SALINAS "In the Midst of a Loneliness": The Architectural History of the Salinas Missions

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE COLONY

In the seventeenth century, New Mexico suffered from serious administrative problems. Many of these problems derived from conflicts between the two major powers in the colony: the governor and the custodian of the missions. Each of these men had extensive authority. Unfortunately, their areas of authority overlapped in several ways. This frequently led to direct conflict between the two offices.

One of the main reasons for the existence of the colony was to support the missionary effort of the Franciscans. Among his other duties, the governor of the province was intended to act as police force, judge and jury for the missions when needed. In many cases, however, the Franciscan establishment in a pueblo was isolated from the civil government by a considerable distance. To compensate for this, the viceroy gave the Franciscans wide judicial authority in the early years of the colony. They became accustomed to judging violations of civil law as well as church law, to punishing crimes as well as sins. Such authority inevitably brought them into conflict with the governors of New Mexico, who were technically the highest civil authority in the province. The governors attempted to restrict the judicial authority of the Franciscans to church matters alone, while the missionaries continued to punish Indians for any violation of the law, regardless of whether the law being broken was church law or civil law. The Franciscans fought back against the power of the governor with the weapons available to them, the powers of excommunication, of withholding the sacraments from the colonists, and of the Inquisition. [39]

The conflict continued through the seventeenth century and colored all other aspects of colonial life in New Mexico. The level of animosity between the governors and the Franciscans directly affected the fortunes of the missions.

Civil Administration

The governor of the province of New Mexico had specific duties and authority. The principal duties were to promote the general welfare of the province, to defend the province from internal revolt and outside attack, to foster and protect the missions, to protect the settled Pueblo Indians from abuse and exploitation, and to secure the administration of justice. [40]

In order for the governor to carry out these duties, the Spanish administrative system gave him a wide range of authority. This included, for example, the power to issue ordinances and decrees, to supervise the government of the Villa of Santa Fe, to select new sites for settlement, to supervise the assignment of land and water rights, and to maintain the roads of the province, especially the Camino Real, the principal route from Santa Fe to the supply centers of northern Mexico.

The governor was the commander of the military forces of the province and was responsible for ensuring that those forces were sufficient for the protection of the people. Since there was no formal military establishment, the army was made up of militia, or citizen-soldiers. Because the governor could not pay these men, he compensated them by granting them an "encomienda," the rights to the tribute taken from a conquered Indian pueblo.

An important part of the governor's authority was the right to divide the province into lesser administrative districts, to appoint officials to administer these districts, and to supervise their administration. It was this authorization that permitted the establishment of regional jurisdictions such as that of Las Salinas, each administered by an alcalde mayor, or chief judge.

The requirements that the governor aid the missionary program and that he protect the Indians from abuse sometimes conflicted with each other. Aid to the missionary effort usually came in the form of military escorts for the supply trains, protective detachments for missionaries entering potentially dangerous Indian pueblos, and displays of force at already converted pueblos when the demands of the mission led to opposition and protest by the populace. Frequently governors would donate goods and supplies to an individual mission for aid in its construction or for furnishings and vestments. However, many governors adopted an antagonistic role toward the missionary system in the area of Indian protection. The source of the antagonism lay in the overlapping areas of the judicial authority of the governor and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the missionaries.

As part of his duties, the governor had direct judicial authority over:

1) Cases of military discipline and privilege;

2) Cases of sedition;

3) Cases involving questions of encomienda and allocation of the revenues from pueblos;

4) Cases dealing with Indians in the Villa of Santa Fe; and

5) Appellate jurisdiction in cases appealed from the magistrates of the Villa of Santa Fe and in cases referred from the judges of the rural subdivisions of the provinces--the alcaldes mayores and Indian alcaldes mayores of the rural jurisdictions. [41]

The jurisdiction structure, a standard management system in New Spain, divided New Mexico into regions, each with a civil administrator, the alcalde mayor, who was appointed by and acted for the governor. Each Indian Pueblo within the jurisdiction had its own "district," or area controlled by the pueblo, wherein justice was administered by the Spanish alcalde of the town. Controversial decisions of the Spanish alcalde of a town would be brought to the alcalde mayor of the jurisdiction for an opinion. The decisions of the alcalde mayor could be appealed to the governor of the province. [42]

The Indian population of the jurisdiction had a similar judicial structure. Each pueblo had an Indian alcalde who administered justice to the Indians within the community's district. His decisions could be reviewed or reversed by the Indian alcalde mayor of the jurisdiction of Salinas. As in the Spanish legal system, decisions by the Indian alcalde mayor could be appealed to the governor. The Indian alcalde represented the continuing effort of the Spanish to include the Indians, however arbitrarily, in the governmental processes of the province. [43]

The governor probably did not establish the jurisdictions of New Mexico until several decades after the founding of the province, perhaps as late as the 1650s. Although the Royal instructions to the governors of New Mexico had always contained provisions for the establishment of jurisdictions, there had been no need for them during the early years because the province had few colonists, most of which were concentrated near Santa Fe. The church administered ecclesiastical justice everywhere else. By the late 1640s, however, settlements of Spanish citizens had grown up in various parts of the province, usually in direct association with a group of pueblos or in areas where farming and ranch land were available. [44] This shift in the distribution of the population away from Santa Fe, and the conflicts between the governor and prominent citizens of the province, apparently resulted in the establishment of rural jurisdictions about 1650. [45] The changes decentralized political authority somewhat, reducing the extreme concentration of power in the hands of the governor alone. At the same time it brought civil justice to the pueblos, until then presided over entirely by the local missionaries. The "intrusion" of civil authority into areas that the missionaries considered entirely ecclesiastical intensified the conflict between the Franciscans and the governor. [46] After 1659 the additional practice of appointing a lieutenant governor who was responsible for the southern half of the province became a standard procedure in New Mexico, further diluting the authority of the governor. [47]

The governor established the headquarters for the Jurisdiction of Las Salinas at Tajique before 1656. The jurisdiction included the three Tiwa pueblos of Chililí, Tajique, Quarai, the Tompiro pueblos of Abó, Las Humanas and Tabirá, and all Spanish estancias, or ranching and farming establishments, in the same area. As in other jurisdictions, each pueblo had a Spanish alcalde, or magistrate, who administered the law in the district of the pueblo. The alcalde mayor of Las Salinas seems also to have been the alcalde of the district of Tajique. The references to this arrangement imply that some land rights to property near Tajique were included with the office. The Tompiro speaking pueblos were included in the jurisdiction of Las Salinas, but were frequently spoken of as though they were a division separate from the three Tiwa pueblos. [48]

Captain Pedro de Leiba is the earliest known alcalde mayor of the Salinas Jurisdiction. He was apparently appointed by governor Juan Manso de Contreras in 1656, but governor López de Mendizábal replaced him about 1660 because Leiba was "partial to the affairs of the Church." Pedro de Leiba apparently stayed on his estancia near Tajique until the abandonment of the jurisdiction of Salinas. He became field commander of New Mexico under Governor Don Antonio de Otermín, and distinguished himself during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and its aftermath. His wife and children were killed at Galisteo during the revolt. [49]

Nicolás de Aguilar became the new alcalde mayor of Las Salinas in late 1660 and moved from his estancia near Chililí to the district of the alcalde mayor at Tajique. [50] He was arrested by the Inquisition in 1662, along with governor Bernardo López de Mendizábal, and taken to Mexico City. He never returned to the province of New Mexico.

After Aguilar, Joseph Nieto served as alcalde mayor of Las Salinas from 1662 until at least April, 1668, and possibly until Tajique was abandoned in late 1677. Nieto lived one league (about 2 1/2 miles) south of Tajique on the road to Quarai, in the area of the present town of Torreon. His brother and family lived near the pueblo of Quarai at the same time. In late 1677, with the abandonment of the last pueblo of the Salinas jurisdiction, Joseph Nieto moved to Galisteo. He and his family were killed there during the Pueblo Revolt. [51]

Spanish Construction In The Pueblos

At the three major pueblos of Quarai, Abó, and Las Humanas, the direct structural influence of the Spanish presence was recorded in construction carried out during the active life of the Salinas missions. At Quarai the Indians constructed mounds H, I, and J, laid out so that they formed an enclosed plaza, plaza A, on the west side of the church, with the north and south rows of houses aligned with the north and south sides of the mission complex. The masons also constructed a large Spanish-style building at the east end of mound J, adjacent to the church. This structure was probably the casa real, the Spanish government's official offices and travelling official's dwelling in the pueblo. [52] At Abó, an almost identical complex was built on the west side of the church, with several courtyards enclosed by Indian dwellings and a Spanish structure at the east end of the south side, adjacent to the church. At Las Humanas a similar plaza has been identified on the north side of the church of San Buenaventura, but no excavations have been conducted to date the buildings. However, with the example of the other two major missions of Salinas to go on, it is probable that future work will confirm that the plaza buildings were built after 1660 as the beginnings of a Spanish enclosure.

These compounds, belonging more to the Spanish government and civil authority than to the church or the pueblo, appear to have been a common feature at the mission-controlled pueblos of the seventeenth century. Similar structures have been found immediately north of the church at Pecos, at Hawikuh, and some indications at Awatovi. The available evidence suggests the hypothesis that all missions of seventeenth-century New Mexico had a civil compound near the church on the opposite side from the convento.