Don Feliz Martinez inscritption, El Morro, New
Mexico. National Park Service photograph.
One site that has seen much history is El Morro rock in Cibola
County, in western New Mexico. This large rock outcrop has a permanent pool of
water in an arid environment, and pre-historically had a pueblo built on top of
the rock. Ancestral Puebloan rock art can be found on the cliffs and spires of
El Morro, as can the inscriptions and names of later comers. One of the
historic records found there is the Martinez inscription. This records that in
the "Year of 1716 on the 26 of
August passed by here the Governor Don Feliz Martinez, Governor and
Captain-General of this Realm to the reduction and conquest of Moqui and
(obliteration: possibly the word "conversion") by order of the
Reverend Padre Friar Antonio Camargo, Custodian and Ecclesiastical Judge."
(http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online)
This records an expedition sent against the Hopi in 1716. “In 1716, Gov. Don Feliz Martinez marched
against the Moqui (Hopi) villages. With him were missionaries who intended to
"convert" the Indians after they were conquered. Passing El Morro,
Martinez left the following inscription: "Year of 1716 on the 26 of August
passed by here the Governor Don Feliz Martinez, Governor and Captain-General of
this Realm to the reduction and conquest of Moqui and (obliteration: possibly
the word "conversion") by order of the Reverend Padre Friar Antonio
Camargo, Custodian and Ecclesiastical Judge."
"But the expedition was not successful. Meeting strong opposition from the Hopis, Martinez merely destroyed their cornfields and returned to Santa Fe. He was later relieved of his office as Governor."
“The residencia, or
judicial review of every governor’s administration upon leaving office, offered
the Pueblos a means of expressing their grievances, that is, when the
residencia judge was impartial, unbribed, or an enemy of the departing
executive. In the case of the controversial rags-to-riches opportunist don
Félix Martínez, whose residencia was held belatedly in 1723, there were
Spaniards, including the aging Pecos alcalde mayor Alfonso Rail de Aguilar, who
for one reason or another wanted the Indians to speak up. The Pecos demanded
compensation from Martínez for the personal labor that had caused them to lose
their crops, payment for two thousand boards he ordered them to cut, dress, and
haul to “his palace or houses he built,” and two horses, the agreed-upon price,
owed to Chistoe for an Indian boy acquired from heathens and sold to Martínez.
In this case, the judge ordered Martínez to pay.” (Kessell 1979:321)
"The agreed-upon price for an Indian boy," in
other words slavery. Another interesting record illuminating events from the
history of the American southwest.
REFERENCES:
Kessell, John L.
1979 Kiva,
Cross, and Crown, the Pecos Indians and New Mexico, 1540-1840, National
Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington D.C.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment