The Struggle of Church and State

Rarely in seventeenth-century New Mexico did the minions of church and state coexist in harmony. They fought, at times physically, over the poor colony's prime resource—the Pueblo Indians. The governors' belligerent exploitation of the natives for personal profit ran head-on into the friars' jealous paternalism. Never did the viceroy define precisely the respective jurisdictions of church and state in New Mexico. Even if he had, appeal from the colony took so long that it was no deterrent to criminal acts. Thus, from the arrival of don Pedro de Peralta in early 1610 until the Pueblos revolted in 1680, the single most notorious feature of life in colonial New Mexico was the war between the governors and the Franciscans. [33]

If the viceroy intended his governor of New Mexico to be the friars' lackey, he did not say so. The instructions Velasco issued to Peralta, a royal bureaucrat trained in the law, stressed putting the foundering colony on a firm footing. First, he must lay out a new municipality for the colonists "so that they may begin to live in some order and decency." By peaceful means or by force, he must defend New Mexico and restore respect for Spanish rule. Where the Indians lived dispersed, Peralta was to consolidate them. He must not allow further exploration by colonists "since experience has shown that greed for what is out of reach has always led them to neglect what they already have." The viceroy's admonition to proceed in certain matters in consultation with the friars and persons of practical experience" in no way implied subservience. [34]

Don Pedro de Peralta

Despite the alleged burst of evangelization in 1608, only two or three friars were left in New Mexico when Governor Peralta arrived. With him came Father Commissary Alonso Peinado, fifty-five-year-old native of Málaga, and eight others. In 1612, a second supply train lumbered up the valley of the Rio Grande bringing nine more. [35] This put the missions of New Mexico on a solid basis for the first time. It also set the stage for the scandalous first round of the church-state conflict.

Ordóñez versus Peralta

If later on, crude, heavy-handed governors deserved a greater share of the blame, this time it was a crude, heavy handed Franciscan. Fray Isidro Ordóñez was everything a friar should not have been: personally ambitious, hot-headed, scheming. He had been in New Mexico twice before and had come back again as superior of the mission supply caravan of 1612. Perhaps he meant to establish the church's supremacy over the state once and for all, to set the precedent. Whatever his intent, the methods he used alienated some of his own brethren. Even before he reached Peralta's new villa of Santa Fe, he had begun his play for power.

At Sandía, southernmost of the mission pueblos, Ordóñez produced a patent allegedly making him the new Father Commissary. The "saintly" Fray Alonso Peinado yielded. Later, another friar pronounced the document a forgery. In Santa Fe, the overbearing Ordóñez insisted that Gov. Pedro de Peralta proclaim at once a viceregal order allowing any dissatisfied soldier-colonist to leave New Mexico at will. The governor protested. Ordóñez had it proclaimed anyway. Then he accused Peralta of underfeeding the natives working on public projects in Santa Fe. In May 1613, an even better chance to humble the royal governor presented itself.

Peralta had dispatched several soldiers to collect the spring tribute of maize and mantas from Taos. At Nambé the busy Ordóñez intercepted them and turned them back to Santa Fe to celebrate the Mass of Pentecost. Livid, the governor sent them out again. They could hear Mass at some pueblo along the way. At that, Father Ordóñez excommunicated don Pedro and posted the notice on the doors of the Santa Fe church.

A whole series of incidents followed as harried governor and overzealous friar sought to enlist partisans from among the colonists. During a lull, worried citizens prevailed upon the prelate to absolve the governor. Other disputes, one over a levy of Indian laborers from San Lázaro, erupted in rapid succession. Then on a Sunday in July, don Pedro found the chair he was accustomed to occupy at church thrown outside in the dirt. Holding his temper, he had it picked up and placed in the back near the baptismal font. There he sat down among the Indians. Shortly, a grim-faced Father Ordóñez mounted the pulpit.

Do not be deceived. Let no one persuade himself with vain words that I do not have the same power and authority that the Pope in Rome has, or that if his Holiness were here in New Mexico he could do more than I. Believe you that I can arrest, cast into irons, and punish as seems fitting to me any person without exception who is not obedient to the commandments of the church and mine. What I have told you, I say for the benefit of a certain person who is listening to me who perhaps raises his eyebrows.

Next day the prelate, expecting servile compliance, requested that the governor loan him several soldiers to collect the tithe, Peralta refused. The soldiers were in the king's employ. Besides, there were no tithes to collect. Furious over this rebuff, the Franciscan branded the governor a Lutheran, a heretic, and a Jew, and threatened to arrest him. That was too much for don Pedro. Taking several armed men, he marched across the plaza to the Franciscan convento and ordered the Father Commissary to leave town. A scuffle ensued. The governor's pistol discharged wounding a lay brother and a soldier. Ordóñez straight-away reexcommunicated his adversary, ordered the host consumed and the church locked, and then rode to Santo Domingo to address an urgent council of all the clergy.

The Governor Imprisoned

With matters in the colony verging on civil war, don Pedro de Peralta resolved to take his case to Mexico City in person. Spies informed Father Ordóñez. In the middle of the night of August 12 near Isleta, the prelate and his gang descended on the governor's camp and arrested him. At Sandía, whose guardián Esteban de Perea disapproved, the governor was thrust in a cell in chains. For the next nine months, Fray Isidro Ordóñez ruled New Mexico unchallenged. "Excommunications were rained down," according to one horrified friar, ". . . and because of the terrors that walked abroad the people were not only scandalized but afraid . . . existence in the villa [Santa Fe] was a hell."

Even when a new governor, don Bernardino de Ceballos, entered New Mexico in the spring of 1614, he was forced to acknowledge the strength of the Ordóñez faction and to proceed cautiously with his investigation of the previous administration. Ex-governor Peralta was not allowed to depart the colony until the following November, then only after Ceballos and Ordóñez had despoiled him of most of his possessions. For another two years, the stormy Father Ordóñez held on as prelate of New Mexico despite growing discontent among the friars. Evidently at a council of the clergy, he and Father Peinado came to blows. He also fell out with the new governor, mainly over use and abuse of Pueblo Indians. Not until the next mission supply caravan reached the colony in the winter of 1616-1617 did the tumultuous reign of Fray Isidro Ordóñez come to an end. In just four years, he had indeed established the precedent—doubtless justified to some extent by outrages on the other side—for a malignant, divisive tradition of church-state discord.

After Lienzo de Tlaxcala, central Mexico, 16th century.

And of course the Pueblo Indians, ordered in the name of the king to do one thing and in the name of the church to do another, took it all in and bided their time. [36]

During these years, the Spaniards did not often mention Pecos. Fray Francisco de Velasco, a missionary in New Mexico from 1600 to 1607, did report that the Pecos had joined an alliance against the Tewas and other Indians who were aiding and abetting the invaders. "Because those Indians have shown so much friendship for the Spaniards they have lost the good will of the Picurís, Taos, Pecos, Apaches, and Vaqueros, who have formed a league among themselves and with other barbarous nations to exterminate our friends." This would surely happen, Father Velasco told the king, if the Spaniards pulled out of New Mexico. [37]

Exacting Tribute from the Pueblos

As vassals of the Spanish crown, all the Pueblo peoples owed tribute. In the words of the 1573 colonization laws, Indians who rendered obedience "should be persuaded to pay moderate amounts of tribute in local products." The crown reserved the right to collect this revenue only "from principal towns and seaports," a hopeful clause that did not apply on the northern frontier. Tribute from all other native settlements was conceded by the crown to the colonizers themselves. [38]

By the terms of his contract, don Juan de Oñate could reward his followers by granting them so many Indian tributaries. The number, from several entire pueblos to a fraction of one, depended on the colonist's rank and the services he had rendered. In no legal sense did a grant of Indians in encomienda (literally, in trust), good for three lifetimes in succession, imply use of native land or labor, but rather only the collection of tribute in kind as personal income, usually maize and mantas or animal skins.

In turn, the encomendero, recipient of an encomienda, swore to answer the governor's call to arms, providing his own horses and weapons, whenever the need arose. He was also required to maintain residence in Santa Fe. Since there were no regular troops in seventeenth-century New Mexico, the encomenderos, whose number was later set by the viceroy at thirty-five, became the core of the local military. As officers, customarily designated captain by the governor, they rode escort, served as guards, and commanded levies of lesser colonists and native auxiliaries in the colony's defense. [39]

Pattern in a Glaze V bowl. After Kidder, Pottery, II.

To keep from starving, Oñate and his men had collected tribute from the beginning, sometimes by violent means. Just how many pueblos the adelantado committed to individual colonists is not clear. He did commit some. [40] In New Mexico, stark necessity evidently precluded the customary decade of exemption from tribute applied in some new missionary areas, although from time to time, the friars alluded to it. Governor Peralta's instructions contained the standard admonition that when granting encomiendas, he must not prejudice those awarded by his predecessor. And like Oñate, the perplexed Peralta tried to feed his colony by collecting the tribute from pueblos not yet held by individuals.

Potentially, Pecos was the richest encomienda in New Mexico. If Oñate himself did not grant it to some worthy colonist, one of his successors must soon have done so. [41] Abandonment of San Gabriel in favor of Santa Fe during the spring of 1610 brought the Spaniards much nearer to the teeming eastern pueblo. Both the lure of the pueblo-plains trade and the lure of souls aroused their interest. Within a year or two, the Franciscans had established a convento among the Tanos at Galisteo. The arrival of seven friars during the winter of 1616-1617 made possible even greater missionary outreach.

And one of their objectives was Pecos.