The Pueblo Reforms: Spanish Imperial Strategies & Negotiating
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Pueblo Reforms: Spanish Imperial Strategies & Negotiating Control in New Mexico A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Paul M. Rellstab December 2013 © 2013 Paul M. Rellstab. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled The Pueblo Reforms: Spanish Imperial Strategies & Negotiating Control in New Mexico by PAUL M. RELLSTAB has been approved for the Department of History and the College of Arts and Sciences by Mariana L. Dantas Associate Professor of History Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT RELLSTAB, PAUL M., M.A., December 2013, History The Pueblo Reforms: Spanish Imperial Strategies & Negotiating Control in New Mexico Director of Thesis: Mariana L. Dantas “The Pueblo Reforms” investigates Spanish and Pueblo interactions in New Mexico from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries. Building off the historiography on Spanish early modern imperial policies, the thesis places New Mexico within the historical context of Spanish imperial expansion in the Americas and efforts to control native populations. As the Spanish attempted to expand to areas beyond Mexico City, mendicant orders became their strongest allies: by converting natives, Franciscan missionaries promised to transform Indians into productive vassals of the Crown. Unlike areas with centralized Spanish authority, New Mexico did not count on a significant civil and military Spanish presence. The Church, represented by Franciscan missionaries, thus became the most stable institutional presence the Crown could promote. However, similar to other regions of the empire, the trajectory of Spanish control in New Mexico was subject to local exigencies and actors, particularly the Pueblo Indians. When the Pueblos revolted in 1680 and removed a Spanish presence for twelve years, they signaled to the Crown that a new institutional presence would be required to reestablish Spanish control. New Mexico was thereafter viewed as a military outpost and the Crown shifted its position towards the Pueblos to emphasize political and military agreements that afforded the Pueblos more autonomy in cultural and religious customs. Thus, local events in New Mexico, such as jurisdictional disputes between Franciscans and civil officials, 4 missionary violence against the Pueblos, drought, famine, the threat of foreign European intrusion, and raids from Apaches were as influential as royal policy in determining the shift of New Mexico from a missionary colony to a military outpost. 5 In memory of my grandmother, Opal Sparr 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I must express my gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Mariana Dantas. Her persistence, guidance, and advice have been instrumental throughout my time at Ohio University and, in particular, as I researched and wrote for this work. Her commitment to helping me improve all facets of the thesis—from issues of historiography, research, language, and writing—has made me a better historian. I cannot thank her enough for her dedication to me. I would also like to extend my thanks to Dr. Michele Clouse and Dr. Jessica Roney for their contributions in the classroom, providing frank advice during my proposal defense, and for their time and efforts for agreeing to be on my committee. In addition, Dr. Steven Cote and Dr. Tatiana Seijas offered advice, help with sources, and words of encouragement. I am grateful for all of it. To my fellow friends and grad students: Jeremy Kohler, Luiza Oliveira, Cherita King, Scott Foreman, Carolyn Crowner, and Christa Gould, thank you for providing support, laughs, and conversation as we travelled the path together. Lastly, I would like to offer my sincere and warm thanks to my family and Erika Goodrow. Thank you for your support, love, care, and warm meals as I sat researching and typing for hours on end. I love you all. 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract………………………………………………………………………………3 Dedication……………………………………………………………………………5 Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………6 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..8 Chapter 1: Early Spanish Expeditions and Extending Spanish Control……………...23 Chapter 2: A Delicate Balance of Power: Contests of Franciscan Authority ………..58 Chapter 3: A New Strategy: Civil Authorities and Accommodation of the Pueblos…84 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………106 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………..111 8 Introduction When Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca returned to Mexico City in 1536 after wandering in the lands north of New Spain for eight years, he wrote an account which provided extensive demographic and descriptive information on the Indians he encountered. His account, which gave Christian-like qualities to the native populations and told of potential material wealth, provoked both conquistadors and missionaries to explore the lands.1 Secular colonial agents, hoping to reproduce Cortés’ conquest of the Aztec Empire, promised to supply the Crown with vast material wealth. Missionaries, conversely, promised to transform the native populations into temporal and spiritual vassals of the Crown. The crown weighed proposals based on who would better meet the needs of the King: the Hispanicization, Christianization, and financial exploitation of the Indians.2 Despite the immense wealth the King gained from armed conquest, the Crown distrusted the increasing powers of the conquistadors. Initially, conquistadors received the majority of exploration contracts as most expeditions were self-funded, posing little to no cost to the royal coffers. As a reward for their efforts, the Crown awarded 1 Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His Life, and the expedition of Pánfilo de Naráez, eds. and trans. Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 231, 263. 2 Those jockeying for the expedition were Hernán Cortés, Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán, Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, Pedro de Alvarado, and Hernando de Soto. See “General Introduction” in Documents of the Coronado Expedition, 1539-1542, eds. and trans. Richard Flint and Shirley Cushing Flint (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 2005), 1; Herbert Bolton, “The Mission as a Frontier Institution in the Spanish- American Colonies” American Historical Review 23, no. 1 (1917): 43. 9 conquistadors with an encomienda.3 The encomienda was a tribute institution through which Spaniards received the right to demand tribute of the Indians, mostly in the form of labor. In return, the Spaniards were obligated to offer the Indians protection and religious instruction.4 Gradually, the King began to fear that the encomienda gave too much authority to non-royal figures. In an attempt to assert the power of the Crown over all secular colonial agents, the King decreed that the encomienda would not be passed in perpetuity to the encomendero’s heirs but would rather revert to the Crown upon the former’s death.5 While the Crown enacted policies to undermine the power of encomenderos, mendicant orders questioned lay Spaniard’s ability to promote the Christianization of the Indians. Friars such as Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas argued in the 1540s and 1550s that secular Spanish agents were not meeting the goals of the Crown by failing to Hispanicize and Christianize the native populations. Indeed, in territories north of New Spain, the armed expeditions by Nuño de Guzmán in New Galicia and Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in Tierra Nueva (Northern New Spain) failed to bring native populations under Spanish control. The shortcomings of these and other secular efforts helped mendicant orders to successfully form an alliance with the Crown by asserting that a mission system under the control of friars would better serve the temporal and spiritual goals of Spain. 3 Lesley Byrd Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain: The Beginning of Spanish Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966), xiii, 64. 4 Compilation of Colonial Spanish Terms and Document Related Phrases, eds., Ophelia Marquez and Lillian Ramos Navarro Wold (Midway City: SHHAR Press, 1998), 22. 5 Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain, ix-10; The New Laws for the Government of the Indies and for the Preservation of the Indians, 1542-43, trans. Henry Stevens, reprint of the facsimile edition in London 1893 (Amsterdam: N. Israel, 1968), xvi. 10 Convinced by these arguments, the Crown gave jurisdiction over the Indians of Northern New Spain to the Order of the Friars Minor, the Franciscans.6 Although the Franciscans had been given royal authority to explore the lands above el rio del norte (Rio Grande) and preside over the Indians, settlers and civil agents were a necessary addition to these expeditions to protect the missionaries from Indian rebellion. All able-bodied men who settled were also expected to act as a militia if the situation demanded they provide military service to the king. The civil agents who were called on to protect and support the friars in their spiritual endeavors, however, did not always share the Franciscans' goals. Juan de Oñate, for example, who was chosen to lead one of these expeditions in 1598, focused on gaining material wealth through armed conquest. Consequently, Franciscans and settlers—whose interests generally lay in the Christianization of the Indians and the labor exploitation of the natives, respectively— aligned their interests to depose the abusive Oñate. When Oñate was removed from his post, the Crown affirmed that civil agents were to act as a support for the missionary