The Religious Lives of Franciscan Missionaries, Pueblo Revolutionaries, and the Colony of Nuevo Mexico, 1539-1722 Michael P
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2010 Among the Pueblos: The Religious Lives of Franciscan Missionaries, Pueblo Revolutionaries, and the Colony of Nuevo Mexico, 1539-1722 Michael P. Gueno Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES AMONG THE PUEBLOS: THE RELIGIOUS LIVES OF FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES, PUEBLO REVOLUTIONARIES, AND THE COLONY OF NUEVO MEXICO, 1539-1722 By MICHAEL P. GUENO A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2010 The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Michael P. Guéno defended on August 20, 2010. __________________________________ John Corrigan Professor Directing Dissertation __________________________________ Edward Gray University Representative __________________________________ Amanda Porterfield Committee Member __________________________________ Amy Koehlinger Committee Member Approved: _____________________________________ John Corrigan, Chair, Department of Religion _____________________________________ Joseph Travis, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii For Shaynna iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is my pleasure and honor to remember the many hands and lives to which this manuscript and I are indebted. The innumerable persons who have provided support, encouragement, and criticism along the writing process humble me. I am truly grateful for the ways that they have shaped this text and my scholarship. Archivists and librarians at several institutions provided understanding assistance and access to primary documents, especially those at the New Mexico State Record Center and Archive, the Archive of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, Archivo General de la Nacion de Mexico, and Biblioteca Nacional de la Anthropologia e Historia in Mexico City. This dissertation could never have been completed without the guidance of many professors who offered their time and insights. Rodger Payne of the University of North Carolina at Asheville first kindled my dedication to the study of religion as an undergraduate at Louisiana State University and has continued to provide encouragement. At Louisiana State University, I received the invaluable feedback and encouragement of the faculty of the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department during the early stages of this project. I am grateful for the scholarly example and mentorship of the faculty of the Department of Religion at Florida State University. I owe a special debt to John Corrigan, Amy Koehlinger, and Amanda Porterfield for inspiring and shepherding this dissertation to completion. It is my sincerest hope that they may recognize the influence of their own scholarship in anything redeemable in this work or in me as an academic. Immeasurable gratitude is also due to Edward Gray of the History Department for his unfailing assistance and perspective. In the process of crafting this dissertation, I have benefitted from the selfless attention, conversations and critiques of several lifelong friends and colleagues who have enriched my thinking and my life. To Kelly Baker, Michael Pasquier, Arthur Remillard, and Howell Williams, I offer my heartfelt thanks. Nothing that I have said or done could have been possible without the aid of my family. I thank my parents, Dorothy and Stanley Guéno, for their inexhaustible encouragement and love. Finally, I have the opportunity to thank my wife, Shaynna, to whom this dissertation is dedicated. She has continually given more than I could ask, supported my efforts with steadfast devotion and still somehow managed to fill each day with hope and joy. Thank you. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………... vi INTRODUCTION .……………………………………………………………………... 1 CHAPTER ONE: BEHIND THE GREY ROBE ……..……………………………….. 14 CHAPTER TWO: BEYOND THE KIVA ……..…………………………………….... 68 CHAPTER THREE: BECOMING NEIGHBORS ..…………………………………. 125 CHAPTER FOUR: BETWEEN CONVERSION AND REVOLT …………………. 177 CHAPTER FIVE: BENEATH THE BLOODSHED ………………………………... 238 CONCLUSION ……………………………………………………………………… 306 NOTES ………………………………………………………………………………. 320 BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………………… 411 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH …………………………………………..….….…...… 445 v ABSTRACT Among the pueblos of Nuevo Mexico, Franciscan missionaries and Pueblo Indians structured their perceptions of and relationships with one another within religious frameworks. The history of cultural contact and interaction between friars and Pueblo peoples of the Southwest borderland reveals the prominence of religion within the history of the region and the lives of its inhabitants. The actions and reactions of Franciscans and Native American colonists expressed the influence of the religious motivations and behavioral norms that permeated their lives. Amidst patterns of social interaction that were infused with religious significance, missionaries and Pueblo congregants developed nuanced and fluid relationships. Residents of Nuevo Mexico engaged elements from diverse religious traditions and evidenced conversion, rejection, hybridization, and parallelism within their religious lives. The series of Native American revolts that marked the seventeenth century history of the colony was an articulation of Pueblo religious resistance that sought to redress the transgressions of New Mexican colonists. During initial Spanish colonization, the Pueblo Revolutionary period, and the later renewal of the colony, religion prominently influenced the cultural landscapes and historical experiences of Franciscan missionaries, Pueblo peoples, and the colony of Nuevo Mexico. vi INTRODUCTION This dissertation explores the presence of religion within daily life through the history of the Pueblo and Spanish colonists of New Mexico from before European settlement throughout the wake of the Pueblo Revolutionary Period. Its approach and interpretation grow from the insights and analysis of a broad range of primary documents, theoretical methodologies, and scholarly research within the social sciences and humanities. It attempts to present, insofar as it is possible, the religious worlds constructed by the inhabitants of the region and articulated through the words and actions conveyed by the archaeological record and archival documents. The text aims to broadly illuminate the polyvalent expressions of religion within the experiences of historical subjects by narrating the emotionally rich, religious lives of colonial residents. To that end, it seeks to explicate the relationships created and navigated by the peoples of Nuevo Mexico and shed light upon their complex and often contradictory motivations and influences. Some portions of the document focus upon the insinuation of religion within the cultural structures and experiences of Pueblo and Spanish communities. Elsewhere, the narrative traces the prominence and prioritization of religion within the historical events that shaped life in the colony of Nuevo Mexico. Religion prominently influenced the perceptions and subsequent history of the interactions between friars and Pueblos throughout the colonial era. The missionary endeavor and desire to express their Franciscan identities compelled the friars into to the northern territory and into Pueblo communities. The persistence and social dynamics of the colony depended upon the evangelistic activities of the Spanish clerics. Pueblo congregations understood and dynamically situated the foreign settlers within religious cosmologies that they similarly reconfigured amidst increasing Catholic contact. Native American communities demonstrated a spectrum of acceptance and resistance in reaction to religious authorities and elements introduced by Spanish colonizers. Most notably, the series of violent repudiations of Spanish rule that has long been the focus of traditional scholarly narratives of the colony of New Mexico articulated the religious context and aspirations of its participants. From the early instances of contact through the violence of the Pueblo Revolution and the later renewal of the colony, Pueblo and Spanish residents 1 in Nuevo Mexico continually constructed and reconfigured religious relationships and worlds. The argument expressed in these pages does not contend that the activities of the Pueblo Revolutionary period or life in the borderland territory more broadly were dictated by the doctrinal or ideological discourses of the colony. They were not. The historical actions of Pueblo and Spanish colonists incorporated multitudinous economic and political motivations and a varied history of personal and collective interactions and abuses. However, when the populations of Nuevo Mexico met and initiated relationships, they encountered and responded to one another through behavioral and cognitive models steeped in religious content. The constituent peoples of the colony infused their daily lives and grand historical actions with religious activities and significance that intertwined religion with the experience of life. Seemingly quotidian practices, colony-wide collective actions, cultural interpretations and even perception of the physical landscape of New Mexico were set within and inextricably bound to the religious lives of the colonists. By foregrounding religious interactions and experiences, this narrative elucidates