Homer Milford is the
former Environmental Coordinator of the Abandoned Mine Land Bureau, the State
of New Mexico Energy Minerals and Natural Resources Department.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Robert Eveleth of the New Mexico Bureau
of Mines and Mineral Resources for his assistance with references and information,
and also Rick Hendricks of the Vargas Project at the University of New Mexico for
his comments on the Vargas and Rodriguez Cubero period. I would also like to thank
Dede Snow for information on Analco, and recognize posthumously the contribution
of Verne Byrne and Michael O'Neil in continuing the mining tradition of the area,
but especially for their preservation of the Territorial mining district record
books.
INTRODUCTION
Historical Importance of the Cerrillos Mining District
In the 1960s, a survey of potential "Historic sites or Districts" in the United
States was conducted by the National Park Service. One of the results was a list
of 172 sites in the western United States as "Historic Districts Eligible for the
Registry of National Historic Landmarks", and the "Cerrillos
Mining District" was one of the sites judged eligible
(Ferris, 1967). Following this early effort,
the Museum of New Mexico staff tried in the early 1970s to have the Cerrillos
Mining District listed as a "National Historic District". The effort failed to
get Federal approval. In spite of the fact that it is not listed on the National
Register of Historic Places, it does have national historical significance. The
Pueblo Indians mined turquoise in the district before 800 AD and one theory
attributes the development of the Chaco culture to their control of the Cerrillos
Turquoise mines. By the 1300s, Pueblo Indians were mining lead in the area for the
metallic glazes on their pottery. When European settlers arrived in 1598, it was
the earliest European mining area in the United States.
Considering that numerous mining towns and districts are on the national list, it
is unreasonable that the "Oldest Mining District in the U.S." is not listed. It
was first prospected in 1581 and had a number of active mines almost a decade
before the first English colonist landed at Jamestown.
This area is historically significant for reasons other than just being the oldest
mining district in the United States. The miners of Los Cerrillos may deserve
recognition as the founders of Santa Fe. They may have started a mining camp on
the south side of the Santa Fe River about 1600. The solely Spanish community
north of the river was not founded until four or five years later, in 1605. The
silver produced in the Cerrillos District was probably a significant component of
the 17th Century New Mexico economy. In northern New Mexico other than Santa Fe,
the Los Cerrillos settlement was the only community to successfully resist the
initial revolt of 1680. In 1695, Governor Vargas founded the Real de Los Cerrillos,
which is tied for being the third to fifth oldest official European Community in
New Mexico history, to service the mines of Los Cerrillos. Real de Los Cerrillos
is the "oldest official mining community in the history of the United States".
Governors Oñate, Vargas, and Rodríguez Cubero are the only known Spanish
Governors to be involved personally with mines in the district, but at least two
U.S. Territorial Governors, Lew Wallace and L. Bradford Prince, also owned and
operated mines there. The history of this district has not been common knowledge
in the past and only small segments of it are in books written on either New Mexico
or its mining history.
Past studies of the Cerrillos Mining District
Although a great deal has been written in the popular press over the years about
the Cerrillos Mining District, relatively few serious studies of the area have
been published, and considerable confusion still exists about its history.
Twentieth-century studies have started the U.S. Period History of the area with
the mining rush of 1879-80 reported by
Hayward (1880) and the local and national
press of the time, and ignored the mining of the 1860s and 1870s. Past writings
have concentrated on the eastern portion of the district and ignored the western
area. Hayward (1880) covered the entire area and listed a number of mines as
"Old Spanish". Table 1 is an updated list of these mines. The 1800's newspaper
accounts tended to promote mines in the eastern part of the district and published
archaeological work has also been confined to that area. Thus there is a tendency
to think of the important part of the Cerrillos Mining District as being the
southeastern part of the district with its old Spanish mine, the Mina del Tiro,
and major U.S. Period mines such as the Cash Entry. Turquoise Hill in the
northeastern part of the district has also attracted attention. The history of
the western part of the district has been largely ignored. Some of the notable
researchers of the mining history of the general area are Joan Mathien, Albert
Schroeder, John Townley, and A. Helen Warren. A previous Abandoned Mine Land Bureau
project in the eastern part of the district funded a historical report by
Levine and Goodman (1990) that collected a
lot of historical data from the above authors, but followed the old precept that
there was little or no significant mining during the colonial period.
Disbrow and Stoll (1957) authored the only
detailed study of the western part of the district, but they did not go back
before 1879 in their history. The mines reopened by Dr. Enos Andrews in the western
area in 1872 may be mines associated with the 1695-1696 mining period. These mines
are only half as far from Alamo Creek, the probable location of the Spanish mining
camp of Real de los Cerrillos, as Arroyo de las Minas where the Mina del Tiro is
located. It is a portion of this western part of the district which is the subject
of this report.
For selected details from the Disbrow and Stoll 1957 - Hungry Gulch report see
Appendix 2.
circa 700 - First turquoise mining by Pueblo
Indians.
circa 1150 - First separate villages, "mining
camps" for miners and refiners of turquoise in the Cerrillos Hills.
circa 1300 - First lead mining by Pueblo Indians.
1581 - First European prospecting of the Cerrillos
Hills area which was called the Sierras of San Marcos from 1591 to late 1700s.
1601 - First silver mines started and first
smelters built by Vicente de Zaldivar and others in this area. The miners may
have started a mining camp (Analco?) 6 leagues
(note 1) from the mines which
could be the first colonial settlement at Santa Fe.
1632 - First reported
estancia (ranch) in the La Cienega area.
1630s-1643 - Diego Marqués starts a ranch
north of the hills in the Alamo Creek - Cienega area.
1660 - Earliest located reference to Los Cerrillos
as a place name for Marqués's ranch two leagues from San Marcos Pueblo.
1680 - Though silver objects were later reported
as common in New Mexico prior to 1680, the only located record of mining in 1680
is Roque Madrid I's lead mine.
1680 - Residents of Los Cerrillos area assemble at
hacienda of Bernabé Marqués in Los Cerrillos to defend themselves
and then withdraw to Santa Fe and then to El Paso.
1680-1693 - Alonzo Catiti Marquéz has a
leadership role in the revolution. Except for a few military expeditions, the
revolution kept Europeans and their Native American allies out of northern New
Mexico.
1693 - Reconquest of New Mexico and promotion of
mines by Vargas.
1695 - Three silver mines were active in the hills
and Vargas founded the official Mining Camp, "Real de Los Cerrillos".
1696 - New revolt forces abandonment of Real de
Los Cerrillos.
1697-1703 - Governor Rodríguez Cubero acquired the
"Santa Rosa Mine" and shipped silver to Mexico City.
1709 - "Santa Rosa Mine" previously belonging to
Governor Cubero claimed by Ulibarrí.
1750 - Applicant for a Los Cerrillos Land Grant
presents a forged 1692 Land Grant supposedly given to the man who was the mayor
of "Real de Los Cerrillos" defining Los Cerrillos as the Alamo Creek area north
of the hills. Applicant also states that ruins are still visible in the area,
which must have been the ruins of the mining camp.
1830 - "Santa Rosa Mine" rediscovered and worked
by Alvarado.
1872 - Area of Santa Rosa Mine purchased from
Government by Dr. Andrews and he reopens it and the Ruelena Mine.
1879 - Galisteo and
Cerrillos Mining District rush starts and modern
development of the district begins.
1880s - Mining rush plays out and activity subsides
in Hungry Gulch. There is little activity until about 1900 when mining shifted
from silver-lead to lead-zinc ore.
1900-1956 Only sporadic mining in Hungry Gulch,
mainly during World War I and II, and government strategic metal stockpiling when
zinc and lead prices were high.
1956 - last known mining in Hungry Gulch area.
1970s - last major effort to start a new mine in
the Cerrillos District failed to get government approval.
1975 - last known operation of a mine in the
Cerrillos District.
This Abandoned Mine Land Bureau Project covers a small portion of the western part
of the district, called in the late 1800s, "Hungry Gulch". One objective of this
project was to collect information on the mines of the Hungry Gulch area and to
bring their importance and that of "Real de Los Cerrillos" to attention.
Of the Spanish metal mines whose Spanish names and locations have survived, only
the Mina del Tiro has been written about
in this century. The proposed leach mining in the southeastern part of the
district, T 15N, R 8E, sections 7 & 8, in the early 1970s by Occidental Minerals
Corporation, led to an archaeological survey of the area
(Warren, 1974), and also led to efforts to
salvage information on Pueblo and Spanish mining in that area
(Karkins, 1971, 1972) before leach mining
started. The Albuquerque Archaeological
Society did two summers' work at the
Bethsheba Mine, a U.S. period mine name from
Hayward (1880). Only preliminary reports have
been published (Sundt, 1973,
Grigg and Sundt, 1975), but Richard Bice
(Bice, 1993) is working on a final report
which will not be ready for several years. The Mina del Tiro (Hawk-eye shaft) was
also partially excavated, and Warren (1974) gave some results of that excavation
but no report has been published. Nineteenth Century promotion and the work of
Warren and others in the southeast area has led to the general assumption that
the "Arroyo de las Minas" area with the Mina del Tiro was the most important area
of Spanish mining in the Cerrillos Hills.
Though not discussed in writings of this century, two of the mines in Hungry Gulch
covered by this report are probably the sites of richer and more important Spanish
silver-lead mines than the Mina del Tiro.
In 1695, Governor Vargas founded the Real de Los Cerrillos, an official mining
camp, in the vicinity of what we call Alamo Creek. This is the only official
Spanish Period mining camp that historical documents have been located for in New
Mexico. This mining camp, which also ranks as the third to fifth oldest official
European community in New Mexico, has been ignored in New Mexico history. Its name
was chosen in 1990 for this project to try to revive its history along with two
mines in this project which may date from that period. Hopefully, the Vargas
Project at the University of New Mexico will bring the mining camp to public
attention when they release Vargas's 1695-96 Journals. They anticipate publication
of these journals in 1996 on the 301st anniversary of Real de Los Cerrillos. The
two mines that probably date from the Vargas era are the Santa Rosa and the Ruelena,
which, according to 1870's reports, had richer silver ore than the Mina del Tiro.
The silver deposits of Parral are in many ways similar to those of Cerrillos. The
silver ores of Parral were formed in nearly vertical veins associated with
Tertiary vulcanism (West, 1949, p. 17), as
are those of Cerrillos. In Parral there were some deposits that were nearly
lead-free silver sulphide (argentite) as well as silver-lead sulphide (galena)
veins. In Cerrillos only the silver-lead sulphide (galena) were noted at the time
of the first mineral descriptions of the area in the 1870s and 1880s. If argentite
existed at Cerrillos it was not reported in the late 1800s. The mines of Santa
Barbara developed prior to the colonization of New Mexico in the 1500s had only
the galena type ores found at Los Cerrillos.
A peculiar characteristic of silver ore deposits is the occurrence
of a pronounced oxidized zone of mineral enrichment above the ground water
table. ... The supergene enrichment of sulphide ore by descending surface waters
was one of the most significant factors affecting early colonial silver mining.
(West, 1949, pp.17-18).
In nearly vertical veins such as Cerrillos and Parral over millions of years the
sulphide ore above the water table was oxidized by oxygen in the descending
surface water. This liberated the silver ions from the sulphur, allowing the silver
to go into solution and be carried downward in the vein by the surface water. The
silver ion then precipitated out of solution at the water table resulting in a
zone of silver enrichment. This so-called "supergene enrichment of sulphide ore
veins" created a zone of silver enrichment around the water table. It was the
enriched portion around the water table that early colonial miners exploited. In
Parral the water table was at a depth of three to four hundred feet [91.4 to 121.9
meters] and in Cerrillos around 100 feet[30.5 meters].
This is why extensive drifts at a depth of around 110 feet [33.5 meters] (the water
table), left by the Spanish miners were discovered in the 1800s in both the Mina
del Tiro and Santa Rosa Mines. The Spanish miners had worked and removed most,
if not all, of the zone of silver enrichment. The only exception would have been the
Territorial mines developed on veins not exploited by Spanish miners, of which
there were very few in Cerrillos. The Territorial mine Our Georgie (aka Tom Payne)
and possibly the Marshal Bonanza may have been on veins not discovered by the
Spanish miners. The 19th Century assays, with the exception of those reported by
Raymond (1872, 1874), are not reliable, and
no production figures indicating the quality of the ore have been located prior
to 1905. The only evidence available on the silver content of the enriched zone
ores of Los Cerrillos are a few circa-1600 assays, and the 1870-1880 assay claims
of 80 to 200 ounce per ton [2,268.0 to 5,669.9 grams per 0.9 tonne] silver.
Below the zone of enrichment, the galena (lead sulphide ore) has relatively low
silver content. Parral mining declined by the late 1700s as the zones of enrichment
were exhausted, and this was probably also the case for the Cerrillos mines in
the 1700s.
Mining in both areas was revived in the late 1800s due to lower costs associated
with the arrival of the railroads in both areas. Both Parral and Cerrillos saw a
major revival around 1900, when the non-enriched parts of their veins became
profitable as sources of lead-zinc ore. The silver deposits of the Real (mining
camp) of Parral, discovered 50 years after Cerrillos in 1631, suffered from its
remoteness and it is 1/3 closer to Mexico City than Cerrillos. Both Parral and
Cerrillos suffered from the high cost of transportation during most of their history.
- See Appendix 1 for details on Colonial Period Silver Refining Techniques -
Once an idea becomes widely accepted and is repeated for decades or centuries,
new writers of history accept the idea without question. After decades of
acceptance by the best scholars in an area of study, only the foolish challenge
an accepted concept. However, it is impossible to discuss the mining history of
Cerrillos without questioning some myths that have been accepted for the past
century. An attempt was made, perhaps unsuccessfully, to give enough information
to start the process of changing three myths associated with Los Cerrillos without
overburdening this report. Though these myths will not die with this report, at
least the seeds of change are sown and future writers will feel more inclined to
challenge them.
One, that the modern railroad-mining town of Cerrillos is or was close to the
Spanish Los Cerrillos. Two, that there was no Spanish mining in New Mexico until
after 1725, and three, that there was a significant amount of gold in the Cerrillos
Hills. A fourth myth, that Spanish use of forced Pueblo Indian labor in the mines
of the Cerrillos Hills was the cause of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, has been challenged
since Bandelier's Final Report in 1890 and
was discussed in the AML Turquoise Hill Report
(AML, 1994).
All four of these myths are not supported by contemporary records. As
F. Stanley (1964, p.3) said in his little
book, "The Cerrillos, New Mexico Story", "The legends of Cerrillos are more
numerous than those of Santa Fe." These legends are not confined to popular press
publications for the tourist industry like "Living Legends of the Santa Fe Country"
(Bullock, 1972) which probably deliberately
used misquotes to make interesting reading. In one form or another, one or more
of these myths can be found in most government and scholarly publications of this
century discussing the Cerrillos area (for example:
USGS, 1977, p. 141 and
Howard, 1967).
Most of the documents that have survived from the Oñate Period are those written
by the two Viceroys or their officers in Mexico City. They served between the two
terms of Viceroy Luís de Velasco (1595-1607). They tend to leave the reader with
the impression that Juan de Oñate knew little about mining and accomplished very
little in New Mexico. This appears to be a misconception that will in time be
corrected.
Juan de Oñate was very knowledgeable about mining and was recognized by the
King of Spain in 1624 as a leading mining expert of his time
(Beerman, 1979). King Philip IV asked
Oñate to evaluate all the mines and mills in Spain
and to recommend new laws and ordinances for improving them. The results of that
study were published in 1625, and are the first book on mining written by a
resident of what was to become the U.S. The Viceregal documents paint Oñate as a
novice regarding mining while he was in New Mexico, but that was part of the
overall effort to discredit his administration.
Juan de Oñate and Vicente de Zaldivar were both second generation members
of major silver mining families. They both grew up supervising and working in and
around
family silver mines, and it was the profits of these same family silver mines that
funded and made possible the colonization of New Mexico. The "silver aristocracy"
of northern New Spain had financed the exploration and colonization of Nueva
Viscaya between 1563 and 1572, and New Mexico was a continuation of this tradition.
Both men had extensive experience in the development of silver mines and the
construction and running of silver refining mills before coming to New Mexico.
After leaving New Mexico in 1610, both men returned to Zacatecas and revitalized
their silver mines there. Oñate paid 129,454 pesos in the 10% severance tax
(Simmons, 1991, p. 185) in the decade after
he left New Mexico. Vicente de Zaldivar reportedly was so successful in running
his families silver mines and mills after his return from New Mexico that he made
three million pesos profit during the next decade (Simmons, 1991, p. 186).
A New Spain tribunal in 1614 found Oñate guilty of some of the charges brought
against him by the 1601 New Mexico deserters. In 1621, Juan de Oñate went
to Spain to clear his name of the various charges. The Spanish Government
recognized his great mining expertise and in 1624 made Oñate the Royal Mine
Inspector for the mines in Spain. The king directed Oñate to tour all the
major mines of Spain and write a report on how the mines and production could be
improved. King Philip IV even gave Oñate a special Royal privilege of
wearing a uniform during his mine inspections (Royal Cédula, sold by Maggs
Brothers to a private collector). The results of Oñate's study were
incorporated into a new a new set of laws and ordinances for the operation of
mines and were published in 1625. The title is very long, and though the product
of other members of the Real junta de Minas it gives Oñate the major credit
for the New Laws and Ordinances for improving the operation mines and refiners.
(The cover page of the "Leyes y Ordenanzas")
The 1625 edition of "Leyes y Ordenanzas" for mines even has a flowery biography of
Juan de Oñate in the introduction written by Oñate's secretary (
Simmons, 1991, p. 193).
Juan de Oñate was not just the first governor of New Mexico, with a minor
and totally unsuccessful interest in mining as most books and articles tend to
indicate. With the exception of Oñate's effort to create a new Viceroyalty
of New Mexico, north of New Spain, he devoted his entire life to mining. He grew
up in silver mines, successfully managed them before and after being in New Mexico,
and rewrote the laws and ordinances on mining for the kingdom of Spain. He even
died while still continuing his study of the mines of Spain at the silver mining
camp of Guadalcanal (Beerman, 1979). He did
not miraculously stop silver mining when he crossed a line that would be drawn on
the map two and a half centuries later. Juan de Oñate deserves recognition
along with Vincente de Zaldivar as the premier (first great) miner of what
centuries later would become the United States.
Juan de Oñate was the first resident of what is now the United States to
write (or rewrite) a set of laws and ordinances to regulate mining (1625) over
two hundred years before any other resident of the U.S. attempted the task.
If American (U.S.) mining is to trace its ancestry, it should not stop with the
novice California gold prospectors of 1849, or the novices of Georgia and the
Carolinas of the 1790s. These individuals were preceded by lead miners in New
England and other British colonists in the 1600s. However, the European mining
tradition started in the U.S. with the opening of the silver mines in the
Cerrillos Hills in 1601. The actual miners were probably
genízro (Tlascalans) and the superintendent was Vincente
de Zaldivar at the request of, and possibly under the direction of, Juan de Oñate.
Both men were immediately very successful and made new fortunes operating silver
mines south of the border after they left New Mexico, and probably had a lot more
success in New Mexico than surviving records indicate.
PRESTATE PERIOD - MINING BY PUEBLO INDIANS,
700-1540
The Pueblo Indians started mining turquoise in the Cerrillos Hills around 700 AD,
and by the 1200s it was the major export of New Mexico, with separate mining camps
(small pueblos) in the hills. There is a yet unproven theory that Cerrillos
turquoise was the economic base for the development of Classic Chaco culture.
The history of turquoise mining was discussed in the
AML-Turquoise Hill Report (1994) and will
not be discussed in this report.
The Pueblo Indians started using lead glaze on their pottery about 1300. Though
there is lead float or nuggets around lead veins just as there are gold nuggets
around gold veins, eventually the Indians had to dig or mine to get the lead for
their pottery. The major lead glaze producing pueblo was Tonque
(Warren, 1969) which is east of San Felipe
Pueblo, though other Rio Grande Pueblos also produced lead glaze pottery.
"... the Pueblo Indian was the first prospector and miner in the Cerrillos
district. Potsherds dating as early as A.D. 1325 have been found in underground
lead mines. ... Dozens of prehistoric lode mines have been recorded in the
Cerrillos district and two of these have been excavated partially."
(Warren and Weber, 1979, p. 7).
The company exploring the possibility of leach mining of the southeastern part of
the district in 1970 financed archaeological recording
(Warren, 1974) and spurred efforts to
salvage information (Karklins, 1971, 1972)
by excavation before that area was destroyed
(Sundt, 1971, Warren, 1974). Sundt (1971)
reported pottery types found in the excavation of a filled-in prehistoric trench
mine on the 1879 Bethsheba Claim of Maddux and Smith. A final report has not been
published, but tentative tree-ring dates from three different logs from the mine
and a platform above it are 1462, 1832 and 1908
(Bice, 1993). Its Laboratory of Anthropology
(LA) number is (LA 5031). Pottery shards were dated from 1425 to post-1600 with
84% of the pottery being from San Marcos Pueblo. The trench mine at the time of
the preliminary report (Sundt, 1971) had only been excavated to a depth of 4
meters (12 feet) but later went to 25 feet [7.6 meters] without reaching the
bottom of debris.
Sundt (1971) is the only published excavation of a pre-historic mine in the area,
though Warren (1974, p. 25) gives some information on the excavation at Mina del
Tiro and her survey of the southeast area.
"... The 'thin mantle of rocky debris" which
(Disbrow and Stoll (1957: 48) found on the
apexes of many veins is undoubtedly the backfill, or tailings, of the prehistoric
Indian miner.
The prehistorically worked lead veins in the survey area include Mina del Tiro
(M1), Bethsheba (M6), the U.S. Grant (M9), the L. C. Cloury (M10), the Ethel shaft
(M25), the Helena (M28), the Southwestern (M54), the "chimney" mine (M57), the
Bonanza (M58), the J. A. Logan prospects (M63), the Globe veins (M66), and the
Stillman vein (M68).
The most spectacular of the prehistoric lead mines is Mina del Tiro, which was
mined prehistorically for 1800 feet [548.6 meters] along the vein outcrop, and
to as yet unknown depths. ... Potsherds associated with the Pueblo mines are glaze
decorated and, as at the turquoise mines, many were used in some part of the
mining or refining process. Most of the glazes found are prehistoric and are from
the San Marcos Pueblo, but some late glazes produced during the 17th century
Spanish Colonial period also occur. These could have been brought to the area by
either the Pueblo or Spanish miners.
Stone tools used in the lead mines are very similar to those found at the
turquoise mines. Proportionately there seem to be more anvils at the lead mines.
Occasionally, a non-utilized notched or grooved axe or maul will be found at a
workshop area, indicating that workshops may have been used for more than the
refining process. Refining areas located on the edge of the lead vein have been
found. These include hearths, miscellaneous stone tools, and discarded fragments
of lead ore and galena "dust". Debris from the refining of the potter's ore was
often used to backfill the vein that had been mined out."
(Warren, 1974, p. 25)
The pueblo's major sources of lead were probably the Cerrillos Hills, the Placitas
area at the north end of the Sandias, and possibly the San Mateo Mountains. There
is conclusive archaeological evidence that the Pueblos were mining lead as well as
turquoise in the Cerrillos area centuries before the arrival of Europeans.
The records left by the Coronado Expedition to New Mexico in 1540-42 do not
describe a visit to any site that fits the description of the Cerrillos Hills or
the pueblo one league (note 1) east of them,
San Marcos Pueblo. The Coronado Expedition did record the presence of galena
(lead ore) in several pueblos and the use of lead glazes on the Pueblo pottery.
The first Spanish explorers to visit the area of whom we have a record are the
Rodríguez-Chamuscado Expedition of 1581. They called San Marcos Pueblo by the
name of Malpartida (Bad Parting) and said they found mineral
deposits one league (2.6 to 3.4 miles,) from the pueblo
(Hammond & Ray, 1927, p. 342). Two soldiers
in the expedition, Philepe (or Filipe) de Escalante and Barrando, later testified
that they found 11 veins of silver but did not specify the location in New Mexico.
However, as Oñate 17 years later called the mines he visited in the
Cerrillos Hills "Escalante's mines" (Minas de Escalante), the silver veins of the
Cerrillos Hills must have been some that Escalante sampled in 1581. The 1581
expedition took samples from only three of the veins they discovered.
Bolton (1930, p. 157) translates the reported
assays of the three samples. One was half silver, one contained 20 marks (taking
1 mark as about 8 ounces [226.8 grams] then around 160 ounces [4,535.9 grams])
per quintal (quintal = hundred pounds [45.4 kg] or 3,200 oz. per ton [90.7 kg per
0.9 tonne]), and one contained 5 marks (about 40 ounces per 100 pounds [1.1 kg per
45.4 kg] or 800 ounces per ton [2.3 kg per 0.9 tonne]).
These are very high results and possibly exaggerations, but hand-picked ore could
have been of that quality. The best ores left in the old Spanish silver mines of
the Cerrillos Hills three hundred years later were about 150-200 ounces [4.3-5.7 kg]
of silver per ton. Thus, Philipe de Escalante and his companions were the first
Europeans that we know for certain prospected the Cerrillos Hills and sampled its
silver ores. Their good results were probably a major reason for Escalante's return in
1598 with Oñate.
The Espejo Expedition of 1583 also visited the Cerrillos area and reported finding
antimony (galena or silver-lead ore) near San Marcos Pueblo. The Castaño
de Sosa Expedition of 1591 gave San Marcos Pueblo the Spanish name by which it
has continued to be known. Some members of the Castaño de Sosa party found the
mineral ores of the Cerrillos Hills so promising that they stayed in the San Marcos
area and made assays showing silver while Castaño de Sosa explored the rest of
New Mexico (Schroeder and Matson, 1965, p. 157).
The original charter given to Juan de Oñate by Viceroy Louis de Velasco
(viceroy of New Spain, 1590-1595), and approved by the Crown, gave Oñate
autonomy from the colony of New Spain and the right to explore and colonize all
of North America north of New Spain except Florida. However, Velasco's successor,
Gáspar de Zuñiga y Acevedo, Conde de Monterrey (viceroy of New Spain,
1595-1603) reduced that autonomy from New Spain without crown approval prior to
the actual colonization in 1598. This semi-autonomous status existed only during
Juan de Oñate's (1598-1608) and his son Governor Cristóbal de
Oñate's (1608-1610)(note 2) rule of
New Mexico. There was extensive mineral exploration and the first "significant"
European mining occurred in New Mexico during this period. Of the records that
have survived from this period, virtually all first hand reports on mineral
development in the Cerrillos Hills are from 1600 and 1601.
The first colonists reached San Gabriel, the site chosen for the capitol five miles
[1.7 km] north of Española, on July 18, 1598. Two days later, Oñate
left for his first reconnaissance of the Pueblos of the Galisteo Basin and stopped
at San Marcos and went further south before returning. Oñate wrote, "On the,
26th (July 26, 1598) we returned ... and spent the night at San Marcos ... . Ore was
extracted there from the mines called Escalante" (Hammond & Rey, 1953, p. 321).
Thus, within 9 days of the arrival of the first group of colonists at the future
capitol of the new colony, the first silver ore was extracted from the Cerrillos
Hills. Escalante apparently showed Oñate the mines of the Cerrillos Hills
that he sampled 17 years earlier and that is why Oñate referred to them as
the "mines of Escalante" (Hammond & Rey, 1953, p. 321). Escalante was killed four
months later by the Acomas, along with Vicente de Zaldivar's brother, Juan, in the
famous Acoma revolt of December 4, 1598, so any mining he did was of short duration.
Just three years later New Mexicans testified that Juan Zaldivar was the first to
mine there, rather than Escalante.
On March 2, 1599, Oñate sent the viceroy a summary of his mining and other
discoveries and samples of the minerals that had been discovered
(Bancroft, 1889, pp. 147-148). Juan de
Oñate and a major portion of the colonists, both European and Tlascalan,
were from Zacatecas and they and their fathers had been silver miners before
coming to New Mexico. Thus, their interest and experience had been in silver
mining and as far as is known, it was silver deposits, not gold, that they mainly
looked for and tried to develop in New Mexico.
Vicente de Zaldivar de Mendoza, was the first known developer of mines in the
Cerrillos Hills. According to the testimony of Baltasar Martinez, and others,
there were only about 80 Spanish males in New Mexico on December 23, 1600
(Hammond & Rey, p.837). The number of Spanish,
even before a large group of colonists fled in 1600, was well below 200 and most
of them were probably occupied in Oñate's explorations and other duties.
Thus, except for short periods, the Tlascalans were probably the major source of
skilled miners available in the colony for working mines during the first years.
Juan de Oñate wrote a letter on March 22, 1601 to his brothers (one of whom
was the official in charge of the procurement of mining supplies for all of New
Spain) and other relatives in which he discussed the mines of New Mexico.
Hammond and Ray (1953, pp. 619-622) located a summary prepared by a Viceregal
bureaucrat in Mexico City titled "True Report Drawn from the Letters, Statements,
and Papers which Governor Don Juan de Oñate Enclosed with His Letter of
March 22, 1601, Addressed to His Brothers and Relatives". Hammond and Ray (1953)
did not locate Oñate's letter. The summary written in Mexico City later in
1601 is reportedly based on Oñate's letter and also other reports carried
with the couriers that left New Mexico on March 23, 1601. The summary was
prepared for and sent to the Council of the Indies and the King, and colors
Oñate's activity in New Mexico in the standard Mexico City view of the time
as only rumors of progress with no real accomplishments except for the priest's
claims of native conversion. Remember that the officials who supervised the
writing of this summary are the same ones who conducted the fraudulent public
assay that year. Hammond and Ray located the summary in the
Archivo General de Indias (Patronato,
legajo 22) in Spain. The original letter should contain the details on New Mexico
mining that the summary said Oñate's letter contained but which were left
out of the summary.
The fourth from the last paragraph of the summary was translated by Hammond and
Rey as:
"The governor claims that at ten, fourteen, and twenty leagues
from the pass of San Rafael,(3) where his camp is now,
he has discovered many mines whose ores, on being assayed, were of high grade and
contained much silver. Since he had but few people up to the present he has not
allowed them to devote themselves to the exploitation of mines in order to prevent
them from giving up the main objective of their undertaking through greed for silver.
But he has given orders [to Vicente de Zaldivar] to construct a mill for crushing
and exploiting ores while he is inland [exploring great plains in 1601]."
(Hammond and Rey, p. 622).
Note (3)above is "Clearly an error for San Gabriel".
As Vicente Zaldivar stated later in 1601 that Governor Oñate ordered him
to develop the Cerrillos and San Pedro mines, and Oñate's letter of
3/22/1601 says that he had already given this order, we can narrow the time of the
starting of the Cerrillos silver mines and construction of the mill to between
March and July of 1601.
The most extensive reporting of mining in the Oñate Period located are the
responses to a series of questions asked by Vicente de Zaldivar in 1600 of twelve
other colonists at San Gabriel, New Mexico, and similar questions asked in 1601
of three soldiers and an official in Mexico City. The testimony was only examined
in translation as given by Hammond and Rey (1953). Zaldivar's question number 15
stated that Governor Juan de Oñate ordered him to explore (develop?) the
mines of San Marcos (Cerrillos Hills) (
note 3), and Anuncíation due to his discovery and development with his servants
(Tlascalans) of many other mines (Hammond and Rey, 1953, p. 815). Oñate
apparently considered the Cerrillos and Tuerto deposits some of the most promising
discovered and probably gave the order to develop them in 1599. By the summer of
1600, Zaldivar and his servants (Tlascalans) were mining in the Cerrillos Hills
(San Marcos) and in the Golden area (Anuncíation or Tuerto) 20 miles [32.2 kilometers]
further south. Zaldivar's mining results were good enough that other Spanish
soldiers also started silver mines in the Cerrillos Hills. By July 1600, Zaldivar
was building small smelters and other machinery to refine the ore from the mines.
Vicente de Zaldivar was maese de campo of the colony. Juan
de Oñate's nephew and his family had invested heavily in the colonization
of New Mexico. Zaldivar was petitioning for recognition of his service to the
Crown and his interrogatory to the colonists were to collect evidence of his
service. His question 15 was translated as follows,
"15. Whether they know that by order of the governor I went to
explore the mines of San Mateo (sic., San Marcos) and Anuncíacion, because I had
worked and examined many mines with my servants; that I have located many other
mines which appear to be rich in silver and will result in much benefit and profit
to the royal treasury and the welfare of this land." (Hammond and Rey, 1953,
p. 815)
Hammond and Rey (1953, p. 883) only published the responses of two of the twelve
individuals who gave formal responses to the interrogatories in July, 1600, as they
felt the testimony of the others was essentially the same as the two they published.
The following are the two responses to Zaldivars question 15, on his role in New
Mexico mining that they published. Alférez Leonis Treminos de Bañuelos, a
life-long silver miner gave the following testimony at San Gabriel on July 29, 1600:
"Among the many discoveries of mines that the sargento mayor made
are those of San Marcos and Anuncíacion, from which with the aid of his servants
(probably Tlascalan miners) and household, he obtained a quantity of silver, both
by smelting and by the use of quick-silver. ... The sargento mayor has so
stimulated us that this witness and others soldiers have been working the mines
and taking out silver." (Hammond & Rey, 1953, p. 829).
Diego de Zubia's testimony, also taken on July 29, 1600, agrees with Treminos and
specifies that Zaldivar discovered the mines of San Marcos and was the first to
extract silver from them (Hammond & Rey, 1953, p. 821). Zubia does not mention
any other location except San Marcos, thus confirming the Cerrillos Hills as a
location of silver mining. Zubia was apparently not aware that Escalante or one
of his 1581 companions discovered the Cerrillos silver veins.
Discontent among the colonists, as well as jealousy over Oñate's special
privileges, led as early as 1600 to investigations into his administration. In
the spring of 1601, three soldiers and another man took reports from New Mexico
to Mexico City. In Mexico City, a government attorney (factor), Don Francisco de
Valverde, had been appointed by the Viceroy, the Count of Monterrey, to investigate
the situation in New Mexico. The three soldiers apparently carried Vicente
Zaldivar's 1600 petition, as Francisco de Valverde asked them essentially the same
questions Zaldivar had asked in New Mexico a year earlier. Their responses to the
question of "whether mines of gold, silver, and other metals had been found
since..." Juan de Oñate went there were as follows:
Marcelo de Espinosa said on July 28, 1601, "at the pueblo of San
Marcos, six leagues from San Gabriel, silver lodes were found which, on being
assayed by the smelting process, produced four ounces [0.1 kg]. He heard this told,
and he also heard that there were other mines at the pueblo of El Tuerto which,
it was said, were rich. The sargento mayor (Vicente de Zaldivar) stayed there to
crush and smelt the ore, building machinery for this purpose. " (
Hammond and Rey, p. 641-642).
Captain Juan de Ortega testified on July 31, 1601, that he went with the relief
troops in December 1600 with the understanding that he did not have to stay in
New Mexico unless he wanted to do so, and that he left three months later with
the governor's permission.
In response to the question he said, "... he had heard the
governor, the sargento mayor, and a captain say that there were mines, but that
he had not heard of this from the other captains and soldiers. On the contrary,
he heard some of them say that the minerals found were of no value and that there
were no mines;..." (Hammond and Rey, 1953, p. 667)
Joseph Brondate on July 28, 1601 said, "at the pueblo of San Marcos, six leagues
from the camp, there were mines with rich lodes. These ores, on being assayed,
yielded four ounces. This witness saw it himself, and also that the sargento mayor
was building a device to crush ore and extract metals, of which there were numerous
reports " (Hammond & Rey, 1953, p. 630).
The weight or volume of ore that four ounces of silver assayed from is not stated
by either Brondate or Espinosa. The standard volume of ore at that time was a
quintal, or a fraction of a U.S. pound greater than 100 pounds [45.4 kg]. The
ounce is the same as our ounce [28.3 grams] and a Mark was eight ounces
[226.8 grams]. Four ounces [113.4 grams] per quintal equals 80 ounces per ton
[2.3 kg per 0.9 tonne]. However, in 1600 that was not rich enough to be profitably
smelted. The break-even point for smelting was from eight to ten ounces [226.8 to
283.5 grams] per quintal or 160
(Gonzalo Gomez de Cervantes, 1969, pp. 150-151)
to 200 ounces per ton [4.5 to 5.7 kg per 0.9 tonne]
(Probert, 1969, p. 96).
However, with the "Patio Process" of amalgamation, the break-even was around 20
ounces per ton [0.6 kg per 0.9 tonnes] or one ounce [28.3 grams] per quintal
(Probert, 1969, p. 109-110). Thus, four ounces [113.4 grams] per quintal was good
or bad ore depending on how it was going to be refined. Witnesses mentioned that
amalgamation was being used, but that a Hacienda (Patio Process mill?) had still
not been built in July 1601. The smelters built by Zaldivar were probably similar
to the "Chimbo" furnaces described by
Probert (1971), and the archaeological
descriptions of furnace remains in Los Cerrillos
(Warren, 1974) are compatible with that design.
Ginés de Herrera Horta was appointed in 1600 by the Viceroy as "chief
auditor and legal assessor" to Governor Oñate. The Viceroy probably sent
Horta to New Mexico to gather information for him. Horta went there with the
reinforcements that arrived on December 23, 1600. He did not give his reason for
leaving three months later in March 1601, but his testimony indicates a bias
against Oñate. Ginés de Herrera Horta was not a miner and only spent three
months in New Mexico during the winter. He testified on July 30, 1601, that he,
"... had heard it said that at a pueblo named San Marcos there were silver lodes,
but of very low grade. This witness saw a small piece of mineral which the
sargento mayor showed to the soldiers. To all appearances
it was very rich. He heard a friar, to whom the sargento mayor had showed it (the
ore), say that it was fine if it were from that country. To this the
sargento mayor made no reply." (Hammond & Rey, 1953, p.
653-654). Horta had not seen the mines and apparently based his comment on the
San Marcos ore being of low grade solely due to Zaldivar's not responding to the
friar's question.
Of the six witnesses whose 1600 and 1601 testimony Hammond and Rey (1953) published,
the two engaged in mining in New Mexico give an optimistic opinion of mining, as
did the other two long-time residents of New Mexico. The two individuals who had
only spent three months in New Mexico, and did not claim any real knowledge of
the area, gave pessimistic opinions of mining.
The attorney (factor), Don Francisco de Valverde, was still investigating the
situation in New Mexico in 1602. However, the questions he asked in 1602 were not
directly related to mining in New Mexico proper, but about what had been heard or
seen of gold or silver on an expedition out onto the great plains. Thus the 1602
responses do not pertain to mining in what we consider New Mexico.
A large number of discouraged colonists fled New Mexico in 1600, including all but
two of the friars. These individuals brought a variety of charges against
Oñate for improper conduct, and tried to promote a negative picture of the
prospects and conditions in New Mexico in order to justify their leaving without
the governor's permission. As most of these individuals had signed up as soldiers
for the entrada, they, in a legal sense, were deserters and
subject to potential prosecution. One of the reasons for Vicente de Zaldivar's
going to Mexico City in 1602 was to press for their arrest. Thus, there were a
number of individuals around Mexico City trying to discredit Oñate and
downplay all accomplishments in New Mexico, including mining.
Assays reported by Rossiter Raymond in the 1870's
indicate that silver ore left on the dumps of the Santa Rosa and Ruelena mines
averaged about 80 ounces of silver per ton [2.3 kg per 0.9 tonne] (4 ounces/quintal),
[113.4 grams/quintal] well above the late 16th century break-even point by the
Patio Process, but below break-even by smelting. The galena left at the Mina del
Tiro in the 1870's had considerably less silver. As the ore left on the mine dumps
in the 1870s by the Spanish or latter miners would have been marginally profitable
in the 1600s, it is reasonable to assume that the ore mined and refined in the
1600s was richer and profitable. If the assays of 200 ounces per ton [5.7 kg per
0.9 tonne] silver reported in the 1880s were correct, that would have been profitable
by smelting in the 1600s. The record seems clear that the Cerrillos Hills contained
profitable silver ores and that these were being mined within three years of the
European colonization of New Mexico.
The comments of the 1880's that the Spanish did not know how to smelt the
silver-lead ores of the Cerrillos Hills are misleading taken out of their original
context. These comments were originally made about the silver carbonate ores,
which the first U.S. Period smelter at the railroad town of Cerrillos also failed
to smelt successfully in the 1880's. The silver-lead galena ores near the surface
could be easily smelted as well as refined by mercury amalgamation.
The witness Treminos, who was an experienced silver miner, said in 1600 "... when
haciendas like those at Zacatecas and other places are constructed they will bring
great revenues to the royal treasury" (Hammond & Rey, 1953, p. 829). What he is
referring to is the construction of a refinery (hacienda,
note 4) using the "Patio Process"
developed by Bartolomé de Medina in the 1550's which increased
ten fold the recovery of silver from ore by mercury amalgamation (Probert, 1969).
Bartolomé de Medina's "Patio Process" was the greatest discovery in mineral
recovery or mining in the Western Hemisphere until the late 1800s. Without the
Patio Process, silver mining would have died in the New World before New Mexico
was colonized and very few mines would have been profitable anywhere. Some
historians have said that it was the discovery or development of the great silver
mines of Zacatecas and other places in Mexico that caused a loss of interest in
exploring the far northern frontier (New Mexico) after Coronado's expedition. In
fact, it was Bartolomé de Medina who made both the new and old silver mines
extremely profitable all of a sudden in the late 1550s and shifted the New World's
attention to silver mining from exploring for golden treasures that delayed the
colonization of New Mexico.
If early Spanish mining in Los Cerrillos failed to be highly profitable, it may
have been because the Patio Process was not used. Tremino's comment indicates that
Zaldivar had not yet built a Patio Process mill at Cerrillos in July 1600, and he
was recommending its construction. The patio process required water and salt, and
the construction of tanks or a flat stone-floored patio for the ore to be mixed
on and aged in the sun. There are records of Oñate and others bringing
mercury to New Mexico. The nearest good water supply would have been Alamo creek
to the north of the Cerrillos Hills. The colonists had a good supply of salt at
the Salinas (salt lakes) southeast of the Sandias, from which they shipped salt in
the 1600's to the Patio Process mills of Parral. No remains of Patio Process mills
have been located to date in the Cerrillos area.
Hammond and Rey (1953) translate the witnesses comments as "built machinery or
devices to crush the ores," so we do not know at this point if the witness specified
the type of machinery built. In later times (1700s - on), the
arrastra (or tahona seen on the cover
of this report) was the commonly used crushing machine. However, in the late 1500s
the Spanish adapted and developed stamp mills of the German type seen in
Agricola (1950), generally referred to as
"ingenios" in Peru and "Molinos" in New Spain. If water powered stamp mills were
built, they would have had to be built where there was enough slope in the stream
to allow a ditch to raise the water high enough for a vertical water wheel to
power the stamp mill, though some were run by animal power.
The Viceroy, the Count of Monterrey, after looking at the testimony collected by
Valverde in 1601 and 1602, and other documents, wrote the King of Spain (Hammond
and Rey, 1953, p. 906-) defending his reduction of Oñate's powers as well
as concerning the abandonment of the colony by colonists in 1600 and conditions
there. His comments are of a general nature, but indicate that he believed that
there were good copper deposits and possibly silver deposits of some
yet-undetermined quality in New Mexico.
"When silver or copper, which they say abound, are discovered,
we could introduce some form of coinage to circulate there. Some could be coined
in that country and the value set low enough so as to leave a profit for the
merchants who might bring and sell copper in bars. This seems impossible since
the cost of transportation would be more than it is worth... I have not yet given
up hope that we shall receive verification of what the governor still maintains,
namely, that there is silver in some of the hills of the region where he is,...
Oñate now writes that he is going to make a more extensive search and that
in the meantime he cannot be sure of any wealth, because he does not know whether
there are minerals of sufficiently high grade. I am not discouraged, since we lack
definite reports. If it should prove to be a silver country, no matter how low
grade the ore may be, it would sustain the hope that by continued prospecting
greater riches would be found in the hills and sierras. Even though it is not
certain that there is silver, if means were found to establish copper coinage,
this would encourage and facilitate trade and aid in the support of the Spaniards
there, even if the profits were not large. They have nothing to sell from which
they can obtain cash, and poverty is everywhere. It therefore seems to me that
these conditions, especially the lack of money, will discourage anyone from going
there, or, if already settled, would discourage anyone from remaining there."
(Hammond and Rey, p. 913-914)
There is a document summarizing the situation in New Mexico prepared by or for the
Viceroy in 1602, titled "Summary of the Five Discourses Presented by the Viceroy
Concerning the Situation in the Territory that has been Pacified and Settled by
the Adelantado Don Juan de Oñate in the Provinces of New Mexico, the New
Explorations Made from there to the North, the help the Adelantado Seeks for this
Purpose, and Other Matters". (Hammond and Rey, 1953, p. 899-). However, they did
not print the portion on mining. Under Discourse III, they wrote, "The discourse
continues with matters of government, cattle raising, climate of the country, and
coining of copper coins from the metal found in that land. It speaks of silver
mines, which they assert are found, and of which possibility the viceroy has not
lost hope. The last and necessary resort is to succor the settlers with some
support from the royal treasury, and so forth." ( Hammond and Rey, 1953, p. 900)
The Viceroy Marquis of Montesclaros (1603-1607) wrote the King on March 31, 1605,
"Just lately letters have come from Don Juan de Oñate, together with
samples of ores obtained from the mines that have been discovered. These I have
assayed here (Mexico City), and thus far the richest ore produced one-eight part
copper, without any trace of silver" (Hammond and Rey, p. 1001). Either the public
assay referred to by the Viceroy in this 1605 letter is the one done by the
preceding Viceroy in 1600, or else a second public assay was done after he took
office in 1603 which also showed only copper. Don Alonzo Oñate (Governor
Oñate's brother) wrote the King of Spain on October 8, 1600, protesting a
public assay done in Mexico City on ore sent from New Mexico. He wrote,
... after the governor (Juan Oñate) had sent rich silver
metals from the lands he had discovered (New Mexico)... all that turned up in the
hands of the viceroy was a sort of copperish metal. This was assayed publicly,
and as the assay produced only copper it served to cool the spirits of all those
who were watching events. (Hammond and Rey, 1953, Part I, p. 581).
With the exception of Beerman (1979) and
Simmons (1991), historians have largely
ignored Oñate's recognition by the Spanish government as a mining expert
in 1624. Considering that both Oñate and Vicente de Zaldivar were two of
the most knowledgeable mining experts of their time, it should be self evident that
they did not send copper ore to Mexico City as silver ore; someone along the
way or in Mexico City deliberately switched the ore and/or faked the public assay
in 1601. The only reason for staging a public assay had to have been to discredit
Oñate's efforts and results in New Mexico. Past authors have tended to
accept the 1601 public assay showing only copper at face value as evidence that
there was no silver in New Mexico. There may have even been a second fake public
assay between 1601 and 1605, as in that year the new Viceroy wrote the king that
he had personally seen a public assay showing only copper. His often-referenced
comment is thus invalid, and either he or his subordinates must have been involved
in the subterfuge against Oñate.
A detailed study of the period (one is underway at UNM) would be required to know
if the Viceroys were aware of the fraud or not, but fraud was involved. In view of
the facts that Oñate and Zaldivar were very experienced silver miners, and
had at least some very rich silver ore from the silver mines in the Cerrillos
Hills before 1601, the assay had to have been fraudulent.
Though no discussion of the question by historians was located, there appears to
have been a conspiracy to discredit the mineral discoveries in New Mexico as a
means of discrediting Oñate's administration of the colony.
The Crown gave financial assistance and supplied soldiers as early as December
1600 to the Oñate Colony of New Mexico. It was not until a governor
appointed by the Viceroy was accepted by the colonists in 1610, that New Mexico
became just another provence of New Spain (Mexico). The debate over whether New
Mexico should be maintained or abandoned continued for decades but the Crown
accepted the idea that New Mexico would only continue if it subsidized the colony.
Cristóbal Oñate's administration of New Mexico (governor 1608-1610)
ended in 1610 with the arrival of the new governor subservient to the Viceroy.
With the arrival of Governor Pedro de Peralta, there apparently was a dramatic
change in attitudes toward mining in New Mexico. Mining ceases to be mentioned in
surviving government reports of the period from 1610 to 1680. The destruction of
all local New Mexico records occurred during the 1680 revolution
(note 5), and thus we only have records sent
out of the province before the revolt or written elsewhere. The only items located
in government reports written in Mexico City during this period were a comment by
the Viceroy in 1620 that the claimed existence of good mines in New Mexico had not
yet been verified, and a 1638 report claiming that although deposits of gold and
silver were well known in New Mexico, they had never been mined. Both documents,
as most other official correspondence of the period on New Mexico was slanted
toward convincing the King that he needed to continue or increase his subsidy of
New Mexico.
In 1620, the Viceroy wrote the king that the only town in New Mexico was Santa
Fe, with only fifty residents (Spanish males?), and that the province was in danger
of being abandoned. "... although it is said that there are mines, this has not
been verified for sure, and the land is being maintained only in order not to
desert the baptized Indians."
(Hammond and Rey, 1953, Part II, p. 1140).
In 1638, in response to a royal cédula (Law or order)
requesting information on New Mexico, Father Juan de Prada collected information
from other priests who had been in New Mexico. He wrote the viceroy on conditions
in New Mexico for a response to the King's order for information. Father Prada
wrote that it was a very poor country and that Santa Fe was the only town with
about 50 houses (Spanish males?) with about 200 persons. That the colonists were
occupied with their encomienda services and defense of the
area and that there only income was the tribute paid them by the Pueblo Indians.
He also said, "Mines (ore deposits) of gold and silver are not lacking in that
country, as is evident from the experience that has been had with metals that have
been brought from there, but up to the present no mines have been worked there
because of the unfitness and poverty, not only of the Indians but also of the
Spaniards." (Hackett, 1937, p. 109). This
sounds very much like a paraphrasing of Salmeron's book which was published 8 years
earlier, which was probably available to Father Prada. One of Father Prada's
objectives was to defeat a proposal to end New Mexico's exemption from paying
tribute (taxes) to the Crown. He said the Christian Indians could not afford to
pay any tribute beyond the encomienda tribute they already paid to the colonists.
Statements by New Mexicans after the reconquest indicated that objects made of
silver were plentiful in New Mexico before the revolution
(Hendricks, 1994). The fact that at least
one out of the 50 European residents of Santa Fe in the 1630s (2% of the adult
male population!) made a good living as a silversmith strongly indicates that
silver mining continued during the early provincial period.
Though Oñate received minor assistance from the Viceroy of New Spain as
early as the relief soldiers sent in 1600, an effort was made to try to find ways
for the colony to be self supporting, such as the search for a good seaport and
development of mineral resources. However, by the time the Crown took over the
colony and made it a province of New Spain, it had accepted the idea that New
Mexico would not be a self-supporting colony. The Crown accepted the idea that
New Mexico would survive only if the Crown subsidized the area through paying for
its missionary efforts to the Indians. Thus, governors sent by the Viceroy, as well
as most of the missionaries, probably considered the best means of improving the
lot of everyone in New Mexico would be the pleading of poverty and need for ever
greater financial support from the Crown. In that environment, it would be
treasonous for a government official or missionary, to claim there was anything
but poverty in the province and a need for greater Crown support.
Father Gerónimo de Zarate Salmeron's memorial, written about 1629
(Land of Sunshine, 1899, Milich, 1966,
Ayer, 1916, p. 217, note 21), implies that
Oñate's successor, Governor Peralta (1610-1614), was responsible for the
change in attitude toward mining. Father Benavides's memorial of 1630
(Ayer, 1916), when revised for publication in
1634 (Hodge, et al., 1945), had the section
on mining dropped from the book. Salmeron criticized the hostility toward mining
in New Mexico as the major cause of its poor economic condition.
Father Salmeron's memorial, as translated in Land of Sunshine (December, 1899,
pp. 43-44 given by Hodge, et al., 1945, p. 227-228), lists the locations in New
Mexico where minas (mines or ore veins) were known and he listed both Cienega and
San Marcos Pueblos on the west and east side, respectively, of the Cerrillos Hills.
The following is the 1899 translation as given by Hodge, et al.:
"It will be nine years since there came into that country (New
Mexico) in search of mines (assuming this is nine years prior to the writing of
the book which was probably written between 1626 and 1629 which would make the
year about 1620), three Flemings, citizens of this City of Mexico, named Juan
Fesco, Juan Descalzo, and Rodgrigo Lorenzo, very honest men of entire truth and
good example. They found many ore bodies, made many assays, got out silver-as we
all saw-and came back to this New Spain, where they bought tools and other
necessary articles and got a miner and a refiner. They returned a second time.
The day the news [of their return] reached the town of the Spaniards [Santa Fe]
that these said Flemings were returning to work mines, that same night they set
fire to the workshops in which they were to treat the ore. The which was done
since Don Pedro de Peralta was governor [ca. 1608-1621] (sic 1610-14); for he
was inclined to this; and with his contracts everything became quiet. By this is
seen their depraved temper, and that it troubles them, since they are enemies of
silver, that others should mine it." (first printed in Land of Sunshine, December,
1899, pp. 43-44 and reprinted Ayer, 1916, p. 218)
The next to the last sentence implies Peralta tried to stop mining. The last
sentence states that New Mexicans were hostile to others (outsiders) mining silver.
The Flemings' silver mines must have been those of the Cerrillos Hills since they
located the refinery in Santa Fe. Bandelier interpreted the comment on the burning
of machinery as having occured, "in the time of Governor Peralta".
(Bandelier, 1890, p. 196, continuation of note 1
from page 195)
Salmeron and other writings between 1610 and 1680 seem to indicate that at least
"officially" no mining was occurring. However, one of the Flemish miners mentioned
by Salmeron, Rodrigo Lorenzo, stayed in Santa Fe. In a 1639 testimonial, it
incidentally mentions that he was the bondsman (provided the money) for a church
purchase and his occupation is listed as silversmith (Hackett, 1937, vol 3, p. 72).
It seems unlikely that a silversmith could make a living in a remote province of
less than a hundred European families that constantly pleaded poverty if no silver
mining was occurring. The most reasonable hypothesis is that silver mining
continued and that the silver was made into jewelry and other objects which
avoided the tax on newly mined silver, which varied from 10 to 20%.
New Mexico from the early 1600s on was a province subsidized by the King of Spain.
It was exempt from most taxation and the King's subsidy of the Franciscan
Missionary effort was its major source of hard currency for imports. There was
constant pleading of poverty and requests for the King to increase the funds he
paid for the Franciscan missionary work in New Mexico. The King's financing of the
missionaries and provincial officials has in the past been considered the major
source of income for the colony. Surviving records indicate that little was
produced in the way of exports, but the possibility of unrecorded silver exports
has not been considered. According to past writings, which ignored the possibility
of mining, the royal subsidy was an essential part of the economy and without it
the colony probably would not have survived. The concept that New Mexicans in the
1600s were poor is starting to be revised
(Kraemer, 1993, 1994). It is possible that
any profitable activity such as mining was considered threatening to the royal
subsidy and thus should be kept quiet.
A few of the writings of the early 1600s mention the silver ores of the San
Marcos area but do not mention any mining. Zarate Salmeron lists both San Marcos
and La Cienega Pueblos as having mineral ores by them and he lists silver as one
of the ore types for New Mexico. Father Benevidez, who also lived in New Mexico
during the 1620s, mentions that there is silver by San Marcos Pueblo but does not
mention its being mined (Ayer, 1916). Fray Juan de Prada, in 1638, said that
"mines (minas= mines or ore veins) of gold and silver are not lacking (in New
Mexico)... but to the present no mine has been worked there because of the
unfitness and poverty not only of the Indians but also of the Spaniards" (Hackett,
1937,vol. 3 p. 109). Either knowledge of all previous mining had been lost by the
time Father Prada wrote, or past and current mining was ignored in order to plead
the poverty of the province and its need for more financial support from the King.
The latter seems more likely, as Father Prada must have known that Lorenzo, the
Santa Fe silversmith, the next year loaned money to the Franciscans.
We know that at least to some small degree mining continued in the 1600s. There
is archaeological evidence of silver mining in the Manzanos during or shortly
after the Oñate Period
(Hibben, et al, 1985), and in the Tuerto area.
Three smelters were dated to the 1650-1670 period west of the Ortiz-San Mateo
Mountains on the basis of pottery types
(Warren & Weber, 1979). Some of the pottery
associated with mines in the Cerrillos Hills also dates to the 1610-1680 period
(Warren, 1971,
Sundt, 1973). There is an unsubstantiated
report of five mines operating in the Placitas area in 1667
(Toomey, 1953). Just as surviving documents
are silent on the continued mining of turquoise by the Pueblo Indians, they may
have ignored what ever metal mining was occurring.
Roque Madrid II told Vargas in 1694 that his father operated a lead mine in the
Cerrillos Hills before 1680. The Pueblo Indians continued to make lead-glazed
pottery throughout the 1600's so we know someone was mining lead for the pottery.
The European and Tlascalan colonists of New Mexico as well as the local Indians
must have continued to mine lead for local needs throughout the 1600s. The cost
of shipping goods from Mexico to New Mexico made lead of much greater relative
value here than elsewhere in New Spain.
Only one Spanish document, written 80 years later, states that "mines were being
worked" at the time of the 1680 revolt. Father Juan Sanz de Lezaun wrote on
November 4, 1760, about the deplorable conditions in New Mexico that conditions
were better there before 1680.
"In the year 1680 occurred the general uprising, on the day of
Señor San Lorenzo, with the loss of sixty odd missions, many little pueblos
which were visitations, and numerous haciendas-all stocked with cattle and sheep,
and large droves of horses and mules. Every year large numbers of these animals
were being exported; mines were being worked, as is evident because their remains
prove it, not only in regard to mines, but other industries as well. Indeed,
there are still living many old men both in New Mexico and in the vicinity of
Chihuahua who say so." (Hackett, 1937, p. 468). "Besides the silver-bearing ores,
which are well known, there is much copper, lead, antimony, and everything necessary
for mining. ... But all this lies waste, a kingdom with such great resources void
of human energy because it is so poor and so neglected by the governors, for these
gentlemen attend only to filling their own pockets."
(Hackett, 1937, p. 470)
This is the only case located where a Franciscan missionary mentions that there
was mining in New Mexico. He could do this as it did not work against his objective
of showing the need in 1760 for Royal support of the missionary effort in New Mexico.
Father Augustín Vetancurt wrote a history of the Franciscan's missionary work in
the New World. Though his work was published in 1698 and presumably written about
1691, the documents he used for information on New Mexico were probably written
decades earlier. Thus, his comments generally represent reports written on New
Mexico in the decades from 1620 to 1680. In his listing of all the pueblos the
Franciscans had ministered to in New Mexico, he says number, "57. San
Marcos.- ... with two little towns: the first San Lázaro, with a church, and the
other La Cienega, has neighboring mountains or hills, bare and rocky, where you
can find metals of lead, and silver and you can get turquoise rock." The original
Spanish is: "57. San Marcos- ... con dos pequeños Pueblos: e uno S. Lázaro,
con su Iglesia, y el otro la Cienega, tiene vezino un monte pelado, y pedregoso,
dónde se hallan metales de plomo, y plata, y se sacan piedras chalchihuites..."
(Vetancurt, 1961, p. 278). Though he only
implies the potential for mining by saying, "where you can find metals of lead,
and silver", his report at least shows that knowledge of the Cerrillos deposits
were well known before the 1680 revolution. Silver objects were also reported by
the colonists years later as being plentiful
(Hendricks, 1994) in New Mexico before the
1680 revolt. Silver mining resumed on a large scale in the Cerrillos Hills
following the revolt in 1695.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE LOS CERRILLOS AREA,
1643-1880s
The secondary literature of the 20th Century does not pinpoint the Spanish
settlement area of "Los Cerrillos". However, it often contains some comment that
it was close to the modern town of Cerrillos. This is correct only in a very crude
sense. The Spanish Los Cerrillos was the area extending from the modern community
of Cienega for about two miles to the southeast. Thus, it is over 7 air miles
[11.3 km] northwest of the modern town of Cerrillos. The
"Los Cerrillos Area Pre-1680" map shows the
17th-Century names of the area and the distances from San Marcos Pueblo and Santa
Fe. What today are called the Cerrillos Hills, were referred to as the "Sierras"
or "Serrillos" of San Marcos (mountains or heights of San Marcos Pueblo) starting
in the 1500s. They continued to be called the mountains of San Marcos throughout
the 1600s after the pueblo three miles east of them.
The first reference to Los Cerrillos as a place name is 1660, but the area
name probably dates from the 1630s. The etymology of the term "Los Cerrillos"
is generally given as Spanish for "The Little Hills". If that is the origin
of the name, the little hills are what today are called Cerro de la Cruz and
Bonanza Hill, north of Alamo Creek, just southeast of the community of Cienega.
Some portion of the Cienega (marshy or natural dense grass covered area) along
Cienega Creek and/or Alamo Creek were probably granted to Diego Marquéz
before 1643. By 1660, it was the established name for the Spanish settlement
area around Alamo Creek and lower Cienega. The earliest reference to the
Sierras of San Marcos or what we call the Cerrillos Hills by the name
Cerrillos, little hills, is 1782. Juan Morfi (1782) mentions the mineral ores
of "Los Cerrillos De Sta Fe" a century and a half after the name Los Cerrillos
was established for the agricultural area to the north of the hills. The
history of the use of the name thus seems to indicate that what we call the
Cerrillos Hills acquired the name Los Cerrillos from the ranching-farming
area to their north rather than the other way around.
La Cienega Pueblo was abandoned in 1680, and the new Spanish settlers of the
area in the 1700s used its name, Cienega, for their settlement. The term Los
Cerrillos after 1692 seems to have been confined to only the Alamo Creek area.
Confusion about the location of the Spanish Period Los Cerrillos did not occur
until this century.
CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE
1632 - First reference to a ranch (estancia) in
the area.
1630s? - Prior to his execution in 1643, Diego
Marquéz established a hacienda (ranch) at Los Cerrillos, described as two leagues
closer to Santa Fe than San Marcos Pueblo and close to the small Pueblo of La
Cienega.
1660 - Testimony for the inquisition was taken at
Diego Marquéz's widow's hacienda called "La Casa de Los Cerrillos".
1661 - Jerónimo de Carvajal was alcalde mayor of
Galisteo and the other Tano pueblos, and his ranch was named "Nuestra Señora de
los Remedios de los Cerrillos". His wife was Diego Marquéz's daughter, Margarita,
who was the mistress of Governor Juan Manzo (1656-59). She allegedly buried a doll
as a dead child at La Cienega Pueblo so that her illegitimate son with Manzo could
go with his father to Mexico City.
1664 - May 26, Governor Peñalosa stopped to visit
Margarita Marquéz (Carvajal's wife) at their Los Cerrillos ranch on his way out
of New Mexico (Scholes, 1936, pp35-38). This
indicates that the ranch house was close to the Camino Real and the Pueblo of La
Cienega was also close to the road (note 7).
The Camino Real passed west of what we call the Cerrillos Hills and divided into
two branches south of Alamo Creek. The western branch passed the Colorado College
Site (Marquéz hacienda) and went up through Cienega and along the
Santa Fe River to Santa Fe. The eastern branch went up Alamo Creek and passed
between the small hills (Los Cerrillos) north of the stream and crossed the plains
to Santa Fe (Marshall, 1991) and these
routes persisted to the late 1800s. There was no known Spanish or Mexican road
near the modern town of Cerrillos until the development of Placer Viejo in the
1820s.
1680 - The people of Los Cerrillos assembled at
the house of Bernabé Marquéz (brother of Margarita) and held off the
rebels until ordered into Santa Fe on 8/12/1680
(Hackett and Shelby, 1942, p. 11).
1692 - Los Cerrillos Grant gives its location as
4 to 5 leagues from Santa Fe, which is 10.4 to 13 miles [16.7 to 20.9 km], and
is the distance south of Santa Fe to the Alamo Creek-Cienega area. This land grant
is a 1750 forgery.
1695 - De Vargas founded an offical mining camp
which he named "Real de Los Cerrillos" to support three mines six leagues from
Santa Fe.
1696 - The 1696 revolt caused Governor Vargas to
order the abandonment of Real de Los Cerrillos. Possibly due to orders from the
Viceroy not to found new towns and to keep the small Spanish population
concentrated, it was not reoccupied.
1697-1703 - Governor Rodríguez Cubero confiscated
Gov. Vargas's property. There is no record of any mines being registered by Vargas
or Cubero. However, Cubero shipped silver to Mexico City during this period
(Hendricks, 1993, 1994).
1709 - General Juan de Uribarrí
(note 6), the executor of Governor Cubero's
will in New Mexico, claimed the Santa Rosa Mine, which previously belonged to
Governor Cubero, as abandoned and claimed it for himself. Its location was
described as "Cerrillos de San Marcos".
1750 - Ruins of old buildings were still visible
on Alamo Creek and were claimed to be Aguilar's Los Cerrillos hacienda from the
1692-96 period. Aguilar was the mayor of the mining camp, Real de los Cerrillos,
and probably did not have a ranch at Los Cerrillos, as the 1692 document giving
him a land grant in the area is a forgery. Thus, the ruins were not from a hacienda
he built, but from Real de Los Cerrillos.
1788 - The description of the Los Cerrillos Grant
given in the successful effort to get Aguilar's forged 1692 Los Cerrillos Grant
reconfirmed was as follows: Bounded on the south by "Los Cerros Altos" (tops of
the highest hills south of Alamo Creek) and on the east by the road from Santa Fe
to Galisteo Pueblo (which ran several miles east [1 mile = 1.6 km] of where New
Mexico 14 runs today.) and on the north by the Cañada Guicu (one of the
arroyos going east from the Cienega area) and Los Bacas (the lands of the Baca
Family which were probably north and east of Cienega). Thus, it was a much larger
area than approved by the U.S. Government in the 1800s for the Los Cerrillos Land
Grant.
circa 1800 - Water dispute between Juana Lopez
Grant and Los Cerrillos Grant.
circa 1830 - Alvarado discovers or reopens the
Santa Rosa Mine.
1846-1869 - All of the Cerrillos Hills were claimed
as part of the Baca y Delgado Family Land Grant and at least one mine was leased
from them. In 1870, the U.S. Government rejected their claim and opened the area
up for public purchase.
1850-1900 - Grant Requests to U.S. Government for
recognition of the Los Cerrillos and Sitio de Los Cerrillos Grants give early
Spanish documents, and 1800s testimony of people who lived in the area and what
they thought was Los Cerrillos. Original Spanish grant documents showed that the
southern boundary of Los Cerrillos Land Grant was the tall hills. The final grants
approved were very small and only spanned Alamo Creek.
1871 - Steven B. Elkins purchases land where he
assumed a town could be built following the arrival of the railroad. He or Tom
Catron, whom he left in charge of developing the town about 1876, probably chose
the name Cerrillos without the article "Los" for the projected town. The name
without "Los" differentiated between the two locations. However, confusion on the
location of the Spanish Period Los Cerrillos begins in the late 1800s, though
there was no confusion in the U.S. Land Office or among local residents until much
later. There were a few furnaces from the Spanish or Mexican Period or even later
origin (1880's Cerrillos Town Map) on what became Elkins's "Cerrillos Townsite",
but there is no solid evidence of occupation of that town site earlier than the
1870s in spite of almost universal comments to the contrary in popular books and
histories.
1870-72 - Andrews and other locals buy the land with
the best old "Spanish" silver mines from the government.
1872 - Andrews reopens the Santa Rosa and Ruelena
Mines, and a few Hungry Gulch houses were probably started.
1879-80 - Major U.S. period mining rush to the
Cerrillos Hills and formal creation of mining districts. Five mining camps were
started, three of which became small mining towns, Cerrillos, Carbonateville, and
Bonanza.
The earliest use of the term "Los Cerrillos" (spelling varies) located is the
reference in 1660 by Father Nicholas de Chávez, who mentions a farm called
Los Cerrillos located two leagues (about the distance to Alamo Creek) from the
pueblo of San Marcos (Hackett 1937, vol 3, p. 153).
Father Chávez also stated that the pueblo of San Marcos is "six leagues
from Santa Fe". This, combined with the 1692 (1750) description that Los Cerrillos
is 4 to 5 leagues from Santa Fe, tells us that "Los Cerrillos" was north of San
Marcos Pueblo at about the distance of modern Alamo Creek. Estimating the ground
distances of travel requires guessing the route of travel. To avoid these errors,
air miles, a straight line, is used. In 1660 Father Chávez said San Marcos
was 6 leagues from Santa Fe and two leagues from Los Cerrillos. The Pueblo of La
Cienega was described in various ways (Hackett, 1937, vol. 3, pp. 228, 249, 261),
but the descriptions indicate it was close to Los Cerrillos.
Nelson (1914) was convinced that La Cienega
was the little Pueblo described by Castaño de Sosa as 2 leagues from San Marcos
Pueblo. Authors since Nelson have confused the history and location of La Cienega
Pueblo and note 7 tries to clarify its
name and location. The map titled "Los Cerrillos Area Pre-1680" (figure 2) shows
the distances between Santa Fe, San Marcos Pueblo and Los Cerrillos.
Otermin's journal relates the survival of the residents of Los Cerrillos and their
going to Santa Fe at the start of the 1680 revolt
(Hackett and Shelby, 1942, vol.1, p. 11).
Vargas's Journals and letters to the viceroy reported by
Espinosa (1942) indicate that Vargas was
actively promoting three mines in the Sierra de San Marcos in 1694, and his hope
that mining would promote settlers to come to the colony. In January, 1695. Vargas
said that he would visit the mines in the spring and that he was going to found
a mining camp in the area. Espinoza (1942) said Vargas was originally going to
name the mining camp after the Viceroy (this was not located by AML). The major
indication of the location of the mining camp is Vargas's naming of it Real de
Los Cerrillos. Giving it this place name strongly supports the idea that it must
have been at Los Cerrillos (Alamo Creek). Ruins of what were probably the mining
camp were still visible on Alamo Creek in 1750, but were falsely claimed as the
ruins of Aguilar's Los Cerrillos hacienda. The area was finally given to Aguilar's
descendants as the Los Cerrillos Land Grant in 1788.
No archaeological remains have been identified for the mining camp of Real de los
Cerrillos. Remains may exist, but the area has never been studied in enough detail
to locate any that may exist(note 8). Colorado
College has been excavating, for the past decade, a circa 1680 site that was
probably the Marquéz hacienda, about 8,000 feet northwest of the probable
location of the mining camp.
Where would Vargas have located the Real de Los Cerrillos? The essential
requirement would have been a constant and reliable source of water for the
arrastras and any "patios" that may have been planned or constructed, and the
site also should be as close as possible to the mines to minimize transportation
cost. Though there are two very small springs on the southern end of the hills,
the closest large and reliable source of water is Alamo Creek, or the Galisteo
River. As Vargas named the mining camp Real de Los Cerrillos, it logically must
have been located at Los Cerrillos (Alamo Creek). The term Los Cerrillos
apparently was restricted to the Alamo Creek area after 1692, and the term Cienega
came into use for the small river drainage where the pre-1680 Marquéz
hacienda and Pueblo of La Cienega were located.
If the ruins on Alamo Creek mentioned in the 1750 grant petition were the Real de
Los Cerrillos ruins, the site would be very close to the modern Hughes (Bonanza
Creek) Ranch house. If not, the site would have been within a few miles of the
ranch house. Vargas did not reopen the mining camp after the 1696 revolt and his
term as governor ended in 1697. Though Governor Cubero apparently took over
Vargas's mines or started his own, he as well as Vargas, had orders from the
Viceroy not to spread out the population and not to found new settlements. Thus
Cubero probably did not formally reactivate the mining camp.
Knowledge of the mining camp faded quickly in New Mexico and by 1750, when the Los
Cerrillos Land Grant request was made, the camp was claimed to be the ruins of
Alphonso Aguilar's Vargas Period ranch. Alfonso Aguilar died in 1735
(Chavez, 1973) and his will was not located,
but his son Alonso (aka Alfonso II, Alonzo II), whose children five years later
claimed an interest in the grant, did not claim in his 1745 will any interest in
a Los Cerrillos ranch. This indicates the ruins visible in 1750 on Alamo Creek
were the ruins of the mining camp.
The community or area term "Los Cerrillos" in Spanish times referred to the
agricultural areas at the upper end of what we call the Cerrillos Hills. Apparently
before the 1680 revolt, "Los Cerrillos" was a term applied to Spanish settlements
in Alamo Creek south of "the little hills", as well as around the Pueblo of La
Cienega west of them. Once La Cienega Pueblo was abandoned, its name became used
for the new Spanish settlements in that area and the term Los Cerrillos was
confined to the Alamo Creek area. Los Cerrillos does not appear on the Miera y
Pacheco maps of the 1700s. His son did not acquire the Sitio de Los Cerrillos
grant until 1788, after his maps were made. Los Cerrillos is not in Morfi's 1782
Geography of New Mexico, so it appears that no one was living in Los Cerrillos
when Escalante or whomever supplied the information to Morfi, did a survey of the
area. A Cerrillos ranch is mentioned in a 1764 mine grant, indicating that someone
was living along Alamo creek or that buildings were there at that time. The Sitio
de Los Cerrillos Land Grant claimants presented sale documents from the 1760s for
land on Alamo Creek, also indicating its private use.
The location descriptions for "Los Cerrillos" in all Spanish documents located
are compatible with the Alamo Creek area. Not until the founding of the railroad
community called "Cerrillos" without the article "Los" in front of it did confusion
occur in the literature. The Santa Fe Railroad first referred to Elkins's town
site as "Cerrillos Station" and later its name changed to Elkins's town plat name
of just "Cerrillos".
Pre-revolt Residents of Los Cerrillos
The earliest reference to the Pueblo of Cienega was probably by the explorer
Castaño de Sosa in 1591.
Nelson (1914, p. 27), referring to the
Oñate period reports said, "The Name San Marcos also occurs, however, and
somewhat near it is mentioned Cienega de Carabajal, undoubtedly the unnamed pueblo
referred to by Castaño de Sosa (1591) as being two leagues distant (from
San Marcos Pueblo)." This reference comes from the assignment of Friars to be
missionaries to the various Pueblos in the Fall of 1598. "Fr. Juan Rosas, (to)...
Sto Domingo,... Cochiti; that of the Cienega de Carabajal, S. Marcos,..." (original
Spanish in Bancroft, 1889,
Bandelier, 1890, and
Twitchell, 1911, vol. 1, p. 322). The use
of a Spanish surname as an adjective modifier of La Cienega Pueblo indicates a
relationship not seen in the naming of any other Pueblo. It could be an indication
that La Cienega Pueblo was already associated with the Carvajal family, possibly
as an encomienda paying tribute to the family.
There is a reference to a 1632 estancia (ranch) at La Cienega
(Kraemer, 1994), but the first references
to the area by the name Los Cerrillos is in the 1660s. Information on only two
families, the Marquézs and Carvajals, with haciendas in Los Cerrillos were
located. There were other Spanish residents in the area, but these were probably
the two major ranches before 1680, and the only area families whose history is
known. Roque Madrid's 1680 hacienda was about halfway between Los Cerrillos and
Santa Fe, and Ana Baca's El Alamo estancia (1661) was described as 4 leagues south
of Santa Fe (Kraemer, 1994). Morfi (1782)
gives us the description of these locations a century later. The estancia "Alamo"
is close to the estancia "las Golendrinas", each with only one family, and La
Cienega has four families and is bounded on the west by the estancia Alamo. Kraemer
(1994) also has a reference in 1632 of an Alonso Varela Jaramillo having an
estancia in La Cienega. The small Tano (or Tano/Queres) Pueblo community, La
Cienega, was also in the area (note 7).
It was probably within a half-mile of the Marquéz hacienda. It was probably
at some point either a Carvajal or Marquéz encomienda and was very close
to their haciendas in Los Cerrillos. However, the only known record gives it as
an encomienda of Francisco Anaya Almazán I and his son Cristóbal
(Chávez, 1973,
Snow, 1983), and indicates that Cristóbal
Marquéz was the trustee for the encomienda after Francisco's death in 1662,
while his son was imprisoned by the inquisition. Francisco Anaya Almazán's
wife's name was Juana Lopez and the name of the mesa south of Alamo Creek may
come from her name.
When the revolt started in 1680, the residents of the area assembled at the
hacienda of Bernabé Marquéz and held off the rebels until Governor
Otermin ordered them into Santa Fe. The hacienda being excavated by Colorado
College had a torreón (defensive tower). They tentatively dated its
abandonment to 1680. Thus, the most reasonable assumption as to its owner in 1680
is Bernabé Marquéz. The newspaper reported that Colorado College
had tree-ring dated one log in their excavation to 1629 (Santa Fe
New Mexican, 7/18/94, p. 1). Bernabé would more
likely have gotten the hacienda started by his father Diego than his sister and
her husband Gerónimo Carvajal. The Marquéz family may have been
related to Vincente de Zaldivar (Chávez, 1973), who started mining in the
Cerrillos Hills in 1599. Diego's father, Gerónimo Marquéz, reportedly
did not come to New Mexico until 1600 and established a hacienda in the Rio Abajo
(Chávez, 1973), so it was probably Diego who started the hacienda at Los
Cerrillos. Gerónimo Carvajal and his wife are the only other known wealthy
residents of pre-1680 Los Cerrillos. Antonio de Carvajal in 1681 reported that
the household contained 33 people of which only 8 or so were family members.
Fernando de Oñate
& Juan de Oñate Vincente de Zaldivar
uncles? cousin?
| |
| ----------
| |
Gerónimo Marquéz ------ Doña Ana de Mendoza
|
? ---------------------Diego Marquéz(?-1643)------------Bernardina Vasquez
| |
| ---------------------------------------------
| | | | |
| Cristóbal Bernabé----(A) Pedro, Margarita----Gerónimo Carvajal
| (note B) (1642-?) | (note C) (note D) | (note E)
| | |
Alonzo 6 children 6 children
Catiti (half-grown in 1680) (almost adults 1680)
(?-1684) Maria Ana (G) post-1658-?
(note F) Magdalena (H) post-1658-?
Josephina (I) post-1658-?
Antonio (J) 1658-?
Ambrosio 1656-?
Luís (K) 1661-?
NOTES:
note A: her name was Maria de Chávez
note B: Cristóbal is not discussed by
Chávez (1973) but was reported as the trustee
for the encomienda of La Cienega Pueblo in the 1660s (Snow, 1983).
note C: It is difficult, if not
impossible, to separate references to individuals with the same name three
hundred years later. The Pedro Marquéz that Chávez (1973) identifies as
Diego's son is his nephew as he was born 8 years after Diego's execution in 1643.
The Pedro born about 1640 was Diego's son. Which Pedro helped colonize Casas
Grandes in 1682 is not certain but was probably Bernabé's brother as he
may have taken Luís Carvajal with him.
note D: Margarita was born about 1639 and
a reproductive line to Governor Juan Manzo de Contreras with a possible son born
around 1659 should be on the chart for Margarita. Her first husband,
Gerónimo Carvajal, apparently died prior to 1681, and she remarried Alonzo
Garcia about 1682 in El Paso. Chávez (1973) lists her as Juan Garcia de Noriega's
(Alonzo Gracia's son's) first wife but also lists Juan as married when leaving
New Mexico in 1681. The error on who Margarita married led Chávez to other
interpretation problems. Their ages in 1681 were: Margarita Marquéz 38,
Alonzo Garcia 45, and his son, Juan Garcia de Noriega, was only 23. All of Alonzo
Garcia's children eventually added "de Noriega" to their names. Margarita's
marriage to the father, Alonzo Garcia, is confirmed by the marriage records of her
children. The informant for the marriage of "Maria Anna" to Miguel de Herrera in
1690 said the father was born in Zacatecas (as Alonzo was but his son, Juan, was
born in New Mexico) and that the mother, Margarita Marquéz, was dead.
Chávez's entry under Miguel de Herrera says, "His first wife at Guadalupe del
Paso was Mariana Garcia...". Under José de Contreras, "married, a Magdalena
de Carvajal or Garcia..." (Chávez, 1973). The "Josefa (Ana)" who married Alfonso
Rael de Aguilar in 1683 was probably the other daughter of Margarita Marquéz,
"Josephina". The primary document for Josephina's marriage to Alfonso Rael de
Aguilar, book one of the El Paso Matrimonial Records, is lost and the pages for
1683 are missing from the copy of the records
(Hendricks, 1994).
However, Bandelier's notes on this book exist and need to be checked to confirm
that "Josefa (Ana)" was Margarita's natural child, not a step-daughter, as Chávez
(1973) reported that "de Noriega" was used in her name.
If Alfonso Aguilar's wife was Josephina Carvajal de Marquéz, it would have
given him a claim to the Los Cerrillos area based on pre-revolt grants or land use,
and all comments that no pre-revolt Cerrillos residents returned after the revolt
probably needs to be qualified by, "except for Josephina Rael de Aguilar de Garcia
de Carvajal de Marquéz". A brief biography of Alfonso Aguilar is given by
Kessell & Hendricks (1992, p. 203, note 8).
note E: Gerónimo Carvajal was
born about 1632 in the Sandia District. Chávez (1973) said he is not on any 1681
list of survivors of the revolt and must have died in the revolt. If Antonio was
his son as Chávez (1992) suggests, he also said he was born in the Sandia District
about 1658, which indicates the family moved to Los Cerrillos after that date.
His sons Antonio and Ambrosio were probably the two Carvajal nephews Bernabé
Marquéz took with him in 1684.
note F: The Isleta Indian, Juan Moro,
reported on 2/12/1685 upon returning from northern New Mexico that Catiti had
died in his house shortly before he arrived there
(Waltz, 1951, p. 180).
Bancroft (1889, p. 185) incorrectly implies
in his translation of Escalante's Carta that Alonso died about 1688.
note G: Ana tried to poison her
husband, José de Cháves, in 1682 (Chávez, 1973).
note H: Chávez (1973), under José
de Contreras, says he was at El Paso "as early as 1687, when he married a Magdalena
de Carvajal or Garcia...". The confusion on Magdalena's last name probably came
from Margarita Marquéz being married to Alonzo Garcia, and thus the
matrimonial record probably contained Magdalena's mother's current last name,
Garcia, as well as Magdalena's natural fathers last name, Carvajal. Magdalena
apparently died in El Paso, as José de Contreras remarried there in 1693.
note I: The "Josefa (Ana) Garcia de
Noriega" (Chávez, 1973) that married Alfonso Rael de Aguilar in 1683 must be
Margarita Garcia de Marquéz's daughter, Josephina. Bandelier's notes from
the matrimonial book at the Peabody Museum (Chávez, 1973, p. 337) need to be
checked for other matrimonial information to verify this.
note J: Chávez (1973) indicates Luís
left El Paso without permission, probably with Pedro Marquéz. If Luís went
to Casas Grandes in 1682 with Pedro, then the two Carvajal nephews who left with
Bernabé Marquéz in 1684 (Kessell & Hendricks, 1992) must be Antonio
and Ambrosio.
note K: Luís is described by Chávez
(1973) as, "He followed Antonio in the muster-roll, whose younger brother he might
have been, or else a son of Felis (Luís) de Carvajal." Antonio, in 1680 said he
had four younger brothers and sisters (Abrosio was 2 years older, making the 6
Carvajal children).
See note 9 for further discussion of the
family history and note 10 for where they
went after 1680.
Based on historic documents, the Marquéz hacienda must have been started
before Diego Marquéz's execution in 1643 and Colorado College's earliest
reported tree ring dating of 1629 would support a 1630s building of the hacienda.
All land grants and other official documents were destroyed in the 1680 revolution,
so this is as close as we may get to document dating of the site.
Gerónimo Carvajal grew up on his father's estancia at the north end of the
Sandia Mountains, which was another prehistoric and early historic mining area.
The date of his marriage to Bernabé Marquéz's sister, Margarita,
is unknown, but it probably was the early 1650s. Chávez (1973) gives a date of
1656 for Margarita's scandalous affair with Governor Manzo (1656-1659). However,
if Antonio was her son, and he said he was born in the Sandia district in 1658
(Chávez, 1973), it indicates they moved to Los Cerrillos after his birth. Governor
Manzo could not have had much contact with her when she lived in the Placitas area,
so the affair probably started after they moved to Los Cerrillos around 1658.
Margarita must have given birth to Manzo's child while living in Los Cerrillos,
as she supposedly had a doll buried as a fake dead child at La Cienega Pueblo
(Hackett, 1937, vol. 3, p. 228).
Gerónimo Carvajal had enough political power to acquire a separate land
grant in the area, as he was alcalde mayor of Galisteo and the other Tano Pueblos
(Hackett, 1937, vol. 3, p.249). He just as likely could have received part of
Diego Marquéz's land via his wife, Margarita. In any case, by 1663 he had
a separate hacienda at Los Cerrillos called "Nuestra Señora de los
Cerrillos", as opposed to his mother-in-law's home called "La Casa de Cerrillos".
Members of the two families went to Casa Grande and other areas of Nueva Viscaya
in the 1680s, during the revolution. Bernabé and two of Gerónimo
Carvajal's sons may have gone to mine silver in Nueva Viscaya in 1684.
Though in the past it was believed that no members of the immediate Los Cerrillos
Marquéz or Carvajal families returned after the revolution was suppressed,
Alfonso Rael de Aguilar's wife was probably Margarita Marquéz's daughter.
Governor Vargas took over at least part of the area for his mining camp, Real de
Los Cerrillos, in 1695, and probably did not give out new land grants for the area.
The 1692 "Los Cerrillos" land grant is a forgery made in 1750, but Alfonso Rael
de Aguilar, through his wife, had a pre-revolt claim to the area, and Vargas may
have given him such a grant that was lost around 1745 as the claimant said in 1750.
Formal land grants may not have been given before the 1680 revolution, and if any
were issued, they were lost. Only land grants issued following the reconquest of
New Mexico in 1692-3 are known. Spanish law considered abandoned land grants
invalid and thus all Carvajal or Marquéz pre-revolt Los Cerrillos land grants became
invalid when they did not return to New Mexico.
The 1692 forged land grant to Alfonso Rael de Aguilar mentions prior settlement
of Los Cerrillos, but did not claim the area on the basis of his wife's
Carvajal-Marquéz family pre-1680 settlement there. A claim (lawsuit),
however, was made to part of the Cerrillos area in the 20th century, partially based
on Alonzo Catiti Marquéz's pre-1680 family ownership of the area by Santo
Domingo Pueblo. The so-called confirmation of Spanish and Mexican Land Grants in
New Mexico were in reality the creation of new land grants from the United States
Government. Many of the rules of Spanish and Mexican land grants were ignored in
this process. Though Twitchell's (1914, vol. 1)
number 14 discusses the 1692 Los Cerrillos Land Grant in some detail, it is
misleading and in error in many respects. It is discussed as a separate note
(note 11) to clarify its content. The so
called 1692 land grant was admitted in 1750 to be a copy made from memory, but
the evidence indicates it was a forgery.
The Alamo Creek Area, the post-1692 Spanish period Los Cerrillos, was prime
pasturage for the Santa Fe garrison horse herd from at least Vargas's time until
the U.S. conquest in 1846 (PLC #79, Roll 41, fs.
1284, 1287). It was not until the late 1700s that post-revolution land grants
were given in the Los Cerrillos area. The U.S. government created or recognized
three small land grants in the Cerrillos area, and through the efforts of Steven
B. Elkins and Thomas B. Catron, one very large one, the Mesita de Juana Lopez.
The oldest of these grants was recognized without a granting document based on
old sales documents dated in the 1760s. One land grant was given in 1782. The
other two were granted in 1788 to individuals connected to the Governor, or to
individuals who quickly sold their grants to officials connected to the Governor.
There may have been a prearranged agreement to allow what had previously been land
reserved for government use to be deeded to individuals. Either the associates of
Governor Concha (1788-1794) took advantage of him, or else he was in on the
reversal of Governor Gachupín's decision of 1750 to retain the area as pasture
for the garrison horses.
Microfilm copies of the Surveyor General (S.G.) case files and the later Court
of Private Land Claims (PLC) case files are at the Bureau of Land Management, the
State Records and Archives in Santa Fe, and at the National Archives.
See note 11 for a detailed discussion of
the so-called 1692 Grant as reported by Twitchell. The will of Alonso Rael de
Aguilar (aka Alphonso, or Alonso II), the son of Alfonso Rael de Aguilar, written
on his death bed in Santa Fe and dated May 20, 1745
(SANM, R. 4, f 1045-1051,
Twitchell # 765), lists a house in
Santa Fe and a house on the southern outskirts of town with a little land but no
other real estate. His will lists his property and assets in minute detail and
would have included any interest he had in Los Cerrillos property. His siblings
and children, five years later, claimed equal shares of the so-called 1692 Los
Cerrillos Land Grant even though he did not claim any interest in such a grant in
his will. Two Land Grant Claims were filed with the U.S. Government other than
the Los Cerrillos Grant, based on grants supposedly given to him or his father
Alfonso. They are both referred to as "Alfonso Rael de Aguilar Grants" in the New
Mexico Archives (one at Cuyamunga dated 1699, and the other just south of Santa
Fe in 1744). Both were denied or rejected by the Court of Private Land Claims for
various reasons.
The Los Cerrillos Land Grant was recognized by the U.S. based on the 1788 grant
given to Alfonso Rael de Aguilar's descendants, not the so-called 1692 grant.
The U.S. Government recognized that the 1692 grant's validity was questionable,
but the 1692 grant was considered irrelevant as the 1788 grant was considered
valid. The value of the 1692 (1750 forgery) Los Cerrillos Land Grant for this
report is that it gives us the concept of Los Cerrillos as of 1750. The 1692
Grant forgery was made by people familiar with the Los Cerrillos area. Forgers
generally try to be as accurate as possible about all elements they are not lying
about and, thus, the definition of Los Cerrillos is probably very reliable. The 1750
Grant request document does contain a few historical errors, such as the fact that
Alfonso Rael de Aguilar could not have built there until late 1693 (not 1692) when
he returned with Vargas. He left on June 6, 1696, when he and the other residents
of Real de Los Cerrillos were ordered to come to Santa Fe, thus he only lived there
between 2 and 3 years at the most and probably only one year. The forger was
unaware of "Real de Los Cerrillos", or was counting on Governor Vales Gachupín's
being unaware of it so that its ruins could be claimed as Aguilar's ranch. Another
problem is that the grant was dated only days after the 1692 Entrada to Santa Fe.
This was a poor choice for a date, as the Marquéz and
Carvajal family pre-revolt titles to the area would still have been valid until
1693. Thus Vargas would not have issued a new land grant to the area in 1692. If
Alfonso Rael de Aguilar had purchased or gotten permission from his mother-in-law,
Margarita Marquéz, or her brother, Bernabe, to their pre-revolt lands in Los
Cerrillos, it should have been included in a 1692-dated grant. A land grant would
not have interfered with mining in the area
(note 12).
In late 1694, or early January 1695, Governor Vargas appointed Alfonso (Rael) de
Aguilar alcalde (mayor) of the new mining camp, "Real de Los Cerrillos", and if
he lived there, it was in that capacity. His background in mining before 1685 is
unknown. He was involved in New Mexico mining or at least acquired part ownership
of a mine grant ten years before his appointment as mayor of the mining camp. On
March 25, 1685, the soldier Pedro de Avilos received a mine grant named "Nuestra
Señora de Pilar de Zaragosa" from Governor Domingo Jironza (Petriz de
Cruzarte). Aguilar received a 1/2 interest in the mine grant. This is the oldest
"Land Record" document in the New Mexico Archives and is the earliest mine grant
that has survived. Thus, Twitchell (1916)
numbered this mine grant document number one (volume I) of his catalog of the New
Mexico Archives.
This 1685 mine grant being the oldest surviving mine grant has been commented on
by most writers discussing New Mexico mining, from
Bandelier (1890) onward. The original
(SANM, Roll 1, frames. 81-83) has both interpretation and translation difficulties.
The best translation located is in the Ritch
Collection (RI 16) in the Huntington Library. When Ritch did his translation,
it was document 54 in the Surveyor General's Office. The mine
was described as 45 leagues north of El Paso, almost half way to Santa Fe, which
was considered 100 leagues north of El Paso. It was in the mountains or craggy
rocks called "Xgtonal" (my decipher) or "Xotoreal" (WPA decipher).
Hendricks (1994) indicated the word was
probably "Xptoval". Ritch and others have translated the mountain's name as the
Fray Cristóbal (note 13).
Authors generally refer to the grant as the "Pedro de Avalos Grant" even though
he transferred title in the original application. In the grant petition he gave
1/2 to Captain Alfonso de Aguilar and the other half equally to Juan Garcia de
Noriega and his brother Antonio de Avalos.
Pedro Avalos claimed that it was a new mineral discovery made "... when order of
His Majesty the(sp?) M_u__s(sp?) of New Mexico was entered..." (Ritch, RI 16,
Huntington Library). Neither the WPA translator nor I can decipher the two (sp?)
words. Ritch felt he could, but I can not decipher his hand written translation
of the two words. The original does not look similar to the names of any of the
governors of the period. If Avalos was on the 1681 Otermin entrada (the 1681
entrada muster role is in SANM, but was not checked), why did he wait four years
to file the mine grant? It is of interest as it may refer to a second entrada
into New Mexico on the order of Jironza in the 1683-85 period. A reference to an
early 1683 entrada is made by Waltz (1951, p. 179),
but no report on it has been mentioned in the general histories of the period.
An early 1683 entrada would still have been two years prior to the mine grant.
The grant was signed both by Governor (Jironza) Cruzate and by "Alphoniso de
Aguilar" (aka Alfonso Rael de Aguilar) as Secretary of Government and War. Alfonso
may have written the document, and half of the mine grant may have been given to
him for his services and in getting the governor's approval. We do not know if
Aguilar or the other owners ever worked the mine, but it was not far south of
Soccoro, where there were pre-revolt mines.
Robert Eveleth (1990) of the New Mexico
Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources only knows of manganese deposits in the
north end of the Fry Cristóbal Mountains, and said that it has been assumed
that Avalos mistook one of them for a silver deposit.
In 1707-1708, there was a silver mining rush to a new area discovered by where
Chihuahua City is now located, and in 1709 Alfonso Rael de Aguilar was there
acting as scribe (Kessell & Hendricks, 1992,
p. 203, n. 8). By 1713, Alfonso was back in New Mexico and obtained another
mine grant (SANM-LR, Roll 4, fs. 896-899, T# 739).
This mine, which he named "Nuestra Señora de los Reyes de Linares", was in
what we today call the San Pedro Mountains south of Golden. He divided the
ownership of that mine amongst 9 or 10 people including his son, Alphonso (aka
Alonso) Rael de Aguilar (this father and son with the same or similar names may
be confused in some references), and his grandsons. Aguilar, besides being Alcalde
of Real de Los Cerrillos and adjacent Rio Grande Pueblos in 1695-6, was secretary
to three Governors, Jironza de Cruzarte, Vargas, and Rodríguez Cubero. He worked
with his fellow military-politico, Antonio de Ulibarrí (aka Uribarrí), who took
over the Santa Rosa mine in the Cerrillos in 1709 and claimed another in the San
Pedros in 1710 in the area of Aguilar's mine grant of 1713. Uribarrí remained in
important offices and was Alcalde Mayor of Santa Fe in 1745 and co-executrix with
Alonso Aguilar's wife of his 1745 will.
The first record of Alfonso Rael de Aguilar being in New Mexico is his marriage
in El Paso in 1683 to Josepha (Ana) Garcia de Noriega (probably Josephina the
daughter of Margarita Marquéz and Gerónimo Carvajal). After
rejection of the 1692 document, the 1750 claimant reportedly admitted to Joseph
de Bustamante that the original document the 1750 copy was supposedly made from
did not exist, but claimed it had existed until about 5 years earlier (the time
of Alonso Aguilar's death). The official 1750 denial of the Los Cerrillos
1692-land grant gives three reasons: 1. It was not and had not been occupied, 2.
No original grant had been supplied and claimant agreed they could not supply an
original, and 3. The area was the closest and best pasturage for the garrison
horse herd.
The term "Sitio" as used here was the Spanish-Americanism for a small farm and is
not referring to its use in one of three different large units of land measurement.
Petitioned for on January 21, and granted January 24, 1788, to Cleto de Miera and
Pedro Bautista by Governor Concha (1788-1794). Petition boundaries: east "ojo (
spring) de los Cerrillos", west "sitio de Juana Lopez", north "sitio de las
Cienega", and south "the wooded hills". In the granting document (1/24/1788) the
east boundary was changed to "lands of the heirs of Alfonso Real", (the Los
Cerrillos Grant) made at the same time, and the west boundary was restated as
"lands of Piño" (the Sitio de Juana Lopez Grant).
In a 1893 testimony of Jesus Narraes, he said he lived at the Piño Ranch
house, which was the only house in the area. He said the boundaries of the grant
were: West of the arroyo, which is at the foot of the Mesita de Juana Lopez; North
is the Alto de Guieu; South is the Alto de los Cerrillos; East is a small hill
"Lomita de los Esturcos(sp?)". (SGR, no. 229, PLC No. 79, Roll 41, f. 1244-). He
also reported that the area was used for pasture for the garrison horses from 1750
to 1846 (f.1284 & 1287).
The petitioner to the U.S. did not have the original grant, but had sales documents
starting with a sale dated December 30, 1762, and several more leading to
Piño in 1788.
The original grant was to three Romero Brothers on January 18, 1782. This grant
went from the lowest part of Alamo Creek where it drains into the Santa Fe River
east to what later was the Sitio de Juana Lopez Grant and south to the southern
edge of the mesa (Mesita de Juana Lopez). Under the ownership of Steven B. Elkins
and Thomas B. Catron, the grant was greatly expanded in the 1870's. In the 1870s,
Elkins and Catron acquired an 8/9 interest in the grant
(Elkins letter to Catron 8/15/79, 24 (53)).
The other 1/9 was owned by Antonio Ortiz, which he mortgaged to the First National
Bank of Santa Fe (though that 1/9 may have been in Catron's name) (T.B. Catron
letter to S.B. Elkins, 2/26/1904, no number). The 1876 grant survey by Rollin J.
Reeves took it all the way to just north of the modern town of Madrid. They then
used the overlap with the Ortiz Mine Grant, which Elkins controlled to get a major
stock interest in the Cerrillos Coal and Iron Company which Elkins created in 1884
to develop the Madrid Coal field. The public record has misled some to think that
Catron owned the grant and was in conflict with Elkins over the south boundary,
which was not the case. They cooperated in defending the grant against several
efforts by government officials to reduce its size.
Los Cerrillos Residents after 1800
The title transfers of the four land grants after 1788 was not researched for this
report. The documents encountered do not give a complete picture and a number of
questions remain. After the U.S. occupation only two families seem to have
dominated the area and were consistently mentioned: the Delgados in the eastern
portion, and the Pinos in the western portion of the Los Cerrillos (Alamo or
Bonanza Creek) area.
Don Clito Miera y Pacheco (a son of Bernardo Miera y Pacheco, the multi-talented
map maker, santero, metallurgist, and politico) was one of the two recipients of
the 1788 Sitio de Los Cerrillos Grant.
Twitchell (1914, #14) said Clito Miera y
Pacheco bought the Los Cerrillos Land Grant from the Penas in 1791 for 450 pesos.
Clito sold his Los Cerrillos ranch, which must have included both Los Cerrillos
grants prior to October 13, 1803, when he signed a document accepting payment for
the ranch. [The details of the sales price as given by
Boyd (1974, p. 284) is in note c at the end
of Appendix 3.] Clito sold the two Los Cerrillos grants to Don Miguel Delgado
(senior, who died in 1815), who turned the ranch over to his son of the same name.
The Pinos were the recipients of the small 1788 Sitio de Juana Lopez Grant on the
west side of the Sitio de Los Cerrillos Grant. An undated fragment of a lawsuit
(SANM I, R. 6, F. 1282, no date; Twitchell
#1326, R. 4, f. 592-593) notes the Pino testimony regarding a water conflict
between Pino and Manuel Delgado (junior). This document must date from after 1803,
when Delgado bought Clito Miera's Los Cerrillos ranch. The document refers to an
earlier agreement to present water disputes to Governor Fernando Chacon (1794-1805).
Delgado was depriving Pino of water by storing it in several reservoirs on his
ranch, and had fenced the springs on the Juana Lopez Arroyo (Alamo Creek?).
Delgado claimed he had a document given to his father by Don Francisco Montoya
which allowed him to do what he had done. If such a document existed, Pino said
that Delgado must produce it for the court. Pino, on the other hand, claimed that
his grant antedated Delgado's, and therefore he had the primary water right.
This is of special interest as both the Sitio de Juana Lopez Grant (Pino grant of
1788) and the Sitio de Los Cerrillos and Los Cerrillos grants were given in the
same year. Thus, if Pino's statement that his ranch antedated Delgado's was correct,
it implies that Pino had acquired the only earlier grant in the area (Juana Lopez
of 1782).
The Wheeler (circa 1874) map of the area
shows only the Pino ranch house in the valley. It is difficult to decipher its
exact location, but it was probably on the Juana Lopez Grant. Nicolas Pino operated
the Juana Lopez Post Office, there from 1866 to 1870. Testimony of witnesses in
the land grant records (SGR, #64) claimed the Pino ranch was the only occupied
ranch during some periods in the 1800s. The Delgado ranch house was probably close
to the present location of Glen Hughes' home, which incorporated some old adobe
walls when it was constructed. The Delgados and Pinos were the dominant families
of Los Cerrillos until the four land grants were sold to Anglo interests in the
1870s. In the 1870s, surrounding land was opened up by the government and several
farm homesteads were patented east of the Los Cerrillos Grant. During the last
hundred years most of the area has been sold by the government to individuals.
Approximately 11,000 acres [4,451.5 hectares] have been consolidated into the
Bonanza Creek Ranch east of the Juana Lopez Grant.
MINING IN THE LATE SPANISH PERIOD -
VARGAS AND LATER, 1693-1821
Real de Los Cerrillos, 1695-96
Copies of the Vargas era records are at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in hard
copy and on microfilm, but are not organized and it is difficult to locate
Espinoza's (1942) references. The "Vargas
Project" at UNM is in the process of translating and publishing Vargas's Journals
and related materials; however, as of 1994 they have only published up to 1693
(Kessel, 1989,
Kessel and Hendricks, 1993). The years 1695
and 1696 will not be published until sometime in 1996
(Hendricks, 1994). We will have to wait for
their publication to get the complete picture of Real de Los Cerrillos. The Vargas
Project publication will make the historical community aware of Vargas's Real de
Los Cerrillos mining camp and hopefully lead to its being given its proper place
in New Mexico History. It is not only the only known official Spanish mining camp,
it is also one of the earliest official European communities in New Mexico history,
preceded only by San Gabriel and Santa Fe, with Santa Cruz and Bernalillo being
founded in the same year as the Real.
Espinoza (1942) is the only individual to deal with the subject of Real de Los
Cerrillos and its silver mines in the Cerrillos Hills in the past. Except for his
book, it has been ignored by all writers of the history of New Mexico. The only
exceptions are a few small gray-literature reports and a few misquotes or
mistranslations of Real de Los Cerrillos. See
note 14 for all located past references
to the mining camp.
On January 10, 1695, Vargas wrote a letter to his superior, the Conde de Galve,
the Viceroy of New Spain in Mexico City.
"tengo nombrado Alcalde Mayor para dichos
pueblos/ con más el Real de Minas que se Poblare
I have named an alcalde mayor for these pueblos/ and also for the Mining Camp
that is to be settled
en el mineral descubierto a distancia de seis legauas de esta
Villa ..."
in the mineral district discovered at a distance of six leagues from this town
(Santa Fe)
The distance of six leagues (15.6 miles) from Santa Fe fits the location of the
Santa Rosa Silver Mine as well as the Mina del Tiro. The knowledge of these silver
mines was not new but well known since 1581. Vargas reported that the ore was
easily worked, and that he had done three assays which showed four ounces per 100
pounds (80 ounces per ton) of silver as well as good flux material that would aid
in the smelting of the ore. He would go there personally in the Spring when the
weather was better and had appointed a mayor for the "Real de Mina" mining camp,
as well as the Indian Pueblos of the area. (Vargas to Viceroy, 1/10/1695,
A.G.N., tomo 39, old p. #380-384 or stamped
pages 1100-1108)
On April 19, 1695, the Viceroy (Viceroy to Vargas, 4/19/1695,
AGN, tomo 38, stamped page 177) and officials
of the Real de Hacienda (AGN, tomo 39, in two different places, stamped pages
1127-1129 and 1130) wrote back to Vargas asking Vargas to keep his excellency (the
viceroy) informed on the mines discovered six leagues from Santa Fe. The Vargas
Project may reveal other 1695 references to the mines and the Real.
One contemporary, 1695, non-Vargas reference to "Cerrillo" (Real de los Cerrillos)
was located. "En este mismo año de (16)95 ... viendo ya dispersos a los
españoles en las poblaciones de Santa Fe, villa nueva de Santa Cruz,
Cerrillo y Bernalillo, ..." (Turanzas, 1962,
p. 394). This translates about as follows "In this same year of 1695 ...
looking at the dispersion of the Spanish in the population centers of Santa Fe,
the new village of Santa Cruz, Cerrillos and Bernalillo, ...".
This contemporary reference supports Vargas's establishment of Real de Los
Cerrillos in 1695 rather than early 1696. Real de Cerrillos, though only in
existence for a little over a year, was between the third and fifth oldest
official Spanish community in New Mexico, being preceded only by the founding
of San Gabriel in 1598 or 1599, and Santa Fe in 1601 or 1605. Santa Cruz and
Bernalillo were both founded in 1695, along with Real de Los Cerrillos. The
founding documents for Santa Cruz exist in the New Mexico archives, but founding
documents are not known for Bernalillo or Real de los Cerrillos. Unless specific
dates are found, it can not be determined which of these new 1695 communities
came first.
Espinosa (1942, p. 239, note 27) gives a paraphrasing of Vargas's letter to the
viceroy of March 28, 1696. "... He further points out that he had been working
three mines, hoping to obtain results sufficient to attract settlers [to New
Mexico]; that one showed silver ore content, and that prayers were being offered
to Our Lady of Remedies, along with other pious acts, in the hope of better
success." Espinosa indicates that this letter is in
AGI, legajo 141 (confirmed by
Rick Hendricks, 1994) but was not located by
AML. Hendricks (1994) indicated that "Nuestra Señora de Remedios" was the
name of one of the three mines Vargas was working so Espinoza (1942) may have
misinterpreted this sentence. "Nuestra Señora de Remedios" was also Vargas's
patron saint (Kessell, 1989, p. 93). Probably
only by coincidence, "Nuestra Señora de Remedios" (Our Lady of Remedies),
was also part of Gerónimo Carvajal's Los Cerrillos ranch name.
On June 4, 1696 all but four pueblos started an organized revolt and it took a five
month campaign before the insurrection was over. Vargas's journal entry of June 6,
1696: "During the course of the day, Captain Alfonso Rael de Aguilar, alcalde
mayor of the Real de Los Cerrillos and the pueblo of Santo Domingo entered Santa
Fe with the families of the Real and surrounding haciendas."
(Espinoza, 1942, p.247). Very likely the
rebels burned the mining camp but no reference to its fate was located.
Thus, it appears that the Real de Los Cerrillos was founded some time during the
year 1695, and was abandoned on June 6, 1696, never to be reoccupied. By the time
the five month campaign to quell the revolt was over, Vargas apparently had
decided to restrict Spanish population to fewer and more defensible settlements.
If the Real de Los Cerrillos was reoccupied, no record of it has been found. The
only other 1696 reference located was the testimony of the Indian Francisco
Tempano on the rebels plan of attack in the revolt. "... the Indians assembled in
the Sandia mountains, would attack Bernalillo and from there advance to lay siege
to Los Cerrillos." (Espinoza, p. 253, from Vargas journal, Santa Fe, June 13,
1696). Tempano had been captured near the Alamo hacienda just north of Los Cerrillos
and was brought into Santa Fe by the Los Cerrillos refugees for questioning.
Though no reference to Cerrillos mining was located after the 1696 revolt, mining
probably continued as Vargas's letter to the viceroy of April 29, 1697, contained
a request for mining tools. (Espinoza, 1942, p. 305, reference given is uncertain
but probably refers to Vargas letter to Conde de Galva of 4/29/1697).
Vargas's term of Governor ended on July 2 or 4, 1697, and he reluctantly handed
over the governorship to Cubero. Vargas had tried unsuccessfully to block Cubero's
taking of the New Mexico Governorship after his appointment as Vargas's successor
back in 1692. The relationship between Cubero and Vargas continued to deteriorate
and became extremely hostile. The Santa Fe Cabildo (city council) brought a variety
of charges against Vargas, and Cubero put Vargas under very restricted house arrest
(imprisoned him) for three years
(Kessel & Hendricks, 1993). All of Vargas's
property was confiscated, including any interest he might have had in the Cerrillos
silver mines. There is no record of the silver mines being registered in anyone's
name. It was improper or illegal for a governor to give himself a mine grant.
Hendrick's biography (1993) of Governor
Cubero shows that he had risen through the ranks from a private and spent most
of his career as a soldier on ships. He had gotten his first assignment in the
New World as the commander of the smaller of the two forts at Havana, Cuba, just
before being appointed Governor of New Mexico in 1692. Thus he had no known
experience with or around mining before coming to New Mexico. Yet, while he was
governor of New Mexico, he shipped silver to Mexico City (Hendricks, 1993, p. 35)
and we know he took over the Santa Rosa Silver Mine in the Cerrillos Hills
(SANM I, Roll 5, frames 1098-1099).
After Vargas was finally acquitted of all charges against him in Mexico City, he
was reappointed governor and headed back to New Mexico in 1703. Governor Cubero
hastily departed via Zuni in order to avoid Vargas and died in Mexico in 1704.
Vargas also died in 1704 at Bernalillo. Three of Vargas's assistants and friends
who continued to play a role in Los Cerrillos long after his death were present
at his death bed: Lt. Governor Juan Paez Hurtado, Juan de Ulibarrí, and Alphonso
Rael de Aguilar.
Juan de Uribarrí (aka Ulibarrí) was executor of Cubero's will in New Mexico. The
execution of Cubero's will or the settling of his estate dragged on for many years
(Hendricks, 1993). In 1709, Uribarrí claimed Governor Cubero's Santa Rosa silver
mine in the Cerrillos Hills for himself.
References after 1709 Related to Cerrillos Silver Deposits
Governor Joseph Chacón Medina Salizar y Villaseñor (the Marques of
Peñuela) (1707-1712) was rebuilding the Palace of the Governors and other
government buildings in Santa Fe. In 1711, the supply caravan from Mexico was
destroyed by a Suma Indian attack, so that the articles that would have been used
to pay the Pecos Pueblo carpenters working on the buildings did not arrive. The
governor wrote in one of his reports that the, "... iron bars intended for use in
the mines (were) broke up... and made into awls which were used to pay the Pecos
Indians for working on government buildings"
(Kessel, 1979, p.364). Kessel's note 34
(p.544) implies that this comes from
Bolton (1950, pp 11-13.); check may be from
Note 7: p. 545, BNM (Biblioteca National Mexico) leg. 6, no. 4. Thus, mining tools
were used to finance the reconstruction of the Palace of the Governors.
On August 23, 1714, in a hearing before Governor Juan Flores Mogollón
(1712-1715), it was recommended that two Faron Apaches captured for murder be
chained to a mine ore crusher to prevent their escape. "... los dos Indios Grandes
llenados a Un mortero de minas los tengan Con-prisoiones por razon que no agan
fuga..." (SANM II, microfilm R.4, f.1088,
Twitchell No. 210). The two adult male Apaches were apparently very big
(Indios Grandes), and unlike the female Apache captives, there was concern on how
to keep them from escaping until they could be sold to someone who would take them
to Sonora or elsewhere for indoctrination into Spanish ways. The location of the
"mortero de minas", mortar or ore crushing mill, is not given, but must have been
in or close to Santa Fe. Captain Alonzo Real de Aguilar is mentioned as being
present at the hearing and it may have been his idea to chain them to the mining
mill.
In a scribbled receipt that follows (f. 1090) Aguilar is again mentioned by
someone who purchased one of the Apaches. This Alonzo Real de Aguilar is either
the 1695-96 Alcalde (mayor) of Real de Los Cerrillos or his son of the same name,
and in either case would have been very familiar with the Cerrillos silver mines.
It is possible that it was his mining mill where the Apaches were to be chained.
It would be more likely that the mill, having to be close to Santa Fe, was for a
Cerrillos mine rather than Alonzo Real de Aguilar's mine in the San Pedro Mountains
that he registered a year earlier. A mine in the San Pedros would be more than
twice as far from Santa Fe and a very insecure location being in the Faron
Apaches home territory next to the Sandias.
Only 11 years later, in 1725, Brigadier Don Pedro de Rivera did an official
inspection of the miliary posts and presidios of the northern frontier of New Spain.
He came to New Mexico and wrote his infamous comment that Bandelier used as the
major justification for his (Bandelier, 1890,
p. 195-196) comment that there was no mining in New Mexico prior to 1726.
After his visit, Pedro de Rivera (1726, printed 1949?, quoted by many authors)
wrote, "Hanse encontrado en dicho Reyno, algunos Minerales, sin dar su metal
más ley, que la de Alquimia, y Cobre; y como no se ha podido cosear el
beneficio que necessita, las han dejado abandonadas." (Rivera, 1726, Diario y
Derrotero ..., p. 32). Rivera was only briefly in New Mexico and his informants
misinformed him on New Mexico mining history. Bandelier wrote, "... in 1725 we
are officially informed by the Brigadier Don Pedro de Rivera...", and summarized
Rivera's statements as "... - that up to that date no mines had been worked in
New Mexico, owing to the low grade of the ore." (Bandelier, 1890, p. 196). Rivera's
odd attitude is shown by his wording that there are no minerals in New Mexico any
closer to gold or silver than the metals produced by alchemy or copper. Rivera
was apparently aware of the copper deposits in northern New Mexico, but was totally
ignorant of the Cerrillos silver deposits that had been worked for over a hundred
years and as recently as eleven years before his visit.
Mining probably continued in Cerrillos in the 18th Century after 1714, at least
sporadically, though to date only a few scattered comments have been located.
Fray Damian Martínez wrote via Morfi (1782,
Thomas, 193?, p. 112) that some gold placer
mining occurred between 1749 and 1752 but no placering was occurring at the time
he wrote Morfi in the late 1770s. The placering Martínez referred to was probably
on the Galisteo River south of the Cerrillos Hills. Mining occurred elsewhere in
New Mexico, and Father Escalante mentioned (Thomas, 193?, p. 113) that he was
present with Governor Don Pedro Fermin de Medinuetas (1667-1778) when a silver
nugget, "the size and shape of an egg" was refined with mercury. This nugget was
not found in the Cerrillos area. Father Martínez also mentions that silver and
lead are found in the arroyos on the south side of the Cerrillos Hills (Thomas,
193?, p. 112), but does not mention if they were mined or not.
In Nicholas de Lafora's account of the Marques de Rubi survey of the northern
frontier of New Spain in the late 1760s is the comment about New Mexico that,
"There are also silver mines of no great value. They are not worked."
(Kinnaird, 1958, p. 95? or 2?)
Tomás Antonio de Sena was Alcalde of Galisteo and Pecos Pueblos in 1749-56,
and again in 1762-69 (Kessel, 1979, p. 505). Only individuals with political power
felt safe in applying for mine grants. The best New Mexico example of this is the
1742 confiscation, by a new Governor, of all the mines in the Peñasco
mining district as their owners were common miners without political power in the
new administration (Milford, 1991, Appendix E).
During his second alcaldeship, Sena requested the Nuestra Señora de
los Dolores Mine Grant, which is probably what we call the Castilian mine on
Turquoise Hill. This 1763 mine grant and a transfer of partial ownership of it in
1764 are the only mining grants that have survived for the Cerrillos Mining
District after the 1709 Santa Rosa Mine Grant until the U.S. Period in the New
Mexico Archives.
Following the profitable placer mining around Real de Dolores in the late 1820s,
there was increased lode mining activity in several areas including Los Cerrillos.
In 1830, a Santa Fe mining company reopened three old Cerrillos mines. The only
mine they gave the name of was the Mina del Tiro and by July, 1830, they had the
sloping shaft open to about 80 varas (vara = 33.909 inches), 225 feet [68.6 meters],
with ten varas of drift and were encountering water
(Ortega, 1831). They probably had reached
a depth of over 200 feet [61.0 meters] quickly by reworking an earlier Spanish
shaft at the Mina del Tiro as they reported their new vertical shaft was only two
varas deep.
Raymond (1870) reported that at this same
time, 1830, the Santa Rosa mine was discovered (reopened) by Alverado.
Bice (1993) reported that one of the logs
from the Bethsheba Mine (Sundt, 1973) was
dated at 1832, indicating that it also may have been active in this period.
Gregg (1933) reported that many of the
Cerrillos mines had been active within the memory of people in Santa Fe but that
none were active at the time of his writing in 1843 or 1844.
Though records exist of lode mines in the Ortiz, San Pedro, and Sandía mountains
in the late 1830s and until the war started in 1846, no record of activity in
Los Cerrillos was located after 1831.
The Delgado family apparently managed to keep U.S. miners out of the Cerrillos
Hills with their claim to the area as part of a land grant in the 1850s and 1860s.
No record of this claim to the entire Cerrillos Hills was located in the land
grant records of the BLM, and it may never have been formally filed with the
government, so its details are unknown. It is not clear whether the Delgados
operated a mine in the Cerrillos Hills during this period or not. There was an
active "Delgado Gold Mine" by Golden during this period, which may have led to
confusion by U.S. observers between that mine and the Delgado's claim to the
Cerrillos Hills. Federal agencies later in the 1880s considered the Cerrillos
Mining District going all the way to Golden and it is not clear when this idea
started in Federal agencies. There is a comment in the Journal of an Army sergeant,
June 18, 1857, on a trip from Santa Fe to Algodones that, "In sight of Delgrado
(sic. Delgado) Rancho (ie. Juana Lopez Grant) is quite a rich gold mine which I
may visit at some future time but can not today."
(Bennett, 1948, p. 27). Bennett may have
traveled via Golden but it is more likely that he meant the Delgado Ranch on
lower Alamo Creek.
There is Professor J. S. Newberry's comment in
Macomb (1876) about his survey of the area
in 1859. "Los Cerrillos: ... They are principally interesting from their minerals,
and contain many old mines worked by the Spaniards or Indians. There are found
there gold, silver, lead, copper, iron and turquoise or "chalchuitl". The gold
apparently exists in but small quantity; a single locality only, so far as know,
having furnished it. ... By many it is believed that the silver mines of the
Cerrillos are very rich, and that they will at some time be a source of great
wealth to their possessors. The veins which I examined, however, are not
promising..." (Macomb, 1876, p.41)
The Delgados may have operated a gold mine in the Cerrillos hills as Newberry in
1859 described the ore of the only gold mine he said was in the area but gives no
name for the mine or its owner (Macomb, 1876, p.41). Don José Baca y Delgado
showed Rossiter Raymond's informant, Professor Bruckner, around the district in
1869, and Don José was probably the source of the concept expressed in the
report (Raymond, 1870) that the Delgado Grant covered the entire Cerrillos Hills.
Raymond also commented that there was only one mine in the district with
significant gold content.
The Delgados' effective control of the whole area is evident from the fact that
prominent Santa Fe businessmen leased the Mina del Tiro from them in 1861
(note 15). They hired a Mr. Heukel, who was
described as an old Chihuahua miner as superintendent, and he hired Mexican miners
to work the Mina del Tiro. They mined for about four months and reopened the shaft
to 180 feet. To a large degree, it must have been just cleaning out of an old shaft.
They had timbered the shaft and thought it was secure. However, it all collapsed
and though the lessees wanted to reopen it, the miners refused to go back to work
in the shaft. Huekel also built one or more Spanish type smelters in the area and
smelted a small amount of ore.
No record of mining activity was located in the eastern part of the district
between 1861 and 1879 with the exception of "cash entry purchases" by investors
of the best old "Spanish" mines before the 1872 mining law took effect in late
1872. In 1871, the U.S. Government opened the Cerrillos Hills up for public purchase
and Andrews and others purchased land. In the western part of the district, Dr.
Andrews opened up the Ruelena and Santa Rosa Mines in 1872 after he purchased part
of the area. Dr. Andrews also built a smelter on the Galisteo River west of where
Waldo was later built. The only mine labeled by
Wheeler (Atlas sheet 77 (B)) in the area is
the "Andrews Mine" based on his 1874 survey of the area. The mining activity in
the western part of the district is covered under the history of the individual
mines later in this report.
This website is maintained by the Cerrillos
Hills Park Coalition
and is dedicated to the creation, enhancement and stewardship
of an historical, recreational, and cultural open space in
the
Cerrillos Hills, Santa Fe County, New Mexico, USA
