since the Apache, Comanche, and Pueblo refused to internalize Spanish values in the eighteenth century. Spanish colonizers resorted to discursive forms of conquest as a means to create a legal-religious discourse that justified their presence in the region. The Spanish labeled indigenous peoples such as the Pueblo variously as sodomite, heretic, and adulterer in order to remain in New Mexico. This thesis employs forms of textual analysis, qualitative content analysis, and discourse analysis of the primary sources from New Mexico including, letters, diaries, travelogues, and Inquisition testimonies written by Spanish colonizers in order to illustrate the

ongoing contestations between the Spanish and indigenous peoples for control over a network of exchange in the frontier region of the Kingdom of New Mexico.

Introduction

Spanish colonizers' struggle for control over a material and discursive exchange network frequently reshaped alliances between Spaniards and indigenous peoples in the

Kingdom of New Mexico in the eighteenth century. Spanish colonizers used the law to solidify the types of discourse employed to regulate the subjugation of indigenous peoples. Spanish jurists justified conquest through the notion of a just war.1 Spanish state agents employed material and discursive types of evidence to convince the state that they had achieved conquest and to justify their continued presence in the exchange network.

However, due to Spaniards' lack of political consolidation in the Kingdom of New

Mexico in the eighteenth century, the conflicts in this region illustrate the disparity between theories of conquest and their implementation. The Inquisition cases examined in this essay illustrate how Spanish colonizers labeled indigenous peoples as sodomites, heretics, or adulterers to justify conquest.

The perennial conflicts regarding European and indigenous interpretations of conquest demonstrated how European empires claimed vast swathes of territory, but often only exercised direct control over narrow bands, enclaves, and irregular zones.2

Spanish colonizers encountered legal and territorial disputes from the indigenous peoples regarding valid claims to land in the frontier regions of northern New Spain. In the

Kingdom of New Mexico, Spaniards could only exercise partial sovereignty due to other

1 James Muldoon, The Americas in the Spanish World Order: The Justification for Conquest in the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 13. 2 Lauren Benton, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 2.

competing spheres of influence such as the Pueblo and Comanche peoples.3 The Spanish-

Comanche and Spanish-Navajo peace treaties of 1786 highlight the limits of Spanish conquest in New Mexico by acknowledging the political power of indigenous actors.4

This thesis draws on primary sources from frontier areas in northern Mexico. The majority of these sources originated in the eighteenth century. However, this essay also employs some documents from the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries in order to demonstrate the long process of colonization and the conquests in the region.

The variation of historical accounts including letters, diaries, travelogues, and legal testimonies written by Spanish colonizers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries illustrates the pervasiveness of conquest in frontier regions and the material and discursive methods employed to gain power over exchange networks. This essay also utilizes testimonies from a 1731 Inquisition case in Santa Fe from the Spanish Archives of New Mexico, currently housed in the State of New Mexico Records Center in Santa

Fe, to argue that Spanish colonizers employed the language used in sodomy trials to enact conquest.

This essay qualitatively analyzes the discourse of state agents in sodomy trials and other correspondence to display the language used against indigenous peoples. These primary accounts illuminate a need for alternative methods in the struggle for control over the exchange network. The discussion of treaties reveals the material and discursive facets of conquest; how empires manifested, and how Spanish and indigenous peoples negotiated political and territorial space either discursively by petitioning state

3 For mention of partial sovereignty see Benton, A Search for Sovereignty, 2; For Comanche dominance in northern Mexico see Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). 4 James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 72 and 114.

representatives, or materially by rebelling against colonial authorities in the northern

Mexican frontier. Documents such as the letters in The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696, and contemporary administrative documents in Ralph Emerson Twitchell's The Spanish

Archives of New Mexico provide insight into the actions, power struggles, and the everyday discourses of contemporary state agents in their desire to exert control over exchange networks as these documents contain details of petitions for land, resentment over poverty, and pejorative labels such as barbarian and savage. The Spanish Inquisition trial of 1731 supplies evidence for discursive conquest. This section pays particular attention to the language of indigenous and Spanish peoples during the trials, and analyzes the discourses surrounding the trials to demonstrate how the language used in sodomy trials enacted conquest. This study employs a close reading of the discourse in the eighteenth century in order to understand how Spanish colonizers enacted conquest and to what extent everyday discourse played a role in conquest. This essay also considers letters exchanged between the state agents, and focuses on the terminologies used when describing indigenous peoples to prove that the Spanish enacted conquest through language.

Conquest Defined

Spanish colonizers in eighteenth-century New Spain conceptualized conquest as the ability to maintain exclusive control over an exchange network. Spanish commercial rights and territorial claims to the Americas exemplify material and discursive components of conquest. For example, the Spanish employed the Treaty of Tordesillas and the Requerimiento—through both written and oral declarations—in order to assert their power over the territories of the Americas and the commercial resources they

encountered.5 However, as Patricia Seed notes, other European powers such as Portugal and France frequently contested Spanish jurisdiction.6 Consequently, the participants who engaged in conquest created multiple interpretations regarding its meaning. Spanish attempts to establish uncontested territorial and commercial claims in the Americas demonstrate the plurality of conquest accounts—as exemplified through numerous treaties, relations, and diaries—and countered the notion of a unidirectional and terminal conquest in the Americas.7 However, the ongoing nature of conquest creates a facade with respect to the extent of control exerted over the exchange network. Thus, conquest remains context specific.

This essay builds on James Brooks's notion of trade networks to define conquest as the ability of Spanish and indigenous actors to exert control over a material and discursive exchange network in eighteenth-century New Spain.8 For example, material exchanges include the transfer of land, livestock, and commodities, and discursive exchanges involve the level of assimilation attributed to languages and ideologies. This study incorporates José Rabasa's ideas regarding the performativity embedded in both written and oral discourse to break the notion of a public/private binary for written communication. Moreover, this thesis draws on Pekka Hämäläinen and Brooks's notion of material exchange networks that included captive human beings, and ritual exchanges of words, food, and spouses, to argue that exchange included material items such as precious metals, livestock, and people, and more discursive elements such as the

5 Francisco Morales Padrón, Teoria y leyes de la conquista (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispanica del Centro Iberoamericano de Cooperacion, 1979), 189–198 and 331-337. 6 Patricia Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 128–130. 7 William Hickling Prescott, Conquest of Mexico (Safety Harbor: Simon Publications, 1934), 438–439. 8 Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 61.

exchange of languages and ideas.9 Brooks establishes the distinctive New Mexican economy by highlighting the importance of material elements in an exchange network of conquest, arguing that a surplus of foodstuffs, and captives with which to bargain and to assimilate into the local community, and domesticated animals such as horses signified affluence on the frontier.10 This essay elaborates on Rabasa's notion of discursive conquest to assert that the Spanish attempted to control indigenous peoples' collective memories through the regulation of discourse in an effort to create a singular historical narrative.

Spanish colonizers employed material and discursive methods of conquest throughout the colonial era. Daniela Bleichmar asserts that Spanish colonizers conceptualized and manifested an empire through these conquests. This materiality reified the notion of an operative empire that controlled a network of exchange that crossed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the eighteenth century.11 Although Spaniards maintained a physical presence in the Americas for nearly three hundred years, the complete conquest of the northern borderlands of New Spain eluded Spanish colonizers.

Ongoing territorial contestations between Spaniards and indigenous peoples such as the

Apache, Comanche, and Pueblo reveal a fictive nature of conquest. Spanish colonizers erroneously imagined a cultural conquest of indigenous peoples. This essay incorporates

9 For symbolic violence as writing with a performative power see José Rabasa, Writing Violence on the Northern Frontier: The Historiography of Sixteenth-Century New Mexico and Florida and the Legacy of Conquest (Durham: Duke University Press Books, 2000), 6–7; For breaking of the public/private binary see José Rabasa, Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You: Elsewheres and Ethnosuicide in the Colonial Mesoamerican World, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012), 111–112; For mention of material and ritual exchanges see Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, 168; For the exchange network of human beings see Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 61. 10 Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 52-59. 11 Daniela Bleichmar, Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 8–9.

Seed's notion of the imaginary to argue that the Spanish fallaciously referred to perceptible signifiers—such as General Juan Páez Hurtado's presumed control over the enlisted Pueblo due to a muster roll in 1715—in order to reify the notion that a successful conquest occurred.12 Spaniards mistakenly equated material signifiers and the acquisition of land as signifying a successful conquest, consequently disregarding the unfulfilled ideological conquest of indigenous peoples. For example, Don Bernardo de Miera y

Pacheco inscribed in his map of New Mexico that the Pueblo peoples' organization of houses facilitated their observed civility and ties to Christianity.13 Ramón Gutiérrez and

J. Manuel Espinosa note that while Spaniards retained nominal control over the Kingdom of New Mexico, outbursts of violence such as the Pueblo Revolts of 1680 and 1696 demonstrated that the indigenous Pueblo did not internalize orthodox Catholicism and

Spanish colonial structures despite repeated attempts at evangelization in the region.14

The ability to exact tribute from the Pueblo and establish missions and towns in the region enabled the Spanish to presume a successful conquest had taken place.

The ongoing struggle for power contributed to the discursive nature of conquest as indigenous peoples and Spaniards worked alongside one another in commerce. Brooks argues that the interruption of commercial networks among peoples of the Southwest precipitated shifts in the trading economy, and created new opportunities for commerce

12 Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640, 138–139; For General Juan Páez Hurtado's muster roll see Thomas, After Coronado, 86–88. 13 Thomas, After Coronado, 160–162; For Anza's attacks on the Apache see Alfred Barnaby Thomas, ed., Forgotten Frontiers: A Study of the Spanish Indian Policy of Don Bautista De Anza, Governor of New Mexico, 1777-87, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969), 86. 14 Ramón A. Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 306–308; For the Pueblo revolts see J. Manuel Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), 32–36; and 47–51.

for the Plains Apache, Navajo, and Spanish.15 The shifting power structures altered the military dynamics between Spanish colonizers and indigenous peoples, illustrating a form of discursive conquest. Gutiérrez argues that the Spanish shifted the application of a just war from the Pueblo to the Apache, even arming some Pueblo to fight alongside Spanish regular troops.16 Muldoon asserts that relationships between the indigenous peoples and

Europeans remained the great moral problem of the early modern era.17 Jurists such as

Juan de Pereira Solóranzo argued that Spanish conquest sought the moral and civil good of indigenous peoples and supported the notion of conquest through a just war—the assumed preeminence of Christianity and a warring nature between Christians and pagans—thereby justifying conquest.18

The continued struggle for control over the material and discursive exchange network prompted Spanish colonizers to enact discursive forms of conquest. Rabasa illustrates that colonizers employed discursive practices such as creating new names for territories and places, and relaying stories of successful expeditions through spoken and written forms of communication to control peoples' stories of origin and collective memories.19 The reading and telling of stories by state agents illustrates how the dissemination of narratives to the general public ensured the continuation of a communal identity through discourse.20 Therefore, Spanish colonizers' attempted to increase their level of control over the discursive exchange network by naming places, people, and imposing ideologies such as Christianity on indigenous communities.

15 Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 52. 16 Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away, 151-159. 17 Muldoon, The Americas in the Spanish World Order, 166. 18 Muldoon, The Americas in the Spanish World Order, 13. 19 Rabasa, Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You, 14-15; and 124. 20 Rabasa, Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You, 111-112.

Material objects that enabled writing such as pen, paper, brush, and paint worked in conjunction with orality to create history, and exemplify how modes of discourse and materiality collectively constituted conquest and produced cultural continuity.21

According to James Muldoon, the Spanish crown justified its rule in the Americas by claiming that conquest sought the moral and civil good of indigenous peoples.22 Spanish claims of moral virtue served a larger political purpose in the discourse of colonization.

Since 1497, Spanish law stated that any person found guilty of the nefarious crime against nature merited death by fire.23 Written discourse such as the law solidified notions of sodomy and other heresies as crimes. Rabasa notes that law's structure defined the types of discourse Spaniards employed to regulate the subjugation of indigenous peoples.24 Spanish legal-religious discourse bound the justification for conquest to a

Christianizing mission of heathen souls that needed salvation. In 1714, Governor Juan

Ignacio Flores Mogollón granted permission for the continued trade of enslaved Apache, as long as these captives received baptism, thereby enabling their souls to go to heaven.

Governor Flores Mogollón expressed concern for those "youngsters [who] have fallen from their horses and have been killed" without receiving "the waters of the Holy

Baptism."25 The governor's sanctioning of trade combined with his concern for baptism

21 Muldoon, The Americas in the Spanish World Order, 166. 22 Muldoon, The Americas in the Spanish World Order, 166. 23 For mention of the Catholic Kings' Royal Pragmatic concerning the Crimes of the Nefarious Sin see Bartolome Bennassar, Inquisicion española: poder politico y control social (Barcelona: Grijalbo, 1984), 297. 24 Rabasa, Writing Violence on the Northern Frontier, 7. 25 Linda ed. Tigges and J. Richard Salazar, Spanish Colonial Lives, Documents from the Spanish Colonial Archives of New Mexico, 1705-1774 (Santa Fe: Sunstone Press, 2014), 84–85.

illustrates that Spanish colonizers employed religious justifications for conquest in the

Americas, simultaneously buttressing discursive forms of conquest with materiality.26

The role of the state's involvement in conquest further illustrates its fictive composition. The state's official sanction of conquest that involved the creation of legal rights upon the discovery and occupation of land sought to demonstrate a claimed territory to potential competitors.27 Spanish conquest employed legal justifications for the monarch's authority to claim sovereignty over the Americas, bounding its jurisdiction to the notion of a just regime.28 Once Spaniards established the notion of a just regime, however, claims of unjust exertions of authority from Spanish subjects such as forced conversions or illegally appropriated land held the potential to challenge Spanish rule.29

Even Spanish state actors questioned the state's jurisdiction.30 The redrafting of laws such as the 1680 Recompilation of the Laws of the Indies illustrate the impermanence of state- level dispensations. Moreover, political and physical distance contributed to the facade of conquest. Brooks emphasizes how New Mexico's geographical distance from Spain enabled the servitude of indigenous peoples to continue despite official prohibition in

1812, consequently creating a political disjuncture between the crown and its colony.31

The inability to come to a consensus regarding the definition of a just regime, combined with the difficulties of effecting royal dictums, contributed to the difficulty of

26 Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away, 150; Muldoon, The Americas in the Spanish World Order, 22. 27 Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640, 151. 28 Muldoon, The Americas in the Spanish World Order, 120. 29 Rabasa, Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You, 157. 30 Regarding the famous debate between Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda at Valladolid see Muldoon, The Americas in the Spanish World Order, 5. 31 Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 234.

maintaining Spanish imperial claims and ceded a considerable amount of control to state agents.

Conquest Inverted

The Spanish state's transference of power to agents such as missionaries and colonizers created an inverse relationship throughout the colonial era. Once the state entrusted its agent to enact conquest, the state inevitably relied upon its representative to implement its plans, demonstrating the tenuousness of conquest. In the case of New

Mexico, Spanish metropolitan control over indigenous peoples remained weak since the state relinquished control of its enterprises directly to an agent, who attempted to enact a successful conquest.32 Pete Sigal notes the failure of Spanish missionaries to enact conquest observing that the Nahua retained their indigenous notions of sexuality despite the presence of Catholic churches and clergy in New Spain.33

Indigenous peoples repeatedly rebelled against Spanish civil and religious order.

Spanish colonizers experienced setbacks in New Mexico such as droughts and crop failures, the Pueblo revolts of 1680 and 1696, and raids from indigenous nomads such as the Comanche.34 Although Governor Diego de Vargas claimed to have reduced the Tewa and Tano peoples occupying Santa Fe in September of 1692, and similarly in December of the same year proclaimed that the Franciscans could repossess their religious authority

32 For mention of the viceregal order for Diego de Vargas to reoccupy Santa Fe see John L. Kessell, Remote Beyond Compare: Letters of Don Diego de Vargas to His Family from New Spain and New Mexico, 1675-1706 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1990), 50–55. 33 Pete Sigal, The Flower and the Scorpion: Sexuality and Ritual in Early Nahua Culture (Durham: Duke University Press Books, 2011), 24. 34 For mention of the Pueblo revolts see Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 32-38 and 47-57; For mention of Spanish-Comanche relations see Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, 40-57; For mention of poor harvests see Marc Simmons, Spanish Pathways: Readings in the History of Hispanic New Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001), 37; and Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 31.

lost to the "apostate" Acoma, Moqui, and Zuñi, he encountered significant indigenous resistance.35 In 1693, Fray Salvador de San Antonio wrote to Vargas that the pueblos of

Tewas, Tanos, and Picurís, in alliance with the Apache, planned to rebel.36 By March of

1694, Vargas's confidence and provisions had diminished, as exemplified in his declaration to the viceroy, noting the "fickle" nature of indigenous peoples and that he still lacked "sixty-six and a half families, arms, munitions, and other military supplies" necessary to "calm and subdue the...rebels."37

Vargas's letters clearly display a link between material and discursive forms of conquest. In the first instance, Vargas attempted to reestablish Christian indoctrination, noting that Fray Francisco Corbera, "celebrated the rendering of salt water for the exorcism and absolution of the [indigenous peoples'] apostasy" in addition to preparing a record book of the children born since 1680 who had not received baptism.38 Moreover, by 1694, Vargas attempted to increase his level of control over the material exchange network by requesting additional supplies and colonizers. Additional letters demonstrate the tenuous nature of conquest. In 1695, Vargas confidently wrote to the viceroy that he had "subjugated" Santa Fe and referred to his previous encounters with the Zuñi and

Moqui in 1693 as a "universal conquest."39 Nonetheless, in 1695 several Franciscans wrote to Vargas alerting him to rumors of uprisings in the pueblos, and requesting that

Vargas send "squads with military equipment" to inspect and subdue the pueblos if

35 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 63–68. 36 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 71. 37 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 79–80. 38 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 64–65. 39 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 147–150.

necessary.40 In the eighteenth century, the Spanish state not only changed its policies to regarding the ways to implement conquest, but also reevaluated its level of control in the region.

The Spanish state and state agents employed discursive conquest throughout the colonial period. In his letters to the viceroy in 1720, Governor Antonio de Valverde

Cosio explained that he armed the Jicarilla Apache against other indigenous enemies, a stark contrast to Governor Juan Bautista de Anza's direct attacks on Apache peoples in

1786.41 Consequently, illustrating the ongoing nature of conquest. Fray Atanasio

Domínguez noted that by 1776 Spanish families lived in pueblos for protection with the consent of the indigenous peoples, illustrating a shift in the power dynamics on the frontier between Spanish colonizers and indigenous peoples.42 Once the state sanctioned conquest in New Mexico, the shifting alliances and actions of state agents took on a life of their own, illuminating the disparity between theories of conquest and their implementation.

Spanish colonizers employed religious justifications in conjunction with territorial claims in the Americas.43 In 1727, Brigadier Pedro de Rivera proclaimed that the establishment of a presidio in New Mexico contributed to the reduction of the Zumas.

Rivera's letter to viceroy Juan de Acuña y Bejarano further illustrates the connection between materiality and discourse when he stated that the temporal reduction of the

40 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 155–156. 41 For Valerde's letters see Thomas, After Coronado, 160–162; For Anza's attacks on the Apache see Thomas, Forgotten Frontiers, 327–328 42 Tigges and Salazar, Spanish Colonial Lives, Documents from the Spanish Colonial Archives of New Mexico, 1705-1774, 517. 43 For Treaty of Tordesillas and the Requerimiento see Padrón, Teoria y leyes de la conquista, 189–198; and 331-337.

Jicarilla Apache would lead to their spiritual salvation.44 In 1723, Governor Juan

Domingo de Bustamente declared war on the "heathen" Faraones Apache, likening the intended vassalage and obedience of these peoples to the "service to God."45 Spanish colonizers employed both discursive and material methods of conquest, at times, using them interchangeably.

Employing Ángel Rama's notion of an imperial pyramid, one may conceptualize of the Americas at the base with Madrid at the apex, extracting wealth from its subordinate cities, towns, and villages.46 Conquest involved formal authorization from the monarch, and required at least two types of actors: a central authority at the vertex of a contemporary social hierarchy, and a participant—normally an agent of the state—who ostensibly executed the wishes of the central authority at the local level. State agents availed themselves of state-level mandates and thus remain pivotal to the study of conquest, illuminating its implementation from theory to practice. Brooks demonstrates that Spaniards encountered numerous setbacks in their attempts to colonize the borderlands of New Mexico in the eighteenth century, while Gutiérrez notes that attempts to provide arms for a constant state of war in New Mexico depleted the Royal Treasury.47

The frontier of New Spain represents an inverse relationship to Rama's pyramid.

The frontier drained the Spanish treasury rather than add value to it. Vargas's 1695 letter to the viceroy noted the shortage of funds in the royal treasury of Zacatecas.48 In 1724, the Spanish fiscal wrote to the auditor recommending that Governor Juan Domingo de

44 Thomas, After Coronado, 214–215. 45 Thomas, After Coronado, 194–195. 46 Angel Rama, The Lettered City, trans. John Charles Chasteen (Durham: Duke University Press Books, 1996), 14. 47 Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 136–142; Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away, 153. 48 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 149.

Bustamente establish a presidio on the frontier, "with the least cost to the royal treasury."49 Similarly in 1726, the fiscal wrote to the auditor-general of war expressing his desire to establish presidios economically.50 In 1727, Rivera wrote to the lord fiscal regarding the establishment of a new presidio around Paso del Río del Norte, stating that colonizers would attempt to establish the said presidio with "the greatest savings to the royal treasury."51 Rivera further highlighted the limits of the empire's funds when he stated that "if every proposal for the foundation of presidios for reduction were acceded to, the treasury of Midas would not suffice."52 In 1782, Fray Juan Agustín de Morfi's report regarding the current state of New Mexico observed that Spaniards could not extract the minerals discovered nor inspect the region for deposits of other precious metals due to a "lack of money" and the "lack of experienced workers."53

The unique frontier economy precluded Spanish colonizers' ability to accumulate wealth through the establishment of large haciendas. In order to elevate their social status and acquire prestige in mineral-poor New Mexico, Spaniards engaged in indigenous slave trading, despite royal decrees to the contrary.54 Valverde wrote in his diary in 1719 that the Ute and Comanche had taken sixty-four women and children captive.55 Furthermore, in 1720, Bartolomé Garduño stated that he set out from Santa Fe to rescue twenty families held captive by the pueblo of San Gerónimo serving the indigenous peoples back in 1708. Brooks notes that Spanish colonizers continued to trade indigenous slaves

49 Thomas, After Coronado, 205. 50 Thomas, After Coronado, 218. 51 Thomas, After Coronado, 210. 52 Thomas, After Coronado, 214. 53 Thomas, Forgotten Frontiers, 112. 54 Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away, 152. 55 Thomas, After Coronado, 115.

despite official prohibitions to the contrary in 1812.56 The study of state agents in conjunction with the local economy contributes to the notion that conquest remained a facade, as state agents sometimes operated on their own accord at variance with the interests of the state.

State agents employed both material and discursive types of evidence to convince the state that they had successfully achieved conquest and to justify their continued presence in the exchange network. The proliferation of scientific disciplines such as cartography in the eighteenth century enabled state agents to undertake new endeavors and provide evidence of their purported successes. Bleichmar notes that European powers viewed transoceanic exploration as a matter of key economic, political, and scientific importance.57 Europeans employed science and religion interchangeably as a way to manipulate nature and exploit desired resources. Colonizers employed a religious discourse, associating themselves with science, to define myth, idolatry, and superstition, thereby enabling the Spanish to impose judgments on indigenous peoples.58 Spanish clergy regularly accompanied lay expeditions or conducted official excursions under their own behalf. Fray Francisco Corbera enacted the formal repossession of Santa Fe alongside Diego de Vargas in 1692.59 In 1720, Father Juan Mínguez accompanied the expedition led by Pedro de Villasur.60 Moreover, Fray Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and

Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez led an expedition of their own in order to find a

56 Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 234. 57 Bleichmar, Visible Empire, 7. 58 Rabasa, Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You, 44. 59 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 64. 60 Thomas, After Coronado, 36.

direct route from Santa Fe to the Californian coast in 1776-1777.61 Spanish colonizers furthered their rationale for conquest by associating a natural link between science and religion in the eighteenth century. Rabasa argues for the link between science and religion, noting that both build on knowledge first perceived by the five senses.62 The

1724 letter from the royal fiscal to Governor Bustamente illustrates the confluence of science, religion, and law in the eighteenth century. The royal fiscal ordered Bustamente to instruct the indigenous peoples of New Mexico with the Catholic:

doctrine and Christian documents, in conformance with the Law of Title V, Book I, of the Recopilación de Indias... that the Indians be reduced to settlements and be taught and instructed in political and rational life in conformance with that established in the laws of Title 4, Book 4 of Title 3, Book 6 of the same Recopilación, assisting each pueblo with the tools that are necessary for the cultivation of the land, according to and in the form and amount that has always been usual and which the royal regulations command.63

The command to instruct indigenous peoples in methods of cultivation merged agronomic techniques with codified laws and regulations. The above edict corroborates

Rama's assertion that Spaniards attempted to impose a social hierarchy in the Americas.64

Spaniards imposed science on the indigenous peoples in conjunction with Catholicism in an attempt to establish an ordered society that adhered to Spanish laws and regulations.

The religious alignment with science facilitated discursive conquest since ecclesiastics understood both scientific and religious revelation to occur through methods of induction and persuasion.65 Inventions such as the quadrant facilitated Spanish

61 Silvestre Velez de Escalante; trans. by Fray Angelico Chavez, ed. Ted J. Warner, The Dominguez- Escalante Journal: Their Expedition Through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico in 1776 (Provo: Brigham Young University, 1976), ix. 62 Rabasa, Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You, 71. 63 Thomas, After Coronado, 204. 64 Rama, The Lettered City, 4. 65 For the alignment of science and religion see Rabasa, Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You, 70-72.

expeditions. In 1776, Fray Francisco Atanasio recorded and mapped his position with the quadrant, thereby enabling him to navigate heretofore uncharted territories.66 Valverde's diary notes, in 1719, that his expedition maintained "the route to the north" indicating his use of direction. Spaniards also measured distances in leagues. In 1720, Bartolomé

Garduño conceptualized of New Mexico almost entirely in leagues. Garduño stated that

Taos Pueblo lay thirty leagues from Santa Fe, and La Jicarilla about ten leagues from

Taos, and the Río Napestle some forty leagues from there.67 Despite the advancement of science, many measurements remained imprecise. Bautista de Anza approximated the leagues traveled according to "the number of hours rated by pack animals."68

Nevertheless, Anza's attempts to calculate and measure indicate that Spanish colonizers used science and religion to make sense of the world.

The employment of leagues, lines of latitude and longitude, and directions such as north and south demonstrates the attempts of Spanish colonizers to conceptualize of an ordered world and to impose that notion on others. Indigenous people calculated distances as accurately as Spaniards, but through other forms of measurement. For example, in 1720, a letter addressed to Viceroy Baltasar Zúñiga y Gúzman stated that indigenous informants gave an account of the distance from observed French activity in

New Spain to the boundary of Holland as "eleven moons journeying over broken ground."69 In the eighteenth century, there existed many ways to accurately measure distances. Therefore, the imposition of one method over another represented a discursive form of conquest. Fray Francisco employed a discursive form of conquest when he

66 Escalante, The Dominguez-Escalante Journal, 44. 67 Thomas, After Coronado, 172-173. 68 Thomas, Forgotten Frontiers, 205. 69 Thomas, After Coronado, 168.

attempted to convert the Laguna peoples to Christianity and renamed an indigenous man called Red Bear, Francisco, asserting that Christians could not name themselves after beasts.70 In addition to technologies such as the quadrant, the refinement of maps significantly enabled Europeans to enact discursive and material forms of conquest.

European states employed maps to ratify treaties, define territories, and designate resource boundaries in order to assert control over exchange networks. Jorge Reinel's map of the world enabled Ferdinand Magellan to, "circumnavigate the globe and settle the Maluku boundary dispute."71 The Spanish Crown frequently requested images such as maps of the Americas to preside over its exchange networks.72 Cartographers could reprint a map according to the changing state of affairs of a territory, thereby discursively disseminating ideas regarding territory. For example, Nicholas de Lafora constructed a map of the New Spanish frontier in 1771 that calculated various distances and latitudes delimiting provincial jurisdictions, and the cartographer Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco drew a map of the internal province of New Mexico in 1779 delineating lines of latitude and longitude, geographic features such as mountains and rivers, as well as various indigenous settlements.73 In 1748, Governor Bustamente settled a land dispute by employing measurements such as leagues, and directions such as north and south, stating that Spanish law entitled the indigenous people to occupy land a league distant in each

70 Escalante, The Dominguez-Escalante Journal, 30–31. 71 The dispute arose due to the zones of influence between Spain and Portugal fixed by the Treaty of Tordesillas see Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640, 127– 128. 72 Bleichmar, Visible Empire, 9. 73 For mention of Lafora's map see Thomas, Forgotten Frontiers, 371 no. 4; For Miera's map see Tigges and Salazar, Spanish Colonial Lives, Documents from the Spanish Colonial Archives of New Mexico, 1705- 1774, 659.

direction from the center of their pueblo.74 The attempt to calculate distances directly related to mapmaking as precise measurements and directions allowed cartographers to chart these points. Spanish colonizers used maps to enact conquest by demarcating claims to territories and by imposing names of terrains, places, and peoples on maps. Thus, maps represent the confluence of materiality and discourse in conquest. Maps also contained imagined elements within this materiality such as the lines of longitude and latitude, illuminating the fictive side of conquest.

Lines of longitude and latitude provided colonizers with a justification for territorial occupation. Fray Agustín de Morfi, in 1782, wrote that the measurements conducted by Nicolas de Lafora definitively concluded that New Mexico "extends from

[Nueva Vizcaya] from thirty-four degrees to thirty-seven degrees, thirty minutes northern latitude. By careful calculation (it extends) from two hundred and sixty-eight degrees to two hundred and seventy-two of longitude computed from the meridian of Tenerife."75

Agustín also observed that the villa of Santa Fe laid at "thirty-six degrees ten minutes north latitude and two hundred and sixty-two degrees and forty minutes longitude"76 In

1720, Juan de Olivan Revolledo wrote to Viceroy Zúñiga y Guzmán regarding a French attack on a Spanish expedition in New Spain stating that the expedition's position corresponded to, "thirty-eight or thirty-nine degrees of latitude."77 Revolledo attempted to impose order onto these imagined lines when he referred to the relative positions of

French and Spaniards as forming, "a triangle with respect to the capital of Santa Fé, and

74 Ralph Emerson Twitchell, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico; (Cedar Rapids: The Torch Press, 2011), 236. 75 Thomas, Forgotten Frontiers, 87. 76 Thomas, Forgotten Frontiers, 91. 77 Thomas, After Coronado, 176.

the capital of Texas, the latter in thirty-three degrees of latitude, and the former in thirty- six."78 Revolledo's imagined triangle did not correspond to an actual landmark.

Moreover, no one could physically see the lines of latitude and longitude on any point of the earth.79 Nonetheless, the Spanish state treated these lines as real as they enabled cartographers, navigators, and explorers to refine their conceptualizations of the earth and traverse its oceans and territories in the colonial era.80 These imagined lines helped sailors and explorers to arrive at real destinations.81 Thus, the imagined does not equate to fiction due to its applicability in reality. The frequency of use of imagined elements combined with their propagation in texts may in fact convince contemporary peoples of their actuality.82 Scientific progression, as exemplified by maps and astrolabes, provided

Spaniards with an alternative reality

Spanish state agents employed scientific and ideological modes of conquest in order to impose this alternative reality onto indigenous peoples to exercise more control over the exchange network in New Mexico in the eighteenth century. Information collected through scientific means facilitated the refinement of technologies such as maps, while religious ideologies contributed to state agents' ideas of indigenous peoples' actions. The ideological space created by sodomy's classification as abominable and a crime worse than heresy meant that the label of sodomite provided the Spanish with an opportunity to control the behaviors of indigenous peoples labeled accordingly.83 Spanish

78 Thomas, After Coronado, 176. 79 Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640, 139. 80 Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640, 138–139. 81 For an example of the quadrant see Escalante, The Dominguez-Escalante Journal, 44. 82 Seed notes that people treat lines of latitude as real see, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640, 139. 83 Federico Garza Carvajal, Butterflies Will Burn: Prosecuting Sodomites in Early Modern Spain and Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003), 52.

colonizers utilized both scientific and ideological modes of conquest in the ongoing struggle to control the material and discursive exchange network in the northern frontier regions of New Spain.

Enforcement of contemporary religious values motivated state agents to enact conquest in addition to acquiring territory. Manuel Trujillo, a vecino of Santa Fe, operated on a doctrinal level when he reported an alleged act of sodomy as an offense against God.84 Trujillo's denunciation, made in 1731, led to the imprisonment and exile of two indigenous men—Ascencio Povia and Antonio Yuba. The fact that Povia and

Yuba had to prove their innocence following Trujillo's employment of the term sodomite placed them in a subordinate position to Trujillo. Trujillo's accusation of sodomy exemplifies the enactment of conquest by a state agent at the local level.

Labels such as infidel and barbarian contained in state agents' accounts discursively contributed to the validation of conquest.85 State agents' accounts of conquest offer insight into contemporary ideologies. The state's continued sanction of conquest through charters and edicts depended in a large part on the accounts of state agents. State agents presented their accounts in person or in written form through diaries and letters, either written by themselves, or by literate individuals who had face-to-face contact with state agents.86 For instance, Trujillo directly reported the alleged act of sodomy to the Inquisition.87 Since Trujillo's justification for his actions against Povia and

Yuba employed a doctrinal rationale, combined with the fact that Inquisitors

84 The Spanish Archives of New Mexico (hereafter SANM) 360, MF 450, roll 6, frame 839 85 For mention of infidel and barbarian see Escalante, The Dominguez-Escalante Journal, 29–33. 86 For reference to Peter Martyr’s De Orbe Novo Decades see Walter D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance: Literacy, Territoriality, & Colonization, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003),183–186. 87 SANM, 360, MF 454, roll 6, frame 831.

acknowledged Trujillo's reasoning, demonstrates that religious discourse resonated with state agents. The process of denunciation in New Spain functioned accordingly, and

Spanish magistrates sent documentation to the governor once the initial stage had finished.88 The governor contacted the viceroy, who then communicated directly to the

Spanish king.89 Thus, individual accounts of conquest not only illustrated contemporary values and ideologies, but also how such accounts contributed to the ongoing process of conquest. The labeling of indigenous peoples as sodomites morally justified Spaniards' continued presence in the frontier region of New Spain since this label provided Spanish colonizers with a justification for controlling indigenous behaviors.

State agents further validated conquest by convincing the state of an expedition's lucrative nature through persuasion and testimonies. For example, Hernán Cortés's letter to Charles V described Tenochtitlan as a city comparable to Seville and Córdoba in order to convey the feasibility of conquering the city.90 Spanish colonizers frequently referred to areas that held the potential for extraction of precious metals.91 In order to convince the state of an enterprise's remunerative attributes, state agents had to employ a language universally understood in their native region, while simultaneously describing newly discovered lands, things, and peoples, what Rabasa labels as producing referents without antecedents.92 State agents incorporated new vocabularies sparingly so as to retain

88 Charles R. Cutter, The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995), 75,125. 89 For mention of letters from the Governor of New Mexico to the Viceroy in the late eighteenth century see Oakah Jones, Pueblo Warriors and Spanish Conquest (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966), 142. 90 Mignolo, The Darker Side of the Renaissance, 240. 91 Escalante, The Dominguez-Escalante Journal, 12; 41. 92 Rabasa, Writing Violence on the Northern Frontier, 122.

meaning and relay a discourse that resonated with the state to ensure conquest's official sanction.

Conquest's ongoing nature and dependency on agents created opportunities for power dynamics to shift as individuals and states sought to maintain control over the exchange network. For example, in the sixteenth century, Dominican friars employed

Nahua painter-writers, the tlacuilo, to create Spanish pictorials. Although the friars intended to understand Nahua culture through these intermediaries, the tlacuilo's application of Nahutal vocabularies rendered the friars ignorant of the sponsored representations.93 The tlacuilo inverted conquest by supplanting the friars' role as state agents and pictorially dictating Spanish colonizers' discourse. Spanish colonizers continued to rely on supposedly subordinate indigenous informants, further reversing social hierarchies. In 1720, after the combined French and Pawnee attack on Pedro de

Villasur's expedition, Valverde wrote to Viceroy Zúñiga y Guzmán that he would send an eyewitness—an Apache woman—who had seen French settlements near the South Platte

River (then called Río Jesús María) to provide the viceroy with a complete account of the massacre and to inform him of the "French manner of living."94 On September 30, 1719

Valverde recorded in his diary that Apache informants, returning from a reconnaissance mission, provided valuable information regarding the whereabouts of the Comanche. On

August 24, 1776 the Escalante expedition acquired a Ute guide—whom they named

Atanasio—and relied on his expertise in order to guide them through the Rocky and La

Plata Mountains. From the Spanish point of view, the indigenous informants held valuable information and, therefore, held more control over the discursive exchange

93 Rabasa, Tell Me the Story of How I Conquered You, 8–9. 94 Thomas, After Coronado, 166.

network. Spanish reliance on indigenous informants represented another inversion of conquest.

State agents enacted conquest by means of improvisation. Their theories of conquest remained far removed from actual implementation. Moreover, state agents did not always follow the crown or viceroys' mandates exactly as prescribed since unforeseen elements emerged during the undertaking of a state-sanctioned enterprise. Instead, both internal and external motivations drove state agents to enact conquest. For example, when

Diego de Vargas attempted to recolonize Santa Fe in 1692, he promised land, honors, nobility, and slaves to incentivize other colonizers to accompany him.95 Although factors such as indigenous resistance precluded Vargas from establishing control of the area until late in 1696, Spanish conquerors continued to narrate a seamless conquest.96 Due to frequent reversals or unpredicted events, state agents had to relay their accounts of conquest in such a way so that the state continued to sanction the enterprise while they continued to eke out an existence in an unconquered area.97 Political and territorial reversals in the frontier of New Spain illustrate the difficulty of achieving conquest.

Thus, state agents' digressions and changes of tactics represent conquest's discursive and fragile nature.

Discursive Conquest

Spaniards employed the accusation of sodomy in order to appropriate land occupied by indigenous peoples. Since the occupation of Mexico by Hernán Cortés,

95 Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away, 144. 96 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 39–58; Vargas received dispatches from the Conde de Galve to accede his post in New Mexico in 1690 see Kessell, Remote Beyond Compare, 49. 97 For mention of Vargas’s letter to the viceroy see Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 53.

Spaniards used the charge of sodomy to justify conquest.98 Various chroniclers such as

Bernal Díaz del Castillo and Francisco López de Gómara recorded the presence of ritualized sodomy among the Nahua in the sixteenth century.99 Díaz reported that he saw many "sodomites, especially those who lived on the coasts and in warm lands; so much so that young men paraded around dressed in women's clothes in order to work in the diabolical and abominable role."100 Gómara claimed that the men of central Mexico frequently participated in "carnal acts, both with men and women."101 Throughout his travels in Texas and New Mexico in the sixteenth century, the Spanish conquistador,

Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, claimed he witnessed several same-sex pairings of two indigenous men. Cabeza de Vaca described one male of the same-sex pair as impotent and effeminate. Cabeza de Vaca further declared these men "dressed as women and

[performed] women's tasks."102 Cabeza de Vaca's assertions illustrate Spanish notions of gendered roles. His comments imply that indigenous men lowered their status within the local community by dressing and acting as women. Spaniards monopolized on the assumptions made about indigenous sexuality to enact discursive conquest. Díaz and

Cabeza de Vaca's accounts reveal indigenous societies that recognized same-sex sexuality. Spanish colonizers used these accounts to impose judgment and punishment on indigenous same-sex pairings.

98 Pete Sigal, "The Cuiloni, the Patlache, and the Abominable Sin: Homosexualities in Early Colonial Nahua Society," Hispanic American Historical Review 85, no. 4 (2005): 556–560. 99 Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de Nueva España, (Plaza Editorial, 2011), 277–280. 100 Díaz del Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de Nueva España, 579. 101 Francisco López de Gómara Historia general de las Indias, (Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2012), 404–5. 102 Richard C. Trexler, Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order, and the European Conquest of the Americas (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 66.

The Spanish state attempted to exercise control over supposedly conquered indigenous peoples. After Juan de Oñante's arrival in 1598, the Pueblo peoples swore allegiance as subjects of the Spanish crown and the Catholic Church, thereby enabling the clergy to impose the notion of sodomy as a heresy.103 The Spanish clergy attempted to regulate indigenous sexuality by labeling indigenous sexual practices as bestial and against the natural law, thus imposing heteronormative praxis on frontier society.104 The establishment of missions around the upper Rio Grande valley symbolically represented

Catholicism's supremacy and functioned as places of discursive indoctrination of the

Catholic faith.105 In 1692, Fray Cristóbal Alonso Barroso absolved the Pueblo of their

"apostasy" in addition to baptizing, "the infants, children, and youths... and the other persons who had not been baptized since they rose in revolt against [the] holy faith and the royal crown."106 In 1733, Pedro García refused to enter the church in Albuquerque with his hair unbraided. Consequently, Fray Pedro Montaño excommunicated him, but later pardoned García, and absolved him assuming the excommunication had taken effect.107 The Spanish used Christianity in conjunction with the materiality of the missions in every aspect of life, from christening to the reading of one's last rights, to enact discursive and material forms of conquest and gain control over the exchange network.

According to Spanish colonizers' Catholic ideologies, areas rampant with sin required further intervention from the Church. As part of the discursive process of

103 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 7. 104 Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away, 72-73. 105 For a list of missions established in New Mexico see L. Bradford Prince, Spanish Mission Churches of New Mexico (Cedar Rapids: The Torch Press, 1915), 38–42. 106 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 67. 107 Tigges and Salazar, Spanish Colonial Lives, Documents from the Spanish Colonial Archives of New Mexico, 1705-1774, 320–321.

conquest, the Spanish employed the term sodomite in the eighteenth century. The Spanish used sodomy to refer to a number of sexually transgressive behaviors such as bestiality and anal penetration.108 Sodomy's expansive categorization increased the possibilities for accusations of sexual transgressions, thereby providing an opportunity for harsh punishments such as torture and confiscation of property. New Mexico's representative to the Cortes in Spain, Pedro Bautista Pino, commented in 1812 that many families in New

Mexico lived in a state of adultery.109 Moreover, in 1839, Antonio Barreiro, the assessor to the territorial authorities, commented on the wild and uncivilized nature of the indigenous people in New Mexico for over two centuries.110 Thus, extending discursive forms of conquest into the nineteenth century. The legal consequences of sexual transgressions served to regulate status, consequently placing Trujillo's allegations into a discourse of Spaniards' attempts at conquest in New Spain.

Spanish categories of indigenous peoples and their behaviors articulated gendered identities and, consequently, further stratified subalterns within indigenous communities.

When interpreted solely through a Western lens, the discourse of sodomy Inquisition cases suggests the persecution of same-sex behavior of indigenous men and indigenous cross-dressed men. For example, sixteenth-century Spaniards used the term berdache—a fourteenth-century Arabic word meaning male prostitute—to refer to cross-dressed men.111 If the governor prohibited Spanish colonizers from disturbing the "friendly" indigenous peoples and their property—providing they continued to adhere to Spanish

108 See SANM, 360, MF 454, roll 10, frame 832; and SANM, 360, MF 454, roll 10, frame 851. 109 H. Bailey and J. Villasana Haggard, Translators Carroll, Three New Mexico Chronicles, (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1942), 51. 110 Bailey, Three New Mexico Chronicles, 77. 111 Trexler, Sex and Conquest, 40.

notions of order and remained nominally Christian—Spanish colonizers could employ sodomy accusations to confiscate the property of indigenous peoples.112 In 1743, Vicente de Armijo wrote to Governor Gaspar Domingo de Mendoza requesting land for his previous participation in military campaigns, stating he would not disturb the "friendly" peoples of Nambe Pueblo. The governor's reply stated Armijo could not receive the land he requested since the Nambe would not relinquish it.113 In 1748, Fray Juan Miguel

Menchero petitioned Governor Joaquin Codallos y Rabal, requesting that Spanish colonizers relocate from their current position in order to redistribute land to the Moqui to reestablish Pueblo Sandia.114 The colonizers conceded to the petition and agreed to allow the Pueblo grazing rights on Spaniards' pastured lands, but later replied that they, "would take legal steps to protect their rights."115 In 1753, Governor Tomás Vélez Cachupin ordered Spaniards in the Taos Valley to fence their properties in order to prevent livestock from damaging the Pueblo peoples' crops. Further, the governor mandated a penalty of fifty pesos and three months in jail for failure to comply.116 The sources reveal a potential area of conflict between local state agents and indigenous peoples.

Spanish colonizers desired land in order to elevate their socioeconomic standing.

Some colonizers, such as Armijo, felt that participation in campaigns entitled them to large estates. Past instances, such as the Pueblo revolts, indicated that the alienation of indigenous peoples led to conflict, thereby precluding the Spanish from maintaining political and social order in New Mexico. In order to assuage the indigenous peoples,

112 Twitchell, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 22–23. 113 Twitchell, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 21–23. 114 Twitchell, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 235. 115 Twitchell, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 236. 116 Tigges and Salazar, Spanish Colonial Lives, Documents from the Spanish Colonial Archives of New Mexico, 1705-1774, 517–518.

official Spanish representatives, at times, issued decrees in favor of the indigenous peoples. However, this inevitably created resentment among the Spanish colonizers.

Spanish colonizers could potentially gain access to territory and other resources by employing an accusation of sodomy, as a conviction resulted in the defendant's confiscation of property. Analyzing the discourse embedded in these letters and petitions provides a possible motive for Spaniards to falsely testify against indigenous peoples for sins against God. Federico Garza Carvajal cites several examples of the Spanish state confiscating the property of individuals convicted of sodomy such as Catalina de Belunza in 1497, Gaspar Hernández in 1560, and Antón de Fuentes in 1562.117 Thus, the possibility remains that colonizers such as Trujillo intentionally monopolized on the ambiguity of sexual transgressions and accused the Pueblo of committing sexual offenses for material gain.

Additionally, Spaniards labeled indigenous practices as heathenish in order to enable the continuation of their civilizing mission in the region. In 1776, Fray Atanasio

Domínguez detailed how the Pueblo remained neophytes due to the enduring nature of their customs such as the scalp dance (a prohibited indigenous dance that the Pueblo continued to perform) and refusal to wear clothing.118 Trujillo's accusation that Povia and

Yuba did not wear pants contributed to the notion that indigenous people remained uncivilized in Santa Fe.119 Since nudity facilitates sexual copulation, Trujillo's accusation enhanced the credibility of a sodomy charge. However, Juan Manuel Chirinos, Yuba's defense lawyer, understood indigenous customs of dress differently, noting indigenous

117 See Carvajal, Butterflies Will Burn, pages 55, 95, and 110 respectively. 118 Fray Domínguez stated that the Pueblo performed the scalp dance with "considerable gusto" see Gutiérrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away, 307. 119 SANM, 360, MF 454, roll 6, frame 868.

peoples typically wore a type of cloth or chamois leather rather than pants.120 Thus,

Spanish interpretations of appropriate dress shaped the legal discourse—both the accusations and defenses implemented—in trials of sexual deviancy.

Spaniards imposed their interpretations of appropriate sexual conduct in order to maintain their presence in the frontier in the eighteenth century. The narration of sexual transgressions recorded in the extant documentation over time created a story line that solidified into the language of the law, exemplifying a discursive form of conquest. In

Santa Fe, Spanish magistrates typically carried out the initial stages of the judicial process (the sumaria) following a denunciation. The governor received documentation once the initial stage had finished.121 The governor maintained contact with the viceroy, who then communicated directly to the Spanish king.122 Thus, the wording and terminology in Inquisition testimonies served a wider political purpose of imposing structural and ideological order that justified the presence of Spaniards in New Mexico.

The procedure used to collect testimonies in Inquisition trials enabled Spaniards to employ discursive forms of conquest. The testimonies themselves also shaped the narrative of cases involving sexual transgressions. After a denunciation, the magistrate formally charged the defendant with a specific crime and appointed a defense lawyer for the accused. An interpreter collected the testimonies of the accused if necessary. In the presence of a legal representative, the defendant ratified his or her confession, sometimes reaffirming the confession in the presence of the judge, who might ask further questions.

The testimonies recorded typically referred to the accused in the third person, rather than

120 Chirinos states that "Indians of this kingdom typically wear a manta or a gamusa" SANM, 360, MF 454, roll 6, frame 881. 121 Cutter, The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 75,125. 122 For letters from the Governor of New Mexico to the Viceroy in the late eighteenth century see Jones, Pueblo Warriors and Spanish Conquest, 142.

quoting the defendant directly. Thus, the assembling of testimony and its transformation into legal documentation further distanced the accused's ability to narrate events. The final phase of the judicial proceedings involved the sentencing in which existed considerable leeway for justifications of punishments.123 All of the punishments delegated involved some corporeal consequence such as exile, flogging, or death by fire.

The repercussions of physical punishments provided Spanish colonizers with an opportunity to acquire land. In 1733, Juan and Antonio Tafoya petitioned for Governor

Cruzat y Gongora to formalize their possession of a tract of land in Santa Clara since they had possessed that land for eight years and "cultivated the land all the time."124 In April of the same year, Governor Cruzat y Gongora reviewed a petition to acquire land that claimed the previous residents had "abandoned" the said plot.125 Therefore, indigenous peoples had to maintain a physical presence in order to keep their lands. Spaniards attempted to seize territories deemed uncultivated or unoccupied. Regarding Povia and

Yuba, Judge Velarde punished both with exile. Velarde exiled Povia to San Felipe Pueblo and Yuba to Zuni Pueblo for four months.126 The case does not state whether or not

Povia and Yuba owned property, however, banishment from Santa Fe and its environs provided the intervening space necessary to begin the process of labeling a territory as unoccupied.

The language embedded in Inquisition trials justified Spaniards' existence on the frontier. Paternalistic tropes that characterized indigenous peoples as helpless enabled

Spaniards to enact another discursive form of conquest. The written testimonies

123 Cutter, The Legal Culture of Northern New Spain, 1700-1810, 130–131. 124 Twitchell, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 283. 125 Twitchell, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 353. 126 SANM, 360, MF 454, roll 6, frame 887.

collectively refer to Povia and Yuba as "poor Indians."127 In 1775, Governor Pedro

Fermín de Mendinueta ordered a nominally Christian indigenous thirteen-year-old boy convicted of bestiality, José Antonio from Taos Pueblo, to reside in a house of virtue in order to better understand the Catholic faith.128 The allusion to Povia and Yuba as "poor" and José Antonio as a "neophyte" created a hierarchical discourse, with the indigenous defendants on a lower stratum.129 When Spaniards imposed labels such as sodomite, poor, and neophyte, they placed themselves in a superior position in relation to indigenous peoples in contemporary social hierarchies, thereby enabling Spanish colonizers to continue to enact conquest and maintain control over the exchange network.

The accusation of sodomy from a Spanish colonizer shaped the discourse of the trial and led to the presumption of guilt of the accused. Judge Velarde questioned Yuba as to why he agreed to meet with Povia, to which Yuba responded, he and Povia met to look after a flock of sheep.130 Trujillo stated that he stumbled upon Povia and Yuba while seeking recompense for damage done to his property by two goats. Perhaps, Trujillo blamed Povia and Yuba for negligence when he encountered them. Similarly, Armijo complained that predatory "Indians" could seize his livestock adding that he had lost two cows previously that year.131 In his description of Taos Pueblo in 1782, Fray Agustín de

Morfi observes that the population of Santa Fe had increased since Spaniards deserted other frontier settlements due to repeated attacks from Apache and Comanche peoples.

Moreover, Agustín de Morfi wrote that the Ute peoples attacked and stole from the

127 SANM, 360, MF 450, roll 6, frame 839. 128 SANM, 360, MF 454, roll 10, frame 851. 129 SANM, 360, MF 454, roll 10, frame 851. 130 SANM, 360, MF 454, roll 6, frame 873. 131 Twitchell, The Spanish Archives of New Mexico, 22.

Spanish and the Pueblo.132 Hämäläinen notes that from 1767 to 1777 the Comanche raided New Mexico over one hundred times.133 Therefore, Trujillo's statement regarding misplaced livestock creates a picture of a society that held a genuine fear of indigenous raiding.

For the 225 years of colonial rule, Santa Fe and its environs remained a frontier zone.134 Spanish colonizers' proximity to the frontier increased their sense of vulnerability, consequently creating a heightened level of tension that caused Spanish colonizers to police the social behaviors of indigenous peoples.135 Tropes such as sodomite, adulterer, barbarian, and thief all contributed to discursive forms of conquest.

Colonizers employed such labels as a means to enact conquest and to justify the expropriation of indigenous lands while simultaneously vindicating a Spanish presence in the region.

Conclusion

The ongoing struggle for control over a material and discursive exchange network constitutes the nature of conquest. The frontier regions of northern New Spain represents the limits of colonization both administratively and conceptually. Specifically, the continuous conflict in New Mexico reveals the facade of Spanish conquest in the eighteenth century. State agents employed discursive and material modes of conquest and proved instrumental to the state in enacting conquest. The changing alliances among

Spaniards and indigenous peoples—for example shifting the application of a just war from the Pueblo to the Apache—demonstrates the discursive nature of conquest. Material

132 Thomas, Forgotten Frontiers, 91-96. 133 Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, 74. 134 Simmons, Spanish Pathways, 5-7. 135 Espinosa, The Pueblo Indian Revolt of 1696 and the Franciscan Missions in New Mexico, 191.

objects worked in conjunction with discourse to create a collective history. Since law provided a sense of continuity for Spaniards, it helped to shape the type of history relayed to Spanish colonizers throughout the colonial era. The structure of law defined the types of discourse Spaniards employed to regulate the subjugation of indigenous peoples.

Spanish jurists and philosophers asserted that Spanish conquest sought the moral and civil good of indigenous peoples, thereby supporting the notion of conquest through a just war. Nevertheless, appeals to an unjust rule such as forced conversions or illegally appropriated land held the potential to challenge Spanish rule. The redrafting of laws such as the 1680 Recompilation of the Laws of the Indies illustrates the impermanence of state-level dispensations. The variation of historical accounts highlights material and discursive forms of conquest and struggles for power over exchange networks.

Spanish conquest involved formal authorization from the monarch and required two types of actors such as a central authority and a state agent in order to execute the wishes of the central authority at the local level. However, the state's transference of power to an agent created an inverse relationship. At times, Spanish agents failed to successfully engage in conquest due to resistance from indigenous peoples or outright insubordination, thus exemplifying conquest's discursive nature. The case of New

Mexico illuminates the disparity between theories of conquest and their implementation due to the shifting alliances among indigenous peoples and between Spaniards throughout the eighteenth century. Power dynamics shifted as individuals and states sought to maintain control over the exchange network. State agents employed material and discursive types of evidence such as religious-political discourse to convince the state that they had achieved conquest and to justify their continued presence in the exchange

network. Enforcement of contemporary values motivated state agents to enact conquest in addition to enacting territorial occupation.

The wording and terminology in Inquisition testimonies not only created a discursive form of conquest but also served a wider political purpose that justified the presence of Spaniards in New Mexico. Spaniards imposed their gendered notions of sexuality onto indigenous peoples, associating cross-dressing with effeminacy and sodomy. Spaniards who favored conquest also viewed indigenous populations as fundamentally corrupted and susceptible to sodomy. Accusations of other sexual transgressions also proved self-serving for Spanish colonizers. The codification and implementation of Spanish law functioned as a tool for colonization. Spanish colonizers could employ sodomy accusations to confiscate the property of indigenous peoples, consequently gaining access to long-sought-after territories and other resources. The discourse of Spanish law served to control and punish indigenous peoples rather than protect them.

Bibliography